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6:00 am, February 17th, 2026 - 57 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 …
I posted this link yesterday late so posting it early today. Sell sell sell while you can. Well worth a read.
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/bubble-bubble-toil-and-trouble/
I heard on a UK podcast from an ex insolvency practictioner that in general over the last 5 years every corporate acquisition price is about 60-70% goodwill.
So a company whose assets are worth $1b, being sold for $2b. The difference is the asset 'Goodwill' as it's gotta go somewhere on the balance sheet to offset the $2B paid.
That values an organisation way beyond what it is currently physically capable of and adds immediate pressure onto it's operations to return that investment.
As NZ is again struck by extreme rain and wind, ( I am not sure what this is called, it is like a change in our climate, but that can't be it, otherwise our great leaders would be making policies to mitigate :/ ) I cant help but notice, our great leader and his bucket of KFC is nowhere to be heard?? maybe just not on what I follow.
I noticed this on RNZ maybe someone has found the sanity pill.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/587080/party-leaders-call-for-politics-to-be-taken-out-of-planning-for-weather-events
From Dean Blundell’s Substack. Dean being Canadian, he’s referring to Carney.
“According to reporting and sources close to the PM (Politico/Axios), Canada is spearheading discussions between the European Union and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) — a 12-nation Indo-Pacific trade bloc — to explore linking their supply chains under harmonized rules of origin.”
Now there’s a deal. I know we already have a FTA with Europe, but this will be interesting to watch.
'Deyankification' could be a project for the EU, the Anglosphere excluding the US, and significant Indo-Pacific economies like Japan and South Korea. To truly reduce dependency on the US it would have to include not only trade in consumer goods, but also defence architecture and digital infrastructure/AI. But there will be a temptation to just hold the line and hope that Trump and Trumpism go away. There will be inertia with getting multiple countries with somewhat different interests to agree. There will be reluctance to 'find' (create) and invest sufficient money. And even if something was done, given the predilections of the major players, it is likely to reproduce the neoliberal structures of the world order that the USA is now destroying – meaning that these countries would face increasing domestic Trumpism and crises of legitimacy as their economies fail to deliver economic gains to all their citizens equally.
Agree. It really needs some collective action from ordinary people, locally and internationally.
For myself, I'm particularly shifting from US based corporate IT to open source, and Europe-based web services, as well as from using a lot of US-based credit and debit cards, to using cash and local EFTPOS where available.
And now The Guardian is reporting that the UK is looking at alternatives to Visa and Mastercard.
However Visa and Mastercard's claims they are deeply invested in the UK and would welcome competition. I think the world should be looking at moving away from US financial dominance.
Politico has a Feb 12 article on it:
Despite the awful headline, this is a good write-up:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/thedetail/587032/the-winners-and-losers-from-the-india-trade-deal
On dairy being excluded from the deal, which is apparently so bad for NZ:
Winston Peters should stop bleating about dairy, but he won’t because the sheeple listen to his dog whistle.
Why anyone would think that exporting dairy to India was a goer is beyond me. India is by far and away the biggest producer of dairy globally with twice the out put of the next largest producer (the USA) and 10 times our production.
It seems that the dairy industry is ‘genuinely’ disappointed if not surprised, possibly because of wishful thinking and/or false hope from Luxon/National – Mate! You’re dreaming!
Thus, I think it’s a pathetically weak stick to beat the FTA and National with and, if Labour supports the deal, Labour as well. However, if the ones being beaten cannot defend themselves against it, how on earth can they defend the trickier points of the FTA or even be in politics, full stop? Or do they just have weak PR teams (and emotional junior staffers)?
A question for wiser heads than mine.
Is the ability to reply from a mobile device going to be reinstated?
I’d say, most likely, but nobody knows exactly if/when. The SYSOP has been remarkably quiet/absent here on TS lately and I hope that all is well with him – I don’t bother him with trivial messages, if I can help it.
Unfortunately I couldn't make it to the poo meeting in Welly as we were coping with storm related issues. If I went, I would have said-
1) all this 'they spent it all on cycleways!' is coming from RW trolls as a distraction. The hit job by Ryan Bridge on Tamatha makes that clear. Unfortunately, I think it’s working. Come on lefties, wake up!
2) Councils are being squeezed. That's the plan because COC 2.0 will force councils to sell their assets
3)Veolia. This foreign owned company IS the one in charge. They failed. I had never heard of them til 2 weeks ago. The right wing DO NOT want the finger pointed at these guys, as they prepare to sell our assets from under our feet. And that is what is going on as they all try to hide behind an 'enquiry,' and tell us to look over there.
Can you tell I'm angry?
On that biggus stickus, immigration, again.
https://www.stats.govt.nz/news/net-migration-gain-of-14200/
Populists, populist-adherents, and wannabe racists need to scroll down a little further for their ‘kicks’.
Net migration's a useful figure if we subscribe to the view that culture's irrelevant, not so useful if we don't.
If humans are interchangeable widgets, it makes no difference if 50,000 emigrate and 50,000 immigrate, there's a net change of 0. That might make for nice clean mathematics, but in practice 50,000 people born and raised here emigrating and 50,000 foreigners immigrating makes a cultural difference and those differences are cumulative. Whether that change is good, bad or neutral is a matter of opinion, but we need to be honest about the fact that even if net migration is low, the resulting changes may be significant.
that's one of the best explanations I've seen.
The worst bit is, denial of that and that culture matters hands the narrative and power to the RW populists. That's a bit part of why they're winning.
Grinds my gears enormously that liberal Pākehā NZ acts ashamed of our own cultures.
I mean, obviously we should be sceptical of emotions we might feel about supposed greatness of our culture, because humans tend to see any group they belong to as better than others, but there's also no need to pretend it's worse than it is.
hard to imagine people being too proud of being a New Zealander 😉 Apart from the white might crowd. But I take your point, and things are volatile, who knows what will happen.
If the left doesn't make space for feeling good about who we are, people will go elsewhere politically. Sense of belonging is a core human need.
Yes – but what you will find is that people who have 'cultural' concerns about immigration are not all operating from a common understanding of what NZ culture is.
I, for instance, have qualms about allowing very wealthy people to immigrate here. That's because of the political power that always accrues to those with great wealth through lobbying, political donations and the ability to commit or withhold investment dollars. Similarly, I am concerned about immigration of people from countries with weak social welfare systems and a culture of intense personal ambition and devil take the hindmost attitudes. I think such people in sufficient numbers pose a threat to our egalitarian heritage and might accelerate the weakening of it that has already occurred in the last 40 years. Nor do I want people who will not accept that the indigeneity of Maori and the ToW have to be recognised.
So in fact, my concerns about 'culture' turn out to be political/ideological preferences or simple self-interest. I believe the same is true of everyone. 'Cultural' opposition to immigration is therefore a problematic space, not a neutral opinion that must always be treated as intrinsically valid and accommodated. That makes the politics of immigration much more nuanced.
An odd dichotomy; quantity vs quality.
That’s another bold presupposition there.
Again, that odd dichotomy!? What do you mean by ‘cumulative [cultural] differences’, if it’s not simply absolute numbers?
Who’s not being honest here? What do you mean by changes being ‘significant’, if it’s not simply statistical significance on absolute numbers?
The floor is yours here on TS, so give us your opinion with your reasoned argument instead of abstract hypotheticals. It seems to me that quite a few TS regulars are opposed to immigration but for various, but not necessarily mutually exclusive, reasons. This complicates having a constructive discussion about it but we could at least try, can’t we (cf. weka’s comment: https://thestandard.nz/open-mike-16-02-2026/#comment-2056218)?
"… but we need to be honest about the fact that even if net migration is low, the resulting changes may be significant."
An example of this, is the nurse workforce. Well over 1/3 of nurses are foreign trained, we are second only to Ireland in a ranking of OECD countries by percentage of foreign-trained nurses. There isn't enough data to accurately ascertain how many of the IQNs (Internationally Qualified Nurse)move on to the likes of Australia.
Maori and PI nurse numbers are not a reflection of the population, leading to cultural safety issues.
https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/12-07-2024/why-so-many-nurses-move-to-new-zealand-but-dont-plan-to-stick-around
https://info.health.nz/about-us/what-we-do/planning-and-performance/health-workforce-planning/health-workforce-plan-2024-detailed-analysis-and-data/workforce-population-analysis
Indeed, after Covid many nurses emigrated (i.e., left the country) and this created a gap (actually, it enlarged the gap). One of the stop-gap measures was getting more overseas-trained healthcare workers in.
https://info.health.nz/about-us/what-we-do/planning-and-performance/health-workforce-planning/health-workforce-plan-2024-detailed-analysis-and-data/health-workforce-plan-2024-context
It’s not a binary either-or, i.e., IMO it’s still better to have a fully-qualified professional who may be overseas-trained than no professional at all.
BTW, a large proportion of the NZ population is overseas-born (about 28%, IIRC).
I mean exactly what I said: there are cultural differences between countries, so if we swap people of one country out for people of another, we alter the cultural make-up of the country. The effect is cumulative because the more you swap out, the more the culture is altered, eg if 0.1% of the NZ population immigrated here from Peru, their effect on NZ culture would be a lot less than if they were 15% of the population.
"… give us your opinion with your reasoned argument…"
Why? It's irrelevant to my point.
I agree with you that the differences are now vast. I've been living in Wanaka and working in Queenstown, after moving from Auckland's west 3 years ago.
I really do like Auckland's diversity in some respects. Great for our markets, international connectivity, for our restaurants and cultural life, for our religious diversity, and frankly our real estate prices would have completely collapsed without them.
And I also agree there are limits. Who knows exactly what they are. But when it gets to a limit you no longer want to live there. I go back to western Auckland and to the south and just OMG it's crazy.
Achievements: we abolished the environment!
100% Pure bought and paid for assholes. This is a coup and vandalism.
If NZ votes for these mofos we should be meeting fire with fire. Useless pricks who
were terrified at entrenching the climate change response. They don’t give a shit.
So, anyone heard from Groundswell recently?
How many storms that wreck farms and houses and roads will it take for those who viciously opposed Ardern's climate change response reforms to accept that they were wrong all along, and maybe if they'd supported the government 9 years ago we would be far more prepared as an entire country?
Check out that heartfelt response to the damage at Federated Farmers: Crickets.
https://www.fedfarm.org.nz/Web/Web/Media-Releases.aspx?hkey=eeb27cba-4fad-43fa-904c-4d5ccfc15ccb
And Groundswell tell us from last year that we should just leave the Paris Accord altogether.
https://www.groundswellnz.co.nz/news-media
How much ruination of New Zealand does it take to change a farmer's mind?
"we would be far more prepared as an entire country?",
Why would be any better prepared? If the same thing happened as it appears to have done with the Mental Health activities we would be in exactly the same position but a few billion dollars more in debt.
In 2019 the then Government claimed there would be an improvement in mental health care at a cost of $1.9 billion dollars. By the end of 2022 the money was spent and we had exactly the same number of beds as when they started. Why would things be any different in any other area when we had twits like Chippie running things?
https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/350502498/new-zealand-has-same-number-of-acute-mental-health-beds-as-when-labour-came-to-power
I do not know why I need to deal with morons with comments like this.
But just to humour a moron with an actual fact rather than some bullshit irrelevent diversion about mental health FFS…
The ‘Climate Emergency Response Fund’ (CERF) was established in 2021. By Labour. The fund was set up with an initial $4.5 billion balance for New Zealand’s climate spending, proportional to the size of proceeds from the Emissions Trading Scheme. The CERF was also topped up periodically by the Labour Government at Economic and Fiscal Updates.
National killed the fund in their 2024 budget. So now NZTA have had to kill hundreds of infrastructure projects because they are internally reallocating funding to more and more emergency works …
… because National killed off the fund Labour had set up to respond to exactly the kind of mess the southern North Island is in right now.
Next time you comment make damn sure it's relevant.
The point I was attempting to make was that the previous Government may have allocated large amounts of money to projects. They were not successful in completing projects and getting useful outcomes. The mental health project was merely an example.
I think that, as an example of the waste of time and money that was the case in the last Government's activities and the lack of useful results from their efforts it was quite a reasonable thing to quote as what would probably have happened if they had remained in office.
(hold my beer)
Big Roading projects that the Ardern government started, some of which got finished but all will be done either this term or next since that's the way major infrastructure goes:
– Otaki to North of Levin SH1 highway upgrade, as a dual alliance
– Penlink, north of Auckland. Also an alliance
– Mill Road in the south of Auckland from Manukau to Drury
– Melling Interchange in Wellington
In Rail:
– Southern Auckland's Drury Stations (2), together with the big new towns around them
– Electrification of rail from Papakura to Pukekohe
– Eastern Busway Stage 2
– Upgrades to the Wellington-Wairarapa-Palmy line
– Te Ara Tupuna which is the big seawall+rail protection+cycleway which is just completing now
– Whanganui Port revitalisation
– Marton Rail Hub
– Big rail upgrades through Auckland both tracks and all stations. Also big upgrades to the tunnels in the Auckland-Whangarei line
Volumes of projects post-COVID like:
– $500m of projects in Queenstown, still going
– Kaikohe water storage facility
– About 12,000 new housing units both public and private. That's across big suburbs like Mt Albert, Northcote, Hobsonville, Onehunga, Mangere, and more.
That's just skimming across the big ones.
Sure Ardern's government reached for the stars and didn't make it, but what they delivered was real and big.
I started reading that list and hit the Otaki to Levin Road and the Melling Interchange.
They were both roads that National promised prior to the 2017 election and that the Labour Government refused to progress during their 2017-2019 term. Then in 2020 the discovered them and claimed they were all their own idea.
Were any others in you list among the things National had promised and Labour the scrapped or put on hold for years?
!2,000 new houses? But they promised 100,000 new houses as part of Kiwibuild. What happened there? As far as I remember they only built about 2,300. How many of this other promise did they build?
I'm not sure what you are like on detail, but Labour started the projects I listed, not National. I know because I bid for all of them.
If you can find any National government that built 12,000 new dwellings, any time, any where in New Zealand, I challenge you to name it. That's 9,917 new builds by Kainga Ora, over 4,000 transitional homes, and 2,229 new homes under KiwiBuild.
It was the highest rate of home delivery to New Zealanders since the 1950s.
At some point Alwyn you need to accept that you are wrong and the simple facts are right.
I have no idea where you get your numbers from.
In December 2017 Kainga Ora had 483 Emergency Housing Properties. In December 2023 it was 2,445. Over 6 years that is an increase of just under 2,000. Where does your number of 4,000 come from?
https://kaingaora.govt.nz/en_NZ/publications/oia-and-proactive-releases/housing-statistics/housing-statistics-archive/
Why would you think transitional homes are emergency housing?
"Why would you think …"
I don't. In 2017 KO didn't themselves distinguish them so I quoted their term in that year. They gave a description in the December 2017 report of "Emergency/Transitional Housing".
No wonder I think often that you’re a vexatious troll (aka sealion).
Between Dec 2017 and Dec 2023 there was a net difference of +4,345 Transitional Housing Places.
https://www.hud.govt.nz/stats-and-insights/the-government-housing-dashboard/transitional-housing#tabset
Also, this Post here on TS: https://thestandard.nz/what-is-at-stake-this-election-housing/
And particularly, the thread from here onwards: https://thestandard.nz/what-is-at-stake-this-election-housing/#comment-1964636, incl. the facts https://thestandard.nz/what-is-at-stake-this-election-housing/#comment-1964833.
Ad was talking about homes being built. As far as I can understand the jargon a transitional housing place does not necessarily mean a a full house. It can mean a bedroom in a property with shared facilities and therefore "place" and "property" are not the same thing.
In the link you provide Pat was apparently arguing the same thin as I am. A 'place' and a 'property' are not interchangeable.
You never answered Ad’s original question at the beginning of the thread but chose to divert and now you’re quibbling about transitional homes vs places and regurgitating old facts. Both Ad and I have obliged you enough and now you know where those numbers come from. Enjoy debating them with yourself by yourself.
Are you still conflating transitional housing places with emergency housing properties?
@Incognito.
Ad's original statement at the start of this thread asked a number of questions, starting with "So, anyone heard from Groundswell recently?"
I chose to comment on his question in the second paragraph that started "How many storms that … " and answered it with my opinion, backed with evidence, that I didn't think we would be any better off as the then Government weren't very successful in implementing things they proposed to do.
Ad’s question was Groundswell and “those who viciously opposed Ardern’s climate change response reforms”.
You diverted to mental health.
Ad then replied to you, to lead you back to the context of his comment, which was the Climate Emergency Response Fund’ (CERF). He also explained that it wasn’t a promise but actioned & delivered (i.e., funded and topped up).
You diverted to unspecified projects that had not (yet) been completed and diverted again to mental health.
And on and on it went to the point at which we’re now discussing bedsits from 2017-2023.
You’ve been diversion trolling from the get go and this is a behavioural pattern that has seen you banned many times before. So, consider this a Mod note and your warning – Incognito.
The numbers 2017 – 2023
indicate
275 bedsits – 350
42 one bedroom – 515
56 2 bedroom – 851
74 3 bedroom – 452
25 4 bedroom – 216
11 5 or more bedrooms – 61
208 properties and 275 bedsits (483) – 2095 properties and 350 bedsits.
Anyone game to go through this entire national infrastructure strategy that Bishop has just put out?
It's a lot.
Chris Bishop made it to pg. 14.
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/national-infrastructure-plan-delivered
Joel MacManus of The Spinoff has made a good start.
https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/17-02-2026/the-governments-infrastructure-plan-points-the-blame-at-the-government
I skim-hopped through the report and didn’t stumble over anything controversial yet. It strongly advocates for (recommends) transitioning to renewable energy, for example. All in all, it appears to be quite sensible and probably too sensible for the sensitive CoC. Oh, before I forget, it makes interesting statements about The Treaty too.
It is obvious that none of the present, and past, PTBs have a real forward plan of benefit to our NZ economy AND people. Dairy is moved around on our country's chess board etc – paid immigration, paid residency, housing fiesta foisted on us.
Let an alternative business group thinking hard and clever for da people, with more who clues and nous get going. Start a movement. What we have to do is float on helium away from da present atmosphere and do separate thinking but still be tied to the present system so can start something within its protocols and services. Or something like.
I see a headline about disaster tourism getting in the way. Perhaps people can sign up for escorted commercial tours by local firms for those providing donated funds to the area's citizens trust fund administered by local and trusted worthies, and the donors can visit and see where their money is going and most needed. They would be received with some fuss and ceremony and given a ride in helicopters, whatever can be organised. Hamilton jet boats (with some promotion money made available for this NZ invention)? The donors could adopt the town for a year, and be given a 'key' to the town as a patron.
Make use of the interest which wouldn't all be nosy curiosity, there will be all sorts. And further we need to adopt a Small Islands grouping offering to accept a woofers-type help with especially for the young, coming on the cheap and being looked after properly! and working mainly for free. (Administered by established church committees, not farmers or charity groups, not government; who can't be trusted to look after people fairly and adequately. Have travelling entertainment vans going round the motu, so it's not all work and no play – gives Jack and Jill a dull time!
We absolutely have to start thinking outside the square. Our masters of the universe world system now imposed by mad money maniacs, and our landed class system of approved piracy of our housing stock, is not a healthy economy working for us, and with us there at the hem. But we are compressed from the top where leaders, gummint and 'addvisers' have weight applied by the overseas wealthy who must give approval before any move is made. (Obviously the reason behind Labour's ferry order cancellation.) Not approved by current rulers of Kiwiland's bloated government pawns.
If you have forgotten, this is Election Year (7 Nov!).
Expect to be exposed to fake stuff gener-aided by AI.
Since political parties don’t do irony, this is hugely ironic:
https://newsroom.co.nz/2026/02/13/new-rules-needed-to-curb-political-ai-arms-race-expert-warns/
Remember Christopher Luxon holidaying in Hawaii when he was ‘doing an interview’ in Te Puke?
However, probably most of AI-generated ‘political’ content, e.g., on social media, won’t be coming (straight) from the political parties.
https://newsroom.co.nz/2026/02/13/ai-politicking-isnt-coming-its-already-here-and-proving-hard-to-regulate/
NZ is not in a good place to handle this, even if there were the (political non-partisan) will to do so. So, it’s up to individual citizens/voters to show personal responsibility and healthy scepticism, as is always the case but particularly so in this era of AI when we’re all quite new to it still.
As a bonus, here’s a good informative piece about some of the environmental costs of using AI. The main take-home message might surprise: the type of device and how we use it does matter a lot.
https://newsroom.co.nz/2026/02/17/the-invisible-emissions-behind-ai/
"Remember Christopher Luxon holidaying in Hawaii when he was ‘doing an interview"
What on earth did this have to do with AI?
I threw in that bone especially for you to nibble on.
It’s fairly obvious that you’re missing the point, which is supported further by your partial quoting.
Who or what wins from this? I have no faith that this will be good for NZ citizen interests. 39 year agreement. I feel the constraints tightening and blackmail behind the escalating costs.
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU2602/S00236/port-marlborough-and-straitnz-bluebridge-sign-long-term-partnership-agreement.htm
So amusing to see Willis walking back Bishop's massive report on infrastructure that was only released yesterday; first on proposed tolls to pay for a new Auckland harbour crossing;
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/587176/willis-calls-9-auckland-crossing-toll-a-completely-hypothetical-scenario
… and secondly, on the same day, underlining that the Wellington tunnels will go ahead despite Minister Bishop saying they may not be necessary:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/government-hints-it-may-cancel-or-delay-wellington-mt-victoria-tunnel-in-favour-of-congestion-charge/NJHB6H2CKZDEFFWFE6EV7LPXAM/
Bishop would actually make a pretty good Labour transport and infrastructure minister. Willis is just in straight panic mode.
Speaking as an Aucklander – and one who lives on the North Shore – there is zero logical reason why there should be tolls on the Harbour bridge + replacement and not on (say) the Waikato Expressway.
It's just part of SH1.
You may want to read pg. 67 of the National Infrastructure Plan (https://media.umbraco.io/te-waihanga-30-year-strategy/zsunnlry/national-infrastructure-plan.pdf) to see the logic.
Read it.
The argument that we need to impose tolling because of the high cost, doesn't stack up against the ROI of the major North/South SH1 link.
While what is being proposed is (currently) an extra link – the reality is that the existing bridge is going to be taken out of service (for safety reasons) at some point in the not too distant future.
The ROI for other state highways would be much lower. Yes, they cost less to build – but they are also used far less frequently (Auckland has by far the traffic volume)
https://www.stuff.co.nz/motoring/83559308/our-highways-busiest-at-spagetti-junction-loneliest-in-the-forgotten-world
Even Bishop admits it – the only reason he's suggesting tolls, is because he believes the usage is so high, that tolls would attract a reasonable abatement.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/a-very-big-decision-government-getting-advice-on-tolling-auckland-harbour-bridge-in-order-to-build-new-crossing/Y7F2GPRDA5CPPO67U5XETQYVYI/
Which is absolutely the wrong way around – if the volume of use is so high, it makes more sense to fund this from taxes, not less. It's only where volume of use is low – that we should be considering whether this is of more value to the few who use it, rather than the taxpaying public as a whole.
If you want to establish the principle that those who use the roads, fully pay for them; then you need to apply it widely, not just cherry pick.
It's classic Wellington vs Auckland thinking. And, if Labour are at all clever, they will capture Auckland vote over this. [Although Sepuloni (the only Labour MP I've heard on the topic, hasn't done much to differentiate Labour from National on this issue]
Perhaps this costings furore, will realign the planning to exclude the bonkers and highly unaffordable tunnel option, in favour of a lower cost bridge.
I don’t know about ROIs and I think it’s irrelevant to this discussion here on TS about tolling or not tolling.
There’s a need to finance a second harbour crossing, if it were to go ahead, and tolling is a suggestion (but not a recommendation).
See also: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/587212/infrastructure-commission-clarifies-suggestion-of-auckland-harbour-bridge-toll.