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notices and features - Date published:
6:00 am, July 18th, 2025 - 74 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 …
Today's Posts (updated through the day):
The ultimate Fuck you, to your neighbours, the community and the environment. Private helicopters!
“I did my own research”!
Well “dear wee davy” is at it again, showing his lack of values imo.( see Gordon Campbell in the side bar makes interesting points today..)
1.Allowing Compass to use beef offal, namely heart minced in with beef "trimmings", the Minister is now feeding our children what my father used to feed his two labrador dogs.
Also an interesting read in the side bar,
1.The Jackal questions P.M. Luxon's letting lapse the Proud Boys terrorist designation.
Is that following Trump's pardon?
2.So what? So now they may be courted supported and used without penalty?
We should remember The Brown Shirts.imo.
Some parents of the children receiving the free school lunches are apparently so angry, they have started making their own children's lunches!
Some Jiminys are apparently so miffed hungry kids (the whining little beggars) are still receiving free school lunches that they've taken to joking about it, but sure – Seymour the unwoke and hungry Kiwi kids are both fair game for a laugh.
Brown Shirts led by Il Duce?
ODT article this morning. Why am I thinking Simmonds prefers the SIT to succeed on the back of a possible Otago Polytech failure?
Boxing Dunedin in as the last left leaning city in New Zealand, with its tertiary education sector the beating heart of that lefties pulse.
link please
Apologies and thank you
Ol' Penny Simmonds. Aka, "has dropped" ,as i think of her…best not to expect any sympathy, empathy or whatever…
Even sadder that, an IMO very good MP, Liz Craig….disappeared
I was collateral damage of previous Nat party polytech downsizing…
These are some of the faces and stories of a new generation…Hundreds, if not thousands more! Collateral damage in the right wing's war on us.
Question to moderator:
How does the link demand dictum work when dealing with an original thought..?
As in..I would contend the influence of the booze pushers/their lobbyists/pimps…is the reason THC drinks are not allowed here..
'cos they are a direct challenge to the market for their cause of seven cancers…
As a fast acting high in a can..from THC…
It's gotta be better than the poisonous muck peddled by those booze-pushers… IMHO..
So why can't we have it here..?
(But I have no links for the above opinion..)
And ..while we're at it..
..would you like some bacon with that booze..?
Here's how it works:
The upshot here is that TS comments exist to provide a place for robust debate on issues an author has written about, or in the case of OM and DR, issues that Standardistas raise. It's not FB or twitter where it's a free for all and people can say what they like in any way they like. To reinforce this, the point is ROBUST DEBATE. And in order to curate robust debate, we have moderation and certain conventions (don't troll/flame, provide evidence, stay mostly on topic).
I don't eat bacon, but would have a glass of local, organic red wine with some lamb stew, homegrown lettuce and potatoes from the farmers market.
Imo, the reason THC drinks aren't allowed is because cannabis is illegal outside of some select medical contexts. And cannabis is illegal because having another legal drug on top of alcohol would create more burden on the health and other systems (I'm in favour of decriminalisation alongside blocking commercial cannabis).
Make that instead of the carcinogenic alcohol…eh..?
And bad news on the 'organic' red wine/the flesh of the baby sheep…eh…?
Organic or not…it is still in the frame..
..and your decriminalization/no commercialisation preference raises questions..
So you want the gangs to control distribution..?..how is that good..?
Surely full legalisation/taxation is the rational answer .?
And a good case for commercialisation from the punters point of view is that legal weed is perfectly cured..whereas most blackmarket weed is pulled too soon..it usually needs another week..(grrr!!)
And I am puzzled you oppose a healthier alternative to the provenly cancerous alcohol…
the only reason gangs have control is because it's illegal. If anyone can grow in their backyard, the power of gangs diminishes hugely.
If you commericalise it, you just add another addictive drug to society. As if people won't drink and smoke cannabis. Sure, some people will switch, but more people will be taking drugs to get out of it than before, including kids.
nicotine is a good comparison, and society has just spent a shitload of time and money trying to get people to smoke less, rolling back a situation that should never have been allowed to develop. It's naive af to think commercialised cannabis doesn't have similar problems as tobacco companies.
Um..!..we aren't adding another drug… it's already here…and well entrenched…
I am advocating full legalisation…with the financial imperative of tax revenue raised being the economic sweetener..
And are you equating weed with alcohol..?
..as in similar health downsides .?
Good luck with that…the prohibitionist have been trying to prove that since forever
..and if they had succeeded…we would know about it..
And are you saying weed is like nicotine..?..really..?
And I can give you an update on the California weed situation…
My son has been there for the last month..and staying in a major weed growing area ..he said the green/gold rush in California is pretty much over..
He said that oversupply has killed it ..and that growers are only getting 10% of what they used to get ..
Whoar..!..eh..?
fuck sake Phil, try slowing down and reading what I wrote.
I said that commercialisation of weed will have similar issues as we've had with tobacco companies. People making money off cannabis will have a shareholder/profit motif that takes precedence of societal wellbeing.
No, I didn't say weed is like nicotine, I said that society has to manage addiction and there are things we can learn from health responses to nicotine.
If we make weed just another commodity, it will cause problems for society on top of what we already have with alcohol and tobacco.
I'm guessing you're talking about the Villa Maria pre-emptive labelling of their drinks as a direct cause of cancer.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/in-depth/567254/villa-maria-adds-fatal-cancer-warning-label-on-bottles-sold-in-ireland
I don't eat meat smallgoods anymore, but not sure it's going to extend to a ban on red wine, bracing though the label may be.
Wait until the THC drinks arrive…
You won't miss the red wine..and no hangovers..!
Thc-drinks…and vegan wraps..
. Get high/full…and no upping the odds for multiple cancers…that we have a lot of..!
Both bacon and booze…are having their ciggy cancer-moments
And I hafta say..having tried most highs..I reckon booze is a crappy/deadening high…
The only time it really worked for me was French champagne…and cocaine…and even then it played a secondary role…
maybe the Irish are even bigger pissheads than Kiwis.
I think it is more the Irish gummint is facing up to the realities of their favourite drug ..
Here .?…not so much….yet…
I notice that the posting by Mountain Tui has been closed to comments after only 19 or so comments.
I have an idea. When a Guest Posting is made there be no restriction on the number of comments that can be written about it. Isn't open, and often challenging debate, what we are all about? We shouldn't have guest posts and expect, and only want, those that are adulatory of either us, or the subject matter. At least posts should be up and open for more than a day or so. Sometimes ideas/views come to us after mulling and sleep.
I came to place this idea about the trans debate and how things are different now from when many of us were younger.
The point is about belief. It flows into/from KJT's post about "I did my own research" as well.
Belief is different from want, need or desire. The experience I have had in the past about friends moving in the gay etc circles especially in the circles where men dress as women is that
What was not part of this, back then, was having dressed as a woman was a belief they then became a woman.
There was no mystical happening or prevalent belief that donning different clothes, makeup, mannerisms did enable us to over throw our basic sexed bodies. I'd venture to say it is this point about belief, and the extension of the 'Emperor has no Clothes' folk story has come flying in the face of all our advances in science etc. We are encouraged suspend belief about biology, encouraged to believe sleight of hand, unwillingly place ourselves in places of danger and never to say anything!
Needless to say I think we were better back then. If you want to dress against the norms of your sex go for it, just don't expect me to believe, no matter how skillfully you do it that you have actually changed your biological sex.
I won't stop being caring about you or being polite to you but I don't want to be tangled up in a lie for you. I especially don't want to be threatened by you as a man dressed as a woman being in my toilets and safe spaces.
If you are certain we can change sex then I have a pile of stones in my backyard for you to turn to diamnonds and gold, and endless supplies of water to change into wine.
Mountain Tui was not around to monitor and respond to all the comments under their Post and because of the nature of the commentary commenting has been turned off – this may be temporary but the Author has final say in this.
PS, and FWIW, not all debate is necessarily good debate and too much of a good thing can be detrimental, IMO.
HTH
MT isn't a guest poster, they are a TS author with a login. Guest Posts go up under the Guest Post handle.
It's been a very long time since TS commenting was a free for all and by all accounts it caused problems, so moderation was introduced. Moderation varies depending on time, the post, the comments, the author and so on. Sometimes authors and/or mods do things that commenters don't like, but the site exists because of people who write posts, so mods generally prioritise them. As a long time commenter I know it can be easy to forget this.
My feelings about the comments were that some people aren't reading the room very well. I thought the post itself was open and honest and brave to put up here, even though I disagreed with some parts of it substantially. I thought most people commenting missed what the post was trying to say, or didn't care, and reacted to the trans stuff instead, which was a shame and basically blocked any kind of rapprochement.
People on all sides have been banned for not reading the room on this, and while I wish we could have open debate about it, we can't, for a range of complex reasons. Part of that is because of how the debate has gone in the past. Which means that the GC part of the debate is now largely in the hands of the conservatives and the populists. I find this incredibly sad.
Silly me, I forgot the first paragraph at the top of my comment @ 5.1:
[@ Shanreagh] I may have to correct you. Mountain Tui is an approved TS Author. That Post was not a Guest Post but reposted from MT’s Substack, as you can see at the top of the Post.
👍
Thank you to Weka and Incognito for the explanation. I get the Guest Posting concept/Approved Author. What I don't get it the putting up a post and then cutting short comments.
I also say that if there was a point other than support for the trans lobby as it is now then this was lost on me. I read it as support for the trans lobby as it is now.
I accept from you both, esp Weka, that this was not the intention. Had I deduced even an inkling of support for a GC or female point of view in the post I would have written a very different point.
My point has always been that dressing does not change sex, how on earth can it? I also said that those who dress differently to me have always/will get my support as long as they pose no threat to me. I am the one to determine if a threat exists…I'm not interested in an existentialist butterfly in a forest argument.
By and large now, men dressed as women can pose a threat (including to dignity) to women. You just have to read the NHS Fife/ Sandie Peggie/Theodore Upton case to see that. She did not feel her dignity was protected to have a man in the women's dressing room especially when she was endeavouring to deal with period flooding that had stained her uniform.
My view is that about now perhaps posts like this from Mountain Tui are themselves not reading the room. Many of us are tired of the stranglehold this group of men has had on public discourse.
Of course this group exists, I had positive experiences with them years ago. They did not try to bluff me into thinking they had changed sex, or that there was any serious scientific ability to do this and did not use the female toilets. So times have changed.
I found it apposite that a post from KJT came forward when we were being entreated to look again by Mountain Tui.
The men who say they are women have caused problems in female sport and that I am concerned about.
What can I say? Occasionally a post has comments closed on it early, for whatever reason. It's not the first time, won't be the last.
So, reading the room thing again. As the person that's done a lot of the moderating the GC/GI debates on TS, I can tell you that there have been many comments against GII, and sometimes against trans people, that not only give no inkling of support for trans or queer people but often openly ridicule or attack them. That's part of the reason why we are now in the situation we are in.
Authors can write whatever they like. If you didn't like the lack of support for women, you can certainly say that, but it's the author's post not yours.
I already explained to you that moderators will support authors ahead of commenters. Did you not understand my reply to you? If you think your personal politics are more important than TS, from a mod pov they're not (and that applies to any topic).
Cheers Weka, We are at cross purposes.
For all that talk about commentators not reading the room and hence commenting being blocked, Shangreah is still allowed their diatribe against Trans people today, un-moderated, including that they the are a threat in a woman's bathroom. MT's post shows how little threat they are. Tongue firmly in cheek (and I don't believe it to be true) perhaps a Lesbian in a Woman's Restroom is the true threat to other woman. After all they are same sex attracted to them.
"perhaps a Lesbian in a Woman's Restroom is the true threat to other woman. After all they are same sex attracted to them."
When they overtake men as the largest group of perpetrators of sexual violence you will have a point, till then not so much.
We're talking Trans Women in Women's bathrooms, not men. But then you know that and continue to conflate the two
trans women are biologically male. But then you know that and continue to ignore and deflect. Male pattern violence is done by males, regardless of gender identity.
A bloke in a frock may believe that he is a woman, but he’s still a bloke in a frock. If you want to believe otherwise that’s fine by me, just don’t expect others to stand up and say “a trans woman is a real woman” and actually believe it.
Who in this thread said Real Women? Please don't put words in my mouth. You may wish to minimise the real struggle a Trans Man or Woman go through, that says more about you than them.
Cool we agree that a trans woman is a man who believes that his life is best lived as a woman.
I don’t minimise the struggles that anyone goes through in life. Some people appear to have it easy, however just under the surface, they are hanging on by the tips of their fingers.
"But then you know that and continue to conflate the two"
Trans woman = woman is the only conflation in this discussion.
Nope, there's been conflation from Cross Dressers, Transvestites, Transexuals and Men simply being arseholes in Frocks.
I think thats the problem
The trans umbrella has become too broad
Yes I agree to a point, growing up I only knew of Transvestites I guess. As a Gay Man I don't understand all the iterations of the Rainbow Community either but rather than trying to deny they exist I prefer to TRY to live in harmony. I'm sorry I dont know how to post images but this morning I Googled Masculine Trans Man and Feminine Trans Woman and to me it doesn't seem logical to force those people into the bathrooms of their birth and I genuinely believe that Biological Woman should be okay with the later in their bathrooms rather than the former.
there was a period of time where feminists would largely have been ok with accomodating old school transexuals who had transitioned (looked and behaved within the cultural norms of women). Those TW were relatively few in number and generally not a problem.
That door is closed now thanks to the ideological push to include a very wide range of people in the trans umbrella. Males don't have to do any kind of transition under self ID, they can simple say they are women.
Men who like to dress up as women are a different matter from transexuals. It is common now for some of those men to take selfies in women's toilets, or post about masturbating there. Often there is violent rhetoric against women who object. These are serious safeguarding issues, and the liberal left has refused to look at them.
I've yet to see anyone here who supports trans people to access women's spaces address this in a way that takes the privacy, safety and dignity of women and girls into account.
We all have our views. Mine was a view, not a diatribe.
Believe it or not, many women are still concerned about men coming into women's safe spaces. Also about playing against them unfairly in sport.
How boring of them and how lacking in finer feelings I know…sarc
The name is Shanreagh, though, from a Townland in Northern Ireland
Cheers
I didn't say why comments were closed. I expressed my own view about the comments. And the reading the room issues is on all sides.
I didn't see that. I saw an assertion about that, but no explanation or evidence. GCFs and other GC people on the other hand have all the receipts. Why is it that you don't know about them? Do you want to see them, or are you ok to continue without looking so you can dismiss women's concerns.
If you don't believe it is true, then why say it? What's your actual point? That people who object to TW in women's spaces are so bigoted they may as well hate lesbians as well? Let me lay it out: most sexual violence against women is committed by males. When I say most, I mean nearly all. This doesn't mean sexual violence among lesbians isn't an important issue, it just means that in bathrooms and changing rooms and such, the people overwhelmingly committing sexual crimes are males.
Trans women/trans identified males appear to have the same kinds of violent offending rates as other males. Link below. I say appear, because No Debate means we don't have a lot of good research yet. But the idea that TW somehow don't sexually offend is pushed in liberal circles to such an extent we can't even talk about. Women who've been assaulted or groomed by TW can't even name their experience to people like you. You champion trans rights intentionally and at the expense of women and girls.
And of course not all trans women, just like not all men.
https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/18973/pdf/
And, as a sample of examples. Everytime you say oh that's just one example, we can produce ten more.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isla_Bryson_case
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/child-rapist-pierre-john-parsons-now-a-transgender-worman-tries-and-fails-to-have-extended-supervision-order-lifted/FXBFRTR7VZEU7LCQZXNSX5E6DQ/
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/112432880/transgender-prisoner-investigated-for-sexual-assault-behind-bars
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/hamilton-transgender-person-loses-home-detention-bid-after-claw-hammer-attack/CUVI2R4J6JGYRIMABFSDTS2X2M/
And https://terfisaslur.com/
None of those old hoary examples that you role out have anything to do with Shangreagh needing a crap in a Public Bathroom and being fearful of a human with a Vagina and Breasts who was born male.
Shall we take that as acceptance that TW can be a threat like other males in situations other than toilets then? Sweet.
You do realise that most TW haven't surgically transitioned, right?
If you accept that Trans Women are no more threat than a Biological Woman, then fine.
All this is irrelevant to the original question, if we are going to be consistent why isn't this thread made invisible from Shanreaghs initial diatribe if the MT post is invisible, like Terfs are trying to make Trans people (Men and Women) invisible.
MT's post is still visible
https://thestandard.org.nz/you-cant-kill-a-rainbow/
Generally, if there is a problem with a comment, you can tell a moderator, but need to included a link to the exact comment and an explanation of what you see the problem as specifically. At the moment it looks like you don't like and/or disagree with Shanreagh on politics, which isn't an issue for moderators to resolve.
I already gave some evidence that this isn't true. In safeguarding, the onus is on the people wanting to remove safeguarding to demonstrate that it's not a risk. In this case, the onus is on TW and their allies to demonstrate that TW are no more of a threat than women. There is a lot of evidence that suggests otherwise.
Who knows if the man in the female toilet is going to assault you or expose himself?
Why do you have such an objection to men going to the mens and women going to the womens?
I am not alone in not wanting men coming into public female toilets.
Have you been following the Sandy Peggie case in Scotland? She has had a misconduct case against her thrown out. She was objecting to a male Doctor coming into the female changing room in a hospital, while he maintained he was a woman. (You'd have thought a medical Dr would have known the difference between a male and a female?)
I don't object at all to Men using Mens Bathrooms and Women using Womens Bathrooms, but I believe Trans Women or Trans Men would be safer using the bathroom they most align with. Can you show cases (above the normal rate of Bio Men/Women assaults) of a Trans Person assaulting someone inside a Public Bathroom in NZ.?
Whilst I empathise with your sincerity, and acknowledge the relevance of your question about evidence, the problem really does emanate from the binary design of public facilities. Best to use a triad in design: they usually work much better. In leading edge scientific thought it is known as the goldilocks principle. Apply it in user-friendly design.
So there's a medial way between hot & cold: just right. Applied to public toilet, you build a third cubicle and label it non-binary. Or, as I suggested onsite here when the furore broke a couple of years back, user-defined.
what is user defined?
In the UK, which is now having to sort this out in practical terms since the Supreme Court ruling that for the purposes of the Equality Act women means female, the general idea is this:
have single sex toilets for females and males where appropriate. also provide gender neutral toilets (less are needed). This is most medium to large workplaces, schools, libraries etc.
where space/cost is prohibitive, then have a closed room with its own hand basin, that anyone can use.
if you do provide single sex toilets, you cannot allow opposite people to use them. If a toilet is labelled women, it is for females only.
in UK law it is mandatory to have single sex toilets in workplaces and I think schools. That means you cannot legally have mixed sex toilets in those places.
Private businesses like gyms or department stores aren't legally required to provide single sex toilets for customers (they are for staff), but they risk having a complaint taken against them for discrimination against women under the Equality Act.
That will resolve almost all situations for trans people, where they simple need to use a toilet. In the small number of cases where it doesn't, an open and inclusive dialogue will work better to resolving things than trying to shut women down.
It won't solve the problem for AGP males who have a need to be in women's spaces for erotic or affirmation purposes. They can get fucked.
All of that would have been resolved years ago had the liberal left not actively suppressed the politics of feminists. Women and others have taken many cases to court now in the UK and mostly they have won. The sheer level of stress and waste of time/money/life involved in that is for many unforgivable, because it was avoidable.
I really hope NZ doesn't have to go down that track and can learn from the UK about how to meet the needs of a range of people, including women and trans people. But No Debate still holds sway here, and that has left the narrative and politics to the likes of Peters and the religious right. This is bad for women and bad for trans people.
User-defined to me implies communal co-design of the label to be used. I agree the UK is the space to watch on this, since the Brits seem more proactive than us – more progressive (unusually).
In Aotearoa currently we have an ongoing leadership vacuum. Activists could fill this space but cultural stasis seems to be marginalising them. Mass psychology is often a puzzle, but I'm always confident that the times select leading players in the game.
still don’t know what that means. Do you mean humans that use toilets should be involved in the design of them?
The problem in NZ isn’t a dearth of activists, it’s No Debate.
Yes. It's in the common interests of all users that mutuality prevail at the design stage. It has long been a positive alternative to the top-down method of public decision-making traditionally adhered to by the left and right. In the Greens we called it grass-roots as metaphor.
Great Weka. What a great post and what wonderful turns of phrase these are:
Yes agreed, the sooner there Unisex Single Use Public Bathrooms rather than designated Men/Woman the better. Whatever happens in Private places/groups etc is totally up to them who they choose to use their facilities, imho.
you can say that as a man. Meanwhile, for women and girls the reality is that mixed sex toilets are a risk.
https://www.thetimes.com/life-style/sex-relationships/article/unisex-changing-rooms-put-women-in-danger-8lwbp8kgk
Women spoke up about this, said it would happen, were shut down, and it happened as predicted.
As a woman I loathe unisex public toilets. Planners have this utopian idea that doesn't work.
I have got over being surprised at the numbers of women younger and older who don't like them. A flatmate who was LGBT rep at her workplace fought long and hard for a unisex toilet there and was eventually succesful. I commented you'll be pleased and are you going to use it…..'ah no I prefer going to a female only toilet but it does give people a bigger/better choice.'
That is the crux we need unisex but they should not be the only choice.
Sure we have unisex toilets at home (believe it or not this is an argument I have had to counter) but we know the others who will be using them and we have as a family a say in what standards and how to enforce them.
I much prefer male/female with accessible designs plus numbers of unisex.
Actually, males who have had genital modification surgery don't have vaginas. The vagina is a canal/tube that leads to the uterus. Male genital modification surgery results in a hole that goes nowhere. The body treats it as a wound and continually tries to close it. MtF transsexuals need to continually dilate the hole so it remains open.
The only longitudinal study of transsexuals that included criminality, concluded that male pattern criminality and violence continue after transitioning. PDF about the study and criminality here:
Why does the debate always get narrowed to bathrooms? More significant issues are around intimate spaces, intimate care, health care, statistics regarding sex discrimination and differences, women-only meetings around important issues, lesbian-only spaces, etc.
It is also about dignity and privacy in intimate spaces & care.
Hard agree about the anatomy and physiology differences.
I think the focus goes to toilets because politically it's one that people can empathise with TW more. No idea why people don't empathise with women.
How long have you got Weka?
If we knew the answer to this we'd have solved a huge number of societal problems, wiped out whole university faculties, jails, even down to a reduction in the numbers of lawyers and staff, and baliffs needed to write and enforce protection orders
Growing up my mate lived across the road from the Parsons (Shetland Street by Balmacewen Intermediate)
They were an odd bunch, the kids weren't allowed to play with anyone else…of course given what the father was, allegedly, upto it all makes sense now and no surprise what Pierre got up to
I was also, for a short time, friends with Jevon McSkimming
We're talking over 40 years in both cases
Funny ol' world innit
NZ is a small place, although I expect if all child sex offenders were made public, most people would know someone.
True that
This is not good.
An ageing work force can be managed with apprentices coming through …
The Minister reckons there is work looming.
But as yet, no intention or plan to manage the interim.
https://www.1news.co.nz/2025/07/17/apprentices-dropped-as-builders-struggle-with-downturn/
I did some research and found this.
There is help to keep a person on an apprenticeship.
https://www.workandincome.govt.nz/employers/subsidies-training-and-other-help/apprenticeship-boost/index.html
SPC Unfortunately, its only for 12 months and once your apprentice is qualified (building 3 years) they just go tick up a Ranger and go out on their own so it isn't an incentive, I have put through 4 now but none in the last 5 years as its not worth it.
Are there other measures available that can be implemented? I would suggest those folk with a Ranger on tick, probably are lost to the industry after three years.
As you would know, there is a world of difference between being an employee and keeping a pipeline of work happening, quoting, time on the tools, bookkeeping.
On RNZ, various industry people were talking about how unprepared many are for the pressure in the industry, mental health, bankruptcies, the boom and bust nature of the sector.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018995479/many-builders-unprepared-to-run-a-complex-business
Yes G, I don't really know what the solution is, from my experience (30 years) younger people don't seem to see the benefit of working for someone even if you pay really good wages, have a good culture etc etc. They just don't seem to understand whilst you might not be the "boss" you learn how to sustain a company through the good and bad, you build connections which then you always have when you do decide to go out on your own, you learn through experience which can be sheltered from the hardest parts as the "boss" will take this stuff on the chin etc. I personally think apprentices should go back to having block class time during the year that maybe the govt could help with, where they get taught more of the business side of stuff??
..Yep, I hear you.
I did a cooking apprenticeship in the Army late 80s. I had a two year 'return of service'.
Something similar could be implemented here, with a mix of on the tools and the admin side.
My young fella, 23 now, has finished his carpentry apprenticeship and has stayed on with the company. He's thoroughly enjoying the other aspects of his trade now, bringing young fellas through, relationships with clients and suppliers, golf arvos …
Good bosses in a medium sized business so insulated to most of the ups and downs of the industry.
I see it going the same sad way hospo has gone. Lots of cowboy operators, getting processed products off a truck and not passing on knowledge to the next generation. (Partly because they lack it, partly because they don't 'invest' in staff.
Migration tap on full doesn't help either.