Ben Thomas
@BenThomasNZ
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PR person and NZ's unrivalled no. 1 craft beer tweeter
Auckland
Joined November 2015
Crazy idea, make your party a viable coalition partner so u can get into govt and change it back
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This is not an actual thing
Tākuta Ferris says the Governor General should refuse to sign the Marine and Coastal Area bill
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Feels like an appropriate time to remind everyone of Jim Bolger's excellent Ninth Floor interview with Guyon Espiner
open.spotify.com
The 9th Floor · Episode
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Superb obit by Audrey Young (which screenshot is from) here. RIP James Bolger
nzherald.co.nz
He had been undergoing dialysis since kidney failure last year.
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I first met Mr Bolger maybe 15 years ago, and unlike other retired politicians who led off with war stories or instinctual glad-handing, he immediately starting asking about the details of news clippings pinned on my office noticeboard
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Three decades or so on it’s hard to imagine the political courage it took for Jim Bolger to begin the comprehensive historic Treaty settlement process in the 1990s
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I don't know what's wrong with this guy. We haven't weighed in on Māori wards at all. Two reasons for that. 1. No strong views on it. 2. Other priorities, like enabling stronger rangatiratanga on Māori land.
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Arena Williams & Steve Abel in particular totally dismantling the bill clause by clause, though, perhaps because of the opportunistic move the opposition MPs seem much more across the detail than the minister in the chair
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One thing TPM has achieved is create such a distraction that the govt has moved the Marine and Coastal Area Amendment Bill committee of the whole House stage up to no 2 on the Order Paper and seems to be trying to blast it through while media & opposition are elsewhere
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When I first read this headline I thought the MP was $133k in the hole to Parliamentary Services so her staff did a whip-around
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Tfw when you have a unique investment approach of acquiring 100 New Zealand businesses to run for 100 years, prioritising cultural connection and stability over short-term profit
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Couldn’t figure out if this was good (people are tired of internet’s fragmented realities) or bad (outsourcing authority to mysterious black box homework machines) until I saw the thread of people arguing to persuade grok that RATM was/wasn’t “anti-establishment”
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One of the biggest appeals of AI is the “grok is this true” appeal to some kind of arbiter or referee for not even the truth, but just like a working agreed position
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Does the investment: - represent a share of a company that makes a profit? - produce goods or services? - pay interest or royalties? - pay you a dividend? - pay you rental income? If no, then you shouldn't be surprised your investment has gone to zero. https://t.co/TeaOw8rVrG
Can't even begin to comprehend how multi billion coins went to literal ZERO on the biggest crypto exchange Something VERY SERIOUS happened, we need to know the MMs and funds that got carried out
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Lots of Ls ofc, but I think 16/37 territorial councils voting to retain might be more than I would have guessed? I’m no psephologist though, can someone tell me if say Kapiti District voting to keep them is a surprise?
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Interesting chart of (non final) voting on Māori wards. Among the six councils where Maori wards were previously rejected in referendums, Whakatāne and Palmerston North have flipped to Yes and will keep them. % in favour for the others also higher than the earlier referendums
Waikato is the only district result left now (and based on the trend, you'd have to assume it'll be a vote to remove its Māori ward). Hamilton City and the Far North have both voted to keep their wards so that total is now 16.
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Taking a break from helpfully answering blue checks’ good faith questions about the foreshore legislation to let my notifications crack a ton
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