Open mike 31/12/2020
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- Property Rights and the Treaty Principles Bill
Property rights – which enable decisions over tangible and intangible assets – are critical to an economy as Why Nations Fail pointed out. Not just private property rights for, as we shall see, they are more complicated than that. Neoliberals argue that private property rights lead to the maximum economic ...3 hours ago - The Hoon around the week to November 22
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Following the 2022 Brazilian general election, election loser Jair Bolsonaro tried to do a Trump, attempting a coup to overturn the election. It failed. But unlike his American friend, he hasn't been allowed to get away with it: The former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro and some of his closest ...4 hours ago - Treasury warns deeper recession worsening Budget deficit
The gift that keeps giving: David Seymour has now opened a split in the coalition over the future of National’s promise to build a new medical school. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / TheKakaKia ora. Long stories short, here’s my top things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and ...11 hours ago
- Weekly Roundup 22-November-2024
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Record Numbers: The Hīkoi mō te Tiriti, which began at the tip of the North, and the tail of the South, on 11 November, culminated outside Parliament on Tuesday, 19 November 2024, in one of the largest demonstrations in New Zealand’s political history.ACCORDING TO TE ARA, the Ministry of Culture ...12 hours ago - The Rush To Blame “The Activists”
Activists are such easy scapegoats. The right and center have been conditioned for decades to roll their eyes at all protests. The left are easily aggravated over students leading movements they see as belonging to grownups, who have more important concerns like the economy and whether the trains come on ...13 hours ago - Cutting Through An Inundation of Dipshit Racists
Hi,Watching New Zealand from afar offers a strange perspective. It can be a good thing — distance from Aotearoa helped keep me sane while I reported on abuse at New Zealand’s biggest megachurch over the course of a year. It helps fuel my silly podcast. But it can also be ...13 hours ago - This is bad news
The speech yesterday by Treasury’s Chief Economic Advisor warning that the books are in worse shape than forecasted looks like it’s part of a softening-up process for either more cuts or a longer wait to get back into surplus. The speech was a highly unusual public preview of Treasury’s Half-Yearly ...15 hours ago - Skeptical Science New Research for Week #47 2024
Open access notables Projected increase in the frequency of extremely active Atlantic hurricane seasons, Lopez et al., Science Advances: Future changes to the year-to-year swings between active and inactive North Atlantic tropical cyclone (TC) seasons have received little attention, yet may have great societal implications in areas prone to hurricane ...24 hours ago - Chicken Kiev
Chatting in the supermarket this morning, I found I needed to lunge for the chicken drumsticks.Coping mechanisms: who hasn’t felt a greater need for them lately?When it all gets too much, I turn to demonstrating handy butchery hacks.It wasn’t that she’d said anything wrong, our friend, not at all. We ...1 day ago - The year is 2024 and it’s 1984
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Back in 2022, RNZ took an in-depth look at the "Independent" Police Conduct Authority and its handling of killings by police. These are the most serious test of oversight, and you would expect the police's use of lethal force to receive the most severe scrutiny. But despite the police regularly ...1 day ago
- Thursday 21 November 2024
The Hīkoi mō Te Tiriti arrived at Parliament on Tuesday – the size is being debated but estimates range from 42,000 to 100,000. The Prime Minister is defending not attending due to some of the organisers being affiliated with Te Pāti Māori. The national gang patch ban came into force ...1 day ago - ‘These budget cuts are counter-productive and make no sense’
I spoke to former Productivity Chair Nana this morning about the letter he and a group of other economists sent to PM Christopher Luxon to urge the Government to urgently suspend cuts to spending and investment for the sake of the economy, struggling businesses and the wellbeing of vulnerable ...1 day ago
- ACT’s Astroturfing & A Co-ordinated Attack on Te Pati Māori
Unity on the Streets / Unity at the TableAfter the Hīkoi, all three right wing Coalition leaders came together to push the idea that the 42,000 - 50,000 + strong Hikoi was somehow less potent and brave, and more illegitimate than the energy and crowd displayed.Prime Minister Christopher Luxon 20-November: ...1 day ago - Durability of carbon dioxide removal is critical for stabilizing temperatures
This is a re-post from the Climate Brink The world is emitting over 40 gigatons of CO2 per year, contributing to an accelerating warming of the planet. The world needs to cut emissions rapidly to be remotely on track to meet our Paris Agreement goals of limiting warming to well-below 2C, and we ...1 day ago
- Throwback Thursday: Will “Auckland Transport” Survive?
With Auckland Transport’s future up in the air under Mayor Wayne Brown’s proposed CCO reform, we’ve dug way back into the archives, to unearth this post originally published in March 2010. As you’ll see, many of the debates that were being had when AT was first proposed continue to ...1 day ago
- I Love My Leather Jacket
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Nicola Willis’ budget cuts are under fire from economists for having no clear rationale and worsening the recession. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāKia ora. Long stories short, here’s my top things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Thursday, November 21: The news at ...2 days ago
- The end of policing by consent
National has appointed a new police commissioner. And he explicitly rejects policing by consent: Asked if he subscribed to policing by consent, he said he did not. “I don’t talk about policing by consent. I talk about trust and confidence, and it is fundamentally important that the police have ...2 days ago
- The Treaty Principles Bill: A Who’s Who
David Horatio Waterbed SeymourFringe politician and dweeb transformed successfully by ThinkTank money into a well-oiled soundbite robot.Currently programmed to say: Equal rights for all New Zealanders Equal rights for all New Zealanders Equal rights for all New Zealanders Was previously programmed to say:I am a proud libertarian andI am a ...2 days ago - Kinleith mill closure shows need for industrial strategy
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- 27% of kids going hungry, up from 21% in a year
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- Young Maori take over
Neither Wellington nor Parliament has ever seen anything like it before. The Police said there were more than 40,000 but however many there were, yesterday’s Hikoi to Parliament was a monumental event. It was almost three times the Foreshore and Seabed martch of 2004 and many,many times bigger than ...3 days ago
- Gordon Campbell On The Hikoi Aftermath
The euphoria from yesterday’s hikoi may be transitory, but is no less valuable for that. It is pretty rare for the left to feel itself to be in the overwhelming majority, and speaking as the voice of the people. Lest that momentum be lost, the organisers will no doubt be ...3 days ago - Sabin 33 #3 – Solar panels generate too much waste and will overwhelm landfills
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- We need to talk about Kevin
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Like everyone else (everyone who wasn't there, anyway), I've spent the morning watching the hikoi march on Parliament. The pictures are astounding: parliament grounds and the surrounding streets are full, and there are still people backed up along Lambton Quay. The police are estimating 35,000 people, and that's a floor ...3 days ago
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There were urgent moves yesterday at Parliament to try and defuse the tension building up over ACT’s Treaty Principles Bill. The Bill’s author, ACT leader David Seymour, told reporters that he understood the Justice Select Committee met yesterday to discuss how long it should take to consider submissions on the ...4 days ago
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4 days ago - Gordon Campbell On The Hikoi Arrival, And Tyler Childers
Politicians like to bang on all about the need to heal society’s racial/economic divisions, but in their actions they’re more keen on stoking those divisions, with the Treaty Principles Bill being the classic example. The Bill seeks to dilute the Crown’s responsibilities to Māori at the same time as it ...4 days ago
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4 days ago - Kaamos: Accepted
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- National’s support base is wobbling
If ACT leader David Seymour intended the Treaty Principles Bill to drive a wedge into National’s support base, he may well already be succeeding. By midnight on Thursday after the Maori Party haka in Parliament, National MPs were being deluged with emails and messages from their members calling them out ...5 days ago
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- Grifter Eftpos Tamaki at it again
..Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.Self-appointed “Bishop” and proto-fascist, Brian Tamaki was at it again on 16 November, blocking Auckland’s southern motorway, SH1.This time, the target of his ire wasn’t the Civil Unions Act; covid lock-downs; mask mandates; or ...5 days ago - Rip up a bill, lead a haka are words to live by
I cannot stop grabbing people by the lapels, or shoulders, or similar, and raving at them about the tiny miracles in my ears.I can hear again! There could not be a more satisfied customer in all the world.In a noisy cafe I am even catching words that Karren cannot, she ...6 days ago - Unintended Consequences
Take the baitYou pay the priceIt's much too lateFor good adviceYou know and I know that our good things' throughBecause there's consequences for what we doConsequences for me and youWriters: Kevin Robert Hayes, David Nagier, Bonnie Adele Hayes.Fallout from the first readingOne News began last night by saying that tens ...6 days ago - Thank you, driver!
Today, Saturday 16th of November, is Auckland Transport’s Bus Driver Appreciation Day! Saturday 16 November marks the third annual Auckland Transport (AT) ‘Bus Driver Appreciation Day’, and this year we are encouraging all of New Zealand to thank their driver or let the bus go first if you are in ...6 days ago
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Hi,If I was to accurately sum up my mental state over the week, I’d just say that I got a huge fright from my own shadow.I’d nipped out for an 11pm neighborhood stroll, just to calm down after a day of stress and screens. The Cure and Fazerdaze’s new record ...7 days ago - We Are Not Listening
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1 week ago - More lawlessness from National
On Tuesday, sick of government stonewalling, the Waitangi Tribunal issued a rare court order, ordering the Minister of Health to release unredacted documents within 48 hours showing its reasoning for disestablishing Te Aka Whai Ora, the Māori Health Authority. The government's response to the lawful order of a court? Yeah, ...1 week ago
- National’s tyrannical “foreign interference” law
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The Treaty Principles Bill continues to dominate political news, with it passing its first reading in the House. Parliament was briefly suspended and Te Pāti Māori MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke suspended for 24 hours after leading a haka that was joined by opposition MPs and the public in the gallery. Willie ...1 week ago
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Day One of the Treaty Principles Bill…and everyone got what they wanted, and did what they liked. Heated words were exchanged. Culturally appropriate acts of outrage were performed. David Seymour got to play the victim card. Willie Jackson got kicked out of class. A comically red-faced Mr Speaker bellowed “Order, ...1 week ago
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The government's Treaty Principles Bill is up for its first reading today - bought forward in a rush in a desperate effort to avoid the hikoi which is currently marching on Wellington. But the Prime Minister won’t be there for it – he’s literally running away to Peru! But he ...1 week ago
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Good morning, and I’m sorry I’ve been away for a couple of days.I’ve been focusing on the Hikoi, and also testing out sentiment on the Treaty Principles Bill. It’s complicated, and the Treaty Principles Bill will be debated in the House today. The Government’s own lawyers have told them the ...1 week ago - Government must vote down ACT Members Bill that would undermine workers’ rights
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As the weight of the world Hangs on your shoulders The weight of the world Starts to take over again And over again All that you once loved, now you hate So slowly relearn how to meditate To have and to hold And never let go Can you feel it ...1 week ago - Thursday 14 November 2024
The Treaty Principles Bill is set to have its First Reading in the House today, as the Hīkoi mō Te Tiriti continues. More than 40 KCs have written to the Prime Minister and Attorney-General outlining their “grave concerns” about the substance of the Treaty Principles Bill, while an academic and ...1 week ago
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The Ministry of Health has today released an evidence brief regarding the use of puberty blockers in gender-affirming healthcare, amid moves by the government to limit access. ...1 day ago
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Louise Upston has revealed her diminished vision for vulnerable youth against a backdrop of snubbed advice, scrapped priorities, shifted goal posts and thousands more children projected to fall into poverty. ...1 day ago
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National Government’s backward-looking climate policy has seen New Zealand fall seven places on the Climate Change Performance Index to 41 out of 63 countries measured. ...1 day ago
- Release: Simple reason for drop in emergency housing
When the Government says it has reduced the number of people in emergency housing, what it means is it is stopping people from accessing it in the first place. ...1 day ago
- Govt’s child wellbeing strategy ‘shallow and shameful’
The Government is turning its back on children by not only weakening child poverty reduction targets, but also removing child mental wellbeing as a priority focus in their Child and Youth Wellbeing Strategy. ...1 day ago
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Labour warmly welcomes the Restoring Samoan Citizenship Bill as it passes its third reading, before becoming law. ...1 day ago
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The Government has taken a giant step backwards by reinstating live animal exports. ...2 days ago
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A group of prominent economists has released an open letter to the Government, raising grave concerns about the far-reaching consequences of its fiscal policy. ...2 days ago
- Release: Smoking numbers up under Costello’s watch
National’s repeal of Labour’s smokefree legislation has taken New Zealand further away from achieving a Smokefree 2025 and a smokefree generation. ...2 days ago
- Release: Call for Palestine recognition by NZ, Australian and Canadian MPs
Parliamentarians from Australia, Canada and New Zealand have written an open letter to their respective Prime Ministers calling on them to recognise Palestine. ...2 days ago
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Today, the Justice Select Committee has decided to officially open submissions for the controversial Treaty Principles Bill. ...3 days ago
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Today, Hīkoi mō te Tiriti arrived in Wellington, with thousands gathering to march in unity against the divisive Treaty Principles Bill. ...3 days ago
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- Chris Hipkins’ apology statement to state and faith-based care survivors
...1 week ago
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Today, the Green Party stands alongside the survivors of abuse in state care and faith-based care as the Government issues an historic apology. ...1 week ago
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The Green Party has written to the Speaker of the House requesting he enable a personal vote on the Treaty Principles Bill. ...2 weeks ago
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The Green Party is alarmed by the Government’s move to exclude a journalist from covering this week’s apology for the survivors of abuse in state and faith-based care. ...2 weeks ago
- Without action, an apology will be empty air
For tomorrow’s apology to survivors of abuse in state and faith-based care to hold any water, the Government must not pursue the same policies that drove the abuse in the first place. ...2 weeks ago
- Release: Concerns remain over tobacco interference
Concerns about the tobacco industry’s ability to interfere in government policy making remain, despite the inability of the Office of the Auditor-General to investigate the Government’s decision to halve the excise tax on heated tobacco products. ...2 weeks ago
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The Climate Change Commission’s latest advice indicates Aotearoa needs to be stepping up on climate action. ...2 weeks ago
- Green MP’s Meme-ber’s Bill set to save the world
Break out the punchlines and dust off your meme folder: Green Party MP Kahurangi Carter’s Copyright (Parody and Satire) Amendment Bill was pulled from the Ballot yesterday. ...2 weeks ago
- Release: Poroporoaki: Ta Robert (Bom) Gillies
Kua hinga te manawa kairākau o Te Rua Tekau Ma Waru Tiwhatiwha te po! Kakarauru i te po! Ka rapuhia kei hea koe kua riro! Haere e te Ika a Whiro ki o tini hoa kua ngaro atu ki te Pō ...2 weeks ago
- Labour, Greens and Te Pāti Māori call on the Prime Minister to block the Treaty Principles Bill
The opposition parties stand united for an Aotearoa that honours Te Tiriti, rather than seeking to rewrite it. Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori are working together against the Government’s divisive Treaty Principles Bill. ...2 weeks ago
- Release: Labour, Greens and Te Pāti Māori call on the Prime Minister to block the Treaty Principle...
The opposition parties stand united for an Aotearoa that honours Te Tiriti, rather than seeking to rewrite it. Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori are working together against the Government’s divisive Treaty Principles Bill. ...2 weeks ago
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Ka nui te mihi kia koutou. Ka mihi ki te mana whenua ko Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei. Kia ora and good morning everyone. Thank you Fran and Simon for inviting me here today, and importantly your leadership of this forum over several years now. I want to acknowledge David Gehrenbeck, Deputy ...6 hours ago
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Mōrena everyone. Love today's Open Mike image on the front page.
What are you all doing with the last day of the year?
I'm not going to be staying up to see the New Year in. I'm staying up to make sure the past year leaves.
Relaxing, resting, recuperating, rejoicing, recovering (tomorrow), i.e. a typical holiday’s day.
Washing and ironing so I can start the new year with a clean slate. Its the only day of the year when I have a clean slate. 😉
No years and no last days only an eternal moment ungrasped and mourned. I was making money I don't need "today" and on the way I met a beekeeper who said "all bees are wild" and "bees are not aggressive". They range five km (not a mm more or less – just kidding) and where would sex among flowering plants be without them ? A honeyed 2021 to all and bless your cotton socks.
G'day weka, I am off to work till 2 then back home and load up the smoker, pop some home bruise in the chilly bin and entertaining a few friends.
Thanks for yr mahi at TS this year, here's to a less fraught 2021.
cheers gsays. May you see the new year in in style.
Arise Sir Dave, what a great songwriter.
Oh great. Our soon-to-be new overlords are already practicing the victory dance they'll do when they achieve total domination.
Every time I see one of those dog like robots I think of this Black Mirror episode …
https://youtu.be/GM3GM299orc
Truly well deserved recognition for going above and beyond.
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/former-speaker-david-carter-awarded-knighthood-in-new-years-honours-list
Who here remembers his Finest Hour?
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/73925970/parliament-in-fresh-uproar-over-prime-ministers-rapist-remark
(Saddening that these MPs appeared to perform better in opposition.)
Just continuing the pathetic tradition of rewarding past speakers of the house for (not) doing their job for which they were handsomely rewarded at the time.
Agreed – our political classes should be excluded from honours – they should be reserved for those who make a genuine contribution above and beyond what they are paid for. The folk who built the Otira viaduct for example.
Thanks for the reminder Rosemary. Did John Key ever apologise? I doubt it.
Well at least John Key didn't actually wrongly accuse a person and destroy their career. David Carter was a far better speaking than our current one. Although as tradition goes, I wonder if Mallard will receive a knighthood too?
[Since you’ve been back from your long pre-Election ban, you have contributed very little here and you’re still acting like a garden gnome.
This comment of yours amounts to nothing more than ‘they-did-it-too-and-worse’ and is not even about David Carter, which Rosemary’s was and which was not about Sir John Key per se.
If you keep on acting like a garden gnome, I will put you out in the garden with the others so that you can watch the worms farming; at least they are doing something useful.
This is your only warning – Incognito]
See my Moderation note @ 12:17 PM.
I have been comparing the leadership of Trump (US) and Johnson (UK). Johnson got a Brexit deal over the line and he has not been weak in enforcing lockdowns. Trump is anti lockdown and has not signed a major new trade deal.
For 2022 I want the world to have control over Covid – 19 and for there to be success with vaccines to combat the virus and/or a treatment for those who do not vaccinate.
The statement Boris Johnson, "… has not been weak in enforcing lockdowns." is oversell. His numerous pronouncements have been so confusing, they have been largely ignored or disregarded. They have been so bad that at times it has seemed he didn't have a clue as to what they were himself. At the outset he even let his Svengali advisor off the hook, even though Cummings sat on the committee that made up the Rules Mk I.
Johnson has stepped up and is not currently mucking about. The variant B.1.1.7 is being taken seriously. I just hope that the new variants are not going to affect children as in other age groups.
Trump cannot even get his stimulus package through the senate even though it has gone through the house. Johnson also got re elected.
If Johnson did not enforce a lockdown the situation would be much worse. The prediction for infections in the US is not good for January and the death toll is not good for February according to Aljazeera TV.
I am not celebrating the New Year. I do like Queen and there is a 2 hour special on channel 10 (Prime) at 7.30 pm with Adam Lambert.
So Treetop, you have changed from "… has not been weak in enforcing lockdowns." to "Johnson has stepped up and is not currently mucking about." There is bit of a difference in meaning, starting from a questionable proposition to an unresolved assertion. Besides, doesn't Johnson only have responsibility for the lockdown in England – Scotland at least seems to have its lockdowns controlled and policed through it own parliament. On the per capita statistics comparing the UK with the US, you are contrasting a lame duck with the worst case scenario then looking into a crystal ball in order to assert that Johnson is doing a good job. Have you even bothered to assess the UK situation with other countries – even in Europe, or is questioning the abilities of a dilettante whose only areas of expertise are the classics and the promotion of Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson being impudent.
Initially I was comparing Johnson to Trump with lockdowns.
Johnson is doing all he can do with the current lockdown in England. Some countries are in a third wave and a leader needs to act accordingly.
Johnson has looked at the impact which Covid is having on the NHS. I know the situation is dire in the UK, without a lockdown it would be worse.
Well isn't the self-promotional noise-maker is doing a great job!
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/dec/31/doctors-despair-over-britons-breaking-coronavirus-rules
With an actual lockdown, even including eye tests, the situation would be much less worse.
2021 not 2022. 2020 has been a l o n g year.
It's not a very good deal but.
A deal is a deal, now to see how it pans out in a Covid world.
file this under for fuck sake and who could have forseen this.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/crime/roast-busters-two-accused-in-court-seven-years-after-case-names-kept-secret-for-now/WRUFGU2R4DXMHH6DBGNJPYX5BI/
Heavens, I can't imagine why the police would seek name suppression.
Were it not for a new police complaint the police would have done nothing.
A few months ago I read a comment on TS that the police need to be modernised. For sure when it comes to sexual crime and hate crime. The 1961 Crimes Act for sexual crimes needs immediate attention and so does the ACC Act for mental injury.
The one thing I want to see legislation for when it comes to a mental injury is when an agency fails to do a proper job when it comes to a complaint and for there to be no time limit for a person to make a complaint about an agencies failure.
Happy new year to all the Standardistas, I hope you all get to drink a bottle of something sparkling and conk out under a Pohutukawa tree to a background sound of a lazy lapping surf and children playing.
Cos there sure as hell ain't no cricket on the radio anymore.
The current Blackcaps are dynamite. I can see them getting better and better in all forms of cricket.
Now that is something good to look forward to in 2021.
Only took the Black Caps/Young Guns/Kiwi cricketer 30-odd years to get some consistency together after Hadlee's retirement and that shambles on the 94/95 South Africa farce (made worse because of Danny Morrison's puritan stance on drugs led him to run crying to the NZC management, even though the incident had been sorted on tour. Of course, he was perfectly happy to take that sponsorship $$$ from Dominion Breweries.).
Cricket live and not too many ads om Magic Talk
Where cricket challenges socialism?
Bracewell is the pits!!!
Sanctuary…if a technophobe Luddite such as myself can install the rova app on my smartphone and Bluetooth Magic Talk cricket to my partner's heavy duty radio (so he can listen to the ball by bleeding ball commentary of The Test)…I have no doubt yourself could do likewise.
My man reckons the commentary was as good as Radio Sport. I reckon I'd rather listen to grass grow.
The grass is not growing so well up North, is it?
Stay safe and well!
Cricket commentary on Magic Talk. Personally I would just ditch the cricket and listen to Magic Music instead.
I wish all the good folk who contribute here the very best of health and happiness for 2021. Stay safe and keep well.