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6:00 am, November 1st, 2025 - 43 comments
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Open mike is your post.
For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.
The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).
Step up to the mike …
Brooke Van Velden is at it again
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/577471/asbestos-experts-fear-government-move-will-see-watered-down-safety-system
Asbestos regulations are too onerous for business. A real life Cruella Deville.
A big Vale! to David Russell as previously long term head of Consumer.
Decades of work getting citizens a fairer deal, holding up shoddy manufacturing, cold ranking of products of all kinds for performance, quality and price.
Dogged, calm, and a real fighter in a mean capitalist arena.
Rest In Peace.
Dad had a subscription to Consumer when I was growing up. Probably a distinct influence on my politics in terms of the need for collective controls on standards.
Dad on the other hand, like to buy things 😁
Consumer lost government funding in 2007, and managed to switch to a subscription model. Impressive to be maintaining that all this time.
https://www.consumer.org.nz/articles/our-farewell-to-a-consumer-champion
I thought they lost funding in the early 70s? But yes David Russell was an exceptional representative of NZ consumers. That is a loss.
[Please use only the approved e-mail address for your comments, thanks – Incognito]
Mod note
Apologies, weird spellcheck changing "hotmail to "hotness" lolzzz.
No, that wasn’t it; it was a very different e-mail address.
Thanks for letting me know.
(Lol) This is how we can solve the nation's economic woes:
* we cut a deal with China, allowing them to build a big naval base at the Chatham Islands (reserving rights for NZers to catch crayfish there in perpetuity)
* in return, they give us enough money to pay off our national debt
China is our biggest trading partner so it makes sense, and they'll probably invade one day anyway (why build a huge navy if you aren't going to use it?).
Thinking outside the box!
Love it
It's not difficult to conceive of Queenstown-Wanaka as a colony of Australia already.
Far and away the largest "international" tourist, largest and unrestricted house buyer over $3m, largest business investor.
Fly in and out directly so little if any contact with any other NZ region or city.
Low user of healthcare outside ski season.
Only stay here a total of 6 weeks a year tops.
And we keep the trout!
Plenty of Oz self managed super $$$$ pumped into luxury air bnb's. There was a grand design episode on one.
Was there a year ago with Aussies who were shocked at NZ prices for the same items from the same outlet…woolies.
Didnt feel like you were in NZ tbh especially wandering around ayrburn.
Wonderful place 40 years ago, horrible now and best avoided. A prototype for 'Trump Gaza'.
I used to work there few decades ago, some graffiti stood out..
"Queenstown : greed capital of NZ".
And its only gotten worse. I suppose updated could be "Queenstown : place of the Haves..and the Have-Nevers "..)
Still, there are plenty of nice parts of same to walk/bike and wander/wonder around. (and still free : )
Apparently a lot of very wealthy Tahitians have caught the Queenstown bug and have bought up big.
That was 40 -50 years ago, and there still here. Unfortunately the vast majority of property owners here are New Zealanders, and they seem to monopolise the WTF sales that occur from time to time.
If NZ wants to zero it's "national debt" it can have the RBNZ buy it all back and then write off all the debt owned by the RBNZ. This has no impact on the RBNZ ability to function as like most central banks it already uses its monopoly currency issuing capacity to spend (or lend) as it goes. In fact this recently happened during the QE program for all the bonds which came due as bond repayments to the RBNZ wash out against profits returned to treasury by the RBNZ anyway.
Why would they bother with the chilly ol' Chathams when they've already got a toehold in the Cooks?
For those who sometimes feel powerless, Kate from Action Station sent me a way to fight the power …Here is a link with Info and survey form..(its a small PDF)
@ Labour Party,
I can find only one recent policy document on your website: https://www.labour.org.nz/media/vbyf0pxe/the-new-zealand-future-fund.pdf
Please do us a favour and get your communication & PR affairs organised and provide links to policy documents unless you think they’re only of importance & interest to a select few.
Thank you in advance.
Did we get that from Coc last election.
Don’t know/can’t remember, but why do you ask?
I am in hospital, so any searching is limited. I wondered if that was usual at this stage of the cycle?
Finally, a scientist speaks truth to power – the timid softly-softly approach by VCs just doesn’t cut the mustard; they’re not leaders but managers.
https://newsroom.co.nz/2025/10/29/winner-of-top-science-prize-blames-batshit-budget-for-brain-drain/
He was on a work trip in Te Puke having KFC with a buffoon (https://newsroom.co.nz/2025/11/01/the-secret-diary-of-the-luxon-trump-dinner/), so he could have delegated it to Dr Shane Reti who’s the Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology and Minister for Universities.
Thanks for posting that report. Scientists want to do good science – if not here, then…
At least Braunias still has plenty of material to work with.
Here’s a very good interview with Dr Mehr: https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2019010404/top-scientist-calls-out-woeful-funding-arrangements
At the end, he says that the problem [here in NZ] with funding science is that Government has a lot of different priorities with unknown outcomes long-term of each decision because there are too many decisions to make and there are too many outside interests that are diverting attention away from really sensible investments in NZ’s science establishment.
To me, that highlights a couple of issues:
It also seems to imply a lack of a bigger picture, a lack of vision. No plan or a medium/long term goal.
Unless the plan is the continued weakening of the state's capability.
Funding would be hard for any bean counters in this mob to justify. Lacking imagination they can't see how investment would pay off.
QED
National-led governments tend to the view that the private sector should take more responsibility for funding research and development so the government doesn't have to cover for them, which in theory would be a credible position, but in practice is a laughably stupid position because NZ's private sector is utterly shit at R&D (among other things). Just look at Fonterra, which has a R&D centre in Palmerston North but has just sold off its leading brands because it wants to focus on its traditional role of supplying commodities.
No, the evidence is abundantly clear that there has to be a stable base of government funding to attract & keep private investment in a nation’s science sector. Peter Gluckman’s SSAG Report presented this evidence, but the Coalition chose to ignore it, time after time, which amounts to denial & rejection.
I fully agree with your other points.
A first world nation does not do what National is doing.
It has pure research, both at university and Crown organisational level.
It also has industry research, connected to both universities and corporates in those sectors.
It has local development of a skilled workforce via support to graduate students and also brings in foreign students.
Having anything less than this is a sign its talk about ambition for the future is no more than political posturing.
Those parties that are serious about this will also have plans for development of investment funds etc.
The Coalition is shaking up the whole publicly funded science system in NZ in a frantic musical chairs, and removing a few chairs in the confusing chaos, hoping that the public doesn’t see what’s really going on. It’s cynical smoke & mirrors.
I can only hope that a Labour-led coalition will do better but it might be forlorn hope.
They lost so many with the re-organisation, expecting people to lose jobs and then re-apply after a time with no job. Many just left.
They now have these combined organisations – where those of a range of different sectors are pooled together. With what purpose, apart from saving money and a reduced capacity to achieve anything substantial?
They will be required to focus on less, but even then would likely lack the required number of specialists staff (and constrained by budget limitations as per future recruitment) to be successful. It all appeared to lack any direction or purpose (apart from amalgamation to save money for landlords etc).
Indeed, the Coalition is manufacturing polycrisis after polycrisis with eyes & ears wide open. It falsely believes that this will increase efficiency, productivity, and prosperity. Its death stare is on economic growth out of the ashes of annihilation & destruction – this is pure ideological madness and cult-like behaviour. The smart ones are leaving.
https://newsroom.co.nz/2025/10/24/govt-policy-has-produced-an-educational-polycrisis/
Politics is an unpredictable game and who knows, we might get a large swing here in NZ in the General Election next year. However, it’ll be the usual suspects (Parties) in Parliament with few (and small) policy surprises.
https://www.politico.eu/article/dutch-election-2025-winners-losers-rob-jetten-geert-wilders-frans-timmermans/
Incog-not quite the case I'm afraid. While far-right Geert Wilders' party lost 11 seats it has been little reported that two other far-right parties picked up 4 and 8 seats (Fvd and JA21), so the far-right extremists actually gained a seat. None of them are likely to be in power, however.
Compounding this, the main Left-wing party lost seats and the Christians gained a lot of seats. So not a very good result for the Left.
Yes, overall, there appears to be not much of a shift but the electorate seems to be coalescing more towards the centre wanting ‘stability’. I think that NZ isn’t too dissimilar in that sense but our political spectrum is narrower and less diverse (or ‘colourful’) than the Dutch one – they don’t have our ridiculous and distorting 5% threshold, for one.
I quite like the 5%. It means that you have to impress a reasonable portion of the electorate to be a credible political party. I could live with it going to 4%.
If it was dropped to say 2% you could well have 10 or more parties arguing at coalition negotiations, some of these with obvious vested interests or simply nutters like the pro-gun or anti-vax (freedom!) parties.
I think the latest recommendation was 3.5%, which was thought the best balance. I tend to agree that this would be a good compromise for NZ at present.
I think that ‘nutters’ have a right in principle to seek parliamentary representation and this will strengthen the democratic processes and legitimacy – ‘nutters’ do already enter parliament on coattails of others and/or via Trojan horse tactics, and wield disproportional power behind the scenes. I think perceived risks to stable parliaments & governments is relatively low and these would be a measure of the calibre & quality of the politicians/representatives together with robust regulations (and Party discipline!). [NB I have many conflicting thoughts about the domineering influence of Party politics and loved reading On the Abolition of All Political Parties by Simone Weil (see https://thestandard.nz/open-mike-07-06-2023/#comment-1953153)]
On a somewhat happier note, in Argentina the much reported pro-Trump Milei's "landslide" win in Argentina was nothing of the sort.
His coalition of parties have only 93 of the 257 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, so he will have to compromise with parties that are not Trump sycophants to get legislation through.
ACC on a downward slide
https://www.thepost.co.nz/politics/360870795/acc-scales-back-prevention-work-internal-video-reveals
MFAT or agency in the PM's department providing direction to Luxon so he is not just schooled by Peters?
https://www.1news.co.nz/2025/11/01/luxon-warns-nz-should-advance-national-interests-now-more-than-ever/
The smart move is to replace the WTO with an ITO, transfer over the existing agreements, keeping the MFN rules (USA no longer compliant) and a new judiciary system (no USA control) agreed to by the EU and TPP+. Consultation with ASEAN and South Americas Mercosur and Pacific Alliance and also the African Union.
China (would) and the USA (when MFN rules compliant) could join.
(keeping the Arab League and OTS and EU+ group – UK, Norway informed too)