General Debate 4 September 2017

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krazykiwi

After the AUSA post yesterday.. now this:

Snowflake overdrive — Students leaders at the University of Mississippi were forced to cancel a “Greek Life” retreat last weekend after a discarded banana peel was found hanging in a tree on campus, and it was interpreted as a racial slur.

A student, Ryan Swanson, told the student newspaper, The Daily Mississippian, that he discarded the banana peel by throwing it into the tree when he couldn’t find a garbage can.

Makala McNeil, the campus President of Alpha Kappa Alpha, a historically black sorority that was part of the Greek Life retreat, later spotted the discarded banana and, instead of writing it off as mere garbage, assumed the peel was a racially tinged threat.
:::
Word spread about the banana once McNeil returned to the retreat, and students quickly became agitated — some even left the retreat in tears, believing they were in the midst of a racial incident on campus. Students told the organizers that they “didn’t feel safe” any longer at the retreat, and “didn’t feel welcome.”

Organizers, sensing the students’ discomfort, cancelled all remaining Greek Life activities for the weekend

University evolved to sharpen critical thought. It has peaked. Clearly
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September 4, 2017 8:01am
- Southern Raider
  
  Firstly what do black people have to do with Greek Life?
  
  Secondly what the hell does bananas have to do with Greeks?
  
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  September 4, 2017 8:06am
  - PhilBest
    
    The “taking offence” industry has morphed into something of deep sophistication, well beyond the understanding of mere mortals like us. I too am waiting for someone more enlightened to explain these connections to us.
    
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    September 4, 2017 8:09am
    - Paulus Gnome
      
      I am not holding my breath; imagine if it had been possible to halt the blitzkrieg by hanging out a sausage skin on the Maginot Line, how different things would be
      
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      September 4, 2017 8:16am
      - Scorpion
        
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cdmqn9JIuzc
        
        You have to remember they have been
        brain washed every white person
        is a natzi white supremacist
        
        and there are Natzi Zombies
        Roaming America
        
        and and and and
        
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        September 4, 2017 9:30am
      - Scorpion
        
        The blitzkrieg was invented by
        
        THE AUSTRALIANs not the Germans
        
        You do not know this because
        
        YOU COME FROM THE LAND
        OF THE IGNORANT DENSE
        THICK AS SHEEP SH*T SHEEP SODOMITES
        
        Where NATIONAL PARTY VOTING
        SCUM OF THE EARTH LOW LIFE LIARS
        COWARDS DEAD BEATS AND RIPP OFFS
        MERCHANTS who think they
        KNOW POLITICS AND ECONOMICS
        HISTORY or anything else
        
        Like JOCK THE COCK SUCKER ANDERSON
        
        LIE TO YOU IGNORANT DENSE
        MORONIC F UCKING SHEEP
        
        They LIE ABOUT THIS
        AS THEY LIE ABOUT EVERYTHING
        THEY ARE F UCKING USELESS
        ALL OF THEM
        
        They are SO F UCKING THICK
        they are selling the Country to Communists
        
        Combined Arms Principle
        Was Developed by:
        
        Albert Jacka VC
        and
        General John Monash
        
        The Father of the Blitzkrieg
        
        http://www.convictcreations.com/history/monash.html
        
        The Australian who
        WERE ALL VOLUNTEERS
        by the WAY
        
        DESPITE WHAT THE LIEING
        BULL SH*TING NATIONAL
        PARTY SCUM OF THE EARTH
        WHITE DOG POO ON MY SHOE SAY
        
        The Australians developed the Blitzkrieg
        in WW1
        
        In total, Monash’s troops comprised just 9.5 per cent of British forces in France, yet they captured 18.5 per cent of the German prisoners, 21.5 per cent of the territory and 14 per cent of the guns.
        
        On average, one Australian soldier was worth around twice that of other British soldiers.
        
        DO YOU GET THAT THICK SH*TS
        COWARDS LIARS AND BULLSH*T ARTIST
        DO YOU GET IT YOU LOW LIFE
        SCUM OF THE EARTH
        
        On the battlefield, Monash was knighted by King George V. It was the first time in 200 years that a British monarch had honoured a commander in such a way. More praise came from British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery who said of Monash:
        
        “I would name Sir John Monash as the best general on the western front in Europe”.
        
        <
        Jack Wrote a Report on the Correct use of Tanks
        he was reprimanded for it
        
        Monash knew better insisted on getting a copy
        of it read it and implemented it
        
        THAT IS HOW the Blitzkrieg was created
        
        The People who had been on the receiving
        end of the Highly effective
        AUSTRALIANs then took it to the next level
        
        Ironically, after experiencing first hand the fear that a coordinated attack can have on an enemy, the likes of Major General Heinz Guderian, a German soldier who fought against the Australians at Amien, studied the approach and incorporated it into German battle strategies. In World War II, Guderian became a crucial leader in the Monash-style blitzkrieg strategy that led to German dominance in the first half of the war.
        
        It was an AUSTRALIAN JEW
        of GERMAN extraction
        
        WHO INVENTED THE BLITZKRIEG
        
        AND IT IS IGNORANT
        F UCK WITS LIKE YOU
        AND NATIONAL THAT WILL ENSURE
        THERE IS ANOTHER WAR
        
        AND TRUST ME YOU ARE GOING TO LOOSE
        AND YOU ARE GOING TO BE
        SLAUGHTERED
        
        LIKE THE IGNORANT DENSE
        SHEEP YOU ALL ARE
        
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        September 4, 2017 9:46am
      - Jack5
        
        Scorpy, how did “JOCK ~~THE COCK SUCKER~~ ANDERSON” get into this outburst?
        
        Ah, I remember, Jock on Radio Labour (perhaps it was during Gentleman Jim’s Panel in the afternoons), said something about Australians being overrated (or worse, or some such) as soldiers, implying that the Anzac tradition was hogwash.
        
        On tanks and Guderian, Scorpy, don’t forget Liddell Hart, the British military strategist.
        
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        September 4, 2017 10:28am
      - Jack5
        
        Ahoy Kokila Patel!
        
        Could you please delete my post above (at 10.28) as it commented on a Scorpion post that has now been removed.
        
        Tks,
        
        Jack5
        
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        September 4, 2017 10:51am
    - itstricky
      
      The “taking offence” industry has morphed into something of deep sophistication
      
      When a bunch of people complain bitterly about who an independent organisation associates with, is that “taking offence”?
      
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      September 4, 2017 8:27am
      - Keeping Stock
        
        Universities and academics seem to lead the field when it comes to taking offence. So much for young people being taught to think for themselves, and develop ideas that challenge conventional thinking.
        
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        September 4, 2017 9:06am
      - itstricky
        
        Back to my question -: so it is, then?
        
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        September 4, 2017 9:36am
    - Nosmo King
      
      It has become the cancer of the society.
      
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      September 4, 2017 8:53am
  - SGA
    
    err… I’m not sure whether you are asking this or not.
    USA college fraternities use Greek letters to distinguish themselves; e.g., Phi Gamma Epislon.
    Slang for those who embrace the fraternity way of life is “Greeks”.
    I’m guessing bananas = monkeys = blacks is the perceived insult. When the first black players started playing in what is now the Premier League, people would throw bananas onto the pitch as a quite deliberate racist act, for example.
    
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    September 4, 2017 8:13am
    - waikatogirl
      
      People see what they want to see particularly when they have been whipped into a frenzy by a timely agenda. Remember the USA with their Reds under the bed – communist sympathisers were everywhere not that long ago.
      
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      September 4, 2017 8:20am
      - Paulus
        
        Not now – it is Russians under Trumps bed (Not Clintons)-where is the evidence as purported by The Washington Post New York Times Auckland Herald?
        Five Committees are sitting but why have we not heard about the great discoveries.
        In Texas Trump is far more supported now than Obama ever was.
        Obama’s nose was in the air on such matters as this Hurricane.
        
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        September 4, 2017 9:29am
      - Fletch
        
        Right. When Hurricane Matthew hit Louisianna last year and there was deadly flooding, Obama stayed in Martha’s Vineyard, playing golf and “monitoring” the situation from there.
        
        You can bet the media would not have let Trump get away with doing that.
        
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        September 4, 2017 11:07am
    - kowtow
      
      Beware of Geeks bearing bananas.
      
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      September 4, 2017 8:20am
      - pdm
        
        Most of the Greeks I have had contact with have been in Fish and Chip shops – not green grocers. lol.
        
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        September 4, 2017 9:26am
      - Jack5
        
        Yep, Kowtow, you have to keep your eyes peeled.
        
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        September 4, 2017 10:39am
    - krazykiwi
      
      Interesting. I suspect the student’s concerned don’t know what football is, nor could they find the UK on a map.
      
      Still, all this raises a vexing questions for fruiterers: Should they sell a bananas to black people, and therefore be considered a racist? Or should they decline to sell bananas to black people, and therefore be considered racist? Was the fruiterer who sold Ryan Swanson his banana a knowing participant in a racist act?
      
      The waaaacist world is just awful. Waaaaa. I want a saaaaaaaaafe praaaaaaace.
      
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      September 4, 2017 8:30am
      - SGA
        
        krazykiwi
        
        I suspect the student’s concerned don’t know what football is, nor could they find the UK on a map.
        
        I wasn’t saying that “connection” was necessarily limited to football in the UK – I was providing an illustrative example only.
        
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        September 4, 2017 8:34am
      - SGA
        
        @krazykiwi
        I just tried a quick google search to see if the banana-as-symbol is limited to the UK, and apparently not. This article from early this year probably adds some context for the (over)reaction in the current case as well.
        
        The FBI is assisting American University in investigating an incident in which bananas with racially charged messages were found hanging from nooses at the college campus, according to The New York Times.
        
        The bananas were found on Monday at the Washington, D.C. college – the same day that Taylor Dumpson made history as the first black woman and AKA sorority member sworn in as student government president. Police have deemed the incident a hate crime.
        
        https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2017-05-03/fbi-to-investigate-racist-messages-bananas-hanging-from-nooses-at-american-university
        
        (Add: but to twist an attributed Freud quote – sometimes a banana skin is just a banana skin)
        
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        September 4, 2017 9:05am
      - PhilBest
        
        “…this raises a vexing questions for fruiterers: Should they sell a bananas to black people, and therefore be considered a racist? Or should they decline to sell bananas to black people, and therefore be considered racist?…”
        
        Haha, nicely expressed about the SJW’s hypocrisy.
        
        But it is so true – prejudices on marriage between different races is “racism”; actual intermarriage between different races is “cultural genocide” by the evil white imperialists! When you point out that someone accused of “racism” by the SJW’s, eg Niall Fergusson, has a black wife, that apparently is “proof” of evil white subjugation of blacks! I am not making this up.
        
        The fact that whites willingly marry people of colour could be interpreted as absence of concern to maintain their own race in “purity” and hence the polar opposite of racist fascism, but you won’t find SJW’s with this kind of objectivity.
        
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        September 4, 2017 9:08am
  - Random T Person
    
    The Greeks shall inherit the world, Life of Brian told me so.
    
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    September 4, 2017 9:08am
- Inandout
  
  Close all zoos immediately.
  
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  September 4, 2017 8:15am
- kowtow
  
  They’ve got bigger things to worry about than bananas.
  
  ‘The “historically violent holiday weekend” began ominously when 13 people were shot–with two fatalities–as late Friday gave way to early Saturday.’
  
  http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/09/03/gun-controlled-chicago-five-shot-four-hours/
  
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  September 4, 2017 8:19am
- Lance
  
  Mass stupidity and mass hysteria combined
  What could possibly go wrong?
  
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  September 4, 2017 8:33am
- KevOB
  
  Are bananas now sexual being too?
  
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  September 4, 2017 9:42am
  - jims_whare
    
    Save us from penile oppression – ban bananas.
    
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    September 4, 2017 11:36am
- Gabby
  
  Makala is clearly no tidy kiwi.
  
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  September 4, 2017 2:40pm
- Morrissey
  
  So you’re taking an indulgent view of a “mistake” by a white Mississippi student.
  
  You’re probably beyond hope, but people with a brain and a heart might like to view this….
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ25-U3jNWM
  
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  September 5, 2017 9:46am
duggledog

To all my friends here on Kiwiblog who don’t believe National should have used their most recent leader’s enormous political capital and trust amongst the majority of New Zealanders to address the fundamental ills of our society:

Observe now Bill English and National desperately trying to HTFU nine years too late with their new policy enabling Police to enter known gang properties without a warrant.

That is some seriously heavy shit they’re proposing. I am a huge fan but Paula has already f***ed it all up. Plus, I don’t see any potential coalition partner save Act allowing it.

I don’t even trust National to enact the policy anyway, not after they tried to spike Garrett’s guns through the 3S process.
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September 4, 2017 8:01am
- Paulus Gnome
  
  I don’t have a problem with this approach to this evil menace that are present in our society.
  I don’t give a shit about their human rights as they don’t respect mine; their minions trample all over my human rights by breaking in, ransacking and then trashing property in their search for something to turn into cash to feed their habit promoted by the aholes whose human rights I have to respect.
  
  Human rights for gangs – Tui
  
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  September 4, 2017 8:09am
  - Keeping Stock
    
    Dead right PG. Newshub is running a poll this morning on criminals having less rights, and at the moment it’s running about 70/30 in favour of English and Bennett. Given the left-wing bias of Newshub, that probably translates to about 80/20 right across the spectrum.
    
    If you commit serious crimes, be prepared to forfeit some of your “rights”. Pretty simple, I would have thought.
    
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    September 4, 2017 9:09am
    - Chris R
      
      Agree. Every one of us who has to endure the gang-related scum in our society has human rights too. Never forget the recent millionaire Teina Poura was attempting to join a gang at the time of his “crime.” it is evident his human rights have been admirably honoured by we the taxpayer!
      
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      September 4, 2017 9:24am
      - GoVege
        
        As they should have been too, Chris R, when you lock up a kid for 20 years on no evidence for a crime he did not commit.
        Teina is actually a good example of a young person drawn into a gang purely for a sense of belonging and “family”.
        He was an orphan at 4.
        Many young Maori may have parents out there somewhere, but when their chauvinist culture pressures young Maori women to have umpteen kids starting at puberty, the mums are often long gone when the kids are barely out of nappies.
        
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        September 4, 2017 10:01am
      - Jack5
        
        If it hadn’t been for his time in jail, Teina Poura would most likely have died in some gang shooting, or from gang-related ill health, years ago.
        
        Prison time, the big State payout, and now a bonus, turned his life around almost on fairy tale scale.
        
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        September 4, 2017 10:41am
      - gump
        
        @jack5
        
        Spending twenty years locked in jail is a fairy tale?
        
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        September 4, 2017 11:12am
      - UrbanNeocolonialist
        
        Poura is too thick to manage that sort of money, I would bet he will be bankrupted by his whanau withing 5 years.
        
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        September 4, 2017 11:50am
    - KevOB
      
      The proposals are only equivalent to an extension of parole conditions. Police can already lawfully invade a home in the middle of the night to check on somebody under curfew. It’s not uncommon. A suspicion of drugs could then activate a full search.
      
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      September 4, 2017 9:46am
      - Chris R
        
        …and they can already tap phones on suspicion of drug dealing providing a Judge can be persuaded to sign a warrant, which is routinely done.
        
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        September 4, 2017 9:49am
    - ztev
      
      in favour of English and Bennett ?
      
      “Prime Minister Bill English says his deputy got it wrong when she said some people have fewer human rights than others.
      
      Even the PM says Bennett got it wrong
      https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/96456807/bill-english-says-everyone-in-nz-has-human-rights
      
      The wheels came off that little lawonorder cart very quickly.
      
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      September 4, 2017 9:49am
      - Kimbo
        
        Not often I agree with you, but fair cop. Thought it was stupid of her to be saying “what we are proposing may be a breach of human rights, but…”.
        
        No Paula. If it breaches human rights, then there is no “but”. Instead, you phrase it so that “the alleged human rights of some are out-weighed by the rights of others…”.
        
        So at this stage it’s a toss up, whom out of Kelvin Davis and Paula Bennett is the Joe Biden of NZ politics! 😉
        
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        September 4, 2017 9:54am
      - Prince
        
        Almost as quickly as Ardern has shut down Davis recently. Is he allowed to speak yet ?
        
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        September 4, 2017 10:02am
      - GoVege
        
        Pull the other one’s an idiot.
        Can’t think of a worse choice for deputy.
        
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        September 4, 2017 10:04am
      - cha
        
        I guess Bill got it wrong too when he said it was good that New Zealand lacked a written constitution as it gave governments flexibility.
        
        https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/96442150/national-party-announces-82-million-crackdown-on-methamphetamine-use-supply
        
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        September 4, 2017 10:05am
      - Rachael Membery
        
        Good on Paula for saying that some people are ‘special’ and need to be treated differently.
        
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        September 4, 2017 1:54pm
      - KevOB
        
        It’s only semantics. The rights exist but rights are conditional.
        Society has rights too.
        
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        September 4, 2017 5:35pm
  - Northland Wahine
    
    Where are the rights for the victims of crime? They have the right to feel what? Unsafe? Violated? Intimidated?
    
    I don’t agree that your rights should be any less because you are gang member. However if you are a gang member committing crime causing injury, than yes, you forfeit your rights just as your actions forfeited the rights of your victim to feel safe.
    
    http://i.stuff.co.nz/the-press/national/96359033/They-use-their-age-as-a-weapon-victims-mum-wants-teen-attackers-charged
    
    These teen gangs are what await our future. If left unchecked, in 5 years times once they really become organised, they will either replace our current gangs or be absorbed by them. Their communities, our communities are asking for harsher penalties. Because it’s their communities that they are being affected.
    
    In the last 2 weeks I have witnessed or been affected by violence. My sister, after finishing her 9pm shift at The Warehouse, stepped in to stop a young man from a beating from 6 grown adults, women included who barked like dogs. She in turned was attacked. (Luckily she only ended up with a few bruise and grazes). Witnessed a young Indian man being chased by 3 others wearing killer bee colours. I stopped, opened the passenger door (automated) so he could jump in. School kids gathering in our local shopping car park with their bandana colours breaking into a fight as an old kuia was walking past. (Sounded my horn continuously giving them a fright and sending them scattering).
    
    Take away their bloody rights. Maybe then they get the concept of consequences and responsibility.
    
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    September 4, 2017 10:34am
    - GoVege
      
      You are a wahineheroine!
      You go girl!
      
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      September 4, 2017 8:51pm
- DifferentPerspective
  
  duggle – the KoolAid has been swallowed by most of the commenters here. They are ostriching and refusing to accept that National’s dithering has created the context for Labour’s resurgence.
  
  ~~Labour Lite~~ National have moved so far left that they’ve innoculated the electorate from their previous visceral fear of Labour/Greens – there is so little real difference between National and Labour that the voters don’t really see the harm in Labour any more.
  
  The failure to differentiate and the leadership vacuum of Bill English is the problem. But the fanboys here are lashing out in frustration and disbelief – whenever any diagnosis of the problem is posited.
  
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  September 4, 2017 8:11am
  - Happychappy
    
    DP: Your usual hate rant about Bill English is the same as Blubber Oil, are you a twin or is it you just talk the same crap.
    
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    September 4, 2017 8:20am
    - DifferentPerspective
      
      As usual Happy, I make a reasoned point, you prove my point.
      
      In this instance you demonstrated exactly what I was talking about in terms of:
      – ostriching
      – refusing to accept what’s clearly happening in this election
      – lashing out in frustration and disbelief
      
      You are doing Labour’s work for them!
      
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      September 4, 2017 8:31am
      - Happychappy
        
        As I said before you run with the hares and hunt with the hounds and you continually post your dislike for English every Leader has strong and weak points and Bill is not John Key or Helen Clark but he has earned his chance criticize if and when he loses. You talk about ostriching that the pot calling the kettle black.
        
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        September 4, 2017 9:16am
    - EAD_TWO
      
      Your usual hate rant
      
      You lot have become as bad as the SJWs in Labour you claim to be “opposing”.
      
      Any facts that are presented to you are now dismissed as hate and the person speaking them is ranting.
      
      TAKE. A. LONG. HARD. LOOK. IN. THE. MIRROR.
      
      http://nwioqeqkdf.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/the-futility-of-skeptic-vs-sjw-war.html?m=0
      
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      September 4, 2017 8:47am
      - ztev
        
        Look whos opposed to Bennetts rant now
        
        ‘Prime Minister Bill English says his deputy got it wrong when she said some people have fewer human rights than others.’
        
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        September 4, 2017 9:50am
  - waikatogirl
    
    For all of Nationals shortcomings they are the largest party. Any attempt to split our MMP votes to include a smaller party to support National increases the chance Liarbor will win.
    
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    September 4, 2017 8:26am
    - RRM
      
      For all of National’s shortcomings, they kept the country on an even keel through the GFC. Does anyone here believe Labour could have done that?
      
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      September 4, 2017 8:40am
      - krazykiwi
        
        Labour? Not a chance. But perhaps a swift collapse would have been more easily recovered from than this multi-generational pan left
        
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        September 4, 2017 9:09am
      - MCos
        
        Resting on your laurels has no place in politics.
        The crash has come and gone, various earthquakes have come and gone.
        The housing crisis has come & stayed. The P disaster has got worse. Congestion on the roads, mental health, overcrowded hospitals . . . . are all here now and it’s taken a slip in the polls for National to even turn their mind to some of these things.
        Now it’s panic stations with Bennett talking about curtailling human rights & English breaking into a cold sweat because he’s read Animal Farm.
        ‘All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others’
        
        By the way nobody’s even talking about the eye watering cost of dental health.
        
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        September 4, 2017 9:14am
      - Nosmo King
        
        Yes, despite their shortcomings and some silly things they have done, National managed the purse strings quite well to keep the country’s budget fiscally healthy despite the mounting costs from natural disasters and GFC since 2010.
        
        Compared to other parties that constantly blaming the systems, advocating “cheating” taxpayers’ money where they see it fit their agenda, promising freebies they can’t even deliver or proposing more taxes (without details how to implement it.) and add more burden to the taxpayers, personally I think National delivers results and does a good job overall. To me, it is proven track record that counts.
        
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        September 4, 2017 10:14am
    - DifferentPerspective
      
      Unfortunately, our retarded electoral system means that you are not quite right there waikatogirl.
      
      Well not for the party vote.
      
      MMP means that a party vote for National is worth one third (in list seat terms) as a party vote for the Greens, or Act or NZF!
      
      Yes indeed so much for all votes being equal!!
      
      At the last election National got 1,131,501 party votes and earned 19 seats (or every 59500 votes earned National an extra list seat)
      
      Conversely, NZF got 208,300 votes and earned 8 seats (or every 19000 votes earned NZF an extra list seat).
      
      If you want a stronger centre right number of MPs – you have to find a better home for your second vote than National, their success at winning electorate seats devalues their party votes.
      
      This is why Seymour being such a cuck is such a huge problem! If you could trust Seymour not to be stuck in his current virtue-signalling mode – Act are the natural place to ‘course correct’ National by giving your party vote to Act.
      
      Similarly, if you think Winnie is going to coalesce more naturally with National – a vote there maximises the block voting with National in the House.
      
      The FPP part of the election is a sham, the seats that get won are taken away through the proportionalising aspect of MMP. It’s the worst of both systems!
      
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      September 4, 2017 10:05am
- EAD_TWO
  
  Yesterdays policy announcements and the neverending “battle” to “fight” all the problems caused by drug abuse reminded me of the quote of Alain de Benoist and got me thinking that what we really need across the West is the return of ethical National Socialism.
  
  Everyday, we are given reminders of how far society has degraded – rampant drug abuse, solo mothers, welfare abuse, homosexualism, sadistic violence, alcoholism and the worst of the lot – the complete abandonment of truth and rationality in the pushing of “transgenderism”
  
  “Decadence in modern mass multi-cultural societies begins at a moment when there is no longer any discernible meaning within society. Meaning is destroyed by raising individualism above all other values because rampant individualism encourages the anarchical proliferation of egotism at the expense of the values that were once part of the national heritage, values that give form to the concept of nationhood and the nation state, to a state which is more than just a political entity, and which corresponds to a particular people who are conscious of sharing a common heritage for the survival of which they are prepared to make personal sacrifices.
  
  Man evolved in cooperating groups united by common cultural and genetic ties, and it is only in such a setting that the individual can feel truly free, and truly protected. Men cannot live happily alone and without values or any sense of identity: such a situation leads to nihilism, drug abuse, criminality and worse. With the spread of purely egotistic goals at the expense of the altruistic regard for family and nation, the individual begins to talk of his rights rather than his duties, for he no longer feels any sense of destiny, of belonging to and being a part of a greater and more enduring entity. He no longer rejoices in the secure belief that he shares in a heritage which it is part of his common duty to protect – he no longer feels that he has anything in common with those around him. In short, he feels lonely and oppressed. Since all values have become strictly personal, everything is now equal to everything; e.g., nothing equals nothing.”
  
  EDIT: A great dissection of the movie They Live starring Roddy Piper which touches on the themes above:
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6i_msSDvzbg
  
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  September 4, 2017 8:19am
  - mikenmild
    
    Oh, it’s ‘ethical’ National Socialism you want now, is it?
    Care to point out any way in which your old-time Nazis were ‘unethical’?
    
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    September 4, 2017 9:27am
    - DifferentPerspective
      
      No! None of us want Cindy’s National Socialism.
      
      And as for unethical National Socialists – that corner of the market has been well staked out by the Greens.
      
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      September 4, 2017 10:06am
      - mikenmild
        
        Well that went right over someone’s tiny head…
        
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        September 4, 2017 10:48am
    - EAD_TWO
      
      Good ol Milkmaid – setting up yet another strawman to knock down and destroy 🙂
      
      It’s like arguing with a brick wall with you as you’re one of those brainwashed idiots who thinks German National Socialists = literally the greatest evil of all time.
      
      Putting aside the issue of whether or not a “holocaust” actually did place (it didn’t), you are the kind of person who thinks the only policy of the German National Socialists was “killing the Juice”.
      
      No mention of the fact that Hitler changed the German monetary system so the banks couldn’t loot the population through issuing debt money, the fact that Germany had full employment, stood proud after throwing off the shackles and degradations of Weimar that had the Germans on their knees and created a cohesive and prosperous society that in a few shot years that witnessed more innovations than any other country at any point in history.
      
      To you and other brainwashed sheeple, Nazi Germany is and will always be one thing (killing Juice). Shame you don’t show the same passion attacking Judeo-Bolshevism wherever you see it in all forms. Or is killing tens upon tens upon tens of millions of Christians OK by you?
      
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      September 4, 2017 6:34pm
Dead Earnest

That “veritable” propaganda organ of the Labour Party -namely The Dominion Post – conveniently neglected to report last night’s Newshub Reid Research poll that had Nats 4 points ahead of Labour.
Somewhat of a contrast to their blanket coverage of Thursdays One News Colmar Brunton Poll.
Or maybe I missed it, buried on page 46 under births deaths and marriages.
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September 4, 2017 8:02am
- Prince
  
  Diversity is great, says the Dompost – except when it comes to political thought.
  Six opinion columns last week representing left wing views. None from the right.
  
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  September 4, 2017 8:06am
  - Paulus Gnome
    
    More perverse than diverse then
    
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    September 4, 2017 8:10am
  - oldgolfer
    
    I note its circulation fell 11.39 per cent last year and is down now to 50,834.
    You would think someone at Fairfax HQ might give the editor a ring and tell him/her to produce something that someone actually wants to read.
    Morons.
    
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    September 4, 2017 8:37am
    - ztev
      
      Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
      The truth is , OG, old farts like you arent wanted by the advertisers. The newspapers- how quaint, do yous till buy one- are concentrated on their websites and readers between 18 -49.
      
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      September 4, 2017 8:45am
      - GazzaW
        
        Don’t you think ztev that it depends on what products you are marketing? Baby boomers are a lucrative and growing market and they have cash in their pockets and are time rich to indulge themselves. Ask the travel industry, ask the car sales people, ask the hospitality sector, ask anyone involved in the leisure industries and they will confirm that the largest per capita discretionary spend comes from the retirement sector.
        
        Unlike socialism market segmentation does not work on ‘one size fits all’ principles.
        
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        September 4, 2017 9:04am
      - oldgolfer
        
        I see your invitation to charm school, ztev, was lost in the post. Your spelling, as ever, is a source of amusement.
        
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        September 4, 2017 9:06am
      - Paulus Gnome
        
        What version of Z is here this morning?
        
        Comma discipline like oldpark; is Z outsourcing?
        
        No offence intended oldpark, just an observation.
        
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        September 4, 2017 9:08am
      - Ross12
        
        Gazza W
        You are right , the smart advertising people have recognised what you’ve said for years.
        zrec is showing a lack of business knowledge and basic economics.
        
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        September 4, 2017 10:44am
      - calendar girl
        
        Can’t help being personally abusive, can you ztev?
        
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        September 4, 2017 10:59am
    - oldpark
      
      They daily put the boot into the people who pay for the paper. To solve the problem of falling sales ,they put the price up. The Commerce Commission have worked it out,no amalgamation with the other anti National Goverment news outlet The NZ HERALD . To make it even worse both newspapers are controlled by Australian owners.
      Not forgetting the trade unions have a stranglehold grip,on what is published daily mostly “fake news”.
      
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      September 4, 2017 8:54am
- oldpark
  
  Yes i agree. In the same newspaper there was a picture of the grinning goose,M/s Ardern heres me and who is like me,sneering how she would put the boot into mum and dad rental property owners, even though most mums and dads only own one rental property.Lie-bour /Green cabal are either stupid, or have a silver medal wish,when they are threatening mum and dad small time property owners.
  Besides all that,who in their right mind,would be a landlord,especially with the jackboot attack ,threatened by the joined at the hip Lie-bour/Green mafias.
  
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  September 4, 2017 9:47am
- Rich Prick
  
  You’ll find most stories about National in the crime section.
  
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  September 4, 2017 10:12am
- 4077th
  
  That uninspiring tosh of a rag couldn’t even start a fire with the driest of kindling.
  
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  September 4, 2017 10:21am
PhilBest

Damien Grant sure said it in yesterday’s Sunday Star Times.
“The National Government a Labour PM would be proud to lead”
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/96402130/Damien-Grant-The-National-Government-a-Labour-PM-would-be-proud-to-lead

“…I was pleased to see John Key elected in 2008. National has a set of principles. These include limited government and personal responsibility. They have had nine years to implement their principles. How have they done?

“…National has failed to roll back a single penny of the welfare state, failed to confront the disaster of the Resource Management Act, unwind restrictive building regulations or do anything consistent with their stated principles. This is a centre-left government Norman Kirk would have been proud to lead…

“…This Government has cemented the expansion of the welfare state under Helen Clark, and left vulnerable the productive members of the economy to even more aggressive taxation and expropriation by an incoming Labour government…”

That last sentence absolutely nails it. National is to blame for the now-inevitable leftist surge against the economy’s “producers” and “makers”; if they had any convictions that they held to, Labour would have its hands full with undoing National’s reforms – and it wouldn’t be a foregone conclusion that they could. For example, Australian private schools still get 3 times as much government funding as NZ ones, even though the politician responsible, John Howard, lost office in 2007.
National’s timid “Charter Schools” experiment is largely thanks to ACT anyway, and is now a dead duck thanks to the old socialist Winston being opposed to them.
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September 4, 2017 8:02am
- krazykiwi
  
  “…This Government has cemented the expansion of the welfare state under Helen Clark, and left vulnerable the productive members of the economy to even more aggressive taxation and expropriation by an incoming Labour government…”
  
  Yes, that nails it. Term-by-term vote buying is now fully entrenched. Greece soon. We’ll be brought to our knees before we’re brought to our senses.
  
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  September 4, 2017 8:08am
  - PhilBest
    
    Yep, Rogernomics averted our trajectory to sovereign default by 1990 and “first Anglo banana republic” status by 2000.
    
    But this era wasn’t “the end of history”, it was a temporary aberration in our decline and fall. I recall Sir Bob Jones saying a few years ago that any repeat of the courage and principles of the 1980’s, would likewise have to somehow come from the Labour Party; Jones sure looks to be right on this, now. I don’t mean, and nor did Jones mean, that it WILL come from the Labour Party – it just MIGHT come from them if we’re lucky. It WON’T come from National!
    
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    September 4, 2017 8:17am
- niggly
  
  Umm when National was elected we were facing the prospect of a global financial crisis of a proportion not seen since the 1930’s great depression.
  
  National, again like it did in 1990, had to deal with the added disadvantage that Labour spent all the money in the nation’s kitty plus projected spending was on track to increase the deficit massively.
  
  Facing those realities National took the view of bringing the people with them and looking after the most vulnerable. Despite all that they were continuously attacked by the media as being uncaring and economically incapable (eg Labour would feed attack lines that National wasn’t spending enough)!
  
  Despite that Media & Opposition Party onslaught, National are generally viewed favorably by the wider populace which has been reflected in record poll numbers for around a decade.
  
  The positive benefit of this is, despite the Media Party openly promoting Labour again, generally speaking for the first time in generations the public no longer see National as heartless bastards, which still gives them the advantage of campaigning on economic credibility which does resonate with voters despite Labour’s populism approach.
  
  My view of what you are complaining about that is broken are really three things:
  
  MMP (meaning majority parties can’t govern without compromises), Media Bias (and their woeful knowledge of economics and business) and lack of a strong right-wing Party (ACT) on the right of National. That’s where attention should be focused on! We’ve had 20 years of MMP it has shown to be an absurd system, the nation deserves something better!
  
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  September 4, 2017 8:58am
  - PhilBest
    
    There really isn’t any electoral advantage to trying to end your reputation as “heartless bastards” when the other side is always going to tax and borrow ever more, and continue, with the aid of the MSM, to portray you as “heartless bastards” anyway.
    
    At some stage someone needs to stake their neck on turning the economy round, or the inevitable trajectory is as I am saying: sovereign default, followed by banana republic status.
    
    National’s 1 to 2 percent annual economic growth is based on 1) population growth by immigration 2) longer hours worked 3) home owners treating bubble value inflation as an equity-withdrawal ATM and 4) disaster rebuilding inputs
    
    In the underlying essentials we have been going backwards probably to the tune of several percent per year, and this is about to speed up. The next GFC “tide going out” will show the NZ “rock star economy” to be very naked indeed.
    
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    September 4, 2017 9:22am
- GoVege
  
  What do you expect Phil?
  They’re in with the Maori Party.
  That means encouraging kids to have babies from 13 and gangs as “an acceptable lifestyle choice “.
  
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  September 4, 2017 10:19am
DifferentPerspective

Who created the North Korea problem?

A fucking Clinton – that’s who!

And how much worse would his insane wife have made it if she was in the White House now – be thankful for Trump!
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September 4, 2017 8:03am
- kowtow
  
  Funny , the Norks let off a nuclear bomb and RNZ ‘news’ accuse the Yanks of ‘ramping up’ the rhetoric.
  
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  September 4, 2017 8:14am
  - DifferentPerspective
    
    Our very own Red Radio – leaders in fake news for New Zealand and to add insult to injury – funded by us taxpayers!
    
    It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so sad!
    
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    September 4, 2017 8:18am
  - cmm
    
    kowtow: you’re only saying this is funny because you have never been threatened by someone with rhetoric.
    
    Lats night I was mugged by a gangsta who forced me to hand over my wallet by doing a rap song about poverty.
    
    Don’t underestimate how dangerous it is.
    
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    September 4, 2017 8:31am
  - Manolo
    
    Yes, the same RNZ, the very bastion of the Left, the National government refuses to privatise.
    
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    September 4, 2017 9:38am
  - Gabby
    
    Jeez kobknob, I guess they’ve noticed the Norkos are doing and Chump is beating his gums.
    
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    September 4, 2017 12:44pm
Paulus Gnome

The billboard picture featured in this morning’s Sideswipe could have easily have been:

Reaching for the stars, or

Soaring with the eagles rather than working with the turkeys.

Sort of depends on one’s perception really, mine are obviously not the same as Samway’s

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sideswipe/news/article.cfm?c_id=702&objectid=11916468

I am sure there are more, go for it!
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September 4, 2017 8:03am
Notsofast

Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
Now we know legally David Tamihere was framed for the murder of the Swedes, we should all help the political processd by re designing the path to prosecutions, to avert the Thomas, Tamihere, Pora, Bain, Lundy and MacDonald debacles. The police framed all these men, with zilch evidence.
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September 4, 2017 8:10am
- holysheet
  
  Why do you always leave out the only real miscarriage of justice sufferer?
  One Peter Ellis.
  
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  September 4, 2017 8:37am
  - Notsofast
    
    Largely because he was not charged with murder. I also provisionally leave out Scott Watson while trying to figure the case. About the above six the science is completely settled, they are all innocent. Indeed all of them are exonerated completely, found not guilty, or pursuing intensive appeals that will not die on these shores.
    As an aside, I don’t understand the down voting. I have done the straight forward research, surely you can all see them toppling one by one?
    
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    September 4, 2017 8:59am
    - Keeping Stock
      
      Lundy – guilty (twice)
      
      Bain – Found not guilty, but almost certainly responsible for the deaths of his family.
      
      McDonald – acquitted of murder because the Crown didn’t present a strong enough circumstantial case. Guilty however of serious anti-social offending which showed enough flaws to his character that he could well be a murderer.
      
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      September 4, 2017 9:14am
      - Notsofast
        
        Keeping Stock:
        You seem to think I am blowing smoke on Lundy. Why? What possible motive would I have? The privy council called it a miscarriage of justice, and nothing has changed. The process rumbles on, the outcome is competely assured. The trick for you Palmerston North people will be learning to adjust and accept what has been perpetrated. I have seen in a multitude of international cases that those closest, and most screwed by faulty police work cling to their beliefs even when they have as much genuine merit as a dead fly on the windscreen.
        
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        September 4, 2017 9:22am
      - pdm
        
        Inv – wasn’t Bains last court decision `not proven’ rather than not guilty?
        
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        September 4, 2017 9:33am
      - G152
        
        AAT found guilty a number of times.
        Exonerated by the work of Pat Booth who proved the police planted the ‘evidence’
        
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        September 4, 2017 9:35am
      - Notsofast
        
        G152 of course you are right. In the High court the defence for witness C stated that David Tamihere had been proven to be a killer because the jury convicted, the appeal court denied, and the Privy council declined the case. Yet anecdotally, the trial result of friday means few now believe David Tamihere is guilty. Legal closure is not factual or scientific. And of course we will see the Tamihere family fight vehemently to recover their good family name, albeit David will not attract public sympathy. But his teenage children were persecuted at school, and his parents suffered. This is gravely unjust, yet it is forgotten collateral damage. The Lundy case is even worse, where a man with no police record lost his family, his friends and his liberty. His father died in grief, watch the videos.
        
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        September 4, 2017 9:47am
      - Notsofast
        
        pdm:
        The science shows unequivocally that Robin Bain shot himself, that David Bain was on a paper run as his family was killed by a man active in Free Masonry. The crime scene is the center, and Dempster the pathologist made an incontrovertible notebook entry at the time saying the gun was in contact with the left temple. Let’s not keep pretending David Bain could achieve this with a precise suicide compatible trajectory.
        
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        September 4, 2017 9:53am
      - mikenmild
        
        Oh no – the Masons…
        
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        September 4, 2017 10:02am
      - Paulus Gnome
        
        Be fair MM, it could have just as easily been the Brethren . . . . .
        
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        September 4, 2017 1:03pm
    - GoVege
      
      Sorry to downtick you NSF.
      Just a lot of us hate to see killers get away with murder.
      
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      September 4, 2017 10:25am
      - Notsofast
        
        There’s only one OJ, Vege.
        
        As I keep trying to point out, we must return to the crime scene in each case.
        
        For example there were two distinct crimes with the Swedes.
        1. They were murdered (at least Sven) near Whangamata.
        2. A car was converted near Thames.
        
        Huia George Foley confessed on his death bed to the murders, Crime 1 solved, while David Tamihere claims to have stolen the car unlockimg it with fence wire, a task he replicated while handcuffed. Crime 2 solved.
        Two crimes, two confessions.
        
        Looks walks and quacks like a duck(s).
        
        Lundy:
        Unknown male dna and cloth fibers under victims’ fingernails, finger prints, palm print and shoe print never attributed to any known party to visit the Lundy house, found beside broken window catch.
        This is a break in and home invasion resulting in homicide, whether or not premeditated.
        Crime solved.
        
        That’s ok, anytime.
        
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        September 4, 2017 10:49am
      - GoVege
        
        The evidence on Tamihere and Watson is definitely doubtful, NSF.
        Especially after the young Swedish guy’s body was found on the other side of the Coromandel complete with watch.
        But there’s no way Robin Bain could have shot his family and himself.
        
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        September 4, 2017 9:03pm
Happychappy

I could be wrong duggledog but isn’t this what Winston and Shane want also. Maybe I am wrong but Shane Jones has been advocating wiping out the gangs.
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September 4, 2017 8:10am
- doggone7
  
  Shane Jones advocating wiping out the gangs won’t have them worried. Paula stomping in, whip in hand will have them really packing it. Or not.
  
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  September 4, 2017 8:33am
kowtow

Who the whuck cares about “diversity” in the work place?
Shit storm and one academic about to lose his job.

‘Dr Raymond Richards, who teaches American history and religion at the University of Waikato, made a comment on Friday on a Z Energy Facebook post about diversity in the workplace.’
The post shows a photograph of a bearded man wearing a turban. Dr Richards wrote: “Who needs employees if they stop work five times per day to talk to an imaginary being?”

https://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/lecturer-under-fire-after-prayer-comment
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September 4, 2017 8:16am
- PhilBest
  
  His point was based on “all religion” being out of synch with so-called “modern secular values”. It is noticeable how hypocritical the so-called “secularists” on the progressive Left are on this. Milo Yiannopoulos nailed it recently when he said the Left has a “scale of victimhood status” that changes with political expedience – and currently, Muslims are at the top of that scale, and too bad for the other victim classes any time their “rights” clash with Muslim fundamentalism and reaction.
  
  Imagine if Christians were the ones demanding time out and spaces for prayer!
  
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  September 4, 2017 8:31am
  - Gruffydd
    
    Imagine if Christians were the ones demanding time out and spaces for prayer!
    
    Your churches are tax free and in some incidences paid for directly by the tax payer . We are forced to subside your fuckin safe places and praying rooms.
    
    It is illegal for me to blasphemy your delusions God.
    It is even illegal to do stuff on your religions special days .
    The full force of the government is protecting your beliefs .
    
    This is a secular country.That you think your god delusions counts in NZ politic is you trying to make your religion control my fuckin life .
    
    Yet you think you are persecuted .
    #Gibbering nutbar.
    
    Fortunately if your politics was coherent enough to have a party it would be lucky to get 5% needed to get a seat
    Because of the history of Christian partys here in NZ you are never going to do better .
    
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    September 4, 2017 8:59am
    - PhilBest
      
      Eric Sides wasn’t an early example of a Christian persecuted in NZ for his beliefs? His sin was wanting to employ only fellow Christians. The “secular” State has no business in dictating who private individuals choose as employees. Once it starts in this, it is not “secular”, it is persecuting someone.
      
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      September 4, 2017 9:25am
      - Gruffydd
        
        Look small fluffy mammal.
        Slowly
        You are not being persecuted
        You are persecuting atheists by using the force of government to keep your religions designated days and even subsidize your safe spaces.
        Over half of this country do not follow your God
        in fact most Christians don’t share your views.
        # fringe loon.
        There are a few country’s that have the system you seem to want
        They are usually called failed states .
        Places were the rule of law has broken down and anarchy prevails.
        
        You are also a ranter against zoning laws
        There is a graphic example of what that leads to in Houston Texas right now.
        50,000 houses destroyed because of absent zoning laws. Entire suburbs have been built on flood planes that decent zoning would prohibit from residential development .
        Flood insurance is a government entity in the usa .
        It was 25billion in the red before Houston’s flooding. The government will bail them out this time including the uninsured . This bailout represents a transfer of wealth from taxpayers to private developers.
        Privatize the profits socialize the risks.
        Typical GOP small government bullshite.
        
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        September 4, 2017 9:46am
      - PhilBest
        
        Yawn, the lefty-liars narrative about Houston.
        
        http://www.newgeography.com/content/005730-hurricane-harvey-a-view-a-rugged-communitarian
        
        “Hurricane Harvey: A View from a Rugged Communitarian”.
        
        Extracts:
        
        • Harvey is the wettest storm ever to hit the continental US. Over 50 inches of rainfall and 1 trillion gallons of water fell during the event. No one builds a church for Easter, or a gated community for the zombie apocalypse. It’s pretty naive to expect people to expect the unexpected.
        • So far, there have been fewer than 50 storm-related deaths. Each of these deaths is tragic, but even if that number creeps higher, it is a stunning low fatality rate for such a major event in such a large city. The Houston region has more than 6.6 million people, and every year more than 40,000 of them die – so Hurricane Harvey increased the annual death tally by about 0.1%. Sad, but not catastrophic.
        • An estimated 30,000 people have been forced from their homes. This is approximately 0.5% of the population of the Houston region. In other words, 99.5% of people in the Houston region have been able to stay in their homes. Unfortunate, but not catastrophic.
        • The Trump Administration has estimated that 100,000 homes were damaged or destroyed. While it is unclear how that estimate was obtained – if 30,000 people were forced from their home, then probably 70-90% of those homes did not sustain enough damage to force an evacuation – the Houston region has more than 1.6 million housing units, so about 6% of homes sustained damage of some kind. Lamentable, but not catastrophic.
        • Economic impact estimates are all over the map at this point; initial estimates were in the $30-40 billion range, but have been rising since then. Let’s say they end up being comparable to Superstorm Sandy, which caused about $70 billions of damage in today’s dollars. The Houston region GDP is about half a trillion dollars a year, so Harvey’s economic cost would be about 14% of our total economic output. Expensive, but not catastrophic.
        A dispassionate weighing of these facts would tell you that while stressful events always help identify areas for improvement, by and large our infrastructure and leadership performed admirably well under extraordinary circumstances.
        It other words, the facts would tell you that Harvey was not a catastrophe for Houston; it was our finest hour.
        
        …we are not rugged individualists; we are rugged communitarians. We know that when times are tough, you must rely first on family, then friends, then neighbors, and then – and only if you’re one of the few, unfortunate folks who cannot rely on any of those three – on the government. And if we have family, friends, or neighbors who can help, reaching out for government support is actually taking resources away from those who need them more.
        In short, the best governance to rely upon is self- governance.
        When the storm hit, I saw these networks in action…
        
        … Houston was able to absorb the wettest storm on record with remarkably little loss of life and property also because of good engineering, informed by the experience of previous storms. A good engineer designs systems that won’t fail when hit with an expected event; a great engineer designs systems that fail gracefully and non-catastrophically when hit with an unexpected event. Hats off to our great engineers.
        …Of course, there is always room for improvement. By studying what happened, we will find ways to improve the system for the next storm – and there will always be a next storm. We learned a lot from Ike, Rita, and earlier storms. When I was a child, a couple of inches of rain would flood my neighborhood; today, that same neighborhood absorbed 25 inches of rain and made it through. We have come a long way…
        
        … Houston’s approach is not the “wild west.” We have land use that is managed from the bottom up, through a system of deed restrictions that often include local homeowners’ associations to police those restrictions. What we don’t have is a top-down, expert-driven, bureaucratic system of centralized planning. As a result, it’s easier to develop real estate than most cities, which keeps real estate prices – especially housing prices – low relative to the rest of the country. It is actually a more sophisticated and economically efficient system than the antiquated politically-driven zoning system that generally favors entrenched interests over new entrants.
        
        Over an 18 year period, Houston lost about 25,000 acres of wetlands. But this amounts to about 4 billion gallons of storm water detention capacity. As stated above, Harvey dumped about 1 trillion gallons; so the lost capacity represents about of 0.4% of Harvey’s deluge. But it’s also important to understand that the streets – a huge portion of the paved area – are used as detention, places to hold storm water temporarily when there is nowhere for it to drain. Houston’s strategy for many years has been to use streets as detention and runoff channels, the idea being that it is better to flood a street than a house. And the city’s performance under Harvey confirms the wisdom of that strategy.
        
        “Zoning” is the most ridiculous of all the claims made by the narrative spinners. Mayor Turner put it best: “Zoning wouldn’t have changed anything. We would have been a city with zoning that flooded.”
        
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        September 4, 2017 10:07am
      - Gruffydd
        
        ROFL
        120 billion plus.
        Community orientated Texas tried to stop the bailout effort for sandy .
        
        You cut and pasted some waffle matey not address my comments content.
        
        Storm costs are rising.
        About three five hundred year floods have hit Houston Texas in the last five years.
        
        Physics the planet is warming.
        More moisture in storms.
        Stronger storms .
        
        Sea level is rising.
        More flooding .
        
        We dont see any calls to do something about the stupid way the yanks have built on coastal swamps and river deltas. We don’t see calls for government funded flood insurance tied to risk.
        The government will bail you out .
        The GOP one that manufacturers stupid excuses to avoid addressing reality
        Much of the USA’s coastal infrastructure is doomed. The kitty to bail out more catastrophic floods is bare. Sandy Katrina Mitch Harvey and more are only the beginning of escalating costs.
        
        What we do see is the baboon in chief cutting a satellite designed to measure atmospheric moisture and proposing cuts in funding to FEMA’s flood risk evaluation and response .
        
        Oh and Phil
        I am an ACT voter. Far right in the NZ political landscape.
        You are Lost in a fantersy world of church and state .
        In New Zealand were religion and politics goes down like cold sick with maggots.
        
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        September 4, 2017 11:26am
    - kowtow
      
      If this is a secular country how is it we have blasphemy laws and laws to stop you doing things ? Strikes me that you’re the persecuted one . Or is all that ganja beginning to burn up the brain cells and the reefer madness setting in?
      
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      September 4, 2017 11:27am
DifferentPerspective

That’s really going to make North Korea worried

Whoopdy doo! The UN SecGen has issued a statement condemning the Norks nuclear test.

I’m sure that’ll make the fat kid rethink things! I’m sure Gutteres will ramp up things with maybe a Facebook post or two and a few #StandWithSKorea Twitter posts and then things will settle down nicely.

The UN is an anti-semitic joke and it needs to be euthanised.
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September 4, 2017 8:17am
- VicParking
  
  I have the answer. Why don’t we all go down to Aotea square tonight light candles and sing Kumbaya. Or better still hang Rice Balls in a tree, that will scare Kim away
  
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  September 4, 2017 1:59pm
wreck1080

Don Braid is an awesome individual (cos he thinks along the same lines as myself)….

From the herald….
“Mainfreight chief Don Braid has called time on the Government’s leadership saying New Zealand needs to be led by visionaries – not “a couple of accountants”.

“I think they’ve stopped listening to us. And I think they think they know better than us. And that’s a problem I think for a Government that’s been around for a long time,” Braid said.
”

This is what I have always argued.
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September 4, 2017 8:19am
- holysheet
  
  I agree as well, but not this time. I would rather a couple of accountants get back into govt, than the motley liabore lot led by a flakey colgate promotion.
  The timing is not right.
  
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  September 4, 2017 8:40am
- Lance
  
  Cos Mainfrieght has done badly under a National govt?
  
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  September 4, 2017 8:42am
  - GazzaW
    
    Mainfreight shares have soared under the Nat Government and are a major player in planning NZ’s transport infrastructure. Braid and Plested would have made a fortune. Interestingly Bruce Plested is a major donor to the Maori Party.
    
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    September 4, 2017 9:24am
    - oldpark
      
      Just another example of a drop kick like Braid, biting the hand that kept his Mainfreight co on the road,and now licking the hand of those if elected, who will tax Mainfreight to the point of disaster.
      
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      September 4, 2017 10:25am
cmm

According to the Herald,

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11916605, 14 year old shoots parents at point blank range.

Surely journalists should know what the phrases and words they use mean?

Point blank means a range for which no elevation compensation is needed. For most handguns thats going to be at least out to 50 metres. For most rifles it is over 200 metres.

Journalists: If you’re going to use these word things, at least find out what they mean.
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September 4, 2017 8:27am
- PhilBest
  
  That’s interesting thanks CMM, I never knew that. I always thought “point blank” meant you were literally right next to the target. Probably a lot of others think this too.
  
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  September 4, 2017 8:34am
- wreck1080
  
  I always thought point blank meant within a meter or 2.
  
  Always good to learn something new , thanks.
  
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  September 4, 2017 8:34am
- Swifty
  
  That has always rankled with me too – that and referring to ammunition as ‘bullets’ etc etc
  
  Edit: sp
  
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  September 4, 2017 8:35am
- Swifty
  
  I also read fairly recently coverage of a firearms incident in NZ, where a guy was shot at by a guy with a shotgun (presumably just the once) and had seven pellets in him.
  
  The reportage was that ‘he was shot seven times’ because ‘he had seven bullets in him’.
  
  Pathetic.
  
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  September 4, 2017 8:39am
  - PhilBest
    
    I remember a hilarious spoof by Alan Coren years ago, concerning Idi Amin explaining the death of one of his lieutenants in suspicious circumstances – “he committed suicide by shooting himself in the mouth 3 times….”
    
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    September 4, 2017 10:11am
- waikatogirl
  
  He shot them in their bed while they slept. The dad saw him in the bedroom. How could he be 50m away? ?
  
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  September 4, 2017 8:53am
- tom hunter
  
  Against my better instincts I clicked on that Herald article and…
  
  … For once I’d say the journalist had it exactly right. Shooting people with a handgun while standing right beside the bed they’re in is exactly the definition of “point blank” FFS!
  
  Given your South African background I have to assume draftee training in the Army. But I’ve got forty years experience in usng rifles and handguns and I’d say the following statement..
  
  For most handguns thats going to be at least out to 50 metres. For most rifles it is over 200 metres.
  
  … is utter crap!
  
  50m – for a fucking handgun? Maybe for a .357 – I read of one great incident a couple of years ago where some ornery old Texan (?) helped a police officer take out a bad guy by pinning down the latter with a .357 at about 150yards, even wounding him a couple of times before the officer could get an angle on him with his rifle.
  
  But for most handguns, you sure as shit are going to be correcting for elevation at 50m. In fact at that range handgun shooting is woefully inaccurate for even highly trained shooters.
  
  For all but the heaviest rifles like 0.308’s and up the same would apply for 100m, and even then I’ve never heard any rifleman refer to distances less than 200m or even 100m as “point blank”. 50m or 25m maybe – with a rifle – and 10m or less with a handgun.
  
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  September 4, 2017 9:05am
  - Swifty
    
    Tom, cmm is right, he has correctly described the technical definition of point blank. I do concede however it has, over time, come to mean ‘close range’ i.e. firearm up close to someone’s face/body.
    
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    September 4, 2017 9:18am
  - cmm
    
    Tom, my experience with firearms is certainly a bit more than just spending some time in the army. I’ve owned air rifles since I was 10 and firearms since I was 16. I’m now north of 50 and there are 6 firearms + some air guns within 5 metres of where I’m sitting now. On top of that, I do reloading and such, so I’m pretty familiar with ballistics.
    
    Point blank range has nothing to do with the effective killing range of a shot or the accuracy of a shot. Instead it is to do with the bullet drop.
    
    If you are familiar with rifles and hunting, you are likely familiar with the term Maximum Point Blank Range. That is the range at which you can set up a rifle to strike within a target area with no compensation for elevation. For something the size of a deer that would normally be +-3inches or so.
    
    Set up a .308 to be 2 inches high at 100m, zero at 200m and the bullet will drop to 3 inches below the sight line at about 250 metres. That makes the MPBR of a .308 about 250 metres.
    
    As for correcting elevation on a handgun – no real need. Elevation is required to compensate for the effects of gravity on the bullet.
    
    Let’s take the lowly .22, even a subsonic, traveling at about 300m/s. Flight time to target is about 1/6 of a second. Applying s=1/2 *a * t^2 that gives you a drop of about 14cm, so well within the margins for MPBR.
    
    For a .357 the MPBR keeping +-3inches is about 150 metres.
    
    You are correct in noting that people survive all sorts of injuries. I knew a bloke who was a helicopter gunner who put 3 torso shots through a bloke with a .50 BMG and that didn’t stop him. Another burst of 3 did.
    
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    September 4, 2017 9:43am
  - RF
    
    Years ago in another life I was on a training exercise in the central North Island. We had set up several vehicles and shot at them with 9mms from an MP5, 38s, 357s, 223, buck shot & Standard long range 4 shotgun.
    
    The penitration was very interesting as some went straight through
    
    I was surprised that if you had the drivers door partially open and fired front on at it, it readily deflected most rounds. The scenario was a driver firing from a partially open door and being covered.
    
    My pick in those days was a trusty 357.
    
    I am sure in these modern times there are more suitable weapons.
    
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    September 4, 2017 10:02am
  - Sideoiler
    
    … For once I’d say the journalist had it exactly right. Shooting people with a handgun while standing right beside the bed they’re in is exactly the definition of “point blank” FFS!
    
    No not even close.
    https://www.nrafamily.org/articles/2017/4/12/what-is-point-blank-range/
    
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    September 4, 2017 11:04am
  - Dafixeruppa
    
    Tom, I take issue with the following and again only from my own experience.
    With a 9mm (.357 equivalent for the old school), I can comfortably hit a 250mm Diameter target consistently at 60 yards with every shot.
    With my .223 significantly smaller than your .308 claim as heavy, I can consistently hit the bottom of a coke can at 500 yards.
    BUT, I still think of point blank as being within the same room for a handgun (or closer) and less than 50m for a rifle
    
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    September 4, 2017 2:00pm
- cmm
  
  The actual etymology is the French: pointé à blanc which means aiming at the white bit (ie. the central aiming point) of the target.
  
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  September 4, 2017 9:21am
  - Kimbo
    
    Hmm. Obscure yet interesting factoid. Are you in a Pub Quiz team, yet? 😉
    
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    September 4, 2017 10:08am
- MCos
  
  Doesn’t really matter much. I see in another article the end of the world in nigh – according to Bishop Brian.
  I was wondering why the Baptist Church around the corner from me was rushing through their renovations
  
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  September 4, 2017 9:33am
- cha
  
  MidwayUSA, one of the larger privately owned American retailers of hunting and outdoor goods:
  
  Definition for “point blank range” : 1. The maximum distance where the trajectory of the bullet does not exceed a predetermined amount of rise or drop, also the maximum distance a specific round can be fired and hit a given target without any compensation for bullet drop; 2. A colloquial term for a distance from the muzzle to the target of less than four feet.
  
  https://web.archive.org/web/20071208234646/http://www.midwayusa.com/guntecdictionary.exe/showterm?TermID=3768
  
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  September 4, 2017 9:53am
- Dave Mann
  
  Technically you might be correct (I have no idea and very little interest really). To the normal person, including obviously the journalist, ‘point blank’ means ‘very close’ so stop splitting hairs.
  
  I find it disturbing that all you can find to comment on about this case is the range of the shots, when it’s about a fucking teenager who tried to kill both his parents for stopping him going to a baseball game by shooting them multiple times while they were in bed.
  
  Where are your priorities in life?
  
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  September 4, 2017 10:09am
- Gabby
  
  In common usage it means really close. Most of us don’t have your cultural grounding in foreomms cmmiebokkie.
  
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  September 4, 2017 1:00pm
  - VicParking
    
    Stop this. If you want to fill a blog up by splitting hairs go the the standard please
    
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    September 4, 2017 2:07pm
oldpark

Lie-bour/Green cabal bribe of a few extra dollars to tertiary students,to get their vote. Students will know exactly how much it costs to attend University
The Sociopathic Behaviour of the Lie-bour /Green Cabal omitting to tell the students why they are being bribed for their vote.
The truth is an ambush for all voters, including the bribe, is for votes to bring in a punitive Capital Gains Tax. One of the most feared taxes will be an inheritance tax,better known as a “Dead Granny Tax”Lets say the minimum rate taxed is 15% Per $100,000 or $15,000.With M/sArdern
saying the average Auckland house is circa One Million Dollars,easy to see where the “Dead Granny Tax” gouges inheritors.
For a few dollars bribe by the Cabal,taken with stars in their eyes by students and their families,will soon turn to anger and rage when they find they have been conned for their vote. Especially when their “Dead Granny inheritance” ,is burgled by the Sociopathic Lie-bour/Green mafias.
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September 4, 2017 8:33am
- fluffykiwi
  
  Suggest to your student children, vote labour no inheritance as there will be none.
  Those students in line for an inheritance might think twice, particularly if Mum and Dad chip in and help with the fees. A small price to pay to keep labour out of power I would think.
  
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  September 4, 2017 8:40am
- krazykiwi
  
  Socialists steal corporate wealth by nationalising companies (Granny loses her shares)
  
  Socialist steal private wealth by inheritance tax (Dead granny’s family loses what’s left)
  
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  September 4, 2017 9:03am
- 4077th
  
  My 2nd year student daughter received a letter addressed directly to her from Labour on Saturday. My first reaction was how the hell did they find her personal info but seems obvious now. Notably, nothing from National at all. Seems they have given up on students believing they all vote red or green. Fortunately my daughter is well educated in the art of political bribery and stable government. She knows voting for lollies for toady means a likely uncomfortable visit to the dentist is not far away. TWO TICKS BLUE!
  
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  September 4, 2017 10:48am
  - Gabby
    
    TULIXPU!
    In the 8063rd it was a well known fact that students didn’t bother voting.
    
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    September 4, 2017 1:03pm
fluffykiwi

It boils down to having a succession plan in place. successful businesses make sure that their Chief Operating Officer only has the top job for a period of say 5 – 6 years, maybe a little longer maybe less. They plan for their change, bring people through.
The trouble with Governments and Leaders of Political parties is their “selfishness” it is their way or the highway. (even schools change their headmasters)
Government should be for a period of 4 years, this would give time for the political parties to be out of electioneering mode and able to get on with the job of bringing to fruition their plans.
Government should be more like a business, we the shareholders want a dividend from a successfully run business, the dividend can be anything that provides a better life for its citizens. Less MP’s would be a start. Bum warmers doing noting (list MP’s in some cases) The MP’s should prove their worth on the hustings. There are good and bad in most parties. STV might be a far better option than MMP.
The lesson – Never take the Voter for Granted and they cannot always be bought” is a good place to start.
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September 4, 2017 8:33am
Odakyu-sen

The media is telling us that the North Koreans have detonated a hydrogen bomb. This is worrying. We are being told that the situation is becoming more risky.

Something may happen… or we wait until the next “provocation.”

Certainly the Japanese government is very concerned about all this.
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September 4, 2017 8:36am
- dime
  
  i glanced my eye over the Japanese military.. those boys wont fuck around if it comes down to it.
  
  Dime kinda wants to see an F15 go up against a Mig 21… but doesnt want to see another war…
  
  99% sure the US will be at war against NK in the next 5 years. especially if trump loses next election.
  
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  September 4, 2017 8:55am
  - mikenmild
    
    You think only Trump can maintain peace on the Korean peninsula?
    
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    September 4, 2017 9:32am
    - dime
      
      “You think only Trump can maintain peace on the Korean peninsula?”
      
      nope, not at all. he will most probaby act.
      
      i do think that the dems blood lust was on display with hillary running.
      
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      September 4, 2017 9:42am
      - mikenmild
        
        I doubt that even Hilary Clinton would initiate nuclear war in Korea, despite her enthusiastic support for other military adventures. Trump, I’m not so sure…
        
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        September 4, 2017 9:56am
      - All_on_Red
        
        Trump has already confirmed to the Chinese that he won’t initiate anything and will only react if an actual attack occurs.
        He tweeted this last night
        ‘The United States is considering, in addition to other options, stopping all trade with any country doing business with North Korea.’
        So he’s still applying pressure to China, especially their Banks.
        I suspect they may start trying to intercept the missiles though.
        Sorry Dime, no F15 dogfights.
        
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        September 4, 2017 10:25am
      - dime
        
        milky – not sure where i mentioned nukes.
        
        but if you are worried about it, then thats that. we should all be deeply concerned..
        
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        September 4, 2017 11:07am
      - gump
        
        @All_on_Red
        
        North Korea’s biggest trading partner is China.
        
        Trump will not suspend trade between the USA and China.
        
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        September 4, 2017 11:33am
      - All_on_Red
        
        Gump
        Yes, I think we know that China is a major trade partner of NK AND the USA. And it’s all very much in China’s favour selling to the US.
        Trump making that statement is the whole point.
        Can China afford their US markets closed?
        No, they can’t.
        
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        September 4, 2017 11:45am
      - Gabby
        
        Chump’ll up the insurance on his Seoul properties.
        
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        September 4, 2017 7:08pm
- 4077th
  
  It won’t change my travel plans. Likely I will be in Japan and South Korea next month. Am very much looking forward to watching the fighter jets flying in and out of Busan.
  
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  September 4, 2017 10:53am
  - VicParking
    
    Don’t forget to take plenty of tinfoil.
    
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    September 4, 2017 2:10pm
    - 4077th
      
      Most places I work/visit have plenty of shielding from anything little Kim has 🙂
      
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      September 4, 2017 2:50pm
fluffykiwi

The problem I have presently with this close election is if National scrapes through they will think they need to go further left as that is where the mood of the electorate is.
Those of us who are right of centre need to Party vote Act, (unless in Epsom where the candidate vote is a good idea). This could achieve 2 things, a Support Party for National (under MMP) and also suggest that National needs to get back to its true place.
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September 4, 2017 8:36am
- ztev
  
  Polls show ACT below 1%, even though ACT has adopted identity politics.
  Nationals true place ? They arent interested in being a 25% party either.
  
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  September 4, 2017 8:49am
- dime
  
  1) Seymour started calling people like me Xenophobes. wheni hearthat word i think of shit heads like ztev who trhow it around
  
  2) 20k pay increase for teachers. while the union still exists. fuck. that. shit.
  
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  September 4, 2017 8:56am
- m@tt
  
  But fluffy kiwi, that IS where the mood of the electorate is and always has been and why Key was one of the most socialist PM’s we’ve had. Hell he couldn’t even sell a few assets!
  The ‘right’ in kiwi politics has always be slightly left of centre.
  Witness the reaction of Bill this morning playing down Paula’s human rights “gaffe”. They can’t even say they’ll let the police search gang members and drug dealers without most of the electorate frowning and tut tutting.
  
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  September 4, 2017 9:01am
- Manolo
  
  I have had enough of today’s spineless National, lighter hue of red and Labour in drag.
  ACT has my party vote.
  
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  September 4, 2017 10:58am
- VicParking
  
  I think there are a lot of people like me. In the begining of this election I was thinking of electorate blue party yellow, but as its gone on a yellow vote would be a wasted vote. So back to two for blue.
  
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  September 4, 2017 2:12pm
Monique Watson

Yes they did detonate an h-bomb which caused an earthquake. Also two on the 16th August.
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September 4, 2017 8:47am
- rangitoto
  
  The yield appears to be too low for an H bomb
  
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  September 4, 2017 11:49am
fluffykiwi

Something from the last time Labour talked Capital Gains
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/be3ab3d0e55e31164774ea74b5537db25170c6bcf924be6faeb3f7f1cd4476f9.jpg

Certainly some questions there scary to say the least for those who work hard and save for the future.
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September 4, 2017 8:48am
- waikatogirl
  
  It appears that positive Cindy is afterall as untransparent as “I’m sorry for being a man” Cunliffe who said during the 2014 election campaign:
  
  4. “The fine details of that will be worked out by an expert advisory group.”
  
  5. “It is not a politician’s job to know the minute details of policy.”
  
  Interesting that Cunliffe used the same lines as clever Cindy. He didn’t get the traction as Cindy but then he wasn’t as positive as she is. ???
  
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  September 4, 2017 9:04am
Inandout

It is quite ironical that as Slater beavers away to destroy Bill English, whenever he runs a poll his supporters back National 100%. Keep going Cam, wherever that leads you.
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September 4, 2017 8:50am
- dime
  
  the dude is a narcissist. he can handle being wrong. he wont change his mind.
  
  ive been casting my eye over his garbage best of youtube site cause its election time. between the links to cat videos he does the odd post.
  
  after the last poll i had to laugh.
  
  he wrote something like:
  
  “people giving me credit for bringing the nats down, oh to be so powerful”
  
  lol so hes downplaying that thought.. while promoting it hard out.
  
  he must be well out of the loop. he doesnt seem to get any scoops anymore.
  
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  September 4, 2017 8:59am
  - Happychappy
    
    It will only get worse as you would think even his father won’t save him from the bridges he has burn’t with National.Lets face the only way he will get near the National Leadership again is if Judith Collins becomes Leader.
    
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    September 4, 2017 9:27am
  - PhilBest
    
    I have some sympathy for someone who doesn’t just stay blindly loyal to a Party regardless of how far it abandons its own alleged principles. National could do with a bit more rebellion within its ranks. I would very much like to see a change like the one from Muldoonism to Ruthnomics, in the next decade. They did it once before, they can do it again. But it might depend on Labour outflanking them on the right again.
    
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    September 4, 2017 10:18am
    - dime
      
      phil – dime is no fan of national.. but WO went feral cause they stopped talking to hinnm. he can dress it up however he likes but thats what happened
      
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      September 4, 2017 10:24am
    - Happychappy
      
      Philbest: You are probably right and I am as you say one of those blindly loyal but you can’t associate with someone that is toxic in politics and Winston might be just finding that out.
      
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      September 4, 2017 12:40pm
- VicParking
  
  The Whanganui Chronicle (Herald lite) was running a pole which had the Labour candidate 70/30 in front. Problem is the papers circulation does not cover the National area of the southern farmland of Whanganui. When a scientific pole was carried out the National candidate was in front. They still however are sticking to their pole and using it for headlines.
  FAKE NEWS
  
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  September 4, 2017 2:17pm
  - Gabby
    
    Leave the Poles out of it VicBarking.
    
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    September 4, 2017 2:24pm
- Piniwi
  
  It is interesting the one poll or stats that are conspicuous by their absence is his blog figures which he used to constantly crow about. The today he bypasses his rule no 1. Explaining is losing with a lengthy explanation about “his” position. Followed by another article of an in depth look at, you guessed, Winston First. Not as big as Stuff’s puff piece but equally cringe worthy.
  The continuous expansion of exposure to every left leaning article dragged into the blog don’t help much at all. Or the ramblings of his good friend Brian Edwards who is a hack from way back now completely befuddled.
  For most the reproduction of material from Kiwiblog seem to be the highlights. Many of those do need wider readership if you want to avoid all the troll noise.
  
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  September 4, 2017 3:08pm
Paulus

Early this morning RNZ had an article from the BBC on the German Election which takes place the day after ours.
It was well presented and discussed the re election of Merkel which is fully expected. She is considered dull, faceless and unexciting.
Despite serious opposition to her Immigration Policy and many other things she will win.
A few right anti Immigration seats will get elected.
However the crux of this is that despite serious misgivings the people will vote for her.
The German translation was given in that the German people would say:
“It is better the devil you know than the one you do not”
Sound familiar !
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September 4, 2017 9:23am
- Inandout
  
  Good God, surely you can’t equate Bill English and his handling of our way of life to the absolute destruction of theirs by Merkel? She has in one fell swoop attacked the very fabric of German society, which I suspect is irrepairable.
  
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  September 4, 2017 9:43am
  - PhilBest
    
    Except on immigration, the major-party alternatives to Merkel are even more rabidly virtue-signaling. National is now in the position of sticking to virtue-signalling on immigration while the Labour lefties have actually abandoned it! A similar paradox is Labour abandoning their virtue-signalling on planet-saving urban growth boundaries, and National being left as their sole perpetuator!
    
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    September 4, 2017 10:22am
- All_on_Red
  
  Merkels weakness is the issue of allowing migrants relatives to come. She put a halt on that two years ago and times up to review it.
  They’re talking 500,000 more..
  Trouble is her opposition is hardly mentioning it even though recent polling shows 58% of Germans oppose it.
  
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  September 4, 2017 10:31am
MickMac

I’m with Different Perspective at 8.11am
&
Fluffy Kiwi at 8.33, 8.36, 8.48am

I want National to lose, they need a smack!
They have kicked down the road all the important issues for the last 8yrs….

Bill English is a manager not a leader…..
He has held the financial reins for 8 yrs and done nothing about Super, Immigration, Housing, Water, The debt is $90Bn and climbing.
NO, National need to go……

They have got rid of social housing houses as they always do, But we need 1,000 a year for 10yrs, houses for HNZ to rent out as social housing.
We need a rental house WOF and have for 8yrs.
National Must go…….

Super from the current Account should end in 40yrs with everyone being supported presently based on age as a % until that date…..
Kwiwsaver or Retirement accts in individuals name should be in existance, with NO Pollies able to interfere nor the Individuals able to tinker with it….. (No house loans people, It’s for RETIREMENT)
National Must go…….

One Law for all, all NZers treated the same……
Maori Trusts taxed the same as everyone else.
Trusts per se taxed at 50% so people can’t hide income and assets in them……
All Trusts transparent as to Identities and beneficiaries.
National need to go……….

Exporters of our water need to pay for our water infrastructure.
China and other foreigners must be stopped from buying the rest of NZ land and resources, that National and Labour have given them.
We can’t buy land in China…….?
National need to go………….

But what is the alternative?

Liars like The Labour Party?
Criminal Supporters like the Greens?
ACT National’s lap dog?
Maori the Racist Party?
Mana the Racist Party?
TOP the crush the middle class party?
NZ1st spending Billions we don’t have ?

We are in the SHIT.
Because of National, but the alternatives will crush the earning (middle, 39% tax) class…

How do we smack Bill English and National into reality without the financial armageddon of the Left??
How do we get our country living within it’s means?
How do we get our citizens to understand someone always pays?
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September 4, 2017 9:39am
- KevOB
  
  Individual retirement accounts don’t work either.
  
  Governments have to have control over their own economys.
  Private management is a recipe for fee drain.
  Government investment of fund savings leads to massive budgetary requirements.
  Such funds morph into state paid pensions from general taxes–more efficient.
  
  Governments fund the future from from the future. Unlike humans they have an expectation of continuity and the power.
  
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  September 4, 2017 10:04am
- Happychappy
  
  It sounds like the Labour Greens are prepared to work with the Maori Party to get them over the line so they don’t have to work with Winston First. So after all the fuss and criticism of National giving all your money to Maori you are now going to cut your nose off to spite your face when Labour will follow Nationals example but with a lot more.
  
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  September 4, 2017 10:14am
  - DifferentPerspective
    
    So now you are coming around to seeing how wrong National’s ‘Labour Lite’ strategy was.
    
    Ummmm now who’s doing the hares/hounds thing?
    
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    September 4, 2017 10:22am
    - Happychappy
      
      I have never disagreed with that DP and I have a mate that is involved in the treaty negotiations in the Far North and they like us have a right to push for what they believe was wrongs against them. What I have posted is what ever Government is in power will have to do the same but Labour will give more,and I also believe that Maori at the top that get paid well from the negotiations have a obligation to make sure it helps those at the bottom which certainly does not happen.
      
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      September 4, 2017 10:56am
  - PhilBest
    
    In other words our options are pretty much two slightly different versions of Helen Clark’s Labour government. Whatever happened to the Don Brash National platform of 2005?
    
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    September 4, 2017 10:25am
    - mikenmild
      
      Rejected by the electorate?
      
      5 5
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      September 4, 2017 10:32am
      - GazzaW
        
        You mean hijacked by interest free student loans Mikey and hasn’t that been an albatross around our country’s neck?
        
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        September 4, 2017 12:04pm
    - Piniwi
      
      Knew that the Labour bribe was a) too costly and to big a drain on the economy and b) would lead to a downgrading of higher education.
      
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      September 4, 2017 3:16pm
  - VicParking
    
    The Maori party will follow the money every time.
    
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    September 4, 2017 2:20pm
    - Happychappy
      
      Yes but Labour set out to make sure they crippled them and are now doing the flip flop they they were always accusing National of.
      
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      September 4, 2017 2:44pm
Manolo

He should embrace Islam and declare himself a Muslim to get his visa in no time:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4845578/Mayweather-defeated-Peter-Dutton-t-visit-Australia.html

Floyd Mayweather may be undefeated in the ring but the champion boxer is set for successive losses against an unlikely opponent – Immigration Minister Peter Dutton.

Mayweather was KO’d by then-Assistant Immigration Minister Michaelia Cash during first attempt at gaining entry to Australia.

Ms Cash wrote a five-page letter concerning Mayweather’s history of violence against women, including his long-term partners and girlfriends.
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September 4, 2017 9:41am
- All_on_Red
  
  Yes, some wag suggested Mayweathers ‘real’ record was 53:0…
  
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  September 4, 2017 10:32am
cha

James ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis spells it out.

Defense Sec. Mattis: Any threat to U.S. or allies by North Korea “will be met with a massive military response” https://t.co/LqSErDDCk6— NBC News (@NBCNews) September 3, 2017

Mattis: "We are not looking to the total annihilation of a country, namely North Korea, but as I said, we have many, many options to do so."— NBC News (@NBCNews) September 3, 2017
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September 4, 2017 9:57am
- DifferentPerspective
  
  The US showed in the first Gulf War that they were able to effectively disable the enemy within minutes of a pre-emptive strike (with conventional weapons).
  
  And that was a quarter of a century back – the US capabilities are significantly more effective now. If the fat kid does anything stupid, he’ll be wearing a MOAB up his ass PDQ. Once the head is off the snake, it’ll be a different country.
  
  But I’m sure there’ll be plenty of would be Neville Chamberlains on the Left advocating a repeat of the huge failed bribes Clinton made to the Norks in the 90s and like Obama did to the Iranians. The fat kid is bonkers and wants to use his new toys – even the Chinese wouldn’t mind seeing the back of the Kim dynasty.
  
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  September 4, 2017 10:21am
  - PhilBest
    
    But one of the tragedies about NK is that the citizenry will be even more difficult to introduce into the real modern world, than the Russians and East Germans were.
    
    Chris Hitchens wrote a great essay on it nearly 20 years ago.
    
    https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2001/01/hitchens-200101
    
    One of the things he noted was that in the former Eastern Bloc, you could always find people privately grumbling and cynical and cracking jokes about the regime – so they were partly ready for the end of Communism. But in North Korea, everyone is a fully brainwashed droid worshiping the Dear Leader and oblivious to the possibilities that alternative forms of government might be better.
    
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    September 4, 2017 10:30am
  - mikenmild
    
    You are mistaken if you believe the US has the capability to destroy the NK regime without the deaths of millions of South Koreans.
    
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    September 4, 2017 10:33am
    - Dave Mann
      
      Yes. The terribly difficult thing about the whole situation is the proximity of Seoul to North Korean artillery positioned exactly there and ready, and the huge unknown of China in the mix.
      
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      September 4, 2017 10:53am
      - rangitoto
        
        The artillery can easily be taken out by drones armed with hellfire missiles. The firepower would drop precipitously before they could do much damage to SEOUL.
        
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        September 4, 2017 12:54pm
      - mikenmild
        
        Bullshit.
        
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        September 4, 2017 1:45pm
- Dave Mann
  
  Oh well that’s alright then. Phew. I mean, it’s not as if North Korea has actually… umm… threatened anyone yet, is it? Boy it’s good to know they would be in big trouble if they went around threatening the US or its allies.
  
  I bet they feel much safer in Seoul now 😀
  
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  September 4, 2017 10:24am
Manolo

Illegals, victims or what?
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/09/01/daca-immigrants-terrified-president-trump-decides-their-fate/625619001/

Trump is considering ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, a program he inherited from President Barack Obama that allows DREAMERS — immigrants illegally brought to the United States as children — to remain.
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September 4, 2017 10:26am
jonar

http://thesciencepost.com/united-nations-cancels-climate-change-conferences-internet-commenter-proves-hoax/

The United Nations announced today that any and all action and/or conferences focusing on climate change will immediately cease. The announcement comes after the UN read several comments on climate change articles on the internet.
“Wow, we were way, way off,” said Dr. Chris Eula of the UN. “It’s really sad so many scientists wasted their careers studying climate change and climate science only to find out that the whole thing was a giant hoax.”

Everything began to unravel after a recent article in the New York Times about how malaria may make its way to North America in the next few decades. Malaria, a disease typically found in tropical climates, is very rare in cooler, more temperate zones.

“After reading that article I made my way down to comments and was blown away,” recalls Dr. Eula. “There must have been at least 30 or 40 commenters who all said climate change was fake, a hoax perpetuated by scientists to make money or something like that. A few of them had the word “FACT” written in all caps after their statements too. And if I know anything about the internet its that you can’t write the word FACT unless it is true.”
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September 4, 2017 10:36am
- realityczech
  
  Climate change whistleblower alleges NOAA manipulated data to hide global warming ‘pause’
  Former federal climatologist John Bates blasts 2015 NOAA study as other scientists defend its conclusions
  
  http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/feb/5/climate-change-whistleblower-alleges-noaa-manipula/
  
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  September 4, 2017 6:09pm
krazykiwi

More Griff bait: 5 Hurricane Charts Climate Alarmists Don’t Want You to See as They Rush to Politicize Harvey.

In short:
☀ Global Tropic Cyclones at 45-Year Low

☀ Global Hurricane Frequency since 1970 quite normal

☀ Global and Northern Hemisphere Accumulated Cyclone Energy is below average.

Gabriel A. Vecchi and Thomas R. Knutson of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory/NOAA at Princeton, New Jersey, assesses the trend as the following:

“We find that, after adjusting for such an estimated number of missing storms, there is a small nominally positive upward trend in tropical storm occurrence from 1878-2006. But statistical tests reveal that this trend is so small, relative to the variability in the series, that it is not significantly distinguishable from zero.”
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September 4, 2017 10:51am
- Manolo
  
  Pass me another joint, mate.
  
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  September 4, 2017 11:37am
  - krazykiwi
    
    Thought natem/shori was more your poison 🙂
    
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    September 4, 2017 11:41am
- Gruffydd
  
  https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch10s10-es-13-tropical-cyclones.html
  
  Most recent published modelling studies investigating tropical storm frequency simulate a decrease in the overall number of storms, though there is less confidence in these projections and in the projected decrease of relatively weak storms in most basins, with an increase in the numbers of the most intense tropical cyclones.
  
  Well duh
  Seems you are arguing with your self .
  I like to call it wanking off .
  meantime
  texas
  lots of dead yanks
  so sad
  
  Physics.
  You have not even tried to refute this just gibbered
  More warmth = More moisture in the atmosphere More rain
  More warmth more energy to power storms .
  Sea level rising at an accelerating rate*
  More flooding .
  
  *if you had actually read the link given you would have understood why you are a loon as the post demolished your argument before you made it .
  
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  September 4, 2017 12:13pm
- krazykiwi
  
  Damn.. I expected a bite, not a slobbering lick. Perhaps put down that dirty ‘ol reefer, and get back on Google. You can do better Griff 🙂
  
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  September 4, 2017 12:31pm
  - Gruffydd
    
    You posted the storms have not increased an attempt to taunt me .
    
    I already know that .
    
    Storm frequency is going to reduce if anything according to the IPCC .
    
    So you made a dick of your self thinking you had a point when… Duh.
    
    We then get the loony tune dribbling pigeon chess
    What a nutter.
    
    Who are you going to vote for ?
    There is no political party that is in denial of climate change here in NZ.
    Poor little wingnuts no one thinks you are worth perusing for votes.
    You just don’t count…..
    
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    September 4, 2017 1:15pm
    - krazykiwi
      
      Ah Griff, you’re seem so confused …
      
      ☂ Griff 31-Aug: “Catastrophic storm like we have just seen are more likely”
      
      ☂ Griff 4-Sep: “Storm frequency is going to reduce if anything.”
      
      Shall I wait a week? Perhaps then you’ll claim that there could be more, or less storms with a increased level of certainty… or something equally bereft of science.
      
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      September 4, 2017 5:27pm
      - Gruffydd
        
        hello kiwi
        You have a problem with domain.
        Less storms/ frequency . is not the same as Stronger storms/ strength .
        You have been busy telling us about less storms
        Well duh that’s what the IPCC says will happen .
        
        The strength of hurricanes is a noisy data base. The natural fluctuation in storm energy is known to be large No one expects the signal from climate change to emerge from noise to 95% confidence for decades yet. We do see an increase in storm energy trend in most oceans but it is not yet statically significant.
        
        We do also see a poleward migration of tropical storm paths as expected from modeling This change is significant for NZ as it increases the chance of being hit by a tropical cyclone.
        
        As to heavy rainfall due to a warming planet.
        USA
        https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/styles/large/public/2016-07/heavy-precip-figure1-2016.png
        
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        September 4, 2017 6:01pm
      - realityczech
        
        Massive scandal in the States our media have failed to report on. Griff repeats the lies…
        
        Climate change whistleblower alleges NOAA manipulated data to hide global warming ‘pause’
        Former federal climatologist John Bates blasts 2015 NOAA study as other scientists defend its conclusions
        
        http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/feb/5/climate-change-whistleblower-alleges-noaa-manipula/
        
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        September 4, 2017 6:05pm
      - Gruffydd
        
        Bates himself downplayed any suggestion of misconduct. “The issue here is not an issue of tampering with data, but rather really of timing of a release of a paper that had not properly disclosed everything it was,” he told reporter Scott Waldman. And Bates told ScienceInsider that he is wary of his critique becoming a talking point for those skeptical of human-caused climate change. But it was important for this conversation about data integrity to happen, he says. “That’s where I came down after a lot of soul searching. I knew people would misuse this. But you can’t control other people,” he says.
        
        http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/02/how-culture-clash-noaa-led-flap-over-high-profile-warming-pause-study
        
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        September 4, 2017 6:30pm
      - krazykiwi
        
        You have a problem with domain
        
        *sigh* You Griff, have a problem with dishonesty coupled with an inability to build a cohesive argument. It’s an entertaining combination.
        
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        September 4, 2017 8:13pm
- Fletch
  
  Between 1926-1969 (44 years) there were 14 Category 4+ US landfalls.
  
  Between 1970-2017 (46+ years) there were 4 Cat 4+ landfalls.
  
  A decrease in over 70%
  
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  September 4, 2017 1:02pm
Ross12

Good to see this couple going public on this building issue and showing up Codes of Compliance for what they –rubbish in many cases.
Also a very good piece of journalism ( pity the journalist had to rely on NZonAir funding though)

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11916053
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September 4, 2017 11:01am
Fletch

R.I.P Walter Becker from Steely Dan. Here is one of his best guitar solos in the outro of FM.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtZYroSr4iQ

I am going to go out on a limb here and suggest that this solo ‘inspired’ David Gilmour’s solo on Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2), being that FM was recorded in 1977 and released in 1978 and Another Brick in the Wall was recorded and released in 1979.
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September 4, 2017 11:14am
- krazykiwi
  
  RIP. No static at all, another brick in the wall.
  
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  September 4, 2017 11:17am
lifesgood

Did anyone hear Suzie Ferguson interview Bill English on Nat Radio this morning? I didn’t but turned the radio on just in time to hear SF read out feedback on her interview. Apparently she had a heap of feed back calling her Nasty, spiteful, hard, Nag, nag, nag, not giving BE a fair go etc. She didn’t read out any positive feedback. Full marks to her for reading out the feedback but it must have been a doozy of an interview. Interesting that the usually leftie audience thought it was terrible. Of course that little pseudo maori weasel Espiner said to her “Well I liked it”. Of course he did.
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September 4, 2017 11:42am
- Gabby
  
  She just kept asking Bingles why he didn’t pull up Pullya for her dick move straight away. He said it wouldn’t have been very nice. Fair enough, Pullya must have feewings after all.
  
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  September 4, 2017 1:24pm
  - lifesgood
    
    The best thing about Labour losing the election will you being upset.
    
    1 1
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    September 4, 2017 6:23pm
    - Gabby
      
      What likesfood? Better than the salvation of western civilisation?
      
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      September 4, 2017 6:56pm
burt

None of the cafe’s around where I work have embraced the Labour Party way – they all still show how much my coffee & lunch cost before I order it. Strange…
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September 4, 2017 11:45am
GazzaW

A weekend Herald headline which is considered by the editor to still have some validity in the upcoming election as it’s still runnning:

“Jacinda’s hot bodyguard dating TVNZ star.”

One can only wonder what the headlines will be like if she’s ever installed as PM. The media obviously believe that they have created the second coming of Princess Diana or Jackie Kennedy.
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September 4, 2017 11:51am
- krazykiwi
  
  One can only wonder what the headlines will be like if she’s ever installed as PM
  
  “Jacinda dresses in Walker, opens kitten sanctuary”
  
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  September 4, 2017 12:51pm
- Gabby
  
  What’ll happen if they really get investigating and discover her bf’s on the telly guzzla.
  
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  September 4, 2017 1:26pm
- itstricky
  
  Thank goodness we’ve had all those educational articles about child genius Max Key to keep us grounded in vocational persuits during this regime.
  
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  September 4, 2017 2:12pm
  - Happychappy
    
    Are you jealous itstricky.
    
    4 1
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    September 4, 2017 2:46pm
  - krazykiwi
    
    +1 That was actually quite funny 🙂
    
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    September 4, 2017 5:31pm
Manolo

Taking the piss:
http://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/other/no-rise-from-minister-over-crass-statue/ar-AArdleC?li=BBqdg4K&ocid=mailsignout
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September 4, 2017 11:51am
Captain Mainwaring

Whoops.
Joyce has found an $11.7 billion hole in Labour’s proposed spending plans and Wonder Woman is having to use her press conference to try and explain it away.
It’s not going too well for her, she’s out of her depth.

TWO TICKS BLUE !!!
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September 4, 2017 12:03pm
- GazzaW
  
  Should be worth two lines in the Herald and no mention at all in the Dom.
  
  17 1
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  September 4, 2017 12:06pm
- Gabby
  
  DON’T PANIC! DON’T PANIC!
  
  TULIXPU !!!! !!!! !!!! !!!! !!!! !
  
  2 11
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  September 4, 2017 1:27pm
  - rangitoto
    
    DON”T PANIC SHETAXU
    
    7 2
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    September 4, 2017 2:07pm
- KevOB
  
  ☑️ ☑️
  
  4 1
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  September 4, 2017 5:41pm
  - Gabby
    
    Tulixpu
    
    1 4
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    September 4, 2017 6:54pm
oldgolfer

I sense a change in poll fortune: Joyce says he’s been on a spreadsheet and found an $11.7 billion hole in Labour’s budget.
This will play well tonight.
Show me the money, Jacinda.
Oh God, and it’s only Monday.
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September 4, 2017 12:09pm
- Captain Mainwaring
  
  Tonight’s TV3 debate will be a ripper.
  Translation: Soundbyte Cindy’s going to get ripped up.
  Can’t wait.
  
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  September 4, 2017 12:31pm
  - GazzaW
    
    I would love to be a fly on the wall when Robbo gets the PLEASE EXPLAIN! memo from Helen & Heather.
    
    I suspect that he was never good at sums at school.
    
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    September 4, 2017 12:39pm
    - Gabby
      
      But it felt so right guzzla.
      
      1 8
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      September 4, 2017 1:28pm
    - KevOB
      
      He worked as a clerk, probably handling passport matters, in Apia.
      
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      September 4, 2017 5:42pm
    - sam green
      
      Really Gazza – and Joyce failed 8 – read ’em – 8 economics papers ??????
      
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      September 5, 2017 4:53am
  - Longknives
    
    “Tonight’s TV3 debate will be a ripper”
    
    Doubt it- The People’s Princess will flash her pearly smile and say – ‘I’m being completely Transparent in saying that our working group will look into it’.
    
    She simply never answers anything- And gets a free ride from her adoring Media
    
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    September 4, 2017 1:59pm
    - Piniwi
      
      Interesting even though The Standard are always attacking Paddy Gower of leaning right there has been no petition to get him replaced. We can only hope he can get at least one answer out of Taxinda.
      
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      September 4, 2017 3:26pm
      - Gabby
        
        They know it’s a joke debate.
        
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        September 4, 2017 6:53pm
- fluffykiwi
  
  I will impose more tax, I will make this decision because no one else in the party is able to understand MY message. It is straightforward, I am transparent and I know what I am doing. (Sorry Annette I stood on your toes you were so close behind me – maybe you should retire to the backroom with the 2 Helens now that I am in full control and on a roll I don’t need you so close – I have my earpiece with direct contact to Helen 1)
  
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  September 4, 2017 12:57pm
krazykiwi

Labour leader Jacinda Ardern has had a quick briefing on National’s claims that they have an $11.7 billion hole in their budget. Here’s what she had to say:

“We’ve had our fiscal plan independently assessed by an economist, we absolutely stand by that plan.”

“What I’d say on our operating allowances is that unlike the government we’ve allowed for inflation adjustment, population growth and added that in particularly for our health and education budget line. We stand by our fiscal plan, it’s absolutely robust and been independently assessed.”

Riiiight Taxcinda. So you’re saying National’s costing are higher because they, allegedly, didn’t include a bunch of costs that you claim to have included?

Sorry, sticking to your sound-bite/talking-point has just shown you up as vacuous and inept.
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September 4, 2017 12:46pm
- Brigitte
  
  “assessed by an economist”.
  
  There’s the problem. As they say, God invented economists to make astrologers look good.
  
  I wonder if they inflated both the tax income AND the actual budgeted spending (or just the former).
  
  Be interesting to see what comes to light in the debate tonight.
  
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  September 4, 2017 12:52pm
  - KevOB
    
    Even Treasury economists have been called to account by the government from time to time for their forecasts.
    
    It has been said with 4 points a data analyst can describe an elephant and with 5 he can make it wiggle its trunk.
    
    To get an economic opinion you need 6 economists, wine and dine them then ask the waiters what they were talking about about.
    
    Economist are like QC’s: expect them to give give you the agreeable opinion you paid for.
    
    Release all the costings for public scrutiny now.
    
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    September 4, 2017 5:48pm
- burt
  
  I think people have a right to know how the costings were done and we’re being totally transparent about it. We’ll deliver the detailed costings after the election when the working party has had a chance to know what they are costing.
  
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  September 4, 2017 1:19pm
- burt
  
  Riiiight Taxcinda. So you’re saying National’s costing are higher because they, allegedly, didn’t include a bunch of costs that you claim to have included?
  
  Womans day never prepared her for this – be gentle.
  
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  September 4, 2017 1:28pm
- Gabby
  
  So Jawsie assumed Labour missed that stuff out cos that’s what he would’ve done.
  
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  September 4, 2017 2:43pm
- Paulus
  
  Presumably the Independent Assessor is Bill Rosenberg of the Fed of Labour, or BERL for a laugh.
  
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  September 4, 2017 3:59pm
  - mikenmild
    
    Well, it won’t be someone from the Taxpayers’ ‘Union’, will it?
    
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    September 4, 2017 4:03pm
Colville

Whats a lazy $12 Bil between mates eh?

hmmmm… around $2600.00 of extra TAX for every man woman and child in New Zealand….. so its a lot more than that for every nett tax payer…

and this is just the fuckups that we know about in the first month! eeekkkk!
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September 4, 2017 12:50pm
- Colville
  
  am I right thinking its approx 60% of households are net payers?
  
  so at 2.7 peeps/house that is $11,700 extra TAX per net tax household ? Each and every fucking year!
  
  ummm…? Cindy? Care to explain?
  
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  September 4, 2017 1:02pm
  - cmm
    
    “am I right thinking its approx 60% of households are net payers?”
    
    Probably much less that that.
    
    About 24% of all the tax take is from people earning $150k or more per year, so that probably puts the break-even point at somewhere near $100k or so.
    
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    September 4, 2017 3:51pm
  - Gabby
    
    Don’t worry colvile, Jawsie did his countings with his shoes and socks on so he made a bugger’s muddle of it.
    
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    September 4, 2017 6:52pm
Hugh Pavletich

Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
Posted at … https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2017/09/mortgage-stress-continues-rise/#comment-2947815 … and …

Two full-time jobs now needed to service a mortgage on a typical Sydney home
Sydney Morning Herald

http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/two-fulltime-jobs-now-needed-to-service-a-mortgage-on-a-typical-sydney-home-20170903-gy9ucs

Sydney’s housing crisis has reached an alarming new threshold with a key measure revealing it now takes more than two average full-time wages to affordably service a loan for a typical city home.

The Housing Industry Association’s housing affordability index, which measures the capacity of households to service mortgages, shows Sydneysiders must fork out $4,729 per month, or nearly $57,000 a year, to service a standard mortgage on an averaged-priced home in the city.

That is more than 30 per cent of the earnings of a Sydney household with two average full-time wages – the portion of income widely accepted to be a manageable housing repayment. … read more via hyperlink above …

2017 13th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey

http://www.demographia.com/dhi.pdf

DEFINITION OF AN AFFORDABLE HOUSING MARKET … http://www.PerformanceUrbanPlanning.org

For metropolitan areas to rate as ‘affordable’ and ensure that housing bubbles are not triggered, housing prices should not exceed three times gross annual household earnings. To allow this to occur, new starter housing of an acceptable quality to the purchasers, with associated commercial and industrial development, must be allowed to be provided on the urban fringes at 2.5 times the gross annual median household income of that urban market (refer Demographia Survey Schedules for guidance).

The critically important Development Ratios for this new fringe starter housing, should be 17 – 23% serviced lot / section cost – the balance the actual housing construction.

Ideally through a normal building cycle, the Median Multiple should move from a Floor Multiple of 2.3, through a Swing Multiple of 2.5 to a Ceiling Multiple of 2.7 – to ensure maximum stability and optimal medium and long term performance of the residential construction sector.

What new fringe housing should cost …
Google search affordable North American examples …
For example …
‘New Homes Houston’ … whatever …

Check out this Arizona example …

Pulte Homes … Phoenix … Arizona

https://pulte.com/homes/arizona/phoenix/florence/parkside-at-anthem-at-merrill-ranch-7739#CommunityDetailsView
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September 4, 2017 12:50pm
- Hugh Pavletich
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  … Just in case you missed this … essential reading …
  
  HURRICANE HARVEY: A VIEW FROM A RUGGED COMMUNITARIAN … LEO LINBECK … NEW GEOGRAPHY
  
  http://www.newgeography.com/content/005730-hurricane-harvey-a-view-a-rugged-communitarian
  
  • by Leo Linbeck III
  
  Narratives are not necessarily built on facts; they’re built on stories, pictures, graphics, and videos. Ideally, we want our narratives to be aligned with the facts; but that doesn’t always happen.
  
  Here is a synthesis of some of the predictable narratives being spun in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Harvey from such places as The Washington Post, Slate, The Guardian, Newsweek and NPR: … read more via hyperlink above …
  
  • Leo Linbeck III is a husband, father of 5, CEO of Aquinas Companies, Executive Chairman of Linbeck Group, a Houston-based institutional construction firm, Founder and Chairman of Fannin Innovation Studio, a biomedical startup studio, and Lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Business. He was also the Founding Chairman, and is currently the Vice Chairman, of the Center for Opportunity Urbanism, a Houston-based think tank.
  
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  September 4, 2017 12:54pm
  - Colville
    
    Hugh.
    Care to explain how NZ is meant to get cheap sections when all the flat land close to cities is covered in McMansions or orchards and its pretty well impossible to aggregate a few Ha for anything under half a mil/Ha even in a small provincial city.
    
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    September 4, 2017 1:07pm
  - Nostradamus
    
    ?The Hugh Pavletich Jingle?
    
    Shout, shout, I’m talking to you, come on
    Shout, shout, let it all out, these are the things I can do without
    Come on, I’m talking to you, come on
    Shout, shout, let it all out, these are the things I can do without
    Come on, I’m talking to you, come on
    
    (… read more via hyperlink above …)
    
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    September 4, 2017 2:20pm
    - Happychappy
      
      Hugh wants to be a big noter and he can’t get the people to his blog so he post in on others.
      
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      September 4, 2017 2:53pm
      - Hugh Pavletich
        
        It is going to be ‘housing’ in the main that will throw this government … deservedly … out of office 23 September. Note the GONE GONE GOING section at http://www.PerformanceUrbanPlanning.org … and the following items …
        
        Don Brash thinks Labour will win election … Newshub
        
        http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/election/2017/08/don-brash-thinks-labour-will-win-election.html
        
        Don Brash, former leader of both ACT and National, says Labour will take out the 2017 election.
        
        “It looks as if they might [win]. Momentum is certainly on Labour’s side and National is vulnerable in certain areas,” he told The AM show on Friday morning.
        
        It comes after a Colmar-Brunton poll released on Thursday evening saw Labour ahead of National for the first time since 2007. … read more via hyperlink above …
        
        JB Were’s Bernard Doyle on NZ’s productivity recession, population growth driving economic growth & advice for NZ sharemarket investors to reduce their holdings | interest.co.nz
        
        http://www.interest.co.nz/opinion/89257/jbweres-bernard-doyle-nzs-productivity-recession-population-growth-driving-economic
        
        Watch: Labour rockets ahead of National in stunning Colmar Brunton Poll result | 1 NEWS NOW | TVNZ
        
        https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/watch-labour-rockets-ahead-national-in-stunning-colmar-brunton-poll-result
        
        Poverty, gap between rich & poor and housing affordability, housing shortage, and homelessness dominate discussion in lead-up to election, says Roy Morgan poll | interest.co.nz
        
        http://www.interest.co.nz/news/89038/poverty-gap-between-rich-poor-and-housing-affordability-housing-shortage-and-homelessness
        
        Jacinda Ardern is the effective messenger and credible leader Labour requires …
        
        ‘Someone to love
        Somewhere to live
        Something to do
        Something to hope for’
        Jacinda Ardern … NZ Labour Leader
        
        Watch: ‘New Zealand is such an optimistic nation’ – Jacinda Ardern says election about getting ‘basics’ right … TVNZ
        
        https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/watch-new-zealand-such-optimistic-nation-jacinda-ardern-says-election-getting-basics-right
        
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        September 4, 2017 3:21pm
      - Hugh Pavletich
        
        The Auckland housing crisus … worsens … what are the net new builds less demolitions ? …
        
        Latest figures suggest that the Auckland house building market is going to need a whole lot more than words and political posturing | interest.co.nz
        
        http://www.interest.co.nz/opinion/89663/latest-figures-suggest-auckland-house-building-market-going-need-whole-lot-more-words
        
        By David Hargreaves
        
        In the run-up to the September 23 election, one good piece of news for the current Government is that the next monthly building consents figures are not due out till six days after the election.
        
        I reckon that’s good news for National, because the building consents figures themselves might not be so good at all.
        
        As Westpac economists pointed out this week in a nice summary of where we are in respect of house building, “annual dwelling consent numbers have essentially flatlined at just over 10,000 since the start of this year”. … read more via hyperlink above …
        
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        September 4, 2017 5:46pm
      - All_on_Red
        
        So actually how many people are there who can’t find a house?
        Got any numbers and evidence Hugh?
        
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        September 4, 2017 5:51pm
      - Hugh Pavletich
        
        Population ponzi overruns Auckland dwellings … Leith van Onselen … MacroBusiness Australia
        
        https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2017/09/population-ponzi-overruns-auckland-dwellings/
        
        By Leith van Onselen
        
        With the General Election to be held on 23 September, New Zealand’s National Government remains under heavy pressure for failing to address the country’s worsening housing shortage, especially in Auckland.
        
        Last week’s dwelling consents data from Statistics New Zealand revealed that dwelling consents across country in July continued to fall well short of population growth, with just 30,404 dwellings consented over the year and a weak trend present: … read more via hyperlink above …
        
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        September 4, 2017 6:10pm
      - All_on_Red
        
        You didnt answer the question. How many want to buy a house. Just because they come here doesn’t mean they buy.
        Why aren’t Houses in all the various Affordable housing Projects selling?
        Two beds from $600’s three from $700′ Good quality well priced housing.
        The reality on the ground seems different.
        The market is flat when they should be flying out the door. But they aren’t.
        Where’s the crisis?
        
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        September 4, 2017 6:13pm
      - All_on_Red
        
        Over 900 houses under $500,000 on Trade Me in Wellington for sale.
        Over 4200 houses under $750,000 on Trade Me in Auckland for sale.
        Plenty of new builds which can be bought with 10% Deposit. You can buy a brand new one in Chch for $400k. That’s only $40,000 Deposit
        WHERES THE CRISIS?
        
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        September 4, 2017 6:20pm
      - Hugh Pavletich
        
        All On Red … What part of 3.0 don’t you understand ?
        
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        September 4, 2017 7:16pm
      - Hugh Pavletich
        
        Govt in slow lane – Mainfreight boss – NZ Herald
        
        http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11916491
        
        Mainfreight chief Don Braid has called time on the Government’s leadership saying New Zealand needs to be led by visionaries – not “a couple of accountants”.
        
        “I think they’ve stopped listening to us. And I think they think they know better than us. And that’s a problem I think for a Government that’s been around for a long time,” Braid said.
        
        In a video interview for the Herald’s Mood of the Boardroom Election Survey, Braid acknowledged the National-led Government’s fiscal focus had been invaluable as New Zealand worked its way out of the impact of the Global Financial Crisis. … view and read more via hyperlink above …
        
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        September 4, 2017 7:49pm
      - All_on_Red
        
        Don’t be smart.
        I understand alright. But houses are never going to be 3 x the price of the average wage in Auckland.
        If fact I don’t think they ever have.
        What part of ‘the market is soft’so where’s the crisis you don’t understand.
        Plenty of cheap properties. Brand new for $600k in Auckland, under $500k in Wellington and $400 in Chch- all on 10% Deposit.
        So why aren’t they selling?
        I would have thought a crisis meant no stock.
        The buyers aren’t there.
        NO CRISIS
        
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        September 4, 2017 8:01pm
      - Hugh Pavletich
        
        … 9 years on … this sure is boring … note comments on thread …
        
        National says new ‘fit for purpose’ urban planning laws separate from RMA would encourage more responsive planning and faster development | interest.co.nz
        
        http://www.interest.co.nz/property/89658/national-says-new-fit-purpose-urban-planning-laws-separate-rma-would-encourage-more
        
        National has pledged to introduce new “fit-for-purpose” urban planning laws separate from the RMA, which they claim will encourage more responsive planning and lead to faster development.
        
        The ACT Party leader David Seymour has accused National of pinching ACT policies, saying this announcement is “a belated concession that the housing market is not all peaches and cream, and that fundamental reform of planning laws is necessary”. … read more via hyperlink above …
        
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        September 5, 2017 1:13am
- burt
  
  Don’t worry Hugh, once we have all the new taxes we can make Sydney look like a bargain basement.
  
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  September 4, 2017 1:04pm
VicParking

The Greens leaking of a draft report on climate change quickly died a death. Shaw and his gang have even lost support of the MSM.
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September 4, 2017 2:24pm
Nostradamus

Prime Minister’s big secret revealed

Prime Minister Bill English has revealed that his real name isn’t actually Bill. During a Q&A session with ZM’s Fletch, Vaughan and Megan he disclosed his real name is – wait for it – Simon.

Stay tuned folks – the Public Watchdog is on the case!
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September 4, 2017 2:49pm
- mikenmild
  
  I’m glad we have you to highlight the vital issues.
  Has Labour promised to set up a working group to investigate taxation of forenames?
  
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  September 4, 2017 2:59pm
  - Nostradamus
    
    Mikenmild:
    
    I’m sure someone will step up to the plate and claim that we have a prime minister who (because of an unauthorised name change) was appointed on an improper basis. But who? The New Zealand equivalent of, say, Paul Makucha:
    
    The entrepreneur who plans to bottle and market Sydney water internationally attempted yesterday to have a Supreme Court trial judge disqualified, on the grounds the judge refused to say if he was Jewish or a Freemason.
    
    It’s the sort of thing that would have exercised UglyTruth…
    
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    September 4, 2017 3:09pm
    - mikenmild
      
      And we can’t help but wonder what else Mr English has been hiding all these years.
      
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      September 4, 2017 3:20pm
- Gabby
  
  I wonder if ‘Simon’ might let us have a wee peek at his Wee Toddger texts.
  
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  September 4, 2017 3:24pm
krazykiwi

Some suggestions for Bill’s debate:

“Death duties are a plundering of personal wealth in order to fill the state coffers. Our government categorically rules out death duties. Labour will not rule out death duties.

A capital gains tax is a plundering of personal wealth to fill the state coffers. Our government categorically rules out a capital gains tax. Labour will not rule out a capital gains tax.

The only tax Labour has ruled out is National’s tax cut, something that hardworking New Zealanders have earned, and deserve.

How many other undeclared ways will Labour find to tax hardworking New Zealanders. More GST? More petrol taxes?”
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September 4, 2017 3:09pm
- Keeping Stock
  
  Labour has never seen a tax it couldn’t implement by stealth.
  
  #LetsTaxThis
  
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  September 4, 2017 3:15pm
Keeping Stock

Steven Joyce is on a roll; he’s just tweeted a Labour Party policy , the implementation date of which has mysteriously changed between 10.17am this morning and 2.43pm this afternoon

https://twitter.com/stevenljoyce/status/904537874736996352

I’m REALLY looking forward to Paddy Gower going gangbusters after Ms Ardern on the TV3 leader’s debate tonight, getting her to explain the $11.7b hole in Labour’s costed fiscal projections. Show us the money Jacinda and Grant!
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September 4, 2017 3:11pm
- Captain Mainwaring
  
  Tooth Fairy will get a real drubbing but only if Paddy the Gnome allows Bill to hit her with the right questions.
  He also needs to ask her what’s fair about making factory workers, waitresses and truck drivers pay for the education of lawyers and tax accountants (of which we will need many more).
  
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  September 4, 2017 3:54pm
  - Paulus
    
    Assume that the questions have been sent to her before the meeting.
    Like Hillary.
    
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    September 4, 2017 4:02pm
    - Gabby
      
      You reckon Bingles will have a copy sent to her pullus?
      
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      September 4, 2017 6:47pm
- oldgolfer
  
  I have a sneaking feeling that tonight’s debate might well be a campaign turning point – backwards for Labour.
  English will be all over the Budget stuff, material, I suspect, Taxcinda simply does not understand.
  The torch has been lit; now is the time to apply the flame.
  
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  September 4, 2017 4:01pm
Digmen1

As regards the war on drugs no working.
We never actually tried it. We let all our doep users off with a wqet bus ticket years ago.

To me a war on drugs is VERY high penalties for anyone selling or using them.

And then if there are still offences up the sentences each year till there are no more.

Drug dealers want to enjoy their money or life outside.

Not many drugs in Singapore.
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September 4, 2017 3:20pm
- mikenmild
  
  How much longer than a life sentence do you want?
  
  Every person who contravenes subsection (1) commits an offence against this Act and is liable on conviction to—
  imprisonment for life where a Class A controlled drug was the controlled drug or one of the controlled drugs in relation to which the offence was committed
  
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  September 4, 2017 3:23pm
  - Digmen1
    
    Thats the problem our judges don’t enforce the law. Cooks and importers get off with light sentences.
    There needs to be a MINIMUM sentence, and then ratchet that up each year until it works.
    
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    September 4, 2017 3:27pm
  - cmm
    
    How about a life sentence that actually means life!
    
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    September 4, 2017 3:43pm
    - mikenmild
      
      There are quite a number of felons serving life sentences in New Zealand who will never be released.
      
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      September 4, 2017 3:59pm
Digmen1

And following on from that newshub poll on drugs this morning Bill can easily double down on it tonight.

Just think how much drug use costs us in lost wages, police time, theft, higher insurance premiums, jails, hospital costs, rehab costs, suicide, customs officers, vehicle crashes, police chases.
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September 4, 2017 3:24pm
- mikenmild
  
  You realise that most of those costs are the consequences of prohibition, rather than the reasons for it?
  
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  September 4, 2017 3:58pm
  - Shawn Herles
    
    “You realise that most of those costs are the consequences of prohibition”
    
    Bullshit. They are mostly the consequences of drug use. A low wage or welfare dependent person addicted to a legal drug will sooner or later have to resort extreme methods to get their drug of choice. That could easily include theft. Merely because the drug is legal does not mean crime will not follow drug addiction.
    
    And the mental health costs have nothing to do with prohibition, unless your claiming that using P every day for months and years has no mental health consequences and therefore no cost to society.
    
    I favour moderate decriminalization of pot, and treating drug addiction as a health issue rather than a criminal one, but claiming that all the negative costs of drug addiction are merely the result of prohibition is irrational, reality free bullshit.
    
    Liberalism has melted your brain.
    
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    September 4, 2017 4:13pm
    - mikenmild
      
      Even if that were true, then you would surely have to agree that those costs which you tie to the use of P are exponentially lower than those linked to the use of alcohol.
      It just pays to be rational when discussing how and why we treat similar substances so differently.
      
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      September 4, 2017 4:17pm
JasonJohns

Jason Johns here. Uptick if you agree.
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September 4, 2017 3:38pm
- Awww C-mon
  
  Which is sadder, Jason or RealityCzech?
  
  Or is the sadness doubled due to them likely being the same little birdie?
  
  How did ya get on shagging your cuz on Saturday?
  
  #ekelovefest
  
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  September 4, 2017 8:52pm
cmm

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/96463822/martin-jetpack-suspended-from-share-trading

This taxpayer funded rich-man’s hobby should never have been given a cent of taxpayer funding.

It’s all a really dumb idea that was never going anywhere and never had any useful role in society.
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September 4, 2017 3:42pm
- mikenmild
  
  How much of our money did this scam attract?
  
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  September 4, 2017 3:57pm
- KevOB
  
  The jetpack still very much in the development stage. The idea has merit. Running out of cash to continue development is normal but personal fortunes would have been at stake too.
  
  I hope it ultimately succeeds.
  
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  September 4, 2017 6:04pm
  - UrbanNeocolonialist
    
    It is a total and absolute lemon. About the worst configuration for a 1-person vtol aircraft possible.
    
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    September 4, 2017 7:58pm
  - cmm
    
    They’ve been going since 1981.
    
    It won’t succeed because it does not have a useful purpose. Helicopters and drones do the job better, cheaper, safer and faster.
    
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    September 5, 2017 7:46am
- Gabby
  
  He’ll be bark, with a solar powered version.
  
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  September 4, 2017 6:43pm
Nostradamus

Jacinda spending time w ordinary folk on the campaign trail

That dead possum hat looks like it could do with a heavy-duty wash…
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September 4, 2017 3:51pm
- mikenmild
  
  Snicker. So, if Penny’s one of Ardern’s Mt Albert constituents, why the heck is she a candidate in the Tamaki electorate?
  My grasp of Auckland geographical (and human) peculiarities is insufficient for me to work this one out.
  
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  September 4, 2017 3:56pm
  - Nostradamus
    
    Mikenmild:
    
    I was wondering about that too. So if Penny is enrolled in the Mt Albert electorate, but standing as a candidate in the Tāmaki electorate, does that mean she can’t vote for herself? When you’re that close to the margin of ~~error~~ relevance, every vote (including your own) counts!
    
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    September 4, 2017 4:00pm
    - fluffykiwi
      
      Been tried before that one, voting for a friend enrolled somewhere else, what was her name again, she had a child and claimed more than her fair share of benefits.
      
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      September 4, 2017 4:02pm
    - mikenmild
      
      Should not make too much difference to Penny. IIRC, on past form she will probably come in fourth, easily beating the likes of Act, NZ First and the other comedy parties.
      
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      September 4, 2017 4:14pm
- fluffykiwi
  
  Getting some tips from Penny on how to make OUR money go further, given the “BIG hole in “Lip’s” budgeting ideas.
  LESSON 1 do not pay your rates ever.
  LESSON 2 most important, bludge on anyone you can, fellow citizens especially.
  
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  September 4, 2017 4:01pm
  - Awww C-mon
    
    #3 never declare a cent of your takings.
    
    aye Penelope?
    
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    September 4, 2017 8:54pm
Manolo

Dismantling Obama’s edifice:
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/03/trump-dreamers-immigration-daca-immigrants-242301

President Donald Trump has decided to end the Obama-era program that grants work permits to undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country as children, according to two sources familiar with his thinking. Senior White House aides huddled Sunday afternoon to discuss the rollout of a decision likely to ignite a political firestorm — and fulfill one of the president’s core campaign promises.
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September 4, 2017 4:10pm
Piniwi

At last Steven Joyce has shone some light on the true situation of Labour’s bribes. A whopping $11.7 billion gap in their figures has the potential to add almost a third more to our national debt. The impact of this is likely to give people a bigger shake up than any earthquake or North Korean nuke test. Shades of Obama.
We really have reached the “show us the money moment” at last or are there other taxes yet to be added to cover this short fall? How will this sit with the prospect of more promises (bribes) still to come from Taxinda. They have hinted of at least 2 more game changers yet to come. The only consolation is that “everybody pays” so there is some degree of equality in their plan. Sadly some really do have to pay while a greater number just play. Melt down time?
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September 4, 2017 4:22pm
- Gabby
  
  Turned out that Jawsie made a tiniwi fuckup in his adding ups though.
  Onwards to Plan C.
  
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  September 4, 2017 6:41pm
  - Happychappy
    
    Gobby they need to provide figures to prove Joyce wrong just because Sweetcheeks says he is wrong is not fact.
    
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    September 4, 2017 7:47pm
    - mikenmild
      
      But just because Joyce says something means he is right?
      BTW, who is this ‘Sweetcheeks’ person?
      
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      September 4, 2017 7:53pm
      - mikenmild
        
        Here’s an astute analysis of Joyce’s latest howlers about productivity, for example:
        https://croakingcassandra.com/2017/09/02/unpicking-steven-joyces-press-release/
        
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        September 4, 2017 7:56pm
    - Gabby
      
      The figures are all there chappy, just not heaped in one big crappy Jawsie lump, so he missed them.
      
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      September 4, 2017 8:46pm
Nostradamus

The same-sex marriage debate in Australia seems one-sided.

Same-sex marriage survey: Petition to deregister Pansy Lai, doctor in No campaign ad, taken down

A petition, published on site CommunityRun, called for a review of Dr Lai’s medical registration for appearing in the No promotional video.

Lev Lafayette, a programming trainer at the University of Melbourne who describes himself on Twitter as an Anarcho-socialist, is the man behind the now-cancelled petition. He defended the petition and the people signing it. “These are just citizens who think that a medical practitioner may have breached their responsibilities,” Mr Lafayette said. “We’re just putting it forward. It’s not up to us, it’s up to them.”

GetUp, who created the community petition platform, said the petition was removed after receiving dozens of complaints.

This is a bad example of social activism. This idiot thinks it’s ok for a doctor to be deregistered (and therefore unable to provide medical services) for expressing a political opinion. So freedom of speech for all – but only approved speech.
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September 4, 2017 5:23pm
- wiseowl
  
  The Bolt Report will be worth watching tonight.
  
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  September 4, 2017 5:55pm
  - Fletch
    
    Yup. Bolt already dismantled the claims that what the three women said in an original televised ad were false. They were, in fact, true. The women had also been smeared and threatened with violence.
    
    https://www.facebook.com/theboltreport/videos/489521791405955/
    
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    September 4, 2017 6:33pm
nasska

…..”So freedom of speech for all – but only approved speech.”…..

He’s not a member of AUSA by any chance?
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September 4, 2017 5:51pm
big bruv

This is what passes for sporting journalism in New Zealand. Its the ultimate ‘I’m much closer to the team than you are’ bullshit article that some sycophantic lick spittle has written.
This is why the team can get away with bashing people, assaulting females and acting like feral low life. Not one of the journos who hang around the team will ever write anything other than shit like this.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/all-blacks/96483908/all-black-nicknames-veer-between-obvious-and-arcane
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September 4, 2017 6:00pm
- mikenmild
  
  Did you get bullied by an All Black once, big bruv?
  
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  September 4, 2017 6:21pm
  - Colville
    
    MM.
    Is bullied code for sodomized?
    
    5 3
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    September 4, 2017 6:50pm
    - Gabby
      
      That’s a bit vile, col.
      
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      September 4, 2017 8:48pm
    - big bruv
      
      Colville
      Surely the code for sodomized is Catholic Church.
      
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      September 5, 2017 6:41am
  - big bruv
    
    Are you quiet happy for NZ rugby players to go on bashing men and women with impunity Mike?
    Are your hero’s that special that you would let them get away with pretty much anything they like?
    
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    September 4, 2017 6:53pm
    - mikenmild
      
      How did you learn about that when no journos will write about it?
      
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      September 4, 2017 8:35pm
sooty

Trevor Mallard made a dick of him self years ago when Acts David Seymour was in school, by arguing with the school principle. Jesus, he must be old and still drives Morris Marina, or some such shit heap! All those years with his nose in the trough and what has he achieved.
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September 4, 2017 6:41pm
sooty

Come on MSM, ask the hard questions and stop giving patsy questions to your mates on the left. No wonder journalist are shit!
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September 4, 2017 6:49pm
EAD_TWO

I’ve noticed recently a decided shift away from Jacinda’s rhetoric.

Let’s kick her Socialist lemmings into the dustbin of history!

Two ticks Internet Party
☑️☑️
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September 4, 2017 8:17pm
- Nostradamus
  
  EAD:
  
  Two ticks Internet Party
  
  Are you serious? Which policies and candidates do you like?
  
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  September 4, 2017 8:32pm
  - EAD_TWO
    
    @ Nosty,
    
    After he caused several commentators on here to have a mental breakdown, the no. 7 on their list appeals as quite an exciting candidate especially if he is going to go after the Central Banks 🙂
    
    On a more serious note (and I believe I’ve explained on here before), the last “vote” I cast in a general election was for National in 2008.
    
    I’ve not voted since as I made a conscious choice not to give any of them my consent.
    
    Although he was before my time, and not my type of politics, Norman Kirk was our last decent Prime Minister who actually had NZ’s interests at heart. We’ve been sold out ever since.
    
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    September 4, 2017 8:52pm
    - mikenmild
      
      Can you be sure Norman Kirk was not just a little bit Jewish?
      
      5 2
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      September 4, 2017 8:55pm
      - EAD_TWO
        
        You ate a bit of a saddo MM.
        
        Unlike brainwashed SJWs like yourself, I judge someone by their words and their actions rather than condemn am entire race.
        
        Their are plenty of good Jews out there. Even Churchill acknowledged as such:
        
        The conflict between good and evil which proceeds unceasingly in the breast of man nowhere reaches such an intensity as in the Jewish race. The dual nature of mankind is nowhere more strongly or more terribly exemplified. We owe to the Jews in the Christian revelation a system of ethics which, even if it were entirely separated from the supernatural, would be incomparably the most precious possession of mankind, worth in fact the fruits of all other wisdom and learning put together. On that system and by that faith there has been built out of the wreck of the Roman Empire the whole of our existing civilization.
        
        And it may well be that this same astounding race may at the present time be in the actual process of producing another system of morals and philosophy, as malevolent as Christianity was benevolent, which, if not arrested, would shatter irretrievably all that Christianity has rendered possible. It would almost seem as if the gospel of Christ and the gospel of Antichrist were destined to originate among the same people; and that this mystic and mysterious race had been chosen for the supreme manifestations, both of the divine and the diabolical.
        
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        September 4, 2017 9:28pm
      - Shawn Herles
        
        “Unlike brainwashed SJWs like yourself, I judge someone by their words and their actions rather than condemn am entire race.”
        
        Oh please, you don’t seriously expect anyone here to believe that claim do you?
        
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        September 4, 2017 9:33pm
    - Nostradamus
      
      EAD:
      
      I don’t think (based on current political polls) that Nicholas Smith will make it into Parliament. I think Mikenmild wants to discuss Mr Smith’s views on the Jewish conspiracy with you!
      
      More seriously, I find it interesting that the Internet Party website has a news page with headlines like: Kim Dotcom’s Internet Party and special guests to draft Anti-Spy Bill Live online. That’s recent – 3 August 2017. I thought he was no longer the public face of the party.
      
      I also note that, on the policy page, there’s a lot of “Full policy details coming soon”. Surely, this close to an election, they could do better.
      
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      September 4, 2017 9:05pm
      - Nookin
        
        Isn’t the Internet Party’s leader still in self=imposed exile in Russia because there were people spying on her thru holes in the newly painted ceiling?
        A propos the “Full policy details coming soon” advice, are you sure that you are not looking at the Labour website.
        
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        September 4, 2017 9:31pm
- Gabby
  
  Tulixick
  
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  September 4, 2017 8:50pm
Rich Prick

Partisan TV3 and Gower just lost a viewer. Fuck them. Todd Barclay, really??
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September 4, 2017 8:35pm
- Nostradamus
  
  I’m watching the debate in the background.
  
  My impression:
  
  – Jacinda Ardern struggles to give specific answers to specific questions – lots of fuzzy slogans and woolly wording.
  – Bill English shows his experience with political debates.
  – The audience (obviously selected for their independence and non-partisanship) seems to clap a lot more for Ardern than for English.
  
  I doubt anyone will change their mind on the basis of this debate though.
  
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  September 4, 2017 8:45pm
waikatogirl

So much for the audience being undecided voters. Some are whooping and clapping at Cindy’s replies while silent when Bill speaks.

Bill’s reply was good re Barclay RP.
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September 4, 2017 8:38pm
- Rich Prick
  
  Fancy having a political debate at a Labour Party conference. TV3 don’t even try to hide it. Fuck Gower even ruled out the option of an answer from Bill he didn’t want to hear.
  
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  September 4, 2017 8:42pm
- mikenmild
  
  Can you not hear the applause for Billy’s answers?
  
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  September 4, 2017 8:44pm
- Shawn Herles
  
  “Some are whooping and clapping at Cindy’s replies while silent when Bill speaks.”
  
  To be fair the audience was silent when Adern claimed Trump had made the world a more dangerous place (over the NK issue) while they cheered and clapped when English said no, NK had.
  
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  September 4, 2017 9:39pm
Prince

Undecided voters ? What a joke.
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September 4, 2017 8:43pm
Rich Prick

That’s it. Off to Netflix.
8 1
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September 4, 2017 8:45pm
meh

all the wailing and gnashing from the left about Hosking and how he’d be biased… he had nothing on Gower who seems to be wearing his red underwear tonight.
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September 4, 2017 8:46pm
lifesgood

Wtf…Jacinda says she should win because she represents “generational change,”. What sort of a reason is that . What a flake! Bill gave a way better answer. Yep, an audience of lefties, no doubt about that.
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September 4, 2017 8:50pm
Prince

There’s a clear winner here. Well done Mike Hosking.
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September 4, 2017 8:53pm
Herodotus

Good golly- 60% of all tenants are subsidised, We spend $2b per year on accommodation support and it is increasing, and for some National will increase support by $100/week. How right wing is our current government ? Or are they just giving all the taxer payers money without any guilt ?
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September 4, 2017 8:54pm
- mikenmild
  
  Have you not got the message. Our election campaigns are about details at the margins. The social democratic consensus has been firmly in place since 1949, when the first National government accepted their predecessor’s mild socialism.
  
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  September 4, 2017 8:59pm
waikatogirl

She won’t answer the question on capital gains.
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September 4, 2017 8:59pm
Rich Prick

Labour policy: Lets see what our “experts” come up with later on, OK! Let’s do this.
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September 4, 2017 9:01pm
- Nookin
  
  And who are the experts?
  We do not know. Treasury hasn’t told us yet. I fact, after 9 years in opposition and a failed campaign on CGT, we haven’t the foggiest idea what a CGT even is let alone what we will do about it.
  
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  September 4, 2017 9:05pm
Prince

Just in case the bussed in audience wasn’t enough, we get a little message from Ardern at each break.
Kindy-level thinking from newshub.
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September 4, 2017 9:01pm
- lifesgood
  
  No matter what we say, no matter what we do…..
  
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  September 4, 2017 9:13pm
Maggy Wassilieff

Hey what about Jacinda talking to us personally out in TV land during the debate breaks?

Creepy or what?????
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September 4, 2017 9:02pm
- mikenmild
  
  Or a clever move, if a politician you like thought of it…
  
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  September 4, 2017 9:12pm
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Well it is a clever move , I’ll give you that…
    
    but she has the appeal of Uriah Heep (Dickens) in those 2 ad-break clips.
    
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    September 4, 2017 9:44pm
- Shaun the Sheep
  
  I was thinking the same, but Greens and Nats have made a late appearance in the ad segments
  
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  September 4, 2017 9:28pm
lifesgood

Good grief, Paddy is USELESS! He never lets a question get answered before moving onto the next one. It’s as if he has been given 30 seconds for each on strict instructions. It’s painful. I’ve given up. Blood pressure may soon return to normal.
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September 4, 2017 9:09pm
- VicParking
  
  For Bill only. As soon as Bill starts to explain he cuts him off and lets the tooth fairy sprout somethingbwith no substance
  
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  September 4, 2017 9:23pm
Dead Earnest

Forget Paddy. Bill’s wiping the floor with her!
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September 4, 2017 9:15pm
- Captain Mainwaring
  
  Good that Matthew Hooton was there to give the final summing-up a bit of balance, but all the others were lefty plants.
  
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  September 4, 2017 10:26pm
  - Paulus Gnome
    
    How did that Hui producer woman ever get her job? More emotion and inflection in one of those plastic dolls that when inverted and stood up, spout a phrase (remember those?) and the wide p fueled appearance eyes!
    
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    September 4, 2017 10:55pm
- Paulus Gnome
  
  Yeah he did, I particularly liked the part where the tooth fairy invited Bill to carry on because there was only static coming over her earpiece
  
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  September 4, 2017 10:51pm
VicParking

So what the MSM tomorrow wont report that only how wonderful her hair looked tonight
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September 4, 2017 9:24pm
Rich Prick

I’ve dragged myself back to it, mainly because I can’t resist a slow-motion train wreck. Labour: We’ll sort [insert policy here] out later.
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September 4, 2017 9:27pm
Shaun the Sheep

JA wants us all to step back from the NK crisis.
Kimmo will follow her advice, because all he needs is the right advice from Jacinda. She’ll save the world.
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September 4, 2017 9:35pm
- Brigitte
  
  It’s not Kimmo that I’m worried about. Sad!
  
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  September 4, 2017 9:37pm
Rich Prick

Wow, Labour wants to party-line vote for abortion. Are they the coat-hanger Party?
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September 4, 2017 9:38pm
- Happychappy
  
  The Panel obviously saw it different to me as there wasn’t a lot of substance from Jacinda yet they think she won.
  
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  September 4, 2017 9:58pm
  - Rich Prick
    
    Perhaps abortion is Labour’s party-line solution to “child poverty”. Who would know, Gower didn’t even pick up on it.
    
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    September 4, 2017 10:05pm
  - Paulus Gnome
    
    They only watched the ad breaks and saw the messiah in her personal 30 seconds of fame
    
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    September 4, 2017 10:57pm
Shaun the Sheep

Could they possibly have found a more partisan panel? And who is that ugly thing with the Botox overdose?
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September 4, 2017 9:53pm
Rich Prick

Oh fuck TV3, your line-up of Labour luvvies to polish Cindy’s turd and roll it in glitter is puke inducing.
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September 4, 2017 9:53pm
dime

holy shit bill was outstanding.

jacinda gives no facts.. says crap about the economy is about how people feel ffs

bill starts giving solid numbers and gets cut off.

the first debate was meh. neither shined. tonight bill destroyed.

ithought i might watch the panel, first dipshit – jacinda won, she looked like a prime minister cause she has a vision lol give me strength.

lets hope we have seen peak jacinda in the polls
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September 4, 2017 9:56pm
sooty

Not dressing so nana aunty Helen tonight. Still pointy, shouty over top. I. I. I. I all the time. What happen with all the expert panels. She goes to bred.
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September 4, 2017 9:56pm
niggly

Probably saw half the debate on and off, from what I saw I thought that English was strong and backed up answers with facts. Again thought Ardern’s answers were more aspirational and had difficulty in places (especially the economy). But listening now to the 4 commentators – the wet drip Morgan Godfrey, Tracey Jacindamania Watkins and Annabelle Lee from the Hui (so 3 lefties v Hooten), are all pretty much declaring Jacinda the winner! Shit I didn’t realise I lived in a completely different parallel universe compared to those 3 media “darlings” of the left!
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September 4, 2017 9:56pm
Rich Prick

Can someone please shut that woman up. Uptick if you can’t stomache that voice for the next three years.
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September 4, 2017 9:59pm
- Paulus Gnome
  
  Three minutes is two too long for me and I tend to watch with the auto reactive welding helmet on so not to be temporarily blinded by the flashing pearly whites
  
  My partner thinks I am strange, sometimes even I have to agree with her
  
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  September 4, 2017 11:02pm
GazzaW

The Herald poll on the debate currently has 63% declaring Bill as the winner and Jacinda on 32%.

Ouch!

So much for the panel. Get voting KBers.
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September 4, 2017 10:13pm
- krazykiwi
  
  Labour’s bots are working hard. Down to 55% just now
  
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  September 4, 2017 10:22pm
  - GazzaW
    
    55% to 38% – we’ll take that.
    
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    September 4, 2017 10:45pm
  - Lance
    
    Voting app seems to have crashed
    
    2 0
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    September 4, 2017 10:55pm
    - Paulus Gnome
      
      In line with the aspirational values party policies brought to you by Colgate
      
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      September 4, 2017 11:03pm
Piniwi

Now that’s what we have been waiting for Bill to take it to her. The “vision” retort was an absolute gem. Only the die hard supporters that the dominated the audience seemed to respond to her repetitive “visions”. Still in fairyland and still being let off by old Paddy for NOT answering questions. Not to highlight the range of questions too much but does old Paddy know what voters want to hear about. Explains why there was no uproar from the left over him as MC. The only impartiality was the misleading colour of his podium. Wishy-washy like him. Watch out for the trolls tomorrow after they have got their running orders from The Standard. It would funny if it wasn’t so pathetic.
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September 4, 2017 10:20pm
dime

not sure how ill sleep tonight, knowing that almost 100,000 kids will go to school tomorrow and have to learn in a prefab lmao jesus
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September 4, 2017 10:21pm
Inandout

Poor old socialist Marcus Lush is being overwhelmed by callers saying Bill English won the debate. One lady however said Jacinda wiped the floor. Oh well, you can’t win them all.
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September 4, 2017 10:31pm
- Paulus Gnome
  
  Probably been vaping over the cat litter tray or something like and I would suspect there is more than one tray and one cat . . . .
  
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  September 4, 2017 11:07pm
simpleton1

What is wrong with school prefabs these days??
It will be water proof.
It will have electricity, lighting, and good heating.
Built with insulation.
Plenty of windows that open and shut.
All to the most modern building permit standards.

The ones I would worry about are the prefabs that I heard about, put up for the baby boomers in the 50’s & 60’s. that relied on the “pot belly” fire.

A tent may be ok at the beginning of summer term, and that is how some schools started over a century ago, and a family of kids on one horse.
Are some of the kids learning the basics of reading writing and arithmetic today? It seems that some are missing out ! !
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September 4, 2017 10:37pm
- Rich Prick
  
  According to the Ministry of Education’s litigation against Carter Holt Harvey, there are 880 leaky school buildings in NZ. Then there are the earthquakes. No wonder the Ministry is making do with safe, dry and habitable pre-fabs. Surely a good education is the issue, not the accommodation? Or would Labour rather the kids were sat out on a wet field in the rain some where?
  
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  September 4, 2017 10:48pm
  - simpleton1
    
    Yes, prefabs, basic sturdy design, designed for trucking, and built for purpose ! !
    
    None of the up lifting visualization, motivational, creating vibrancy, fancy design to inspire the feelings of the student community;-
    that leaves the students wet behind the ears, when it rains. 🙂
    
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    September 4, 2017 10:57pm
    - Rich Prick
      
      You left out “inclusion of diversity”, which is where the rain gets in. Those bloody cultural shutes to the sky fairies.
      
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      September 4, 2017 11:02pm
      - Paulus Gnome
        
        That’s funny ?
        
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        September 4, 2017 11:08pm
- GazzaW
  
  Those 1950s prefabs were shockers. Built out of fibrolite, no insulation and I can never remember the potbelly stoves ever being used. They were as cold as charity in the winter and like ovens in the summer. Never mind, we had some brilliant teachers, we learned a lot and had a hell of a lot of fun.
  
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  September 4, 2017 10:59pm
- niggly
  
  “What is wrong with school prefabs these days??”
  Exactly! And another aspect to the discussion on prefab classrooms … surprisingly Jacinda Ardern didn’t seem to not know what a “modern learning environment” is when English mentioned them. Jacinda interjected with “That’s a jazzy name for a prefab!”.
  
  Modern Learning Environments are generally open-plan classrooms/flexible learning spaces (some of the better ones have additional break-out spaces) that fosters student-led learning, self-paced to an agreed schedule with the teachers. They are not simply “jazzy prefabs” (and MLE’s can be found in converted traditional classrooms) – doh Jacinda!
  
  Regardless there is also nothing wrong with quickly assembled prefabs (usually insulated and with heat pumps) in an interim capacity, to cater for replacement of old school buildings that are no longer compliant or fit for purpose! What was Jacinda complaining about!
  
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  September 4, 2017 11:30pm
GazzaW

With that much instant feedback to the Herald and to ZB we can take a lot out of this debate. The grassroots have declared Bill the winner and its the grassroots voters that count not a stacked panel and a biassed moderator.
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September 4, 2017 10:42pm
- SPC
  
  Hardly biased as moderator.
  
  IMO, Ardern was put off her game early in the contest by a couple of paddifications.
  
  1. He claimed about three times that Labour was intending to reduce the value of property (she said three times their plan was to place a focus on smaller more affordable homes).
  2. He also kept claiming the building sector was 50,000 workers short to challenge Labour’s focus on restrictions on immigration numbers.
  
  (By the way he has misremembered the facts – the industry needs 50,000 new workers over the next 5 years – some will be those completing training each year and some will be migrants) .
  
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  September 4, 2017 11:03pm
SPC

The major outcome of the debate is the National caucus and party finding out they are committed to taking 100,000 children out of poverty in the next term.

Given the manifesto and budget plan for the next three years did not have this as its centre-piece it should be interesting to see whether they make any actual effort to back up his words (should they return to office).

PS – an early question was around the honesty of politicians – do politicians lie.
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September 4, 2017 10:55pm
- Rich Prick
  
  On the current popular definition of “poverty”, or the miracle thereof, National’s tax cuts will do just that, thank you very much. Next question …
  
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  September 4, 2017 10:59pm
  - SPC
    
    Labour’s plan would deliver more to 70% of those getting the tax cuts – those with children.
    
    Bill English specifically mentioned that his tax cuts would also go to those without children – it was not designed to reduce child poverty.
    
    The increase in the AS will do as much even more to reduce child poverty than the tax cuts.
    
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    September 4, 2017 11:06pm
    - Rich Prick
      
      If don’t chase myths. Dressing parental irresponsibility up as “child poverty” and as a collective social responsibility I have to pay for doesn’t cut it with me. Getting the parents off P, booze or the fags is far more sensible. Tax cuts to those who don’t engage with the three vices I mentioned makes more sense than a universal handout to all including the scumbags who enjoy the three vices more than their own childrens’ welfare.
      
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      September 4, 2017 11:27pm
      - SPC
        
        You seem to imagine that if working people get tax cuts they do not go to those who use P, drink or smoke – but if the money goes as WFF tax credits targeted to only workers with children then it goes to those who use P, drink or smoke
        
        I hope you do not do statistical modelling at work.
        
        The problem with across the board tax cuts as means to reduce child poverty is that they increase the net after tax at the average wage and thus blow out super costs a little further.
        
        Things like a low income earner rebate, and WFF at the lower income levels and AS are much more efficient.
        
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        September 4, 2017 11:43pm
      - Rich Prick
        
        I don’t do statistical modelling work. I do however spend a lot of time with a fatherless boy and his friends. I’ve seen their mothers and their drop-kick latest “roots” on Sunday mornings, them thinking I don’t see how they spend Thrusday through to Sunday. But for exceptional cases, the “child poverty” Labour bangs on about is a parental choice. End of.
        
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        September 4, 2017 11:49pm
      - SPC
        
        Funny how there are more children in poverty than there are children of solo mothers (and more work than are on the DPB).
        
        I suppose the working couples with children in poverty should have waited before having children or not had any if they were on low incomes …
        
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        September 5, 2017 12:03am
- niggly
  
  Rather than as a budget “centre-piece”, when pushed by Paddy I read it more (the 100,000 figure) as to what an evidence based approach and targeted funding could deliver.
  
  So perhaps nothing to do with “lying politicians”, more like that would be an outcome, albeit one not publically promoted as such yet (or because the MSM and Opposition would use it as a stick to beat the Govt over with even if external factors intervened to make that target less attainable eg worsening global economic conditions affected funding etc)?
  
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  September 4, 2017 11:46pm
  - SPC
    
    Whether it will be a lie depends on what happens in any 2017-2020 term.
    
    They promised to close the wage gap with Oz but in the event they ultimately decided growth was the only way out of the budget whole and that meant immigration/population growth as productivity has stalled. Immigration led growth in labour supply tends to hold down wages …
    
    One could argue they made the right call, but it meant they gave up on their 2008 declared aspiration.
    
    Will that happen again …
    
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    September 4, 2017 11:55pm
Digmen1

Why would we want to catch up to Australia’s wages.

They pay checkout girls $19 an hour.
When the girls in China that make the stuff get 2 or 3 dollars an hour.
Their car industries closed as their high wages made their cars uncompetitive.

Australia can only do it as they have huge mineral resources to tax.

If we keep increasing our wages, tourists will not come here as they will not be able to afford a cup of coffee.
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September 5, 2017 7:37am
Digmen1

TV3 debate.
The good news for me (two ticks National) was that when I went to bed both the Herald and Stuff were running polls on who won.
Both had Bill English on 51 and Jacinda on 40 something (I forgot) less, plus some undecideds.
Both of these polls had over 40,000 respondents!

I cannot believe how they chose such a left wing Panel 3 to1.

Two ticks National
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September 5, 2017 7:40am
Digmen1

We are NOT a low wage economy.
The minimum wages in Canada and the USA are much less than ours!
We are a HIGH COST country because of our location and small population (small market).

Our grocery prices are high.
The generally accepted figure is that groceries in Europe are one third cheaper than here.
So that would equate to $30 for a single person and $60 a week for a family!

$60 a week less in groceries would make a huge difference to every family.
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September 5, 2017 9:32am

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