Posts by Moz
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Speaker: Low-quality language on immigration, in reply to Harkanwal Singh,
when we judge humans by quality, I think we all know where that leads.
It's in a way worse, because we know that we have no way to accurately judge quality. Fraudsters are the obvious example, often people think they're excellent for years until they get discovered we find out they've been living a lie all this time. If we had some kind of "human quality measurement tool" immigrants would be well down the list of places to use it. Politicians spring to mind as good test subjects.
The problem of (mis)use of bad measurements sort of flows from that and is sort of dependent on it.
My preference is to first accept immigrants we desperately need (the "really really skilled immigrant" category), then those we have an obligation to (former colonies in the Pacific, those we've invaded), then those with connections here (family reunion), then refugees. But I think using immigration to cover up problems with the government's economic theories is a disaster. Per capita GDP is the least awful of the measures they use, but GDP is almost as problematic as "immigrant quality" (see, I dunno, Marilyn Waring's "Counting for Nothing" from back in the 1970s as one example).
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I keep thinking this so I have to say it: the combination of the label "Golden Dawn" and politics, especially the politics of immigration, is an unfortunate one.
Google is not your friend here: https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=golden+dawn
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Hard News: The new establishment, in reply to Craig Young,
their descendants are proving true to their genetic heritage and behaving in a similar manner
I think it's cultural heritage rather than genetic. Australia was set up by a bunch of toffs on the basis that "I stole it, it's mine now" (seriously, look at Torrens Title) and anything else they could get away with. They also brought actual criminals along, presumably in the hope that they'd look better by comparison.
I think that has produced a culture of "get away with anything you can" and disrespect for the rule of law. Not primarily obeying the law, but about seeing the law as important and something that's a product of the people working together to produce a decent society. Australia worships fraudsters and thieves (Alan Bond, Kerry Stokes, Ned Kelly) as much as sportspeople (the cult of Bradman!), with intellectuals and lawmakers way down the list. Aotearoa has David Lange at the Oxford Union speaking powerfully and passionately about nuclear weapons. Australia has Rhodes Scholar Tony Abbott completely lost for words. Things are different here.
Aotearoa isn't perfect, but geez there are things in Australia that have to be seen to be believed. You think the terrorism raids on Tuhoe were bad, read up about "The Intervention" (don't blame me if you start crying when you read that). It's not a civil war if one side isn't fighting, you know.
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Hard News: The new establishment, in reply to Craig Young,
Moz, you do realise that at the rate Oz is going, we’ll probably be legislating for legal recognition of polyamory by the time...
I wish.
Australia... sigh. Morals, laws, ethics... don't come here for those.
I just did a feedback form for my bank and the question "would you recommend BankWest to your friends" got a 100 word comment along the lines of
I'm not even willing to admit to using BankWest to my friends, let alone suggest that they involve themselves with the criminal cartel that owns BankWest. I am balancing my dislike of the paperwork and cost involved with changing banks against the moral and legal horror that is your parent company.
Bankwest is owned by the Commonwealth Bank who have regular criminal problems which they claim are due to incompetence rather than malice. (links are representative rather than exhaustive)
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Hard News: A thundering clash of, in reply to mark taslov,
Few - I suppose - would have found the tenancy tribunal or any other Government department as dogged and efficiently hostile as WINZ/MSD in its holding to account.
My point was more that the bureaucrazy doesn't just trip up the poor, it trips up the PM and everyone in between too. I don't think any of us could cope with an "are you a law-abiding citizen" audit.
The basic principle of British law is that everyone is guilty, the question is who should be prosecuted.
One consequence is that anyone who falls foul of the legal system can be legally persecuted via investigation. It's technically not punishment, but after the third or fourth time the Police turn up to your workplace and take you away to "assist with inquiries" your employer is likely to lose interest in you. Ditto turning up to court, complying with tax audits and so on. All legal, no prosecution required. In the worst instance you get David Bain and Aurthur Allen Thomas.
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Hard News: The new establishment, in reply to Craig Young,
Apparently, according to Newshub this evening, there's a hefty female gender gap tilt that favours Jacinda Ardern.
And we can pay her less, too. Don't forget that :)
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Hard News: A thundering clash of, in reply to mark taslov,
As many who’ve been on benefits know; the system is designed to hold one accountable to every little detail
In theory it's just as bad for those not on benefits, the complexity of what counts as income, which bond has to be deposited where, who exactly is living in the house (and who has to be told that), what happens when people don't pay but promise to pay in the future, all that stuff is a nightmare if you try to "do the right thing".
If you want to go down a bureaucratic rabbit hole never to be seen again, just sit down and work out where the bond goes in a rented share house. Bob and Sam sign the lease an pay bond, which goes to the official bond people. Chris moves in to one room, paying bond to Bob and Sam. It's likely that has to be reported to the property manager and the tax office, but what about Chris's bond - does that go to the bond officials? Or does it "replace" some of the bond Sam and Bob paid? But over summer Chris takes off and sub-lets their room to Michel, who pays a couple of weeks rent as a deposit/bond, rather than the full four week bond because they're only living there for a month. What, exactly, is supposed to be done with that money?
You can keep playing this game with everything from rent to utility bills to food kitty. It gets much more exciting when someone pays rent late and the delays crosses the end of financial year. But it is easy to spend hundreds of hours researching and dealing with bureaucrats, then even more time trying to untangle things when they disagree with you or each other.
To make things even more fun, own the house and rent out rooms. Now you're the landlord *and* a housemate, so you're legally liable for more things and the finances get significantly more complex if you want to do the right thing.
Or you can just do what everyone else does, pocket the money and STFU.
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Hard News: A thundering clash of, in reply to izogi,
I totally get it if she didn't want this to step up to a whole new level where she was having a messy family argument in front of the public.
That was my thought. She was going to end up being forced to either accept whatever rumours media chose to publish and hope that the source eventually made themselves so untrustworthy the stories stopped (how long would that take?), or attack the source. She'd only have to do the latter once to look like a complete arsehole, and the story after that would be anonymous for very obvious reasons.
One other possibility is that the father didn't want to admit to his whanau that he wasn't paying/couldn't pay, so he told those people that he was helping her. Whether he was or not, it's vanishingly unlikely that either of them would be able to prove it 20 years later. I've also talked to men who think "$50 or $100 every now and then" is a generous level of child support. Sure it helps, just like men help by washing the dishes sometimes. You don't want to litigate that one either :)
There's not a win position for her, pretty much from last week.
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Hard News: Metiria's Problem, in reply to ,
Let’s not deluded our selves into believing that this had nothing to do with the Green Party wanting to raise its prospects of getting there hands on the levers of power. Am I wrong ?
You do realise that The Greens are a political party, I assume? The entire point of political parties is to get their hands on the levers of power. I think it's good that that happens, because traditionally political power has changed hands through the death of the incumbent. Voting is so much nicer.
Power isn't the problem, power is inevitable. If you can see that it's much easier to simply talk about who should have it. If not, sing out and we could have that discussion instead.
What matters is what people do with the power, and that comes down to why they want it. I think The Greens are the least awful party in many ways, because for the most part their politicians want to make things better in a way that I agree with.
Other parties want to "make things better" in ways that I think are horrible. Some want to dismantle the state and let money and military might rule, others want a neo-feudal system of extracting resources from the poor to support a small caste of extremely rich people. The Greens at least seem to think that being poor is unfortunate and shouldn't be forced on people.
So I think you're right, but I fear that your underlying beliefs about politics might be self-defeating.
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Hard News: Metiria's Problem, in reply to Neil,
Shaw is now left having rejected the advice of two of MPs - forcing them into exile - when they were right
I see it more as Shaw reacted to an ultimatum from a couple of whiners by saying "sure, take your bat and ball" and they did. They were only right if they knew then what we might learn tomorrow about why exactly she resigned. But unless they told Shaw that then , they were just being whiners.
I prefer to decide my vote on political reasons. This whole "Maori woman confesses to breaking the law 20 years ago, forced to resign. White man caught breaking the law last year, promoted to PM" thing sticks in my craw.