Open mike 20/12/2023

Written By: notices and features - Date published: - 32 comments
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32 comments on “Open mike 20/12/2023”

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  1. 1

    The latest Roy Morgan has National with more votes than Labour the Greens and the other party combined. Thoughts.

    [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.]

    2. 1.2

      Photos from the wedding & honeymoon to offset the sick nauseating feeling today from the Mother of All Mini-Budgets. Timing is everything.

    1. 2.1

      Yeah, coz they're getting things done!

      Or rather, undone.

      It's action stations for the NACTFirst Government and they're knocking things down all over the park like the All Blacks do! Up the Wahs!

      We New Zealanders love that sort of stuff.

    2. 2.2

      Dimwit Gosman.

      The coalition Govt. deal was signed 24th November. Roy Morgan wasted their time conducting a poll in November. Course it was going to reveal no real changes. We were in no mans land for six weeks – nothing happened.

      One month later… different story. Those who fell for the NAct lines are wondering what they have done. More fool them.

      1. 2.2.1

        LOL! There was a massive change in the Poll since the election. In case you missed it the Center Right parties increased their lead over the left wing by over 10%. That is a huge swing in favour of them. Seems like most people like what they see of the new government.

        1. 2.2.1.1

          I suspect Anne is a Labour Party stalwart who will always see roses, even in the most dire circumstances. If this is the general view that pervades the Labour machine, they will be in opposition a very long time indeed.

        2. 2.2.1.2

          LOL! If the RM poll indicates "a massive change" since the election, then the more recent Curia poll indicates a massively “huge swing” since the RM poll.

          Interestingly (?), RM has the TOP vote increasing by ~58% (2.22 –> 3.5%)!
          Time will tell if any apparent voter remorse is real, or margin of error stuff.

          Party vote change (Curia, 3 – 5 December) compared to 2023 election results:
          Nat: – 0.5%
          Lab: +2%
          Grn: – 1%
          Act: – 2.5%
          Nzf: +2%
          Tpm: +1.5%

          A 3.5% decrease in the lead of our coalition government parties – go figure.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_New_Zealand_general_election

        3. 2.2.1.3

          Where did you get your information from Gosman?

          According to Wikipedia the parties of the right are down about 2% and the parties of the left up about 3% since the election.

          That doesn't equate your claim of the centre right parties increasing their lead by over 10%.

      2. 2.2.2

        Thomas Coughlin has done a great job of analysing the "fiscal cliffs" which Willis will hammer today to justify her claims. Thomas has gone through the last Budget line by line and comes up with no support for her claims. Nick Rockwell quoted Thomas:

        “I’ve have actually done just as Willis suggested. In the past fortnight, I have gone through the Estimates, all 1886 cursed pages of them, not with a fine-tooth comb, but with a spreadsheet, in search of these mythical fiscal cliffs.”

        As he gets into the detail Thomas says, “Governments of both stripes have made use of what are called multi-year appropriations. These give the Crown the authority to spend a certain amount of money over many years. These appropriations wrap up when the money is exhausted or the spending period ends.”

        https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/moment-of-truth-for-nicola-willis-as-she-faces-first-budget-test/JH5Y5FMHUFD7VGLRBIVD72EDNY/

        https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa44b424a-6656-4f15-a877-752738aaaeb4_524x248.png?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

  3. 3

    Roblogic posted a link yesterday that should be required viewing for the Labour Party (and all voters) as they review why they were so badly defeated at the last election and use as the basis of any attempt to refresh the party…..if they cannot grasp and sell the message so succinctly expressed in the linked discussion then they are in the wrong job.

    1. 3.1

      Cheers Pat. It's a great talk with Gary Stephenson of @garyseconomics. Here's a snippet from his website:

      Real wages are falling downwards or stagnating and house prices are spiralling upwards, and economists have no idea why.

      While trading interest rates in financial markets I developed a theory that enabled me to become Citibank’s most profitable trader globally in 2011.

      The theory explains why interest rates have stayed low for 11 years longer than expected.

      It also explains why real wages have fallen and houses have become less affordable, and why these trends will continue indefinitely until we take action.

      This theory has been, and continues to be very profitable for predicting global markets. I could make money from it, and you can make money from it, but it will be impossible for us to increase wages or improve housing affordability unless this theory becomes widely understood, so I have chosen to try and go public with the theory.

      This theory is simply, too much wealth inequality, and all the pernicious effects downstream of it.

  4. 4

    The volcano has erupted in Iceland; thankfully no lives lost so far (BBC website has photographs).

    A reminder that we humans are just another species on the planet, wholly subject to the whim of Nature.

    1. 4.1

      Yes, HT2, human tenure here is tenuous. The planet survived for billions of years without us, and will continue so, until Sol goes nova……

    2. 4.2

      Which is why we should be putting the environment first, and not worry so much about the Left vs Right debate constantly – maybe one day this country will grow up, but probably not in my lifetime, sadly.

  5. 5

    So the Saudi Kingdom is actually scum, oh wait they are dear leaders best friend.

    Caught out lying again, and trying to kill us all.

    Go figure.

  6. 6

    A curriculum overseen by the NZ Initiative and a mob that doesn’t include any Māori educators.

    /

    @RichardHills_

    Chair of the education advisory group rewriting the NZ curriculum has already written his plans for education as part of the NZ Initiative here are some of the ideas. The forward is written by Elizabeth Rata who’s also on the advisory committee. PDF here: https://nzinitiative.org.nz/reports-and-me

    https://twitter.com/RichardHills_/status/1737191637590380601

    https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/first-steps-100-day-plan-education-removing-distractions-and-teaching-basics-brilliantly

      1. 6.1.1

        Finland's education system works.They have hugely successful outcomes, with a philosophy thats the polar opposite of the NZ Initiative's , (which is stubbornly dumb!!)

        Why aren't we looking to Finland's strategies?

        . “We prepare children to learn how to learn, not how to take a test,” said Pasi Sahlberg, a former math and physics teacher who is now in Finland’s Ministry of Education and Culture. “We are not much interested in PISA. It’s not what we are about.”

        https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/why-are-finlands-schools-successful-49859555/

    3. 6.3

      A Ministerial Advisory Group with at least two individuals who are intellectually and ideologically compromised. Hopefully, some of the other members are of high enough calibre to balance their strong bias.

      1. 7.1.1

        During yesterday's Question Time, Luxon brought up the issue of his wife's ownership of the Tesla. Brownlee chastised Hipkins for bringing family members of an MP into the debate. He didn't. The next day, Brownlee apologised. I respected that.

        2. 7.1.1.2

          To Robert Guyton at 7.1.1 : I was very pleased to see that. It was certainly Luxon who ( probably) spoke without thinking.

  8. 8

    This piece is on the media is thought provoking:

    https://www.honest-broker.com/p/in-2024-the-tension-between-macroculture

    This bit I found very interesting:

    "…I never get asked a single question about Substack from mainstream media people (although they are always asking me to contribute). They obviously believe that they have nothing to learn from the microculture.

    And it’s not just my personal experience. Look at the hirings:

    • CNN needs a new boss so it hires someone from The New York Times.
    • The Wall Street Journal needs a new editor-in-chief, so it hires somebody from The Sunday Times.
    • Gannett needs a new editor-in-chief, so it hires somebody from NPR.
    • News Corp needs a new boss, so it hires the owner’s son.
    • Disney needs a new CEO, so it just hires the old CEO for another stint.

    This is sheer idiocy. It’s Einstein’s definition of insanity.

    At this juncture in history, you must fill openings in stagnant old media by hiring people who understand the rapidly growing new media. The data is clear on this—if you want to grow, you need to learn from podcasts, YouTube channels, Substack, Bandcamp, Patreon, and all the other success stories.

    But it’s not happening. The macroculture is frozen. It has forgotten how to maneuver. It definitely has forgotten how to learn…"

    You get much the same in the NZ MSM – it’s a closed shop. A merry-go-round of failure where Tova goes from TV3 to a new radio show to TVNZ and nothing improves, ratings keep falling; Where RNZ gets it’s new news boss from the the failing TV3, and wonders why id audience decline continues. Where MSM journalists frequent share beds with senior media executives and political operatives and there is a revolving door between lobbying firms, right wing think tanks, PR, political spin, and the legacy media organisations.

    A closed shop of dead thinking befitting an increasingly zombie media..

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