Open mike 30/09/2024

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, September 30th, 2024 - 33 comments
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33 comments on “Open mike 30/09/2024 ”

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    • Ngungukai 1.1
      30 September 2024 at 8:40 am

      Great so long as it works, however NZ Building Industry does not have a very good track record of doing anything properly.

      • KJT 1.1.1
        30 September 2024 at 12:49 pm

        Yeah. What could possibly go wrong?

        One thing you can rely on with National. If it didn't work last time. "Lets try again"!

        • Ngungukai 1.1.1.1
          30 September 2024 at 2:16 pm

          Unfortunately we the Ratepayers & the Taxpayers always pick up the tab for these stupid decisions by Politicians and Councilors.

    • Graeme 1.2
      30 September 2024 at 1:39 pm

      Maybe not.

      One of the factors in Part 1 (it's not actually the first cladding product failure here either) was that council building departments just weren't up to the task of certifying new products and methods, and still aren't. From your link the focus seems to be

      Among the new options being considered to replace the current BCA system were:

      • voluntary consolidation: allowing councils to pool resources for building consents

      • regional BCAs: establishing a smaller number of regional BCAs

      • single point of contact for builders to submit plans to: inspections may be contracted out to existing BCAs or private consenting providers, "creating competition and encouraging specialisation".

      An amalgamation of consenting authorities, or better moving to a single stand alone, preferably state owned, entity can only be a good thing to get some consistency, and taking the process out of Local Government would get ratepayers off the hook if things go wrong.

      In QLDC land we are paying $300 / ratepayer for the next 30 years to cover one fuckup, and there's more as well, and with the same developer, who went tits up, so we're paying for it.

      • KJT 1.2.1
        30 September 2024 at 1:53 pm

        "contracted out to existing BCAs or private consenting providers, "creating competition and encouraging specialisation"

        Exactly what caused the problems in leaky homes, part 1.

        I was building during that era.
        Fortunately we kept to our own standards, not that of the dodgy privatised inspectors, BRANZ and cladding specifiers.

    • AB 1.3
      30 September 2024 at 7:36 pm

      Having seen one part of my extended family forced into near-destitution by a leaky home, I have enough reason to loathe the Nats, even without them enabling a repeat of the whole shameful business.

    • Muttonbird 1.4
      30 September 2024 at 7:54 pm

      Again, this reposted article from an original RNZ release which was anonymously written. There was no writer of this article, or at least no writer willing or able to put their name to it, yet it has been promoted as gospel…

      https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/529474/forestry-not-to-blame-for-smithfield-meatworks-closure-industry-says

      Here's another government press release today from RNZ with no journalist attribution. It's an article, but apparently no living being wrote it:

      https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/529456/watch-pm-christopher-luxon-targets-infrastructure-in-latest-quarterly-plan-for-government

    • mpledger 1.5
      30 September 2024 at 10:44 pm

      The thing is that noone will buy buildings in the next period if the National bill goes through. Construction will grind to a halt because demand for new builds will plummet. People won't want to risk their money on things that will have no resale value.

  2. PsyclingLeft.Always 2
    30 September 2024 at 9:06 am

    NZ Fist MP/NACT1 Minister, Casey Costello knew. She was told. But still she pushed on. Yet she stiil carries on with more denial, BS and outright lies.

    'Most benefit' of government's tobacco tax cuts will go to tobacco company Philip Morris, officials told Casey Costello

    Never mind our NZ Hospitals and Health system, give the harm agents a tax cut !

    Officials told New Zealand First minister Casey Costello that Philip Morris would be the biggest winner from tax cuts for Heated Tobacco Products (HTPs), which they said were toxic and more harmful than vaping.

    Despite a long list of problems Treasury identified with the proposal, Costello claimed she had got her own "independent" advice to the contrary and went ahead with a 50 percent excise tax cut for HTPs, at a cost of up to $216 million.

    As Costello continues…..

    Costello went to alternative sources to back up her claim that HTPs help people quit.

    "I, the Associate Minister of Health, have received independent advice on the efficacy of HTPs as a smoking cessation tool," the documents recorded Costello as saying.

    RNZ asked where the "independent advice" came from, but Costello would not say.

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/in-depth/529387/most-benefit-of-government-s-tobacco-tax-cuts-will-go-to-tobacco-company-philip-morris-officials-told-casey-costello

    The obvious depth of feeling shown by the protests…needs to be ramped up.

    • Tiger Mountain 2.1
      30 September 2024 at 9:56 am

      Yep, 35,000 in Dunedin surely could not have all been Labour voters or even voters necessarily…everyone needs public health care at some stage including tories. Within months of the CoC Govt., Pharmacists noted a drop off again of people picking up their prescriptions due to the reinstatement of charges, and they have had to can some of the extra services they were offering.

      A Southern Cross rep stated casually on RNZ this am that his group does not cover Emergency Department or “tricky” work related to individual circumstances, they do insurance for essentially job lots of hips and knees.

      Costello certainly has the arrogance of an egotistical ex detective, similar to Mike Sabin. She will be down the road eventually for gifting the Tobacco industry several hundred million dollars–as you say the harm agents get a leg up while public health gets cuts.

  3. Ngungukai 3
    30 September 2024 at 9:47 am

    No mention of the Dunedin Hospital Situation and the Protest's with 35k people in Dunedin in the NZ Herald.

  4. Obtrectator 4
    30 September 2024 at 10:36 am

    Good summary of the present mood with the climate change situation, in this article from today's Guardian:

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/sep/30/our-leaders-are-collaborators-with-fossil-fuel-colonialists-this-is-the-source-of-our-communal-dread

    It's full of apposite quotes; here's three samples:

    We, the richest and most mobile cohort in history, are pitifully poor in spirit, suffering pains and terrors we cannot express. We act like colonial subjects. Because, in effect, that’s what we are. (my bold)

    The entities that enclose and occupy our lands and waters, exploit our fossil fuel resources and distort our polities, are largely foreign. Most of the resources they exploit are the common property of sovereign peoples. The resultant products are exported, the profits siphoned offshore. Like the imperial powers of old, these corporations cultivate vassal governments and rely on local functionaries to maintain control. They have a massively disproportionate influence on public policy. No group of citizens, however large, wields such power over their own government.

    ***

    But it’s naive to imagine the defeat of fossil capital will come gently. It is likely to be prolonged, brutal and chaotic. Securing a just and sustainable future will require many things to be smashed and cleared away. Not reformed incrementally but removed entirely. The opportunity for ameliorative tinkering has already been squandered. (my bold)

    ***

    Meanwhile, politicians are drafting laws to constrain peaceful protest, limit legal recourse and smooth the way for many new fossil fuel developments, despite the science.

    Any of this sound familiar?

    • PsyclingLeft.Always 4.1
      30 September 2024 at 11:04 am

      Meanwhile, politicians are drafting laws to constrain peaceful protest, limit legal recourse and smooth the way for many new fossil fuel developments, despite the science.

      I was left feeling quite worried/sickened when I read the story of the 5 recently sent to prison by judge Christopher Hehir ..(more on this creep later)

      Five Just Stop Oil activists receive record sentences for planning to block M25

      Michel Forst, the UN’s special rapporteur on environmental defenders, who attended part of the trial, issued a statement at its conclusion.

      “Today is a dark day for peaceful environmental protest” in the UK, he said. “This sentence should shock the conscience of any member of the public. It should also put all of us on high alert on the state of civic rights and freedoms in the United Kingdom.

      “Rulings like today’s set a very dangerous precedent, not just for environmental protest but any form of peaceful protest that may, at one point or another, not align with the interests of the government of the day.”

      https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jul/18/five-just-stop-oil-supporters-jailed-over-protest-that-blocked-m25

      judge Hehir. Broken Britain ?

      Broken Britain: Judge Christopher Hehir’s bizarre sentencing record demands Investigation

      https://politicalcleanup.wordpress.com/2024/07/20/broken-britain-review-judge-christopher-hehirs-bizarre-and-unjust-sentencing-record/

      I drew some positive from him being called out..by the Solicitor General no less, for his previous quite bizarre rulings. I do hope that the 5 Protestors get an appeal on his draconian and IMO fascist sentencing.

    • Ad 4.2
      30 September 2024 at 12:46 pm

      6 Extinction Rebellion anti-coal activists in Dunedin are about to get a $60,000 bill for their protest last week:

      https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/anti-coal-activists-may-get-60000-bill

      That's quite a local chill effect.

      • Bearded Git 4.2.1
        30 September 2024 at 2:19 pm

        I think if they started a Give a Little much of this would be paid by donations.

      • Belladonna 4.2.2
        30 September 2024 at 3:30 pm

        The language in the news article makes it clear that it's likely they may well be discharged without conviction, and therefore without penalty.

        Judge Robinson did not enter convictions against the defendants, inviting counsel to file submissions on a potential discharge without conviction at sentencing.

    • AB 4.3
      30 September 2024 at 7:55 pm

      Securing a just and sustainable future will require many things to be smashed and cleared away. Not reformed incrementally but removed entirely.

      Whoever wrote that hasn't noticed that the very fragility of capitalist economies constitutes their greatest protection against radical change. Market economies are not the stable, self-equilibrating systems beloved of neoclassical economics. Someone like Steve Keen would say that they are complex systems, with numerous self-reinforcing feedback loops and they tend towards chaos, dis-equilibrium and crisis. Even a small perturbation in one part of the system (e.g. supply-chain holdups due to Covid) causes nasty and hugely magnified effects elsewhere. And it's the weakest who suffer most.

      Before anyone starts "smashing" anything they should bear that in mind. It sounds like a good way of engineering an economic collapse that hurts the poorest and sends them straight into the arms of the far right denialists. Thus engineering a sort of cross-class solidarity on the far right that is the left's worst nightmare.

  5. joe90 5
    30 September 2024 at 1:39 pm

    Of course he's unworldly, he's fourteen.

    /

    Is this our least worldly Minister of Transport?

    […]

    Over the weekend, the Minister of Transport Simeon Brown proudly announced his new speed-setting rule, a decision that will undoubtedly lead to greater harm on our roads. It’s a tragically predictable decision by a Minister who seems to be on only nodding acquaintance with both evidence and international norms.

    Fueled by misinformation, gaslighting, and falsehoods, and disregard for the outcry from experts home and abroad, and ignoring well-founded pleas from local councils across the country, Brown has chosen to impose blanket speed limit increases, and short stretches of time-restricted safe speeds around schools – touting the latter as offering (the bare minimum of) protection for (only some of) the most vulnerable members of our communities (at specified times and only on weekdays).

    The Minister describes his accomplishment as returning our local streets, arterial roads, and state highways to December 2019. Half a decade of progress undone in one fell swoop – described in the same news story by road safety experts as “irresponsible and extremely concerning.”

    https://www.greaterauckland.org.nz/2024/09/30/is-this-our-least-worldly-minister-of-transport/

    • Ngungukai 5.1
      30 September 2024 at 2:14 pm

      He certainly is different, goes with his gut feeling rather the science.

    • Bearded Git 5.2
      30 September 2024 at 2:20 pm

      But they are only experts….Simeon thinks he is doing God’s work.

    • Vivie 5.3
      30 September 2024 at 2:26 pm

      Simeon Brown again demonstrates his puerile, perverse, callous mindset. He ploughs ahead with his ideological plans, despite expert evidence to the contrary, behaviour also exhibited repeatedly by Christopher Luxon, Nicola Willis, Chris Bishop, David Seymour, Nicole McKee, Louise Upston et al.

      "…..Canterbury University professor Simon Kingham – a former chief science adviser to the Ministry of Transport – said the government was ignoring overwhelming evidence against higher speeds……

      Kingham said previously, he had faith the government would take on board evidence showing higher speed limits caused more deaths and injuries.

      "The minister hasn't shown any interest in the evidence or the science. He just seems to be blindly following some sort of ideological approach.

      "So I'm not surprised, but I'm disappointed."

      Kingham said he expected local councils would try to stop the speed limit changes.

      "Wellington, Auckland, Christchurch… the bigger cities have made it very clear they don't want this. So I'm sure they will be thinking… not how can we get round this, because they're not going to break the law – but what can we do to stop this happening?"

      https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/529368/new-speed-limits-mean-more-people-will-die-transport-researcher

      As is also typical of Brown's colleagues and other deniers of fact, he tells a little bit of the truth, but omits relevant, contextual information.

      "by Fox Meyer 27/09/2024

      Transport Minister Simeon Brown cited overseas countries with 50 km/h urban speed limits as evidence that his similar policy was reasonable, but omitted the fact that those countries allow municipalities to lower the limit as they see fit……

      https://newsroom.co.nz/2024/09/27/truckies-say-higher-speed-limits-wont-boost-freight-efficiency/

  6. mikesh 6
    30 September 2024 at 6:56 pm

    I was on the IRD's website this morning, looking for the answer to a another problem, when I chanced upon the report which came out a while back and said that the wealthy among us pay only 9% tax. I was interested to see in it that they distinguish between on the one hand "income" – wages, salaries, interest, dividends, etc., i.e. the sort of things that we normally think of as income – and on the other "economic income". But if an instance of gain is income why not include it with all those other incomes just mentioned; and, if not, how can it be "economic" income.

    I think they are trying to bamboozle us with language,.

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