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6:00 am, May 27th, 2026 - 77 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 …
Imagine placing a 5% tax impost on large banks (tax rate from 28 to 33%, the concept of a progressive tax rate on highly profitable companies) and using it to supply funds to a "Development Finance Corporation".
We have a culture where small businesses are funded by home mortgages and where companies with a growth future get bought out by foreigners (the lack of a developed venture capital market and affordable finance locally) – because of the nations inclination to focus investment on either private property investment or roads.
https://www.thepost.co.nz/business/361011316/what-could-securing-nzs-economic-future-involve-beyond-fiscal-responsibility
https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/360984337/paua-pies-crayfish-and-1000-week-your-mortgage-free-apartment-its-nice-be-mp
Jenna Lynch gives it to the hypocritical behavior of this government
And Marc Daalder twists the knife, but not only for government MPs.
https://newsroom.co.nz/2026/05/27/something-is-rotten-in-the-house-of-representatives/
[link tidied up – Incognito]
Even if it wasn't their primary objective, that photograph is effectively giving the fingers to the poor and vulnerable in society. Labour and the Greens should use it at every opportunity in the coming election campaign. The entitlement is overwhelming.
And oh…if only we had a Govt that was on Public Transport, how much better than fkn obviously stupid RONS and the car-go cultism of Simeon…..
And Cycling up too : )
advocate Matt Lowrie (whose opinion I respect and value..
And shouldn't this be obvious..to any Govt that thinks? (well of course that precludes Incumbent Idiot Ideologues!)
IMO pertinent to this….I recently (of course article is earlier : ) discovered that the so called BP roundabout project has ballooned to double initial cost, now maybe $250 Million.?!
I note its now ex Mayor Lewers…himself a cost over run, and oh, of course the mini-minister Simeon has blamed… Labour FFS !
I note a prescient comment (Newsroom comments always interesting)
I fail to see how throwing $250 Mill at a roundabout is going to fix this ?….Because the fkn roads to, and from, and the Shotover River bridge !
IMO its just more car-go cultism by Simeon….
The Frankton roundabout (the intersection was a shit long before BP landed there and will be long after they realise there's better sites for their trade) has become poster child for our poor planning of roading and what's under them. Most of the $250 million is dealing with services under the road and hopefully future proofing them to some extent. Then there was a lengthy exercise in figuring out how they were going to build the thing and kinda maintain traffic flow through the intersection. It's also a lot more than just a roundabout, work goes several hundred metres each side and includes a new bus interchange.
https://www.nzta.govt.nz/projects/queenstown-package
At least at Frankton most of the services were fairly new and in kinda known locations, with the last major project here, the Melbourne St Bypass (aka Road to Nowhere) underlying infrastructure was much older, some going back to late 1800's, with very sparse recording up until really this century. This naturally turned into a bit of a nightmare. In the end we've ended up with dramatically reduced congestion surrounding central Queenstown, and brown fields redevelopment in Gorge Road from school and industrial to fairly high density appartments.
It's unfortunate that the reporting and consequent discourse on these projects just focuses on the visible parts, and then just the bit cars are driven on, what is under the road is of no consequence. Hence our problems with 3 waters infrastructure nation wide.
Government is at least making a belated and token gesture to the problem of ghost services, giving $2.5 million for a review of the situation. Business Desk link https://archive.is/a9sZ7
Ah you might have forgotten ?…I used to actually live and work there. And still sometimes rarely …and reluctantly, have to travel to same
(and FYI, I have commented many times on Qtown and its ongoing $Million $hitfests)
And FFS… several hundred metres ?! What about my points of the roads to and from? And the Shotover Bridge ? IMO seems like you're running a bit of defense here ?…
Years back…I had much involvement with Surveying. Incl of the old one lane Kawarau bridge.Both before and after the new Super Bridge..which was supposed to eliminate stoppp…slowgo, And a lot of the new Frankton Industrial area. There was supposed to be a bypass road….going to the Airport and New Bridge.
So I know the History.
"Gone are some bus lanes and bus priority measures between Lake Hayes, through Frankton, and on to Queenstown’s town centre, along State Highways 6 and 6A."
This is another COC FU. Without bus lanes Queenstown's traffic, which is already a disaster, will only get worse. I live near Wanaka-everybody over this side of the hill avoids driving to Queenstown like the plague.
There was a story in the local media a couple of weeks ago about a guy who bought a dinghy and outboard to get from Kelvin Heights to his job in central Queenstown because this took 15-20 minutes where to drive would take him over an hour.
Aye BG…there were, and have been, similar stories for decades. At different stages some have operated water taxi's..
Even people biking to and from same (of course the Rise of the Ebike has made this very achievable, and the Trail is good..done it many times. Lot more Bikes now, but ! : )
I can only agree : avoid the Qtown AKA Greed Capital of NZ
And pouring money into it? IMO just more wa$te to help Joseph Money Mooney and fellow Nat$…
The present state of it….(IMO been much the same for decades now : (
Consequences is going to crash National's Queenstown party very shortly and it's not going to be pretty. Development ahead of infrastructure, and developers who don't give a shit, is very high risk.
There's a Fast Track thing moving forward at Arrow Junction that will be the size of Arrowtown, and larger once surrounding properties follow. Effects on transport, water supply and disposal, along with landscape will be profound. This quote from the traffic report typifies the developers attitude, quoting from the Crux piece linked above
Not a great fan of this proposal, but it may have more going for it than any of the others to accommodate that level of demand. Unfortunately Fast Track doesn't directly allow that discussion and it's getting to comparing degrees of stupid.
But back to consequences. Whakatipu traditionally, going back generations, has had a down turn / clean-out about every 7 years, had one 1988, 1993, 2000, and a good one in 2008. We should have had one in 2019 but covid and Labour's economic lifelines, then the 2022 property boom kept things steaming along. Now Queenstown and surrounding are the only show in the country. This is obviously going to unwind, economically and socially (and probably criminally). A few comments by our Mayor at the end of this ODT piece today
https://www.odt.co.nz/regions/queenstown/zombie-town-fears-queenstown-reaches-breaking-point-rnz
Here I was thinking I was living in a perpetual bubble of eternal prosperity.
What you get for your $250m in Frankton is as Graeme states:
– a full rebuild of all the stormwater networks including massive treatment facilities before stormwater gets to the swales, and then trickles into Lake Wakatipu, plus stormwater branch lines to enable development close to the SH6 highway
– a big upgrade of all the power cabling, which enables for future growth into the QAC 10 year masterplan, the capacity for power for the big new snow machines, expansion of Queenstown Events Centre, and a lot more suburban growth
– Fibre optic cable upgrade, again catering for future growth.
– A full network of traffic lights from Grant Road, and shortly to include Howard's Drive
– You will also have seen that Queenstown is getting a large new cycleway with a 52 metre bridge separating cyclists over the state highway
– A more-than doubling of the Frankton Bus Hub capacity and size
No it will definitely not cure traffic in Queenstown, since traffic volumes are increasing about 5% a year and at peak about 46,000 vehicles go around the existing roundabout per day. Queenstown is in reality a small city; it just doesn't want to accept that yet.
I'm in awe at what's been achieved at Frankton without making traffic worse than it was. Hopefully the lights will be smart enough to handle Frankton's rapidly changing traffic flows.
I think Queenstown has accepted / embraced that it's a small, very different, and very confined city, and has been for a while. Not so sure Government, of either stripe, gets either the city or confined bit, and definitely don't get the different bit.
I lived and worked in Frankton back when The Golden Ace was a thing. The whole place is a Special Economic Zone and always has been. A gambler would say, "All bets are off!". Expect the unexpected, the unpalatable, the unrepeatable and don't measure anywhere else against the Gold Hole.
I bet some dont. IMO they would be the ones standing on top of the pyramid.
Queenstown (and as I say lived and worked there for decades 90's…10's in Survey/Construction/Building etc) should NEVER have been let able to get beyond what was essentially a horse and cart town design…without Developers having to front up the necessary streets/roads.
Of course that didnt happen… because reasons incl the huge greed money involved in the adjacent properties and, IMO, influence over QLDC et al…
And re the $250 Mill…(yes yes I'm sure its all been justified by the involved parties)….none of which addressed my points of….
The subdivisions on Ladies Mile (which I also worked on)….where was the forward thinking/Engineering there? They all knew how big these were projected to be….and ending up funnelling out onto a… 2 lane high speed highway?
As I say, I have worked at the Operator end of more than a few of these masterful Engineering designs.
Quite often the talk was…do they know what the fuck they are doing? It.wont.work.
Oh re Roundabouts. One near Cromwell a while back…..
And more recently….
Anyway thats my Input.
Shane Jones, on the way to the House yesterday, carrying a big, live crayfish, gifted to him by Ngāi Tahu – what's that all about (aside from big-noting and boasting)? What's he signalling, and to whom? Seems like some inter-tribal thing to me…
At least Matua is openly declaring the donation / consideration. Wonder if someone hasn't?
Nice thinking, Graeme. He might be publicly demonstrating his transparency, symbolically, so he can refer back to the moment and say, see, the Mātua has clean hands. He did make the point, pointedly, that he was going to check to see whether his gift would qualify as gifting, needing to be declared. I'll watch on with interest.
Shane doing his usual willy-waving which is why he didn’t use crabs because that would have caused a real itch with the public.
Even so, it was crusty and red.
I saw it.. koura that size aren't great eating… like big old snapper/tamure
Presumably the crayfish was there to raise the IQ on the government benches.
Then a sea-slug would have been enough.
Rent's king, it makes my
sing… Willis was just standing up for what's right.
No fear, fair Lady Willis won't be using her "won the Lotto" metaphor again – 'twas merely a wee "Slip of the Soul." What? Yes, of course she has one. Nooooooooo, she doesn't hate poor people, it's simply that when one’s priority is maximising assorted landLord profits, the social housing budget is always on one's mind. Move-On!
Managing the Economy is not the same as running the household finances. This seems true but Ganesh Ahirao makes the detail clear. So why does Willis get away with bluffing us.
And Ganesh covers the bluffs that are used currently by Willis:
1 We must balance the Budget
2 We must move to surpluses to ensure we are ready for future shocks or surprises
3 We need to provide relief for New Zealanders facing the cost-of-living crisis.
4 This (insert policy option) will hurt the economy
5 We can’t afford it
6 The economy is in (was left in) dire straits and we are prioritising its recovery.
I can manage these clear explanations put up by Ganesh, a review of a 2024 post.
https://ganeshnana.substack.com/p/encore-appearance-for-budget-2024
[tidied up link – Incognito]
There was a discussion this morning on RNZ re the roll-out of EV chargers in NZ. This government's well documented anti-EV drill baby drill philosophy has resulted in the ratio of EV's per charge point being by far the worst among developing countries. Putting Simeon Brown in charge of this has been like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.
Labour needs to have a strong policy on this.
See the graph in the link for details, but here are sample ratios in 2025:
NZ 88 Australia 41 Canada 38 USA 34 China 31 France 27 Spain 27 UK 23 Japan 19
Germany 15 Sweden 14 South Africa 12 Holland 6
https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2026/electric-vehicle-charging-chap-6-and-10
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2019036786/numbers-of-public-ev-chargers-lagging-in-new-zealand
Good for Dame Therese. A leader to follow – please note you other comfortably off people.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/596424/i-m-happy-to-pay-a-higher-tax-rate-says-asb-and-air-new-zealand-chair-dame-therese-walsh
Politics Regions 4:50 am today (Wed. 27/5/26)
‘I'm happy to pay a higher tax rate’ says ASB and Air New Zealand chair Dame Therese Walsh.
Blair outs himself as more of a problem for Labour than the Tory Party – where it seems he really belonged.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/may/26/tony-blair-labour-abandon-net-zero-support-donald-trump
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/may/26/tony-blair-essay-labour-failings-unhelpful
If our politicians want to keep their entitlements, I suggest they do the same for many NZers. And I am not just talking about benefits or accommodation supplements what about ACC entitlement such as the loss of potential earnings. I say this as I know many people are not being informed of their entitlement. This current government has made it so difficult to get, and, in many cases, people are either denied LOPE or reduced to a pittance payout.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/510614/pm-christopher-luxon-says-he-will-pay-back-his-accommodation-allowance
A lobbyist comments about lobbying [of politicians] from her perspective. She does an awesome job of being objective, impartial, and reasoned but her final two sentences carry a lot of unspoken meaning & message.
https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/27-05-2026/lobbying-shouldnt-be-done-in-the-shadows
Ah – so when the State is a swamp of potentially corrupt and anti-democratic opacity, market actors from the private sector can step up as the paragons of democratic transparency who protect the public? We can thus valourise the people who are the source of the problem (lobbyists), and smear the State as intrinsically untrustworthy, irrespective of which political actors are in control of it. It's not about simply voting in a better government, but about placing more trust in lobbyists. A cunning reversal of reality – the State doesn't regulate a private sector which has incentives to behave badly, instead, an heroic private sector regulates the always corrupt State.
Finding our way through the a-mazing task of seeing through the fog of misapprehensions! But Harry Potter did it and fought Voldemor. The Potter books weren't just children' stories of fantasy; admit it, we live it.
It’s always been a somewhat incestuous relationship between lobbyists and National-led governments. I’d start with modest regulation (no capital “r”) and introduce a mandatory register. Lobbyists must provide their name, passport, and full biometric details and the host must do the same – DNA samples will be matched against each other and known & unknown databases (incl. criminal records and register of failed companies). In addition, all lobbyists must open all their social media accounts and unlock all electronic devices (incl. storage devices) upon entering Parliament buildings.
It’s pretty good this finance minister job.
Arrived on Monday.
Somebody had ordered brand new toilets. What extravagance.I cancelled them. Money saved! I’m so good at this.
Arrived on Tuesday. There a strong smell from the room where we keep the buckets, before we empty them. There’s too many people running around who don’t ever wear suits. I shit-canned a few janitors. I announced more firings soon. It’s how you run a business. Peow! Peow! Yes I did do finger guns. God I’m tough.
Wednesday came around. We’ve opened another room and put a lock on the first room, with a notice telling people never to go there.
Thursday the boss dropped by to ask when the new toilets were arriving. Been part of a really good bulk order deal apparently. I told the ratio was looking good.
Friday I took some decisive action. I closed a bunch of public toilets near the office.
‘Public toilet users have won the lottery!’ I said. ‘No more freeloaders.’
The boss sent his 2IC round to do some crisis management. (What crisis? I thought. I’m absolutely nailing it!!). He has decided to order 100 new buckets pronto. We need them the second room is almost full.
with apologies to Steve Braunias.
Wonderful diary newsense – maybe deploy safety cones until AI comes to the rescue?
[link required]
Coalition MPs continue ‘betting’ on the safety of houses.
https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/27-05-2026/government-mps-acquired-25-extra-investment-properties-after-passing-pro-landlord-reforms
Great job by The Spinoff!
No wonder that the Coalition has cut back on investing in Science and R&D in NZ because it doesn’t fit in their belief-system for unleashing this country’s potential and making it prosper (aka ‘The Plan’).
One wonders how many investments there would have been if the housing market was not flatlining because of the exodus to Oz, aka not a well managed economy.
Probably considerably fewer.
The course of events /
planhas been to cash out at the top of the market, institute austerity policies, crash employment and housing market, buy back in at the (hopefully) bottom and profit happily ever after.Gotta do it with property though, if they tried the same sort of shit on the share market they'd go down for insider trading.
The mortgage cost outlook is not promising.
Rates seem likely to go up before the RB acts.
https://www.1news.co.nz/2026/05/27/significant-turning-point-for-home-loans/
"The government has backed down on a last-minute law change regarding homeschooling after a community backlash."
Community? Which community, the "homeschool community? How are they so powerful? Do they represent a voting force that National has to keep happy? Are they more powerful than the Māori community? The environment community?
Really odd news.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/education/596484/government-backs-down-on-last-minute-homeschooling-law-change
Labour did it.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/homeschoolingnewzealand/posts/2403203816813453/
Did what?
They listened and provided a considered response.
Compare this with hollow and self-praising press release from Hon Erica Stanford (https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/government-listens-feedback-homeschool-regulations). The NZH has an even more shilling article on it but I get sharp shoots of pain when I try linking to it.
Backlash ! There must be tens of thousands of them thar militant home skoolers !
Nah, not at all. Just a subset of the Charter School set. IMO Its all in line with NACT1 Ideology. Which trumps Rationality….
Gotta keep'em on the hook!
Not quite tens of thousands, I reckon.
https://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/statistics/homeschooling
I couldn’t possibly comment about their militant status – they may or may not carry water-pistols.
Well, that number surprised me ! And lol , water pistols… possibly Nerf Guns for the more hip ? : )
Boil on the bum but what percentage are Ardern-haters?
I think Ardern was at peak hate shortly after she resigned and it then transferred quickly & smoothly to Hipkins. So, it would be very difficult for young hatesters to make the distinction.
I hear just now, that it was "advice" from New Zealand First that convinced Stanford to do as the homeschoolers demanded. Winston wants the cooker-vote.
Quite a few mums in my small rural town decided to home school in protest at the Covid policies adopted by our school, who didn't have any choice but the 'discussions' got very nasty.
Children at your school were required to have the Covid vaccine?
No, it was all about masks! Board of Trustee led decision, mostly made up of parents.
FYI, members of our family have gone down the home school path. Three main reasons, the one on one time is vastly larger at home, one child had a few learning difficulties and living rurally.
Not a cooker amongst them, all enthusiastic members of the team of 5 million.
This is what I was referring to the other day. Because a group doesn't align with certain 'values', the othering snowballs and the pejoratives flow.
Not attractive at all.
The strong and visible support from Winston Peters should give you some pause. One could re-appropriate the word and argue cooker = NZF voter, but I agree that such generalisations are simplistic, lazy, and ultimately counter-productive. However, if the shoe fits …
Winston wants the cooker vote. He'd like to have the homeschooler vote as well. Winston wants all the disaffected votes. I didn't say the homeschoolers are cookers. The cookers are watching Winston to see if he supports the home schoolers. I have many, many homeschool friends (you'd be surprised) whom I interact with every day; they are not "other" to me. The "othering" hasn't snowballed and "pejorative" refers to disapproval and disrespect, both of which are valid positions to take with regard some of the people who got over-wound by the Government's requirements around the vaccine.
Ignoring wise advice…
"Justice officials advised the government not to intervene in a court case being taken against major emitters, offical documents show."
Despite that, the government announced it would…
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/596461/officials-told-government-not-to-intervene-in-a-climate-court-case
IMO ignoring any advice that doesnt fit their Ideological/Closeminded drive for the absolute best future…. for the 1%ers.
And Chloe once again front footing them….(Chloe,Marama, et al Great Greens : )
Call them out, Chloe !
"In our view, it would be premature to consider policy reform while relevant court proceedings are still underway," the briefing said."
What would Freud say about that, I wonder…
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/596461/officials-told-government-not-to-intervene-in-a-climate-court-case
It would have been interesting to see what sort of decision the Court reached if the case had been allowed to finish. There are surely a couple of problems in reaching any sort of determination:
My (totally layman) guess is that the Court would have seen these problems and made some neutral decision that would have thrown the problem back to legislators to fix. Then we would have been in a much better place as a country to have a proper discussion about what to do. Instead, we just get a reflexive 'business-friendly' decree that shores up the status quo for a bit longer. It's partisan procrastination.
Solid stuff from RNZ political reporter Lillian Hanley, and she's still digging.
What, if anything, will ‘Justice’ Minister Gold$mith have to say. Follow the money.
Hmm, "nothing to add", i.e. nothing to say, hear or see here – Move-On!
cool story…
https://bsky.app/profile/publicaddress.bsky.social/post/3mmsr6dlje22g
Thanks joe90, an odd discrepancy to be sure, but ol' CEO Luxflakes will clear it up.
Relax, it's Corruption… you're soaking in it. Ringing any bells, Mr Luxon? Imho, time's running out to come clean. I used this quote a while ago in a reply to alwyn.
Former NZ Initiative/Atlas ghoul and TPU fave.
https://web.archive.org/web/20190124070137/https://www.nzinitiative.org.nz/about-us/our-people/matt-burgess/
https://web.archive.org/web/20260204103634/https://greatsociety.nz/home/
Months could be to January 2026.
In the Beehive till becoming an independent consultant?
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/596499/climate-briefing-note-sent-to-pm-s-chief-policy-adviser-it-has-been-revealed
Bishop is at it again, shouting his mouth off at a public meeting with no evidence. Clearly the Local Water Done Well policy is not working as he anticipated.
“I [Bishop] would potentially put it to you that not all of it is related to water infrastructure,” Bishop can be heard saying in an audio recording of the event sent to the Herald. "I’ve seen the figures, and the debt mountain that’s been transferred into Wellington Water Tiaki Wai is neatly correlated with things like the Town Hall restoration project.
But the council has strongly rejected Bishop’s accusation, with chief strategy and finance officer Andrea Reeves questioning what evidence the minister was relying on for the claim.“It’s simply not true that we are transferring town hall debt to Tiaki Wai, that’s not correct,” Reeves told the Herald.
The way Wellington City Council managed its debt was in one consolidated pool on its balance sheet, Reeves said, meaning it was impossible to itemise debt to specific projects and spending areas.“Basically we looked at our balance sheet and we said this is the amount of assets we own, 33% of that relates to water, here’s the debt that we own, let’s transfer 33% of that."
Paywalled:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/wellington/chris-bishop-claims-wellington-city-council-offloaded-town-hall-debt-into-water-entity-officials-say-simply-not-true/TI64TK6A25EXDDHQSJRNZRYLTQ/
Wellington City Council reminds that of the government before accounting was "required" to accommodate sinking lid policy in the 1970's.
Less politely – Wellington water assets reminds of the GFC era (loading in bad debts with actual value assets – high maintenance costs etc).
Wellington City (hill metering instalment) is also the reason the cost of water meters would be so high, the cost charged to the new company and paid off by the wider region of water users.
Chlöe is giving the PM a good luxxing in the House today 🙂
Is she roughing his comb-over?
Got him by the curly-whirlies.
An economist specialising in climate change and energy issues out of the NZ Initiative stable was the senior policy advisor.
The distraction over their identity in the House seems silly (more about form in parliament) than substance given this was determined by media an hour before parliament Question Time.
Wow! Debbie Narewa-Packer has just delivered a powerful speech in the General Debate – TPM will tax the rich!
Great stuff.
Worth linking to when it comes on line.
I wonder if she talked about this to the TPM Party President?
JT may have an opinion on this matter.
Listen to her speech and find out, lazybones.