alex (2)

SocietyFebruary 28, 2018

The best of David Seymour defending the mythical sexy meat Minotaur

alex (2)

Alex Casey rounds up the highlights from a very funny RNZ interview with David Seymour about his very stupid and sexist t-shirt.

Everyone knows that meat = sex. Ham steaks? They are boobs. Chicken breast? Also boobs. Sausages? Phwoar. Rump? Come ON. It is in this hot and heavy climate of carnal carnivores that David Seymour emerges through a hazy cloud of barbecue smoke, tongs at the ready and a sexy curvaceous cow-woman emblazoned proudly on his chest. He wipes his sooty brow with the back of one hand, and puffs on a cocktail sausage like a cigar with the other.

“Got meat?” he whispers.

What may have begun as a bit of sexy sizzling fun during Auckland University O Week quickly turned into a right public grilling as many internet users, human and bovine alike, questioned why David Seymour chose to be photographed wearing such a stupid, sexist t-shirt. It would seem that demeaning women by way of meat promotion is not how we do things anymore – just ask NZ Pork or any Carl’s Jr. ad ever

This morning he went on RNZ’s Morning Report with Susie Ferguson to desperately defend his couture choices and served up a smorgasbord of meaty, hilarious, confusing giblets. Here are the key learnings.  

#1 Nobody actually cares about the sex cow t-shirt you fools!

“I think you are being unfair in saying I got a roasting, maybe you were just trying to use a clever pun,” says Seymour, ‘splaining the biggest joke ‘splain that a person ever could ‘splain. Actually, as it turns out, people were “overwhelmingly supportive” of the ‘got meat?’ invitation to either have sex with or eat (or both?) a human woman who has the head of a cow. Seems fine and plausible. 

#2 The sex cow is about idolisation, not sexualisation

“Look I think there’s a couple of issues here,” David says. “One: should university students be able to form a club that has t-shirts that idolise meat?” Yes. Of course they should. In fact, they’ve managed for many, many, years to make celebratory meat t-shirts that don’t rely on the sexualisation of women. “I would go so far as to say their whole purpose is the idolisation of meat,” he concludes. Which leads me to the next learning….

#3 David Seymour might be gunning for host of Meat Idol

Say “idol” one more time mate, and you might be en route to Dombo Bowdo’s job. Could that be why the soon-to-be Dancing With the Stars contestant is squeezing in more TV time this year? Stay tuned to see a beef cheek battle it out against a pork loin, exclusively available on Triangle TV OnDemand.

#4 Well actually, there were two t-shirts

Ah yes, the two genders. Sensual cow and erotic bull. “So they’re a group of students who have produced these t-shirts, one has a silhouette of a woman the other has a silhouette of a man,” David reveals, as if men and women definitely get objectified and demeaned equally. “But you were wearing the woman t-shirt, that was a choice you made,” replies Susie. “Maybe I should have worn the male t-shirt, I don’t know,” says David, absolutely barbecued.

#5 Let the man SPEAK Susie

“Is this just a ploy to get attention and you’re exploiting this for publicity?” asks Susie. “I might do if you let me get a word in Susie,” says David, who speaks for roughly 80% of the three-minute interview.

#6 Stop trying to RUIN CLUBS, Susie

“I think the second issue here is should students be able to form clubs that idolise meat and make t-shirts like that? If you don’t think they should, I think that’s a real problem.” Yeah, SUSIE, why do you want to liquidate the sexy cow club’s t-shirt business SUSIE. This is PC (Porno Cow) gone MAD.

#7 Let’s talk about the wider context here

“Can I just say it’s rather a shame that the state broadcaster thinks this is the big issue. I’d much rather be here talking about the closure of charter schools, of which I was the architect.” “Well, put it on your t-shirt and we might be able to do it,” Susie whips back.

Hmm true. Let’s talk about charter schools instead. Let’s talk about how mean lady Susie wants to ban university clubs forever even though she doesn’t even have a minotaur head. Let’s talk about the ways we can stop politicians from getting photos with humble t-shirt producers and meat enthusiasts. Let’s talk about my lovely meat-cow-wife Britney Brisket.

#8 Finally, a leaked excerpt from David’s new book…

She fluttered her salami eyelids and licked her lips with her enormous, grey, furry tongue. Her bacon skin was glistening, her breasts were juicy and her thighs were tender. She mooed, loudly, but it didn’t matter to me. She was the most beautiful meat-cow-woman I had ever seen.”


This section is made possible by Simplicity, the online nonprofit KiwiSaver plan that only charges members what it costs, nothing more. Simplicity is New Zealand’s fastest growing KiwiSaver scheme, saving its 12,000 plus investors more than $3.8 million annually in fees. Simplicity donates 15% of management revenue to charity and has no investments in tobacco, nuclear weapons or landmines. It takes two minutes to join.

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renting housing house
renting housing house

SocietyFebruary 28, 2018

Speculators hate him! One weird trick to end rental bidding wars

renting housing house
renting housing house

Rent Week 2018: Last month The Spinoff reported landlords in Wellington were actively encouraging bidding wars in an attempt to hike rents. Here NZ-born, Melbourne-based tenancy lawyer Joseph Nunweek outlines a simple legislative change that would make the concept obsolete.

Since I last wrote for The Spinoff about newly-unveiled changes to tenancy law in Victoria and what they meant for Aotearoa New Zealand late last year, plenty has happened on our side of the equation that absolutely screams for meaningful reform.

First of all, a major social security benefit increase by the new Ardern government became an indirect transfer of government largesse to Wellington landlords, as student allowance boosts turned into higher rents for tenants across the city. Then, as Don Rowe reported for this site in January, landlord application forms in the pre-university rush began expressly inviting would-be tenants to nominate the maximum rent they would be willing to pay. MBIE’s dystopic response, as The Spinoff reported, celebrated the New Zealand tenant’s horrible new freedom:

“In fact, according to the MBIE, asking tenants to indicate a weekly rent actually removes the landlord from the rent setting equation, and allows the prospective tenant to be an active participant in the setting of ‘market rent’…”

Photo: Rebecca Stevenson.

Outside of a certain kind of economist abstraction, it’s pretty obvious to everyone else that this kind of rental bidding occurs in an asymmetrical environment. The supply of land, especially in places like Auckland and Wellington, is limited, and the negotiating power sits with the landlords. Those who need to live where they work, study, or access essential social services are on the back-foot. And bidding, which is less about the property’s intrinsic value and more about trying to name a price well clear of your competitors, continues to distort what are some punishing market rents.

Prepping for a talk I gave at the University of Auckland this month, I had an idea about a very simple way to stop these bids once and for all. It’s not exactly a ‘Eureka’ moment, a phrase that connotes some sort of powerful theoretical knowledge or insight. Maybe call it ‘one weird trick’. Speculators hate him!

Before I give it away, here’s what I think won’t work:

Banning rent-bidding apps

In 2017, Live Offer and Rentberry both announced their entrance into the Australian market, followed in hot pursuit by local start-up Rentwolf. All three apps streamline the process of applying for a residential tenancy, allowing applicants to tell the owner how soon they can move in, how long they intend to stay – and how much they’d be willing to pay. Though Rentberry, the originator amongst the three, has talked loftily of creating a market equilibrium, its CEO first incentivised the app to landlords by promising rent increases of 5% on average.

The proposed Victorian crackdown on rental bidding hasn’t described what would be done with start-ups like these – so far. But if I were a policymaker, I wouldn’t start bogging myself down in a war of attrition with an app.

Much as I like to see Silicon Valley’s would-be tech barons weep with their works destroyed, Rentberry and their ilk are a symptom and not a cause. It’s like Uber – the app didn’t create contractor precarity, it just thrived in the environment that was there. Banning a type of app or business looks unwieldy and draconian, and will force the social media interns working in these hell companies to start aggravating and provocative Twitter campaigns. Don’t do it.

Spot-fining agents and landlords

There’s a school of thought that soliciting or accepting bids on rentals should be made into an offence with appropriate civil penalties attached. So, say, you go to an apartment viewing and you’re invited by some dude with Create-a-Jaw designer facial hair to offer your highest price for a place with a waterlogged/collapsing balcony and a bedroom the size of most bedroom ensuites. You walk down to the nearest friendly MBIE office and dob him and his company in.

There’s a couple of things that are practically challenging about this. One is that it’s MBIE – their capacity to trace and prosecute small individual matters is extremely limited, and I can’t see that changing (in recent years, this has been even worse if you’re an underpaid employee). The other one is that if you really, really need a property, you’ve blown the whistle on a law-breaking landlord/agency, but you now don’t have a place to move into. It’s a pyrrhic victory.

Photo: Rebecca Stevenson.

The one weird trick

So, what I’m proposing is a quick legislative fix. The below isn’t designed to slot simply into NZ or Victorian legislation. It’s a sort of  very rough composite of what a section of model tenancy law that prevents rent-bidding would look like.

          Rented premises to be offered at listed price

  • All rented premises under this Act must, when advertised for lease, be listed for a specified weekly, fortnightly or monthly rent.
  • Any purported rate of rent higher than the listed price will not be valid unless it is an increase issued through the rent increase provisions of this Act.

In essence, this would mean that any bid made above the advertised rent for a property becomes a legal nullity. Say a place is going at a listed price of $1500.00 a month, but that a landlord or property manager manages to set off a small bidding war amongst tenants to get that to $1600 a month.

Upon taking possession of the property, the successful tenants can immediately revert to paying the $1500.00 that was listed. If the landlord keeps hassling them, they can seek a declaration from the Tenancy Tribunal that he or she has to leave them alone. The ‘negotiation’ to ramp up the rent will be of no effect.

What the change doesn’t do, obviously, is prevent a landlord from subsequently raising rents at the intervals allowed at law (nor does it prevent a tenant from seeking a review of these proposed increases). In that sense, if simply tacked on to existing legislation it would be a modest and effective way of stopping the bidding practice without any control over subsequent rent rises (whether such control should exist, and whether it’s something the current government could be brought around on, is an article in its own right).

One thing would absolutely have to change alongside this reform, though, and that’s the capacity for landlords to end tenancies without a reason. It’s pretty easy to see how any crackdown on rental bidding works otherwise – tenants are forced to make a bid and then keep paying the higher rent, knowing that trying to enforce their rights under law could end with them looking for a new place to live awfully soon.

As with any one proposed measure for residential tenancy reform, my suggestion isn’t a silver bullet. Depending on where you sit on the spectrum, ensuring people aren’t locked out of the rental market may depend on a massive investment in public and community housing, fostering of long-term and stable rentals, improving wages, or reforming the Resource Management Act. But this would remove one more kind of squeeze quickly and effectively, and represent a very slight levelling of the rental playing field.

Read more from Rent Week here


This section is made possible by Simplicity, the online nonprofit KiwiSaver plan that only charges members what it costs, nothing more. Simplicity is New Zealand’s fastest growing KiwiSaver scheme, saving its 10,500 plus investors more than $3.5 million annually. Simplicity donates 15% of management revenue to charity and has no investments in tobacco, nuclear weapons or landmines. It takes two minutes to join.