It just occurred to me that most people alive in Aotearoa today will live to see 3 English monarchs serve as NZ Head of State. Some kiwis born since February 1952 only ever saw one. I wonder how having 2 changes of monarch might change how people feel about the prospects of electing one of our own as Head of State?
Idly wondering if making the Governor-General an elected position, while still formally reporting to the Crown of England, might satisfy both monarchists and republicans?
@strypey Not sure what the point of electing the GG would be ... Were you elected because you ran on a platform of striking down everything the government attempts to enact? What would that mean?
I think HoS should be appointed by a 75%+1 of Parliament, with the threat that Parliament dissolves if a new GG cannot be appointed within 90 days of the nominal end of the previous GG's term.
That should ensure the appointee is suitably acceptable to everyone.
The NatACT government's Fast Track legislation takes final decisions over resource management consents away from regional councils, and hands them to government ministers. Think Big 2.0?
I look forward to strong non-partisan resistance from all the people who supposedly objected to Three Waters not because it was Labour policy, but because they thought it gave central government too much control over what were rightly local decisions.
Memo to eugenics death cultist David Seymour: The pandemic has not "largely subsided" and we reserve the right to keep kids home from schools where the risk management protocols are unacceptably low.
Normalise masking and fund air filtration, you ghoul.
The US forked British Monarchy™ in 1776, but froze the dev branch with Constitution 1.0, so didn't bother to backport any of the subsequent bugfixes and security patches (1831, 1918, 1938, etc.) from the main British branch.
Anyway, you've got a bunch of British Monarchy™ users who instinctively want to tug the forelock but don't have anyone to tug it at and it upsets them because homebrew is no good—it takes 700 years of inbreeding to roll your own nobility.
@cstross Oh I think you under-estimate the speed-run to inbred moronarchy they've got going here. Chances of Donald Trump becoming Eternal Benefactor of the Imperial United States of America are growing by the day.
I have a question: When you connect to an unsecured network, you get a warning that messages (e.g. login information) could be intercepted. So it's recommended that you use a VPN.
But doesn't that mean that your VPN login credentials could be intercepted?
@heiglandreas@skyglowberlin All you've done in that case is changed 'someone nearby might know my DNS query' to 'the VPN provider definitely knows my DNS query'. If that's something that worries you you can try DNS-over-HTTPS. If you're watching porn in public it probably doesn't though. :)
@heiglandreas@skyglowberlin Hmmm, and by the same logic, using DNS-over-HTTPS just changes 'VPN provider definitely knows my DNS query' to 'Mozilla definitely knows my DNS query'.
Holy cow. This battery-powered SUV from Chinese manufacturer Li Mega has a 102 kWh battery (range of around 600 km (372 miles) and has been demonstrated charging from 10% to 80% in under 11 mins, hitting 521 kW peak.
Wait. This could be really big news. BYD has just trademarked the name Dolphin Mini (also known as the BYD Seagull) in Australia.
This could very well mean we'll get these decent range, super affordable little EVs in New Zealand soon! 😯
@KiwiEV@Rjdlandscapes@AnneleiseHall You'd like to think so, but if you look at literally everything else the NAFT government has done, it doesn't seem likely to me that they'll be going out of their way to make petrol cars less attractive.
They'll just give some half-arsed reason like "we promised to save Kiwis cost of living so we can't put this tax up for hardworking families" or "making these changes in not-Waka Kotahi would be a waste of taxpayer money".
"As one famous Australian constitutional lawyer said, and it remains the case even under MMP... NZ is an Executive paradise. The sovereignty of Parliament in NZ - which means Parliament can pass any law it likes - is actually the sovereignty of the Executive, not of the Parliament. And that is why so many Opposition MPs have such a frustrating life, because they have very little influence over anything."
@thomasbeagle@strypey Disobeying the whip is a great way to ensure you don't get selected to be a candidate for the next election, making it somewhat of a nuclear option. MPs in Australia are little freer in some cases because the preferential voting system for electorates means that a sufficiently popular candidate can win the seat even as an independent.
NZ's FPP electorate votes make it an incredibly steep hill to climb if you're not the Labour or National candidate (Epsom notwithstanding).
@jeremy_pm Hamas ARE terrorists. I don’t believe them any more than I believe Netanyahu. I would happily hear the opinions of real Gazans.
It’s not about opposing viewpoint - or at least ‘Israel is Satan! The West is Satan! Death to the Infidels!’ is not an opinion with any value. You want to be taken seriously? Start by not killing people. It’s not really a conversation otherwise.
@jeremy_pm I am not condemning Palestinians. I am condemning Hamas. Just as I am not condemning Israelis, I am condemning the Israeli government.
Hamas aren't just terrorists, they're also brutal Islamic fundamentalists. Palestine would only be marginally better off "free" under Hamas than they are occupied under Israel.
@jeremy_pm Or to put a more local spin on it, are you happy having Christopher Luxon speak for you? I'm not, and I don't want the world thinking New Zealand is all Chris Luxon.
