MEDIAWATCH: Q+A Review – Cyclone Gabrielle Special
The scale of disaster from Cyclone Gabrielle is barely being comprehended right now and Q+A starts asking the questions.
The total lack of resilience from our cheap internet providers who have gamed us with the usual NZ bullshit lightweight regulation alongside the cheap roading network.
There is real criticism over everything because nothing was built to withstand this climate event.
We need a total rethink of cvil defence, a total rethink of how we fund it and we need to tax the fucking rich to rebuild from this and prepare for the future!
The extraordinary rebuilding and adaptation costs NZ has to undertake must not be borne by the poor, it must be borne by this who have profited most from the pollution that has caused this dystopia.
Two of the largest global warming emitters in NZ are Z Energy and Fonterra. Last year Z Energy made a $269million profit and Fonterra made $583million in profit – shouldn’t they get a special tax to help rebuild from the climate change damage these companies produce?
What about Forestry and the slash they produce?
ASB made $822 million in profit alongside other Australian Banks making Billions. Shouldn’t those who have speculated pay for the poverty and inequality their profit margins generate?
Shouldn’t people earning over $250 000 per year pay a new top tax rate?
Shouldn’t we look at a financial transaction tax, sugar tax and wealth tax while reducing GST and taking not off food?
The 30 year neoliberal experiment cut the NZ State to the bone and the political project for each National and ACT Government is to strangle off revenue to the State so the State can’t redistribute it. That way citizens don’t become ‘reliant’ on providing subsidy to every day living, because once people get used to having services that work, they demand it politically.
This story about Hospital capacity spells out we don’t just need more drs and more nurses, we need more hospitals!
The Mayor of Napier Kirsten Wise points out we can no longer keep allowing the Developers build on floodplains.
Grant is on, this is his moment to shine.
He is arguing the wins, acknowledging the losses. Electricity is going to be a problem.
Points to a wide array of support packages, but the amounts seem very small against the challenge.
Acknowledges crops and herds have been damaged and is suggesting regional specific development.
Defends the use of Covid money because it was an unknown event, the Cyclone damage is very different and can be specifically targeted.
Defends Government spending policy vs inflationary pressures.
Is very clear that he intends to lift the debt thresholds to answer the challenges we face.
He has oversight and insight in how to juggle spending and budgets to maximise Government spending.
Is clear to the construction industry that they now have plenty of work for the second half of this year.
Jack asks a good question about EQC. Grant simply states the money will be found.
He is clear that the NZ Government will step up to the obligations Cyclone Gabrielle has created.
Jack demands to know why our infrastructure is so frail, Grant admits it is woeful underinvestment. Argues Labour have put billions into infrastructure.
This is the moment for Grant too step up to with some truly big thinking here.
The Insurance Industry is on. Jack has to ask if the greedy new way the Insurance Company’s will start charging is beneficial for them our us.
It’s a genuinely funny question.
Surely the time now is for a new public insurance that covers everyone for basic disaster.
Next on is the appalling way the telecommunications failed!
2Degrees, Vodaphone and Spark have betrayed us!
They sold us cheap internet on an even cheaper network.
Instead of building resilience into their systems, they have a mere 4-8hours battery system.
Just like Councils allowing Developers to build on floodplains, the Telecommunications industry have been allowed by Government to build a bullshit network with no resilience and we are paying that price right now.
The Government must immediately look an an omnibus of legislative change as we rapidly move to adaptation and one of those new focuses should be on the Telecommunications industry and force them to spend to upgrade the resilience of our communications network.
‘Fuck allowing them to do it themselves Chippy, kick them in the balls now!
Not one Radio tower was knocked out. Not one!
2Degrees was making $30million in profit in 2020 before the made a Billion dollar merger with Orcon!
Vodaphone turns over $2billion a year while Spark tuns over almost $4billlion, yet these greedy fucks can’t build resilience into a telecommunications network they have addicted us to!
FUCK THEM!
They all pay lip service to resilience but have built their empires off the back of the cheapest network possible and it has had real life real world consequences.
How the Christ did all the radio towers manage to continue operating?
We were led away from Radio as our means of communication during a disaster for the fast exciting connection of the internet yet it has failed!
Regulate now Chippy, regulate while the incandescent rage at their naked greed is this high.
In an hour Q+A managed to give a 360 perspective to the challenges we face. This is public broadcasting at its best.
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Yeah if only New Zealand destroyed it’s only wealth creation tool (i.e. stuff we can export) then everything will be golden! Oh wait; New Zealand is responsible for 0.1% of all global emissions. Global emissions respect borders about as much as Putin and the US. Any cuts we make in our domestic/export demand will be met by countries that don’t give a shit but that we have “free” trade agreements with. You see how dumb this all is? Given that New Zealand’s agriculture is actually far more environmentally friendly and sustainable than just about every other country, shooting ourselves in the foot to ultimately make everything worse seems pretty stupid, right?
The state of our rivers suggest that our farmers are ‘environmentally friendly”, and of course, they are aided and abettted by hardline right wingers like you that think that all regulations are evil, and that businesses should be able to pollute at will. Right down to putting lead back in pain and petrol.
Mind you, you also support Donald Trump, the most racist president in recent US history.
Oh so you think we should be as dumb as the countries that are doing squat!
The Chch earthquakes high lighted the poor state of EQC from the financial strength to the fact it was running on empty as far as personnel were concerned . The difference between how EQC handled the situation in Chch to the event in Kaikoura was very obvious.
The countries future is now going to be decided and as Labour are in charge how they handle this going forward will decide their future . Labour got themselves returned at the last election on the strength of their handling of the covid crisis .They have 10 months to prove their worth again. Simon Bridge suffered a backlash when he was critical of Labours covid handling and Luxon will need to do more than just mouth criticism he needs to have alternatives .
put a Carbon Tax on the big emitters to pay for a massive infrastructure upgrade.
Any added tax would be passed onto the consumer and administration costs are lost . Still Labour might like it as tax and spend is their catch cry
Well then what the fuck would you do? Slash welfare and public services? Probably yes. One day we are going to have to raise taxes, we cannot just let rich pricks get away with coining it up while our schools and hospitals fall apart.
Might want also point out that John Key (your idol) slashed access to student loans to pay for the CHC rebuild. That includes putting a limit on 5 years for student loan access, meaning that medical students couldnt get access to fund their fees for thier final two years. How is this fair. RIch pricks like you need to pay up, and not let everyone else carry the can, right back then those on benefits had to bail out the BNZ in 1990/91
Getting angry and blaming is a waste of intellectual time and energy that could be spent on putting forward better ways of saving ourselves. The bunch of right wing trollops that come here just to point the finger at the other side and get a frisson from an imaginary win and yelling yah boo are a waste of space.
Tax and spend is a bloody good policy. Tax the profit-gougers whose greed has been unpunished for far too long, and spend that tax for the public good – something that most selfish, greed-motivated right-wingers abhor.
They like to set up an unfair system, pretend that it is fair, then profit-gouge by exploiting the poor.
Too many of the dumb-ass poor are conned into believing in their flawed systems.
We can all utter expletives until the cows come home about the situation, however, you know Mr Bradbury that unless a 21st century model MoW, 100% state owned, govt run with a minister that is accountable and upon whose desk the buck stops (no more “its an operational matter…”) no private enterprise, SOE or various collection of private contractors are going to have the capacity or ongoing consistency of planning, works and maintenance to carry out the industrial scale rebuild of infrastructure that this country needs.
So if he isn’t already considering it the message to Chippy is REINSTATE THE MoW……and tinkering with any reports on Public Private Partnerships should be thrown in the round filing cabinet……
Mark Todd of Ockham Residential talked a lot of sense in today’s programme – even referred to the Three Waters proposal positively. He saw it as a project that would get our nationwide, near-useless infrastructure relatively quickly up to standard.
But there would have to be cross-party support for that to happen. i.e. take the politics out of it and just get it done
Won’t happen – not in election year. Or thereafter.
So batten down the hatches, folks, for more climate change catastrophes, more unnecessary deaths, more roads impassable, more homes and businesses trashed, more and longer power and communications outages and therefore more billions of dollars wasted doing patch-up jobs for decades to come…
Welcome to NZ, the tourists’ mecca – once was paradise!
RNZ was relatively bullet proof for a reason with their radio network–imagine the Cyclone without RNZ–no thank you!
• Re–nationalise power generation and supply, sod the “lines companies”
• New Ministry of works and public infrastructure–bye Fulton Hogan…
‘Surely the time now is for a new public insurance that covers everyone for basic disaster.’
Be careful what you wish for. A state insurance scheme (funded by us taxpayers) that covers everyone for basic disaster means private insurers will dump all the unprofitable bits on us.
Any state insurance cover or compensation needs to carefully distinguish between the rich who recklessly build on clifftops or beside the sea for the views (Fuck them!) and the poor whose only choice has been to buy or build their homes on an occasional flood plain.
‘Surely the time now is for a new public insurance that covers everyone for basic disaster.’
Be careful what you wish for. A state insurance scheme (funded by us taxpayers) that covers everyone for basic disaster means private insurers will dump all the unprofitable bits on us.
Any state insurance cover or compensation needs to carefully distinguish between the rich who recklessly build on clifftops or beside the sea for the views (Fuck them!) and the poor whose only choice has been to buy or build their homes on an occasional flood plain.
Every now and then nature produces an event that man’s infrastructure cannot allow for. This happened last weekend. No doubt some things were built in the wrong places but it’s no use thinking the Thames coast road can ever be built so that it is impervious to a cyclone.
And all the plains and river valleys made of beautiful alluvial soil; how does anyone think they got there? What are they made of? Why are they so flat from one side of the valley to the other? It’s because they were deposited by eons of weather events just like last weekend where the whole valley fills with stormwater and the soil it has picked up on it’s way down the hillsides. We live in a dynamic world . What would you have the government do to guard against the next eruption of Taupo? . There is no way , we just have to get on with potting it back together every nw and then.
D J S
While I don’t mind the idea of a government-owned insurer that could get some cost efficiencies it is unlikely to stop premiums from rising. Insurance is just a gamble regarding bad events happening & with the climate risk getting worst the premium to insure against that risk will increase also.
I would like to see the developers of any property over the last 20 years or so that will need remedial action charged with some sort of repair fee based on whatever margins they made from the development.
Inflation and living costs will increase further after this event so benefits must be lifted immediately Grant.
Gordon Campbell at scoop
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2302/S00032/on-disaster-politics.htm
Luxon on how to fund recovery after the depradations of the atmosphere river? of C. Gabrielle:
Luxon was later asked if National could still deliver tax cuts considering the expected bills from the cyclone damage. “Absolutely,” he responded.
“What we have got to make sure is we do a proper assessment of what the damage actually is and what support is really needed and then we make sure we apply those funds with good economic responsibility and we are prudent economic managers because it is taxpayers dollars and most important is we actually get things done.”
Gobble-gobbledegook
…Overall, New Zealanders can be thankful that when disasters have struck here recently, our central and local body politicians ( eg. Bob Parker) have largely risen to the challenge. It helps that communities are also at their best at such times. Once the Pike River tragedy happened, PM John Key displayed the interpersonal skills required, and did so again during his personal response to the Christchurch and Kaikoura earthquakes. It was Gerry Brownlee’s handling of the Christchurch rebuild that copped most of the criticism….!
In a bad case of sour grapes, ACT Party leader David Seymour has even complained about how “Labour loves its disaster politics” – as if Cyclone Gabrielle has been some kind of socialist plot to make Labour look good. Seymour should bide his time. It is not the response to the immediate devastation that really matters. As Brownlee would confirm, it’s the putting it right that counts…
Already, Chris Hipkins has made it clear that he is a risk-averse politician. It would be surprising though, if he entirely passes up this chance to advocate for significant policies (and regulations) in response to the threats posed by climate change. The post-Gabrielle environment offers another rare chance for the government to rewrite what is deemed to be politically possible. Voters will be looking to the government now, more than ever, to provide them with adequate protection against the next round of weather-borne threats being sent our way by the warming of the planet.
Footnote: Talking of opportunities… As the government hands out Gabrielle compensation packages to all and sundry, wouldn’t this be the ideal time to raise benefit levels? The people and communities in Northland, East Cape, Gisborne, Flaxmere, Wairoa etc etc were already subsisting on perilously low incomes, even before the cyclone struck. The benefit system is a delivery mechanism that’s already in place. All it awaits is a centre-left government willing to top it up.
This finishes with some galvanising music from after a Jamaica storm by Will Gilbert Lovindeer I think. Let’s get some Patea Maori Club action to cheer us up (and all have a go after) – but from another iwi – there’s lots of tikanga out there. Can they be as good as at the 2022 rugby at Eden Park.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe8bwIIHyIA