1. What is the title of the book by Jacinda Ardern that collected Ockham Awards accolades this week?
a. We Won You Lost Get Over It
b. Nice Guys Finish Last
c. Bastards I Have Met
d. A Different Kind of Power
2. What does Half asleep near the stars with a small dog licking your face describe?
a. A Pilates position
b. An NZ First policy position
c. A Fonterra entry level position
d. Jokerman
3. When so-called Prime Minister Luxon says it’s very hard to justify backing the skink over the solar farm, what is he referring to?
a. Some video game he’s playing when he’s supposed to be running the country
b. Jokerman
c. Nothing. The AI and the emotional junior staffer writing his speech just went rogue
d. His environmental values and priorities
4. When so-called Prime Minister Luxon says Too many countries, including New Zealand, spent the post-Covid years dining out on fiscal headroom accumulated by previous generations of political leadership, do you think he is referring to the surpluses accumulated by Michael Cullen?
a. Lol
b. As if
c. Bastard was in the USA gargling jargon, he would have no idea
5. When so-called Prime Minister Luxon says And my message to the business community is that when it comes to immigration, when faced with a choice between social stability and your bottom line, I will choose the former every single time, what is he being?
a. A statesman
b. Lincoln-like
c. Hillary-like
d. A cynical autocue reader responding to focus groups
6. What sold out yesterday in about 90 seconds?
a. DOC’s Milford Track bookings
b. Petrol at under 3 dollars a litre
c. Guide to saving your job from AI
d. Guide to getting Trump on a rocket to mars
7. What is Chris Bishop’s new job?
a. Entry level DJ
b. Actual ordained bishop
c. Sausage roll taster
d. Attorney general
8. Which Mike recently prevailed in legal action in the Supreme Court only to see the government pull the rug on his victory?
a. Mike Hosking
b. Mike Smith
c. Holy ghost of Michael Joseph Savage
d. Mike Prominent New Zealander
9. What is negative gearing?
a. Cycling technique for coming down hills backwards
b. Offsetting rental property losses against other income to reduce your tax bill
c. When you pinch your neighbour’s ID from the mailbox and use it to bid on TradeMe
d. Deep-sea fishing method banned in New Zealand waters
10. In its annual economic survey of NZ, the OECD said what risked locking in fossil fuel dependence?
a. Having Shane Jones as energy minister
b. Having American business-jargon-gargling Chris Luxon as Prime Minister
c. Having petrol-headedness as a culture
d. The LNG proposal
Answers
1. What is the title of the book by Jacinda Ardern that collected Ockham Awards accolades this week?
d. A Different Kind of Power
Loved it, so much heart to it and so intelligently composed.
2. What does Half asleep near the stars with a small dog licking your face describe?
d. Jokerman, by Bob Dylan
3. When so-called Prime Minister Luxon says it’s very hard to justify backing the skink over the solar farm, what is he referring to?
d. His environmental values and priorities. From his big business speech this week: The reality is that when faced with energy shock after energy shock, it’s very hard to justify backing the skink over the solar farm.
When one solar farm consent was declined near Tekapo, not because of solar, but because a better site existed next door, and developers promptly found it, Luxon reached for the skink as proof that green tape is strangling energy development. It isn’t. The scarcity is invented. New Zealand has vast tracts of suitable and available already-degraded land sitting. The real message here is the familiar one: we’re in a hurry, the environment can wait, and anyone who disagrees is standing between you and your power bill.
4. When so-called Prime Minister Luxon says Too many countries, including New Zealand, spent the post-Covid years dining out on fiscal headroom accumulated by previous generations of political leadership, do you think he is referring to the surpluses accumulated by Michael Cullen?
All of the above
5. When so-called Prime Minister Luxon says And my message to the business community is that when it comes to immigration, when faced with a choice between social stability and your bottom line, I will choose the former every single time, what is he being?
d. A cynical autocue reader responding to focus groups
6. What sold out yesterday in about 90 seconds?
a. DOC’s Milford Track bookings
7. What is Chris Bishop’s new job?
d. Attorney general
This takes me back to a lift ride involving some pretentious Auckland law society QC type sucking up to our boss who told him, Geoffrey, Prime Ministers come and go but attorneys general endure forever. For all that this new Attorney General likes to cultivate a reputation, I can’t see the history books being fat on accounts of the mark Bishop will leave.
8. Which Mike recently prevailed in legal action in the Supreme Court only to see the government pull the rug on his victory?
b. Mike Smith
The absolute audacity of this government legislating away Mike Smith’s win on climate action. Their devotion to business as usual and inertia and ignoring the convenient truth about climate is gobsmacking, really. A fawning proile of new attorney-general Bishop notes he has a framed image of the Fitzgerald v Muldoondecision on his wall. Posture and nothing more.
9. What is negative gearing?
b. Offsetting rental property losses against other income to reduce your tax bill
Negative gearing lets property investors offset rental losses against their other income, reducing the tax on their salary while they wait for capital gains. Australia’s Labor government has moved modestly to wind this back, along with the CGT discount and trust arrangements that round out the full suite of asset-owner perks. Conservatives immediately reframed this as an attack on young people’s aspirations. It isn’t. These arrangements overwhelmingly benefit the already wealthy, and it’s precisely those advantages that price first-home buyers out of the market in the first place. New Zealand already ran this argument, and the landlord class won. National restored full interest deductibility the moment it took office. Australia is at least still having the fight.
10. In its annual economic survey of NZ, the OECD said what risked locking in fossil fuel dependence?
d. The LNG proposal
In its annual economic survey of NZ, the OECD said the LNG proposal risked locking in fossil fuel dependence and instead recommended investment in non-gas generation like biomass or pumped hydro. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon dismissed the OECD’s warnings about the government’s LNG plans as a load of rubbish and says he remains very interested in setting up an import facility. This, risibly, is what is being referred to when conservative patriots say the country is now being run by the grown-ups.
