This is just a summary of a few issues going down around NZ right now.
1. ) It's not a corporation Luxon and it's okay to speak Te Reo.
Over at BHN there's talk how Luxon cannot pronounce Kāinga Ora and refers to it as KO - but also the sleight of hand concerning Luxon's sales pitch focused on "financial sustainability" - and what that might really mean?
Matthew Tukaki was a guest yesterday and pointed out that Kāinga Ora is meant to be an organisation in the business of supporting the most vulnerable of New Zealanders and how Luxon has lost that original Michael Joseph Savage intent at the heart of all of this.
The assets belong to the people and they sit on our books...so transferring them off our books in a crony fire sale but still paying the rent for them seemed daft.
There was mention also about a long history of Air New Zealand bail outs - and there was chat about how there is not enough talk in media - about how the Debt of $10 Billion sits beside Asset values of $25 Billion.
2.) Bill English is compromised and we need better regulations - not less.
Over at Comrade Bomber's working group podcast - there is broad agreement - apart from arch libertarian free market freak - Damien Grant ( Atlas Network NZ Initiative member - Waterstone Insolvency ) - that Sir Bill was compromised and not independent and some media had no business calling him independent.
Bill English even had the temerity to plug for "social investment" in his report when that's such a self interested spin off.
Guests Sue Bradford and Simon Wilson thought this hatchet job on Kāinga Ora ( pronounced Key Anga Ora by Bomber ) was the march to privatisation - and there was an interesting slug match between Wilson and Damien Free Market Forever Grant over housing.
Damien Grant says it is illegal to build a cheap house in NZ so we need to get rid of all regulations - while Wilson says the free market is naturally inclined to build where the biggest profits are at the top of the market - which is what English and Key discovered before 2017. Nobody was building the affordable houses and that is where we needed Kāinga Ora to step in.
Wilson won by stating we need better regulations while Damien Grant stuck with less regulations...like a fixated rigid dogmatic ideologue.
3. ) Liz Gunn guilty and convicted of assault.
Oliver Sean Plunket says there is no way that was assault - but then again Oliver is not even a lawyer let alone a judge so what would he know?
Over at BHN they reckon it was assault and the judge got it right - and for sure Gunn was in the face of the Security woman trying to do her job and would not allow her to address the cameraman, getting in the way and clutching her left upper arm.
We should not give Gunn too much oxygen so let's move right on.
4.) Gary Judd is Seymour's Uncle in Law and the story of the private road which must be named with a Māori name.
Oliver Sean Plunket called out into the darkness on the Platform this morning - please call me Gary - please - and then the phone rang and it was Gary - the Platform's resident legal advice KC and Seymour's Uncle in Law.
Oliver was scowling how Mark Mitchell had been criticised for not sacking the "wokester" Police Commissioner Andy Coster - cos low IQ, right wing nutcases think it's all Andy's fault that there is still crime going on.
Uncle Gary in Law ( lol ) said look it would take Luxon to get get rid of "the wokester" and he'd need all of cabinet to agree - and they would have to go to Cindy the Governor General - which is not going to happen any time soon lol.
Foiled again Oliver thanked Uncle Gary but before he ran away - Uncle Gary told Oliver he had not heard back about his complaint about tikanga - that he made to a regulations committee chaired by David Parker. Well - Oliver growled that the three National MPs should be challenging Parker as apparently a few fortnights have passed and Uncle Gary's complaint has not made the agenda and he has heard nothing back yet lol.
There's a big story brewing about a guy in Wellington who wants to name a private road after himself or something - and how the council consulted iwi and they want it named with a Māori name.
Apparently the Platform will be scratching it's allegedly racist eyeballs out over this story tomorrow.
5. ) Mike King's "I am Hope" and Gumboot Friday to get $24 Million over four years
TVNZ 1 News are reporting Mike King has finally skipped the queue and been granted the cash. The Government claimed that every $1 invested in I Am Hope resulted in a social return to New Zealand of $5.70. Okey...
Mike King said as a Government contractor the organisation would be "the most transparent" and "every cent" would go towards counselling services, not himself or the foundation itself.
"This is for the kids," he said as several flying pigs flew past my window and I knew it was time to stop typing.
G News - Around the Traps
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