The Daily Blog Open Mic – 20th February 2022

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

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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, Qanon lunacy, climate deniers, anti-fluoride fanatics, anti-vaxxer lunatics, 5G conspiracy theories, the virus is a bioweapon, some weird bullshit about the UN taking over the world  and ANYONE that links to fucking infowar.

11 COMMENTS

  1. Jusr another modern Len Lye sculpture I suppose! Nice write-up about the pressure on Wellington,s water.
    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/435817/wellington-water-woes-becoming-daily-disasters-council-under-pressure
    Burst pipes, a sinkhole, a water geyser in a suburban street – Wellington’s water woes are fast becoming daily disasters.
    A water main has burst in central Wellington’s Aro Valley.
    A burst water main in Aro Street in central Wellington recently provided the most spectacular example of the city’s water woes. Photo: RNZ / Dom Thomas image.png
    Pressure is mounting on the Wellington City Council and Wellington Water to urgently fix the city’s beleaguered water network.

  2. More power to this Judge’s elbow as they say, who care about helping young offenders find a better way, even if it is protesting in front of parliament.
    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/461837/judge-calls-for-targeted-support-for-young-female-offenders“We know that women’s pathways into criminal offending often [are] very different to that of males, and so the way out has to also be different,” Judge Walker said.
    Judge Walker said he questioned how something like mixed-gender group therapy, often used for drug and alcohol treatment, would work for girls, especially if they had been abused by men.

    The relatively small number of female young offenders were spread right throughout Aotearoa, which meant it was hard to establish female-specific services in any one location.
    But research had shown the answer could lie in individualised home-based, family focused interventions.

    (Note that research has shown – which means that it can be followed, measured and published. It’s not word of mouth pofacery or something that a leader said in a church-run remedial conclave.)

  3. Would the protesters be capable or able to get together and be positive enough to sing, and sing well and sweetly, if they lived together in a village of close, uniform housing as here.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FFaxOv3nnU
    I don’t think many of them have been brought up to understand control, and working hard at mental personal abilities, working for some outcome or skill that is of a higher order than machines that goes bang or that enables them to speed round the country on some momentary pursuit of satisfaction or advantage.

  4. “The average tradie rate was 30 per cent higher in Australia, he said.”If I had a dollar for every time a member asked me if I knew of any available staff, I would have retired this year because I’d be a rich man. There is no point placing advertisements unless you are going to pay 20 per cent more than they are currently earning.”There’s no applicants.”
    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/looming-exodus-tradies-earning-30-per-cent-more-in-aussie/5T3Q3LNZOTJX2JHM7ACRKZPRRE/

    Kiwi employers just don’t get it. They seem to expect the taxpayers that they rip off with property, to top their employee’s wages to market rates (since they can’t move with market conditions), probably because for the past decade under Rogernomics the taxpayers have increasingly started paying NZ employers wages costs with subsidies to try and make Rogernomics a failed economic model, work.

    The more subsidies NZ businesses seem to get, the more polluting, exploitative, slow and inefficient they seem to be and more useless people enter the market with dubious scams and schemes! You wonder why multimillionaires need to raise 100 million for their ‘property fund’ instead of using their own money? I wonder what country the money/workers will come from for the Chow/Key scheme and taking up resources as is the NZ business way, not creating them.

    Sir John, Max Key partner with Chow brothers in new property venture
    https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/money/2022/02/sir-john-max-key-partner-with-chow-brothers-in-new-property-venture.html

    Neither John Key or the brothel owning Chow Brothers seem to have a very good reputation for development. In fact one of the Chow Brothers historic properties started falling down in central Auckland after a ‘renovation’ gone wrong. Being rich they got away with it, of course.

    By my maths, construction bosses say they can get applicants in NZ at NZ wages and WONT advertise because they have to pay workers 20% more. At the same time OZ pays 30% more. So NZ construction bosses with all the profits won’t pay a pay rise that still puts NZ 10% below OZ rates!

    NZ exploiter bosses and (holiday makers) are calling for the borders to open, presumably as the new way to make cash in NZ is to make NZ taxpayers can pay for overseas folks to gain NZ residency/citizenship for life, before they then go off to OZ. And the other way, is to people traffic with NZ work visas, that the workers pay for from places like China and India or just get low ways like the Phillipines.

    In spite of a decade of this behaviour the Ponzi continues and their are less houses in NZ while our population increases as one of the highest immigration countries in the world per capita. Meanwhile there is less health care spend and more workers needed in NZ to look after the hundreds of thousands of high needs people (in terms of government spending) having kids and bringing elderly relatives to NZ.

    For every worker or NZ student visa there are more overseas people’s families coming in on Ponzi’s taking up housing and health care, and skilled people leaving who don’t want to be paid NZ low wages. NZ is a basket case society with gangs increasing 13% per year and kids growing up in hotels.

    Meanwhile NZ employers refuse to train or pay anybody outside of exploitative conditions with the rest of NZ paying for their poor efforts at running a business. Unions instead of campaigning against this practise seem to have given up on workers and campaign for amnesties for illegal workers and more benefits for the unemployed. Seems to be encouraging people not to work, why would you?

    MSM are pathetic, not pointing out, that after decades of globalism, immigration and rogernomics, NZ skills are less than what they used to be. Our industry is getting less competitive.

  5. Families and tradies owed more than $300k after decking company collapses in Auckland
    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/property/families-and-tradies-owed-more-than-300k-after-decking-company-collapses-in-auckland/67IKCJSVRJL3IWQB7PG7XM6TXU/

    Meanwhile, not paying tradies and putting in more ‘subcontractor models’ to cream money off jobs, while not actually having any workers (make famous by NZ bus, Labtests).

    In NZ you can apparently win large and small contracts while having a ‘facade business’ and not necessary having the staff to do the work when you bid, instead relying on undercutting and cannibalising your competitors staff, or not actually doing the work, and leading the charge for lower wages and conditions and levels of service to the public.

    Then if anything goes wrong, you just close your company, avoid paying anybody, and open up a new company.

    Time that if you go into liquidation there is a compulsory 5 years you can’t open a company and be a company director! NZ laws protect the exploiters and not the victims of white collar scams which seem to be a large part of NZ’s construction and business culture now.

  6. World spends $1.8tn a year on subsidies that harm environment, study finds
    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/17/world-spends-18tn-a-year-on-subsidies-that-harm-environment-study-finds-aoe

    Concrete is a major contributor to the climate crisis because its production releases huge quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide and methane are the two greenhouse gas most responsible for global warming.

    The carbon dioxide emissions from the production of concrete are so high that if concrete were a country, it would be the third-largest emitter of CO2 behind China and the United States.
    https://www.ecori.org/climate-change/2019/10/4/global-warming-has-a-co2ncrete-problem

  7. How can we complain about the 501s, when we here in AO/NZ are doing the same thing!!???

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/new-zealand-deported-400-criminals-to-pacific-countries-over-five-years/
    Excerpt:
    New Zealand’s deportation policies are contributing to growing crime and drug addiction problems in the Pacific region, according to a newly released report.

    The report shows that from 2013 to 2018, New Zealand deported 1040 people to Pacific nations, and 400 were criminals.

    Report author Jose Sousa-Santos says the Pacific is also becoming a “casualty” of the greed of organised crime groups in New Zealand and Australia, including motorcycle gangs, and of the Tasman nations’ appetite for illegal drugs.

    He singles out the New Zealand-based Head Hunters gang as being active in the Cook Islands. Full article at the link.

    • Thanks for that statistic Kheala. I had realised this had happened in the past but that it’s still going is so disappointing. Don’t know why really – it’s BAU it seems for us. How can we get a better set of principles. politicians and public servants and private contractors- seems that we have too many bad pees around. Didn’t John Key say about an unsatisfactory legal response, that he could find better ones?

  8. Hundertwasser Rules Okay. Only he doesn’t rule, he doesn’t like all lines straight, but interesting!
    A reason amongst others, to go to Whangarei. Carried forward with verve and foresight and determination, the art centre also carrying modern Maori creativity, is OPEN.
    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/461905/hundertwasser-arts-centre-opens-in-whangarei

    This may be the start of a wave of NZ innovation showcasing our country and ALL of its wonderful people and doings, instead of the dour murmur of defeat, dissension and damnation. But there were anti vaxxers there too who want to spread their disease of belittlement and nihilism.
    image.png

  9. Give the immature freedom and they don’t know how to conduct themselves, never having learned how to behave responsibly from anyone; parents, school, church (hah they wouldn’t be religious would they),
    these are abandoned babies grown up – abandoned by being having to live as best they can, abandoned by not having good role models so they don’t have a chance to observe a normal life with mostly happy times.

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/461923/residents-fed-up-with-parliament-protest-counter-protest-organised
    During the occupation, he said protesters had tried to remove his housemate’s mask, and other residents had been verbally abused for wearing one including himself.
    The protest appeared to be anti-everything Covid, not just anti-mandate, he said…
    He didn’t feel entirely safe having to walk past and through hundreds of unmasked people to get home, he said.
    The resident wanted protesters to wear a mask, for the streets to be cleared so people could walk freely without harassment, and for protesters to stick to the lawns of Parliament.
    “I am furious about the occupation of the bus exchange, I mean it’s a parking lot campsite now.

    “That doesn’t affect the politicians. It’s not going to change anyone’s view on mandates, all it creates is a complete standstill of public infrastructure in Wellington. It’s nothing but disruptive.”…
    Meanwhile, a counter protest is being launched in response to the Parliament convoy.
    Matthew Tukaki from the National Māori Authority said an overwhelming number of people had been in touch with him saying they have had enough….
    Tukaki said it would be an online protest without confrontation, intimidation, abuse or threatening behaviour.

  10. This is interesting – haven’t read yet but pass it on while its fresh in my mind.
    \https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch/audio/2018830017/public-service-screened-by-communications-complex
    Every Saturday under the banner Things We Didn’t Learn This Week – the Dominion Post lists questions it put to public agencies which didn’t get answered fully – or at all.
    The editor – Anna Fifield – kicked this off earlier this month in a piece provocatively headlined: When did our public service get so arrogant?
    She said open government “appears to be on the wane here” and blamed the growth in what she called the “communications industrial complex.”

    “Vast battalions of people work to deflect and avoid — or answer only in the most oblique manner possible,” said Fifield, who took the job last year after working at big media names overseas including the Washington Post.
    I think someoone has given a figure for the number of PR people employed by govt depts and agencies, (is that what used to be called qangos?). It’s quite high, would buy quite a lot of tea strainers!

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