web analytics

Open Mike 13/08/25

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, August 13th, 2025 - 45 comments
Categories: open mike - Tags:


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 …

45 comments on “Open Mike 13/08/25 ”

  1. Todays Posts 1

    Today's Posts (updated through the day):

    What does this Government have against Te Reo Māori?

  2. bwaghorn 2

    https://www.thepress.co.nz/business/360784095/pay-cheques-soar-miners-flood-coast-biggest-opportunity-generation

    Just something for the greens to keep in mind when they ate in government next year, goid paying jobs that help the west coast diversify away from coal!

  3. Sanctuary 3

    This has to be the most militantly racist settler government since probably the 60s, and I'd suggest that could be the 1860s.

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360789352/education-minister-cut-maori-words-future-junior-books-documents-reveal

    The well spring of the extraordinary and systemic racism of this government should demand more examination by the MSM, but as usual they are MIA on this.

    I mean, the racist revanchism is incredible and obvious. Luxon and more importantly the imported American ideas of prosperity doctrine and white Christian nationalism that informs so many of his bigoted cabinet needs to be challenged.

    • gsays 3.1

      You are not wrong. From changing Ministry letterheads, insisting on English first names of Ministries and public agencies through to the pay equity negation and the blatant subtle greetings these pollies use.

      Constant erasure and diminishing of our unique culture.

      More disturbing is that it is resonating within the public. Far easier to blame the Maori if times are tough, money and opportunity low.

      • Bearded Git 3.1.1

        ….and changing NZ passports demoting Maori script (Te Reo) to second place….which come to think of demoting Maori to second place is what this government is doing with all of its policies.

        Note to COC: Maori were here first.

        • gsays 3.1.1.1

          They borderline could wear white pillow cases and hold burning crosses.

          The worry is it has a constituency, all these actions and tanking the economy aaand… they are neck and neck with the opposition.

          It beggars belief.

    • Drowsy M. Kram 3.2

      I mean, the racist revanchism is incredible and obvious. Luxon and more importantly the imported American ideas of prosperity doctrine and white Christian nationalism that informs so many of his bigoted cabinet needs to be challenged.

      yes The CoC is being challenged, but Lux and Co. do not care – there are votes aplenty in NZ for racist revanchism (restoring the freedom to be Racist on the Outside) and being "a machine for the relentless upwards redistribution of wealth."
      sad

      New Zealand politician removed from parliament following comments in Palestinian debate [Reuters, 12 August, 2025]
      Speaker Gerry Brownlee said that statement was “completely unacceptable” and she had to withdraw it and apologise. When she refused, Swarbrick was ordered to leave parliament.

      Brownlee later clarified Swarbrick could return on Wednesday but if she still refused to apologise she would again be removed from parliament.

      New Zealand Parliament votes for record suspensions of 3 lawmakers who performed Māori haka [Canadian Press, 5 June 2025]
      Three days had been the longest ban from New Zealand’s Parliament before.

      By a speed-wrecking gang we are led.

      • Karolyn_IS 3.2.1

        Paul Campbell has an X/Twitter thread with several egs of MPs in the House calling other MPs 'spineless' in the past.

        The first tweet in the thread:

        "It’s an ancient, spineless, endangered species that literally sucks the life of out of its host, leaving it an empty, useless shell. It’s a New Zealand First"

        Erica Stanford in the House 11 September 2018

        2nd tweet:

        "because I sat on the select committee hearing, to my amazement, a series of former Green MPs and Green Party supporters saying how much they condemned this bill and the Greens’ spineless stance on it"

        Maggie Barry in the House 2 August 2018

        So, maybe Chloe Swarbrick should refuse to apologise today, let it be referred to the Privileges Committee, and see if saying MPs lack spine re Palestine stands up to scrutiny?

        • bwaghorn 3.2.1.1

          She most definitely should not apologize, fuck brownlee the weak spineless fool.

        • gsays 3.2.1.2

          As a slight tangent to yr comment;

          Swarbrick could open up the korero around MPs religious beliefs stopping them from doing what is right.

          I understood there are a couple of verses (not sure where) in the bible that state if you condemn Israel then you will be condemned.

          There appear to be a higher proportion of religious MPs than in the general population.

    • Stephen D 3.3

      More like the early 1930s. Plenty of people got rich during the depression. The rest more or less starved. Even here in NZ, there were work camps and subsequent riots.

      Māori knew their place, and so did women.

      Reads exactly what ACT and NZ1 want. National are an irrelevance in this government.

    • bwaghorn 3.4

      The document showed Stanford also instructed the ministry to develop a teaching sequence in the English curriculum to help teachers prepare children to read Māori words from their second year at school.

      Mt initial reaction was the same as yours then i read this para, and thought maybe it's not so bad?

      • pb 3.4.1

        It's just a softening up. Quite frankly there is no reason that words in Te Reo Maori should not be used from day one at school. There are many things that might cause confusion in the english lanaguage it is pure racism that sees this one picked out..

        • I Feel Love 3.4.1.1

          I started school at Huntly West Primary in the late 70s there certainly was Te Reo on my first day of school, this country has gone backwards for sure.

        • Karolyn_IS 3.4.1.2

          Yep. As an ex-teacher of young children, and a post grad qualification in education language and literacy, I totally agree.

          Stanford seems to have a poor understanding of the place of phonics in literacy, which is in keeping with a reactionary focus on phonics over the need for it to be in the context of reading for meaning and engagement.

          English is a complex language phonically. eg, consider the 'oo' letters in poor and food: 1 is an aw sound and the other is an 'ooooo' sound; likewise, 'love' and 'lose'; 'one' and 'fun'. And even more complex with 'silent' consonants are in play: 'night' and 'knight' etc.

          Furthermore, in speech, the words before and after another word can influence spoken language: eg 'boys and girls', usually pronounced something like 'boyz n girlz'; 'night and day', usually pronounced 'naid n dei'.

          • thinker 3.4.1.2.1

            Let's not forget that what we call English contains many foreign-derived words. What's wrong with the trend towards incorporating Maori into the English used here?

            • I Feel Love 3.4.1.2.1.1

              Incorporating foreign words into English, it happens all the time & there is nothing the stupid govt can do about that thankfully. Language is a trend, a fashion, it isn't a science.

              Even other English speaking countries use different words, for instance I've been renovating my kitchen & I was telling an American friend about my rimu splashback & over there they're called backsplash, how strange is that.

              Bill Brysons fantastic book on English is really fascinating.

    • AB 3.5

      The well spring of the extraordinary and systemic racism of this government should demand more examination by the MSM

      Yes it should, but then the wellsprings of virtually nothing are examined, either because MSM lack any interest in it, or don't believe it sells while horserace commentary does. The wellsprings are interesting and there are some obvious components to it:

      • At one level simply a reaction at the local level to what has happened in the last 40 years. In this time NZ has tried to make The Treaty mean something that is both significant and observed – and that has the support of both Maori and Pakeha. I have tended to view this historical accommodation positively as something that both restores the mana of Maori and legitimates the NZ settler state in the present, despite the historical harms that were done. Lots of other people don't see it like that, they see it as unwanted 'Maorification' – like the guy who snarled at me for using "Waka Kotahi"instead of NZTA. They don't see the need for any such accommodation to be made – and that's because settler states always have existing justifications that are based in the end on an assumption of the intrinsic inferiority of the indigenous at either the racial (biological) or cultural (behavioural) level
      • A deliberate and focused effort to eliminate any notion of indigenous rights over natural resources. Clearly such rights are a threat to domestic and global private capital seeking opportunities to get a windfall return on that capital. Because many countries have refused to tax wealth sufficiently for decades, there is a huge amount of private investment capital sloshing around looking for somewhere to land and increase itself. The mouthpieces of global capital such as right-wing think-tanks are the vector for infection on this point.
      • The rise of the far-right everywhere with its impulses towards authoritarian dominance of the powerful ingroup over various outgroups (immigrants, non-white people, women, Muslims, socialists, etc.). Though it may be expressed more politely, such as 'defending western culture', it is basically just a violent defence and justification of the status quo against perceived threats. There is also the associated information ecosystem that has global reach. The message is that if the status quo is not working for you, it is not due to some internal crisis, failure or contradiction within the status quo, it is because it is under attack from illegitimate and insurgent outsiders
  4. Hey all!

    I'm trying to find a story a few months (?) ago, detailing Nicola Willis seeking policy advice from RW thinkttank, NZ Inititiative.

    Can anyone recall specifics of it? fmacskasy@gmail.com

  5. Hey all!

    I'm trying to find a story a few months (?) ago, detailing Nicola Willis seeking policy advice from RW thinkttank, NZ Inititiative.

    Can anyone recall specifics of it?

      • Hi, Weka, yup. Tried it, plus variations. I got a really helpful email (thanks, Harry) and they couldn't find anything.

        I may've read a social media post somewhere and conflated it with a media story?

    • Drowsy M. Kram 5.2

      This NZ Herald article mentions Adrian Orr, Willis seeking advice, and the NZ Initiative, but you'd have to join the dots – there's no mention of Willis directly seeking advice from the NZ Initiative.

      Nicola Willis gets advice on overriding Reserve Bank’s bank capital rules championed by Adrian Orr [6 March 2025]

      Prof. MacCulloch joins a few dots in this 10th of May opinion – on the 12th of May he posted “DownToEarth.Kiwi Closing Due to Threats from National & Labour Parties & Big Business NZ Incorporated”:

      Professor Robert MacCulloch: Incriminating evidence now points to Finance Minister Willis forcing out Governor Orr…. [10 May 2025]

      Finance Minister Willis was a Director of the NZ Initiative. The Prime Minister and Willis' Chief Economic Adviser was Senior Economist at the Initiative. When attending meetings there on behalf of a former member, I used to see the PM, who was CEO of Air NZ. Last year the Initiative wrote a letter to Willis alleging that Governor Orr had breached the Code of Conduct relating to his response to the Initiative's critiques about the Capital Requirements. Willis took up the Initiative's complaint with the Reserve Bank's Chair, Neil Quigley.

      This saga has descended into such murky depths that DownToEarth.Kiwi has withdrawn any of the support we once had for Finance Minister Willis. We've no interest in playing partisan politics. We call out foul play where we see it. The great strength of NZ was meant to be the integrity of our public officials. Anyone playing dirty games that undermine the single most important financial institution in the country, namely the Reserve Bank, for their own wrongly construed agenda – or even worse, for their own personal gain – cannot endure in politics. Nothing our Finance Minister says about economics makes sense to me. Her budgets that do nothing to address NZ's long-run fiscal problems from an ageing population. The ferries. Her lack of action on the Big Banks, Big Supermarkets, Air NZ, Big Construction firms. It only can be understood in terms of back-room deals responding to lobbying from Big Business.

    • Drowsy M. Kram 5.3

      Bryce Edwards writes that "in a country that used to pride itself on transparency and egalitarianism, his [Prof. MacCulloch's] decision to retreat from public commentary reveals an uncomfortable truth: that challenging elites in New Zealand has real personal costs, and that the incentives are stacked against dissent."

      Integrity Briefing: NZ’s “Chumocracy” and the suppression of Prof Robert MacCulloch [21 May 2025]
      His [MacCulloch's] account catalogued a series of interactions: meetings between Willis and lawyers with lucrative public contracts, secret consultations with the New Zealand Initiative (where she previously sat on the board), and the elevation of insiders to oversight roles in the banking sector.

      MacCulloch alleges that Willis is “doing the bidding of the big banks” and questions her motivations, suggesting a link to her former boss, John Key, who chaired ANZ Bank, a job she “also covets when she retires from politics.” He highlights that while Willis orders the RBNZ to potentially cut capital requirements, Australian regulators are ordering ANZ to increase theirs.

      MacCulloch highlights the oversized influence of The New Zealand Initiative

      • Finance Minister Willis was a Director of the NZ Initiative.
      • The Prime Minister’s Chief Economic Adviser, Matt Burgess, was a Senior Economist at the Initiative and previously advised Bill English. Chris Luxon, as CEO of Air New Zealand, also used to attend Initiative meetings.
      • The Initiative’s board includes figures like Scott Perkins (Non-Executive Director of Woolworths), Chris Quinn (Chief Executive of Foodstuffs North Island), and Barbara Chapman (former Chair of a Big Bank).
      • The Chair of the NZ Initiative, Roger Partridge, is also the former Chair of Bell Gully, where Willis’ father was a partner.
  6. Ad 6

    An encouraging political message from a leader of the Australian Liberal Party to New Zealand's energy ministers: addressing climate change in the energy sector really can deliver political benefits:

    Australia could be about to leapfrog NZ on climate targets | RNZ News

    Looking forward to some of our gas-reliant mid-scale businesses actually holding energy companies to account for their ursary.

  7. Reality 7

    It really is a great pity the contributions from Nick Rockel, Mountain Tui and Frank Macskasy no longer appear on The Standard in the right hand column. They are excellent, so topical and relevant to these turbulent times in NZ. They should be read as widely as possible to keep us informed about what is happening daily. They are missed greatly.

  8. newsense 8

    This is a government where Lux’s deal with Seymour overrides Victoria’s deal with Maori.

    And it seems that it’s more important that doctors take an oath to the National Party, than that they observe their hippocratic one.
    http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2025/08/gagging-medical-professions.html

  9. Bearded Git 9

    Carmel Sepuloni did well against Goldsmith on the RNZ panel this morning (listen below), but when attacked by Goldsmith on the previous government's so-called overspending, while correctly saying that much of this spending was on propping up business through Covid (which as she said National wanted them to spend even more on) she should also have mentioned the massive costs of the East Cape and Auckland cyclones that Labour had to deal with.

    AI tells me the cost of these cyclones was between $9.5 billion and $14 billion.

    When all this is taken into account it is clear Robertson did a great job.

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018999707/political-panel-with-national-and-labour

    • aj 9.1

      The left should have that total response ready every time the right bring it up. A repetitive sound bite, couple of sentences would cover it. That's what the right have been doing for the best part of three years, and it's the only way to combat it.

      • tc 9.1.1

        Totally.

        Sepuloni is a terrible media performer IMO and it ain't getting any better.

        Drove through her electorate a few weeks back and yeah everyones doing just fine Carmel.

        Her free hits on bFM she gets along with national show the difference in media performance levels.

        Its a worry.

  10. arkie 10

    The Speaker has 'named' Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick for refusing to leave the House.

    The punishment means the MP had to once again leave the House, and will have her pay docked.

    Swarbrick was ejected from Parliament on Tuesday after refusing to withdraw and apologise for comments suggesting coalition MPs grow a spine and sanction Israel.

    At the time, the Speaker barred Swarbrick for the rest of the week, unless she apologised when the House sat this afternoon.

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/569863/green-party-co-leader-chloe-swarbrick-named-for-refusing-to-leave-parliament

    Brownlee doubles down on his making-decisions-on-the-fly approach despite the complete lack of proportionality and precedence.

    For example:

    Hon KIERAN McANULTY: … I don't believe that individually they are racist, but what I do believe they are is spineless and gutless because they have given in to the whims of their coalition partners just to get into power…

    https://www.parliament.nz/mi/pb/hansard-debates/rhr/document/HansS_20240723_053880000/mcanulty-kieran

    Brownlee’s claims are increasingly hard to take seriously. He brings the speakership into disrepute.

  11. newsense 11

    Trust the Bushop on faith:

    ignore academics, construction industry leaders, economists from banks, economists not from banks, opposition figures, polite local business associations, housing advocates, and according to uncle Simon (corrected for Anglo-Saxon first doctrine) E Brown doctors too are not to be trusted. Oh and Maori of course. Constitutional experts. Human rights experts. Environmental and climate change researchers, experts and activists. Women.
    The UN. The credit rating agencies.

    These are the people who are wrong.
    And Chris Bishop is right.

    and let the farmers do what they like, ffs. They’re noisy, tiresome, entitled and have guns.

  12. Reality 12

    Thank you Incognito for giving the links for Nick Rockel (I am a subscriber to his columns but used to enjoy the comments from other readers when his columns were in The Standard). Also thanks for the links for Mountain Tui and Frank Macskasy. I appreciate your gesture.

Leave a Comment