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6:00 am, February 10th, 2026 - 53 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 …
https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360936014/government-announce-future-lng
I'd accept a new tax from national if it was for a forward thinking longterm solution like lake dunstan or putting solar panels on ever roof(not batteries though ).
But typical of small brained conservatives they go backwards.
From the above link:
Sounds like a typical "jam tomorrow" promise to me. When tomorrow does finally arrive there'll be all kinds of "unforeseen reasons" why the projected benefits won't after all be available. ("How sad; never mind; nothing to see here; let's move on …. ".)
nope, not a tax, nor a levy. must be a voluntary donation we make to power companies.
meanwhile, Sunny Kashul has lost his gravy train earlier than he anticipated
Today's "hung" Taxpayer's Union poll is interesting.
Labour plus Green have 44.4%, while National plus ACT have 38%.
The Left is moving into poll position.
(Sorry I can't link…nothing seems to work while I'm on my phone in Peru)
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/hung-parliament-predicted-cost-of-living-increases-as-priority-issue-in-latest-poll/HONIP5QCIRE3BMLQERPETWPGKQ/
Aotearoa's loss of confidence in both left and right options is the primary import. That's why the poll result exhibits parity between them. Neolib logic says its the economy (stupid) so voters have an equal lack of faith in the relevance of each.
Although the lift for the Greens is significant in size, I doubt we can ascribe it to any specific initiative of theirs. I suspect a shift in sentiment. Dunno why the economy and cost of living are measured separately. Economists being irrational, probably.
Would it be because the cost of living and the economy are two separate issues in an unequal society.The economy may be booming, but its rewards are unequally shared .The cost of living bites hardest for those who have a lesser share .
Quite right. Social consequences of economy are due to the sorting effect imposed by tradition, so social scientists would be justified in measuring consequences of policy and creating a category to show mass effects. Doing so gets us out of the state of being captive to economic paradigms that prevail at any time.
I can't see the advantage of Labour going after the Maori seats. If they all go to the MP surely that will cause an overhang, Labour will still get its number of list seats from the party vote and with the Greens and the MP overhang we won't have a 120 seat hung parliament. I can't see how getting the Maori seats and so losing some list seats is good strategy, but then I am just a very old woman. Can someone please explain the thinking behind this for me please?
Maybe Labour wants the Maori MPs under its control? It is possibly harder to negotiate agreement with Te Pati Maori after an election than to have the MPs in house.
Can't fault your reasoning, Janice, when it's a question of what's good for the centre-left bloc as a whole. But Labour's obsessed with ensuring it becomes the biggest single party, even though it doesn't actually matter all that much (as Sir Bill discovered to his chagrin in 2017).
Labour plus Green need to get to 47% (enough to govern together).
Otherwise it will be a repeat of 2017, or the status quo.
The only way we have Greens at the cabinet table is if they can govern with Labour alone. No other party will sit with the Greens.
Where’s your evidence that all parties, including TPM and TOP, except LAB have ruled out working with the Green Party?
Agree MJR.
Labour are on track for late 30s or even 40% by election day 2026 on this poll tracking. But 2023's late calamatous fall is the counterfactual.
TOP is irrelevant so stop worrying on that one.
Winston hasn't explicitly ruled out working with the Greens as he did in 2017, but he gets pretty close to it in Parliament here:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/_YDHGzfvaA0
TPM have not ruled out working with Winston Peters. I haven't seen any statement that says they could form a coalition with the Greens.
Also to get a taste of why Winston has ruled out working with Hipkins, here's a clue from 2023:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/496678/instability-and-chaos-labour-rules-out-a-partnership-with-nz-first
Hipkins needs to keep the upward Party trajectory to 40% through the next 4 months or else he will find he has to do an Andrew Little 2017.
This election should be Labour's to lose. Should be.
In response to bWag above (reply not working) why would you exclude batteries. Battery storage attached to both rooftop and grid scale solar will, within 10 years, end dry year power price spikes.
Look at Australia.
Absolutely agree Bearded Git.
I have just installed a 16kw solar array with a 9 kw battery. This is the kind of system that government needs to encourage here in NZ as it will help iron out peaks and troughs in electricity use. Australia is forward thinking with their solar inducements. Imagine how much good a billion dollars could do to increase solar uptake.
Can we ask how much it cost, and what reduction did you get in your power bill?
Is it really worth doing? My next door neighbour, who has done something similar is very happy with the system but does say it really isn't economically justified.
Goid to see Taxpayer Union poll Greensat 10%, higher than the Roy Morgan ir TVNZ Varian.
Sad measure of our leadership that an old grump is gaining traction as preferred PM.
But presumably in the next coalition agreement PM is what he gets.
I asked the gizmo about ethical issues of using AI:
Okay then, my oversight is as follows. To prevent auto-representation of reality by machines we could make reportage of it illegal. Left-wingers seem to be in favour of cancelling whatever they don't like, much as dogs bark at passing cars. Machine guilt can be established by whether or not it cites sources to validate the summary descriptions purporting to be real that it produces for users – or hides those. Google's hides those.
So Google's AI must be cancelled to preserve human sanctity. Good luck with that. Alternatively, we could notice that humans also assert descriptions of reality without citing sources, so we must cancel all humans. Seems a tad draconian, but rationality will get you there via sufficient zealotry…
as a heads up, moderators are about to start intervening in use of AI on TS. The only reason I am leaving your copypasta is because it serves as an example for your comments on AI (as poor as those are). But pretty soon, there won't be an ability to copy paste without references. You're link to AI is appreciated, and it's insufficient. Hope to get some guidelines up soon.
no, it doesn't. Don't know why you can't see them.
Maybe you are trying to do edgy satire, but both of the main mods are reaching our limit for having to read your comments and spend out time trying to make sense of them, when you have consistently failed to take feedback from mods and other comments.
The core standard here is robust debate. It's not ok to treat TS like FB or twitter. There is an expectation that people will make coherent political arguments that other comments can engage with.
The kind of misrepresentation as opinion you've just done in your comment won't be treated kindly. This kind of nonsense will eventually get you banned.
Sometimes commentary is allusive, due to human nature. I'm not the only one onsite here doing that. To spell out the coherent political argument presumes arguing is the point of politics, whereas human nature drives politics towards groupthink. Do we go for consequent monoculture, or competitive arguing (binary culture), or discussion (biodiversity). I hope mods choose that tertiary option!
So it wasn't any attempt on my part to misrepresent anything, just highlight key dimensions of the issue. The politics of it here onsite is a microcosm of our election year political ecosystem. It is in the common interests of the left to work with centrists when the left need centrists to win. Ethos here ought to reflect that…
Unfortunately not. For example, if you ask Chat GPT for citations, it will provide some, however the citations themselves may be "AI hallucinations." You'll only know if you manually check each citation.
You’re missing the point.
Here are some of the key issues, as I see them, in the context of commenting on TS – they can be applied broader, as they’re nothing unusual or novel with regards to proper handling of data & information.
The ethics apply to who’s using AI, the user, i.e., you. (NB there are clear gaps in that summary)
This means that you take ownership of the output after your prompt [input] and with that, accountability and responsibility.
You cannot hide behind AI, e.g., ‘the gizmo did it’; there’s no ‘machine guilt’.
The oversight sits with you.
No, it doesn’t; just because you cannot see them doesn’t mean that Google ‘hides’ them. It’s an illogical claim and sounds like a poor excuse.
You use a few terms, such as “illegal”, “cancelling”, “dogs bark”, “draconian”, and “zealotry”. It’s clear that these are your projections (i.e., outward and onto others, presumably TS Mods).
The issues with using AI for commenting on this site are not new, of course. For example, here’s a thread in which you participated too although you seemed to zoom in on only one aspect: https://thestandard.nz/open-mike-14-07-2023/#comment-1959792. After all that time one would expect you to have learned a thing or two about using AI but it’s like teaching a slow-learning and belligerent pre-schooler how to read & write and it’s time-consuming and, as you said, “ain't enough time in my day”.
Newsroom's examination of the implications for our foreign relations and trade of the Taranaki off-shore mining saga is worth a read: https://newsroom.co.nz/2026/02/09/us-nz-deal-on-critical-minerals-could-be-limited-by-fast-track-denial/
Prospectors marketing commercial scenarios in one corner, law in another, Greens in another, govt in another, public in another. Our common interests must somehow be formed from that pentad of influential forces – a powerful nexus.
The classic capitalist dyadic driver of the economy (greed, fear) plays off prospective benefits as powerful illusions that may be realised. Voters must be seduced into the prospect of a share trickling down onto them. Our destiny remains a trading nation, and both left and right govts will always be keen to market nature's extracts. I suspect the current govt will try to prevail over the law as it stands, to grab & sell them.
In reply to Leaps above….. exactly. The weird thing is how the COC has ignored solar plus battery. The cheapest power on the planet that also saves the planet and smoothes power prices so there are no sudden shocks.
"The cheapest power on the planet". That remains a debatable question. My neighbour tells me his equipment, including a battery, cost about $25,000 It saves him about $1,500/year. If you include the cost of capital, and the relatively short life of a battery he says it probably isn't worth it but he can afford it and he likes the technology.
This seems to fit in with EECA numbers. It isn't fair to use zero interest loans in your costing. That just means somebody else is paying for your power, not that the money is free.
The Government may be looking at Solar plus battery. If we can produce Lithium here, as may be possible and be a factor in the Minerals agreement than they are considering, the matter is being considered as the batteries are typically Lithium based.
Sorry. I missed out the link to EECA
https://www.eeca.govt.nz/for-homes/solar-for-homes/solar-costs-and-savings/
@bearded git,
It's the socialist in me, if all the wealthy have batteries they'll demand paying less into lines infrastructure, all panels grid tied, any batter storage on an industrial scale. Payment for excess power produced by houslods less lines charge.
That and batteries are a future toxic nightmare.
@BG above.
No surprise really, both the main parties are wedded to neo liberal orthodoxy, witness Woods consigning Marsden Point to the scrap heap.
Can't have infrastructure working for the people.
I'll grant you this current mob are a little more beholden to the share portfolio class.
Further to my comment above. When the watchdog is actually a lap dog. Probably been defanged as well.
Unlikely to bite the hand that feeds it.
https://www.thepost.co.nz/business/360944391/electricity-authority-staff-breached-guidelines-accepting-dinners-meridian-energy
I recall Chris Bishop saying a while ago that the electricity market was broken and needed to be fixed – but I do not have a reference or anything to indicate how he thought it was broken. I would be interested in knowing how much it would have cost to buy say 1000 shares in any one of the companies, and how much the dividend for 1000 shares was last year (or even better the total dividends if shares were retained from the initial issue). And for that same company, the numbers for charges received from users compared with dividends paid. I understand that there are resource consents for more wind or solar installations which would improve the likelihood that we do not need to burn coal or gas – are higher profits and dividends being put ahead of the interests of New Zealand have self-sufficiency in electricity generation?
Regarding the LPG terminal and imports.
What would happen if the Maui gas field collapsed tomorrow? What liabilities would the Government be under if gas couldn't be supplied? I know the probabilities of tomorrow are very slight, but the end is a lot closer than it has been and there's considerable uncertainty around the terminal performance of the field, except to say that it's going to happen a lot sooner than previously thought.
The National government's solution looks, to me, more about mitigating future liabilities for inability to supply than 'reducing your power bill'. Small caveat here, if Maui goes off line suddenly energy costs will go through the roof, fast. So the economics of this project could be rather stark, and compelling. The difficulty is trying to sell it without saying "we fucked up and don't have any alternative"
We're not hearing much about drilling new well either, no one is interested in throwing cash at a wild goose chase that's very unlikely to find anything.
A possible solution for Labour is to say they will allow / facilitate the terminal to be built, but paid for by a levy on gas sales, not electricity. Or maybe there's a clause in a gas supply contract somewhere that precludes that?
Too many questions…
At The Post, two stories
1.the government will accept the denial of consent
Fun facts. China is now getting some iron ore from a giant new mine in Africa and Australia has discovered it has a lot of iron ore deposits that will be cheaper to extract than they thought (so the company project was less and less commercially viable).
https://www.thepost.co.nz/business/360945545/ministers-set-accept-inevitable-after-trans-tasman-resources-seabed-mine-rejected
2.Shane Jones (and NZF) will campaign for Ministers making the decisions (imagine the opportunity for graft and a lot of easy election fund-raising)
https://www.thepost.co.nz/business/360946325/shane-jones-says-he-will-campaign-giving-ministers-say-over-fast-track-decisions
Here's a good news story for nature lovers in general and those into rewilding in particular. Coherent political argument? Green politics can become contagious via promoting governance measures that regenerate nature: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/feb/09/a-beaver-blind-date-animals-given-freedom-to-repopulate-cornish-rivers
Neuroscience has spent the past 30 years consolidating the view that there are molecules of emotion within us, and has been examining the implications for thought. Mental processes driven by feelings have been widely documented. It is time to reflect on how this drives contagion. I've read many scientific texts reporting the findings but it is up to those of us who are non-specialist to develop our own big picture of how emotional intelligence connects us to nature. Politics is likely to trend greener in consequence.
There are no molecules for emotion. Feelings are driven by mental processes, which more specifically are topological changes in synaptic connectivity. What you are alluding to are drugs that impact emotion. SSRIs, µ opioid receptor agonists and suchlike. Sound Green policy is common sense, not a drug. Very obtusely cynical take on sound policy I have to say, and one that seems to bottleneck in opioids of the masses, which would be ridiculous. Apologies if I have misread your philosophistical quagmire.
Don't feel bad about mouthing off from a position of ignorance! It’s a common form of behaviour online. The cognoscenti normally cite Damasio as the originator of the neuroscience involved but he wasn't the only scientist at the leading edge of that wave. The authors I have been reading since the early '90s cover evolutionary psych as well as biology, biochemistry etc. It's a confluence, multi-disciplinary…
More like stating a thesis from personal belief.
Mouthing off. Thank you very much. I am familiar with the Iowa Gambling Task and was just interested in your near eugenic take on risk as it pertains to political decision making/voting, which would be quite a leap of faith, natural opioid receptor function notwithstanding. I'm more a fan of Kandel in the biology of executive function to be honest.
Okay. My academic background is a BSc. (physics, Ak) – what's yours? Sounds like you may be up to speed on hormones. My take on risk is merely due to noticing interesting writers exploring the topic in recent years. The neuroscience angle on it pertains to physics (uncertainty) as well, and the exploring is honing in on neural triggers relevant to how we handle risk & uncertainty. Danger is brainstem.
I think you mean amygdala. Brainstem is autonomic function. Just trying to link the beaver article to the brain trending towards green political decisions. My background is in neuroscience for what it's worth.
Yes, you're right to correct me on that homeostasis point. My overview is hazy on the details due to being a general reader (not student) – also the effect of being elderly is to not retain details in short-term memory very well. So I just get an overview.
From that I retain an impression of the limbic system as a kind of medial function between body responses and feelings (correct me if I'm wrong). The molecules of emotion thing was a framing to help make that point (again, merely my impression) pointing to the effect of particular large molecules in the basis of that system.
In the deep Green view, our political motives get driven by how we feel about issues. The beaver story about rewilding nature reconnects us to Gaia. Weka's response that it is mere personal belief is valid: it arises from a mystical view, inherently spiritual.
Whether I or we can use that as a basis for coherent political argument depends on our motives around forming common ground upon which to collaborate. We use stories to communicate primarily, analogy to compare is also normal, and logic emerges later from group consensus felt as the result of discussion and reflection.
One of the great things about TS, and our robust debate ethos, is that rather than that being something that enables and thus engtrenches political "monoculture, or competitive arguing (binary culture)" (your terms above), it focuses on people's opinions and the facts they bring to the table, and then it tests them in real time.
Which is what Kokako is doing here.
If you have the capacity for self reflection and accepting feedback (essential on both systems design and systems thinking), you might consider that you overstep your knowledge base a lot, and this leads to people pushing back against your ideas, or eventually retrenching into a conflict position because you don't appear to accept feedback.
citation needed. Because my deep green view and experience is that our politics are driven by values, connection and systems thinking. 'Feeling' is part of that for sure, we are holistic beings, but reducing that political motivation drivers to emotion is reductionist in the extreme.
I didn't use or even imply 'mere. I said,
Because I was correcting you when you claimed you were making a coherent political argument, which references our other conversation upthread where I was pointing out that on TS being able to make a coherent political argument is core to what we do here. You appear to not know what I meant, and I think this is the crux of the issue in that other conversation. You want to have rambling, outer edge conversations based in stating thesis from personal belief. There's nothing wrong with that, it just causes problems on TS when it's not grounded in what we actually do here. It's probably better suited to social media or blogging.
That's not how communication primarily happens on TS though.
btw, when I say feedback I mean that in both the systems design sense, and in the sense of someone standing in front of you saying 'what you are doing is a problem'.
Permaculture principle #4
https://buildingafoodforestscotland.com/2024/04/17/permaculture-principle-no-4-apply-self-regulation-and-accept-feedback/
Correct. I always do try to do so. I gather from that feedback sometimes that others don't see me succeeding at that. In such instances, I don't comment due to having nothing to add: doesn't mean I don't accept the feedback.
Your mod point re acceptance being part of the ethos here has always been ok with me. I get banned sporadically and am always philosophical in response. Time out is often the best way forward for all involved, eh?
We are at an impasse then. Because you appear to not accept feedback (and from a mod pov this is a problem because it causes more work for us), and because you don't communicate acknowledgement, understanding, or willingness to change, we literally have no way of knowing, and so it looks like you are just ignoring feedback.
it's actually not about what you are willing to accept as a consequence, it's about the time that volunteer mods have to use out of their own daily time to attend to mod issues related to *you*.
If you are saying you can live with the bans, tell me, are you ok being banned now until 2 months after the election? Are you ok with a permanent ban?
Well that pertains to the ethos of the site. Is it genuine about including non-leftists? I thought so. If not, do whatever ban gets you off!
My only reason for participating here is my assumption that a radical centrist like me can catalyse progress via collaborating with leftists (as I did by playing the key role in the Greens to get them into parliament).
Providing the site with my experienced advocacy is altruism regardless that armchair mods don't like the requisite negative feedback. A ban just alerts everyone to covert bias. You think people don't notice that??
[now I’m stepping into moderator mode. Don’t tell us how to run the site (especially when you don’t understand what we do and why we do it). I’m open to discussing moderation, at length, but in these two threads alone, I’ve given you ample feedback on the system and your behaviour within it, and you still think you know better than us. Whatever, moaning about how terrible moderation or the mods are is dirt common by people who’ve used up enough of our time (on moderation, not on discussion). We’re issuing long bans for people who won’t take feed back or continue to create problems. My guess is that that is what will happen next, but you are also free to start listening to mods and stop insulting and get with how things work here – weka]
I rarely read your posts, Dennis. I scroll through them because you do a lot of them that adds little of significance to topics.
I read a lot of comments and posts here, but don't comment on most of the ones I read unless I think I have something to add that hasn't already been covered. I learn quite a bit from the ones I do read.
Likewise. I prefer to explore nuances of situations because the depth of comprehension is more satisfying. I'm aware that folks operate at varying levels of comprehension due to the spectrum of human nature, and going deep is a minority pursuit. Folks only ever learn something new when ready to do so! That's why I focus on advocacy and explaining as a praxis blend. I see persuasion and argument as mostly a waste of the valuable time of participants.
Yes non-leftists are welcome here, if they can fit in with the purpose the site.
This right here is the problem. Instead of accepting feedback and regulating yourself so that you can contribute and engage here (and personally I think you do have useful perspectives to bring), you perjoratively dismiss, and at the same time manage to misrepresent how moderation works here – according to you we moderate on what gets us off, rather than for behaviour that disrupts the kaupapa of the site.
Do you mean to be that insulting, or are you unaware?
It may help to draw DF’s attention to the bolded Mod note because your reply to him @ 12:38 pm (https://thestandard.nz/open-mike-10-02-2026/#comment-2055896) doesn’t make that clear.
thanks, bit busy today. Everything else up until the bold was optional to read (although recommended) and yes he does need to be made aware of the bold one, cheers.
mod note.
In a nutshell; awesome comment!
In reply to Alwyn above, go to Euronews.com where you will see that solar power has been crowned the cheapest power on the planet.
The article says that the cost of solar has dropped 80 percent over a short period.