A list of random predictions for tomorrow.

Albanese wins between 75-77 seats and forms Government... just
No speeches are made before 10pm as both parties sweat on results in WA
The 'teal wave' sees a win in Goldstein but Sharma, Frydenberg and Zimmerman all hold.
United Australia wins at least one seat in the Senate.
The ALP only just cling onto Hunter, prompting more thinkpieces about how Labor are losing blue collar voters.
Kristina Kenneally, sadly, wins Fowler

@Kid-Chocolate said in F off with the damn PC Brigade:

Starting to look a bit cartoonish.

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I think the “old school” Police mentality needed to change but they can only go so far.

Any cop who turns up to arrest someone looking like that is asking for a beating from some thug.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/us-canada/300592963/george-w-bush-called-the-iraq-war-unjustified-and-brutal--he-meant-ukraine

This is why you don't want someone this old running your country, they are prone to saying stupid shit. Bush is 75, Biden is a hard 79, Trump 75. I wouldn't let any of these three guys loose with my TV remotes let alone the keys to the most powerful nation in the world

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@booboo said in Black Lives Matter:

@Catogrande said in Black Lives Matter:

@booboo

Oli London or catgender person? I was referring to the former.

Oli London

Oli certainly has an interesting Wiki page and on the face of that I would say a complete piss taking troll and hats off compadre. But the radical surgery seems taking the piss taking a little far?

“Martinez's comments came just one day after Project Veritas released another video featuring Twitter senior engineer Siru Murugesan, who was caught saying Twitter "does not believe in free speech" and how a "capitalist" like Musk may come into conflict with Murugesan's fellow colleagues, who he described as being "socialist" and "commie as f---."”

Elon Musk calls out Twitter employee caught in Project Veritas video mocking his Asperger's Elon Musk calls out Twitter employee caught in Project Veritas video mocking his Asperger's

The right-wing guerilla news outlet had launched an #ExposeTwitter campaign against the tech giant.

@Tim Thanks - that was a great read.

This is a hedge fund manager I follow who has made the correct calls on the macro situation in the past couple of years.

May 15 The Fed Is Fuct... - AdventuresInCapitalism | Small Companies-Big Upside The Fed Is Fuct... - AdventuresInCapitalism | Small Companies-Big Upside

The Fed is fuct. They know it. We know it. They know we know it. They intend to continue the charade anyway. Despite centuries of study, no one really knows what causes inflation. While it tends to show up during periods with excessive money printing and large fiscal deficits, sometimes such...

Maybe this just got released on TikTok: Shopping

@Frank probably had a diary....

@MajorRage said in British Politics:

@MiketheSnow said in British Politics:

@MajorRage said in British Politics:

@MiketheSnow said in British Politics:

NSFW

I actually think Pie has gotten a bit boring & repetitive over the last two years. Mainly because

Half the media is actually Pie these days. He's had too much material to work with.

He's now a bit like an old man yelling at the clouds.

Well if he stops who else is going to call the Tories fluffybunnies and call (Prince) Andrew's actions for what they are?

No fucker

Apart from 3/4 of twitter, pretty much so every political commentator and of course, Piers Morgan!

Ultimately, I'm bored of the abuse and I want to see the solutions.

👏

Important to remember.

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@booboo When I saw the official photo of he for her birthday I thought that they'd taken it with her horses so she can hold on to them and stand up.

After a lifetime of unstinting service to the UK and Commonwealth she doesn't want to be seen in a wheelchair. Fair enough too.

Also quite pertinent dressed in black - mourning Phillip?

With 97% of votes counted, as expected and as in 2017 the last time there were Presidential elections in France, Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen go through to the last two. The near total collapse of the Gaullist and the Socialists continues

The surprise was perhaps the strong third place of the left-wing candidate Jean Melenchon.

Macron 27.35%, Le Pen 23.97%, Melenchon 21.7%

Melenchon did not endorse Macron but said four timeslast night that not a single vote from his supporters should go to Marine Le Pen.

Macron, despite his flaws and despite France being hit hard by inflation at the moment, is the favourite for re-election in two weeks time. He is absolutely dominating what's left of the centre ground of French politics.

It will be closer than 2017's 66-34 result, but barring a major surprise, Macron will serve a second term as President of France.

@toddy speaking to a cop recently and he said the 'imports' arent necessarily the ones doing these acts, but they have upped the game and pushing others around them into action.

POverty and covid has caused a perfect storm for gang recruiting though, add in hundreds of cops having to spend months policing covid borders instead of actual policing, and here we are.

For an ordinary person, the unprovoked assault probably would have been home-detention worthy depending on how badly injured the female victim was and her views at sentencing.

It's not uncommon for people to escape jail on fraud charges in the vicinity of $100k , especially if reparation is ordered or they have some ability to repay the money. Also (sadly) especially if they're white and middle class.

He’s dragging this role out, doesn’t want the play to end…

Mar 16  /  Entertainment Jussie Smollett Walks Out of Jail Pending Conviction Appeal Jussie Smollett Walks Out of Jail Pending Conviction Appeal

The “Empire” actor had served less than a week of his 150-day sentence for staging a fake hate crime against himself.

@mariner4life that will likely be one part of the changes, but will it be efficient? or what sort of cost gets passed on to us consumers? yet to be answered... but I bet prices aren't going down anytime soon.
More local production would be good - especially for stuff in NZ like building supplies - autonomy and control of supply end-to-end may outweigh per unit prices and margins. Like us sending logs to China for processing then buying back the various products.

Setting aside the war for a few seconds the stuff happening in the EU about energy plans is really interesting. As is the level of cooperation that seems to be building. Who knows how far that'll go, or will last, but some stuff that has been shaken may not return to status quo. For things like energy etc that could be great news longer term.

We've just ordered solar with a 10kWh battery on a 5.8kWh system & a diverter to use any excess power to heat our water. It's going on a SSW facing roof. I have a personal weather station and we've used a year's solar energy data to model our savings. We'll be energy self-sufficient from April-mid November and around 60% for the rest of the year.

The big issue is the return on your investment. I think that will be around 7.5 to 8 % which is payback in around 9 years - earlier if I go for an EV in the next few years.

“Manboobs, a gut, toothpick arms… you’re not healthy.”

@hooroo Pasted the whole article for those without a subscription

CANADA’S REPUTATION for impeccable politeness is taking a knocking. In recent weeks crowds of lorry-drivers and other Canadians protesting against covid-19 restrictions have blocked public highways and camped outside parliament in Ottawa. Many wave placards reading “Fuck Trudeau”, referring to their youthful prime minister, though the expletive often appears with a maple leaf as an asterisk. Nastier messages have cropped up, too. One or two protesters carried flags emblazoned with swastikas, perhaps to suggest, absurdly, that Canada’s covid restrictions are akin to Nazism.

The freedom convoy, as the hundreds of lorry-drivers call themselves, was sparked by the introduction of a covid vaccine mandate in January. This requires all truckers who enter Canada from the United States, as thousands of Canadian drivers do every day, either to be jabbed or to endure a two-week quarantine.

Although most Canadians think such rules are reasonable, the protesters have struck a chord with some. A vocal minority are fed up with burdensome pandemic restrictions. Many of the young, who have suffered job losses because of lockdowns designed to protect their elders, are especially grumpy. The truckers have received both verbal and monetary support from abroad. Donald Trump, Fox News and a cacophony of populists praise them. Well-wishers have crowdfunded their cause.

Faced with this ruckus, Canada’s government should have drawn a clear distinction between harmful acts and obnoxious or foolish words. Peaceful protests are fine; blocking crucial highways so that others cannot go about their business is not. Some of the truckers shut down a bridge over which 25% of Canada’s goods trade with the United States passes. The police took six days to remove them. Given that the protest blocked an estimated $350m of trade each day, this was needlessly slow.

The truckers are wrong about the vaccine mandate at the border. Such rules are a reasonable precaution to slow the spread of a deadly and highly infectious disease. Canada’s government is right to enforce them. But the truckers have every right to express their disagreement. A wise government would listen to them and respond politely, taking their complaints seriously and patiently explaining why covid restrictions, though onerous, are necessary for the time being.

Justin Trudeau has done the opposite. First, he refused to meet them. Then, seizing on the fact that a few of the protesters appear to be bigots, he attempted to put all of them outside the boundaries of reasonable debate by condemning “the anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, anti-black racism, homophobia and trans phobia that we’ve seen on display in Ottawa over the past number of days”. The police already have ample powers to quell disorder. Yet on February 14th Mr Trudeau invoked emergency powers under a 34-year-old law that had never been used before. It would allow the government to declare protests illegal and freeze the bank accounts of protesters without a court order.

Meanwhile, his Liberal government is mulling two worrying changes to Canada’s already illiberal hate-speech laws. One would allow Canada’s Human Rights Tribunal to impose large fines on those it deems to have used hateful language. It has in the past taken an expansive view of what counts as hateful, and defendants would enjoy fewer safeguards than they do under criminal law. The other proposed change would let individuals file legal complaints against people pre-emptively, if they fear that they may be about to say something hateful.

These are both terrible ideas. The Economist has long argued that free speech should be restricted only under exceptional circumstances, such as when the speaker intends to incite physical violence. Canada’s laws are already more restrictive than this, and the country’s illiberal left would like them to be still more so. Academics have been suspended or disciplined for writing that Canada is “not racist” or for holding gender-critical views. The proposed amendments would give illiberal activists legal tools to harass conservative religious folk, traditional feminists and many more besides, simply for holding views that the left finds offensive. Worse, it would allow some to be gagged before they speak.

Canada is not yet a rancorous or bitterly divided society. If Mr Trudeau wants to keep it that way, he should stop trying to police Canadians’ thoughts.

Leaders Justin Trudeau’s crackdown on protests could make things worse Justin Trudeau’s crackdown on protests could make things worse

By seeking to curb free speech, he will aggravate Canada’s divisions

It's so obvious they are full of shit but they don't care because nobody can do anything about it

@dogmeat said in The CCC And Cycleways (vs Light Rail):

@shark The counter argument is accurate for bus lanes but not so much cycle paths. Akl Transport do have 26 counters up around the city. Unsurprisingly cycle activity peaked during the 2020 Lvl 4 lockdown.

As a result that year was best ever with a 11% decrease in 2021. However there were still 3.2 million cycle movements recorded which sounds like a lot but averages out at a daily figure across the 26 sites of 337. In mitigation it includes some very quiet suburban and rural routes and quite a few sites were down for some of the year. The busiest street recorded 1,200 per day.

The one Hoskings famously targeted was Nelson St FFS. Riding down that quasi motorway without lane protection would require balls so big you wouldn't be able to get on a bike. It averages 524/day.

Well put 🙂

@jc said in Bank Lending/CCCFA:

@godder said in Bank Lending/CCCFA:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/127657685/ir-reports-sharp-drop-in-first-home-withdrawals-from-kiwisaver
This seems relevant, and is put squarely on the change to reduce 80% LVR exemptions as part of the banks' loan portfolios from 20% to 10%.

Mortgage advisers and property experts say the dip is not the result of changes to the Credit Contract and Consumer Finance Act (CCCFA), which have seen the proportion of home loan applications that are approved fall.

Instead, they blame Reserve Bank Te Pūtea Matua​ limits on how many low-deposit loans banks are allowed to make.

Obviously not the whole story, but no doubt it's some.

It's not an either/or thing. As you will know better than most, the legal framework that the government controls dictates what the RBNZ sets as banking regulations and operational parameters for themselves and the financial institutions. Then there are other, overlapping legal frameworks that dictate directly what the financial institutions are able / obliged to do. The financial institutions set in place processes and mechanisms that they use to make sure they comply with those laws that directly govern them as well as the operational directives from the RBNZ.

The CCCFA amendment didn't change any of the directives from the RBNZ, but it did set in place new expectations for how the banks executed their internal procedures. Effectively this means that the RBNZ says things like reduce your exposure to non-80% LVR loans to 10%. The process of bringing their loan book into compliance is subject to the new terms in the CCCFA amendment. If they look at a loan they are obliged to check for affordability.

And the directive to reduce the exemptions doesn't ban them, it just limits them: it is still within a bank's discretion to issue an 85%, 90% or even 100% LVR loan if the circumstances are right. But if they are having to do affordability checks on someone with a 20% or bigger deposit (which they are), imagine the due diligence they have to do on someone who only has a 10% deposit. Looking at it from their POV, if they can be deemed reckless by offering a $400k loan on a $500k property, there would need to be near certainty of affordability before they offered a $850k loan on a $1m property.

I also find it ironic that QE and the Support For Lending specifically put large volumes of cash onto banks' balance sheets. If they weren't supposed to be lending it out what on earth did the government and RBNZ think they were going to do with it? And why didn't they spread it more widely? As "picking winners" goes this is even worse than the lockdown windfalls for supermarkets IMO.

Absolutely fair, especially that last point about Funding for Lending, should have closed that months ago (and I did say that the article was not the whole story of the reduction in lending). One of the exemptions to the 80% LVR is new builds, so those aren't counted, but I assume they also don't make up a large portion of mortgages. Reducing from 20% to 10% of the loan book as high LVR mortgages obviously doesn't prevent that lending, but if a bank was already at or above 10%, does put an immediate stop to further lending above 80% LVR (other than new builds) until the bank gets down to the 10% limit.

Edit: https://stats.govt.nz/information-releases/property-transfer-statistics-december-2021-quarter

This also shows quite a reduction in actual property transfers of homes.

There were 41,460 property transfers involving a home in the December 2021 quarter (down 19 percent from the December 2020 quarter)

@kiwiwomble said in The Folau Factor:

@kirwan i hadn't heard it was done without his consent, surely he had the version he signed without the changes?

As I recall the ever so clever ARU chief executive had no appreciation of the nature and import of "entire agreement", which is one of the earliest lessons they teach at chief executive's kindy classes.

There was an attempt to add a "side agreement" after signing, the sort of thing that brings a broad smile to a solicitor's face, and a quiet but firm "No." 🙂

Oooops - late to the discussion I see, mistook this as a current rehash.

Oh, man.

Harvey Weinstein Could Go Free, as Appeals Court Casts Doubt on Conviction

gmaddaus  /  Dec 16, 2021 Harvey Weinstein Could Go Free, as Appeals Court Casts Doubt on Conviction Harvey Weinstein Could Go Free, as Appeals Court Casts Doubt on Conviction

An appeals court could allow Harvey Weinstein to go free, after raising serious concerns about the use of supporting evidence at trial.

Nov 27, 2021 Mark Butcher: Michael Vaughan Can Be A ‘Piers Morgan-Lite Twitter Personality’ But He Is ‘Not A Racist’ Mark Butcher: Michael Vaughan Can Be A ‘Piers Morgan-Lite Twitter Personality’ But He Is ‘Not A Racist’

Former England batter Mark Butcher, speaking on the Wisden Cricket Weekly Podcast, explained how, in his view, Michael Vaughan is “not a racist”.

If you can’t be bothered reading it the gist is exactly what I suspected. Vaughan can be a bit of a cock but he’s not racist.

I finally made good on my intent to explore some of the human interest angles of 9/11. I recently finished The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11 by Garrett M. Graff. As with most things 9/11, it's a tough read, but even tougher to put the book down.

@chimoaus said in Diabetes, Should Govt Do More?:

I think what irks me the most is how much choice and free will do we really have? We all like to think we can make well informed choices, but I can't help but feel it's not a level playing field.

These companies spend a small fortune engineering food that we can't resist, they then use a variety of marketing tricks to get us to buy, all the while spending a fortune influencing politicians, and the general public to avoid any heat coming back on them.

Bang on IMO - it's very difficult to resist everything forever, and genetics make it harder as some people just can't touch anything or they gain weight very quickly, while others don't have that problem.

@crucial said in NZ Judiciary:

@godder said in NZ Judiciary:

@crucial Terrible case that, family is loaded with pieces of work. For the defense lawyers, they just represent them to the best of their ability to ensure a fair process. Point out flaws in the prosecution case, ensure the law is applied correctly, and if guilty, provide a list of relevant mitigating factors (if any) for the judge prior to sentencing.

Yeah, I probably read too much into the reported defence comments but you are right. They do need to cover the bases or it gets opened up for appeal.

Your last sentence sums it up well.

And I might add that the Australian government's desire to equip itself with nuclear submarines will perversely make it harder, not easier to develop a domestic nuclear capability. The state of our education industry means we'll be flat out trying to upskill the thousands required for these submarines. That will leave very few who can ordinarily distinguish a neutron from a potato.

@victor-meldrew oh hell yeah, my only issue with it is the hypocrisy, that it's embraced and encouraged by everyone, and the not straight blokes occasionally do it too, but if a straight bloke as a judge said about getting tingles watching a female dance, or said about how she should wear less all the time, they'd probably be thrown out of the country.

@kirwan said in New Lynn knife attack:

@godder said in New Lynn knife attack:

@booboo said in New Lynn knife attack:

@godder said in New Lynn knife attack:

Grant says IPT clearly got it wrong in accepting the claim originally, and there should obviously be an offence in the antiterrorism legislation for planning attacks, so it's not like he's suggesting those parts were good, just that he's pleased that the law as written was complied with.

@kirwan said in New Lynn knife attack:

@godder said in New Lynn knife attack:

Grant says IPT clearly got it wrong in accepting the claim originally, and there should obviously be an offence in the antiterrorism legislation for planning attacks, so it's not like he's suggesting those parts were good, just that he's pleased that the law as written was complied with.

Which is not seeing the forest for the trees.

2021 ... where the lefty is defending Damian Grant and the conservative is disagreeing ... 🙂

🙂 Mistrust of authority is not exclusive to either the left or right wing, there is plenty of history of both being poorly treated by governments. Labour parties and trade unions often use red as a signature colour to represent the blood shed by workers in struggles for decent working conditions. Whatever I can say about modern NZ politics, nobody is suggesting sending out the police and/or army to attack the workers' strike/picket/march or anything like it.

Drama queens

Very Victor Hugo

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@nostrildamus said in Brexit:

@majorrage has there been a problem with GPS or did they reach an agreement with the EU over the satelites?
Regards discrimination, most of my foreign pals are outside London (and some are far north England) so that may be a factor.

Talk on that has gone quiet since the deal was signed, so I suspect this was included in that.

No doubt location is a factor, but I should point out, I'm not in London.

@rancid-schnitzel

I have read your accounts with interest - as you have experienced young crime is a demoralising and ugly facet of life and my observation, after a long time, is that there is no respite or improvement to be had. There are too many experts involved, who are not, and competing agendas.

This is another topical matter which resurfaced this week.

A liddle baby boy has been committed to stand trial for a double murder in suburban Brisbane on Australia Day. He was tearing through an intersection in a stolen Landcruiser, cleaned up a tow truck, rolled and wiped out a couple walking their dog. In their 30s, she was 6 months pregnant.

He “also faced a string of other charges” … dangerous driving while juiced up on some unnamed drug, burglary and wilful damage. I briefly saw some news footage of him appearing in court by video and he didn’t look much interested. The solicitor for the cheeky little funster “was instructed that he is profoundly sorry (that he got caught) but he would be disputing that he knew that, by his manner of driving, he would probably cause those deaths. That is an element required in Section 302 (1) aa blah blah blah”.

Those two things are reminders to the magistrate that she has an obligation to not unduly pressure the prisons budget and that the defendant’s solicitor planned to help her in achieving that.

He attempted to do a runner, in which he had prior experience because the early media reports stated he was “on bail” for vehicle theft (?) and evading police recently. There were other past charges reported in January but all of these disappeared from view when, within days, the police commissionerette¹ leaped to his cause demanding that the media not be horrid and judgemental because they must pretend that he has always been a good boy, a lovely boy.

The Law Society and others who are there to protect lovely grubby boys above all others jumped on her bandwagon citing the Youth Justice Act.

Mrs Chief Constable managed to waste everyone’s time on January 29 with her clichéd “we do need to have a conversation about this … make sure we can stop it from happening again … look at the whole history of the life of this child and what interventions took place … look at what we need to learn from“ – all that stuff they learn about at crime technical college, to spruik when they need to insult the intelligence of the general population who pay for it all!

Since January he has become an adult but he’ll still be cradled in the caring arms of “the system” as a liddle baby. That system requires the families of the victims to go and gets tuft, evidently.

¹ Why am I so dismissive? She is of a Croation family, from the tropical Tablelands - we therefore expected a tough minded, unequivocal leader. She is not. Carroll is only marginally better than her predecessor who was woeful, insipid. I knew the previous bloke, Bob Atkinson, he was a leader and not a show pony, he kept the troops' minds on the job, not distracted by stupid ministers and effete judges.

@gt12 It gets a bit scary. I can give you some clues from my own experiences.

Metal driveway? Flattish?

Sewerage. How much land you got? Enough for a decent dispersal field? You talking 3 bed?

Power and trenching is expensive but if you get that right the driveway drainage gets done at the same time.

Got power at the top of the drive? Or nearby? That costs a bit if you need your own "box". Had a friend go off grid because it was cheaper and better.

Water is easy. Tanks aren't cheap but your storage requirements will depend on how many teenage kids you will have there. Kidding, more about the roof and runoff and where you are for rainfall figures. Always have excess storage!

You have to do all of that for a new build anyway.

@paekakboyz said in Hong Kong:

@majorrage bro that is really sad to hear, also terrifying 😞

I keep wondering how many people will leave, and how many want to but can't. Haven't seen as much about the business side of things. Like will big global companies leave or ?

Business won't leave. It's still a great access point and (as far as I've seen anyway) the best place to live in China. Shanghai is an incredible vibrant city, but it's no world city. Beijing isn't even comparable.

Don't get me wrong, both are incredible, massive, fast, exciting cities. But if you had to choose to live in one of them or Hong Kong, 99 out of 100 people would choose Hong Kong.

Hence, given its' access to the colossal economic powerhouse of China, it will be fine. The percentage of gweilo though will (and has) diminish.

Happy Birthday, Phil.

The great news is you miss all the mawkish celebrations!

RIP