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6:00 am, April 20th, 2026 - 44 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 …
The One Verian poll has the Left in the lead today.
Lab 37 Gre 11 TPM 2=50
Nat 30 ACT 7 NZF 10=47
It's all on.
The Green vote holding up well while Labour gets 37 is the best news for the Left for a long time.
This ? (the all important..Link : )
On that note…the left doom scrollers would have both Labour and Greens in some kind of turmoil?
I could reply with something attributed to Mark Twain, a very witty guy : )
On the Greens…
FYI : I have both great liking, and utmost Respect for both Marama and Chloe : )
Panic stations in the Upper Room!
nice to have some good news, good morale boost.
This is useful too,
https://x.com/120Aotearoa/status/2045746110275465292
https://x.com/120Aotearoa/status/2045746113265967167
And the Greens have called for a National Electrification Plan. Here's Chloe:
"We need homegrown, sustainable resilience in our energy system, powering everything we do. We don't need to depend on expensive fossil fuels hauled from the other side of the planet. We have everything we need here, at home. No-one is hoarding, attacking, or starting wars over sun, wind, water and geothermal energy. They don't come through the Strait of Hormuz."
https://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/greens-issue-warning-state-planet-address-rnz
So people on TS can stop whinging about the Greens being invisible.
Yep. We need to stop slagging off the people who have the only chance of forming a centre left government this year.
QED….
haha. I did say we're still allowed to critique them.
https://thestandard.nz/changing-government-in-2026/
great to see ODT posting that.
+100
It also makes it very urgent that first we break the stupidity of letting the other shareholders on the gentailers milk excess profits – this is by far a worse ownership model than the supermarkets; I presume someone paid a heap of money to National back in the day when they created the “Bradford Reforms” cartel . . .
Hurricanes and cyclones are given names. Big rain events also. Last night's Wellington deluge has been dubbed, "The Tears of Luxon".
By me.
This is about the line between crime prevention (public safety) and Minority Report (individual profiling).
A nation that was implementing the U D of HR (1948) – adequate income, health care and housing for all, would not have media reports or legislative activism in this area.
We do.
https://www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/360988420/shades-minority-report-criticism-move-eorders-allow-action-crime
On Wily Winnies dubious achievements. I did make more than a few comments on The Standard re Winnie Peters backing of Scott O'Donnell, his donations to NZ First…and the inherent conflict of interest. Now…
Riiight.
Eliot Higgins unpacks Palatir's The Technological Republic – all in for military supremacy and against democratic and cultural pluralism.
Eliot Higgins
@eliothiggins.bsky.social
Palantir put out a 22-point summary of their CEO's book The Technological Republic. It's pitched as a defence of the West, but if you read it through the VDA framework, verification, deliberation, accountability, what it's actually doing looks rather different.
https://smry.ai/bsky.app/profile/eliothiggins.bsky.social/post/3mjtpunycuk2h
Karp and associates need to be put on trial for rubber stamping kill lists for the military. If they have been telling the military their systems were better than a rubber stamp and didn't have a significant error rate then they should ultimately end up convicted, if they told the military their systems were only as good as a rubber stamp they should never have been hired, but might escape prosecution.
It would also help their image if CEO Karp could talk to the public while off the drugs at some point too.
The whole document is frightening. Arnaud Bertrand has written a convincing and important analysis here.
https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/2045767857997484359
Some prosecutions outlining where the moral responsibility lies for military targeting, will rapidly sort out these tech guys liking for being involved in the military. That's going to work regardless of what they think about structuring a state. In the best case you also get some actually useful technology which makes sure to present all the evidence and who vetted it in making X a valid military target and records any targeting approval in case a later criminal prosecution is needed. The company providing the technology will be incentivized to make the chain of responsibility for this decision thoroughly recorded and unequivocal.
can a mod delete this
It is Chinese Language Day apparently according to a radio announcement. I think we should be learning from China in many ways. One way is to compare China’s doings to those of the USA. They are apparently looking hard at corruption. They behead officials and prominent people found to be corrupt. One of the latest is said to have squirrelled much (if they have such in China) –
And on doing a search on google this sort of thing goes back a decade. That is hard reality for those who break the rules beyond possible overlooking. Perhaps the USA could start serious reaction on some of its malfeasance. Patrick Boyle on youtube makes some interesting points about 'Prediction Markets' and he says some are a big scam and produces interesting information most would not know. We should be informed on this.
China are smart they use dialogue & $'s, the USA use B52 Bombers and Missiles.
An intelligence unit has informed the PM about the risk to his leadership.
https://www.thepost.co.nz/politics/360989001/christopher-luxon-says-there-are-five-moaning-and-frustrated-national-mps-marring-discipline
"Drill Baby Drill" NZF Slogan
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
I agree, having seen the negative impact on some women, concerned about female sex-based rights, who were previously Green Party members/supporters/voters, and wanted to have a respectful debate on gender self ID.
No-debate has been damaging to the GP, (and to Labour) because of their strict, uncritical, adherence to a narrative imported from the neoliberal US – some of it via the UK's "no-debate" campaign.
There has subsequently been a backlash from some of the ostracised, marginalised and demonised because of their views, with some shifting to vote for right wing parties.
And now there's also some quite intensive fractures between those of us supporting female sex-based rights and provisions, who also continue to actively support left wing, materialist policies and parties, and the sex realists who support right wing parties.
The whole thing has been incredibly damaging to the broader left, feminism and women's sex-based rights and provisions.
Now, for myself, the local and global situation is so dire with the extremes of Trump's regime and NZ's coalition govt, the future of an AoNZ that works for all the people in the country desperately needs most of the policies coming from the GP.
The electrification policy announced yesterday by the GP leaders is a timely and very necessary one. Great policy.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future. If I see you trying to twist topics again on a post outside of general posts like OpenMike, I will display my complete lack of tolerance for that behaviour. ]
I moved this out of a post on climate change as you appear to be addressing a completely different topic.
On your topic of interest – which I did engage with at great length. The problem is that the 'TERF" advocates seem to me to be completely unconvincing. They simply don't make a case, and appear to largely be arging with the tactics of a lynch mob and advocating for exclusion and seperation purely on the basis of folk-law and 'common-sense'.
It isn't a 'neo-liberal' imports that you need to deal with. It is simply that your ilk are useless at defending your position, and fail to engage with teh objections to your position that are raised.
My general position is that no-one should be excluded from doing any lawful activity that they engage in without a damn good reason. That would be a reason that shows actual harm to others, harm to society as a whole, or harm to themselves that they haven't made a informed decision on.
My position on the TERF position is that they fail to make a case at any legal position. I fail to see anywhere that those arguing a TERF position should have come up with a basis changes in our existing legislation.
Instead we get TERF bullshit about sport – which is almost completely outside of legislation and run almost entirely by non-govermental bodies. They run their completely unfair systems (because all people are different) based largely on how to get people getting engaged in those activities.
About toilet and changing facilities, which are a technical issue for those who provide them. The building regulations on them here only distinguish between adults and children.
Same with our legislation on prisons, which are regulated by the prison service on how to handle the prison populations with the least amount of problems – which is why they segregate in maximum, minimum, and normal levels, and separate by broad gender classifications all based on behavioural characteristics.
Those appear to be the only things that the TERF philosophy appears to work from apart from some nearly meaningless statistical biological differences inside the overlapping ranges of human populations.
Basically the TERF myth appear to be an import from some archaic bastion of simple-minded bigotry by people who who are incapable fo having a respectful argument, and certainly don't like having their viewpoints criticised. Usually with meaningless and usually lying examples of harm or potential harm (at least in the cases I have looked at).
BTW: the use of TERF is deliberate. It seems to be a accurate summary.
Someone in the Upper Hutt city council needs to inform insurance companies what area of the Wellington region lacks floods and landslides etc.
Every dollar saved in insurance is money available to pay their rates.
Luxon should go but more importantly: https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/360967068/eddie-osei-nketia-stuns-wind-assisted-984s-after-switching-australia
'But after controversial omissions from the New Zealand teams for the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, Osei-Nketia had a falling out with NZ Athletics.'
I'd be having words with NZ Athletics about this or is NZ so rich with sprinters we can't make exceptions?
For those who want a trip down memory lane, this should bring back a few memories both good and bad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szK57Jh7ums
Was it not very obvious 2 years ago that Luxon was dim, incurious and lacking self awareness? I’ve no doubt journalists identified his unsuitability back then.
Why did they not call it out publicly?
Agree 100%.
When he gets rolled there will be courageous commentary by those same journalists pointing out his manifest failings. "With the benefit of hindsight …"
No hindsight necessary.
The ECA and the flat-lining of the MW under National led governments.
The winter of discontent over the 1999 governments ECR (moderate reform of the ECA), the resistance to Fair Pay Agreements (Industry Awards) in 2023 and the dismantling of pay equity.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/money/360966325/you-could-be-14k-richer-if-these-reforms-never-happened
Worse, Ireland and the UK have stamp duty and CGT, gift duty and estate tax to fund government, so while the working class have low wages, the Enzed government is also starved of funding (there is also more tax from higher wage income).
And the “Tory” Ministers of Finance do no not how to fix the problem caused by their own tradition of neo-liberalism – the forecast of decades of deficits and rising debt.
Where is Craig Little when we need him? Wellingtonians, let's be careful out there.
He could well be bravely shouting at the storm clouds, under his special, non woke, storm proof umbrella : )
Luxon's 4pm post-Cab has sealed his fate.
Politicians can obfuscate, bluster, laugh off stories …
but can never get caught in a blatant lie about their own chief whip. Which Luxon has just done.
That was torrid. Dire. Nobody likes to be strung-along like that. Those journalists are finally on the hunt.
Re Luxon's chief whip, Stuart Smith – @47 minutes – mind the glitch
https://www.1news.co.nz/2026/04/20/watch-live-pm-luxon-speaks-after-disastrous-poll-result/
Thanks for the link. Luxon's face tells the story …
You can't hide your lyin' eyes
And your smile is a thin disguise
I thought by now you'd realize
There ain't no way to hide your lyin' eyes
Now where..have I read that before? Ah thats right Luxo's mentor sir John Key. There's a list…..
PM says he was with National party chief whip Stuart Smith all day on Tuesday.
Must be very important – he said it 12 times. That's some alibi
That 1News link doesn't work anymore – try The Herald video, from 34 minutes on.
The focus on Christopher Luxon's level of support takes the attention off other National MPs, such as Nicola Willis. Her economic policies and cuts to public services funding have caused major socio-economic damage to many NZers, in addition to her cancelling the planned purchase of the inter-island ferries, along with Chris Bishop cancelling state housing construction and other infrastructure programmes. Their decisions have led to increasing unemployment and compounding social harm.
Winston Peters' repeated comments that he won't consider working with Labour if Chris Hipkins is leader seem an obvious attempt to create uncertainty among voters and division in Labour. Peters comes across as threatened by Hipkins, as do other Government MPs.
The ferries are a solid anchor for attacks on the Government, firstly Willis and her idiotic behaviour, secondly the CoC for its dishonourable support for her appalling idea and as an extra-bonus, Winston Peters who nailed his colours to those masts!
Don't let them rest over this issue.
Like : )
Agree +100%