Open mike 06/12/2022

Written By: notices and features - Date published: - 45 comments
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45 comments on “Open mike 06/12/2022”

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      1. 1.1.1

        I see that Eddie Izzard (now in permanent girl mode – while pushing 60) failed in his bid to be the Labour candidate for Sheffield Central. The person selected was a local. Muslim woman.

      2. 1.1.2

        from that link,

        So, hurrah, to the bravery of the woman who heckled the first minister. And yes, it was uncomfortable to watch a room full of self-proclaimed feminists twiddling their pens, looking the other way, and refusing to acknowledge a fellow traveller who was angry and who was standing up for women and for trans rights. But she did us a favour because in the aftermath, Sturgeon made a startling admission – that the risks she had previously dismissed – that predatory men could seek to abuse a system to harm women – as not valid, do in fact exist.

        Wow. That's huge. Peaking on gender.

        Anyone know where she said this?

        1. 1.1.2.1

          Yesterday Nicola Sturgeon spoke at an event celebrating 30 years of the charity Zero Tolerance and its long running – and essential – commitment to ending violence against women

          For, as she accepted:

          ‘Much of what I’m going to say today is about male violence against women because it is men who commit violence against women. In my long experience, most men who commit violence against women don’t feel the need to change gender to do that. Those who do, my argument is we should focus on them because they are men abusing a system to attack women. What we shouldn’t do is further stigmatise a group of women who are already too stigmatised.’

          https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/is-nicola-sturgeon-now-guilty-of-transphobia/

        2. 1.1.2.2

          You might have missed this.

          The Charity Commission has launched a statutory inquiry into the transgender charity Mermaids after identifying concerns about its management.

          The regulator said the inquiry — its most serious form of investigation — was triggered by “newly identified issues” around the youth charity’s “governance and management”.

          https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/formal-inquiry-launched-into-transgender-charity-mermaids-kxgj2w9zl

          Susie Green resigned two days prior. But because of a staff revolt because she was not herself transgender

          https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/12/02/mermaids-boss-forced-staff-revolted-against-incapable-leadership/

          Mermaids had instigated a campaign to end the LBG groups charitable status.

              1. 1.2.1.1.1.1.1

                I see it was actually the Guardian being discussed, not the BBC. I am left with no idea where the writers of W1A invented a management structure where the main decision making revolves around avoidance of public criticism. Fortunately their contrived example of an implausible way for management to work results in a hilarious framework for writing comedy.

          2. 1.2.1.1.2

            … I don't want any women to be writing about gender because it gets too much kickback on social media, it should be done by the male specialist reporters, such as the health reporters.

            9m 55.

            In case someone thinks that's about management wanting to avoid controversy, it's not. You can listen to the rest of the interview to see how this is about ideology and fear.

              1. 1.2.1.1.2.1.1

                can't think of another time in recent history where such blatant sexism has been expressed by an otherwise progressive person (presumably). Mindblowing really and an exemplar of the whole damn thing. At least it's out in the open.

    1. 2.1

      A former journalist at the Guardian has gone to the BBC to complain about the censorship at the Guardian of feminist opinion.

      PS – you click on the reply button of the post being replied to.

      2. 2.1.2

        A former journalist at the Guardian has gone to the BBC to complain about the censorship at the Guardian of feminist opinion.

        Not the first journo either.

  3. 3

    With Labour pushing ahead with three (five?) waters and the TVNZ and RNZ mergers against popular demand, I can only assume they have resigned to the fact that they will be in opposition after next years election. And the polls are all trending that way.

      1. 3.2.1

        "true leadership is doing what's needed not what's popular"

        True leadership from this labour government, you're joking right?

        The same labour govt who ruled out a much needed capital gains tax, ruled out meaningful legislation on supermarkets and banks, won't implement it's own policies like getting rid of secondary tax or an extremely popular and relatively cheap universal dental plan, wouldn't meaningfully raise benefits when it was actually possible, kept youth rates, ditched it's university fees policy, refuses to increase the percentage of state houses to above 3.6% out of some warped neoliberal orthodoxy, is continuing to sell state houses, refuses to settle with the nurses, created an "affordable" home ownership scheme that only applies to rich people who earn $100 k a year. A party that was elected to fix a housing apocalypse caused by neoliberalism and is relying on neoliberal tweaks to fix the crisis.

        This is a managerial govt that doesn't listen to the public or it's party members and just listens to unelected ministry officials advice.

        Leadership? This is a political party so devoid of vision that it has no coherent drug reform policy in the 2020s and refused to say anything on drug reform.

        This is a party to the right of the democrats on education, drug reform and domestic manufacturing.

        This government routinely throws all it's parties policies to the shredder, even the popular ones if it might be forced to actually explain and persuade people on their merits least these policies cost labour a single vote, meanwhile it refuses to shred these unpopular policies and refuses to debate the merits of said policies or debate alternatives and is willing to kamikaze themselves at the next election over them.

        It's not leadership, the only reason they haven't dropped these policies is pressure from inner party factionalism, lobbiests and special interests, otherwise these reforms would have gone the way of the capital gains tax.

          1. 3.2.1.1.1

            All political parties have factions (or groupings of like-minded people sharing a similar political agenda – if you don't like the word)

            Here's an (old) post from TS – discussing the Labour factions in 2013 – it's not a new phenomenon.

            https://thestandard.org.nz/labours-three-factions/

            It seems undeniable that the Maori caucus in the Labour Party have a strong co-governance agenda (which, I'm sure, from their perspective, is an entirely legitimate platform).

            While I don't agree with Trotter in the whole of this blog post – he does outline a scenario which would explain Corey Humm's point – that, despite the growing unpopularity of these policies (even among left voters), the Government seems unwilling to abandon them.

            https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2022/11/29/has-labour-become-a-co-governed-party/

            Kelvin Davis has openly talked of the 'influence' that the Maori caucus brings to bear on the Labour government.

            https://www.1news.co.nz/2022/01/19/labours-maori-caucus-meets-ahead-of-partys-2022-gathering/

            Another (but significantly less powerful) faction is likely to be the new intake from 2020 – virtually all of whom will exit Parliament if the current polling continues until the election.

        2. 3.2.1.2

          Increased the brightline test to 10 years ,, lifted minimum wage hugly, are building more houses than has been built in ages, kept a large but hard to specify amount of people alive during a pandemic, realized that years of useless councillors gave let nzs water infrastructure fall to bits so are doing something about it.

  4. 4

    Moscow than to Kyiv.

    Russian air defences intercepted Ukrainian drones over two military airfields in Russia, hundreds of kilometres from the border between the two countries, Russia said on Monday.

    Falling debris from the unmanned vehicles lightly damaged two aircraft, a defence ministry statement said.

    Three Russian servicemen were killed and four injured in the incidents in the Ryazan and Saratov regions.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63857451

  5. 5

    Melissa Lee is my favourite harebrained national MP.

    Totally barmy within a party of some exceptional boneheaded wack jobs.

    Willie Jackson is not, and has never been a totalitarian hell bent on becoming a Minister for propaganda. And to suggest so, is either asinine stupidity, or more dirty political lies we come to expect as the norm from the right of politics in NZ.

    https://www.1news.co.nz/2022/12/04/such-a-negative-interview-minister-and-jack-tame-spar-on-media-merger/

    1. 5.1

      The right wing line is that left wing government managing disinformation and applying any constraint on hate speech is a limitation on western civilisation (white race identity God patriarchy order Christendom and its to hell with the unbelieving, including Jew and Moslem, the circumcised dogs and their harlots, the feminist faith witches and the homosexuals outside of the city of God) free speech.

      Ours is a particularly nasty virulent strain (no CGT no estate tax here when this is common in most OECD nations) and anti-public broadcasting attitudes (no such attacks in UK/Oz/USA etc) and the little England Brexit nostalgia is being replayed here as a post pandemic return to the assimilationist pavlova paradise era when Pakeha majority rule dominance was unquestioned.

      1. 5.1.1

        I see dirty politics won.

        Willy Jackson apologized for the interview.

        Must be good to be Jake Tame, what he make, about 900,000 for 9 hours work off NZONAIR?

        No wonder the whole media got into Jackson, gotta make sure to protect that golden cow from the public purse.

  6. 6

    A Royal Commission of Inquiry into the government’s Covid-19 response will start 1 February 2023 and end mid-2024, meaning it will overlap with the General Election next year and possibly neutralise it as a potential election issue.

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/480128/jacinda-ardern-ayesha-verrall-announce-royal-commission-of-inquiry-into-covid-19-response

    The response from political parties was mixed with one standing out in negativity and predictability.

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/480154/royal-commission-on-covid-19-response-political-parties-ponder-purpose

    1. 6.1

      A Commission could not begin until the end of the pandemic (either an effective vaccine/nationwide vaccination or most already infected) and they last a year or so.

      And consequently the failure of the vaccine against the 2022 omicron variant spread ended any chance of a report being out before the 2023 election. Because this is not what David Seymour wanted, he is saying the government is somehow responsible for the delay.

      This might led one to question the competence (to comprehend and to analyse) of the ACT leader to lead any national strategy (on health or otherwise).

  7. 7

    Wow! The PM called Seymour a liar in the house today (Q6 – can't find the link) and

    got away with it!

    Does that make it official – Seymour is a liar?

    1. 7.1

      I think this is what you're referring to…. [my emphasis in bold italics]

      David Seymour: How can the Prime Minister demand the Opposition rule out privatisation, when her own Government is taking the assets off democratically elected councils who had ratepayers pay for them, and putting them in to new entities that will not be fully democratically run?

      Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The new entities are public shareholdings of council representatives. It is being held by local communities. We have an illustration of the issue with this entire debate: the member's mischaracterisation of what is ultimately a bill to ensure public ownership and management of water entities. The member needs to be honest. The way that he is portraying this bill is wrong, dishonest, and factually incorrect.

      David Seymour: Point of order. Mr Speaker, as you well know and the Prime Minister well knows, to call another member dishonest is unparliamentary. She knew the rules, she did it, and she should be asked to withdraw and apologise. And it includes calling another member's actions in the House dishonest.

      Hon Grant Robertson: Speaking to the point of order. Firstly, the Prime Minister said that making a statement like that would be dishonest. It wasn't a direct comment on a member, to take on Mr Seymour's point of order. My second point is that almost all—I think I'll be correct—of the Opposition's supplementary questions today have contained assertions, some of which arguably are outside of Standing Orders in terms of the words that we use, let alone being outside of the Standing Orders around oral questions, in terms of the content of them—Standing Orders 395, 396, 397. So, unfortunately, we are in a position where there's been, in my opinion, a response when the Prime Minister has got up today several times to say that she disagrees with the contents of a question because those questions have contained assertions. That seems to be how it goes, which way it will go both ways.

      SPEAKER: Thank you to the Deputy Prime Minister. That is correct. I counted three assertions in that supplementary. I listened—I've been listening very carefully to all the answers, as I thought to myself, sooner or later someone's going to complain. And today is that day. The fact of the matter is, I'm quite happy—as I have stated in this debating chamber at question time before—to rule questions that are significantly out of order to be out of order. That one was; I could have easily ruled it out. I allowed it to be asked on the basis that the member knew and understood the likely response. Are there any further supplementaries on this?

      https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/hansard-debates/rhr/combined/HansDeb_20221206_20221206_16

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