The Daily Blog Open Mic – Sunday – 22nd December 2019

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Announce protest actions, general chit chat or give your opinion on issues we haven’t covered for the day.

Moderation rules are more lenient for this section, but try and play nicely.

EDITORS NOTE: – By the way, here’s a list of shit that will get your comment dumped. Sexist language, homophobic language, racist language, anti-muslim hate, transphobic language, Chemtrails, 9/11 truthers, climate deniers, anti-fluoride fanatics, anti-vaxxer lunatics and ANYONE that links to fucking infowar.

12 COMMENTS

  1. @SaveNZ ….. re your question yesterday “What do you suggest needs to be done OnceWasTim?”

    I’ll get back to you because its likely to be a rather long response and there are now so many things that need to be addressed – if I can pluck up the energy to state what should be things that are bleeding bloody obvious.
    But the short version is that INZ and various of its associated agencies it works with (IAA, LI, NZQA (mostly under the Ministry for Everything) reminds me of an old rusted-out Morris Minor with broken piston rings and seized up crankshaft bearings.
    Instead of getting a few mechanics to get on with things (like very basic stuff), they’d rather employ an enterage of managerialist masters-of-the-universe with impressive CVs and a mindset inextricably linked to neo-liberal ideology, self interest, self-preservation, careerism, and some even equipped with testosterone-fuelled blokeism, to stand around with with cans of CRC and the most expensive oil they can find to tip down the sump (not realising its already full of water from a leaking gasket). And that’s even after the last attempt to find a solution (by way of a failed restructure).
    If they don’t have any at hand, they’ll import some (with preferential visa processing and probably from the Empire).
    It’s now actually become chronic, and really quite terminal for a government that wants to be kind and transformational.
    And if all that doesn’t work, they’ll call in a consultant or two to deliver a report. (Hopefully one that’s not as bad as an MBIE post-election briefing to Munster(s), even if they have to find a way of disguising the cost.

    There’s an attitudinal and cultural problem in most everything they do, AND where they are within the PS -but btw – its not limited to MBIE as we all know. (Thankfully there are a few people keeping watch).
    I don’t blame JA – or even I L-G, or Fa Fa Fa Fafoi, They’ve grown up living in an environment where there’s been nothing else to experience. (Even I L-G once related how he’d been ripped off by an employer following his Uni years. He was kucky – he had a basic backstop that ensured he didn’t lose everything)

    I agree with your perception that RNZ might come across as a bit biased at times. I think maybe you should think about that a little more. It has some really good people who know their stuff – even to the point of actually going places to live and experience the things they’re talking about. But of course they can only report on what they find, so when they’re faced with the usual obfuscation, spin and bullshit that’s now fashionable in the senior ranks of our public services “Comms People” (many of which were at one time, colleagues) – things can appear biased – which of course then gives an excuse for some in the senior ranks to scream “unfair, unfair”!)

    Some of its employees committed to 4th Estate principles have now gone elsewhere but if you were to think people like Bonnett, Gerritson, Freeman, Hill, Peacock and a raft of others had an agenda, I can assure you they don’t.
    And even elsewhere, there are vestiges of ethical and principled people trying their best to do their jobs – ex RNZ, STUFF, and dare i SAY IT -the home of corduroy jackets and boomers willing to reinvent history and their own welfare above the principles of holding to account – The SPINOFF!.
    Some of them are not too bad as writers – in fact pretty bloody good, though they seem to have forgotten their woosiness, their ‘PROFESSED’ roots and propensity for a liking of Jolly Green Giant tabs of acid, or even others who seem to have forgotten they were the one throwing a rubbish bin through a Molesworth Street Chemist Shop window, then urging on others to do the deed).
    I really don’t expect any of them – or their families – to sacrifice their own well-being and welfare in the cause of holding some of these master-of-the-universe, unproductive, self-entitled pratts to account. All I expect is honesty and integrity.
    Even Kamahl Santamaria ‘slummed’ it to deliver his message of pride and sentimentality (on Toby’s Spinoff). You can probably understand why its knocking 20 years since he (Kamahl) left.

    Old as I am, I’ve managed to develop a pretty good bullshit detector (as have one or two others – maybe such as yourself). Maybe it could be that a mate of mine and I, who used to teach some of these mofos in what’s become a tik-a-box industry – and thankfully the good ones have gone on to better things, and the rest are still struggling and worrying about being seen, and where they might get their next 15mins of fame – even protecting themselves from wardrobe failures (as their biggest worry)

    It reminds me of shit I’ve heard in a past lifetime (such as a doyen of the Sydney resident, business world guru, currently worrying about how he might be perceived in the media – RATHER than what he did) – Island Bay spring to mind. n

    My reason for contemplating a different vote in 2020 after a lifetime of support is not too dissimilar from the reasons my father-in-law decided to ditch Labour in favour of Greens. Shame about Greens! Maybe I’ll kark it before the need arises (especially given that cardiologist you mentioned gave up and left).

    So yep, I’ll get some thought together and reply, but in the meantime, SURE AS SHIT, there are some pretty basic things that could be done, and its not as though the coalition haven’t been told about them from those on the receiving end of current policy.

  2. So how did First Union stuff up, forcing drivers of buses to give up their strike?

    https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2019/12/auckland-bus-strikes-finally-over-as-nz-bus-reaches-agreement-with-unions.html

    What was the outcome, does anybody report it? NOPE, and insider tells me the union caved in and the strike collapsed, NO improvements at all for bus drivers, while the bus companies advertise in Philippines and other places to get immigrant drivers.

    Thanks Jacinda and Winston, to let operators get away with this kind of BS, you are traitors, as I said before.

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