The average Kiwi wants to solve the cost of living, wants inflation to come down. The average Kiwi wants Razor Robertson to do well with the All Blacks and wants New Zealanders winning medals at the Olympics and they don't care if they are Māori, Asian, Pākehā — as long as they are Kiwis," he said.
Average Kiwis do not walk around saying I want to have a big scrap about race relations. I feel we are getting sucked into this race relations fight not many people want. - Paddy Gower
Trump is dangerous because he's mad. Biden is dangerous because he is in the most obvious cognitive decline.
A crook vs a geriatric. What a choice.
And that choice was on display for 90 minutes in the most depressing show of credentials I think I have ever seen. - Mike Hosking
It may be that Hipkins and co have resigned themselves to this cyclical fate, and are content to spend a term or two drifting along in an unspecified direction, topping up their property investments with that tax-payer funded housing perk.
This makes for a long, slow political death. One would almost prefer the noise and fury of a leadership coup, at least demonstrating some drive to do better or hunger for power.
But perhaps that's the problem. The deafening silence is more interesting than anything Labour has to say. - Andrea Vance
There is increasingly a very deep problem in Western polities, that of legitimacy. Where once the legal legitimacy of rulers coincided to a large degree with their moral legitimacy, there was no problem; both sides of a political debate (assuming there to be only two) were legitimate legally and morally. But now the two types of legitimacy have parted company, which is a recipe for perpetual conflict, irresolution, and possible civil war. In a world full of dangers, this is one danger more. - Theodore Dalrymple
I've received advice that in some cases where traffic management's been proscribed, it's actually more dangerous putting out the road cones than it is actually doing the work.
So we actually just have to take a 'safety at a reasonable cost' approach, rather than a 'safety at any cost' approach. - Simeon Brown
Ultimately, the government's persistence in pushing forward the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill reflects a misguided effort to placate those journalists and broadcasters who perceive themselves to be the main characters in the affairs of the nation. They want it and have dug their heels in about this. The tantrums will continue until they get what they want, so the calculation has been made to just give it to them.
There is no other explanation for why this government is moving forward with a flawed and disproven concept.
Any hopes that taking up this ineffective measure will cool the adversarial relationship between the government the press is hopeful in the extreme, however.
Goldsmith is essentially adopting the strategy of a weak and ineffective parent trying to win over a teenager by giving in to their demands, only to find that the teenager remains dissatisfied and scornful. Because the appeasement does not address the underlying problems, it ultimately fails to foster genuine resolution or respect from the aggrieved party. Just as a teenager might continue to harbour resentment despite getting what they wanted, journalists will never forgive this government for not giving them what they truly desire: a basic guaranteed income to make the content they want independently of what news consumers want or will pay for. - Liam Hehir
The landscape, in terms of terrestrial television, is shocking so all are more than welcome to keep the dream alive.
But media is a brutal business that became even more brutal with the internet and streaming and the world shrinking. You either get an audience and monetise it, or you don't.
It's sad, but emotion never paid the bills. - Mike Hosking
I've asked this question before, but it's time to ask it again: do TV journalists have any idea how precious and self-absorbed they look?
The evidence overwhelmingly suggests they don't. Over the past couple of weeks we've witnessed an unedifying orgy of self-aggrandisement as Newshub journalists and broadcasters very publicly and ostentatiously mourn the imminent loss of their jobs. - Karl du Fresne
It has been a strange combination of self-pity and self-celebration. The Newshub team are appealing for public sympathy while simultaneously bigging themselves up in a manner that many ordinary New Zealanders will find risibly over-the-top and more than a little self-centred.
They're behaving as if they're the first people ever to experience the trauma of losing their jobs, but of course it happens all the time. Businesses constantly fail, often with far more damaging consequences for those affected.
Untold thousands of unskilled and semi-skilled New Zealanders have been thrown out of jobs by technological change or economic upheaval and faced a far bleaker outlook than the relatively small number of skilled and talented people affected by the Newshub closure, some of whom have already acquired new and presumably well-paid jobs. - Karl du Fresne
Yes, losing your job must be tough. It's also problematical, from a public interest standpoint, that there will be one less competitor in the news arena. But the Newshub journalists would probably win more sympathy, and certainly more respect, if they took it on the chin, just as thousands of anonymous workers had no choice but to do when they found themselves surplus to requirements. - Karl du Fresne
It's worth noting that this overweening egotism and sense of entitlement doesn't afflict all journalists. Hundreds of print journalists have lost their jobs in recent years, with serious consequences for the public's right to know what's going on in their communities. They went quietly, without public fuss. What is it that makes TV journalists think their role is so uniquely precious? - Karl du Fresne
Well, here's the news, to coin a phrase: life will go on. A timeline of Newshub's history, published today in the Herald, graphically demonstrates that TV news and current affairs programmes come and go and are soon forgotten. The timeline serves as a striking reminder that television is essentially an ephemeral medium. Many of the shows mentioned have long since faded from the public memory, along with the names of the people who presented them. The same will happen to the 6 o'clock Newshub News, and possibly sooner than many of its employees imagine. - Karl du Fresne
Perhaps the present market environment can come up with an alternative to baseload coal power. It may be that a new gas field will appear, economic wood burning will be verified at Huntly, or significant LNG imports will be shown to be feasible.
More likely, there will just be increased coal-generated baseload at Huntly. This would translate to higher wholesale electricity prices through the marginal pricing system of the New Zealand electricity market. Those higher prices in turn would discourage further electrification, adding indirectly to our carbon emissions.
We are perhaps already seeing a glimpse of this. Hydro storage is presently about 30% below average and wholesale electricity prices have been at high levels since May. At the same time, decreased gas availability has prompted Genesis to import further coal.
Unless the market can come up with some left-field solution for cheap baseload power as a coal alternative, it looks like coal imports will be going on into the future. - Dr Earl Bardsley
It looks like we are finally giving in and allowing shoebox apartments in New Zealand. - Heather du Plessis-Allan
Shoebox apartments are not ideal, but then renting because you can't afford to buy is less ideal.
And yes, there will be developers who take the mickey with how small they can go, and these kinds of apartments are often an eyesore to everyone else who has to look at them.
But frankly, our priority has got to be something else. It's got to be letting people into their own homes, however small.
We have to accept we have a housing crisis, we've got to accept it's not good for younger generations to feel like they're locked out of home ownership.
And if they want to live in a small space because it's all they can afford, why prevent them? - Heather du Plessis-Allan
A Government is leadership and leadership in many, many areas is clearly needed.
Which is a depressing thought for a person like me. I like to believe in self-determination and self-starting. More 'you' and less Government.
But in a collective sense, we are only as strong as the weakest link and in social experiment terms what we have seen in recent years in all sorts of areas is if you let the discipline and the leadership slip, all social hell breaks loose. - Mike Hosking
If you offer excuses, if you can't be bothered, if you let the guidelines slip there are those who revel in being ordinary, if not hopeless. - Mike Hosking
A lot of people wondered, and wondered very loudly, whether the state of the country was so bad it might take years to fix, if it was even possible to fix it at all.
Well these examples this week I think are a good guide that we might actually be seeing some fruits of some labour.
Keep it simple, work hard and expect more. You'll be amazed. - Mike Hosking
Ever wondered who or what is constantly trying to block the new government's policies? Why is it that announcements by ministers about the economy, educational changes, new health proposals, reducing the runaway numbers of public servants and combating juvenile crime, are quickly met with so-called leaked bits of advice about how the new ideas have been "tried before and don't work"? Leading to cocky assertions from the Labour Opposition that the media then highlight. Frequently, the minister is the last person allowed media space.
Remembering the ways in which the same sorts of people tried to block progress when I was a minister during the major reforms of the 1980s, I detect a similar pattern emerging amongst those opposed to change. Many influential people seem born to resist it. Their positions depend on the status quo. Several bad eggs around the Public Dis-Service Association are constantly receiving information from unhappy civil servants, and in turn the P(D)SA provides it to selected journalists who then produce columns that used to be called "stinky fish articles". They attack the new policies before the wider public have been able to get their heads around what the Cabinet is actually proposing. - Michael Bassett
Stinky fish material appeals to many journalists at the New Zealand Herald and to the likes of TV One's Te Aniwa Hurihanginui, Maiki Sherman, Jacob Johnson, and to Radio NZ which often just chronicles criticisms of ministerial intentions. Such journalism sends reassuring messages to the lack-lustre lot that believed in Jacinda, Chippy, the Greens and those even nearer the lunatic fringe of politics. The media quibble about what ministers are proposing, blowing them up to headlines criticising policy. "Don't ban smartphones for school kids"; "Don't remove urban limits for housing". Journalists get away with not finding any alternative policies to report, and often don't even acknowledge there are serious problems in need of fixing. They just let the criticisms do their wicked work. - Michael Bassett
If the Coalition wants to be re-elected in 2026 it needs a more cohesive approach to pushing ahead with change. David Lange's government that took office forty years ago this month faced problems of a similar magnitude to those facing the Luxon-led ministry today. Trade unions, the P(D)SA and elements within the Labour Party tried to stop the remedial actions that were taken by Lange's new cabinet. Roger Douglas, who was Minister of Finance, had been around politics long enough to understand his opponents and decided early in the piece to speed up the reform process. Before long, so many new policies were appearing that opponents didn't know how to prioritise their attacks. Speed is a key to achieving reform. Occasionally the Lange government suffered from speed wobbles, but as ministers held their nerve and explained what they were doing, and why, new ways of doing things were consolidated. The public bought devaluation and floating of the dollar, the introduction of GST, and the turning of loss-making government trading departments into State Owned Enterprises. A clear overall plan kept the show on the road. Rapid momentum and clear explanations were vital. The government's share of the vote increased at the following election. - Michael Bassett
Luxon and Nicola Willis have insisted on some reductions to the bloated bureaucracy they inherited. Civil Servants need to realise that if they continue to play games leaking material and being truculent over policy implementation then further staff retrenchments will occur, and the salaries saved will be put into buying services from consultants. A few fires lit in your critics' backyards can also be powerful aids to progress. But the process requires determined, consistent leadership, which these days is rather too intermittent to leave me feeling confident that enough reform will be achieved to stop New Zealand's downward slide. - Michael Bassett
My mother used to always say to me, never get too big for your boots. And when you keep your values close to you and remember your origins, you have a level of humility.
We still have that level of humility around how we go about doing business and how we work with people. I can still point to families or dairy farming families in the Bega Valley that go back to 1899 and have stayed with us on the journey. - Barry Irvin
You become close to people you're relying on. It makes a huge difference, it creates a different culture, because you don't get removed from the business, whether that's walking down the street and running into a farmer or indeed a customer.
Even though we have a factory in Port Melbourne, our executives work in the same building instead of the CBD. You go to the canteen and have lunch with staff. It creates a typically Australian culture. - Barry Irvin
It's important that we actually take action. Sometimes there is more focus on words that are written when it would be better, less resources were spent on that and more on getting out and doing things.
Those country town philosophies for many people that work for Bega tend to carry these issues forward. ESG is something almost in their DNA because if you think about farming, farmers do tend to think about generational succession. - Barry Irvin
In the era I grew up in, in a small country town, if you wanted to play football on the weekend, you went and repaired the oval to make sure it was ready, and you held a working bee.
We were always told it is the responsibility of all of us, and therefore we must make our contribution. We all have our shared responsibility. And if you take it to the next step then if you have the added capacity to help, you should. - Barry Irvin
The strongest demand drivers at the moment are nutrition, convenience, value for money, and then sustainability. The demand for those products has just taken off. - Barry Irvin
Some Conservatives will wonder whether the scale of our crushing defeat is really justified. But when you lose the trust of the electorate, all that matters is having the courage and humility to ask yourself why, so that you can earn it back again. - Jeremy Hunt
And a message to my children, who I sincerely hope are asleep now. This may seem like a tough day for our family as we move out of Downing Street, but it isn't.
We are incredibly lucky to live in a country where decisions like this are made not by bombs or bullets, but by thousands of ordinary citizens peacefully placing crosses in boxes on bits of paper.
'Brave Ukrainians are dying every day to defend their right to do what we did yesterday. And we must never take that for granted. Don't be sad, this is the magic of democracy. - Jeremy Hunt
While the housing crisis might be the source of most of New Zealand's social ills, rising house prices have underwritten New Zealand's economic success in recent decades. It wasn't for nothing that the Reserve Bank aimed the money printer at New Zealand's homeowners during the pandemic. New Zealand's deluded homeowners, wallets stuffed with Weimar money, were as responsible for the country's bizarrely low pandemic unemployment rate as any wage subsidy.
The positive aspects of household wealth are no reason not to tackle the housing crisis - but they do mean that fixing it won't be painless.
There's a lesson from the 1980s in that, too. Reform is most fondly remembered by the reformers. For the reformed, the legacy is often far more painful. - Thomas Coughlan
However, there are many things that America continues to do better than us. As I've driven over 1000km, I can't help but notice their roads. They handle immense volumes of traffic, and yet everything continues to flow. And, with New Zealand's "cone-laden" roading network as my gauge, you can't help but be impressed by how little disruption is caused by workers going about the process of keeping those roads functional. Traffic can speed by without cones or interruption for the most part. People are sensible and considerate and everything just works.
And then there's the people. The man or woman on the street. The people going about their lives. No matter how frustrated they might be about their political situation, they don't even hesitate to maintain a sense of pride in the country that I can only wish we could capture. - Bruce Cotterill
And so, as I prepare for the flight back to New Zealand, I just checked the headlines back home. Of course, not much has changed in a couple of weeks. But one thing is clear. Our problems aren't as great as you will observe elsewhere.
But equally, we have much to learn. - Bruce Cotterill
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