Open mike 22/01/2020

Written By: notices and features - Date published: - 35 comments
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35 comments on “Open mike 22/01/2020”

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  1. 1

    Watching the impeachment live on Al Jazeera, Adam Schiff is currently breaking it down,

    Here's the link if any are interested.



    1. 2.1

      Turia and her fellow kuias have one agenda and one agenda only. Privatisation of social services.

      Imposing higher rents and more user pays on poor Maori to lift them out of poverty is like smashing someone's broken leg with a sledgehammer to fix it.

      1. 2.1.1

        Actually it is indigenisation of social services, by Maori, for Maori

        [lprent: Corrected your ’email’ so it doesn’t look like a hijacking. ]

      2. 2.1.2

        What Wayne said. Māori aren't 'private', they're treaty partners with the Crown, and as such are entitled to have their own social security services.

      3. 2.1.3

        As I understand it Whānau Ora was set up not with new funding but with funding previously dedicated to Māori from other areas.

        It is a trait peculiar to the National Party to want to divest government responsibility from its commitments. You see it all the time when they cut funding, or sell stuff, or set up new agencies outside of government to do what should be core government business.

        I think this is the case with Whānau Ora also. Divesting responsibility for what essentially is an historic problem caused by The Crown. That is the continued very, very poor social and health outcomes for Māori.

        The Māori Party's philosophy is that they, the Māori business elite, have the answers but Māori themselves just do not believe this and that has been proven by the ejection of the Māori Party from parliament.

        Remember the Māori Party, just like their stablemate the National Party, was formed specifically to oppose the Labour Party. Indeed if the National Party were to stand candidates in Māori seats they would be a who's who of former or present Māori Party associates.

        As Peeni Henare said, 'It's election year and things get political'.

        I am confident Māori will make the right choice at the polls later this year and return a Labour led government.

  6. 6

    Why Hilary won't support Bernie: "Nobody wants to work with him. He got nothing done." https://www.salon.com/2020/01/21/hillary-clinton-wont-commit-to-backing-bernie-sanders-if-he-faces-trump-nobody-likes-him/

    "I will say, however, that it's not only him, it's the culture around him. It's his leadership team. It's his prominent supporters. It's his online Bernie Bros and their relentless attacks on lots of his competitors, particularly the women. And I really hope people are paying attention to that, because it should be worrisome that he has permitted this culture — not only permitted, [he] seems to really be very much supporting it."

    PUMAs are a Democrat sub-tribe: "Washington Post reporter Dave Weigel pointed out on Twitter that diehard Clinton supporters known as PUMAs, short for "Party Unity My Ass," relentlessly attacked then-Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and his supporters during his primary run against Clinton in 2008. And MSNBC's Steve Kornacki noted that 25 percent of Clinton primary voters later backed Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in the general election against Obama…"

  8. 8

    "A multinational team of researchers, including New Zealanders Stephanie D’Souza and Richie Poulton, have just published research in Nature showing that a relatively small number of our citizens are responsible for a disproportionately large number of benefit claims, public hospital stays and criminal convictions. This will surprise almost no one, although it does no harm to have our intuitions confirmed." https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/22-01-2020/it-is-folly-to-take-on-social-dysfunction-while-avoiding-all-mention-of-the-p-word/

    "It is the interpretation of the findings, rather than the findings themselves, that matters politically. The researchers note that this high-needs population also lacks “features of human capital important for workforce readiness”: its members are likely to leave school early, experience significant mental illness, and have weak brain development in their early years. This is worrying, the researchers say, because these people will be left behind in the age of automation. And so we should be “delivering interventions” and “investing in individuals’ education and training potential”."

    Who's we?? If you want to spend your time and money helping losers, stick up your hand! Huh, nobody. Thought so.

    "As the researcher Jess Berentson-Shaw sets out in her book Pennies from Heaven, a huge evidence base suggests that simply increasing family income has a drastic effect on social problems. It frees families from the constant strain of worrying about bills, helps them shake off debt and other burdens, and allows them to spend more money on their children’s development, which is what the evidence overwhelmingly shows they do." Ah, socialism. Okay, worth a few taxpayer dollars – if that outcome gets verified.

    "While cash will not solve all the problems, it is impossible to imagine that the scale of dysfunction the research identifies would still exist in a world where we have largely or wholly eliminated poverty. Yet I could not see poverty mentioned once in the Poulton and D’Souza research. It is this bizarre absence that lends their work the air of an expedition that quit partway through. This question is certain to crop up in this year’s election campaign, in which poverty will be a central issue."

    Such certainty is rare and impressive. We've finally got someone who can predict the future!! Okay, there's a more feasible prosaic explanation: Max Rashbrooke has been spilt the inside word from the National and Labour camps, where the decision has already been made. 🙄

    1. 8.1

      "It is the interpretation of the findings, rather than the findings themselves, that matters politically. The researchers note that this high-needs population also lacks “features of human capital important for workforce readiness”: its members are likely to leave school early, experience significant mental illness, and have weak brain development in their early years. This is worrying, the researchers say, because these people will be left behind in the age of automation. And so we should be “delivering interventions” and “investing in individuals’ education and training potential”."

      They need opportunity.ie the opportunity to be available to work,and have meaningful employment.

      That great disaster of the late 20th century,was under the propoganda of the washington consensus and the privitization of public assets and contracting out of services such as waste water,gardening cleaning etc from councils under the fallacy that private enterprise could do it better.(read Stiglitz globalization on this)

      A number of councils prior understood the social contract,and provided employment to people without skills.

      The significant depreciation of human capital is now evident in the community,and the cost is greater to fix as it jumps the generational gap.

    2. 8.2

      Rashbrooke's article concludes:

      If, in short, we are to end the world that this recent research describes, in which a small part of the population battles immense difficulties on multiple fronts, we will need to deal with the deep and interlocking structures that shape their lives – the racism they are exposed to, the substandard housing in which they live, and above all the inadequate benefits and pitifully low pay on which they are supposed to survive. We cannot stop partway on the path towards fixing social problems.

      It's hardly an outrageous position to take.

      1. 8.2.1

        Correct. He's just the latest in a long line of others who have said the same. I agree with them (in principle). I recommend Max's book too.

    1. 9.1

      I clapped when Assange was arrested.

      and I’m ok with Greenwald being arrested as well. I’m sure he will receive a fair trail and the evidence will decide what happens.

      1. 9.1.1

        You're an idiot james, you didn't read the nytimes piece did you. Your comment makes that clear. Maybe you should read about things before you comment.

        .

  10. 10

    Any doubts I may have harboured that this government was no different from the last with respect to sorting out the disaster zone that is MOH:DSS have been completely dispelled.

    If anything this mob are worse.

    Despite the fact that just about no one is satisfied with the performance of MOH:DSS and to some their existence is more insecure than fifty years ago, this Current Mob have seen fit to appoint the Group Manager of DSS for the past decade in a key position in the Minister's office.

    Indeed.

    One of those bureaucrats that some were demanding be purged from the Ministry and banned from having anything to do with disability is a Private Secretary or whatever the hell they call them.

    What a fucking joke.

    Any hope of any meaningful change is gone.

    And the Grand Announcement the other day about Funded Family Care reform and the repeal of the Part 4 amendment was perhaps a tad premature.

    There's no real timetable and as yet no date for submissions or Select Committee hearings.

    Was told to keep checking the MOH website.

    Paula Tesorero spoke out the other day about the failure of This Mob to address the grave concerns around assessments and allocations…no wonder the government has already stated this much needed work is not going to happen.

    No wonder with Toni Atkinson having their Ear.

    SSDD.

      1. 10.1.1

        I called Salesa's office and it was suggested I speak with Toni Atkinson…etc. I sputtered disbelievingly and sought confirmation it was indeed the same person.

        My original inquiry was regarding submissions on the repeal of the PHDACT…parliament website and MOH both devoid of any information.

        Salesa's EA did call back today, to her great credit.

        "Ugh" indeed, although not exactly Peter and my response.

    1. 12.1

      Fascinating, isn't it?

      When you think about the different factions, the US led geopolitic is no less corrupt than the Russia/China geopolitic.

  13. 13

    The profits of doom

    The Changing Global Market for Australian Coal

    …..Australia is one of the world's largest producers and exporters of coal. Total domestic production has more than doubled since the early 1990s and export volumes have grown strongly. Australia produced around 510 million tonnes (Mt) of coal in 2017/18, of which around 75 per cent (380 Mt) was exported, up from 55 per cent in 1990/91

    https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2019/sep/the-changing-global-market-for-australian-coal.html

    And it is still increasing.

    Would it really hurt Australia for it to go back to 1991 levels of coal production?

    I don't think that the 1991 Australian economy was in ruin with only half the coal production of today. But to hear the coal lobbyists tell it, even a slight reduction in coal exports would be the ruination of the country.

    This industry is all about greed, to hell with the consequences.

    Australian government report predicted severe wildfires 11 years ago

    A 2008 report commissioned by the Australian government predicted that climate change would cause the fire season to start earlier and be more intense after about 2020

    …..Australians, myself included, are in a state of shock. At least 24 people have died, more than 2000 homes have been gutted, and 8 million hectares – an area the size of Scotland – have burned. For months now, the brown and red skies and smell of smoke have been a constant reminder of the tragedy unfolding around us .

    The fires are being driven by record-breaking hot, dry conditions, which make vegetation more likely to catch fire when exposed to ignition sources like lightning strikes or discarded cigarettes. On 8 January, the Bureau of Meteorology announced that 2019 was both Australia’s driest and warmest year on record. On 18 December, the country had its hottest ever single day, when the average maximum temperature reached 41.9°C.

    Despite these extremes, the Australian government has acted almost as if nothing unusual is happening. In November, deputy prime minister Michael McCormack told ABC Radio that “we’ve had fires in Australia since time began”. He dismissed the role of climate change in the current fires as the “ravings of some pure, enlightened and woke capital-city greenies”.

    Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24532643-500-australian-government-report-predicted-severe-wildfires-11-years-ago/#ixzz6BkU1wwvw

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