So many crops destroyed this year. Shitloads of summer fruits, stone fruit (though I hear Otago missed the worst of it), peas, corn, beans, potatoes. Already high costs are gonna get worse this year, most probably.
And there's still not going to be any love for beneficiaries, because screw us getting to eat! Or similar
So many crops destroyed this year. Shitloads of summer fruits, stone fruit (though I hear Otago missed the worst of it), peas, corn, beans, potatoes. Already high costs are gonna get worse this year, most probably.
Yeah, talking to the growers at the markets this morning, there was very much a "we are so fucked right now" attitude from most of them.
Apparently a big hold up on lamb exports to the EU has pushed cold storage availability to the max, which in turn fucks over a lot of lower margin produce. Or so I’ve been told by those in the know. Pretty annoying that companies would rather either freeze and sit in their product indefinitely, or just covert it to animal fodder, than give it to people cut price
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says the fact the Coalition and the Greens are raising concerns about the government’s new climate laws shows it has achieved the right balance between reducing emissions and not punishing heavy industries.
Appearing in Townsville on Saturday to announce a $70 million investment in a North Queensland hydrogen hub, Albanese said the criticism from both the right and left flanks showed “we’ve got the balance right”.
“When you have some people saying it’s too hard and some people saying it’s too soft, we have got the balance right,” he said.
“We want to make sure that we have a reduction in emissions, that we work with industry and we work with businesses.”
Asked whether he would consider the call from the Greens and conservation groups to limit the number of carbon credits that can be used by companies, Albanese said people in Parliament “should listen to what industry are saying, listen to what economists are saying as well”.
You saw greens and independents get elected in massive numbers over this, this is more important than you trying to differentiate yourselves from the Greens.
Kelor on
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lonelyahavaCall me Ahava ~~She/Her~~Move to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
FishmanPut your goddamned hand in the goddamned Box of Pain.Registered Userregular
Yeah, I just saw this.
Good for her, but potentially brutal for the country. Her popularity as leader was probably the best chance Labour had of swinging the polls back in favour before the election.
Not sure who Labour put up there now.
Chippy is my best guess, but it'd be a shame to rob cabinet of one of the best current ministers.
National is in a right-swinging cycle under Luxon and personally I was hoping for a centrist switch to Willis prior to the election, but now I don't expect them to change so they can attack leadership and run strong/stable messaging. Ugh Overton window.
Good for her, but potentially brutal for the country. Her popularity as leader was probably the best chance Labour had of swinging the polls back in favour before the election.
Not sure who Labour put up there now.
Chippy is my best guess, but it'd be a shame to rob cabinet of one of the best current ministers.
National is in a right-swinging cycle under Luxon and personally I was hoping for a centrist switch to Willis prior to the election, but now I don't expect them to change so they can attack leadership and run strong/stable messaging. Ugh Overton window.
Unfortunately, as long as national are able to run a policy platform devoid of any details, I don't see them losing the next election. Just being against the bad things, and nebulously for things that are good (which might include good things for you, average voter) seems like it will get them there, so far (despite being absolutely nonsensical)
It's bug nuts terrifying to be as beneficiary who's already struggling currently.
And while I have grand plans to get off the benefit, frankly, I'm struggling - I'm still recovering from COVID-19 months on, I'm just starting physio for my wrists, and I still need oodles of therapy to ungunk my brain so it stops eating itself
Life is a lot right now, and I've been bed ridden or close to a lot in the past month.
Ardern stepping down as Prime Minister as of 7 Feb
Will remain MP until April to avoid the by election.
Robertson not standing for Party Leader
Election on 14 October.
This seems pretty huge, and completely out of the blue. Any clues as to what motivated this, or will this be a thing we won't know the behind the scenes for a while, if ever?
My guess is (aside from personal reasons) that both parties really want to get more than 3 terms and they think they can do it if they swap out the leader and keep things fresh. Although when Key did it National was in a stronger position than Labour currently is.
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FishmanPut your goddamned hand in the goddamned Box of Pain.Registered Userregular
Burnout, basically.
Bearing in mind, Jacinda Ardern has had to put her personal life on hold for political reasons. She wasn't able to marry Clarke Gayford in her first term for fear of be accused of 'politicising her personal life'. The massive landslide win in 2020 meant that she had a plurality that should allow her to get married. She still put it as far away from an election as she could, to remove all taint of politicisatian from the event... and then still had to cancel for political reasons owing to Delta/Omicron outbreaks and lockdowns.
Her daughter is about to start school. Another term basically means having to compromise the majority of her child's first entire decade of life for her political career.
It's not for nothing that these were basically the first things she acknowledged in her resignation announcement.
The past 2 terms have been extraordinarily difficult and tasking. Probably the most difficult domestic and international conditions to face NZ in at least 4 decades, probably more like twice that. I'm personally not surprised she's drained. It's been hard (Not helped by the lack of depth in the Labour Cabinet).
I respect her choice. I support her doing it. I just wish that the compeitent potential replacement bench wasn't a list maybe 3 people long and even that required head scratching.
That's unbelievably cool. Your new name is cool guy. Let's have sex.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
edited January 2023
Not to mention that she's probably had enough of the people threatening to kill her and her husband, such as the COVID conspiracy idiots, among other things.
lonelyahavaCall me Ahava ~~She/Her~~Move to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
Yeah. My thoughts are that Neve getting ready to start school in Feb is a big factor.
Plus, like.
March 15th terrorist attack
Whakaari/White Island Eruption
Covid lockdowns/levels/traffic lights
Covid protests including the occupation of the lawn and the violence
Russia invading Ukraine
It has *not* been a quiet few years of being in charge. The emotional toll that even any one of those situations could take on a Leader. On top of the international attention from Covid handling in NZ, being a young millennial woman, being pregnant and giving birth while Prime Minister... It's all a bit much.
Kiri Allan is a name that a few of my tangata tiriti friends are speculating being excited about.
FishmanPut your goddamned hand in the goddamned Box of Pain.Registered Userregular
Kiri Allen has heaps of mana / potential, but is still junior minister who has had much of her first term in cabinet disrupted by cancer treatment. She only got her first significant portfolio 6 months ago, so I doubt she has sufficient experience at the top level to get the requisite support for the leadership role at this time. Although it would be a pick that might invigorate the party base, so maybe dark horse status?
I think Hipkins is a smart play, as is Labor signaling they're all behind him (I don't for a second believe that National wouldn't shank Luxon the moment they think they can).
Seploni i don't really know anything about, but seconding your take Ahava - Godspeed to her.
FishmanPut your goddamned hand in the goddamned Box of Pain.Registered Userregular
Sepulani is fine. She's a party player who can follow the line and won't rock the boat.
She can be expected to not make any gaffes to embarrass the party, and help keep the caucus moving largely as one. Competent, without being exciting.
lonelyahavaCall me Ahava ~~She/Her~~Move to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
Yeah we're ok.
Storm drain was having a hard time keeping up, way got pretty close to my front door, but my irrigation channel to the rear storm drain worked. Only needed a few breaks in the rain for the drain to catch up.
Lots of folks in my area not quite as lucky. Few houses flooded, but not too bad. at least one family has to move out because their house is sliding off the hill.
Lots of water in our main shopping area in Wairau Valley. PaknSave completely flooded. Bunnings closed the store at like 6 last night and had everybody in the store, including customers, upstairs in the break room to avoid the flood and give food and water and dry off.
If you see videos of kids on boogie board surfing down a reserve, that's our local.
3 emergency centers open for evacuation, the pump station in Wairau Valley is completely stuffed, just gushing water and not working, so we're on a "try to not shower or do laundry" order. More rain is coming, so we're holding our breathe a bit.
And all that info I've gotten from my local city councilman, not from the mayor.
FishmanPut your goddamned hand in the goddamned Box of Pain.Registered Userregular
edited January 2023
Leadership is about having a direction, communicating your vision, taking action towards your goals, and assuming responsibility for the above.
When your whole persona is that you're a part-time mayor because the job doesn't need more effort than that, who is famously unavailable to reporters because you think the fourth estate is meritless, abdicates duties to underlings, and takes responsibility for nothing, yeah, a historic natural disaster is really going to show up your uselessness.
Leadership is about having a direction, communicating your vision, taking action towards your goals, and assuming responsibility for the above.
When your whole persona is that you're a part-time mayor because the job doesn't need more effort than that, who is famously unavailable to reporters because you think the fourth estate is meritless, abdicates duties to underlings, and takes responsibility for nothing, yeah, a historic natural disaster is really going to show up your uselessness.
The line about wanting to see how Wellington handles the next big earthquake....
Leadership is about having a direction, communicating your vision, taking action towards your goals, and assuming responsibility for the above.
When your whole persona is that you're a part-time mayor because the job doesn't need more effort than that, who is famously unavailable to reporters because you think the fourth estate is meritless, abdicates duties to underlings, and takes responsibility for nothing, yeah, a historic natural disaster is really going to show up your uselessness.
The line about wanting to see how Wellington handles the next big earthquake....
Ooofffff
Yeah, grief. That's a hell of a line to say. What the fucking fuck.
Honestly, even his "it's not my job to get out there with buckets"
Literally, he's not wrong, but it is his job to be out there with the metaphorical bucket asap.
Curious if this leads to some attempt to trigger a new mayoral election or otherwise get rid of him, because the tone I'm seeing is serious Rage - I can't see how he gets anything done when he's managed to turn himself into the locus of everyone's hate
Leadership is about having a direction, communicating your vision, taking action towards your goals, and assuming responsibility for the above.
When your whole persona is that you're a part-time mayor because the job doesn't need more effort than that, who is famously unavailable to reporters because you think the fourth estate is meritless, abdicates duties to underlings, and takes responsibility for nothing, yeah, a historic natural disaster is really going to show up your uselessness.
The line about wanting to see how Wellington handles the next big earthquake....
Ooofffff
I think Kim Hills immediate response to that in the interview itself was very illustrative. She very clearly had no patience whatsoever for his inability to answer anything, and took pains to continue to point it out.
Antoshka on
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lonelyahavaCall me Ahava ~~She/Her~~Move to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
had to do food shopping.
Went to Countdown at the local mall (not flooded).
every register was open, every express lane and self checkout. Line still snaked back from the registers, around the freezer section, back through the entire bread/cheese aisle and then along the back of the store in front of the milk.
All things considered though, line moved pretty well. nobody was rude or impatient, everybody was understanding.
Currently i've got blue skies and haven't seen any rain, but I know there's more coming tonight.
FishmanPut your goddamned hand in the goddamned Box of Pain.Registered Userregular
Not sure if it's weather related, but it looks like the Kaitake (largest of the Interislander ferries) has lost power off Red Rocks (Wellington South Coast/Cook Strait).
Visibility is shit here, but I've definitely seen worse wind/waves.
That's unbelievably cool. Your new name is cool guy. Let's have sex.
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lonelyahavaCall me Ahava ~~She/Her~~Move to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
We're only in a watch right now for thunderstorms until 9pm tonight and Heavy Rain until end of Sunday. Currently only a Watch, so it's got the potential for being BAD.
when they upgrade it to a Warning is when I go out and reassess my drainage again
Not sure if it's weather related, but it looks like the Kaitake (largest of the Interislander ferries) has lost power off Red Rocks (Wellington South Coast/Cook Strait).
Visibility is shit here, but I've definitely seen worse wind/waves.
Update: Interislander made it back in. Sounds a bit uncomfortable, but probably not even the worst crossing I've heard of.
Wayne Brown really going for the Most Hated Aucklander Of The Year Award nice and hard, with a slam dunk failure to understand optics.
Like good grief, i'm so sorry you all have to deal with this twit.
Unfortunately, people voted for him.
Also, it's still January, there's plenty of time for others to scoop the award.
People did, but not a huge percentage (Something like 16% of auckland's population), unless you're going for the argument of "the non voters voted for him by inaction": Which... yes and no? Auckland Mayoral race sounded like it was a real mess, and i've no idea how you fix that at all. There's both voter engagement issues, and also just getting people to step up and get voted for. (And, in some respects, i question the idea of a single mayor for a city as big and sprawling as auckland, but that's a whole different kettle of fish).
Eitherway, Wayne is proving a real disaster - I dunno if it's quite fair yet to say there's literal blood on his hands, but certainly, people are dead on his watch and his approach and response has been appalling.
As bad as he is, the reality is that it was nearly double the previous record for rain. Shit was going to be bad no matter who was in charge. ...A competent leader would have at least looked like they were doing something though.
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FishmanPut your goddamned hand in the goddamned Box of Pain.Registered Userregular
I don't know, if you fundamentally hold media in contempt and have no understanding of their role in public messaging or therefore even why that's something desirable in a civil defense situation... like, there's things that anyone halfway competent would have done, and WB didn't even achieve those.
He's so bad at it, that he can't even shift the blame on to public servants! That's, like, his whole thing!
He's not only bad at the things anyone with a shred of competence would be doing, he's also bad at the things he's supposed to be good at?
That's not merely incompetent, that's maliciously incompetent.
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And there's still not going to be any love for beneficiaries, because screw us getting to eat! Or similar
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Yeah, talking to the growers at the markets this morning, there was very much a "we are so fucked right now" attitude from most of them.
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better
bit.ly/2XQM1ke
Fuck off Albo.
You saw greens and independents get elected in massive numbers over this, this is more important than you trying to differentiate yourselves from the Greens.
Time for me to have 9 months of anxiety
Ardern stepping down as Prime Minister as of 7 Feb
Will remain MP until April to avoid the by election.
Robertson not standing for Party Leader
Election on 14 October.
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Good for her, but potentially brutal for the country. Her popularity as leader was probably the best chance Labour had of swinging the polls back in favour before the election.
Not sure who Labour put up there now.
Chippy is my best guess, but it'd be a shame to rob cabinet of one of the best current ministers.
National is in a right-swinging cycle under Luxon and personally I was hoping for a centrist switch to Willis prior to the election, but now I don't expect them to change so they can attack leadership and run strong/stable messaging. Ugh Overton window.
Unfortunately, as long as national are able to run a policy platform devoid of any details, I don't see them losing the next election. Just being against the bad things, and nebulously for things that are good (which might include good things for you, average voter) seems like it will get them there, so far (despite being absolutely nonsensical)
Fuck.
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I get why she did it, and I applaud her for knowing it was time.
But
Anxious!
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And while I have grand plans to get off the benefit, frankly, I'm struggling - I'm still recovering from COVID-19 months on, I'm just starting physio for my wrists, and I still need oodles of therapy to ungunk my brain so it stops eating itself
Life is a lot right now, and I've been bed ridden or close to a lot in the past month.
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This seems pretty huge, and completely out of the blue. Any clues as to what motivated this, or will this be a thing we won't know the behind the scenes for a while, if ever?
Bearing in mind, Jacinda Ardern has had to put her personal life on hold for political reasons. She wasn't able to marry Clarke Gayford in her first term for fear of be accused of 'politicising her personal life'. The massive landslide win in 2020 meant that she had a plurality that should allow her to get married. She still put it as far away from an election as she could, to remove all taint of politicisatian from the event... and then still had to cancel for political reasons owing to Delta/Omicron outbreaks and lockdowns.
Her daughter is about to start school. Another term basically means having to compromise the majority of her child's first entire decade of life for her political career.
It's not for nothing that these were basically the first things she acknowledged in her resignation announcement.
The past 2 terms have been extraordinarily difficult and tasking. Probably the most difficult domestic and international conditions to face NZ in at least 4 decades, probably more like twice that. I'm personally not surprised she's drained. It's been hard (Not helped by the lack of depth in the Labour Cabinet).
I respect her choice. I support her doing it. I just wish that the compeitent potential replacement bench wasn't a list maybe 3 people long and even that required head scratching.
Plus, like.
March 15th terrorist attack
Whakaari/White Island Eruption
Covid lockdowns/levels/traffic lights
Covid protests including the occupation of the lawn and the violence
Russia invading Ukraine
It has *not* been a quiet few years of being in charge. The emotional toll that even any one of those situations could take on a Leader. On top of the international attention from Covid handling in NZ, being a young millennial woman, being pregnant and giving birth while Prime Minister... It's all a bit much.
Kiri Allan is a name that a few of my tangata tiriti friends are speculating being excited about.
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Definitely one to watch in future, though.
Well
I guess if you're the only one to put your name forward, you kind of get it by default.
Not official official until tomorrow, but there we go
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Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better
bit.ly/2XQM1ke
Godspeed to her in this climate....
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Seploni i don't really know anything about, but seconding your take Ahava - Godspeed to her.
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She can be expected to not make any gaffes to embarrass the party, and help keep the caucus moving largely as one. Competent, without being exciting.
Also wow but people are pissed with Wayne Brown, and understandably so
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Storm drain was having a hard time keeping up, way got pretty close to my front door, but my irrigation channel to the rear storm drain worked. Only needed a few breaks in the rain for the drain to catch up.
Lots of folks in my area not quite as lucky. Few houses flooded, but not too bad. at least one family has to move out because their house is sliding off the hill.
Lots of water in our main shopping area in Wairau Valley. PaknSave completely flooded. Bunnings closed the store at like 6 last night and had everybody in the store, including customers, upstairs in the break room to avoid the flood and give food and water and dry off.
If you see videos of kids on boogie board surfing down a reserve, that's our local.
3 emergency centers open for evacuation, the pump station in Wairau Valley is completely stuffed, just gushing water and not working, so we're on a "try to not shower or do laundry" order. More rain is coming, so we're holding our breathe a bit.
And all that info I've gotten from my local city councilman, not from the mayor.
So yeah.
Angry is certainly a word you could use.
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When your whole persona is that you're a part-time mayor because the job doesn't need more effort than that, who is famously unavailable to reporters because you think the fourth estate is meritless, abdicates duties to underlings, and takes responsibility for nothing, yeah, a historic natural disaster is really going to show up your uselessness.
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better
bit.ly/2XQM1ke
The line about wanting to see how Wellington handles the next big earthquake....
Ooofffff
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Yeah, grief. That's a hell of a line to say. What the fucking fuck.
Honestly, even his "it's not my job to get out there with buckets"
Literally, he's not wrong, but it is his job to be out there with the metaphorical bucket asap.
Curious if this leads to some attempt to trigger a new mayoral election or otherwise get rid of him, because the tone I'm seeing is serious Rage - I can't see how he gets anything done when he's managed to turn himself into the locus of everyone's hate
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I think Kim Hills immediate response to that in the interview itself was very illustrative. She very clearly had no patience whatsoever for his inability to answer anything, and took pains to continue to point it out.
Went to Countdown at the local mall (not flooded).
every register was open, every express lane and self checkout. Line still snaked back from the registers, around the freezer section, back through the entire bread/cheese aisle and then along the back of the store in front of the milk.
All things considered though, line moved pretty well. nobody was rude or impatient, everybody was understanding.
Currently i've got blue skies and haven't seen any rain, but I know there's more coming tonight.
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Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better
bit.ly/2XQM1ke
Visibility is shit here, but I've definitely seen worse wind/waves.
when they upgrade it to a Warning is when I go out and reassess my drainage again
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Update: Interislander made it back in. Sounds a bit uncomfortable, but probably not even the worst crossing I've heard of.
Slips all over the Waikato and Bay of Plenty. Train derailed in Te Puke. House collapsed in Tauranga, but no injuries.
Rt 29 over the Kaimais into Tauranga is closed by slips.
At least 3 deaths and 1 still missing in auckland from the floods. More Heavy rain tonight and into Monday, maybe even tuesday.
Waka Kotahi is advising everybody that if you can stay home, do stay home.
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Wayne Brown really going for the Most Hated Aucklander Of The Year Award nice and hard, with a slam dunk failure to understand optics.
Like good grief, i'm so sorry you all have to deal with this twit.
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Unfortunately, people voted for him.
Also, it's still January, there's plenty of time for others to scoop the award.
People did, but not a huge percentage (Something like 16% of auckland's population), unless you're going for the argument of "the non voters voted for him by inaction": Which... yes and no? Auckland Mayoral race sounded like it was a real mess, and i've no idea how you fix that at all. There's both voter engagement issues, and also just getting people to step up and get voted for. (And, in some respects, i question the idea of a single mayor for a city as big and sprawling as auckland, but that's a whole different kettle of fish).
Eitherway, Wayne is proving a real disaster - I dunno if it's quite fair yet to say there's literal blood on his hands, but certainly, people are dead on his watch and his approach and response has been appalling.
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As bad as he is, the reality is that it was nearly double the previous record for rain. Shit was going to be bad no matter who was in charge. ...A competent leader would have at least looked like they were doing something though.
He's so bad at it, that he can't even shift the blame on to public servants! That's, like, his whole thing!
He's not only bad at the things anyone with a shred of competence would be doing, he's also bad at the things he's supposed to be good at?
That's not merely incompetent, that's maliciously incompetent.