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6:00 am, August 10th, 2026 - 77 comments
Categories: open mike -
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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 …
Maybe Chris Hipkins should take a look at what is happening to the Democrats in the USA in response to Trump. The CoC is basically a Trump-lite government.
"Donald Trump has radicalised the Democratic party,” …. “This revolt within the party would not have happened without Donald Trump. He is provoking a kind of earthquake, raising lots of unsettling questions within the Democratic party – its direction, its leadership, its policy priorities, its beholdenness to big donors.”
Trump has rattled the old orthodoxies that prevailed in US politics for decades. If the right can conceive a radical programme in documents such as Project 2025, why can the left not be similarly ambitious? There is little appetite to return to the pre-Trump era, a broken system that led to his rise in the first place, but rather to reimagine wealth redistribution, stronger unions, democratic reform and a just foreign policy."
Here's the rather long link. (Sorry I still haven't worked out how to reference a link to a word in the text-maybe somebody out there could explain the process?)
https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2026/aug/09/democratic-party-leftwing-michigan-mamdani-aoc?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other&fbclid=IwY2xjawTlqGtwZG9mBWV4dG4DYWVtAjExAGJyaWQRMWt6T21lM0ltTEZraTFyZGtzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEeF2cYBfNXjqESvOqfIH1RJANkxkXkIJ6UTzjz5BKe5Dkm0g3aMgWSLms3Yik_aem_cHAUh5L1OLhKj1-pb3ZsIw
Or maybe we should just let the 2026 election fall as it will.
Hipkins isn't Mamdani. His team isn't going to generate a Mamdani.
Precisely why some people might consider not voting for Labour
Data centres are becoming more and more controversial.
I've worked out how to do the link…so good.
"Increasing numbers of US [data center] facilities have their own dedicated gas turbines; in the UK, high-ups at the energy regulator Ofgem say that 100 planned centres here aim to do the same. US sites are putting added pressure on existing power grids that also use coal and oil, and backup generators powered by diesel are a standard industry feature."
New Zealand has a British-colonial DNA of finding and encouraging massed least-complex low value industries. Whales. Kauri. Flax. Wool. Meat. Fish. Dairy. Our leading families have resisted risking capital on highly capital intensive specialisations for almost two centuries now.
Except, weirdly, our top growth industries that can pull us away from that are all in it technology and software and tech crossovers like gaming.
The new version of low value high mass industries is datacentres, which happen to reinforce our gentailer oligopolies perfectly. Which in turn also reinforce the 3 51%-owned gentailers to keep giving the Government the $1billion in annual income it desperately needs.
Which makes it very unlikely that this state will want to regulate datacentres.
Even when data centres use power equivalent to 10 million homes to create a few hundred jobs in NZ? (see my post below)
If data centres are so wonderful one wonders why people from both Republicans and Democrats are marching in the streets against them in the USA.
Whether they are wonders or just part of the most ginormous AI bubble, well you would probably have to ask the funds like Blackrock and Oracle and Infratil who are trading in that field.
But we might want to check how many people they have and are employing already here:
https://www.datacentermap.com/new-zealand/
The link Ad is from a substantial (vested) interest with in that market. I mean all you had to to was read their own about.
https://www.datacentermap.com/about/
Then theirs the ownership and ideological direction, confirmed by the goals of who work for them.
So like all stats – hard to believe them without proper peer review, and in this case would have to be non-market players. Not funded by this particular market. Also, the set of individuals who dominate this particular market have a penchant for lying.
Slough population 167,000, has 40 data centres.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/aug/09/slough-famous-the-office-datacentres-locals-hub-europe
To be fair, something was always going to be the thin end of the wedge as we moved towards decarbonisation and electrification. It's just that AI data centres are a spectacularly morally dubious and shitty use case.
From where I sit in the electricity distribution sector, the problem we're facing isn't necessarily generation: although that is certainly a constraint. It's decades of underinvestment in the infrastructure needed to move all that electricity around, combined with a regulatory framework that doesn't always give the industry the right incentives to invest ahead of demand.
Electrification means asking the grid to do substantially more than it was built to do. Data centres just make the problem particularly stark because they can dump an enormous new load onto one part of the network, very quickly.
Did your team do a submission on Transpower's scenarios which fed into their Grid Blueprint?
https://www.transpower.co.nz/news/transpower-publishes-2050-growth-scenarios-power-economic-growth-and-net-zero-future
Fascinating reading.
Scenario 5-Aotearoa Intelligence, explains that data centres will use power equivalent to 10 million homes (75 TWh).
In this scenario:
"The focus is on growth in high-value digital services,
the establishment of new data centres, and niche
industries. The government offers renewable
energy subsidies, special electricity rates for data
infrastructure, and streamlined approvals for energy
projects. Tax incentives and grants further lower
barriers for global technology companies. These
measures make energy more accessible and position
Aotearoa as a top destination for digital investment
and innovation."
The data centres will create only a few hundred jobs. This sounds like a disaster to me. 10 million homes FFS.
(the graphs in the report don't seem to show data centres as an end user even though they are tagged)
A straight ban isn't useful. There's plenty of datacentres here and operating already. What we need is a pause on datacentres that need new bulk generation.
It's going to be very hard to stop the Big 4 gentailers from doing more deals like Mercury and Contact are doing.
Given how fast this is going, New Zealand should just join in with the AI and datacentre regulatory drive underway in Australia. It's too fast for us to control and get new regulatory specialists in for this.
Disagree. We can legislate to put in a moratorium in now so that we avoid the data centers using 10 million homes worth of power scenario. That won't stop the one massive DC already consented in Southland.
Saying that there are data centres here already is misleading. My understanding is that those existing data centres are much much smaller than the ones in the pipeline-happy to be corrected on this.
There are over 50 datacentres already operating here all in different shapes and sizes.
https://www.datacentermap.com/new-zealand/
If you want a moratorium on new ones, what's the criteria you would use?
The current crop of massively power hungry data centres are driven by AI.
AI (haha) tells me that existing DC's in NZ use about 140 MW in total.
Today Contact and CDC announced a new DC for Taranaki that will use 250 MW. The one in Southland will use 280 MW…so that is 530 MW (more than the Clyde dam's output) in train already. This more than quadruples DC power usage in NZ.
"Contact Energy (Contact) and CDC Data Centres (CDC) have today announced they are working together to explore a potential data centre at Stratford, Taranaki. Contact and CDC will seek resource consent for a 250 MW data centre1 to be built near the site of Contact’s Taranaki Combined Cycle gas power plant (TCC), retired earlier this year having reached end-of-life."
This type of large-scale increase in demand for power is bound to force up electricity prices and will probably give the CoC the excuse it needs to build the LNG import terminal. All this for bugger-all full-time jobs.
There is a lite version of AI that uses much less power; I don't have much info on this.
Data is like butter.
It needs to be kept in a refrigerator.
If you didn't eat butter, you wouldn't need a fridge.
Ban butter centres!
Best you throw your phone and computer away then and just eat dry bread.
The surge in AI is driving the increase in datacentres.
A number of Standardistas, have begun posting AI generated result sets here.
If people don't want datacentres, then they need to choose not to use AI – even when it's convenient.
Just like choosing not to fly, buy imported foods, or drive ICE vehicles.
I don't know about others but AI use is very strongly encouraged – with free specialist training – in the 2 large state and 4 Australasian companies I contract to. It's a firm version of a workplace norm.
And no, New Zealanders will never choose not to fly or not eat imported foods.
Indeed. People are rarely willing to choose to put their money where their mouth is.
Belladonna wrote:
"Indeed. People are rarely
willingable to choose to put their money where their mouth is."(Edit mine)
So we have to live with DC's putting up power prices then? Because they will.
(The Southland and Taranaki DC's will use the power for more than half a million houses)
Just like choosing not to fly, buy imported foods, or drive ICE vehicles.
I would love to have the option to choose not to fly domestically. But it's not easy waiting around for a functioning rail/bus/public transport alternatives in general system to come online, because, cars.
And the harsh reality is, imported food is cheaper than local -even much of the fresh stuff- which is a no-brainer on a tight budget. And we are a low-wage economy that the populus clearly are fine with, since they keep voting for it.
I'm with you, Kay.The modern world has its claws in us and we cannot extricate ourselves without tearing our own flesh.
We can only do what's actually possible. Best then to work on that; make changes where possible.
I’d love to know how many New Zealanders never have and never will fly on a plane in their entire life. [A few] Others have their private helipad.
I’d think that at least some people fly less to protect the environment and/or because it’s getting way too expensive.
When it comes to buying food or food products, the choice in NZ is quite limited, not in the least because of the supermarket duopoly. But even on a tight budget one can choose to buy local products or choose not to buy the item and/or defer. Even when we have limited choice, we still can and perhaps should exercise our choice – we don’t have to accept everything that’s offered to us lying down as if TINA.
Here’s a nice article in NZ’s odd food security/resilience: https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360992045/we-export-worlds-food-import-bread-we-eat [courtesy of Google Search AI Overview]
Just as anyone genuine about halting climate change should never drive a car?
Outrage is performative, unless you are prepared to bear the personal consequences of your choices.
Asking everyone else to change, while you benefit by retaining your lifestyle is how we get into these situations.
So, yes, if you truly believe that cars are a major contributor to global warming, and this is a top priority for you; then you should choose other transport options rather than owning/driving a car (bike, bus, train, shared vehicle – taxi, uber (if no other options are available))
Most people find that it (uncomfortably for their worldview) isn't actually a top priority.
Outrage is genuine!
It's a triggered response to something believed to be WRONG!
That's what outrage is.
EV.
Phones can still be landline via fibre and a portable phone that is just phone and text
(yup living without a smartphone can make things like two-factor authentication (2FA), mobile parking meters, or scanning QR codes tricky – society is being organised to require people to carry a tracking device).
Having a fibre connection does not mean AI data centre use – one can have an AI free device set up.
Person without a car, or trackable device (options none, or a burner – sim card). No paid for, or signed up for AI usage.
Thanks Mercurio @12.46 for putting in a rational riposte to the simple-minded and dogmatic presenting no options beyond submission to either of two extreme alternatives.
I don't disagree that scale matters. A hyperscale data centre drawing hundreds of megawatts is obviously a very different proposition from the relatively small facilities we've historically had here.
Where I disagree is that the problem is data centres per se. The underlying problem is the economics of electricity generation and distribution.
New Zealand needs enormous investment in generation and network capacity over the coming decades anyway, particularly as we electrify transport and industrial heat. If another large industrial user wanted to build a plant requiring hundreds of megawatts, we'd face essentially the same questions.
Large, predictable new loads can certainly create short-term capacity problems. But they can also provide exactly the commercial incentive needed to build new generation and network capacity rather than continuing to sweat existing assets.
So rather than a moratorium, I'd make the data centres pay the full marginal cost of connecting them and internalise the environmental and other externalities they create. I'd also be quite happy for government to use regulation and incentives to ensure that demand helps underwrite additional renewable generation, storage and network investment.
The goal shouldn't be to prevent large new electricity users from existing. It should be to ensure that large new electricity users cause the electricity system to get larger.
If we get that right, the story isn't necessarily "data centres use ten million homes worth of electricity". It's "data centres helped pay for an electricity system capable of supplying ten million more homes worth of electricity".
I believe that this is already happening to some extent – certainly the data centres in NZ seem to be tied to increases in generating capacity. And the local infrastructure to get the electricity from the generation point to the datacentre, will have benefits for other users on the same route.
They have not said how big the data centre that is to be built in Southland is going to be, they have not said how much power it will use, it was on the ODT a few weeks back I can't find sorry.
@Res @ 3.
This is not personal, ie there is no need to defend the undefendable.
"It's decades of underinvestment in the infrastructure needed…"
Line charges, in the Bradford reforms, are the reason I moved off grid 25 odd years ago. Line charges amongst other things should contribute towards new generation.
Instead, paying a return to shareholders has been the priority.
It's strange how in the USSR, we can smirk and tut tut at the asset grab by the rich and use the term oligarch. Here in the shaky isles, when the same thing occured, we knighted the burglars.
Renationalise the electricity sector, let the
rentiersshareholders know that their free ride is coming to an end.It's not the re-nationalisation that would do much.
What needs to change is the State Owned Enterprises Act 1986 which requires:
Profitability and Efficiency: Subparagraph (a) explicitly requires them to be as profitable and efficient as comparable businesses not owned by the Crown.
You could renationalise everything, but unless you change the SOE Act and turn all those renationalised companies into Not For Profit entities, it won't change a thing.
I see where you're coming from, but that's not really the problem I'm describing. Line charges pay for the distribution network, not generation. An EDB isn't taking your lines charges and deciding whether to build another power station.
And while some EDBs undoubtedly haven't invested wisely, or have prioritised returns to their owners, almost half of New Zealand's distribution networks are still trust or community owned and operate under a very different model.
The one I work for is very passionate about its trust ownership. We spend a lot of time and energy (pun absolutely intended) thinking about how we can support our communities, enable electrification, and make the investments they'll need in twenty or thirty years' time.
That doesn't mean I think the electricity reforms got everything right. Far from it.
But I think the more interesting problem today is how the regulatory framework incentivises investment. We're asking networks to invest ahead of demand for an electrified future while also, quite reasonably, requiring them to demonstrate that consumers aren't being asked to pay for unnecessary infrastructure.
Getting that balance right is harder than simply saying the shareholders took the money.
A bunker mentality isn't the best model for a distributed network.
The fact that you can afford to be 'sorted' for electricity "off grid" – doesn't mean that the rest of NZ has the same options.
Bellad. you remind me of alwyn quietly smoothing anxiety with conventional wisdom.
The response to National's declaration of their future governance.
Worse
A statement of fact
Into this environment will come Labour’s position.
https://www.thepost.co.nz/politics/361059132/nationals-fuss-over-fiscal-rules-more-same-economists
They made no promise not to charge for services, tolls and congestion charges have already been indicated.
One wonders if they plan a Burnham tax – for aged care insurance, or a health services charge.
They made no promise, not to raise GST.
The Post allows Jordan Williams to provide the Taxpayers Union opine.
His criticism of National could apply for Labour.
Labour has options not available to National
*25% income related rent in state house not 30%
*fairer tenancy rules
*more support for Kainga Ora and social housing providers to deliver
*MW increases that keep pace with inflation, rather than half
*funding food in schools and food banks
*Fair Pay Agreements and pay equity
https://www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/361059134/taxpayers-union-national-risks-standing-nothing-and-getting-run-over
Verily verily, an invitation for parties to deal with the economy in which people live and businesses operate.
That would mean working for people’s well-being in the here and now and having a structural deficit plan.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/361017253/why-dont-political-parties-address-only-question-matters
So, Jordan Williams didn’t call out the National Party ad for being a misleading lie. Instead, he ran with it to spin his own biased narrative, effectively supporting and propagandising the National Party ad. Williams and his misfit outlet (as well as the National Party) have no credibility. Just as well I can’t read most of articles in The Post, including this one.
https://newsroom.co.nz/2026/08/07/calls-for-tighter-rules-after-misleading-ads-stack-up/
It's just weird to me that National appears to be ignoring the received wisdom for an incumbent government campaigning during a downturn.
Surely the story you're supposed to tell is: "things have been tough, we've had to make some difficult decisions, but we're finally turning the corner and better times are ahead if you stick with us."
Instead, the coalition seems determined to tell voters that things have been tough, the fiscal position is still constrained, demographic pressures are only going to get worse, and therefore government spending and public services will need to remain constrained as well.
Maybe there's an electoral strategy there that I'm missing, but "the last three years were painful and the next three will be too" seems like an extraordinarily difficult proposition for an incumbent government to sell.
As does continuing to blame Labour for the country's problems after three years in office, while trying to frighten voters with stories about taxes Labour hasn't even announced yet. Particularly when higher taxes may be more palatable than National assumes to an electorate weary of austerity, worried about dysfunction, and increasingly wondering where, or what, the government's plan actually is.
At some point any government has to give people a positive reason to vote for another three years of it.
It has this offer – the people now know who we are (failed to realise any improvement in the governments fiscal position and leaving many people worse off, it being unable to competently deliver a food in schools programme).
Thus the people would be responsible for allowing such a government to continue.
That leaves only their election campaign approach to ponder.
Last time they promised to end any positive support to Maori by government – something they are intent on honouring (fingers to the UN as per indigenous rights and the Treaty's place in legislation).
And opposing Three Waters, as undermining the sovereignty of councils over their assets.
Councils now face handing over their assets to unitary councils and having collective debt.
As for water asset management – we have too few experts in this field and their design does not provide for this. Nor have they credible plans for financing investment in water infrastructure, apart from higher and higher water charges by the new water bodies.
Yeah, I don't particularly disagree with any of that.
And perhaps that's the answer to my question: there simply isn't a particularly compelling positive story available to them, so they're falling back on the arguments that worked in 2023.
But that's also a problem.
Those arguments worked much better from opposition. You could campaign against Three Waters, spending, Māori policy, government incompetence and the fiscal position because somebody else had been governing the country.
After three years in office, you're campaigning against conditions you now have some responsibility for.
Which is why I keep coming back to the absence of a second-term proposition. Even if voters accept that Labour left them a mess, what is the positive argument for another three years of the coalition?
Normally the answer would be: we inherited a mess, we made the difficult decisions, they're starting to work, and now you'll see the benefits.
If you can't plausibly tell that story, then "Labour was terrible and might be terrible again" starts having to bear an awful lot of structural weight.
And while being not-Labour worked great up until 2023 when National was the default choice for the right-wing voter, the polling suggests that a voter who dislikes Labour but isn't particularly impressed with National now has somewhere else to go. And will gladly vote with their feet.
Which only deepens the strategic problem National needs to break free from: it still hasn't given those voters a compelling reason to vote for National itself.
Not disagreeing with your comment – although the performance of National doesn't appear to be winning Labour any votes.
However, the mantra of "nine years of neglect" was widely used well into the 2nd term of the Ardern government.
Being able to blame the previous government is always a winning strategy in the mind of the incumbent government.
The operative phrase there being "in the mind of the incumbent government".
Part of the reason the "nine years of neglect" line worked was that it was believable and matched what voters could see and feel around them. Repeating it reinforced an existing perception.
This time around, the polling increasingly suggests that blaming Labour isn't having the same effect. After three years in office, voters are entitled to start asking what the current government has actually done about the problems it inherited.
Blaming your predecessor can work: but only as long as the electorate continues to find the explanation credible.
Hard-core Righties do believe it!
Middle-of-the-road New Zealanders however, aren't so welded.
Believe what?
That all governments blame the previous one?
That seems to be established beyond reasonable doubt.
Believe what?
That it's Labour's fault.
Ordinary folk think, "Yeah, right"
I don't know that you can see that blaming Labour isn't working. The Labour polling stats are almost equally as dismal as the National ones.
Labour certainly aren't benefiting from poor quality National messaging.
Of course it works, that's why they do it!
The call loses its power at a certain point – we have passed that point. I hope they plug on – they are chipping away at their own legs.
Nice to watch.
“It's just weird to me that National appears to be ignoring the received wisdom for an incumbent government campaigning during a downturn.”
True. But I think it also makes sense psychologically, The Nat-ACT part of the coalition is intensely ideological in their devotion to a particular set of economic ideas. Specifically, that shrinking the state to stop 'crowding out' and unleashing the animal spirits of free markets is the only way to achieve general prosperity. As Steve Keen has pointed out, neoclassical economics is a teleological project – its end purpose is to ensure that the 'science' of economics reaches this conclusion, and only this conclusion.
So the ideas are in large part just very clever junk. And for 3 years they have failed to do what they are supposed to do. And this failure just makes the Finance Minister even more vehement in her denunciations of the previous government, because she cannot renounce the bad ideas. Her bizarre gauntlet-throwing exercise last week was more in the vein of religious puritanism, with debt recast as sin, and hellfire and brimstone called down on the heads of the unrighteous. It looks like a type of derangement as worrying as anything that emerged in the Covid era, and with a much longer history.
Most of this is equally valid here.
https://theconversation.com/calls-to-tax-billionaires-are-growing-is-there-a-better-way-to-tax-the-rich-288490?
Are we brave enough?
I'm.going to chuck my big oil conspiracy out there. Based on no more than reckons gut feeling, and understanding my species.
Data centre's and lng plants are popping up everywhere, no big oil will know that evs will win the car wars, so it's in the best issues to both consume power driving up power prices and convince gullible and or corrupt politicians to install lng plants to extend there industries life, and profit mustn't forget profit.
Not normally a conspiracy theorist but there you go.
You understand your species, bwaghorn?
Wowsers! Well done you!
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice”
(I didn’t say that).
I thought that was self-evident?
https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2026/aug/09/democratic-party-leftwing-michigan-mamdani-aoc
For those struggling to understand why Mamdani and El-Sayed are so important in the US. This is a good backgrounder on the lw populist wave working to rejuvenate the elected members of the US Democratic Party.
This persistent mantra from National that Labour ran down the economy simply ignores the fact we had a once in one hundred year global pandemic…….most if not all global economies were hit with the subsequent inflationary pressures…….the problems we have now three years later have to be owned by this govt…….it's time Labour took off the gloves………
The sandwich generation is a new term for me but I certainly recognize it.
My situation isn't anywhere as stressful as these examples but there is still a lot of labour and love. One of the hardest aspects is getting them to overcome their pride, especially in the male example we are caring for.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/life/relationships/family/in-the-sandwich-of-caring-for-elderly-parents-and-older-kids-our-well-being-often-falls-out
I wish I was that optimistic mercurio.
Telling one would hope some reporters might actually do some reporting then
A homeless woman foze to death in New Zealand. It astonishs me all these neolibs from Lange to Luxon including Hipkins and Willis and Robertson and all the rest if them somehow believe that they are doing a good job.
A homeless person froze to death in New Zealand. As far as I am concerned they're all complicit in her death.
https://www.odt.co.nz/canterbury/christchurch/she-was-someones-daughter-friend-homeless-woman-found-sleeping-under-pier-dies-in-hospital-qxp3qj3p
Every time there’s a new poll I feel they’re throwing yet another dead cat on the table.
https://theconversation.com/are-there-too-many-political-polls-we-are-in-glut-and-it-may-be-about-to-get-worse-288927
But polls are not merely a distraction, they can be a turn-off.
Polls are not simply measuring instruments, they’re influencing what they’re measuring, feeding a feedback loop that can be used to steer towards a desired outcome.
For example, people here in NZ have said that they will change their vote to TOP once it breaches the 5% threshold in the polls. So, this appears to offer a viable strategy for TOP.
All part of the messaging these continual polls.
I recall a water cooler chat in 2011 with a colleague who wasn't going to vote as national had it stitched up according to the media.
Sterling Police work on TeaPot tapes and the now customary Epsom step aside see Key squeak back in to flog off the power companies etc.
Here they go again.
I don't think we have enough polls in NZ and I think polling is helpful for parties to see how their parties and strategies are going down with the public, though politicians should lead through polling.
Top being near 5% certainly has influenced my vote and a lot of people I talk to as we always wanted them in parliament but it seemed like a wasted cause, but since it's not then, as someone who voted green and labour in the last two elections and has been dismally disappointed by labours nothingness in government and their team, leadership, and policies will do nothing to challenge the massive structural economic and supply challenges in NZ
And I'd usually vote the greens being an appalling circus in opposition (in my opinion) and while having some good polices, I feel like labour wants to manage the status quo, the greens want to give you more money so you can be a tiny but more comfortable in the status quo while top wants to end the fourty year status quo while also giving everyone more money to live comfortably and aggressively use anti trust laws on supermarkets, and turn nz from a low wage, low productivity housing market with bits tacked on.
So the polls are helping people decide where to vote, in mmp it's all about strategic voting and kiwis are good at it and our polls are pretty accurate give or take due to proportional voting
Weird, second time today I've seen "forty" misspelt as "fourty".
I'm not a Top fan, mainly because they are unknown & people seem to have a lot of blind faith towards them. Least they ain't a Reform type party I guess, they do remind me of Peter Dunne though. I voted Maori Party a few times until they went with National & I think Top would just do the same. I don't want National (or ACT) full stop.
Would be interesting to line up the policies of those three parties, or even just GP and TOP, and see who wants the actual change.
Greens are way ahead on climate and just transition. I would have thought their GMI policy was ahead of TOP's UBI. Some of the attraction either way will be cultural fit.
Yes – ban the publishing of them in election year. Political parties and other organisations can still do them for their own purposes, but anyone publishing them gets fined. This is one of a number of things that needs doing to protect the democratic process. (Cleaning up political donations by restricting them to named persons on the electoral roll, and capped at some lowish fraction of the median wage, being the most important of these)
The names of parts of churches:
"Sometimes there are holes in the walls of the screen so that the congregation can see through. These are called squints."
Isn't English lovely 🙂
One of my favourites is Misericord (much nicer than it sounds) – it's a tip up seat, with another smaller seat for you to rest your rump on while standing.
Only in the choir stalls (the rest of the congregation just had to stand unaided)
Entirely separate from the medieval military weapon.
Lovely! Must get me one of those.
TV1 news (10 Aug) shows Ngai Tahu is calling for controls on excessive nitrates in public water supplies in Canterbury; dairy farming is said to be the main cause.
The farming reaction was to deflect the criticism by saying the nitrates are historical, caused by previous farming practices. Pure BS of course; there are just too many cows per hectare. Incredibly, the Canterbury Council has approved plans for another 25,000 cows to be added to those already farmed in the region.
One man interviewed said farmers "were doing everything they can". If we have dangerously high nitrate levels in water supplies when farmers can do no more to solve the problem, we definitely need fewer cows.
IIRC, Ngai Tahu run a substantial dairy operation in Canterbury.
They should be well placed to address the claims by the dairy industry.
Came looking for some insightful thoughts on the reboot of the Alliance Party. Not sure if it's my search skills that can't find anything, or if it's a tribal thing that they don't seem to get a single mention?
The search function on this site hasn’t been working for some time now, sorry about that.