Open mike 23/05/2020

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 …

Nat Vote: And the Loser Is ….

The Nation holds its breath as the dullest political leadership race in a generation snores to a close. Who will win by losing? Who will lose by winning? Who cares?

UPDATE: It’s Mullertime!

UPDATE: Bennett dumped!

Work ideas

Jacinda Ardern has floated the idea of a four day working week and Grant Robertson wants to change the future of work.  Maybe they should get on and do it.

Open mike 22/05/2020

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 …

Who wants to lead the National Party?

Tomorrow the National Party caucus meet to decide on a leadership challenge mounted by Todd Muller and Nikki Kaye.  Both parties obviously think they have the numbers.  Which MPs are misleading them?

Open mike 21/05/2020

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 …

Dead man walking

The media is reporting there will be a vote of no confidence in Simon Bridges’ leadership at next week’s National caucus meeting.

Open mike 20/05/2020

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 …

What does National do in Epsom?

Last night’s Reid Research Newshub poll result will be reverberating through National’s caucus.  And raises the question, do they gift Epsom to ACT and maybe get a right wing MP or do they preserve every seat they can for themselves.

Open mike 19/05/2020

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 …

Open mike 18/05/2020

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 …

Open mike 17/05/2020

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 …

Oh Sweden

Just when we thought liberal democracies meant real freedom was an absolute written into human rights stone, by mid-March this year almost all OECD countries had implemented the most draconian reversal of lockdowns on every single human to combat Covid19. Except Sweden. How is it working out?

Don’t infect your feline master!

In terrible news, our feline masters can both get covid-19, and they can infect other cats. Fortunately so far they have largely been asymptomatic apart from some big cats.

We don’t know if there can be cat to human transmission. But I suspect it is likely. Obvious implications about being a issue for breaking transmission chains.

Open mike 16/05/2020

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 …

What the Greens did

A round up of the Green Party’s achievements in the 2020 Budget: funding for nature, the commitment to ending violence, and public housing and insulation. And a look at the pragmatics of what the Greens can currently accomplish.

Covid-19: may be endemic

Like measles, covid-19 could become endemic. Never dying out entirely. Needing to be controlled in human denser populations into the indefinite future. That is the warning from top World Health Organisation officials. Like me, they’re looking at reported research into covid-19 immunities and the picture isn’t encouraging. This is no time to be complacent.

Open mike 15/05/2020

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 …

Budget 2020

The budget site is up and running. Some links here along with Robertson’s speech. This post may get updated if authors feel like it. Otherwise commenters can praise or criticize. Preferably constructively rather than with mindless waffle.

Viruses love liberty – they can breed more.

Viruses and other diseases simply don’t care about abstractions like ‘human rights’. They just want to breed. We need a better legislative toolkit to deal with epidemics. There is only so long that a draconian state of emergency should be maintained. Like 1918 we need to start thinking about the future Health Act with reserve powers like level 2 and 1. In the meantime, we’ll deal with the virus with this imperfect act as a tool.

Open mike 14/05/2020

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 …

Jacinda is not like Muldoon

National has decided to play politics with Covid 19 and is opposing the Government’s attempt to pass legislation to secure level 2 arrangements. And has made the extraordinary claim that Jacinda Ardern is just like Rob Muldoon but with slogans.

Open mike 13/05/2020

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 …

Bloomfield and the empire strikes back

Dr Ashley Bloomfield has responded to allegations by Simon Bridges that the government has suspended the Official Information Act and the Emergency Response Committee has made multiple requests for information from the Ministry that it is waiting for by advising publicly there are no outstanding requests for information.

Covid19 and the Stock Markets

In this time of uncertainty when mass unemployment beckons you would expect that stock exchanges would be plummeting. But think again. Because they seem to be doing fine.