Kai from Christopher
KFC, Systems outages, and Slavery.
I like my food served in a bucket
Eat the chick, then take the bone and suck it
A family feast at crazy prices
Enjoy all 11 secret herbs and spices
Chicken as greasy as you can get
Wipe yourself off with a moist towelette
Songwriters: Jordan Raskopoulos, Lee Naimo and Benny Davis.
Tomorrow is your last day to get 20% off a subscription with my “Nick’s Ditch the Pricks in 26” special. This brings the price to $64 for a year, or $6.40 per month, rather than the usual $80 or $8. Come on in. It’s going to be a big year.
Manna from Heaven
Is it a bird? A plane? Maybe an Uber driver taken to the air?
Turns out that delicious smell is actually the Prime Minister, bringing Kai from Christopher to the East Coast. And so it was that Luxon arrived by helicopter, arms full of KFC, to feed the locals. An odd choice, I thought, but at least he’s doing something.
Sometimes you just want to do anything to help. I remember back in 2016, when homelessness was rife under John Key, and Te Puea Marae was taking people in, I did something similar.
I didn’t arrive by helicopter with trays of fried chicken, but I sent them a Countdown order to help; lots of people did. My order was 60 eggs, 4 kg of bananas, half a dozen stuffed chooks, 3 kg of pumpkin, and 10 kg of apples. Perhaps not as exciting as KFC, but maybe a bit more useful, besides which I’m not the PM, just someone who hated seeing people sleeping rough and wanted to help those who were helping them.
I thought, “Can you imagine what people would have said if Chippy had turned up to a flood-affected region with arms full of takeaways?”
Janice wrote, “I thought it was dreadful! Embarrassing! Felt almost stereotyping and cringeworthy! There was not enough for everyone either!” It didn’t sit right with me either. The stereotype was awful. Would he have taken KFC to Queenstown or Christchurch?
Bobbi wasn’t impressed and said, “The contrast between this guy being carefully filmed carrying a box of stone cold KFC off a helicopter, and Jacinda Ardern discovered quietly getting stuck in and chopping up a mound of pumpkin at the back of a marae kitchen, says it all really.” I have to confess that “guy” was not the word Bobbi used.
Please note that in the photo above, Jacinda isn’t even the PM anymore. Do you think Christopher Luxon will hang around and help once he’s out of the top job? Not a chance, he’ll be on a flight out of here in no time.
Clearly, Luxon is trying to build his popularity, but you’d think he’d opt for something that doesn’t make people think of chicken; he’s had quite enough of that.
And now he says he’ll go to Waitangi, which on the one hand is good news and I’m glad to hear it, but it’s also the absolute bloody minimum. Like turning up to a major disaster site with some takeaways. It’s a nice gesture, but what about all the other days?
I'm not really worried about the KFC, although it was a bit odd - like, what was he thinking? - but what really concerned me was when he was asked about the funding, and he said there were “other budgets”. What were those intended for?
Nicola isn’t the type to just have pots of money sitting there, just in case, and as we know, she blew Labour’s CERF, so what gets cut to pay for the rebuild? Time to make a few more back-office people redundant? What could possibly go wrong?
I posted:
“If you cut back-office staff, things will stop working,” we all said.
But National said, “Nah, she’ll be right. Besides, those landlords need a massive tax cut.”
This isn’t good enough; best case, it will put additional pressure on people who are already overworked; worst case, this government will have blood on their hands.
The outage took out ED, laboratory, and inpatient systems in Auckland and Northland, forcing Doctors and Nurses to resort to paper-based systems. Can you imagine a patient in the ED who urgently needs blood results, waiting until someone brings them to the Doctor or calls them on the phone?
The PSA said it was “time for Govt to admit fault and properly fund the upgrade of old IT systems”. National Secretary, Fleur Fitzsimons spelled it out:
“These failures are a direct result of its short-sighted decision to underfund and cut roles at Health NZ’s digital services team.
The Government oversaw the loss of the very experts who maintain and upgrade these critical systems, and now we’re seeing the predictable consequences - hospitals forced onto whiteboards and paper forms while trying to deliver modern healthcare.”
Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS) executive director Sarah Dalton said, “We haven't had any kind of meaningful response from Health New Zealand's leadership, and given the frequency of these system failures, I think the public deserves to know what's going on in our public health system.”
Last night on 1 News, Health Minister Simeon Brown reassured the public that it wasn’t his fault, it was, wait for it, wait for it… all down to Labour.
I wish I were making this up. Mind you, compared to some other coalition Ministers, at least Brown only looked ineffective, unlike…
Well, there you go. I always wondered whether ACT would've supported slavery.
Labour’s Camilla Belich had introduced a Bill that would target “the 'worst type of worker exploitation' – including servitude, slavery, sexual exploitation, child labour – 'really the worst types of treatment that human beings can do one another.'”
It’s a no-brainer, surely, and National’s Greg Fleming also thought so and agreed to support the bill, which was just as well, as ACT would not.
Brooke van Velden said, “At the start of my term as Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety, I made it clear what my priorities are, and I’ve worked for the past two years to progress those. They are reforms to the Holidays Act, health and safety and an Employment Relations Amendment Bill. All three will progress through the House this year.”
So sorry to those currently being exploited, the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety had a to-do list, and you weren’t on it.
Tricia was unimpressed and said of Brooke, “Immature, inexperienced and raised in a sheltered, entitled environment. The most unsuitable person to hold Public Office in the whole world. Beneath those buttons beats a heart of pure stainless steel!”
Lynda offered “Cold as ICE”, which was timely.
Steve said, “Just like her stance on Pay Equity.”
Slavery and unfair pay for women? Good luck with the election, Brooke. As for Mr Luxon, if he thinks a few boxes of KFC and turning up at Waitangi to say, “It wasn’t me, David made me do it,” will cut it, he might as well book that trip now.
Have a good Friday, folks.
Ngā mihi,
Nick.
To end today, here’s Axis of Awesome with Ode to KFC:
I like the sound of that food order you did in 2016 Nick. I was wondering where the PM bought the KFC - did he stop in a street in the helicopter somewhere? I am sure the locals could do with the business. It's good Buxom is going to Waitangi and I disrespectfully hope someone finds a dildo. On the Modern Slavery Bill, as you can imagine, I am outraged at ACT. If Luxon had any gumption. he would remove that van Velden creature from that portfolio asap. Why the hell he let that happen I don't know. I saw a really ridiculous thing from Brooke the other day where she is working on "common sense" health and safety solutions with Labs, like not having to have the Lab on the first floor! She reckoned it would save $3b. I just thought what is she on? I was a bit peeved at the reporting on Camilla's Bill ; anyone would think it was all Greg whatsisname's idea. Camilla has had a Modern Slavery bill in the ballot for months. She has also two Members' bills go through ; one on wage theft and one on Pay transparency by getting either NZ First or National to support it. Both now law. It its rare for an opposition MP to get a bill through, let alone two, soon to be three. She is a really top notch Labour MP. who knows her stuff and has impeccable workers rights credentials.
Not an Uber driver Nick, it's Super PM Man ! able to leap 7 properties in a single tax exempt bound.
Every public move/decision made by Chris reeks of orchestration, as in 'this will be good PR for me, it will benefit me, this will make look like a man of the people, being there when it matters'.
No numbnuts, it won't, because you are veneer thin, we see right through your tokenism and shallow half truths.
. Your MP'S are inept, ineffectual and the cracks are showing, or in Gerry Brownlee's case bum cracks .
'DITCH THE PRICKS IN 26' !