Open Mike 15/08/25
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6:00 am, August 15th, 2025 - 26 comments
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Today's Posts (updated through the day):
How was National able to take down construction so quickly?
New Post up:
How was National able to take down construction so quickly?
John Carnegie, interviewed on Morning Report today, is a complete dinosaur. He says NZ has to build a new fossil fuel power station and dismisses the obvious solution (already working in Texas, California, Australia and other places) to build grid-scale solar with battery storage attached. Using large scale battery storage means that some of the water in the lakes can be saved such that there is always enough for base load power and the so-called "dry year" scenario is always avoided.
He calls investment in renewables "virtue signaling". Climate change is irrelevant. Carnegie has skin in the game of course as he is Chief Executive of Energy Resources Aotearoa who produce 90% of NZ’s oil and gas.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2019000029/power-plants-to-be-built-faster-thanks-to-rma-changes-energy-producers
Not surprising given his background.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018925990/john-carnegie-on-the-energy-transition-and-his-new-role
Note the 'RNZ Ratings crises' pieces appearing in the msm. Ratings are not what public broadcasting exists for.
Watch that space.
I suspect I'm one of many
Who don't listen to talking radio, but read RNZ articles on the internet.
A gem in the wastland that is commercial radio.
MS had earlier done a Post on NACT1 and the Carnegie (also Goel) appointments
That figures…Simeon is another dinosaur….RadioNZ needs to make it VERY clear when they interview these people that they have a palpable vested interest such that their opinions are not evidence based.
Well maybe RNZ has to tread the fine line? Bearing in mind Winnie Peters not veiled threats….
Maybe not satisfactory, but as you, and others, have commented previously about Morning Report..a Curates Egg? I could only suggest contact them about?
I personally rely on the quality of RNZ's Eloise Gibson and other similar Reporters for what I can. IMO they are awesome.
Carnegie is right to call it that, but he is wrong to think it is a bad thing. If the state wants to shift economic activity away from environmentally and socially destructive industries and into socially useful industries, it has to destroy jobs in destructive areas in order to free them up for re-deployment in useful areas. There must be spare capacity in the economy if the state is to successfully invest money in new industries and then actually deliver them. If the state simply allocates the money for this investment, but the engineers and electricians don't exist, it will simply bid up the wages of those jobs, causing inflation as well as sluggish progress on any projects. Nobody except sociopaths likes destroying people's jobs, but in this case it has to be done as humanely as possible.
What Carnegie is really saying is that he doesn't believe the state should be allowed to have any role in national economic planning. None. It's an extreme position and runs contrary to NZ's historical experience under the Liberals and the first Labour governments when so much of modern NZ was built. It's an argument that briefly seemed credible to a few very influential people during the period when the Soviet Union collapsed and they could all sneer at any form of 'central planning'.
Yea, also quite probably a fan of Friedman…
We (ie not the 1%ers) have probably had our guts full of those libertarian economics.
Ironically (and unashamedly) always with the hand out for handouts….
Its way past time that we looked after our People and, also very importantly, our Environment.
BG : Also, talk about mixed messaging… (IMO only their name has changed !)
Audrey Young loses all credibility today in the Herald (paywalled) by attacking Chloe and and saying the Palestine issue brought out the best in Luxon.
"In Parliament’s snap debate on Tuesday about whether the Government should recognise Palestinian statehood, she [Swarbrick] made a brilliant speech – one of her best – right until the last few seconds……Chlöe Swarbrick became a distraction from the debate on Palestine during a crucial week in which Israel stepped up bombardments of Gaza City and New Zealand began debating a huge issue."
Remember Luxon has as yet been pathetically unable to get the COC to agree to backing a Palestinian State. But in Audrey Young's distorted world Luxon's incompetence is praiseworthy while Chloe's brilliant speech (a must watch btw) was a failure because she asked parliamentarians to get a spine.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/palestine-debate-brings-out-the-best-in-christopher-luxon-the-worst-in-chloe-swarbrick-audrey-young/OOJURH4GONCUDAOP4BQXPDC76M/
If Audrey Young wasn't a Tory fool, she would have noted that by saying Netanyahu had "lost the plot", Luxon merely emphasised his cluelessness.
Netanyahu has not lost the plot – he is executing the plot that his government (and previous Istraeli governments) have always had concerning the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from notional Greater Israel. Swarbrick is right and Audrey Young is an ongoing absurdity.
A fact that should never be forgotten.
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According to Brown University’s Cost of War Project, “The war in Gaza has, since October 7, 2023, killed more journalists than the U.S. Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War (including the conflicts in Cambodia and Laos), the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990s and 2000s, and the post-9/11 war in Afghanistan, combined.”
https://www.discourseblog.com/p/the-enraging-betrayal-of-murdered
Fuck.
Pricks think they rule the world.
//
Aug 12 (Reuters) – The U.S. on Tuesday rejected the "Net-Zero Framework" proposal by the International Maritime Organization, which is aimed at reducing global greenhouse gas emissions from the international shipping sector, and threatened measures against countries that support it.
The announcement, made in a joint statement by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, comes ahead of a vote at the United Nations' shipping agency to adopt the net-zero proposal
[…]
"The Trump Administration unequivocally rejects this proposal before the IMO and will not tolerate any action that increases costs for our citizens, energy providers, shipping companies and their customers, or tourists," the statement said.
"Our fellow IMO members should be on notice that we will look for their support against this action and not hesitate to retaliate or explore remedies for our citizens should this endeavor fail," it continued.
https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/us-retaliate-against-imo-members-that-back-net-zero-emissions-plan-2025-08-12/
Krasnov gives Alaska to the boss.
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They will include opening up Alaska’s natural resources to Moscow and lifting some of the American sanctions on Russia’s aviation industry, The Telegraph can reveal.
[…]
Mr Trump is also considering offering Russia opportunities to tap into the valuable natural resources in the strait which separates it from the US.
Alaska, which is separated from Russia by by just three miles of the Bering Strait, is estimated to hold significant undiscovered oil and gas reserves, including 13 per cent of the world’s oil.
Developing Russia’s presence in the strait would bolster Putin’s strategic interests in the arctic region, which accounted for 80 per cent of Russia’s gas production in 2022.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2025/08/13/trump-to-present-minerals-deal-to-putin-in-alaska/
https://archive.ph/uaskz
What a world to come post-2027 when the global cost of a barrel goes below US$65 with China's total oil demand flatlining by 2027 and Europe's doing the same by 2030.
China's Oil Demand Dropped: Experts See Start of a Trend
Alaska and Russia are welcome to each other.
Oil Market Report – August 2025 – Analysis – IEA
No point trying to buy a combustion vehicle in China or Singapore at that point.
Out and about in the community to see alot of people sucked into the meme that this recession is down to the covid spend up under Ardern.
The soundbites need to start now from the opposition to counter this and remind sheeple this is bs as the media will not.
The problem with your cunning plan is that the sheeple believe that any one who believes scientists and intelligent educated experts are the thick ones!
$670 million flushed down the toilet!
Wow, what wonderful economic managers the CoC turned out to be!
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/570081/final-cost-of-breaking-south-korean-ferry-contract-revealed
Apologies for reposting. Onya Nicola – We're saving so much money! Sorted don’t care.
File under Bread and Circuses.
Much excitement in the provinces. Feilding Ag (FAHS) is playing Palmy Boys High (PNBHS) on Saturday as a 1/4 final in the Hurricanes School competition.
Perhaps more importantly the Moascar Cup is on the line. Currently held by PNBHS, it is the Ranfurly Shield of schoolboy rugby.
AG have never held the trophy and only played for it once before.
Saturday 12.30pm @ Palmy Boys. Also live streamed on Maori TV.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_First_XV_Championship_(New_Zealand)