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6:00 am, August 4th, 2025 - 58 comments
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Today's Posts (updated through the day):
Because it makes so much more sense to destroy communities and fund hospitals instead
New Post up:
Because it makes so much more sense to destroy communities and fund hospitals instead
What on earth has happened to Morning Report? The last bastion of intelligent and non-patronising news in NZ, it's now also joining the dumbing down bandwagon.
I gave up after the first 1/2 hour this morning, thanks to the non-stop yabbering between Ingrid and Corrin, which has been getting progressively worse over the last year. Are they being told to provide a running commentary of their personal views on a story, or doing it themselves and the boss thinks it's fine?
MR is slipping down the ranks for breakfast shows, and it's easy to see how. Thank goodness for Concert programme, and at least the RNZ website doesn't incessantly yabber.
RNZ’s flagship news programme Morning Report lost 22,100 listeners – or 6.2% of its audience
https://www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/360703624/thousands-nationwide-turn-rnz-radio-programmes
Are they being told to provide a running commentary of their personal views on a story, or doing it themselves and the boss thinks it's fine?
Good question. I've always been in favour of media presenters being allowed to be themselves, so performance naturally becomes medial. Like Hipkins, they feel compelled to reflect the average kiwi, who always struggles to figure anything out.
My guess is that their boss thinks their style is entirely suitable on that basis. I agree losing 6% is a worry for them, but the loss is relative to any noticeable gain by competitors. My hunch is that the loss in more likely due to a drift away from the establishment media generally. So easy to get the latest online now.
I do MR at times when I'm in the kitchen but like you I'd prefer a more thoughtful go at topics. Ingrid is a lot sharper than when she was weather presenter on tv, to her credit. Corrin valiantly tries to fill his empty head with thoughts, but it ain't easy…
Like Hipkins, they feel compelled to reflect the average kiwi, who always struggles to figure anything out.
But surely, this is hardly the way to increase their audience/hang onto the ones they already have? I was of the idea there is still a decent amount of people in this country who take issue with dumbing down of the media in general, and already avoid the commercial stations for that reason (the no ads is an added bonus). It's like they're deliberately self-imploding. A cut in their funding doesn't have to mean a cut in their presenter quality, surely?
My hunch is that the loss in more likely due to a drift away from the establishment media generally. So easy to get the latest online now.
Yes, I'd agree with that statement to a degree, but there's still something more tangible about listening to the radio, plus one can multi-task whilst listening. Thankfully the RNZ website still provides quality news and analysis.
1News: "Here are your latest headlines" – you can read them for yourselves.
The entire model RNZ is using is completely fucked in the social media age.
Joe Rogan was instrumental in Trump winning. An army of right wing online shows and the hyper-partisan Fox News act as MAGA cheerleaders.
In response, the Meidas Touch was created and it now outperforms Rogan.
A generation of people raised on the WWF wants tribal politics and their side as heroes and the other side as villains. Rogan vs. Meidas.
Youtubers often present far more detailed in depth stuff than the MSM like RNZ and TVNZ, who "news" often resembles little more than a long-form contempuous sneer at their audiences and what they think of its intelligence.
Yep, about 18 months ago the batteries went flat in the little old school transistor in the kitchen.
It was tuned to 101fm, my son jokes that it didn't pick up any other station. I haven't replaced them.
Occasionally I hear MR, sometimes in the car, sometimes on the work radio. Things haven't improved.
Yes, Morning Report is pretty dire now. It's clear that someone thinks it's a good idea to make it more populist. Sounds snobby I know but I don't listen to Morning Report to hear so much sport.
It seems to have increased since Nathan Rarere has been doing the pre-MR slot. For what it's worth I've sent messages about it. Then the other day there was time spent discussing the passing of Hulk Hogan as a sports item when WWE is not sport, it's entertainment.
The amount of time spent on business is another waste. The business editor reads a list of figures for currencies, Brent crude oil, stock exchange indexes etc which anyone who deals in those areas would already know and which for the rest of us are irrelevant. If something actually happens it will be a news item.
And then we're told they will be back about 30 minutes later to update the numbers. Really?
I listen to Morning Report via streaming because where I live rural we can't get radio reception. So there are few options. But it's become a hard listen at times.
For what it's worth I've sent messages about it.
I was considering doing that, but wondering if there's any point? I feel it would take a mass petition for the powers that be to register they have a problem. But not do anything of course.
Sometimes I can't help myself even if it is tilting at windmills.
I text them every couple of months, sometimes in response to coalition lies, sometimes to say well done if either Hipkiss or Dann have been persistent in trying to get Luxon to actually answer their questions rather than repeat his talking points, and most often to whinge about there being too much sport on Morning Report.
The demise of the legacy access media is a textbook example of inability to adapt to change.
Traditional media is losing power, especially in the area of politics, while social media is gaining power and over time will come to completely dominate the political discourse.
While this should have been obvious a decade ago, the traditional institutions for political expression – the mainstream parties, the legacy media – didn't adapt and move into that space, leaving an enormous vacuum into which the alt-right moved.
Morning Report is a great example of the growing irrelevance of the legacy media and it's ongoing inability to adapt to the new way of doing politics in the new civic square. Part of the problem is rather than reach out and employ influencers and podcasters and Youtubers the legacy MSM has stubbornly stuck to rotating around an increasingly diminishing MSM ecosystem the same faces who have presided over failure everywhere, whilst clinging to aging, over-paid and completely out-of-touch "celebrity" presenters and opinion piece writers whose last remaining "asset" is the institutional privileges of power like press gallery membership, access to power and the opportunities for well paid sinecures in PR
A great example of how captured and out of touch the MSM is with people these days has been the absolute gaslighting of the public over the cost of living and butter prices specifically. Rather than attempt to challenge power and asking tough questions about the roles, place and responsibilities of organisations like Fonterra the MSM instead provided a platform for the neoliberal elites to lecture people about how lucky we are to have to pay $20+ for a kilo of butter.
In other words, Morning Report and the rest of them (Seven Sharp, etc) increasingly identify with and act as apologists for neoliberalism, babbling incoherent flimflammery and "lifestyle light entertainment" padding to mask their growing irrelevance.
Ingrid is dire. Corin is fine, or he would be if he wasn’t working with Ingrid.
Ingrid effortlessly drags the whole show down with her bland and mundane comments and toothless interviews.
Yes, she is dire. But I'm sure she wasn't this irritating when she first got the job. Just slightly irritating.
Pretty accurate summary BG. Dann runs hot and cold for me. Hipkiss can occasionally rise to the occasion but very rarely. I groan at the patter between items which to me often sounds like the sort of vacuousness I'd find on commercial breakfast FM radio if I listened to it more.
National pinned. I hope they use a large, stainless steel pin? The scurvy creeps.(And another good RNZ article : )
Lol the irony….
Though some did…(albeit putting the best face forward !)
Last (final?) words from Luxury Luxon….
If we want to save NZ, just say NO .
If you want to get all the barnacles off the boat, you have to interrupt the voyage and careen – which involves taking the boat out of the water altogether ….
Indeed. Altho the NACT1 vessel is so rotten (to the core?) it might not even make it to port : )
National now wants to open up the conservation estate so more concessions can be granted to business interests.
In the PM's view the current concession system is broken, so "[to create] more jobs, more growth, and higher wages, we’re going to fix the Conservation Act to unleash a fresh wave of concessions – including tourism, agriculture, and infrastructure – where it makes sense.”
Of course, what makes sense to the PM won't make sense to people who care about the outdoors and who see the conservation estate as a public asset to be held on trust for all NZers.
National's business mates don't want a concession; they want a padlock.
And why agriculture is on the list is a mystery. That sector already gets a free lunch from NZ’s water resources.
I doubt if Luxon has ever had a 20kg pack on or stayed in a hut in his life.
More from the NACT1 blame book of : It wuz Labour. (RNZ with actual analysis on )
Shame Jones, with typical bombast, exclaims, hand on
heartit (when hasn't he got his hand on it ?)The Reality :
NACT1 were, and are being, told
Greenpeace's Russel Norman ( a man I greatly respect)
And Consumers Jon Duffy (Ditto) calls it..
A fun take on the current scene: https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2025/08/03/must-read-in-camera-and-off-the-record-social-media-and-the-epstein-conspiracy/
Reading body language to decode political posturing is innovative:
People just go missing. The mystery lasts a moment, then everyone moves on. When hell is other people, thing become less hellish when you eliminate hell-raisers. Just taking out the trash, like Israel. Social darwinism works by numbers. Subtract that one over there! Now that one! Democracy is the system for organising the method.
Big Brother….is orange?
As the Ministry of trumptruth rewrites History…(and this is the Smithsonian FFS!)
The orange fascist is getting worse….
It appears that RNZ has not got the full story.
The "temporary" placard has been removed but will be replaced.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/03/smithsonian-trump-impeachment-exhibits
Time will tell if the display is replaced.
It may appear that way to you…however a look at the Guardian 2nd header maybe reveals more…(as in, I am sure there is already major Smithsonian pushback against the fascist Trump pressure incl Legal ! )
This is maybe where RNZ got the initial story. And it is full…of fascist Trumps attempts to rewrite American History (some already successful : (
Also not content with targetting African Americans of today…the fascist Trump is already honouring confederate Generals…..earlier (confederates winning ?!)
fascist Trump confederate update…(note the slimy way it has been done !)
There is much more of fascist trumps rewriting of History to suit his racist/political view. Look it up. If you really want the full story…
Ah! “fascist”
An imprecise overused and degraded last century buzzword
Emphasised and repeated ad nauseam to yell “stop thinking!”
Perhaps it can be explained exactly how an authoritarian populist doing exactly that which his support base ‘democratically’ elected him to do is labelled a “fascist”?
However you would like to colour it, trump sure looks fascistic…..this from someone who knows him well.
And obviously events since….even moreso.
When you start thinking…let us know : )
That John Kelly?
“John Kelly pretended to be a ‘tough guy,’ but was actually weak and ineffective, born with a VERY small ‘brain.’ He had a hard time functioning in a political world, and was truly an exhausted and beaten man when I fired him,” Trump said on Truth Social
They do day a few intemperate things about each other!
Lol….trump and Truth Social is your thinking? I think…I will leave you to that.
That sounds remarkably similar to unthinking Coalition apologists when they mention majority, mandate, and Coalition Agreement. As if there’s no [downward] slide once they’re in office and get their greedy little hands on the levers. Their self-entitlement and arrogance grow and turn into hubris and their words & actions become increasingly unhinged.
https://theconversation.com/the-hubris-arc-how-visionary-politicians-turn-into-authoritarians-262562
Thanks for that link. It applies to politicians of all stripes.
Rather explains the captain's calls/one source of truth/two classes of subjects ("Yip. Yip. That's what it is") of the previous government just as well as the putative behavior of the present …
My cynicism begins to know no bounds!
I have no idea what you think it ‘explains’ but I’m glad to hear that you seem to feel ‘enlightened’ after reading it. BTW, ‘captain’s calls’ weren’t always what you seem to think they were. The term has been overused and misused by MSM to create headlines and by political opponent to create attack lines.
I hope your cynicism doesn’t cloud your thinking and acts like a cognitive bias; you wouldn’t be the first commenter here on TS to succumb to it.
Indeed! The cognitive bias on TS is one of its most endearing aspects.
In that case, I think you’ll find KB even more endearing and more to your liking. But you’re already familiar with it: https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-19-11-2021/#comment-1834919.
To find balance one must seek opinion from everywhere.
Becoming trapped in any echo chamber risks imbalance.
I concur. However, that doesn’t work in each & every case and can also backfire and actually deepen & strengthen pre-existing bias. Many people don’t realise that the internal echo chamber inside their heads is more important than external sources. This is one reason why I put considerable value on metacognition and I metacomment [as a pseudo-verb] here on TS (e.g., this recent comment thread: https://thestandard.org.nz/imported-culture-wars/#comment-2039880). So, you may be harbouring a wrong belief about yourself.
New post up
Because it makes so much more sense to destroy communities and fund hospitals instead
Yet another court case, this one in Australia, where the sex class of female is being debated. The Sex Discrimination Comissioner is arguing in the High Court that transwomen should be considered female and should be allowed protections of pregnant women.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/trans-women-should-have-legal-protections-available-to-pregnant-women-court-told/news-story/ae8101d7ef2490572eb8dd2a406148be
https://archive.ph/UTIQX
It's true that some TW desire to become pregnant, but they can't, and it's inconceivable that when the Australian Sex Discrimination Act was written in 1984 that the law makers were including the abstract desire of males to be pregnant.
Trans people have protection against discrimination on the basis of gender identity. What is being tested here is whether trans-identified males should be also protected on the grounds of sex. The UK Supreme Court recently ruled that sex means biological sex for the purpose of discrimination and equality law.
Why does it matter? Lots of reasons, here's one particular set.NZ hasn't had a test case yet, but LAVA are a Wellington based group of lesbians taking a case to the Human Rights Review Tribunal to establish if gender critical/sex realist views are worthy of protection under our Human Rights Act. LAVA were denied a presence at a Wellington event organised by Wellington Pride. The LAVA stall was going to display a map of Wellington sites of historical, political, and social significance to lesbians.
At the centre of this is whether lesbians are allowed to exclude trans-identified heterosexual males who say they are lesbian. If society says they are not allowed to do this, then homosexuality ceases to exist in discrimination law.
Thanks for posting this, and the links to the article in The Australian. I was just reading about the Sydney Sweeney controversy in the USA where she’s advertising jeans. I’m beginning to believe that we are in a Monty Python movie, and that’s before I start thinking about Trump
Does Nicola ben and jerry Willis know? (Peter Underwood of The Conversation via RNZ article, has many interesting links : )
Midway, I was wary of a Pyramid Scheme..however : )
More needed. Much more. For Everyone.
Wow that Verity Johnson column in Stuff today describing Luxon as "leadership filler" is a cold coffin nail.
This is the real kicker in the VJ article.
"Surely, I hear you say, Hipkins will get rolled before the next election? Surely Labour knows that whilst people like Chris Hipkins, they won’t vote him back in. And yes, that’s all true."
Hipkins remains too closely connected to the poor Labour result in 2023.Labour needs to act now.
yep.
Left voters relying on National remaining shit is really bad strategy.If National helicopter in a new leader who is charismatic and a good debater, they may get another term
I think Canada sucked up all the luck on the break-out talent with Carney.
Bland and ineffective managerial centrist politicians is an external indicator of the bankrupt decadence of late stage neoliberalism, and isn't confined to NZ.
Kier Starmer is a chinless wonder whose most likely claim to fame will be to be the last ever elected British Labour PM.
The EU liberal social democracies are largely governed by cowardly and colourless technocrats who spend most of their time living in a gilded cage of poltical denial.
The Democrats in the United States produce a never ending line of losers like Karmala Harris and establishment dems like Cuomo whilst doing everything they can to prevent change agents like AOC or Mamdani from gaining any power.
Labour under Hipkins will beat National under Luxon and three year after than Hipkins and Labour will lose to National under Bishop and decay away completely as a mainstream party after that, and Bishop will lose to a far right authoritarian party and Hipkins, Bishop and all the rest of them will end their days arrested on trumped up charges.
Well that turned dark
I suspect Sanctuary is doing a TiC- Tongue in Cheek. 🙂
I think Sanctuary was serious
Interesting that Lux rates 8% below National…
Unemployment is about to be posted at a 10 year high.
Inflation is staying high despite the Reserve Bank and this government colluding with massive austerity budgets and higher interest rates.
Public tax take is dragging future public budgets down into beyond 2030.
Luxon is shit at his job.
…and they just said on RNZ that Luxon was booed at the netball (which we all knew about) AND the Wearable Arts.
Trump’s 15% tariffs were another body blow for The Lux. All that sycophancy for nothing.
Inflation is 2.7% up from 2.5%. Middle of the target band can hardly be considered high.
I'm guessing your going to deny that the Reserve Bank deliberately and rapidly slowed the economy down.
My understanding would be that a lot of monetary policy decisions don't have much effect on inflation, one way or the other. If we are looking at recent OCR decisions the RBNZ seems to have been trying to accelerate the economy for about a year (decisions lowered the OCR).
On the other hand though since National has been running very much an austerity budget this is going to dictate the primary direction of the economy, it's certainly the reason for the economy sliding towards recession and unemployment going up by a lot. This is all fiscal, rather than monetary policy choices and what the RBNZ does relating to the overall economy is largely irrelevant to the overall direction of the economy because its comparatively ineffective.
The other important thing to say is that I think the RBNZ was way too aggressive in raising the OCR in 2022 to begin with. This was due to the causes of inflation at the time. There are some effects there relating to how that imported inflation spreads through the economy and maybe becomes more pro-longed. The main effects of this OCR hike is many rent hikes were implemented which then somewhat compounded the inflation and impacted renters. I don't think this did anything to lessen the NZ inflation rate, if anything it made the inflation episode more prolonged (by generating rent hikes).
This basically indicates the RBNZ could be equally as aggressive lowering monetary policy without harm, but it's still largely irrelevant compared to the fiscal policy decisions going on. The RBNZ could drop to zero OCR in a single decision and that still won't pull the economy up from its present recessionary trajectory.
A cold hard look at the reality of past history and present times, unfortunately. The tragedy is that countries with strong democratic backgrounds are sliding, and siding, with the dark side of humanity.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/aug/02/self-termination-history-and-future-of-societal-collapse?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
If cutting the amount of food provided in schools was not enough, the National Party now leaves no doubt, they organise education around the interests of their middle class voters.
For mine
Year 11 is too early for NCEA, as it requires too much assessment when the purpose is realisjng an attainment standard.
But the focus should be on a base standard retained and in more than numeracy/Maths/financial competence and literacy/English/communication. Also some sense of civics (history/social studies), science, languages and trades.
That should have been done with the age 15 to 16 for school leaving (an opinion I have had for c40 years – the 50% fail of SC left many without any sense of achievement).
Year 12 and year 13.
The requirement to take 5 subjects and pass 4, is sort of irrelevant to those on vocational pathways (especially those with periods in on the job training/various academy approaches).
It seems too middle class in concept (catering to those who want to be set apart from and above their peers). It's just a return to UE and Bursary/Scholarship pass/fail status.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/568917/explainer-what-s-replacing-ncea-and-how-to-have-your-say
Agree. The old UE & School Cert were a sorting mechanism, sorting society's winners and losers, that roughly equated to middle/upper middle and working class.
There should be a vocational option in years 12 & 13. I taught on BTec and City and Guilds courses last century in London, to those over 16 years who had failed to get qualifications at school. It's an option that suits many young people.
BTec Higher National Diplomas also could be used as a qualification to go onto Uni, as well as providing a vocational pathway.
The Americans have junior college (2 year) and community college. The former are more local (reducing cost) and can lead to a second 2 years to complete their tertiary education (in more major cities).
Stanford has Simmonds (vocational education), Reti (universities) and Seymour (partnership schools) to work with.
https://www.education.govt.nz/our-work/about-us/our-people/our-ministers