The Standard

Open Mike 08/07/25

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, July 8th, 2025 - 25 comments
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25 comments on “Open Mike 08/07/25 ”

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  1. Todays Posts 1
    8 July 2025 at 6:00 am

    Today's Posts (updated through the day):

  2. Ad 2
    8 July 2025 at 8:22 am

    Don't mess with the midwives.

    • PsyclingLeft.Always 3.1
      8 July 2025 at 12:18 pm

      There are commonalities (as we who are aware..are aware) throughout our Earth with all of this.

      I link DeSmog here (I've been reading DeSmog for many years) with Tom Green of the David Suzuki Foundation….A good article covering a bit on carbon capture too.

      Thomas Green, senior climate policy adviser with the David Suzuki Foundation, notes that the sponsorship of science fairs is just one way by which the oil and gas sector tries to improve its public image and gain social acceptability.

      “There’s a lot of this in Canada and globally,” said Green in a statement to DeSmog.

      https://www.desmog.com/2025/06/30/pathways-alliance-sponsored-science-fairs-for-canadian-children/

  4. Drowsy M. Kram 4
    8 July 2025 at 9:41 am

    ACTing PM Seymour's RSB 'advocacy' seems to have opened a can of cartoonists smiley

    • mac1 4.1
      8 July 2025 at 9:57 am

      Clever cartooning. Especially like the 'ad homin 'em'. The weapons of the bewitched cyber-bullies are rocks and tablets and the witch is still twerking…….

  5. Drowsy M. Kram 5
    8 July 2025 at 9:57 am

    Watch live: Opponents of Regulatory Standards Bill dominate first morning of hearings [RNZ, 7 July 2025]

    Watch live: Unions, former MPs, lawyers speak at Regulatory Standards Bill hearings [RNZ, 8 July 2025]

    Day two of hearings on the Regulatory Standards Bill [RNZ, 8 July 2025]
    The second day of hearings on the proposed Regulatory Standards Bill will get underway at Parliament on Tuesday. Former prime minister and constitutional lawyer Sir Geoffrey Palmer spoke to Ingrid Hipkiss.

    Careful now RNZ.

    • Anne 5.1
      8 July 2025 at 11:45 am

      Thanks for the link DMK.

      I have found the submissions informative but there's one aspect that seems unusual. I refer to the lack of questions from the select committee members – with the exception of Labour's Deborah Russell. Is this normal?

      • Drowsy M. Kram 5.1.1
        8 July 2025 at 11:54 am

        Sorry Anne, don't know if this lack of questions is normal. The select committee has allocated itself 30 hours for hearings, so (lack of) time will (obviously) be a factor.

        The bill is facing scrutiny at select committee this week, with about 30 hours of hearings packed into four days. ACT leader and Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour says it aims to improve lawmaking and regulation, but its critics – who make up the majority of submitters – argue it does the opposite.

        https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/566185/watch-live-opponents-of-regulatory-standards-bill-dominate-first-morning-of-hearings

        Careful now RNZ – the CoC government is not playing with a straight bat, imho.

        I hear through the grapevine that Sir Geoffrey has not been offered a slot to speak to the Select Committee about this Bill, although he is a former Prime Minister and a preeminent authority on the New Zealand constitution, and asked for one. And I gather that individual submitters are being offered 5 minutes each.

        The first reading of this Bill was rushed through Parliament under urgency, and the debate was very short. This is not a matter for partisan politics, or tribal loyalty to any particular political party.

        This is a travesty of proper deliberation, and should be of concern to us all. New Zealand’s democratic conventions are being demolished, bit by bit.

        https://newsroom.co.nz/2025/07/02/geoffrey-palmer-passing-regulatory-standards-bill-will-exact-high-political-price/#comment-385262

        Travesties to the right of us, travesties to the far-right of us – into the maws of Mammon the plucky Kiwis were herded…

        • Karolyn_IS 5.1.1.1
          8 July 2025 at 2:47 pm

          Geoffrey Palmer did speak at the select committee yesterday. Spinoff.

          • Drowsy M. Kram 5.1.1.1.1
            8 July 2025 at 3:58 pm

            Thanks Karolyn_IS, and Geoffrey Palmer:

            Former prime minister Geoffrey Palmer, who submitted against, labelled the bill the “strangest piece of New Zealand legislation I have ever seen”, and that there was “no chance” of it working.

            "The thrust of the Bill is based on an unproven ideology that New Zealand has too much regulation now. That is asserted, but it is not – no evidence is provided to support it."

            Who needs evidence. The National party 'dog' is loving being wagged by their erstwhile Act 'tail' – CoC MPs can scarcely believe the success of their plans for "relentless upwards redistribution of wealth." More leaky homes anyone?

            Best Practice Regulation: Setting Targets and Detecting Vulnerabilities [August 2011; PDF]
            Regulatory regimes as experiments
            We often have an idealised or optimistic view of regulation based on what we believe it will deliver by way of outcomes, be they economic, social or both. It is generally articulated, at least by the proponents of a particular regulatory approach, at the time that approach is being developed and implemented.

            However, the reality can fall short of the ideal, so much so on some occasions that the regulatory approach is considered to have failed and a new ideal is articulated. This pattern of optimism followed by disappointment followed by optimism can be observed over time and across different regulatory areas. It can also be observed in pendulum swings between different regulatory approaches, which often take the form of slogans – such as ‘light-handed‘ versus ‘heavy-handed‘, ‘prescriptive‘ versus ‘principles‘, or ‘more‘ versus ‘less‘ government.

            In February 2010, New Zealand's Building and Construction Minister Maurice Williamson, National, warned that the size of the issue, at least $11 billion, was so gianormous [sic] that even a government with budget surpluses would struggle. He noted that: "…a Government who's [sic] running deficits – and has a forecast track of deficits for many years out – has to just sit there with its head in its hands, saying, 'Well, I just don't how to do this'."

            He also warned that it was necessary to come up with a solution so money could be spent on fixing houses, rather than paying lawyers, and that there was a risk of significant rates rises in the major centres like Auckland, Tauranga, Wellington and Christchurch, of a scale that would "make eyes water".
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaky_homes_crisis#Financial_liabilities

      • Bruce Ellis 5.1.2
        8 July 2025 at 12:03 pm

        My understanding is that they are each only given 5 minutes – including question time so there is no real time for q & a. Another strike against the democratic process.

        • Anne 5.1.2.1
          8 July 2025 at 12:16 pm

          The problem with that is: most of them have left a bit of time for questions and the chairman declared at the start he is prepared to give a small amount of extra time for them. I suspect there has been an agreement among committee members not to ask questions so that as many submitters as possible will get a chance to speak. At least I hope that is the reason.

  6. Muttonbird 6
    8 July 2025 at 10:59 am

    Rent caps = dangerous communist nonsense.

    Rate caps = sensible capitalist strategy.

    Finance Minister Nicola Willis told Morning Report on Monday the government wanted councils to stick to the basics and not waste ratepayers money.

    Why are councils asked to not waste ratepayers' money but amateur landlords are not asked to not waste tenants' money?

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/566261/capping-rates-rises-would-make-things-worse-not-better-chris-hipkins

    • AB 6.1
      8 July 2025 at 12:46 pm

      Why?

      Because if rates are capped, Councils will balance their budgets by selling assets. These assets will then pass into private ownership. Given that these assets are essential services such as water infrastructure and social housing, selling them enables new monopoly rent-extraction opportunities that are essentially similar in nature to residential landlordism. It is even likely that some of the same people and companies will be involved in both. This government can be understood best as a machine for the relentless upwards redistribution of wealth..

      • Drowsy M. Kram 6.1.1
        8 July 2025 at 1:47 pm

        This government can be understood best as a machine for the relentless upwards redistribution of wealth.

        yes A tiny portion of that wealth (‘wealth scraps’?) might trickle back down, as our (as)sorted Lords and masters allow, although they draw the line at bottom feeders.

        Today’s classroom visitor is Mr Luxon from the National Party
        MR LUXON: If you were naughty you went to boot camp and got scared into being an ordinary hardworking New Zealander. Or you became a bottom-feeder. Don’t become bottom-feeders, boys and girls.

        https://newsroom.co.nz/2025/05/11/an-ode-to-king-lux-2/

      • Res Publica 6.1.2
        8 July 2025 at 2:18 pm

        What I can't work out is whether this is part of a deliberate long-term strategy, or just the coalition flailing around for a politically convenient justification for Local Water Done Well that shifts the blame while they shut their eyes and wish juuuust hard enough for the problem to disappear.

        Classic conspiracy or cock-up territory.

        With the possible exception of ACT, I tend to think it’s more panic than plan. But the results are the same either way: asset sales, entrenched monopoly rents, a hollowed-out local government sector, and public servants being put in increasingly dangerous positions.

        We're starting to feel like scapegoats. Not just for the dysfunction within the sector, but for a government running out of ideas and political cover. No one’s bailing up Simon Watts at the supermarket about their rates bill. No one's threatening him on the street. But it’s happening to us.

        I don’t wear my council lanyard when I leave the office anymore. It’s rare for a week to go by without one of my colleagues being verbally or physically abused.

        And all the while, the smug voices at the Taxpayers’ Union are telling anyone who’ll listen that we’re lazy, overpaid, and wasting people’s money: constantly feeding the resentment that gets taken out on staff.

        It’s only a matter of time until things escalate.

        And when that happens, we won’t just be whispering about it bleakly in the break room.

        We’ll be going to funerals: of an animal control officer, or a parking warden, or a policy analyst, or, heaven forbid, a data engineer. Someone who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time after we were forced to increase rates or cut services in response to the coalition's latest mumblefuckery.

      • Muttonbird 6.1.3
        8 July 2025 at 4:04 pm

        Oh yeah, I was highlighting the irony, the double standards and hypocrisy of our incompetent finance minister. They command everyone but themselves to get out of the way of councils.

        Too subtle, sorry.

  7. Phillip ure 7
    8 July 2025 at 3:41 pm

    Site is really fucked up at the mo'…doing all sorts of weird stuff..

  8. Muttonbird 8
    8 July 2025 at 4:14 pm

    It's taken barely 18 months after the return of a National government for the housing and homeless crisis to reach the same point it was when they were turfed out for it in 2017:

    A rough sleeper freezing to death and a family living in the car park of a shopping mall are examples of New Zealand’s homelessness “crisis”, say support services.

    “One of the street whānau have passed away in South Auckland – froze to death,” said Māori Warden Matarora Smith.

    “Now that we’ve got no-cause evictions, a landlord can just come in and say, that’s it. We’re seeing quite a lot of that.

    “We had a family come to us with two kids, mum and dad. They were staying in Glenfield Mall’s car park, just across the road from Work and Income,” Rutledge said.

    Useless Māori, Tama Potaka and Tania Tapsell should hang their heads in shame.

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/te-ao-maori/360748583/homeless-person-froze-death-family-living-mall-car-park-amid-national-crisis

  9. Stephen D 9
    8 July 2025 at 7:42 pm

    Tania Tapsell

    National Party candidacy

    On 6 June 2020, Tapsell was selected as the National Party candidate for the East Coast electorate,[5] having been a member of the party since she was a teen.[14] At the 2020 general election, National failed to retain the seat, losing to Labour MP Kiri Allan.[15] She expressed interest in running again at the 2023 New Zealand general election.[16] She was speculated by the media as a possible candidate in the 2022 Tauranga by-election,[17] but declined.[18]

    Of course she agreed with Mitchell.

  10. Stephen D 10
    8 July 2025 at 7:46 pm

    Tania Tapsell

    On 6 June 2020, Tapsell was selected as the National Party candidate for the East Coast electorate,[5] having been a member of the party since she was a teen.[14] At the 2020 general election, National failed to retain the seat, losing to Labour MP Kiri Allan.[15] She expressed interest in running again at the 2023 New Zealand general election.[16] She was speculated by the media as a possible candidate in the 2022 Tauranga by-election,[17] but declined.[18]