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- Date published:
5:30 pm, May 28th, 2026 - 12 comments
Categories: Daily review -
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Daily review is also your post.
This provides Standardistas the opportunity to review events of the day.
The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).
Don’t forget to be kind to each other …
The mystery of the missing lobbyists’ papers has been solved!
Chris Luxon was reminiscing about his days as airline manager and in a bout of nostalgia he folded paper planes and flew them out of the window of his office on the 9th floor of the Beehive. Oh, how he laughed! The CAA was not amused and has given him a stern warning not to do this again. Nicky No Boats suggested folding paper boats next time and flushing them down the toilet but this would risk hitting a fatberg and sinking, removing much of the joy and thus going against the Kondo dogma of the Coalition.
Is Luxon's 9th floor/Upper Room window openable?
For the love of God, surely, it would have a child-lock!!
I think the tiny top window can be opened a little, just far enough for a paper plane to go through – it does take a bit of practice but Luxon is a former professional.
I'm calling it, the "Ugly" budget.
I think it should be able to open wide and there should be a special ceremony held when the country has decided to honour Icarus' last trick.
Phew! I thought for a moment that sorted Kiwis might have to make do with a little less, but of course I needn't have worried – just silly pre-budget jitters.
However, in these cash-strapped times, here's an idea that could have come from deputy PM Seymour's 'Hon' ACT colleague Andrew Hoggard, Associate Minister for the Environment (is that still a thing?) Outsource govt minute taking and other record-keeping functions to private providers, and the embarrassment of this current missing document debacle need never happen again. I reckon Fonterra's up for it, and we don't want to give the impression of being a banana republic, eh Mr Luxon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic
‘Fool me once…‘ Enrol to vote, and make sure everyone you know does the same!
https://vote.nz/enrolling/enrol-or-update/enrol-or-update-online
" Andrew Hoggard, Associate Minister for the Environment (is that still a thing?)"
Ha!
Ha!
A major criticism of the Coalition’s zeal for speed, growth, and efficiency is their narrow-minded focus on metrics and quantities. In their view, value is derived from size, weight, or volume. This ignores other aspects and quality that arguably are equally if not more important. AI fits into their metric-focussed thinking and narratives, of course, but faster doesn’t mean better.
https://theconversation.com/like-drinking-from-a-firehose-what-its-like-to-be-the-human-in-the-ai-loop-280708
Indeed, there’s no such thing as a free pāua pie.
"Metrics and quantities" brought to mind the words of another problematic CEO, this time at Fonterra – he also was Willis' boss, back in the day.
I reckon Christopher Luxon can’t relinquish his current CEO post soon enough – just needs to secure his knighthood and he’ll be off.
So many big businesses are being led astray by witless wunderkinds and professional prodigies aka CEOs. They should not lead nation governments but without exception they believe that their exceptional skills & gifts are transferable to any domain of power & control. Sadly, too many Kiwis believe the tabloids and fall for the myth.
We are a little country that can only support 5m people, in a relatively comfortable way. But we are being made to support say 1 million in style, and 4 million in a way that is not good for their welfare, and bad for the economy. It is not an answer to have large numbers of poor being virtually piled into heaps ready to be swept away like autumn leaves should be, but often aren't.
We are not running the whole country well but there are powerful cabals, very effective. who are based on the best systems from overseas, mainly around agriculture and growing meat etc, major industries.. They can manipulate the economy for themselves, other people are collateral expense.
Good research is not used; not countenanced if it doesn't suit those happily accreting capital. Wilding pines are driving everyone wild. Most pines grown here are exotic, very good at Kaiangaroa during the awful Depression last century, but since then? Intelligent mixing of species to cater for various needs would have been recommended by the experts of whom there have been many, but our political system was not formed to be effective, just to pull together an economy and then gain a better,fairer
distribution.
So when business could upset that. it did, and continues. Suck it up, you suckers they think. We have all heard odd comments that display this mindset.
And now this –
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/environment/596631/wilding-pines-tackling-our-worst-weed
As Kurt Vonnegut said resignedly – 'So it goes.'
In the UK, Palestine Action activists who broke into and did moderate damage in an Israeli drone factory near Brighton have been imprisoned for a year. They have then been tried by jury where
-they and their lawyers were banned from explaining their motivations, or using defenses related to property damage, but to stop greater harm (in this case, targetting of gazan non-combattants, including children, by drone operators)
-the jury could not be informed of their legal right to acquit on the basis of conscience
-the jury was banned from knowing that sentencing would be under much harsher terrorist action charges, ie, they thought the defendents were being tried solely for property damage.
From 2:50 min below.
https://www.doubledown.news/watch/2026/may/15/what-the-uk-did-is-shocking-no-ones-allowed-to-talk-about-it
And of course, in the UK you can be arrested for simply holding a sign saying ‘I support Palestine Action’