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6:00 am, August 13th, 2026 - 57 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 …
Buying a home is hard enough as it is, we don't need this carry on
I think the Verian Poll out last night bears repeating:
Lab 30 Gre 12 Opp 8 TPM 1=51
Nat 29 ACT 9 NZF 8 =46
The poll is notable for the fact that Lab/Gre/Opp have 50 between them. Assuming Opp goes with Labour, this is enough to form a stable government.
Seats won by TPM would be a bonus.
Two other notable facts; this poll was taken before yesterday's chaos (which is ongoing this morning) and the racist party vote continues to dive.
also from last night
The Overhang has a hung parliament from polling average, after including the Verian poll. Click through for the graphics
https://x.com/Overhang_AoNZ/status/2087430196400161241
Yes it is all on for men and boys Weka. Still too close to call.
But I'm not sure that rolling average from the Overhang is picking up the National Party chaos, the rise of Opp and the fall of NZF.
the next few polls will be very interesting (depending when they come out and what time period they were done in).
My guess is that National will the thinking a dip will happen and then they have time to rebuild over the next few months. We are not out of the woods yet, but the drop in NZF support is encouraging. I'm in two minds about TOP still
I'm still not convinced Opp will get 5%.
They may simply skate through the next 9 weeks entirely untested, retaining their fresh and shiny.
You could be right. But I think their policies will get tested in the campaign.
I'm listening to ZB now and their Land Tax is getting a pasting.
Listening to ZB is your first mistake 😉 We need to tax wealth somehow rather than just wages. A land tax is one way. Another is a wealth tax similar to the Greens proposal. Of course the neolibs on ZB are going to pan anything they consider unorthodox!
Yes, we need to tax wealth more fairly but not at any cost. Thus, improvements need to have ways that exclude the poor that are lucky enough to own a house
I prefer we restore gift duty and estate tax (20%, 25% and 33% rates).
We could also have a stamp duty on property bought over $1M and a land tax on property worth over $1M.
If we went full-on wealth tax, the tax paid should be a debit on the future estate tax liability.
We'd also need to tax capital flight
Know your enemy Leaps
Given the multiple crises we currently face, I think Labour could give themselves a good boost in the polls if they came out with a hundred day plan addressing the top voter concerns
I wouldn't be so quick to assume TOP will swing left. Its stated position is that it is willing to negotiate with either major party after the election, based on policy compatibility and the parliamentary numbers. Qiulae Wong has criticised ruling parties in or out as “old-school” tribal politics.
They will play the Winston game of seeing who they can get the most from
Nat loyalist Janet Wilson isn't taking any prisoners this morning ($$$)
https://www.thepost.co.nz/politics/361061023/national-now-marooned-worst-all-political-worlds
"…It’s difficult to deduce who is more inept here; a bumptious, bungling Prime Minister whose political judgement continually thwarts him, or his whining, angst-ridden, entitled senior caucus who have twice failed to unseat him …"
The critical job a CEO has is to manage their senior executive team. Otherwise, if you're off swanning around, you end up like Richard Lionheart with the barons, with the SET undermining your power for themselves.
I was lucky enough (as a worker ant) to a have a competent new CEO come into our dysfunctional Crown Entity org. They quietly identified and shuffled out those SET members not prepared to do their job over about a year. Replacements came from the super-competent a layer below. If only they had gone into politics, although diehard Nat, of course…
The new SET were the hardest-working (and happiest) I'd ever seen. The CEO had an open door policy and talked with everyone.
Luxon’s mantra seems ‘there is no team in I’.
That is a most fortunate and rare occurance in my experience.
Tier 2s and 3s in major state entities since around 2016 are increasingly jobbers who shift across from Housing to Justice to Transport to Immigration to etc, come in as change managers for a couple of years, fuck things up with restructures getting rid of decades-long competent people, and it's off to the next restructure they go ..
… cycle after cycle after cycle..
Yes Ad, these short termers call themselves "change agents".
But they omit to say that the changes they will bring about are wholly destructive.
And as soon as they have worked their brilliant restructuring plan they take off before all can see it's a dog.
This was from early 2000s, when the management trends being taught were participatory in nature (I did a 100 level management paper at the time). I was a PSA delegate across the change period, so saw the nuts and bolts of the CEO’s actions. They didn’t just do this at SET level, they fixed the outsude relatipnships, they enabled a smooth team structure optimisation led from the bottom. They trained the SET up to replace them. They said to me “my job is to carry the shit, and pass along the glory”. A still a good kiwi bloke.
I rave about them because they were the master
-class example of excellent management.
Apologise for typos, lost the edit box somehow, possibly by trying to cram too much into my eulogy.
I usually start the story by saying, all they did in the 1st 3 months was travel round listening to everyone, client and worker and funder, sat at every teatable. They called the then-SET once, and once only in that time, and then just watched them work.
@Ad Sounds like we need a large number of trick-cyclists to fix the faulty entities.
tWig Sounds like The Peter Principle at work!
Investopedia : https://www.investopedia.com › terms › p › peter-principle.asp
Understanding the Peter Principle in Workplace Promotions | May 8, 2026The Peter Principle states that the higher an employee advances in the hierarchy ladder, the more likely they are to reach a level of incompetence and fail in their new position.
The Peter Principle is very ‘old hat’. And I have dim memories of the author being discredited. The current term is 'failson', with whiffs of both incompetence AND nepotism.
Thanks tWig – 'failson' is an apt word. I think we need to carry with us apt words that fit, more than apps. A passing thought – a poor thing but mine own.
The sharpiness of the response is not directed at you, gws, but is due to some deep 'ick' memory I have of reading the Peter Principle last century. And I have known the term 'failson' for about a month…
…maybe three weeks…
Karoline Leavitt departing as White House spokesperson is going to take quite a replacement to equal her. She was 24 when she started the role, 28 now. Lied through her teeth but her counterattack, poise, and targeting of attacking journalists was something I would have loved to have seen on anyone on the Democrat side.
No one cares, Ad. She's a piece of theatre, a deckchair on the Titanic. Saw an essay today: it's not serious news or journalism if your headline is "Trump says…".
Extracting news from Trump's White House is as effective as being a Roman haruspex inspecting entrails for the future. It's all hints from the royal bedchamber at 2am.
If you’re interested in the electoral shift in the US South, these thumbnail pieces by Democratic-leaning journalists are informative. The thesis is that the South is the heart of US political power. Pick the ones with a state name.
https://m.youtube.com/channel/UC0jYTMDGoHT_Q6HQ7SFtGXg/videos
Another female off the team.
Good commentary on the links between the snake oil, "alternative medicine" industries, big money and anti-vacc, anti science, anti climate science "influences on the right wing.
Paul Krugman on right wing influences
Aren't big pharma today's snake oil merchants?
I.e. profit motives driving aggressive marketing, obscuring safety data and overstating benefits
"Big Pharma", has regulatory brakes to limit over claiming effectiveness.
Though buggerrall on profit taking, unfortunately.
The "alternative medicine", exploitation of the gullible, has managed to avoid any such restrictions.
Yep – they are still sufficiently regulated for some of their products to have real efficacy. Many of us experience that efficacy every day.
But we do know that they try and deceive their way around those guardrails by funding clinical researchers, claiming marginal efficacy with me-too products that will have a longer patent life, conniving with generic manufacturers to minimise revenue loss when successful drugs come off-patent, etc. Pharma industry regulation is an example of 'good' red tape.
If only we had business journalists who are not lobby fodder.
To Aucklanders, and anyone else who wants to attend:
March for Nature is scheduled to begin at 1pm, on 19 September. Location for the start is Aotea Square, Queen Street. See https://www.marchfornature.nz/
We need to ram home the message that thousands of voters value the outdoors and want to keep a healthy environment for future generations.
POS is more than happy to go after Hipkins, Maiki Sherman and Benjamin Doyle but when the jandal's on the other foot…
https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/361019596/free-speech-union-board-member-revealed-complainant-censorship-court-case
Not a surprise to some of us. It's how she rolls. And yes, very hypocritical.
From the linked article:
Bradbury must have made multiple posts about her that fall foul of both Netsafe and the HDCA. Nothing she's posted herself would be in that category. But yes, supporters of freedom of speech should have a problem with the HDCA so using it herself isn't a good look.
Can we say that yet? It's an assertion that what Bradbury said about her was worse than anything she said about anyone else. The court judgment itself is not even concerned with what she may have said about others – it's making a judgment only on what he said about her.
I take your deeper inference though, that judging 'harm' sits on a scale where calculations of 'better' and 'worse' have to be made – which is why the whole thing is so fraught and potentially dangerous.
I put a couple of replies in Pending to let Lprent take a look at. Please be careful to not discuss details of the case until the court restrictions are lifted.
We need the young to get their ideas straight and give them enough info and practice at planning and micro economics so we have replacement for the destroyers and strippers.
Some are starting to hunt around households, getting right into a 'working life' rather than a 'woking lif'.
They are doorknocking for jobs, no doubt knowing that what they are learning tech-wise may end in an elegy; 'A poem or song composed especially as a lament for a deceased person'; (different from a eulogy; A beautiful eulogy is heartfelt, genuine, and focuses on the person's life, their special bond with friends and family, and the impact they had on others.)
This vid could amuse and stir them 'We're Not Going to Take It' with big hair. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xmckWVPRaI 'Twisted Sister'
Ah, swag people! How charming! 'Will work for a cuppa, a meal and a roof for the night in the shed'.
tWig Cutting – through the ties that bind my mind! What in your incisive mind is that about – explain please?
I have family shifting in because they can't find any work for their, to-date, successful business. Will work in lieu of rent if necessary…
…I have plans to upgrade the shower and kitchen ventilation. Couldn’t afford to pay a tradie…
The other stimulus was the door-knocking image. Sugar-bag Years.
tWig I know. I know, but the reading I am doing keeps prompting fleeting thoughts of the Depression, I have Tony Simpson's book. These young school leavers who came to me are getting a start, but I reserve some work for the good tradesperson who helps me I told them. We worked out a price that was reasonable for the individual job.
I have been reading about the Irish Famines, plural. And looking at Gregory's Law, (an Anglo-Irish landowner). And the English bad land-owning ways – the middleman system. It is salutary reading about Gregory's progress through life well-fed and able to spend a lot of boodle on racehorses yet usher in legislation so hurtful.
I am reading so-called fiction of Georgette Heyer who got fascinated by the heady Regency days in early 1800s; how gambling was a pastime of honour with debts paid promptly, yet paying tradesmen was wasting your 'blunt'. The high-flown attitudes of today seem similar.
Do you remember the story about the swagman 'Shiner' who was thirsty and impecunious so asked the NZ barman if they accepted stamps to pay for drinks, yes, a glass was offered and downed followed by three heavy thumps on the floor and a quick exit. I've put it up before, he was known for his tricks.
Actually what do you think about workers who have a good record registering with a worker's agency that is honest and ensures reasonable wages and sees that seasonal and transients have decent meals and good caravans where they are called to work. It would fill a need and people could get around the country and have some organisation of substance rather than charity, to be connected with. We need people to do things, town or country, and a national one could provide people and insist on decent conditions and it would help to keep businesses and money flowing, and decent company of other workers often becoming friends? It would not be a government agency but would know all the requirements and act more like the Spanish Mondragon people's help agency that a Catholic priest started way back. But in the main, better if not religious, just good humane human stuff. Which will be needed more and more as the country gets munted by consecutive governments either bringing in bad legislation, or throwing out good, or choosing something that most benefits some company they are acting as 'spotters' for.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/politics/990056/the-national-party-s-92-political-ads-seen-by-only-men
"The [Greens] spokesperson said online advertising allows the party to see what different groups care about."
Time to update on micro-targetted political advertising again.
As I've said before, based on my own experience being involved in a social media recruitment campaign, this advertising works via cycles of evolution.
As an advertiser, you pop in all your key points, and your target audience. The campaign generates multiple variants in ads, dozens of them, maybe with different headlines, or images, or key phrases, and pops them out. Less effective lures get dropped as they get fewer bites, and more successful ones amplify.
For even more oopfh, the ad company trolling your lures doesn't just throw chum in the water. It pops the ads into feeds of more likely customers for your message, based on the on-line history they hold of all your posts, all the clicks and hovers you've made on their sites. Or maybe they, or you, buy those addresses from a third-party accumulator.
I saw myself just how scarily effective (and cheap) these methods are in our recruitment drive. The RNZ article talks about $23k getting 500,000 views. Watch out for yourselves, warn your friends.
To mention, these ads can be as much, closer to election day, to discourage you from voting for the opposition, by sitting the election out.
Been binging here, but this'll be my 'last post' of the day, tieing off Dennis Frank's comment thread on the Bomber Bradbury NetSafe squabble. In a notable twist, the complainant turns out to be Ani O'Brien, on-line provocateur and Free Speech Union Board member.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/361019596/free-speech-union-board-member-revealed-complainant-censorship-court-case
Apologies to joe90, didn't read your link title or content.
And a huge helping of pot calling kettle.
Place this under Stranger Things Running Up That Hill (Billy Don't Be a Hero)
Simeon Brown not wanting ideological people on the Medical Council and the two recent appointments made by him to it.
https://www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/361061481/free-speech-unions-ani-obrien-revealed-complainant-bradbury-blog-gagging-case
Taiepa/boundaries for Te Wai Pounamu/ South Island proposed by Ngai Tahu.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/politics/992824/ngai-tahu-unveils-south-island-council-boundary-plan
Very much approve of tying local organisation to catchments.
I don't have an opinion about the amalgamation proposals other than that centralising may be financially expedient, but decisions should be made by people who live in a place.
Maybe the rivers should be given a seat at the table.
Yes, but through an intermediary, of course, but who…
"decisions should be made by people who live in a place."
People?
Locals, if they are farmers, should make those decisions?
Locals, if they are suburbanites, should make those decisions?
Locals, if they have turfed-out the original inhabitants, should make the decisions?
It's … challenging…
When we manage a river we have to manage it from the source to the sea. So the management authority has to encompass all the land within the catchment. You can't split the management about a point part way down the catchment. We've got that farce with the Waitaki.
These reforms are being sold as getting rid of Regional Councils, but in reality most of the Regional Councils are just absorbing the Districts within their catchment, with maybe a couple more created.
The problem is we're trying to do this within current Local Government structures which relate to much smaller and discrete communities of interest. When these are scaled up to catchment level we end up with councils that have communities that may have very little interaction, and maybe conflicting interests. We'll need very different structures for our councils with these larger entities.
Governance of a Pan Otago or Canterbury council could get messy as large urban areas out vote smaller centres and rural areas. In Otago's case it would quickly degenerate to Dunedin vs Central / QL with Clutha wondering wtf they'd got involved in. Going to need a well thought out structural model to make that work.
Ngai Tahu are on the right track with their proposal to have the three layers of delivery, presumably there will also be a corresponding three layers of governance with an entity having governance responsibilities over the four Councils and bang heads together to make it work.
A more detailed report in ODT
https://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/five-councils-in-south-island-under-ngai-tahu-plan-p6f5iiv0
Good to see Ngai Tahu showing leadership here, and pretty much aligned with Government's objectives.
Ballad of Waitaki by John Hore
Here is Waitaki River and its country – fishing.
A good song by Kath Tait now in UK https://folksong.org.nz/song_scrapbook.html#waitaki
WAITAKI RIVER
Kath Tait
You were a raging river wild ;
You were a friend when I was a child
Then they built the dams to tame you down
To make the power to run their towns.
Chorus
Waitaki Waitaki Waitaki river
We'll be the takers if you'll be the giver
River river rolling by me oh,
Give me a buzz off your electricity.
Now look how man has changed your scene
Oh he's tumed your valleys from brown to green
Switzerland has got nothing on you
With your pine trees and mountains and waters blue
Washing machines, radios,
You just play your turbines and round they go
Well you give me good electric rock and rol!
Hi fi music to soothe our souls.
Chorus:
Now old river you’re not so wild
And | am older and I’ve travelled a mile
But whenever | see those city lights shine
| get to thinking of our old times.