Right now, Labour are going to win a majority Government out of a unique political loyalty generated by gratitude towards the way Jacinda’s leadership protected us during the lockdown.
For many NZers, that lockdown was the first time in their lives they felt genuinely vulnerable and Jacinda’s 1pm daily briefings made them feel safe.
This has birthed a new sense of solidarity that cuts beyond ideological or political divides. This sense of solidarity is deep, powerful and will be the overwhelming driver of votes in September.
When you think about it, there rarely are universal events that touch everyone. Our lockdown was one such event, and pundits inability to understand the tectonic shift that this pandemic has generated is why they aren’t comprehending the magnitude of what’s coming.
Combine this huge support for Jacinda with a National Party in absolute self-mutilating meltdown and the election is rapidly becoming a foregone conclusion.
The negative is that we have some of the most crucial and pressing issues to deal with and because of the gratitude tsunami coming Labour’s way, none of those issues will get debated before September 19th.
So here are the issues that are most pressing and will demand answers from September 20th.
The fundamental problem is that the advertising market has been bled dry by Google and Facebook. Here is a blueprint.
1 – Public Funded Media in the nations interest
The RNZ-TVNZ merger should be occurring immediately with the following inclusions.
-
- TV1 commercial free (so existing advertising can go to Mediaworks).
- RNZ launch a commercial free youth radio station.
- RNZ/TVNZ launch a 24 hour news station on one of their existing Freeview+ channels.
2 – Tax Google & Facebook and ring fence that for direct funding of corporate journalism
Google & Facebook charged a percentage on all revenue from NZ, that money is specifically ring fenced to a contestable fund available to established Media to specifically provide Fourth Estate Journalism.
3 – NZ on Air ‘Read between the Flags’ Kiwi journalism
In a world of disinformation, we need journalism we can trust. We all get the ‘swim between the flag’ model of surf life saving, NZ on Air should be given extra funding for ‘Read between the flags’ Kiwi Journalism. This money is to break the current elite opinion NZ on Air circle jerk and provide revenue for smaller blogs and citizen journalism who become eligible if they agree to a set of Journalistic Principles. If you do agree and sign up, you are entitled to funding and must have a Kiwi Journalism flag on your site to show you are obliged to the Journalistic Principles Code of conduct. You would have an awareness campaign to urge NZers to ‘read between the flags’ for trusted information.
New Zealand has some of the biggest issues ever confronting us to debate and I fear they simply won’t gain much air time because Labour’s stratospheric rise will eclipse all other narratives as confused pundits struggle to explain a majority result under an MMP structure.
Unfortunately these issues are so pressing they will be felt the day after the election regardless of whether or not we’ve debated them.
Increasingly having independent opinion in a mainstream media environment which mostly echo one another has become more important than ever, so if you value having an independent voice going into this pandemic and 2020 election – please donate here.
If you can’t contribute but want to help, please always feel free to share our blogs on social media.
Indeed, many valid points there, Martyn.
Missing from you list are:
1. Ever-declining global access to easy-to-extract fossil fuels and declining EROI (Energy Return On Energy Invested), Peak [Conventional] Oil having occurred through 2007, and since then the global system being propped up in the very short term via fracking, extraction from tar sands and deep water drilling -none of which are viable when oil prices are at their current level and none of which are viable at all when their environmental profiles are examined.
Massive demand destruction is holding global energy prices down, but were there to be any kind of global economic recovery a rise in prices would kill that recovery off, as already stressed-to-the-maximum-and-beyond consumers fail to purchase.
2. The earnings catastrophe many corporations now face, as sales decline and fixed costs remain much the same or increase -the only ‘escape’ being mass layoffs of staff and closure of facilities. Collapse is self-reinforcing and cumulative.
3. The desperation the banks have to increase borrowing at a time when the vast majority of people are reassessing their desire to borrow. This exposes the fundamental flaw in the essentially fraudulent banking/monetary system, and we should not be surprised to witness bank runs, as per Northern Rock etc. in the last global financial crisis, a crisis which was papered-over with yet more fraud and unsustainable money-printing.
4. The impending collapse of the share markets, as share prices go ‘stratospheric’ on the back of money-printing by the Fed and other central banks but the real economy collapses. This 1929, 1987, 1997, 2001, 2008 style meltdown (only worse) will shred the last vestiges of confidence in the globalised financial system, as it shreds investment portfolios and Kiwisaver etc.
Interestingly, Australians are already withdrawing funds from pension funds at a record rate…and this ‘thing’ has only just begun.
5. The utter impotence of the ‘world’s policeman’ and the inability of the US to organise a piss-up in a brewery, leading to complete shattering of faith in the cultural memes that have held sway since the end of WW2.
In the meantime, with almost everything falling off the cliff, the military-industrial sector of the US ( along with its British counterpart) is looking for ways to upgrade its potential to threaten other nations with nuclear weapons that cannot actually be used without terminating most life in the target zone and potentially terminating most life on this on this planet in a few days.
‘Often lost in abstract debates over U.S. nuclear weapons is how much firepower they represent. Just one of America’s 14 Ohio-class submarines — a fraction of the total U.S. nuclear force at sea, on land and in the air — could deliver explosive power nearly 10 times that of all the bombs dropped in World War II, including the two atomic ones.’
https://www.rollcall.com/2020/07/29/trump-teams-case-for-new-nuke-cites-risks-in-current-arsenal/
‘UK lobbies US to support controversial new nuclear warheads’
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/01/uk-trident-missile-warhead-w93-us-lobby
Funny how there is always money for nuclear weapons when hospitals have mould on the walls and there is a national health crisis.
6. The Sixth Great Extinction Event. You won’t hear anything about the unprecedented loss of biodiversity and absolute collapse on numbers of organisms essential to our children’s futures that comes from conversion of natural systems (forests, jungles, wetlands etc.) into wastelands of suburbia and industrial development and the gross overuse of fossil fuels. In some parts of the world even the soil is dying. And that’s the plan for NZ
7. Death of the oceans via overfishing, acidification and contamination with industrial chemicals and plastics.
Yep, air you can’t safely breath, dead soil that has lost most of its capacity to provide nutrients for growth, and largely or completely dead oceans: that’s the plan. Along with even more population overshoot, way, way, way beyond the natural carrying capacity of the land. That’s the plan.
8. You can guarantee you won’t hear one word about Permaculture and Powerdown -the only sane responses to our collative predicament.
Nor will you hear one word about the fact that the entire industrial system is unsustainable and on its last legs.
Whether the globalised financial system will hold together until the election is yet to be seen. It may just. October is the commonest month for financial meltdowns after the writing on the wall becomes too big for everyone to ignore in September.
‘The unstable, brittle edge of the precipice is giving way, and there is nothing but air below.’
https://www.oftwominds.com/blogjuly20/global-precipice7-20.html
‘Here’s our summary of key economic events overnight that affect New Zealand, with news we are walking closer to crumbling cliffs.’
‘In the EU, GDP dropped -14% in the June quarter from the same period in 2019 in the steepest one quarter drop in history. That follows a -2.5% fall in Q1-2020 on the same basis. Japan is yet to report, but they are expected to show a Q2-2020 fall of -26% annualised rate (about -9% in the second quarter alone).’
https://www.interest.co.nz/news/106313/us-household-sentiment-sags-china-expands-using-old-paybook-japan-korea-taiwan-deliver
Ah you old miseryguts, beer and wine are still cheap!
Even cheaper if you make your own.
It has now got the amusing stage, as those who have a vested interest in rapidly failing systems can only come up with ad hominem attacks because they have no narratives that work.
Even cheaper if you make your own.
Bill Mollison’s great book “Ferment & Human Nutrition” has a section on that – Chapter 11, “Beers, Wines and Beverages”. Tagari linked here . They’re not taking orders at Tagari atm, probably something to do with Covid across the ditch, but the book’s widely available.
Exactly
Alcohol and sport – the opiates of the people/sheeple
But how about the children.
Keep awake and do it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztVaqZajq-I
Thanks John W 🙂
Been a while…
Hear hear, I agree and utterly get what you’re saying.
It’s good to see a similar thinking/thinker. My on-line ‘nick’ is powerdownkev for all the reasons you mention.
Here’s hoping others on this site get what you’re saying.
Many thanks and keep up the good work.
Hard to work out how the billions spent on ‘shovel ready’ projects can help NZ unemployment when they are importing in foreign workers and their families to NZ from overseas.
“The First Union is surprised it’s being flooded with applications to bring foreign construction workers into the country while border restrictions are in place.
Eight applications from labour-hire firms to import offshore workers have landed on First Union spokesperson Anita Rosentreter’s desk in the past two months.
“They’re coming through pretty thick and fast at the moment,” she says.
Information from Immigration shows some workers would fill jobs as labourers and hammer hands.
“Roles that you might call unskilled, certainly roles that New Zealanders could do,” Rosentreter says.
First Union wants Immigration to stop accepting labour-hire applications while thousands of unemployed Kiwis look for new work.
Newshub understands yesterday Immigration approved the visa of a skilled worker and their partner for the City Rail Link project. It’s part of a 54-person application – 30 workers and 24 family members.”
So the rest of the taxpayers in NZ pay for foreign workers quarantine costs, all their health care/education etc for them and their families (families are at similar numbers to the actual workers whose skills are already in NZ), while more and more Kiwis are out of work and migrants already in NZ, not being given opportunities.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/money/2020/08/union-calls-on-government-to-pause-visa-applications-for-foreign-labour-workers.html
Skilled Kiwis are constantly being overlooked in the work force of their own country.
“Oil rig workers claim the industry is “rotten to the core”, angry that most senior jobs on a newly-arrived rig have been handed to foreigners.
Stuff spoke to seven experienced rig workers overlooked for positions on the Archer Emerald rig, which has arrived off the Taranaki coast to drill up to five exploratory wells for the Austrian-based company OMV New Zealand.
It’s the second example in less than a year of visiting rigs being granted permission to bring in offshore workers over the protests of locals.
Rig workers claim it’s part of a longstanding pattern where Kiwis miss out, or take lower-ranked positions with the best jobs always going to foreign workers – despite them being advertised here.”
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/121961383/oil-rig-workers-claim-unfair-treatment-in-a-system-rotten-to-the-core
Also once the foreign workers are in NZ, and their job goes, they seem to expect the Kiwi taxpayers and overloaded social services and charities to pay for the issue, not their employers. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/416133/unemployed-migrant-workers-struggle-amid-covid-19-crisis
Time the employers also had to pay quarantine costs for their workers and a bond of $50k per worker to repatriate them back if they lose their jobs in NZ which seems to happen pretty regularly as labour hire is just a Ponzi to get people into NZ!
Now borders are closed rents are down for poorer people which is a big factor to combat poverty, 9 years by government bowfins, years on the woke and ‘charity’ community on ‘solving’ this and blaming everything but demand, but just close the border and viola! https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12350001
Looks like high rents were demand driven all along.
+100 saveNZ…well said !
Gr8 look to be importing in foreign workers while people lose their houses due to unemployment in NZ, NOT!
Fears mortgagee sale floodgates could open as jobless Kiwis start selling homes
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/money/2020/08/fears-mortgagee-sale-floodgates-could-open-as-jobless-kiwis-start-selling-homes.html
Between the Flags journalism just creates another gatekeeper for what is the “correct” news – which is what got us into this place in the first place. Once it exists the elite willi very easily co-opt it into their power structure.
People need to learn to use their own judgement, rather than just following a particular news source – maybe they will have to get their fingers burned a few times by the likes of Billy Te Kahika before they learn to do that
AAron you mentioned “gatekeepers”
They are found in unexpected places.
Kim Hill steers clear of some topics that she has covered some time back but now tows the line about.
Even TDB has subjects that cannot be discussed in spite of many highly qualified professional’s being involved.
Gatekeepers are quite common. Its a matter of recognising who they are and what their position is.
The may be useful in other areas.
2nd August 2020.
Dear Labour Coalition Party PM’s and Ciitizens,
A citizens political request statement on transport is presented here;
We the people need the Labour coalition party to re-investigate the National Party roading activities going back to August 2014 as evidence is here that the current National Party leader and Deputy (Collins/Brownlee) were involved in then, in illegal activities with roading projects.
As you may know that “Matthew Hooten resigns as National Party Political strategist”.
This is a sad end to a somewhat colourful interesting effort to stir the politic pot by Matthew Hooten.
Issue here;
RNZ podcast have dirt on ; – how National acted illegally in 2014 thanks to the National political strategist Matthew Hooten and we the people need to remember that this illegal activity by National under Michelle Boag having the knowledge actually did go ahead under Transport Minister Steven Joyce ‘illegal activities on roading contacts’ and she was advised that day by Hooten and ignored the evidence then that very day 31/814.
Now the new leader who is strangely again Judith Collins (the same bad actor) with partner Brownlee who is still pushing roads roads, roads, again, now, as the former National Ministers were in 2014.
Questions;
• Did Judith Collins know about the illegal roading contract policies of the two former Transport ministers Joyce and Brownlee?
.
• “So are they again wanting to use illegal practices again in roading?
Government need to be re-investigating the past history of National Party roading their activities on roading we the people believe.
• Why did they not advance the use of rail instead then as they ordered an economic study report from EY in 2015 that was finally published in 2016 https://www.kiwirail.co.nz/our-story/value-of-rail/ and was buried and never publicly released called “The value of rail in NZ as the EY study advised Government that rail saved NZ taxpayer’s $1.5 Billion Dollars each year then?
Value of Rail
Rail networks have long played a critical role in the economic and social development of New Zealand and as such are a significant investment and cost to the country.
While we know the costs, there is an economic value of rail in New Zealand which is not captured in traditional profit and loss calculations.
These often hidden benefits are delivered to all New Zealanders through social, environmental and economic values which in 2016 were quantified by professional services firm EY. You can read their report here.
Benefits worth $1.47 billion – $1.54 billion
The report found that the total value of rail in New Zealand was estimated to be $1.47 billion – $1.54 billion each year, from just four areas – reduced congestion in our cities; reduced carbon emissions; improved road safety including injuries and fatalities and lower road maintenance costs for taxpayers.
Our belief; National are continuing the same illegal roading policy now as they were back in 2014 “As National’s new Leader now; Judith Collins has again placed her ‘same partner in crime of that time in 2014 “Gerry Brownlee” as her deputy PM now!!
• So this show continuity again; -“as the plot thickens” today 6yrs later again???
We seek that Judith Collins must be grilled now about her past actions, as she was inside all the illegal roads activities back in 2014 wasn’t she as Steven Joyce was.
We encourage to see Mike Williams to come into the investigation now as he was right in the “vortex of illegal roading contact activity issues exposures ” – then in 2014 when Judith Collins was sacked by John Key.
But Matthew Hooten did tell the truth then apparently as all those around his allegations were fired after or resigned. (hear the podcast at the 27 minute mark about Steven Joyce when he was Transport Minister was dealing in illegal contracts planning of new roads??????
He was apparently demanding MBIE/NZTA allow a under ‘$100 Million roading contract’ to proceed without appropriate approval.
Labour president Mike Williams was also on the panel and heard this also that very day, so we the people do need to have Mike step up to the mike and have him discuss this issue after he reviews the podcast from 2014 showing illegal activities he was aware of under the National Party then with the same bad actors of Collins/ Brownlee and their ilk going forward the election now.
http://www.thepaepae.com/matthew-hootons-assertions-re-the-prime-ministers-office/35076/
In 2014 Matthew Hooten was on the panel with Michelle Boag Duncan Garner, Mark Sainsbury and Make Williams and under fire from Michelle Boag said something about Steven Joyce being involved with trying to push through MBIE NZTA a $100 Million dollar roading contract without proper paperwork and Joyce demanded MBIE ignore the proper process at the 27 minute ark of the podcast.
Hear the discussing here about at the 27th minute mark.
Mark Sainsbury hosts ‘Sunday morning’ at RadioLIVE with guests Michelle Boag, Mike Williams, Matthew Hooton & Duncan Garner 31 Aug 2014
MP3 file
enclosure: http://www.thepaepae.com/wp-uploads/2014/08/Boag-Hooton-Williams-RadioLIVE-Sunday-morning-31Aug14.mp3 24057464 audio/mpeg
PoliticsJohn Key, Matthew Hooton
« Sean Plunket comes around on the Watergate comparison (‘Dirty Politics’)The escape of exnzpat, Part 24 »
Matthew Hooton’s assertions re the Prime Minister’s Office
Posted in 31 August 2014Peter Aranyi9 Comments »
hooton‘Explosive’ is one of those words that gets kicked around in politics and political reporting to the point where it’s almost lost its meaning.
But it’s not an exaggeration to describe right wing spin doctor and self-declared National Party loyalist Matthew Hooton‘s performance on RadioLIVE this morning as incendiary. He effectively called Prime Minister John Key ‘dishonest’, said the PM’s office and chief of staff Wayne Eagleson is implicated in the Dirty Tricks scandal (viz. the SIS-Goff-OIA affair) and more, described Jason Ede’s black-ops brigade as ‘acting under orders’.
And in a fiery exchange, he described former National Party President (and present-day apologist) Michelle Boag as ‘a hack’ with ‘no political views’ who is ‘all about is defending a government that has behaved in ways that [are] literally indefensible and you know it’ …
Listen for yourself.
UPDATE: The ‘fiery exchange’ has now been highlighted as a RadioLIVE editor’s audio pick here.
—
Available on demand at RadioLIVE.co.nz dial up Sunday 10am.*
Click to listen at Radio LIVE
Click to listen at Radio LIVE (archived below)
* I’ve archived it here too (audio player below) because RadioLIVE only keeps 7 days audio available and I’ve noticed sometimes Mediaworks launders its talkback station’s audio feed when things get … contentious.
Mark Sainsbury hosts ‘Sunday morning’ at RadioLIVE with guests Michelle Boag, Mike Williams, Matthew Hooton & Duncan Garner 31 Aug 2014
MP3 file
enclosure: http://www.thepaepae.com/wp-uploads/2014/08/Boag-Hooton-Williams-RadioLIVE-Sunday-morning-31Aug14.mp3 24057464 audio/mpeg
PoliticsJohn Key, Matthew Hooton
Thankyou for your attention; – we ask for your action to this issue of citizens concerns.
i would add investment in publicly funded independent research infrastructure. to rebuild confidence in science.
cushla.
We had one called the DSIR
Guess who disbanded it.
The Australian equivalent is the CSIRO which was stripped out by the Abbot govt and billions of dollars worth of excellent science based information was wiped. Over 120 top scientists sacked.
The business world just don’t want truths getting in their way.
Bomber might be enthusiastic about returning to a time when a cabal of state and corporate controlled “news” channels coordinated their propaganda to create a consensus reality everyone believed, but I’m not. I remember a time when those channels could heavily underestimate the size of protests, for example. Because the only people who knew those reported numbers were a coordinated lie, were those who were there, or who saw the grainy photos in the photocopied zines handed out by activists. Ever since we launched Aotearoa Indymedia, it’s been easy for kiwi activists to publish our arguments, evidence, stories, and photos, to a national and global audience, free of charge, on a multitude of platforms (including TDB).
It’s true that the internet has created new problems of information overload and new forms of propaganda, and we need to grapple with these. But buying into the myths of a struggling corporate broadcast industry, that there was once a golden age of honest and reliable news media, is not the solution to anything.
When your device doesn’t envelop you, and the prospects for work and a decent living and indeed a decent future aren’t good, and you are trying not to reach for alcohol or other drugs, cigarettes etc to lift your mood – who you gonna call Ghostbusters! Kindness, learning what agape (Greek) love is, will limit young people’s loneliness. Some is okay, it gives you time to think on yourself, but the aching feeling of nothing is worth anything drives you to the edge. And materialism doesn’t do it for people trying to find their real. (Celia Lashlie was doing good here, perhaps we can help her Trust carry on, if we have nothing else in mind.)
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/422553/loneliness-spikes-among-new-zealand-youth
Well, my main concern is the same as I’ve said elsewhere:
We have to stop selling our land and our water to overseas entities, be they foreign governments, individuals, corporations, whatever. We cannot keep on carving up the body of Aotearoa and selling it off. Would you sell off parts of your mother? (Ok, some lowlifes might just do that.)
We live on this land, yet we’re disrespecting it, we are treating the land as a commodity, as something to exploit and worse, to SELL! Vast chunks of Aotearoa are now ‘owned’ by China, for example. Many people who have lived here for generations are now tenants in what should be their own home (and then there are the homeless).
Without the land itself, we have nothing. We don’t have a country. Please, please, can we not stop this insanity?
The reality of Climate Change: Northland was hit by a 1 in 500 year storm, Auckland is in drought conditions
In April: Auckland on track for a one in 1,000 year drought
None of this is even being discussed with the required urgency.
It is being ignored or denied. However the denials are sounding increasingly far-fetched, even to their own. James Murdoch has now resigned from the board of the family media empire for that specific reason.
In January, a spokesperson for James Murdoch and his wife, Kathryn, told The Daily Beast that the pair’s “frustration with some of News Corp and Fox’s coverage of the topic is … well known”.
“They are particularly disappointed with the ongoing denial of the role of climate change among the news outlets in Australia, given obvious evidence to the contrary,” the spokesperson said. RNZ 1st August 2020
Correction to this link above: https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/04/auckland-on-track-for-one-in-1000-year-drought.html
Spot on
This thing is moving fast. The fourth of the seven dominoes is now at the point of toppling. (see image and discussion here)
https://www.oftwominds.com/blog.html
Memo from Insiders: Dear Bagholders, Thanks for Buying Our Shares at the Top
July 31, 2020
The self-sustaining recovery is a fantasy that’s evaporated.
What looks like a powerful, can’t-lose rally to newbies is recognized as distribution by old hands. In low-volume markets (as in the past few months), insiders holding large positions can’t dump all their shares at once or the price of the stock would plummet due to the thinness of the bid.
The only way to get top-dollar for one’s overvalued shares is to play distribution games: sell a little each day on the upticks, and buy back shares when they threaten to drop below the key support levels followed by trading algos.
When insiders have finished distributing their shares to naive and trusting bagholders at the top, then the price can flush lower with a velocity that shocks the complacent bagholders who saw only the inevitability of an endless rally rather than the inevitability of a collapse of bubble valuations.
Stocks are priced for a V-shaped recovery and/or $1 trillion in federal giveaways per month. Neither is possible. The V-shaped recovery hopes were based on $6 trillion in federal/Federal Reserve stimulus washing over the nation, boosting household incomes and opening spigots of cash for enterprises and local governments.
The basic idea was to give the economy a needed shot of adrenaline to get to to the point where a recovery would be self-sustaining: companies would hire back laid-off workers, people would start borrowing and over-consuming again, sales and income tax revenues would return to pre-pandemic levels, etc.
The self-sustaining recovery is a fantasy that’s evaporated. The spike in activity was all the giveaways being spent. Now that most of the free-money programs are expiring, there’s no more stimulus to spend.
As for budgeting another trillion or two for future infrastructure projects: what few proponents of infrastructure spending realize is the number of companies and skilled workers capable of getting this work done is limited. You can create the cash out of thin air but you can’t conjure up experienced welders, crane operators, etc. to get the work done or the complex operational skills required to manage these large, complicated projects.
Also overlooked is the fact that most of these companies and workers are already busy, and it takes years to train new workers with the requisite skills.
So what’s left to support the can’t-lose rally? The promise of trillions of dollars more given directly to households and enterprises and local governments, at a run-rate of a trillion a month. Anything less won’t be enough.’
And to cap it off, Isaias is on track to pummel all the cities along the east coast, much as Irene did a few years ago.
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at4+shtml/035430.shtml?tswind120#contents
Glad I don’t live in the ‘greatest nation on Earth’.
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