The Daily Blog Open Mic – 9th July 2025

1. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/566447/are-the-days-of-brunching-over-popular-auckland-cafe-kind-closes-amidst-economic-pressures
   The little pleasures that help to keep the middle class and youth on the up stoked are pulling out. The ship is leaving the sinking rats. Sorry it has to come to this. Whaaa.
   They are breaking all my toys Mum.

2. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/566446/physical-and-verbal-abuse-at-hospitals-becoming-routine-doctors
   Palmerston North this April had about three episodes of violence of some sort.
   1 A late night working nurse finishing work was threatened at gunpoint.
   2 A staff member knocked unconscious.
   3 Emergency department staff threatened.
   The heads of the staff guilds involved know that people are upset and there can be long waits, and their family get more upset. They say that their own security is too constrained and need to be able to take action as it seems that they are given the job of keeping the peace and some protection, which is not enough at times. One hospital has had to wait as long as two hours for assistance from police.

   I think we citizens expect more from our service people and civil administration than we are getting. Who initiated this era of falling standards and neglect of attention to people’s real needs in our democracy? Was it just from 1984 and neomeanification or before?
   [Police comment] – Constrained by law
   Police Superintendent Kelly Ryan, the director for emergency communications and dispatch, said there were standard procedures for emergency call management anywhere.
   “Outside of emergency situations, police has a threshold for what work requires a police response and what doesn’t.
   “This ensures police is only involved where it’s appropriate, due to an offence, violence or immediate risk to life or safety, and other agencies are clear on their roles and responsibilities. It also means police has more time to do the work that only police can, and which the community expects them to do.”…

3. The serious thinker about NZ economy and the world’s, could keep this link of Tadhg Stopford’s post for regular reference as it covers, and the respondents, a large part of our concerns.
   https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2025/07/07/guest-blog-tadhg-stopford-nzs-curious-case-of-corrupt-self-destruction/

4. How about investing in the NZ Listener? Up for sale. We could get some lively discussions going about things other than food, clothes,. best holiday places, best schools. Lots of art, doings, and interaction from around NZAO.
   https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/566537/magazines-listener-nz-woman-s-weekly-put-up-for-sale-by-owner

   Don’t worry about NZWW most people with a brain are tired of reading about whether Harry and William are speaking and who Megan has upset lately. After all we have Ali Williams and his wife Anna who wants a helipad for her birthday.

5. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/on-the-inside/566209/fast-track-mining-projects-the-hard-questions-nz-must-ask-about-the-claimed-economic-benefits
   …Having spent more than 35 years researching and consulting on mining projects and mineral policy in the Pacific, I have noted several important economic characteristics of the mining industry.
   First, the capital spend – the setup cost of an operation – is typically largely spent offshore. In the case of Trans-Tasman Resources, currently seeking to fast-track seabed mining off the Taranaki coast, this amounts to 95 percent of the $1 billion construction estimate. This will largely be spent on the building in China of a huge, sophisticated barge and two 450-tonne seabed crawlers.
   The government’s recent Investment Boost policy will also mean 20 percent of this investment is an immediate tax deduction for the company – money lost offshore to the foreign investor.

   Second, any estimate of annual revenue, operational costs, taxation and distribution of net profit has to come with a caveat. Annual variations in all these factors are typical across the sector due to commodity price volatility, high rates of depreciation on capital expenditure, unexpected events, and exposure to changing operating costs….
   

6. As local body elections are due soon, ratepayers could look for councillors who were of a calibre that could exert pressure to halve the rules where practical, and halve the staff thus bringing down the rates.

   Also an attempt to resile from ‘general competence’* which enables Councils to run up debts a ratepayers growing burden which seems to work more for the benefit of construction firms using the Council’s ability to borrow at cheaper rates, and appealing to their love of being in charge of notable construction of whatever sort which is often planned on an elaborate scale. In truth we are almost income-reduced to vertical corrugated iron insulated with batts and pine boarding (if we can afford to buy back our own pine that previous governments have sold to foreigners); and which could be very striking and suitable.
   * On ‘General Competence’ with a rural POV.
   https://researcharchive.lincoln.ac.nz/server/api/core/bitstreams/aa565793-b1ac-4309-b81a-3a9b3a701a60/content
   Perriam , Fran (2002)
   The powers of General Competence in local and
   regional government
   KELLOGG/PRIMARY INDUSTRY COUNCIL
   RURAL LEADERSHIP PROGRAMME 2002
   ‘THE POWERS OF GENERAL COMPETENCE’
   The coming of age of local government
   Or the rise and rise of bureaucratic control
   Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the Local Government Bill before parliament relates to the increase in power given to local government to be involved in a wide range of activities. This power has been termed the “Powers of General
   Competence” and allows councils to be involved in any lawful activity. The emphasis is on local decision making, rather than the imposition of limitation by central government. The rural ratepayer comprises an electoral minority of 6%, but pays an estimated 20% of total rates because the rating system is based on capital or land value. Therefore any increase in local council activity will have a major financial impact on the rural sector…

   Here is a suitable case study for consideration of better treatment of citizens by local councils with more adequate rules, not the rigid, draconian ones at present. And
   if there were practical, helpful rules there would be fewer administration staff needed.

   https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/566568/pensioners-camped-out-at-hamilton-carpark-for-years-face-uncertain-future
   …The Classics Museum in the Hamilton suburb of Frankton has allowed people living in campervans to park on its land for $50 a week.
   Hamilton Classics Museum owner Tom Andrews said for the first eight to 10 years he had let people stay there for free, later adding a small charge to try and dissuade masses of people from staying there.
   Many of them are elderly and on low incomes, with around 20 people staying in the carpark at the moment….

   Andrews said the council over the years have turned a blind eye to a lot of the overstaying, but a new council employee has come along and “laid down the regulations” to him two weeks ago.
   The council disputes this, saying they have raised the compliance issue with Andrews a number of times, the first being in 2018.
   “For a long time, staff have acted with kindness and patience towards resource consent breaches at the site,” Hamilton Council planning guidance director Grant Kettle said.
   However, Kettle said staff had received a complaint that raised a serious fire safety risk at the site due to the number and proximity of the campervans being allowed to stay there…
   Andrews said there is no fire safety issue as there is around 1.5 acres of land for the campervans to space out, and rather that was a “red herring”.
   “If they want the campervans further apart, all they have to do is ask,” Andrews said…

   “Council has not taken any formal enforcement action as a result of the breach of the resource conditions the site should operate under. No one is being forced out by the council,” Kettle said.
   Kettle said staff had asked Andrews to let council which option they were intending to take within a couple of weeks of the initial meeting on 25 June.
   …However Andrews said…”Under that process, they’d make me spend well in excess of $100,000 to make, what they consider, the site compliant with toilet blocks etc., which I am not prepared to do,” he said.
   “We’re obviously not getting revenue much from it, and really doing it as a service.”
   Andrews added the people staying at the carpark currently are all self-contained.

   It seems this should be a storm in a teacup, but officious officialdom becoming rampant when needy people can be pushed around, results in it being escalated. (The health and safety and fire risk regulations are perfect for blunt but heavy weapons to victimise the poor.) I like that bit about “For a long time, staff have acted with kindness and patience…” and I suggest that Hamilton continue to act that way and set a new standard that the main body of Local Government NZ can put into its head for advising all councils on how to serve their ratepayers best.

   This would be a perfect opportunity to bring the three things that I think should guide us well, as we move into the climate and poverty abyss looming, and those are KINDNESS, PRACTICALITY and THOUGHTFULNESS. I won’t put tolerance in there as it can be overdone. The three considerations mentioned would result in a better-running NZAO, with better conditions and probably a better economy than this repressive nasty one being driven by the terminally self-centred ‘sorted’ people who have been able to do well for themselves, and consider they are some sort of gods.

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