There seem to be too many ‘young’ journalists who know little, don’t do their homework and bow to the bs of the coalition. Compare the thoroughness and thoughtfulness of ‘old timers’ like Gordon Campbell (Scoop) or Bryan Bruce (Substack) - they’re the ones that we want (and need)
Have wonder if they can actually be called 'journalists' or if the term 'presenter' is more accurate. I gave up on Breakfast years ago when it siddled into anti (Labour) government rhetoric and opinion stories. It gave me worse indigestion than my toast and coffee.
Defo presenters in my view Dave. I have nearly always looked for hard news stories so to speak so have never bothered with light weight BS shows like Breakfast. I did enjoy The Project with Jessie Mulligan for a while as it never pretended to be anything else but entertainment. I stopped watching after seeing that absolute bigot Mark Richardson a few too many times and writing to the show twice complaining with zero response.
The privatisation of our energy sector has caused a deliberate under investment in renewable energy sources to inflate profits. We should return the energy sector to state ownership.
Agree Nick and it seems a no brainer that the $200m could be spent on say subsidies for solar panels for those who wished and were able to take advantage of this. And this would just be for starters. The big retailers should be putting up wind turbines with their excess profits et etc.
Shane won't back this though there are no donors with those brown envelopes.
That just makes so much sense - subsidy for solar panels and batteries would give us decades of power resiliance, and much lower costs. However, it'd hit the power companies in their Sacred Cow profits so not gonna happen sadly. (This from someone who recently forked out the $$ for Solar and loving it!)
Because of Trump's trade war with China the panels & batteries from China are cheaper at this time. Be ideal opportunity for NZ to make a goof deal with China (info Bernard Hickey)
Like we did in the early 80s! We put panels on our house for water heating, and also had a wet back attached to radiators plumbed around the house. (A small 50s farmhouse, nothing grand!) We had cheap power all year. Only limited lighting and cooking power costs. No batteries, or selling back to the grid back then, but a great investment, and a welcome subsidy.
Yes Annie, I once lived in an old farm house that had been altered like that, for a short time only, sadly...but I never forgot how sensible and easy to live in it was
I hope you are recovering well after your nasty flu.
Well you sure have me singing today. I absolutely love Grease.
To some people, this might seem a bit controversial, but I could quite happily listen to Chippy all day long. He might not give off the impression that he is willing to make the hard calls that some are after, but I believe that he is. He just does it in a way that is diplomatic and every decision he and the Labour Party make is well thought through, and like Dame Jacinda Ardern, he makes decision based on what he thinks is best for the people and the environment.
Thanks Nick, such good, thoughtful, sensible and solid responses from Chippy. Not many real journalists with integrity left on mainstream reporting media.....which is why I appreciate you, G Otto, BHN, Bryan Bruce et al. Oh, and thank you for yesterday's piece on the RSB! I'm using it for my submission! Hope you are fully over the lurgy.
I think since John Campbell, Jack Tame and Anna Burns-Francis left Breakfast there are no reporters just presenters so I stopped watching too.
As for Chippy, he is honest, genuine and like Jacinda really cares and is kind. But he is also incredibly skilled and gifted in politics. He has my vote as a politician and an incredible human. Role models we so need 😀
On the parental visa topic, Canada has had the 10-year "super visa" for parents and grandparents for a while. I'm not sure it has led to more permanent migration. Also with the age of our parents it's by no means a sure thing that they would be around in 10 years, though of course that's not true for all parents.
I thought it was a masterclass. Chippy across all topics ; ready with answers especially about power generation - right on the money there. As for parent visas; as I recall, we've had some form of them for years. Hard to get and I think it is important thresholds are high given pressures on current health and housing in particular. From what I can see the major change is the ability to apply for multiple entry and re entry. My kids are US citizens and I wouldn't have a shit show of getting such a visa. Meanwhile, on other meltdowns, LA (Trump arresting union leaders, sending in the marines) and the Gaza genocide, now nearing its end not with peace, but with obliteration of a 2 million people. Hard not to be gloomy on a gloomy fog filled day. Loud music needed. Maybe Sly?
I wonder why, with around 150,000 New Zealanders unemployed, our government is now considering issuing visas to parents of the “skilled people” they want to come and work in AotearoaNZ. Surely it would be better to train those unemployed in the skills required, giving them the chance to make a decent living without having to compete with foreign workers who would demand higher incomes? It would slash the benefit outlay and offer many willing Kiwis some hope.
What we don’t need is more immigration while our own people are being forced to scrape together a meagre life, trying to find a better place for themselves and their families.
To me, this “Parent Boost” visa exercise is little more than a cynical attempt to boost the numbers in the ever dwindling National Fan Club base.
I sent the above to the Herald yesterday, not seriously believing it has a snowball’s chance in hell of making it🤞
Events in LA overnight have given me what might be a better idea. If
Luxo wants an elite immigrant society to bless AotearoaNZ, he may consider the following. He could offer free passage via Air NZ to any chosen destination here, to American refugees who want to escape the inevitable martial law enforced by Trump, who wants to live his own “American dream”. Only a few conditions would have to be met….
Parentless Democrats only need apply.(childless as well, preferably. American kids are, for the most part, obnoxious brats. Trust me, I know this too well)
A desire to help the NZ economy, by starting businesses employing only NZ staff. This would obviously require some millions of dollars. (We can’t just let anybody on board, can we?) A minimum of $15million should do it.
Leaving baseball, American football, fast food outlets and any connection to these, where they belong. (Anywhere but here!)
That shouldn’t be too hard to achieve and solve a lot of problems for a lot of people. What could possibly go wrong?🤔🤔
Love the photo of Jacinda. If she was looking at me like that I’d be wondering if it was something I said, or am I really the dickhead she thinks I am.
Neither do I, Darien. I was thinking more along the lines of maybe light industry, tech based enterprises, anything that would help all of us in the most appropriate ways, not servitude. I hadn’t actually thought about that until I read your reply😀
"I wonder why... government is now considering issuing visas to parents of the “skilled people” they want to come and work...?"
This has nothing to do with enticing the "skilled" to NZ. It's because "skilled (young) people" are (unlike the generations of the 50's,60's,70's) largely the offspring of rich parents, and the gov't wants them to bring their GBP/USD/Euro denominated capital to NZ. This is therefore a less formal extension of the overseas investor class scheme.
TBH most overseas people now realise, upon doing fairly minimal research, that NZ, is good for a holiday, but the downward arc of the effects of bad governance now makes it a bad proposition for a fruitful migration.
The main thrust of my letter was that this Government is using the fact that, to their credit, Pan-Asian cultures, for the most part, require children to care for their parents and grandparents as a duty for the upbringing they have themselves been given. I wish there would be more of it in many other cultures.
The fact of the matter is that these cultures are also the most important to National as they are usually right wing. (Please don’t tell me I’m being racist. I’m not, I’m being honest about the politics of the countries they come from)
That, as I said, is the driving force behind National’s apparent altruism. Nothing more or less.
None of this detracts from the broader issue, that our own people should have first dibs at a decent life. If anyone wants to migrate to AotearoaNZ, from wherever, and offer the opportunities to our unemployed, then I’m all for it.
The notion of divorcing children from their responsibility to their parents is the flip-side of the idea promulgated for decades of young people being independent of their parents. Capitalism is dependent on the replacement of cultural notions of interdependence, both familial and in broader society, with the purely transactional.
Now that Neoliberal economics has fallen over, the capitalists want to re-impose those cultural constraints on the lower classes that, a few years ago they sought to destroy. At the moment they do both- a squeeze from both ends if you like- encouraging old people into retirement villages that will leave them with no capital to pass on to their grandchildren, while making their grandchildren dependent on their parents for accommodation or mortgage-deposits. Of course this will all fall over in the not-too-distant future.
I think you have definitely 'hit the nail on the head' there, Kevin. The bloody 1980's "user pays" Rogernomic f**ckup has slowly turned Aotearoa into a badly run copy of overseas Reaganomic and Thatcheresque f**ckups. And all those who are bailing out and going to Australia could therefore be viewed as lucky rats leaving a sinking ship.
Whilst I was always against Neoliberalism as a project, NZ was definitely attractive during most of that era (1979-2008) but has fallen way behind since, particularly because the Neolib cliche of 'bankrolling the economy with new credit money provided by house-price inflation' went into overdrive under John Key. That was exacerbated by NZ, unlike the US & UK, not having such a large amount of financial assets (=bullshit assets, but nonetheless any asset will do) that could also be jacked-up to provide the base for credit bankrolling. Thus the attractive phenomenon of selling ones mortgaged home in, say the UK, and being able to buy in NZ morgage-free has disappeared, and NZ payscales simply don't make up for it.
A lot of Good Stuff happening! Well actually Bad Stuff that could well be a Good Stuff change of government - soon! And we must not forget to report the road cones, there are lots all over the place and these sort of safety measures should be of extreme concern for all those Right wing bludgers. Also the Inequality of our population we might have been in danger of reducing Inequality so we need to boost the numbers of those who can afford to have a long term stay here.
Finally Climate change - whether it is real or not does not matter as we are ALL in the same boat (World or Country), if we do something and it was a false alarm, we all benefit anyway, if it does become significant - we ALL suffer the consequences - and any amount of money will not help us!
Chippy is so intelligent, with such well-informed thoughts, ideas and opinions. Christopher Luxon has no breadth of knowledge at all. He is completely unable to answer anything 'on the hoof'. Imagine if he was endlessly challenged in the way that Chippy is.
There seem to be too many ‘young’ journalists who know little, don’t do their homework and bow to the bs of the coalition. Compare the thoroughness and thoughtfulness of ‘old timers’ like Gordon Campbell (Scoop) or Bryan Bruce (Substack) - they’re the ones that we want (and need)
Have wonder if they can actually be called 'journalists' or if the term 'presenter' is more accurate. I gave up on Breakfast years ago when it siddled into anti (Labour) government rhetoric and opinion stories. It gave me worse indigestion than my toast and coffee.
Defo presenters in my view Dave. I have nearly always looked for hard news stories so to speak so have never bothered with light weight BS shows like Breakfast. I did enjoy The Project with Jessie Mulligan for a while as it never pretended to be anything else but entertainment. I stopped watching after seeing that absolute bigot Mark Richardson a few too many times and writing to the show twice complaining with zero response.
AND, the RNZ newsroom went the same way at the same time. Every news bulletin started with ‘National says…’
They don't seem to do much research into the subject they are interviewing on.
plus Mountain Tui, Pundit with Nicky Hager et al as excellent sources of research.
Plus Bernard Hickey, Gary Payinda, Melanie Nelson from Disinterpreted and Bryce Edwards from The Integrity Institute all on Substack.
Plus Pat & Chewie at Big hairy News
Yes I support Bernard Hickey, and Gary Payinda is an amazing contributor.
The privatisation of our energy sector has caused a deliberate under investment in renewable energy sources to inflate profits. We should return the energy sector to state ownership.
100%
Chris Hipkins is always able to answer such a brand range of questions thoughtfully, from a well informed basis.
Luxon has never been able to demonstrate this.
I agree, he easily responds where Luxon clams up. I guess there is an advantage to being well-informed and genuine.
Or merely good at rhetoric Nick?
He is carrying a cold Nick - well spotted
He would down play it!
He is carrying a cold; could hear that very clearly in Parliament the other day.
Take care Chippy. ❤️❤️❤️
Luckily his brain is functioning OK, even if his airways aren't. The aftermath of the flu with me was brain fog extraordinaire!
Agree Nick and it seems a no brainer that the $200m could be spent on say subsidies for solar panels for those who wished and were able to take advantage of this. And this would just be for starters. The big retailers should be putting up wind turbines with their excess profits et etc.
Shane won't back this though there are no donors with those brown envelopes.
That just makes so much sense - subsidy for solar panels and batteries would give us decades of power resiliance, and much lower costs. However, it'd hit the power companies in their Sacred Cow profits so not gonna happen sadly. (This from someone who recently forked out the $$ for Solar and loving it!)
Yes! I have solar, but no batteries. I need batteries, but they are so expensive.
I export to the grid during the day, but have to import at night 😓
Because of Trump's trade war with China the panels & batteries from China are cheaper at this time. Be ideal opportunity for NZ to make a goof deal with China (info Bernard Hickey)
Like we did in the early 80s! We put panels on our house for water heating, and also had a wet back attached to radiators plumbed around the house. (A small 50s farmhouse, nothing grand!) We had cheap power all year. Only limited lighting and cooking power costs. No batteries, or selling back to the grid back then, but a great investment, and a welcome subsidy.
Yes Annie, I once lived in an old farm house that had been altered like that, for a short time only, sadly...but I never forgot how sensible and easy to live in it was
Kia ora Nick.
I hope you are recovering well after your nasty flu.
Well you sure have me singing today. I absolutely love Grease.
To some people, this might seem a bit controversial, but I could quite happily listen to Chippy all day long. He might not give off the impression that he is willing to make the hard calls that some are after, but I believe that he is. He just does it in a way that is diplomatic and every decision he and the Labour Party make is well thought through, and like Dame Jacinda Ardern, he makes decision based on what he thinks is best for the people and the environment.
Chippy has my vote.
Thanks Nick, such good, thoughtful, sensible and solid responses from Chippy. Not many real journalists with integrity left on mainstream reporting media.....which is why I appreciate you, G Otto, BHN, Bryan Bruce et al. Oh, and thank you for yesterday's piece on the RSB! I'm using it for my submission! Hope you are fully over the lurgy.
Chippy Rocks!
Agree 💯 Nick
Great piece Nick 😀
I think since John Campbell, Jack Tame and Anna Burns-Francis left Breakfast there are no reporters just presenters so I stopped watching too.
As for Chippy, he is honest, genuine and like Jacinda really cares and is kind. But he is also incredibly skilled and gifted in politics. He has my vote as a politician and an incredible human. Role models we so need 😀
On the parental visa topic, Canada has had the 10-year "super visa" for parents and grandparents for a while. I'm not sure it has led to more permanent migration. Also with the age of our parents it's by no means a sure thing that they would be around in 10 years, though of course that's not true for all parents.
Excellent kōrero from Mr Hipkins; his answers give me confidence in his ability to lead us come 2026.
I thought it was a masterclass. Chippy across all topics ; ready with answers especially about power generation - right on the money there. As for parent visas; as I recall, we've had some form of them for years. Hard to get and I think it is important thresholds are high given pressures on current health and housing in particular. From what I can see the major change is the ability to apply for multiple entry and re entry. My kids are US citizens and I wouldn't have a shit show of getting such a visa. Meanwhile, on other meltdowns, LA (Trump arresting union leaders, sending in the marines) and the Gaza genocide, now nearing its end not with peace, but with obliteration of a 2 million people. Hard not to be gloomy on a gloomy fog filled day. Loud music needed. Maybe Sly?
I wonder why, with around 150,000 New Zealanders unemployed, our government is now considering issuing visas to parents of the “skilled people” they want to come and work in AotearoaNZ. Surely it would be better to train those unemployed in the skills required, giving them the chance to make a decent living without having to compete with foreign workers who would demand higher incomes? It would slash the benefit outlay and offer many willing Kiwis some hope.
What we don’t need is more immigration while our own people are being forced to scrape together a meagre life, trying to find a better place for themselves and their families.
To me, this “Parent Boost” visa exercise is little more than a cynical attempt to boost the numbers in the ever dwindling National Fan Club base.
I sent the above to the Herald yesterday, not seriously believing it has a snowball’s chance in hell of making it🤞
Events in LA overnight have given me what might be a better idea. If
Luxo wants an elite immigrant society to bless AotearoaNZ, he may consider the following. He could offer free passage via Air NZ to any chosen destination here, to American refugees who want to escape the inevitable martial law enforced by Trump, who wants to live his own “American dream”. Only a few conditions would have to be met….
Parentless Democrats only need apply.(childless as well, preferably. American kids are, for the most part, obnoxious brats. Trust me, I know this too well)
A desire to help the NZ economy, by starting businesses employing only NZ staff. This would obviously require some millions of dollars. (We can’t just let anybody on board, can we?) A minimum of $15million should do it.
Leaving baseball, American football, fast food outlets and any connection to these, where they belong. (Anywhere but here!)
That shouldn’t be too hard to achieve and solve a lot of problems for a lot of people. What could possibly go wrong?🤔🤔
Love the photo of Jacinda. If she was looking at me like that I’d be wondering if it was something I said, or am I really the dickhead she thinks I am.
Also, all for Chippy!!👏👏
Yeah but I don't want to see our unemployed trained as nannies for rich migrants either.
Neither do I, Darien. I was thinking more along the lines of maybe light industry, tech based enterprises, anything that would help all of us in the most appropriate ways, not servitude. I hadn’t actually thought about that until I read your reply😀
"I wonder why... government is now considering issuing visas to parents of the “skilled people” they want to come and work...?"
This has nothing to do with enticing the "skilled" to NZ. It's because "skilled (young) people" are (unlike the generations of the 50's,60's,70's) largely the offspring of rich parents, and the gov't wants them to bring their GBP/USD/Euro denominated capital to NZ. This is therefore a less formal extension of the overseas investor class scheme.
TBH most overseas people now realise, upon doing fairly minimal research, that NZ, is good for a holiday, but the downward arc of the effects of bad governance now makes it a bad proposition for a fruitful migration.
Hi Kevin
The main thrust of my letter was that this Government is using the fact that, to their credit, Pan-Asian cultures, for the most part, require children to care for their parents and grandparents as a duty for the upbringing they have themselves been given. I wish there would be more of it in many other cultures.
The fact of the matter is that these cultures are also the most important to National as they are usually right wing. (Please don’t tell me I’m being racist. I’m not, I’m being honest about the politics of the countries they come from)
That, as I said, is the driving force behind National’s apparent altruism. Nothing more or less.
None of this detracts from the broader issue, that our own people should have first dibs at a decent life. If anyone wants to migrate to AotearoaNZ, from wherever, and offer the opportunities to our unemployed, then I’m all for it.
The notion of divorcing children from their responsibility to their parents is the flip-side of the idea promulgated for decades of young people being independent of their parents. Capitalism is dependent on the replacement of cultural notions of interdependence, both familial and in broader society, with the purely transactional.
Now that Neoliberal economics has fallen over, the capitalists want to re-impose those cultural constraints on the lower classes that, a few years ago they sought to destroy. At the moment they do both- a squeeze from both ends if you like- encouraging old people into retirement villages that will leave them with no capital to pass on to their grandchildren, while making their grandchildren dependent on their parents for accommodation or mortgage-deposits. Of course this will all fall over in the not-too-distant future.
I think you have definitely 'hit the nail on the head' there, Kevin. The bloody 1980's "user pays" Rogernomic f**ckup has slowly turned Aotearoa into a badly run copy of overseas Reaganomic and Thatcheresque f**ckups. And all those who are bailing out and going to Australia could therefore be viewed as lucky rats leaving a sinking ship.
Whilst I was always against Neoliberalism as a project, NZ was definitely attractive during most of that era (1979-2008) but has fallen way behind since, particularly because the Neolib cliche of 'bankrolling the economy with new credit money provided by house-price inflation' went into overdrive under John Key. That was exacerbated by NZ, unlike the US & UK, not having such a large amount of financial assets (=bullshit assets, but nonetheless any asset will do) that could also be jacked-up to provide the base for credit bankrolling. Thus the attractive phenomenon of selling ones mortgaged home in, say the UK, and being able to buy in NZ morgage-free has disappeared, and NZ payscales simply don't make up for it.
Yeah, great photo of Jacinda!!
A lot of Good Stuff happening! Well actually Bad Stuff that could well be a Good Stuff change of government - soon! And we must not forget to report the road cones, there are lots all over the place and these sort of safety measures should be of extreme concern for all those Right wing bludgers. Also the Inequality of our population we might have been in danger of reducing Inequality so we need to boost the numbers of those who can afford to have a long term stay here.
Finally Climate change - whether it is real or not does not matter as we are ALL in the same boat (World or Country), if we do something and it was a false alarm, we all benefit anyway, if it does become significant - we ALL suffer the consequences - and any amount of money will not help us!
Chippy is so intelligent, with such well-informed thoughts, ideas and opinions. Christopher Luxon has no breadth of knowledge at all. He is completely unable to answer anything 'on the hoof'. Imagine if he was endlessly challenged in the way that Chippy is.