General Debate 1 May 2011

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OECD rank 22 kiwi

No Honeymoon for the Royal Couple until later in the year. Thoughts?
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May 1, 2011 8:39am
Nookin

1
Oops –2
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May 1, 2011 8:40am
Nookin

She’s got a headache?
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May 1, 2011 8:41am
Monique Watson

I thought Hilary Calvert was making all the right noises upon her entry into parliament up until now. However it’s a bit dickheady to come out looking disloyal. I like what Cactus Kate had to say about party loyalty. Calvert will have to tread carefully. I can see the “it was Rodney’s decision” line being trotted out to ameliorate this. She had the casting vote really and there was no real rush , so I hope she was able to extract enough prime baubles of office and didn’t fold too easily.

And they want to prevent too much tarring with the Orewa brush to be universally palatable. She needs to calm her enthusiasm for the “if they know whats good for em”, line of attack.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10722386
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May 1, 2011 8:42am
Elaycee

Sharon Armstrong: “I knew about the parcel in my suitcase but I thought it contained documents…”

Tui Billboard anyone?
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May 1, 2011 8:47am
joana

Monique
She comes from Dunedin. This has been thrashed out before. How much universal appeal did Act have last time? Not much if I recall correctly. They sure know how to have public bun fights tho. No one does it better.
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May 1, 2011 9:06am
MyNameIsJack

Sunday Morning music for Don Branks.

http://youtu.be/siqrnVnTSUY
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May 1, 2011 9:08am
Sofia

Would Phil U might clash with Penny Bright?

..i think this new political vehicle is the best hope for positive change since the green party…

..and will draw wide support from both progressive thinkers…

…and the marginalised/disposessed..

..sue bradford/nandor/john minto all spoke…

..and would all make worthy list candidates for this party…

..harawira spoke well..to a rapturous/noisy reception..

..and none of the speakers were dud…

..but the most powerful speech of the day came from the co-leader apparant..annette sykes…
..now i fully support what this new mana party is going to do…

..and as such i have become mana party member number 240….

..and am going with the t-shirt/bumper-sticker…

..chrs…

– http://whoar.co.nz/
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May 1, 2011 9:13am
Nookin

Hone on Q & A

It is not racist to say that that he is uncomfortable if his daughter comes home with a white boy. Yet Brash is like Hitler because of his racist views.

He is making absolute dick of himself.
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May 1, 2011 9:15am
Puzzled in Ekatahuna

Sharon Armstrong
So did the officials ask the two usual questions _
What is the purpose of your visit? and
Do you have anything to declare?
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May 1, 2011 9:17am
Dave Mann

Yes, you really are Puzzled aren’t you? She was LEAVING the country, not ENTERING. Geez….
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May 1, 2011 9:23am
Sofia

“Yet Brash is like Hitler because of his racist views.” – surely not

“Why doesn’t Dictator Don just complete his new ‘unbridled power’ look – by growing some facial hair above his top lip?
Why doesn’t Dictator Don then practice his new ‘unbridled power’ walk – swinging his outstretched straight arms without bothering to bend his knees?”

– http://waterpressure.wordpress.com/
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May 1, 2011 9:25am
Nookin

Of course they did Puzzled. To which she replied

I came here at the request of someone whom I have never met and who paid $1000 towards my costs. I came for the sole purpose of collecting a suitcase which I had to substitute for my own because it has a hidden compartment containing some compressed documents (they must be compressed because they weigh heaps). I have no idea why they are hidden nor why I couldn’t put them in a briefcase. Even though I have experience as a probation officer and am intelligent enough to have achieved positions of responsibility, all this seemed to me to be just the sort of thing that happens every day”in this neck of the woods. Even though all my mates told me to stay clear, they have been contaminated by the pennybrightconspiracytheorysyndrome and are deluded. Why do youa sk officer? Is there somnething wrong?”

[With due deference to Dave Mann’s correct reference to the chronological incongruity]
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May 1, 2011 9:29am
Manolo

Macacacarten getting more imbecilic by the day (how could the paper pay him for writing such tripe?)

Brash move exposes Rogernomics revival

This week, the ideological right declared war against the rest of us. The motivations behind Don Brash’s coup are to finish the mad Rogernomics experiment on this country that started in 1984.

Brash and his cronies put the hapless Rodney Hide out of his misery. The Act ragtags have been a dysfunctional bunch of nuts for some time, so in some ways Brash could argue he has done us all a favour. I just about drove off the road on Thursday when twinkletoes Hide led the radio news saying one of the things he was most proud of was delivering a sound centre-right government.

Good grief. Act and his caucus were an embarrassment and made us look like a narco-republic.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10722590
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May 1, 2011 9:50am
MT_Tinman

Manolo, I hope Macarten is correct.

NZ would be a far better place should “Rogernomics” rule the economic practices.
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May 1, 2011 10:27am
joana

Tinman how old are you? So you can’t remember the eighties?
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May 1, 2011 10:38am
starboard

“Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi survived a Nato missile strike Saturday that killed his youngest son and three grandchildren and wounded friends and relatives, Libya’s spokesman said.
Gaddafi and his wife were in the Tripoli house of his 29-year-old son, Saif al-Arab Gaddafi, when it was hit by at least one missile fired by a Nato warplane, according to Livbyan spokesman Moussa Ibrahim.
The one-story house in a Tripoli residential neighbourhood was heavily damaged.

Saif al-Arab Gadhafi was the sixth son of Gaddafi. He had spent much of his time in Germany in recent years”

..oh dear..shits gona hit the fan me thinks..
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May 1, 2011 11:28am
wat dabney

This is analogous to all those “green jobs” we’re told will be created when we tax oil enough and subsidise wind farms enough:

“Workers in the rural employment program aren’t allowed to use machines, for example, and have to dig instead with pick axes and shovels.”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704081604576143671902043578.html
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May 1, 2011 11:45am
Viking2

Tinman how old are you? So you can’t remember the eighties?

Joanna, plenty of young smart arses in that place but caution and wisdom apparently don’t matter.
No one wants the Nats. to get a move on more than I and I survived the 80’s with nothing left but softly softly catchy monkey.
Disbanding everything for the sake of being puritanical all over again would be mindlessly foolish.
We need to trim and make better and constantly improve.
More importantly we need to export and we need to grow our businesses. We need to remove constraints on that process. When we do we will be able to settle the financial issues.
ETS, youth rates, education vouchers and more up to date trade training, higher depreciation for fixed productive plant,RMA, ACC and the list goes on and includes stop pandering to maori elite.

More people leaving for Aussie again. Why, jobs and income why else?
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May 1, 2011 12:00pm
dime

UFC 129 starts at 1pm. awesome card.

GSP v Shields. toronto stadium, 55000 people there. nuts
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May 1, 2011 12:03pm
Viking2

HoNE “I want to recall the $36 million being wasted on a bloody yacht race in San Francisco and spend it instead on heating in the poorer suburbs of Christchurch,” Harawira said.

DPF I agree on not funding the America’s Cup bid but sadly the last Labour Government signed a contract forcing us to do so.

DPF wouldn’t have given support to Team Nz for the next America’s Cup.

Well lets look at the numbers and see what the effect of efforts like team NZ and others have had in terms of economics for NZ.
10,000 employed in the boating industry, world leaders in applied technology to boating with consequent distribution to other industry. 600 apprentices when no one else has them
A billion dollars in oversea’s sales and the benefits go on to include tourism, chandling etc etc etc.

A dozen more industries like this and Fonterra and we wouldn’t be worrying about broke.
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May 1, 2011 12:15pm
Viking2

How about support for engineering industries.
We could then build our own trains and oil rigs and export to Aussie as one company has managed to do. Page and Macrae in Tauranga have managed some big projects there but there is no industry body such as boating has and no prime driver such as Team NZ.
We did build parts of ships for the Navies in Whangarei via Tennix but without a motivator the industry struggles to compete.
Its needs scale of plant and collaboration.
Mostly it needs a motivator.
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May 1, 2011 12:20pm
Pete George

Brash seems to generally be an intelligent, astute person. Why is he promoting Banks for Epsom, or even Banks for Act? Something seems out of kilter there. He must have some reason other than the money.
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May 1, 2011 12:23pm
Caleb

Does it really matter about Banks?
If Brash is directing the party and Banks is doing his thing for Epsom,
Banks can step back a little, he isn’t the front man, hopefully he gets that.
There is no perfect list of candidates, ones that are going to suit everyone, far from it.
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May 1, 2011 12:39pm
Inky_the_Red

Apparently Canada has an election in the next couple of day. Before the election was called the Conservatives had a healthy lead over the liberal and were likely to win easily. Now the poll suggest that the Liberal’s supports has crashed but the Conservatives may lose

http://www.cbc.ca/news/interactives/cv11-poll-tracker/

Strange things election campaigns.
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May 1, 2011 12:43pm
Muzza M

Hello all. I’m currently in Manila celebrating my 49th birthday. Cheers all.
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May 1, 2011 12:45pm
Pete George

Banks can step back a little, he isn’t the front man, hopefully he gets that.

Has he ever got that?
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May 1, 2011 12:47pm
big bruv

The only thing that matters about Banks is that the people of Epsom love him.

Do not forget, Epsom is not an Nationwide campaign, it is the ACT parties fall back strategy (or plan B if you like), they need to win there first and worry about how much of the party vote they get after that.
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May 1, 2011 12:50pm
krazykiwi

Luc asks:

KK, I’m just trying to work out your basic objection to the consensus view.
Is the planet warming? Yes or no.
If yes, is it caused through human caused emissions?
Do you have the courage of your convictions to answer, simply, for our edification and enlightenment?

Setting aside the fact that scientific truth is not established by consensus, the question is, is the planet warming … relative to what?

During the medieval warming period (~800AD – 1300AD) the Vikings took advantage of newly ice-free seas to colonise Greenland where birchwood forests flourished and the new inhabitants farmed sheep and goats. So relative to the MWP, today it’s colder.

Estimates of the timing of the Little Ice Age vary, with ~1400 – 1900AD being a widest range I’ve seen. Throughout this time, and across a number of continents freezing conditions led to crop failures and famine. So, relative to the LIA, today is warmer.

On a longer cycle, today is warmer than it was during the last ice age which ended around 11,000 years ago, and colder than it was during the Holocene Maximum around 6000 years ago.

On the question of emissions, I’m of the view than human caused emissions have a statistically inconsequential impact on the climate.

But of course none of this science, as evolving as it is, of any real importance. The real issue here is the Global Warming scam has been conjured up to install fear into the ignorant masses, thereby gaining a lever for control. It’s a classic manipulation of the people, practiced for eons, and especially favoured by modern socialists.

So, to summarise, Luc asks what he calls a simple question – “Is the planet warming – yes or no?”. I’ll leave it to readers to determine which is more simple: the question, or the questioner.
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May 1, 2011 1:16pm
krazykiwi

Happy birthday Muzza.
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May 1, 2011 1:17pm
Sofia

Obama’s long form birth certificate a rank forgery?
Probably mentioned in recent comments on this issue – I haven’t read them all – but
Box 9 Race of Father [Barack Hussein Obama] is ‘African’, when not only the United States, but other English-speaking nations described Africans and those of African descent as either “Negroes” or “blacks” in 1961 and
Box 32 Signature of Registrar is U K L Lee.
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May 1, 2011 1:56pm
joana

Viking 2
I lost my best man to suicide in 1988. A lot of other men committed suicide around this time. Suicide and David Lange’s arrogance are my enduring memories of the 80s.
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May 1, 2011 3:14pm
krazykiwi

@Sofia – I’d lost interest in this issue… but now I smell a rat. Not sure what variety… but it’s big, fat and squiffy. There’s simply too much evidence pointing to this being a forgery. Why would the White House release something so obviously faked? If a forgery was required (eg beacuse no original does exist) then surely the full resources of the state could have been employed to do a really, really good job. Doesn’t look hard in the movies …
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May 1, 2011 3:51pm
Manolo

More proof Labour lite has failed to deliver on its election promises.
To top it off: Double Dipton English has no idea about what to do with the economy, while Key just smiles and waves.

Mass exodus to Aussie continues

New Zealanders, and in particular professionals and tradies, continue to stream across the Tasman to live with our Aussie mates. The latest figures from Statistics New Zealand show that in February 4340 of us upped sticks and headed across to the Lucky Country, up by 1000 from the same month last year, and up 627 from February 2009.

In the year to the end of February, 34,550 Kiwis had gone to Australia, up from 26,563 the previous year, and a huge contrast to the 10,119 Australians who moved here.

More New Zealanders move to Aus-tralia than anywhere else. Out of a total of 48,322 Kiwis who left – to places including the next most popular destination, the UK, US and China – 71% moved to Australia. And it’s not just tradies crossing the ditch. The most common occupation listed by those who were leaving permanently was professional, followed by technicians and trade workers.
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May 1, 2011 3:53pm
Pete George

“There’s simply too much evidence pointing to this being a forgery.”

krazykiwi, I didn’t think you were that crazy. But Orly Taitz, the “queen of birthers”, agrees with you. And plenty of nutjob websites.
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May 1, 2011 4:06pm
reid

Terrifying scientific discovery: Strange emissions by sun are suddenly mutating matter…
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May 1, 2011 4:12pm
MT_Tinman

joana (574) Says:
May 1st, 2011 at 10:38 am
Tinman how old are you?

Very. Old enough, in fact, to have paid 23% interest on my mortgage in the ’80s and old and wise enough to acknowledge that “Rogernomics” saved NZ from economic ruin and, had Lange not prevented the great and good Sir Roger from completing the task, would have seen NZ in a far better state now, both economically and socially.

So you can’t remember the eighties?

Why the question mark on the completely false statement?
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May 1, 2011 4:42pm
MT_Tinman

reid (7,037) Says:
May 1st, 2011 at 4:12 pm
Terrifying scientific discovery: Strange emissions by sun are suddenly mutating matter…

Hence the MOFO party.
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May 1, 2011 4:43pm
shady

I was just wondering why the police were so quick to charge the guy who’s van rolled into the lake killing his own 2yo, yet the farmer who’s daughter’s best friend fell off the back of a ute – an illegal act – hasn’t been charged with anything (yet)? I’m sure he will, but it was the speed at which the police charged the guy who’s carelessnes caused the death of his own child which I found disturbing.
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May 1, 2011 7:32pm
nasska

33,000 Maori meet at the Westpac Stadium for a ‘Maori Are Not Stupid’ convention.
Pita Sharples addresses the crowd.. ‘We are all here today to prove to the world that Maori are not stupid. Can I have a volunteer please?’
Hone Harawira gingerly works his way through the crowd and steps up to the stage.
Pita asks him ‘What is 15 plus 15?’
After 15 or 20 seconds Hone says, ‘ Forty!’ Obviously everyone is a little disappointed. Then the Maori start chanting ‘Give him another chance! Give him another chance!’ Pita says, ‘Well since we have a huge crowd, world-wide press and global broadcast media here, I think we can give him another chance.’
So he asks, ‘What is 5 plus 5?’
After nearly 30 seconds he eventually says, ‘ Twelve?’ Pita looks down and just lets out a dejected sigh.
Everyone is disheartened and Hone looks like he’s going to weep. But then the 33,000 Maori begin to yell and wave their hands shouting, ‘Give him another chance! Give him another chance!’ Pita, unsure whether he is now doing more harm than good eventually says, ‘OK then, what is 2 plus 2?’
Silence hangs over the stadium.
Hone closes his eyes, and after a whole minute eventually says, ‘Four?’
Pandemonium breaks out throughout the stadium as the Maori crowd stand to a man, wave their arms, stomp their feet and scream, ‘Give him another chance! Give him another chance!’
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May 1, 2011 7:41pm
Viking2

Police Warning

Had a warning from police about keys.
Homeowners are being warned about 3 keys that can open 73% of doors, 84% of cars, 99% of houses.

They are dar-keys, pak-keys, and jun-keys
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May 1, 2011 8:34pm
reid

Are liberals and conservatives hard-wired to disagree?
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May 1, 2011 9:45pm
Hurf Durf

Inky: it’s funny how those opinion polls mirror that of the UK’s in the general election this time last year. Wonder if explosions of support for usually maligned third parties will be a common feature of elections worldwide as the Era of Great Economic Uncertainty drags itself along.

Which makes me greatly worry about the impending November election.
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May 1, 2011 10:29pm
Bobbie black

Just saw Don Brash interview on TV1.

At last someone with the balls to talk sense with regards to the Maori apartheid system.

No need for Maori seats – they should be abolished.

Maori should be treated as equals to all other races in law as with Asians, Pakeha and so on.

Go Donnie!
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May 1, 2011 11:30pm
Bobbie black

Of course, I must humbly apologise to Mike Laws here.

He was the first, had the biggest balls and he started the trend.

A trend that will no doubt snowball to gigantic proportions.

The white finally overcoming the… well I could add many words here, but being politically sensitive I will say…

You add the words…I am on 90 Demerits

🙂
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May 2, 2011 6:49am
publicwatchdog

# big bruv (9,002) Says:
May 1st, 2011 at 12:50 pm

The only thing that matters about Banks is that the people of Epsom love him.

Do not forget, Epsom is not an Nationwide campaign, it is the ACT parties fall back strategy (or plan B if you like), they need to win there first and worry about how much of the party vote they get after that.”
_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Really?

How much are those living in the high-value Epsom properties going to love John Banks – (proud $upercity supporter) – when they realise that they are facing a 4.9% Auckland ($upercity) rates increase, for a forced amalgamation that they, like everyone else in the Auckland region, had no say in?

Is the reason why Don Bra$h wants John Bank$ as the Epsom ACT candidate – because they are business buddies, and this ACT takeover is being dictated by business interests?

Both ‘hollow’, ‘shallow’ men just lining up their private snouts for the public trough, looking after their own interests and the interests of their corporate mate$, at the expense of the public and the public interest?

Penny Bright
http://waterpressure.wordpress.com
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May 2, 2011 9:13am
Nookin

Penny
In case you may have missed it, Banks is not the mayor of Auckland and does not have a great deal to to with the rates increase.
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May 2, 2011 9:23am

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