Wood blocked new North Shore airport authority while owning Auckland Airport shares; Can Aotearoa become a climate refuge?; Brazen supermarket shoplifting-to-order; Climate bi-partisanship ending
Surely Landlord Luxon is far more conflicted with his ownership of 9 houses and by promoting NACT tax policies that will be of significant benefit to himself!
The NACT policy is designed to benefit Landlords - and most of the NACT party MPs will obviously be conflicted if they pass the laws. Surely they should be required divest themselves of theirr housing assets before aguing for or aganst the law
Interesting to see Apple have gone with Mixed Reality vs Virtual Reality for their hype, very meta Meta.. Hopefully this is the final money bonfire in the space and we can get on with the much less cool but far more useful/achievable Augmented Reality
I have this instinctive jump in my head - I equate the phrase 'Augmented Reality' to 'Have a nice craft beer' - it seems to augment reality quite well on a Friday afternoon.
It's pretty close to virtual reality - you can't see through the glasses (you're watching video of the 'outside') - so I suspect it could still go either way
Something I read about the Apple ski goggles which made me laugh:
"Apple showed off a new feature for iPhone and iPad designed to encourage users to move their screens a bit further from their faces to reduce eye strain and the risk of developing nearsightedness — but those concerns appeared to have disappeared by the time the Vision Pro and its two screens directly in front of users’ eyes took the (virtual) stage."
You seem to imply Wood was wrong to turn down the North Shore airport proposal?
Given the real climate crisis and the need to cut air travel plus the lack of transport links to the NS, even worse than the one hour bus to the current airport the real question is how anyone could have recommended such a scheme in the first place?
Fair question Andrew. I suspect North Shore was always about shorter, smaller commuter aircraft, which may actually be better for the climate if, as likely, they go electric. Much harder for the big jets. Yet.
The January 1, 2025 deadline reminds me of the hard-Brexit deadline. "Don't worry, we'll figure out a much better deal before then" 😅
Given it's such a difficult political nut to crack the ETS purists might end up getting their way after all! I suppose whoever wins the election could amend legislation to extend the deadline, but that also seems politically unpalatable.
I'm glad Bernard that you have brought up population growth (like it ready or not) driven by climate warming. James Renwick is probably right in his predictions. We can make the best of this. In around 2007 my husband and I attended a lecture by one John Key, lately of Merrill Lynch, who talked about New Zealand becoming another Singapore. So. Why wait? Invite wealthy climate refugees now, to invest in New Zealand so they can become citizens, but also contribute to New Zealand's wealth, with a view to providing the infrastructure that we need for population to grow, yet all be housed, fed, treated, educated and gainfully employed and make our economy become less of a basket case, too afraid politically to take climate change seriously. I like to look to the future and consider all possibilities rather than wallowing in past mistakes.
Yep, I'm torn on this. Don't want us to just become a bolthole for rich, politically-demanding, wankers. But I also think we need to aggressively get out in front of it. Because I expect the tipping point from 'antipodes' to 'climate refuge' to 'conflict zone' is more tenuous than I think 'lucky' countries like ours are currently prepared to admit
I agree, Tim, this is a provocative statement of mine. Designed to start a long overdue debate. I am surprised at myself with my own politics, writing this stuff, but like you - can see a nasty trend emerging of forced change imposed on New Zealand due to our own inability to predict and prepare for it. In a way, New Zealand is already a bolthole for the rich, except they are our own, already here, and not sharing. I'll go and put on my ear phones, so I don't hear the howls of outrage. For the moment.
Indeed. We may not have much choice in the matter. Better to get ahead of the curve and control it. Also, flip the thinking and look for opportunities to import lots of very skilled people to help us build a zero carbon, affordable-to-live-in paradise!
except that wealthy migrants buy up our land and homes and actually intensify poverty by making the rest of us relatively poorer in comparison - just check out what happened to Maori in the 1800's - it wasnt colonisation as such that marginalised them - many of them took to trade and farming and adopted English cultural practices with great rapidity - it was when the big money turned up and pushed them off the good land - you only need to look back over the past couple of decades to see what this sort of thinking leads to - your children not being able to afford homes. Last thing NZ needs is more mouths to feed as it is not doing a flash job of feeding its present population - or lots of wealthy lifestylers who take but do not give. We seem to have this really stupid idea that giving away what we so undervalue is some sort of good idea - until its gone from our grasp and then we whinge. And John Key and his fellow parasites of the financial world are not the answer to tomorrows problems they are the cause
that then goes back to the question of why should we be subsidising infrastructure for population growth when we cant even fund our existing infrastructure needs? NZ's most fundamental need right now is to resolve its balance of payments deficit - presently at $33.8 billion in the year ended 31 December 2022 (8.9 percent of GDP), $12.7 billion wider than the year ended 31 December 2021 (6.0 percent of GDP). The scary number we should be paying attention to is not the percent of GDP which is a meaningless comparison but as a percentage of our export earnings - ie our ability to pay for imports - at present we are spending 150% of what we earn over the border = that is a heading for bankruptcy number - and the idiots in charge want to import more consumers????
Roger douglas and his coterie of dogmatists made much of getting rid of subsidies for farmers - farmers producing exports - and instead introduced a wide range of subsidies on consumption instead - oddly enough the only nation to stay on the Muldoon path of subsidising exports was China - it doesnt take much research to see which model has thrived over the past three decades.' China isn't running hot on mass migration - it is running hot on mass production. We might not like their form of government but their economic model has a lot to teach us.
Why do we think its okay to effectively ask farmers if they want to pay extra tax? Obviously they're going to say no. On an individual basis, it's bad for these people - it's only helpful at a population level.
Todays Kaka just had me thinking of this great campaign driven organiation in the UK. The name is kind of appropriate.....(It's a ref from WW2 what soldiers referred to their officers)
It is essential that completely sufficient housing and infrastructure are constructed BEFORE increasing New Zealand's population and this requirement must continue until the end of planet earth.
Just wanted to note about running out of time on climate change. The scientific community was saying this was a problem in the 1980s. We HAD time to make changes but economists said “nah bro we’ve got this covered” and so politicians did squat. Well it’s four decades later and the economists were full of shit. Now we have to deal with real science to solve the problem and there IS NO TIME. Because everyone ignored the scientific community when we had time. So excuse me if I have no patience when folks say “gosh I wish had more time to deal with this”.
Fascinating 'Chart of the Day' re Biden giving one third $ T in subsidies to a range of industries & this produces growth & jobs for the sectors of Health Care, Commercial, Educational & Manufacturing, just like the New Deal did in the early 1930's. Who'd have thought? If the equivalent had happened here, the neolibs would be screaming their tits off - 'we can't afford it', 'crushing future generations with debt', 'boosting inflation', etc. Bernie Sanders & AOC were the US politicians promoting the Green Industrial Policy subsidies. I wish to god we had some NZ MP's like them.
Thanks Dean. Yesterday I interviewed Saul Griffiths, an Australian climate tech entrepreneur and activist, about how the Inflation Reduction Act was built. He helped build it. And how we could translate that into electrifying Australia and NZ. It will go out next week as my When The Facts Change podcast. Here's how I'll promote it...
Title: Saving the planet one (electric) machine at a time. Blurb: The United States is now undergoing an industrial revolution to swap out one billion fossil-fueled machines for electric ones powered by wind, sun and water. It was unleashed last year by an extraordinarily piece of Jiu Jitsu in the world's biggest and most difficult political economy. In this week's When The Facts Change Bernard Hickey talks to climate tech entrepreneur and activist Saul Griffiths about how he and other activists worked with Joe Biden's White House to flip the climate investment debate on its head. They convinced the most skeptical of politicians and voters that investing hundreds of billions of taxpayers' dollars into price and cost-cutting devices was good for consumers and the planet. Saul explains how it could just as easily be done in Australia and Aotearoa too.
oh great! he's amazing - i've been paying attention since his interview on Australian Story. his approach makes a lots of sense re increasing resilience for Aotearoa, and i love the decentralised community engagement aspect of the postcode approach for Electrify 2025.
my theory is that they named it the Inflation Reduction Act so no one would pay attention and realise it had anything to do with environment or health (enter outrage). it's a large scale version of naming your secret folder 'tax returns' on your desktop.
A few comments on turning NZ into Singapore. It will be instructive to watch a few interviews with Lee Kuan Yew. He was mentor to Deng Xiaopeng who started the meteoric rise of China which has pulled 800 million people out of poverty. In contrast John Key, ex Merryl Lynch currency trader, was known as the Silent Assassin. The rich got richer and the poor got poorer.
Thanks Mathew. Lee Kuan Yew is a fascinating character. He built a nation on the idea of the state building cheap and safe housing for everyone. And Key grew up cheaply and safely in a state house with his single mother. Seems a fairly simple idea.
YES Mathew Joseph, this exactly the route I wanted us to go down on this debate. Lee Kuan Yew made Singapore, a small island, what it is today. I didn't know about his influence on the China miracle, sadly now in jeopardy thanks to Xi. It is all about culture. Our system allows laziness, I'm sorry, it is true. Lee Kuan Yew forged a culture where work was rewarded but sloppy behaviour was actually punished. But not dangerously like what happens in China. When Ian Fraser asked Lee Kuan Yew when was Singapore going to introduce social welfare, Lee Kuan Yew quipped "NZ can't afford it."
I’m a bit behind on my podcasts but WRT climate migrants - I’ve been watching the Apple TV+ show “extrapolations”.
The first 3 episodes are “ok” with some naff writing, mostly covering climate affects on civil unrest, marine life and sea level, but the ones set on 2059 are a lot better covering geoengineering and some of the effects in places like India of wet-bulb temps in the low 30s. (It’s a drama not a doco)
Hoping the writing trend continues for the last 3 - the effects are accurate even if the words are cringeworthy at times. Same creator as Contagion which was WAY too accurate ...
Could be worth a look for those interested in how it might be projected out.
Surely Landlord Luxon is far more conflicted with his ownership of 9 houses and by promoting NACT tax policies that will be of significant benefit to himself!
no. they can expect ever more extortionate rents.
The NACT policy is designed to benefit Landlords - and most of the NACT party MPs will obviously be conflicted if they pass the laws. Surely they should be required divest themselves of theirr housing assets before aguing for or aganst the law
of course
(another example of their hypocrisy)
And Seymour pushing the idea that he’s a lowly renter when he has interests in three houses!
do you know who he is renting from?
Interesting to see Apple have gone with Mixed Reality vs Virtual Reality for their hype, very meta Meta.. Hopefully this is the final money bonfire in the space and we can get on with the much less cool but far more useful/achievable Augmented Reality
I have this instinctive jump in my head - I equate the phrase 'Augmented Reality' to 'Have a nice craft beer' - it seems to augment reality quite well on a Friday afternoon.
I think it works just as well on other afternoons too. Let me conduct some research and get back to you :-D...
What did you find G? Feeling ok this morning?
Too early to release definitive results :-D
Luckily it's not a full face device!
It's pretty close to virtual reality - you can't see through the glasses (you're watching video of the 'outside') - so I suspect it could still go either way
Something I read about the Apple ski goggles which made me laugh:
"Apple showed off a new feature for iPhone and iPad designed to encourage users to move their screens a bit further from their faces to reduce eye strain and the risk of developing nearsightedness — but those concerns appeared to have disappeared by the time the Vision Pro and its two screens directly in front of users’ eyes took the (virtual) stage."
You seem to imply Wood was wrong to turn down the North Shore airport proposal?
Given the real climate crisis and the need to cut air travel plus the lack of transport links to the NS, even worse than the one hour bus to the current airport the real question is how anyone could have recommended such a scheme in the first place?
Fair question Andrew. I suspect North Shore was always about shorter, smaller commuter aircraft, which may actually be better for the climate if, as likely, they go electric. Much harder for the big jets. Yet.
When many countries are already banning short flights
The January 1, 2025 deadline reminds me of the hard-Brexit deadline. "Don't worry, we'll figure out a much better deal before then" 😅
Given it's such a difficult political nut to crack the ETS purists might end up getting their way after all! I suppose whoever wins the election could amend legislation to extend the deadline, but that also seems politically unpalatable.
Thanks Philip. Great question for me to ask both national and labour. Will they extend?
In The Post, McClay told reporters asking about whether they still supported the deadline, “you'll have to wait”
https://www.thepost.co.nz/a/politics/350018509/he-waka-eke-noa-is-dead-says-national-while-government-has-no-intention-of-walking-away#:~:text=Asked%20if%20National%20supported%20the%202025%20deadline%20of%20pricing%20agricultural%20emissions%2C%20McClay%20told%20reporters%2C%20%E2%80%9Cyou%27ll%20have%20to%20wait%E2%80%9D.
Ha! My mistake was assuming extending the deadline would be in any way politically unpalatable!
I'm glad Bernard that you have brought up population growth (like it ready or not) driven by climate warming. James Renwick is probably right in his predictions. We can make the best of this. In around 2007 my husband and I attended a lecture by one John Key, lately of Merrill Lynch, who talked about New Zealand becoming another Singapore. So. Why wait? Invite wealthy climate refugees now, to invest in New Zealand so they can become citizens, but also contribute to New Zealand's wealth, with a view to providing the infrastructure that we need for population to grow, yet all be housed, fed, treated, educated and gainfully employed and make our economy become less of a basket case, too afraid politically to take climate change seriously. I like to look to the future and consider all possibilities rather than wallowing in past mistakes.
Yep, I'm torn on this. Don't want us to just become a bolthole for rich, politically-demanding, wankers. But I also think we need to aggressively get out in front of it. Because I expect the tipping point from 'antipodes' to 'climate refuge' to 'conflict zone' is more tenuous than I think 'lucky' countries like ours are currently prepared to admit
I agree, Tim, this is a provocative statement of mine. Designed to start a long overdue debate. I am surprised at myself with my own politics, writing this stuff, but like you - can see a nasty trend emerging of forced change imposed on New Zealand due to our own inability to predict and prepare for it. In a way, New Zealand is already a bolthole for the rich, except they are our own, already here, and not sharing. I'll go and put on my ear phones, so I don't hear the howls of outrage. For the moment.
Indeed. We may not have much choice in the matter. Better to get ahead of the curve and control it. Also, flip the thinking and look for opportunities to import lots of very skilled people to help us build a zero carbon, affordable-to-live-in paradise!
Yep. These are exactly the things to debate. Which we're currently not. I'd welcome suggestions on how to widen the debate.
except that wealthy migrants buy up our land and homes and actually intensify poverty by making the rest of us relatively poorer in comparison - just check out what happened to Maori in the 1800's - it wasnt colonisation as such that marginalised them - many of them took to trade and farming and adopted English cultural practices with great rapidity - it was when the big money turned up and pushed them off the good land - you only need to look back over the past couple of decades to see what this sort of thinking leads to - your children not being able to afford homes. Last thing NZ needs is more mouths to feed as it is not doing a flash job of feeding its present population - or lots of wealthy lifestylers who take but do not give. We seem to have this really stupid idea that giving away what we so undervalue is some sort of good idea - until its gone from our grasp and then we whinge. And John Key and his fellow parasites of the financial world are not the answer to tomorrows problems they are the cause
It could work if we properly invested in the infrastructure to build the houses etc to cope with the population growth.
that then goes back to the question of why should we be subsidising infrastructure for population growth when we cant even fund our existing infrastructure needs? NZ's most fundamental need right now is to resolve its balance of payments deficit - presently at $33.8 billion in the year ended 31 December 2022 (8.9 percent of GDP), $12.7 billion wider than the year ended 31 December 2021 (6.0 percent of GDP). The scary number we should be paying attention to is not the percent of GDP which is a meaningless comparison but as a percentage of our export earnings - ie our ability to pay for imports - at present we are spending 150% of what we earn over the border = that is a heading for bankruptcy number - and the idiots in charge want to import more consumers????
Roger douglas and his coterie of dogmatists made much of getting rid of subsidies for farmers - farmers producing exports - and instead introduced a wide range of subsidies on consumption instead - oddly enough the only nation to stay on the Muldoon path of subsidising exports was China - it doesnt take much research to see which model has thrived over the past three decades.' China isn't running hot on mass migration - it is running hot on mass production. We might not like their form of government but their economic model has a lot to teach us.
Thanks Beverley. Ha! If only he had invested in the infrastructure then, we'd be in a healthier position now.
Why do we think its okay to effectively ask farmers if they want to pay extra tax? Obviously they're going to say no. On an individual basis, it's bad for these people - it's only helpful at a population level.
Fair point.
Todays Kaka just had me thinking of this great campaign driven organiation in the UK. The name is kind of appropriate.....(It's a ref from WW2 what soldiers referred to their officers)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Led_By_Donkeys
Ha! Led by Kakas!
I think that’s an insult to Kakas.
It is essential that completely sufficient housing and infrastructure are constructed BEFORE increasing New Zealand's population and this requirement must continue until the end of planet earth.
Just wanted to note about running out of time on climate change. The scientific community was saying this was a problem in the 1980s. We HAD time to make changes but economists said “nah bro we’ve got this covered” and so politicians did squat. Well it’s four decades later and the economists were full of shit. Now we have to deal with real science to solve the problem and there IS NO TIME. Because everyone ignored the scientific community when we had time. So excuse me if I have no patience when folks say “gosh I wish had more time to deal with this”.
Well said, absolutely agree.
Fascinating 'Chart of the Day' re Biden giving one third $ T in subsidies to a range of industries & this produces growth & jobs for the sectors of Health Care, Commercial, Educational & Manufacturing, just like the New Deal did in the early 1930's. Who'd have thought? If the equivalent had happened here, the neolibs would be screaming their tits off - 'we can't afford it', 'crushing future generations with debt', 'boosting inflation', etc. Bernie Sanders & AOC were the US politicians promoting the Green Industrial Policy subsidies. I wish to god we had some NZ MP's like them.
Thanks Dean. Yesterday I interviewed Saul Griffiths, an Australian climate tech entrepreneur and activist, about how the Inflation Reduction Act was built. He helped build it. And how we could translate that into electrifying Australia and NZ. It will go out next week as my When The Facts Change podcast. Here's how I'll promote it...
Title: Saving the planet one (electric) machine at a time. Blurb: The United States is now undergoing an industrial revolution to swap out one billion fossil-fueled machines for electric ones powered by wind, sun and water. It was unleashed last year by an extraordinarily piece of Jiu Jitsu in the world's biggest and most difficult political economy. In this week's When The Facts Change Bernard Hickey talks to climate tech entrepreneur and activist Saul Griffiths about how he and other activists worked with Joe Biden's White House to flip the climate investment debate on its head. They convinced the most skeptical of politicians and voters that investing hundreds of billions of taxpayers' dollars into price and cost-cutting devices was good for consumers and the planet. Saul explains how it could just as easily be done in Australia and Aotearoa too.
oh great! he's amazing - i've been paying attention since his interview on Australian Story. his approach makes a lots of sense re increasing resilience for Aotearoa, and i love the decentralised community engagement aspect of the postcode approach for Electrify 2025.
my theory is that they named it the Inflation Reduction Act so no one would pay attention and realise it had anything to do with environment or health (enter outrage). it's a large scale version of naming your secret folder 'tax returns' on your desktop.
A few comments on turning NZ into Singapore. It will be instructive to watch a few interviews with Lee Kuan Yew. He was mentor to Deng Xiaopeng who started the meteoric rise of China which has pulled 800 million people out of poverty. In contrast John Key, ex Merryl Lynch currency trader, was known as the Silent Assassin. The rich got richer and the poor got poorer.
https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2022/04/01/lifting-800-million-people-out-of-poverty-new-report-looks-at-lessons-from-china-s-experience
Thanks Mathew. Lee Kuan Yew is a fascinating character. He built a nation on the idea of the state building cheap and safe housing for everyone. And Key grew up cheaply and safely in a state house with his single mother. Seems a fairly simple idea.
YES Mathew Joseph, this exactly the route I wanted us to go down on this debate. Lee Kuan Yew made Singapore, a small island, what it is today. I didn't know about his influence on the China miracle, sadly now in jeopardy thanks to Xi. It is all about culture. Our system allows laziness, I'm sorry, it is true. Lee Kuan Yew forged a culture where work was rewarded but sloppy behaviour was actually punished. But not dangerously like what happens in China. When Ian Fraser asked Lee Kuan Yew when was Singapore going to introduce social welfare, Lee Kuan Yew quipped "NZ can't afford it."
So Wayne Walker can vote on the Auckland Airport share sale with a $3M conflict of interest but Michael Wood has to sell his shares worth $13,000 🤔
I’m a bit behind on my podcasts but WRT climate migrants - I’ve been watching the Apple TV+ show “extrapolations”.
The first 3 episodes are “ok” with some naff writing, mostly covering climate affects on civil unrest, marine life and sea level, but the ones set on 2059 are a lot better covering geoengineering and some of the effects in places like India of wet-bulb temps in the low 30s. (It’s a drama not a doco)
Hoping the writing trend continues for the last 3 - the effects are accurate even if the words are cringeworthy at times. Same creator as Contagion which was WAY too accurate ...
Could be worth a look for those interested in how it might be projected out.