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6:00 am, April 18th, 2026 - 26 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 …
Bringing peace to the Middle East, Trump style – thank you, Mr President.
Iran is letting ships past? Are they moving, or do they still not have insurance?
Trump is blocking ships from Iranian ports, but not others?
Yes, for now – ships must 'coordinate' with [decimated] Iranian authorities.
Trump seems to have walked back his initial "sweeping threat to blockade “any and all” ships". The blockade seems now to apply to Iranian ports only.
how many ships are getting through?
Don't know the exact number per day – would guess a few, but of course nowhere near as many as before the US/Israel attacks on Iran. Here's a link to an article I found in a Google search.
so almost no ships going through because it's all war posturing?
Iran's current position appears to be that:
The Foreign Minister posted that comment on X at 12:45 am · 18 Apr 2026
I don't have an X account, or any social media account, and don’t know if that's a local (NZ) timestamp – perhaps someone can help.
In any case, the announcement is less than 16 hours old, and I wouldn't expect commercial traffic to get back to normal quickly, simply out of an abundance of caution – conditions in the region remain almost as flammable as an oil tanker's cargo.
There's certainly some posturing going on, but it seems that might not be the only reason that few ships have gone through (compared to pre-war traffic) since the Iranian announcement.
This stuff is all meaningless. On the Iranian side, does the IRGC accept that the civilian government has the authority to make that decision? Are all units of the IRGC in communication with each other and capable of implementing central commands? Who knows? It's unlikely insurance companies will just take a punt on the foreign minister's announcements having credibility.
On the US side, whatever Trump says at any particular moment may be contradicted by whatever he says later, so there's no point in paying any attention. None of it is worth anything. It will come down to China or some other authoritarian power having the bollocks to run a tanker through the strait and see what happens (I say "authoritarian power" because a prerequisite will be the ability to get away with not giving a shit about a tanker crew's human rights – a democracy couldn't do it).
Pretty much yes PM, tho the NZ commercial radio all day today has been telling me the Strait is open (I've had it on since 6am & every hour they've repeated the same rubbish) then I look on Reddit & the fact is no one knows what's going on. There is no consensus, there are certainly no ships going through. My basic understanding after reading all the contradictory reports today is initially Iran opened the Strait then the US said their blockade is open to all but the Iranians & then Iran aid fuck that the Strait is closed again. But like you said who the hell knows, first casualty is truth etc
I think Labour could pick up quite a few votes if it offered to fund the shingles vaccination for anyone between, say, the ages of 65 and 70.
Currently it is only funded for people who get it while they are 65 years old. There is NO medical justification for this as explained in this excellent discussion this morning on RadioNZ.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/audio/2019031496/can-the-shingles-vaccine-reduce-the-risk-of-dementia
As discussed, the effects of shingles can be many and severe. Not only that but preliminary studies show the vaccine may reduce the chance of dementia by 20%.
They talk about social investment to reduce future cost and miss easy ones like this.
They could expand access with delivery outside of having a GP.
For the CoC, 'social investment' doesn't mean identifying areas where the really existing economy causes social harm – and then changing things so that it doesn't. Instead, it identifies social groups and individuals who are (or are likely to be) harmed. Then it provides them with wrap-around surveillance, and self-help initiatives (budgeting, work ethic inculcation, boot camps) to motivate them into trying harder. In this form, 'social investment' is a classically Tory exercise in blame displacement – from the organisation of economies where it belongs and onto the failings of individuals. Its goal is to maintain the status quo, minimise government expenditure and fund tax cuts for the most well off.
you can't base public health on early research that suggests something.
Then why is there free shingles vaccine supplied now, and why only age 65-66?
And why does Australia already do so for all those over 65?
The efficacy of preventing shingles will be better studied. The reduction in Alzheimers risk is a different thing.
Restricting to 65 is a budgeting issue. I think the idea is that they get everyone at 65 going forward. They are looking at extending that to catch up with older people.
Shingles isn't that common, I'm sure that's part of the prioritising.
there's a bit of info on timelines and widening funding at pharmac
https://www.pharmac.govt.nz/medicine-funding-and-supply/medicine-notices/shingrix
https://connect.pharmac.govt.nz/apptracker/s/application-public/a10OZ000000ioHF/p002026
"Shingles isn't that common"……er not true at all….please listen to the discussion.
Accepted that the dementia data is early and not definitive…but that was just a side issue to my main point.
https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/17-04-2026/it-was-another-bad-week-for-christopher-luxons-leadership
Simeon Brown is only slightly more restrained than Donald Trump, so don’t get your hopes up for the little Napoleon. However, he probably doesn’t suffer from the same ballroom envy as Trump and won’t be attacking the Pope.
On a slightly different note, there wasn’t the typical Friday afternoon dump of dead cats by the Government to distract from the fuel shambles and from the smoke that’s billowing from the 9th floor of the Beehive. Is something amiss?
Maybe the remaining deceased felines are that malodorous and probably starting to wriggle again that slapping them on the table right now is only going to make things worse, maybe much worse.
And, by 4:00 pm yesterday there was the Hormuz announcement, so the moggys could stay in the box for the next disaster.
Yeah BG the mothership is going through shingles as we speak, onto of other things ,
This one is an unusual and substantial read with a retrospective on all the Think Big projects which were at the heart of the government's response to the 1970s oil crisis.
Was Think Big Really a Disaster? – NEWS WIRE
It shows which of those projects are still operating, how much they have delivered to the New Zealand economy over their current lifetimes, and how many were directly and indirectly employed as a result.
Granted it is hard to imagine any form of New Zealand government planning and executing at this scale again. But with the bow wave of fuel and fertiliser prices to hit our shores in May and going through until at least the end of the year, it's quite possible that we may have no choice but to think like this.
Note I am not advocating for a return of the National Development Act or the current Fast Track legislation.
But the article at least points to other states that have taken much larger action, faster, and on massive scale, to prepare for essentially permanently high oil and plastic and fertiliser prices and higher inflation and interest rates as per the IMF scenarios released this week.
Press Briefing Transcript: World Economic Outlook, Spring Meetings 2026
This one has the easy-to-read graphs:
War Darkens Global Economic Outlook and Reshapes Policy Priorities
Even the authoritarianism of Think Big would be better than having industry spokesclowns fronting up to journalists day after day explaining that their entire industry is dependent on the Arabian Gulf and oh dear we're completely fucked if the Gulf doesn't go back to normal ASAP. Take a hint, ffs! It's not like instability in that region was a wildly unlikely contingency that no-one in their right mind would have planned for and considered workarounds for. They should be contemplating ritual suicide rather than endure the dishonour of admitting to us all that they built their industries on this shifting sand.
I'm astounded about how vulnerable our farmers & agriculture are at the moment, after all the bleating year after year how essential they are to the NZ economy (which I guess they are) & yet how dependent on diesel & roads they are, you would think they would be self reliant energy wise (as much as they can be) & have pretty robust transport options. But nope, diesel powered vehicles, trucks & farms, so backward thinking & they should feel very let down by their National Govt.
Big Wake-up on farm! 'Bout time.
And not even embarrassed about it! I can't bear to look at them.
harsh, but true. But also this is most of NZ not just farmers. Half the country wanted tax breaks instead of resiliency, and a bug chunk wanted their capital gains instead of resiliency.