The tribal factor

Government concedes it can’t deliver on coalition commitment to repeal controversial law

The headline of the day shows the government of the day does not govern.

The tribal factor usurps the supposed government of New Zealand having implemented tribal rule based upon your ancestry in co-governance at local council level.  Seems Luxon and co are doing the level best not to correct this country's course.

And Nats continue to watch polls plummet as tribal interests infest governance at all levels.

Looking forward to cheaper house builds.

So Luxo has signed us up to trading with the sub-continent.

Recent investigations on my part shows that their building code (IS 875) evolved from the British Standard (India was all British in the days of the Raj, speaking and understanding English very well).  

Very similar in intent and application to our building standard of AS/NZS 1170 series (we've partnered with Oz).  And tried to have both the British standard and the Yank ASCE series for content.

So they understand the standards-based processes involved, have a similar range of climate extremes and have been doing the build business for 300+ years.

So, hopefully in this now tariff-free nirvana of the near future, one could expect that engineers, architects and others that seriously inflate our build costs might hang their shingles at much reduced in providing services to NZ.

One wonders how that might go down in the totally risk-averse closed-shop MBIE / BRANZ / local council / Worksafe ticket-clipping world?  Or "for your own good" would more road cones be required?

And one for Mr. Penk - Housing Minister.  Would there still be room for DIY builds using such engineering services from the sub-continent?  Although I believe there is a DIY avenue in law, but the utterly risk-averse councils do everything possible to stop such a train of thought.

I sincerely hope that in the long-term such competition does arrive via the FTA and reduce build costs.

The dragon flexes

The dragon flexes yet again.

Xi warns the South Pacific that he soon aims to lob a nuke-capable brick south of the Equator.

Just showing Luxo, Albo and Modi his tentative reach.  Doesn't need to take his flotillas down to visit or lay siege to their respective ports.   

A couple of dirty bombs into Oz or NZ cities would light up our 'benign region'* and render all manner of defence intentions thereof utterly useless.  Our so-called allies being USA and the EU would do nothing, too scared to respond and initiate Apocalypse Now.

Like his tanks in Tienanmen Square displayed a year or two ago, the world knows he's the real boss.

* a past utterance from the Sandringham harridan long proven otherwise to be totally false

More virtue-signalling for Mr. Luxon to fix

Not so long ago when Mr. Luxon was selling his vision for your vote he said National would excise the pidgin infesting government literature.  Understood by many to be along the lines of "English language first" in all public-facing documentation.  

After all, English is the language of the real world.

Recently I've had cause to interact with the IRD website as tax return filing day fast approaches this week.  It is a hotchpot of English and virtue signalling pidgin.  Every label has to be read twice to ensure that we're on the correct section.  And the front page is awash with the emboldened pidgin above the small-fonted English labelling.

They've provided an "English only" button.  Good one might think, only it does not work.  The pidgin remains embedded, infesting every page.  An easily fixed, but total implementation failure.

Meanwhile my local council (FNDC) follows the same process.  One might think we live in a country called Hairy Rower and we all utter pidgin in our daily lives.  Maybe is is because of a government directive or as is suspected, a lack thereof.

As promised in the pre-election pitches, when are you going to fix such websites, Mr. Luxon?

idea from a Good Oil General Debate comment today

Co-governance works in Far North. Not!

arrangements and practices that the department itself should have managed better over a sustained period

the review confirmed that, since at least 2021, the booking systems for the campgrounds had operated outside department-controlled systems and the revenue collected from campers had been retained by Ngāti Kuri, rather than being paid into a Crown bank account

issues are now the subject of an external investigation, with DoC estimating the Ngāti Kuri Trust Board owes $1.8 million in “campsite revenue”

Department of Conservation (DoC) has acknowledged it failed to properly oversee the management of three Far North campgrounds for years

Co-governance on steroids.  A fine example!

Like past actions in the Urerewa, it means we will do the governance, keep the cash readies.  You, the ever-suffering coloniser taxpayer can maintain and pay for any upkeep.

Obscene how this DOC/iwi rort has been going on for five years or more.  No doubt the local FNDC and NRC councils also contribute my hard-earnt property taxes to enable this operation.

via Granny