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Daylight saving
This weekend, clocks go back an hour. (Image: Getty / Treatment: Tina Tiller)

SocietyApril 2, 2022

We can solve NZ’s daylight saving debacle in half an hour

Daylight saving
This weekend, clocks go back an hour. (Image: Getty / Treatment: Tina Tiller)

America is trying to end daylight saving once and for all. Here’s how New Zealand can do it too.

This weekend is shaping up nicely. On Saturday, you’ll probably have a blast. In Auckland, the autumn weather has been fantastic. Temperatures remain in the mid-20s. You might go out for brunch, or enjoy a sunny walk up Mt Eden. You could cool off with a delicious swim at Pt Chev Beach. It’s a delightful time of year, so get out there and enjoy it. You might as well, because it’s all about to be ruined.

Sunday? That’s another story. Sunday’s going to be a shocker. The day after your blissful Saturday, you’re going to wake up messy. Get ready for it. Stock up on Powerade. Get some hash browns out of the freezer, because you’re going to feel woozy. Discombobulated. Kind of jet-lagged. A tad hungover. You’ll feel like eating lunch at the wrong time. Same with dinner. Basically, you’re going to feel terrible, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Why? When the clock strikes 3am on Sunday, we all jump in our DeLoreans like dumb-asses and travel back in time, to 2am. We’re all going to be forced to repeat that hour, then deal with the consequences in the morning. It’s the completion of a sick six-month cycle that began on September 26 to maximise sunshine hours, minimise darkness, and let farmers milk their cows at a reasonable time of day.

Bollocks. Screw the farmers. I don’t even eat dairy, so I don’t care. If you can’t already tell, I am not a fan. Passionate hate is what I have for this time of year. Across my 43 years, I have experienced daylight saving 85 times and I have never gotten used to it, understood it, worked out why it exists, or who it is for. All I know is that my body hates it. Forget about thriving. When Dr Strange mucks around with the multiverse timeline, I can barely function.

Twelve years ago, when I became a parent, my hatred for this twice-yearly ritual only got worse. Kids are light sleepers at the best of times. You try telling a toddler to go back to bed because gremlins secretly changed the clocks and it’s only 6am. It doesn’t work. My kids aren’t going to let me enjoy that extra hour’s snooze. So don’t tell me this is the good one. When you have kids, there is no good daylight saving.

Don’t listen to my sleep-deprived anecdotal evidence. Listen to the experts. Research shows it really is bad for you. Car accidents go up. So do heart attacks and strokes. American hospitals report admission rates rise 24% when the clocks change. “That’s how fragile and susceptible your body is to even just one hour of lost sleep,” sleep expert Matthew Walker told Business Insider recently.

Shihad
“Put your clocks back for the winter” sings Jon Toogood in Shihad’s ‘Home Again’. But what if we didn’t?

You know who else hates daylight saving? America. Right now, the country that is doing so many things wrong is doing one thing dead right. The US senate has passed the Sunshine Protection Act, and if it passes the house of representatives too, all Joe Biden has to do is rubber stamp the thing and it becomes law. From 2023, daylight saving time could become permanent. Canada and Britain are wisely exploring similar options.

We could do the same thing in New Zealand, but we don’t need laws, bills and Biden. There’s a solution so simple I don’t know why we haven’t put it in place already. Jacinda, I hope you’re reading. Are you ready? It’s going to blow your mind. Here goes.

Next time we decided to do this cooked clock clusterfuck of a thing, we change the time for just half an hour. Next April, we could all just put our clocks forward 30 minutes and be done with it. Not a second more, or less. It’s a meeting in the middle, Switzerland in the daylights savings war. Morning risers will get their sun, evening lovers will too, and the farmers will be fine.

What’s half an hour? It’s an episode of The Simpsons, with ads. It’s a family feast, according to this popular Jamie Oliver cookbook. It’s a decent walk, a solid bike ride, a great swim. It’s a nice nap. Just half an hour. Then we never do daylight saving again. It’s done. Over. Finished. We never have to tinker with our clocks again.

Sure, Shihad’s opening lyrics of ‘Home Again’ “Put your clocks back for the winter” would be rendered obsolete. But I’ll still sing along and remember all the times we did dumb things with our clocks twice a year, until we didn’t.

Keep going!
A grab from video of the police operation near Te Puke.
A grab from video of the police operation near Te Puke.

SocietyMarch 29, 2022

Extremist participant in parliamentary occupation arrested after standoff in Te Puke

A grab from video of the police operation near Te Puke.
A grab from video of the police operation near Te Puke.

Richard Sivell has made repeated demands for the execution of contributors to the New Zealand Covid-19 response, including the prime minister.

Warning: This piece contains language that uses violent imagery

One of the most vociferous participants in the parliamentary occupation, who has repeatedly issued calls online for the execution of senior politicians and others involved in the Covid-19 response, was arrested this morning at a Te Puke address and taken to a local police station. It is unclear what, if any, charges Richard Sivell will face, but in keeping with the stagecraft that surrounds so much of the misinformation realm, parts of the incident were captured by Sivell’s supporters in audio and video clips posted to social media. At least six police officers were at the scene this morning, with some visibly armed. 

The news of Sivell’s arrest was shared online by Brad Flutey, who was arrested during the Wellington occupation and appeared at the Whangārei District Court last week on charges that followed an altercation with police outside a local bottle shop in January. Flutey posted the audio of a telephone conversation with Sivell, during which the arrest took place.

Sivell said he believed the police were taking action over his online statements. “They’re going to all this effort against me just because I have an opinion. I haven’t broken any law. I haven’t hurt anyone,” he said. He had been “persecuted”, he stated, “because I have a loud voice and an opinion”. Sivell said he did not own the property at which he was staying, but had claimed “allodial title” – an arcane concept invoked by followers of the so-called “sovereign citizen” movement

Asked by Flutey why armed police might be at the property, Sivell said: “Because I’ve got a fucking air rifle and a machete probably,” but stressed they were not for any violent purpose. A burst of shouting and dogs barking followed, with what appeared to be a police officer urging, “lie down, lie down”. Flutey said Sivell’s arrest was part of “a corporation waging war with you”.

A video posted by one of Sivell’s supporters showed him being led from the property in handcuffs. “You guys are witnessing the death of free speech in New Zealand, just so you know,” she said.

Another of Sivell’s supporters posted a video in which he visited the Tauranga police station shortly after the arrest. Having received confirmation Sivell was being held there, the supporter provided contact details for Sue Grey, whom he said would be acting as Sivell’s lawyer. Grey, who is the leader of the Outdoors Party and as a lawyer has represented anti-vaccine groups, as well as repeatedly addressing the crowds at parliament grounds over the course of the occupation, told the Spinoff on Tuesday night: “I’ve been in court all day in another matter and don’t have any instructions on this arrest, at least at this stage.” 

Sivell was a regular presence at the occupation of parliament that came to an end on March 2. Among the numerous audio messages he posted in an online channel with more than 3,000 members were: “As far as I’m concerned we should hang this government for treason.” In another, he said: “We already know these people are fucking guilty. Time to build some gallows and fucking hang them … I want to string them up straight away.” He also called on the military “to raid the fucking Beehive”.

Sivell denounced participants in the protest who didn’t “want to walk into the den of the devil”. They were, he said, “pew warmers” who “don’t want to do the dirty work, don’t want to fight, they just want to look on in interest, because they’re weak they’re pitiful they’re disgusting they’re cowardly, they’re limp-wristed, they’re faggots.” He was among, he said, the “brave alpha females and brave alpha males” whose “genetics will live on”.

Sivell has advocated “snapping the neck” of “demonic” senior politicians for “crimes against humanity, for genocide, for treason and for violation of the Nuremberg code”. He has said: “All the mainstream media in New Zealand is basically government propaganda agents … They are very culpable. They need to hang, too.” Other messages include asserting the falsehood that “the whole Covid narrative is bullshit”, claims of “sonic weapons” being fired through the parliament grounds in mid-February, homophobic diatribes, and discussing methods for destroying cellphone towers.

In 2020, police decided not to press charges against Sivell over a racist flyer targeting a German-born local politician, instead opting to issue a warning letter. 

Police have not responded to a request for comment. 

This story was updated to include a response from Sue Grey

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