The Daily Blog Open Mic – Friday – 2nd April 2021

1. What is driving people out of the trades and building shortages, not being paid for a start!

   Developer who owes $1m to contractors selling luxury apartments through another company
   https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/developer-who-owes-1m-to-contractors-selling-luxury-apartments-through-another-company/YU4BORFRDMHZZX73XPKOP4NVPU/

   There is more interest in helping illegal cash workers from government than actually helping the builders themselves who keep getting screwed over!

   Another 3 billion for developers from government! Makes you sick when the entire industry is being sucked dry from all the propaganda that the government sucks up.

2. So dedicated am I to investigating opposing views, I bravely pressed a link to a blogsite called No Punches Pulled, which looks like the endless summer home of Sir Robert Jones. He says laughter is the best medicine, but I can hardly keep down what rose in the back of my throat. You can go look for yourself and see his argument for building more state homes.

   Inside all the celebration, there’s a danger. Yes we all agree, except Labour, that safe long term housing is awfully important to avoid social collapse. Great, but it isn’t the 30’s or 40’s anymore. Technology has surpassed timber frame and tiles. New technology using timber and tiles has surpassed what it was. Yes there are practicalities to consider. Where location leaves no option, old methods may have to be used. How we do something on a large scale is very important. It isn’t just a physical material bricks and mortar equation, and as Sir Robert ably illustrates, values, conditions, and resources are far from neutral and their impact tends to linger long after the last nail is set. Are Sir Bob’s values what we want to imbue into our collective minds? Do we want a “new” mainstream culture reinforced of male and female separation of labour and disrespect to each other and the ground we exist on?

   The construction industry is not a happy place, not even for the hardnuts that dominate it. There are some brilliant tradespeople there, but few teachers, which makes immigration for skills the only apparent solution. It wasn’t always like that, but it’s what it has become. Unfortunately for me, I had the bad luck to get caught up in the death throes of “the era of the apprentice”. Occasionally I revisit the industry and nothing has changed. “There’s no time, no time, we must act now!” Alternative systems exist, we can use them. Why must we reaffirm our failures as if there were no choice?

   Before Labour get themselves voted out and National, with reasons as sickening as Sir Robert’s, promise the earth and provide half of it, still eclipsing Labour’s non attempt, will we be happy with having set ourselves back in time? Because if that happens, I might just Pull a Jones and cross the floor and join the Greens in finally giving up and saying, you know what, fuckem, just lock them up without trial. I’m glad that practically everyone agrees to uphold the concepts in the UN Declaration of Human rights without needing to personally experience a devastating world war to discover some basic intelligence. I’m happy for individuals to destroy themselves with old gender roles and cultural affectations as long as they keep it in their private house. Well, I say “happy”, but you know, within limits. If they will stay on the team for a constructive outcome, I will promise not to question their reasoning. But what business is it of government to imprint the whole country with obvious dysfunction? Governments are supposed to keep things running fairly efficiently.

   So before we all cheer hurrah, can we hear from the Greens and the Te Pati Maori – or anyone else in a position of influence – about methods that don’t revolve around a rabbit warren of timber and tile boxes in endless cul-de-sacs; those structures that would remind of us what happened in those same places; those places we travel to and from in long processions of cars, jamming the motorways? Remember our context, not the context of 80 years ago. Can we hear about the systems, where practical, and safely, and at every opportunity, to include the whole family in the construction of new buildings? Can we hear about the layouts that our friend who is in a wheelchair needs, so they can get in and out of the place, so they don’t have to live far off and not see anyone for 6 months at a time? Can we hear about those systems that do not divide us, so that dad wins the money and by god his word is the law, and mum stays home with the kids and you wait till dad till gets home, and the kids… they just… hang around? Then maybe our lively teens might be less likely to vandalise the place, because they’d be vandalising a part of themselves, and why would they vandalise the only place they can remember where mum, dad, uncle, aunt, and their friends all worked together to build something real. Why would they later vote for policies that would break that sense of community up? And uncle, who joined that bad bunch down the road, he’s out of jail in week, can he come help too?

   Can we have reaffirmed the respect that should be afforded to the ground we build on, and where practical, not just jump into the seat of the closest diesel-belching digger for several weeks, scrapping off the entire topsoil of the area, compacting the clay underneath, applying a hundred truckloads of gravel from the local quarry that was once a mountain, and then wonder why even native trees won’t grow beside our new barren concrete carpark surrounded by seven or eight two story town houses? Where practical, of course. Can we have it reaffirmed that in our haste to do good, we don’t accidentally, do bad? And if, where practical or in case of emergency, we have to do bad, can we just not make believe we didn’t? Can we always remember that sometimes circumstances dictate we do bad and this is what it looks like, so we don’t end up justifying badness out of context, and start the slippery slope into premeditated badness, twisting our own heritage and stories into caricatures with big plot holes only a fool would believe, teaching our children to never examine what we do, avoid change, and begin restarting the whole stupid cultural cycle all over again? New systems exist, they aren’t a delay or a distraction. No plans need be put on hold, let’s not start believing they will be. Can we go into this with eyes open?

3. Compulsory Christianity

   Every year on selected days we are required to stop working and shopping and give thanks to those who have sacrificed so that we may live. This is non negotiable, a religious ideology written into employment law, but when you try to point out to lawmakers and worshippers that some people have different beliefs, or aren’t in fact spiritual at all, they tend to default to the backup position: “Well this is a day when people get to rest and spend time with their family”. But hold on, what about those who work in the cafes, restaurants, shops and businesses who choose to open on this day (legally), why aren’t they forced into virtuous home detention on this, our day? Have they lost faith and more to the point, will they be punished for their sins? I worked for the dairy industry for a decade and public and religious holidays were not a thing. Fonterra couldn’t have cared less about the time I spent with my family (a twelve hour day excluding travel time is not family-centric): they only knew money (where the hell were these workplace justice warriors fighting for my special rights on public holidays). They certainly didn’t care about my religious beliefs, but why should they, faith has nothing to do with how I performed my job, and it shouldn’t also be a factor in my ability to shop at a supermarket. What, I can buy a $10 coffee at a cafe on this day but I can’t spend the same amount on the equivalent a months supply of coffee in a supermarket? Ludicrous. This needs to be about choice, the choice to trade or work or shop, rather than a smug inference that we are all monotheistics who don’t do certain things on certain days. This is when the lawmakers and the religious default to their final position. Silence.

4. Wanaka supermarkets seem to think they are above the laws for all. They had a chance to apply for an exemption but nah they can do what ever they like in the meantime we all have to obey the laws. Bloogy arrogant they only had to close for one day plain greedy.

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