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6:00 am, July 23rd, 2026 - 34 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 …
https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/361009729/christopher-luxon-vows-stuart-nash-will-not-serve-his-cabinet-after-sexist-comments
What I would say to you is that now that Nash has resigned I'm going to go
Around acting tough. But I'll still refuse to sack the racist, disgusting shane jones
Mate take the win.
I thought it presumptuous of Luxon to assume he will have a Cabinet to keep Nash out of.
1. NZ First could conceivably poll higher than National at current trends, leaving Luxon begging to be in Winston's Cabinet.
2. Even if National become the highest polling party, how long will the ticking time bomb in Luxon's pocket go on for?
3. Sorry, Luxon, but you do have to face the possibility of being put out with the rubbish on election day. Having seen your polling, I'm surprised Andrew Bayly hasn't made the L sign on his forehead at you! ☣️
@ wags @ 1
Spot on. When I heard Mr Thumb's posturing this is what I thought of.
https://youtube.com/shorts/Kn-mSHceYYQ?si=2vCAxdq-4kySVXKC
The issue of hypocrisy seems to be hanging in the air. Like a gathering cloud, hovering over the PM: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/politics/772673/significant-distraction-stuart-nash-resigns-as-nz-first-candidate-after-sexist-comments
Hipkins cleverly bringing fellatio into the mix raises the moral tone of the entire situation a notch. Marketing gurus have long used sex in advertising because it works, so the hipster is on solid ground. Lux has a problem with non-Nat numpties:
With so many numpties in his own party, the obvious solution of declaring parliament a numpty-free zone won't work well, so he's using the lame option instead. No go…
Chris Finlayson engages.
"On his Cross Party Lines podcast, former attorney-general Chris Finlayson revealed Nash had sent him a late night text …"
Now Nash is ash.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/361009588/nz-firsts-stuart-nash-makes-sexist-claim-mp-was-lazy-taking-baby-leave
I agree, even though Nash's calling the woman MP lazy was rude, and also incorrect. He and his party could well have apologised with grovelling, quoting a misunderstanding of her arrangements. She took a short, unpaid maternity leave and organised to be excused from Parliament, but not from electorate work, for a few more months. I imagine Parliament has extended such arrangements for MPs many times for health reasons.
This appears to be a thin excuse to ditch someone not fitting into the party vibe and/or threatening the party head. I also don’t think his comments were sexist. The sexism label is the thin excuse.
Who is Luxon referring to here?
Shane Jones?
Winston Peters?
David Seymour???
"“After several instances of poor behaviour, some politicians will claim he has changed. his lack of contrition …"
https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/361009729/christopher-luxon-vows-stuart-nash-will-not-serve-his-cabinet-after-sexist-comments
Gnash picked the wrong target/victim.
As well as the wrong party, NZF and the wrong career, politics.
So many wrongs.
None of those would have incurred Daddy Luxon’s public anger & punishment. Remember that Daddy Luxon was the Prime Pimp who sold out loads of women by scrapping pay equity. The Coalition are no supporters of women and their anti-sexism stance is too selective to climb on their high horse, IMHO.
Chris is a big softy.
Not somebody I’d cuddle up to.
I wasn't referring to his whole body.
I definitely won’t go there!
You'd be disappointed if you did.
Back in Feb 2026 the Environmental Defence Society published a note on how the govermement was quietly changing the law to allow NZ's freshwater resources to be plundered by the rural sector: https://eds.org.nz/resources/documents/reports/eds-investigates-freshwater-ambushed/
EDS comments: "The first report in the series, Freshwater ambushed, focuses on amendments to sections 70 and 107 of the Resource Management Act which weakened long-standing safeguards for aquatic life. It traces how High Court decisions that strengthened freshwater protections were quickly undone through legislative changes, including last-minute amendments made with limited evidence and analysis."
Don't just read it; take action!
NZ First vows to leapfrog Govt to build bigger irrigation dams, faster
https://newsroom.co.nz/2026/07/21/nz-first-vows-to-leapfrog-govt-to-build-bigger-irrigation-dams-faster/
Bigger, faster, better means the favoured few make a profit by a raid on a public resource.
The law changes are obviously the result of lobbying by Federated Farmers. With the new resource management laws leaving more decisions up to ministers, the door to corruption is wide open.
You are correct HTII.
Farmers are well-organised and well-resourced and very effective at getting their preferred representatives in Parliament and into the Coalition. This is pretty legal and one of (undesired?) consequences of our political and democratic system – it doesn’t require corruption other than moral corruption.
Academic leadership is usually conspicuous by its absence so credit is due to Massey:
Terrific to see academic experts steering sheeple shamelessly!
Dogooding can also be free-range, rather than driven by an ivory tower. Community organisers can use those briefs to briefly instruct local communities. A glimmer of a masterplan could appear in the thought bubble above the heads of local folk. 
Only quibble that comes immediately to mind is due to their reality-based framing. Seeing reality in everything is a big thought, but thinking big is everso 1970s. Not that we ought to think small. Think of the goldilocks principle: think medial. It's the hermetic way.
Think holistic.
Another Vietnam?
Such reductionism! Reducing the war to a cost equation anchors everyone in supply & demand expectating in accord with neolib praxis. Yet the expert may have fingered the key point: asymmetry of cost leads to an effect differential, which could be more influential than all the posturing as short term extends into medium term warfare.
I googled euronoia, but folks still haven't got around to inventing it. This Greek bears a gift of gnosis which could help develop the stance:
Putting domestic oligarchy aside (who happily patronise any leftist or rightist politician willing to play the right game), this insider view shows how eurocrats operate. They serve the class of owners of capitalist enterprises.
Cool, the time is now, the topic is framed; ready, set, go! A New Deal is a vastly different entity to a Big Deal, so growth ideology has no place here. Newness is all about doing something completely different. That turned Monty Python into a bunch of comedic legends, so it ought to work as well for other lateral thinkers…
Without being able to read the whole article you can tell what it says.
'Bastion of neo liberal orthodoxy, casts neo liberal eye over plan to inhibit further wealth transfer to the wealthy. Concludes it
must notcan't work.What I would give for MSM (especially RNZ) to get a view from a non bank/neo liberal economist. Craig Rennie for example.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/treasury-advice-casts-doubt-on-greens-wealth-tax-modelling/premium/JD7UP6JXW5GONE5ZJGLDST2HAI/
Nope, you’re completely wrong and the headline (plus first couple of sentences in front of the pay-wall) is misleading, and deliberately so, I reckon.
FYI, Treasury has not reviewed the Greens’ wealth tax modelling [for the NZ Herald] as the headline suggests.
Unless we can read the whole NZH piece, we cannot and must not jump to conclusions, IMO.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/22/saudi-arabia-would-enrich-uranium-under-reported-deal-with-us?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
”Donald Trump signed a nuclear agreement with Saudi Arabia on Wednesday that could enable the kingdom to enrich its own uranium for nuclear reactions.
The US energy secretary, Chris Wright, and his Saudi counterpart, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, signed “a peaceful nuclear cooperation agreement” and “an accompanying bilateral safeguards agreement,” according to a statement from the US Department of Energy.”
Are they running out of oil?
Or, precursors to developing a nuclear bomb with which to threaten Iran?
Slowly, and your precursor theory is sensible insofar as establishing collective enterprise means hiring experts, cohering them into an operating team, then directing them to a specific task. I like that they frame their collaboration as peaceful.
That puts warfare on hold somewhat, yet allows design for a smart pivot into it from whatever future, driven by contingency at the time. The bilateral safeguards thing seems to be necessary constraint, where the devil lurks within the detail. He who controls lingo writes the rules. The Sunni side of Islam originated in a local/regional/tribal power nexus whereas the Shia originated in blood-tie elitism derived from family ties of the prophet. So the former are closer to capitalist ethos.
Media circus alert: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/politics/776520/shoot-shag-or-marry-game-was-act-candidate-paul-henry-being-authentic-seymour-says
I'm inclined to encourage these people to take comfort in our lack of a cultural commissar while it lasts. Otoh, enterprising lawyers trying to write hate speech law may enjoy having a new boundary to patrol. Aesthetes must now ponder the relative merits of the Aussie triad shag/marry/date and the Kiwi triad shoot/shag/marry.
As expected, Penny Simmonds has done major damage to polytechs and NZ’s public vocational education. Affected students are the future workforce that’s vital for our economy and productivity.
The Coalition was in a hurry to tear down things, leaving a wasteland of shameful shambles.
https://newsroom.co.nz/2026/07/22/officials-warn-polytechnics-at-risk-as-govt-pushes-ahead-with-reforms/
The Natiban are working through their big thinks on what to destroy next of Kiwiland that our fore-fathers and mothers had made and found to be good. The Simpsons parody us as we rush about studied in the wild by superior satellites above, and other devilish devices below.
The Thinker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxIXbGJFKec
I think you are being a bit to hard on Labour. They aren't responsible for everything that goes wrong.
I have it on good authority that the NZ Labour Party weren't responsible for the massacre at Katyn Forest where tens of thousands of Polish Officers were murdered in 1940. That one was Stalin's work.
[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.]
Something for Alwyn's interest. Important history but what about our future, what good achieved from the devastation and sacrifice of lives (and morals) for our okay future?
Finland and Soviet WW2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBM7kdYi_4g