That's your National governments for you, eh voters?

Diary of the last eleven hours

6.09am

Only person in the country awake right now wanting to know what the number one song was 50 years ago today is probably me.

Pinocchio by Maria Dallas. Wasn’t really a keeper, even for one week, tbh.

You have to go all the way down to number 8 to find a good one: Groovin With Mr Bloe. Top song!

30 years later they would be putting it in a Saatchi and Saatchi ad to promote Saatchi and Saatchi and flying like geese. 

There's a whole lot of good stuff like this to be discovered or remembered at Flavour of NZ. Truly, you’ll thank me later.

For example: look what was happening at the beginning of 1965

The Secretary of the Atomic Energy Committee, J T O'Leary, announced that New Zealand's first atomic power station would probably be built on the Kaipara Harbour shoreline. Planning and Building would take seven years and the 1000 megawatt plant would be able to supply two thirds of North Island electricity.

That's your National governments for you, eh voters? All those promises and do they ever come true? Also, talk about reduced expectations. These days all they're prepared to offer the north is roads and bridges. Where’s our Atomic Power plant, eh?

7.40am

It's possible I'm the only person who has gone on Morning Report with no real thought in mind about what I'm going to say. They ring you up and ask if you'd like to talk about [insert topic]. You may or may not have an opinion or an insight about  [insert topic], but you politely say what time, and then wait to see what comes into your mind. 

I'm not saying that's what's going on with Cameron Bagrie this morning, but it feels a bit like it might be.

He’s come on to say the government's Covid-19 approach has dug a deep economic hole. I’m assuming he’s brought implements and a diagram to show us the way back up out of, but we don't seem to be quite getting to that.

He suggests we may have gone too hard, that if we compare our second quarter numbers  to Australia, one might conclude we kneecapped ourselves. 

Except, surely, the bit where things have gone awfully wrong in Victoria? Cameron knows what you might be thinking. He says leave aside Victoria, which is quite the atomic power plant of a notion.

How was the Titanic, leaving aside the iceberg? How was the war, leaving aside the bombs?

It feels a bit like the old joke about the tourists asking the farmer how to get to Dublin: Well, I wouldn't be starting from here.

How valid is it to compare our two cases as though they’re the same? Tourism’s proportionate contribution to our economy is something like double Australia's, so a closed border is obviously going to be a bigger thud for us than them.

And we went hard early because we had zero to no choice. Our R number was going up way faster than anything than a full lockdown could contain at that point. Now we’re better equipped to deal with such a thing, but that's how we are now, not how we were then.

He’s worried a skill shortage is pulling down our productivity and our growth rate, and how do we fix that? I can only think of two solutions: get our people upskilled as fast as we can or open up the borders for skilled people. Cameron doesn’t seem to be all that keen on borders that aren't sealed pretty tight, so does that mean let’s get going on the upskilling? Sounds like a plan.

He lands somewhere on the point that even though it means a lot of debt headache ahead, the government should be super gutsy about spending plenty of money and fair enough, glad we’re on the same page after all that.

He also sees some fault in the undue confidence we carried down to  the false dawn of level 1 and fair call.

But where does that leave us? Is the most useful thing now to recognise that the false dawn has shown us what's necessary and now we know what we need to do if we want a level 1 that lasts?

He seems to  have misgivings about the refuseniks making it an impossible dream, but that's our challenge isn't it: to tackle the doubters, carry them along, make the necessary adaptations, make the best of what we've got? Adapt and start living in new ways? Sounds like  a plan.

Shall we spitball some ideas? Why not?

Problem1: CBD offices emptying out

Problem 2: CBD shops suffering because of emptying out

Problem 3 since forever ago: affordability of housing

My idea: get the government to spend billions on converting CBD office space to affordable accommodation. Do not be looking for a commercial return on the investment. The return will be measured in social good. Gift it to nonprofits to run them, if that helps.

Loopy? Too bad, I'm just getting started. 

Problem 1: Universities struggling for money

Problem 2: Provincial towns struggling for economic activity.

My idea: Make our universities highly virtual, let third parties set up accommodation and study halls in small towns where students come together to follow the virtual  tuition, and rent and fees are way more affordable.

Even more loopy? Too bad, I'm going to keep typing these things as they come into my head. Please subscribe and tell your friends.

8.50am

Jami Lee Ross is on the radio being Jami-Lee Ross, and getting comprehensively Susied. He wants her to try his sleazy conniving oily word soup of: alternative point of view and case fatality rates and nowhere near as high as we were first told but she ain’t buying. Also he does some heinous backbiting about his old party, and you just know there's going to be more of this stuff.

9.15am

Wondering how much heinous backbiting is going on in the National Party as the numbers bob along at levels last seen when Michelle Boag did so marvellously well for Bill English in the ‘02 election. Candidates leaving the name of their party out of their marketing material! Crikey.

How deep does the rancour go, I wonder, as I look more carefully at the new National Party campaign commercial. Shall we get a bit forensic? Next slide please.

What we are asked to see here is a strong team plus Gerry Brownlee, and at first blush all is well: lots of almost human characters in blue, just like in Avatar.

But hang on, what’s this?

Could it be code? Could someone disaffected be doing a bit of snark?

A bit of revisionism? A bit of running-dog whistle? I don't think you need to be a Kremlinologist to pick up the messages.

11.05am

Composing my reply to an online poll: 

Have your say: should New Zealand change its name to Aotearoa?

Here is my say: you bet, let’s do it.

Have your say: why?

Aside from all the very good reasons: web page dropdowns. Imagine next time you’re connecting yourself to the supply chain in Guangzhou, and you're filling out the address field. How much sooner will you be plugging in the credit card number if you only have to go to ‘A’ in the dropdown list? Time’s money, and we’ve got a lot of work to do to catch Aussie back up in productivity, according to the radio  this morning.

4.05pm

You write about a song, next thing you know you're playing it. Currently playing: Groovin With Mr Boe.

It became a hit because, unwittingly, BBC Radio in the UK played the wrong side of a single from the US band Wind, and Stephen James of Dick James Music heard it. He liked it so much he wanted to release it in the UK, but couldn't get the rights.

So he made his own version using various musicians who were working for DJM including Elton John on piano. But he didn’t like that version so he made another, with Zack Laurence replacing Elton John.

The tune reached number 2 in the UK Singles Chart in June of 1970. Elton John went on to make several hits for Dick James Music.

The important thing in life is to keep trying new things.