General Debate 6 March 2020

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Monty

reports are coming through that Jeanette Fitzsimons has died. while i would never support the Greens and anything they stand for – at least she along side Rod Donald were true environmentalists (even if their policy settings were wrong) – RIP Jeanette – may the greens once again revert tho their true environmental roots
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March 6, 2020 8:05am
- curry4me
  
  Monty: RIP Jeanette Fitzsimons.
  
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  March 6, 2020 10:38am
- John Warren
  
  Jeanette Fitzsimons represents to me, along with Sue Bradford, the kind of politician with whom I was completely at odds politically and ideologically, but whom I could respect for being generally honest and principled, and putting up a decent fight. I’ve had cause to re-evaluate both of them (among others) in the light of the current crop of craven losers and liars.
  
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  March 6, 2020 10:58am
slightlyrighty

Sad to hear about the passing of Jeanette Fitzsimons.

She and Rod Donald were the standard bearers for an actual Green Party, and was the only Green member to actually win an electorate.

One is forced to wonder what she thought of the party in it’s current form. A proud and staunch environmentalist. A true Green politician who we have yet to see the likes of in the current government.

When you think that she was replaced by Metiria Turei, you realise how far the party may have strayed
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March 6, 2020 8:05am
yossarian

With Bridges decision to rule out Winston this year, do we think that sometime this year National will release what their offer to Winston was during last elections ‘negotiations’?

They won’t be needing to woo him over this year, so shouldn’t they open the books and let us know what they offered?
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March 6, 2020 8:06am
- cmm
  
  I would expect it is along the lines of: “you got 7%, if you think you can come play your king-maker games over here then take a ride on a fire truck.”
  
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  March 6, 2020 9:59am
  - MCos
    
    Clearly Bill English was willing to forgo his political career rather than give NZF seats around the cabinet table.
    In light of subsequent events who’s to say he didn’t make the right decision.
    I’m picking Simon Bridges & Paul Goldsmith are pleased with the way things have turned out. They’ve gone from being #6 & 18 to top dogs
    
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    March 6, 2020 10:59am
Steve James

Jo Biden has spent all his life trying to succeed in politics and now he finally has….. Pity he’s not there to enjoy it.
I heard this on Fox and just had to share.
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March 6, 2020 8:09am
- All_on_Red
  
  “I’m Joe Biden and I’ve forgotten my message”
  
  The Bidens represent what’s wrong with Washington. The whole family had their snouts in the trough as they leveraged off Joes position to get tasty roles within a variety of companies. Companies which then, coincidentally, got hundreds of millions of funding from the Govt.
  Only a moron could deny this corrupt behaviour.
  Was it all illegal?
  Maybe, maybe not. RICO Rudy might have some evidence. But it certainly isn’t what should be happening in Govt.
  
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  March 6, 2020 10:12am
  - fernglas
    
    And the Trump kids haven’t done the same? It’s another demonstration of Bogle’s Law; when both sides to a debate are equally mendacious, you go with the one who sounds the best.
    
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    March 6, 2020 10:29am
    - Nickc2
      
      Fernglas, do you have any evidence about the Trump kids? If so, I’m sure you would have notified the Democrats trying to impeach Trump.
      
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      March 6, 2020 11:26am
    - Kabull
      
      Trump’s children have not taken advantage of Donald’s political standing. Remember, he has only been a politician since Jan 2017 (inauguration). Biden, on the other hand, has been in politics since 1969.
      
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      March 6, 2020 11:39am
      - Inandout
        
        Kabull, it is all here in the book, no rumours or ‘officials said’, just the facts.
        
        https://www.foxnews.com/media/peter-schweizer-how-biden-family-got-rich
        
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        March 6, 2020 2:31pm
    - Jules99
      
      It’s one thing to give your kids a leg-up in the family business (assuming he did), quite another to negotiate illegal backhanders that travel along well-known money laundering channels, in return for political favours.
      
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      March 6, 2020 12:04pm
    - kloyd0306
      
      You would be wise to use what few brain cells you have to figure out that Trump made his fortune as a private citizen while Biden made his from government and public money.
      
      The loony left have yet to understand the difference between private and public monies.
      
      Do yourself a favour and think.
      
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      March 6, 2020 1:45pm
      - Batman
        
        Is Trump actually sitting on a fortune though?
        
        Or just a bunch of assets and a whole load of Russian backed Deutsche Bank loans? Heheheh
        
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        March 6, 2020 3:26pm
- curry4me
  
  Steve James: Priceless. The Dems know they’re going to lose. They want the party in the hands of an establishment figure. Plus, Senator Biden is expendable. Why waste a good candidate?
  
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  March 6, 2020 10:40am
  - sooty
    
    Yer, save Hillary for next time!
    It will be a womans turn!
    
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    March 6, 2020 12:43pm
    - kaykaybee
      
      Yes, she’ll be old enough to be the Dem candidate by then……
      
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      March 6, 2020 7:34pm
- Max
  
  According to the ‘deep state’ (whoever they are?) Biden will make an excellent POTUS as he can and will be controlled by the Dems.
  
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  March 6, 2020 11:02am
ex-golfer

Repost:

It seems that Peters is happy to play his deputy off against himself in order to dog-whistle the immigration theme in election year.

After all, only days earlier Peters was extolling the relationship NZ has with India here:
https://www.highereducationdigest.com/new-zealand-deputy-prime-minister-endorses-strengthened-education-ties-with-india/

Here:
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/new-zealand-and-india-strengthen-ties

And here:
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/speech/indo-pacific-principles-partnerships

And not surprisingly Peters was singing a completely different song in Opposition, purporting to support foreign students:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/81788297/winston-peters-says-international-students-in-new-zealand-are-being-exploited
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March 6, 2020 8:13am
- Nickc2
  
  I would love to say what I really thing of Peters but he is very litigious these days and I can’t remember the last time he had a win.
  
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  March 6, 2020 11:29am
Tempist

Stuff’s woke battle of the week

https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/parenting/baby/119945129/opinion-a-maori-name-is-not-offensive-racist-reactions-to-them-are

Journalist with weekly column accuses random member of public of racism.

Random member of the public (without the aid of a weekly column) probably reacting to white privilege and cultural appropriation

At least there’s no news to cover…
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March 6, 2020 8:14am
- Evadne
  
  I’ve had plenty of people make comments about my babies’ names at the time.
  
  And, for that matter, I constantly had to tell people how to pronounce and spell my name.
  
  I never knew it was racism. Or privilege. I just assumed we all had different opinions and experience. And got on with my life.
  
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  March 6, 2020 10:56am
  - Im Right
    
    Names are names, some foreign and common within a certain country but foreign to our ears…what annoys me is the mangling of names we are already familiar with, I can remember on a few occasions working at a bank and taking down names of people who were interested for promotion call backs and some of the looks I got when I spelt a name wrong…as If I were a dullard, examples:
    Karen (It’s how I have always spelt it), variations..
    Caren/Karon/Karyn/Karryn
    Sharon:
    Sharyn/Charon/Sharron
    All pronounced the same, but woe betide if you spell it wrong as you should know, by osmosis?, and it’s upsetting to them (Yes, these are people in their early 20’s)
    
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    March 6, 2020 12:31pm
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      All pronounced the same,
      
      Oh, goodness no….
      I worked with a Karen (pronounced Kāren… Car -rin), and woe- betide if you called her Kɛren… (care-rin)
      
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      March 6, 2020 5:30pm
- Jules99
  
  My thought was, maybe the lady was scared that she would be called ‘racist’ for pronouncing the name wrong. Of course, no one knows what she thought because they didn’t ask her. Mind reading making the news. Still, at least the name will stand out in Google when future employers are checking to see if she has a criminal record. ?
  
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  March 6, 2020 12:07pm
Yvette

Shane Jones, hand brake on “hate speech” laws?

Can Andrew Little introduce proposals for “hate speech” law while Coalition Government Minister Shane Jones is accused by the Race Relations Concilator of being “Racist, ignorant and harmful” and Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters supports his Minister’s view? Can Little even get anything past those two in Cabinet?

And having not stood down Coalition Government Minister Shane Jones nor Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters – for racist remarks (Jones), or support of those (Peters) – how appropriately can Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern pop on a hijab, as is her cultural cross-dressing custom, and tell the March 15 Attack Commemoration attendees that “They are us” and “New Zealand is immigrant friendly”?

Actually, in passing, has Ardern even read any portions of “The Great Replacement”, as I am sure she has a Censor’s dispensation to do so, to understand from his own explanation why the nameless shooter did what he has done, but also to realise how several of Tarrant’s views are very similar to what Shane Jones has said – although I may not, for legal reasons, quote those portions of the manifesto (albeit international media comment) to demonstrate those similarities to her, to Winston Peters, or particularly to Shane Jones.

Last October, when Jones remarked “You have no legitimate expectations in my view to bring your whole village to New Zealand, and if you don’t like it and you’re threatening to go home, then catch the next flight home.” it is obvious some in the Indian community have made a connection between the Christchurch attacks and Jones’ utterances.
Mandeep Singh Bela, coordinator of the Union Network of Migrants and the Indian Workers Association, told Newshub he was fearful the rhetoric could stoke hate crimes against the Indian community. “To ‘take the next flight home’ is quite racist and discriminatory towards the Indian community. The last thing we want to see is what happened in Christchurch”, which Jones told Newshub was a “Bollywood overreaction”.

I trust the security agencies have noted this and other exchanges and treat them more seriously than Ardern’s inaction indicates her regard of these issues – her neither standing down Jones nor Peters .

Morgan Godfery tells Guardian readers –
And let’s not forget that, in the wake of the Christchurch shooting, politicians promised tolerance.
Of course for Jones the chief consideration is his political advantage in the here and now. His party’s brand is literally New Zealand First, and his leader, Winston Peters, has spent the past three decades pushing fake news about immigrants before anyone had the vocabulary to name it. Who can blame Jones for getting in on the action?
Well, for one, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern who told Jones directly and forcefully his language and his “facts” were wrong. It’s a welcome intervention, but it should come with an additional warning: if it happens again, consequences will follow.

But Morgan Godfery may have got that last sentence a little wrong, with “if it happens again”. Unfortunately, last October’s “next flight home” incident means this current issue “is it happening again”.
So where are the consequences?
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March 6, 2020 8:25am
- cmm
  
  I doubt Jones is being bundled out of bed at 4am by a dozen cops asking him about his utterances.
  
  Anyone know if Jones has a gun license?
  
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  March 6, 2020 10:03am
  - Paulus Gnome
    
    HDPA is the authority on gun licences, she will be able to help him if he hasn’t.
    
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    March 6, 2020 10:49am
- KevO'Brien
  
  When is NZ going to be turned fully into a nation of straight jacketed kindy kids. Comment has to be free and forthright. It will always offend those who feel threatened or seek to feel feel threatened. Without that basic freedom we are reduced to pseudo robots.
  
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  March 6, 2020 10:44am
Than

…and then there were two. Elizabeth Warren has withdrawn from the Democratic primary.

Its very tough to see a path to the nomination for Bernie Sanders. There aren’t many states left with demographics favorable to him. Plus the super-delegates would presumably prefer Biden, so Sanders will need a reasonable solid lead so they can’t (or feel that they shouldn’t) flip things in Biden’s favor.

Assuming the campaign is Biden vs Trump, I can see the campaign ads becoming a war of “your candidate is more senile than ours”. Biden obviously has his absent-minded moments. But equally there is plenty of footage of Trump slurring or mispronouncing words. Both sides have plenty of material to work with.
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March 6, 2020 8:31am
- Batman
  
  I saw yesterday that one of the effects of managing a stutter is that you will be so focused on not stuttering that you sometimes choose the wrong words or jumble them.
  
  This would explain a lot about Biden, given we know he had a stutter.
  
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  March 6, 2020 9:51am
  - cmm
    
    I know there are lots of whacky treatments out there, but does nibbling your wife’s fingers on stage, or talking about kids playing with your leg hairs cure stuttering?
    
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    March 6, 2020 10:05am
  - All_on_Red
    
    Hahahahaha
    Look at Batman cling to any story, any story at all, to deny Bidens clearly diminished mental state.
    So funny
    No wonder you’re wrong about US politics all the time.
    Hey, what about that Crossfire Hurricane scandal.
    Shocking eh
    
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    March 6, 2020 10:15am
  - Ed Snack
    
    Ah, so the latest “excuse” for Joe is that he has a stutter, f**king really ?
    
    Joe’s had that “stutter” for many years, now go and observe video’s of him talking only 10 years ago and compare it to now. His brain is turning to mush, his lapses of memory and awareness are just so visible that the whitewash in the media can only do so much to hide.
    
    I’m betting that his public schedule will now be very tightly controlled to limit his exposure as much as possible. Joe may not even do the “standard” debates with Trump – going off script could be fatal to his campaign.
    
    The pick for VP will be the key, who is the DNC lining up as the real candidate ?
    
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    March 6, 2020 12:01pm
    - Batman
      
      It’s more believable than other causes.
      
      Otherwise any reasonable person would also have to include Trump on the spectrum with signs of early stage dementia.
      
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      March 6, 2020 12:29pm
      - All_on_Red
        
        Oh bullshit
        Only an unreasonable person with TDS would make such a statement
        Any watch of where Trump fields questions from the Press for over an hour shows you to be wrong
        Just watch some of his foreign Press meetings.
        He’s in surprising health for his age. No smoking and no drinking probably helps that.
        
        They’re lining up Kamala Harris…
        
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        March 6, 2020 12:49pm
    - Nickc2
      
      Come on, it’s got to be Hillary Clinton (HRC).
      Biden will either croak or be impeached and HRC will get what she has been yearning for ever since Bill Clinton ran out of time in the White House.
      
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      March 6, 2020 1:21pm
      - Nutta
        
        I can see the memes about 6 months after his election victory:
        
        “Joe Biden didn’t kill himself!”
        
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        March 6, 2020 10:15pm
- Komata
  
  Than@0831
  
  Couldn’t resist the jibe could you?
  
  Out of interest, please remind us what Biden has done to create jobs, make America more secure and increase the prosperity of its citizens?
  
  Despite closely checking his actions when he was VP, I can’t seem to find any indication that he did anything remotely close, or even that he intends to do so should he become the Pres.
  
  However, since you obviously have ‘insider’ information on the man (Biden), please remind us as to what he did / has done / intends to do ‘To create jobs, make America more secure and increase the prosperity of its citizens’?
  
  Thanks.
  
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  March 6, 2020 10:37am
  - Shaun the Sheep
    
    Created some lucrative jobs for Hunter after he was kicked out of the navy for drugs. Does that count?
    
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    March 6, 2020 11:52am
    - All_on_Red
      
      And his brother…
      
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      March 6, 2020 12:50pm
- Ed Snack
  
  Actually still three. FWIW, Gabbard hasn’t formally withdrawn and by the existing “rules” is entitled to be in the next debate as she now has some delegates for the convention – from Samoa.
  
  Practically it is a two horse race, though I wonder what happens if there’s a medical issue, both Sanders and Biden are from from being in robust good health. For both men, their VP choices would be a key matter.
  
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  March 6, 2020 12:05pm
Simon

Why did Mini Mike piss so much money away ($700 million) when he could have purchased Biden or Sanders for a fraction of what he spent?
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March 6, 2020 8:31am
- cmm
  
  Perhaps he did both.
  
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  March 6, 2020 10:06am
- Littletramp
  
  Because he heard the Russians won the election for Trump in 2016 by spending a couple of hundred on Facebook ads.
  
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  March 6, 2020 12:36pm
Paulus

Am I getting the feeling that the Media are continuing to denigrate Simon Bridges, and the longer view that when he becomes Prime Minister they will formally eviscerate him irrespective.
He is currently the target and will remain so because the media do not like him.
Whereas despite her incompetency Cinderella can do no wrong.
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March 6, 2020 8:32am
- Ruawai
  
  Big news yesterday was the media attacking national mp Bennett re stocking up on essentials, msm will go the nats for any small thing to get away from talking about NZF.
  
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  March 6, 2020 12:19pm
Im Right

And then there were two!
I look forward to Biden debating Sanders and making him actually answer the question of where his $30-$40 trillion is coming from rather than the bumper sticker of ‘tax the rich’ line…..he MUST finally concede that ALL taxes will rise to pay for his ideological Nirvana not just the rich. I’m no fan of Biden as I feel he has been getting a free pass whilst in the shadow of Obama, taking praise for anything deemed good and distancing himself from the not so good stuff.
Interesting times ahead.
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March 6, 2020 8:39am
- Batman
  
  Don’t worry, Bernie’s supporters are now rampaging around online attacking Warren for effectively being a Biden plant. Truly hilarious stuff.
  
  Bernie will crash and burn just like in 2016.
  
  And yes, he refuses to outline how he will pay for all of his promises.
  
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  March 6, 2020 9:49am
  - slightlyrighty
    
    Bernies supporters threatening to stay away from the polls if he is not the nominee will potentially gift the White House to the GOP
    
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    March 6, 2020 10:05am
    - Batman
      
      While they might be all salty during the primary stage, I suspect that they will do far less of that this time around than in 2016.
      
      Well, that’s my guess anyway. Then again, Biden has been driving turnout so maybe the few petulant Bernie Bros will be cancelled out
      
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      March 6, 2020 10:17am
      - Random T Person
        
        I’ve been having a long and hearty laugh at the Bernie bros on Reddit, who think Reddit likes equate to electoral victory, that every young person will vote for Bernie, and the inevitable shock (through the primaries) when they realise the echo chamber of Reddit is not the same thing as the real world.
        Aaah, the charming naivete of youth, funny seeing it crash headlong into the real world.
        
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        March 6, 2020 11:06am
    - Than
      
      I’d highly doubt that. They may grumble and moan all the way, but hatred of Trump will get the Bernie-bros to the polls no matter who the Democratic candidate is.
      
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      March 6, 2020 10:23am
  - KevO'Brien
    
    And Biden…? Off to the old folks home…
    
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    March 6, 2020 10:45am
graham

Very surprised and sad to hear that Jeanette Fitzsimons has died.

At 75 I didn’t think she was that old.

To me, Jeanette is probably one of the last “true” Green MPs from the glory days of the Green Party, before it sadly descended to it’s current incarnation.

RIP Jeanette
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March 6, 2020 8:40am
Bobba Fret

Jeanette Fitzsimmons has died!
To me she was the true Green Party member who was actually concerned about the environment.
The Green Party these days with people like Marama Davison and Meteria Tuerei just prove they are water melons and just want to raise benefits.
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March 6, 2020 8:49am
Tall Man

8:46 and all is obviously well with the world.

I guess hugz must really work 😉
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March 6, 2020 8:53am
- RW Capitalist
  
  Another warning
  Sarcasm will be taxed.
  
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  March 6, 2020 10:18am
  - Paulus Gnome
    
    I don’t think that a tax on sarcasm will raise enough revenue as $11b+ is a big hole. A tax on stupidity will raise gazillions until they realise the labour luvvies realise they are really only penalising their voter base, again.
    
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    March 6, 2020 10:53am
- curry4me
  
  Tall Man: It’s now 10:46 AM. There have been no fresh Labour-NZ Worst scandals…… yet. The day is still young though. Oh, and Weinstein didn’t kill himself….. yet.
  
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  March 6, 2020 10:47am
Happychappy

I just hope these accusations by Jamie Lee Ross are just piss and wind like all that have been made before with Winston Peters edging him on you know this won’t stop so let’s hope the court case against those accused is sooner than later and if Simon Bridges is cleared of these smears Jamie Lee Ross gets a jail sentence for his blatant attempt to corrupt the Justice system with his blackmail and lies from the start of this saga.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/03/jami-lee-ross-accuses-national-of-holding-donations-linked-to-chinese-communist-party.html
Winston must be really worried about the allegations on him and his Party with his continued support of JLR under Parliamentry Privilege.
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March 6, 2020 8:55am
- Batman
  
  It’s even more stupid because tabling it would basically result in a mistrial, or so I have been informed by legally minded folks
  
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  March 6, 2020 9:46am
  - Albert_Ross
    
    Or maybe it’s rat cunning. If there’s a mistrial, then Simon can’t be cleared and Jami-Lee can’t be found guilty
    
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    March 6, 2020 9:48am
    - cmm
      
      JLR could still end up tried, and convicted, for defeating justice.
      
      Poor bugger really has mental issues and is being exploited by his minders.
      
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      March 6, 2020 10:09am
  - fernglas
    
    Not good information; I can’t see how it could make any difference. He’s just dumb to try to use Parliament as a front to plead his case. It might work in the US but here it is not a good idea.
    
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    March 6, 2020 10:33am
  - peterwn
    
    An attempt for an accused to cause a mistrial would not succeed. I suspect John Burrett of ‘underground coffin’ fame attempted to procure a mistrial by trying to goad the judge into losing his cool (I noticed a slight smile on the judge’s face as he handed down a 7 year sentence – the case had gone on far longer than it needed to).
    If it was a potential issue in the forthcoming trial, the judge would carefully direct the jury on that point.
    
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    March 6, 2020 11:37am
- Botany Bill
  
  What’s crazy is that Mallard said he had looked into this and JLR had these documents because of the criminal charges he’s facing from the SFO. So it would appear that the SFO created these flow charts or whatever they are as part of its investigation into these matters and probably provided them to JLR’s legal team under disclosure to assist them in preparing their defence for his upcoming trial. And he tried to table them in Parliament, which would have resulted in them being made public. That is not the action of a person following their lawyers’ instructions. He doesn’t appear to be in control of himself at the moment and what he’s doing has shades of late 2018 when he launched his jihad against Bridges and the National Party. It’s going to get uglier I would think.
  
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  March 6, 2020 10:12am
- septic skeptic
  
  They should have swallowed their pride and waka jumped him. Then this wouldn’t even be an issue.
  
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  March 6, 2020 10:53am
- rouppe
  
  At least Leanne Dalzial (if not Phil Goff) has been taking money from Chinese donors as well AND hiding it. Where are the accusations that she is in the pocket of Chinese communist party interests?
  
  If it’s good enough for the goose…
  
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  March 6, 2020 11:13am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    and remember this:
    “one of the major fundraisers for Jacinda Ardern’s party has United Front links”.
    
    China’s communists fund Jacinda Ardern’s Labour Party: What the United States Congress was told
    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12058818
    
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    March 6, 2020 12:27pm
jp_1983

Sorry to hear Jeanette Fitzsimions passed away.
Only Green MP to ever hold (or ever will) an electorate seat
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March 6, 2020 8:58am
Captain Mainwaring

9.02 and no posts.
Wake up Mr. Mod.
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March 6, 2020 9:02am
- ex-golfer
  
  Well I did post a comment at 8.13am…….still waiting.
  
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  March 6, 2020 9:40am
cmm

The HIV/AIDS capital of the world, South Africa, now has its first confirmed coronavirus case (with lots of speculation that there are unreported cases).

It will be interesting to see what happens. Will the HIV load make it easier for coronavirus to spread and cause harm?

Of course South Africa’s medical facilities are beyond crap, so it might be difficult to tell between poor healthcare and the impact of HIV.

Coincidentally the first reported case lives a handful of km from where I grew up.
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March 6, 2020 9:04am
- hullkiwi
  
  cmm, with the level of Chinese involvement throughout Africa, do you really believe there are only 2 reported cases (1 in Nigeria and now 1 in SA) in Sub-Saharan Africa?
  
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  March 6, 2020 9:18am
  - cmm
    
    Of course there are way more – end to end – all the way through Africa.
    
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    March 6, 2020 10:10am
  - NoCash
    
    Actually I do believe Africa is likely less impacted then other countries. The outbreak in Wuhan was just before the Chinese New Year, that means the movement of people between China and Africa countries around that period was mainly going to China, i.e. expat Chinese in Africa going home for the CNY, not Chinese workers returning to Africa.
    
    As Africa isn’t a popular holiday destination for the majority of Chinese tourists, not that many potentially infected Chinese tourists would have gone to Africa before the lockdown in China.
    
    That said, imported cases from Europe to Africa is a different story.
    
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    March 6, 2020 10:27am
    - Ed Snack
      
      Interestingly enough there’s a new paper out from China (https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.26.919985v1.full) which finds (from a small data set) that the key cell receptor involved in Wuhan 2019-nCov entry to cells is expressed at considerably higher rates in Asian populations than in European and African populations. No idea how populations in, say, Iran would rate; but infection in the lungs is a major pathway, and this study looks at ACE-2 expression in that tissue.
      
      That would be an average expression and individuals would vary considerably, but may explain why Asians appear to be much more affected. On that note, I believe that it is true that in the USA, the 35 deaths attributed to Wuhan 2019-nCov are all people of “Asian” ancestry, primarily Chinese.
      
      There’s a lot of publication of results relating to Wuhan 2019-nCov, be interesting to see if this finding is upheld or withdrawn. Though of course attributing anything other than political & economic disadvantage to “race” is a huge “No-No” in today’s world so maybe political correctness will shut down any attempt to ascribe actual physical susceptibilities to something as corrosive as “race” even when described as “populations”.
      
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      March 6, 2020 12:18pm
  - Michael NZ
    
    300,000 Chinese “technicians in Africa last report I read a few months ago.
    
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    March 6, 2020 9:27pm
- SGA
  
  Will the HIV load make it easier for coronavirus to spread and cause harm?
  
  Sorry, I am not sure exactly what you mean. They have very different ways of spreading, so I’m not sure why one would help or hinder the other in that regard? On the other hand, if you are already immunocompromised I imagine that it’s easier for Covid-19 to kill you.
  
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  March 6, 2020 9:21am
  - cmm
    
    Nobody dies of HIV/AIDS directly. Instead you die from pneumonia, TB etc.
    
    If you have HIV/AIDS then you are already in a very compromised state and the tiniest infection can take hold easily and is far more likely to cause death.
    
    This means that both the infection rate and the death rate are likely to go up for people who are HIV positive.
    
    Given that some areas of SA have HIV positive rates of over 60%, there is a high likelihood that coronavirus can play merry hell in these areas.
    
    So that’s the theory – what actually happens time will tell.
    
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    March 6, 2020 10:18am
    - alloytoo
      
      Your logic appears sound, however corona virus apparently responds well to Anti-Retrovirals.
      
      Not sure how that would effect things.
      
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      March 6, 2020 10:44am
      - cmm
        
        That will be one of the interesting things to see.
        
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        March 6, 2020 11:24am
- Liberty
  
  “South Africa’s medical facilities are beyond crap”
  Really.
  Wasn’t that the reason. The great unwashed rioted in our streets in 1981
  Because the All Blacks were responsible for South Africa ills.
  
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  March 6, 2020 9:22am
  - hullkiwi
    
    Liberty, yes I recall as someone who attended the 3rd test in 1981.
    
    However, I suggest you attempt to present yourself at Adington Hospital in Durban.
    
    Mind you cmm is being s little unfair to SA medical facilities, if you have money and can afford to go private, you receive privileged treatment.
    
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    March 6, 2020 10:25am
    - cmm
      
      hk: Certainly you can still find some 5 star private treatment for now, if you are wealthy. I would expect that the coronavirus patient is getting it since: he comes from a relatively wealthy suburb (so likely wealthy and on private medical aid etc) and has just been to Italy (so likely wealthy). I’d also bet he is white and does not have HIV/AIDS (since few whites do).
      
      However if/when coronavirus finds its way into the poorer populations (which are also those with the highest HIV rates) then it is state hospitals at best. For most it is crappy rural clinics.
      
      Africa is rich with irony. The wealthy (most likely white) corona virus patient lives in a suburb/town that is virtually HIV free, but just 10 km away are areas with 20-30% HIV infection rates (and poor hospitals) and 50km away are areas with over 60% HIV rates in areas with close to zero hospitals.
      
      And once again, for the slow of wit, I am not saying white people don’t get HIV/AIDS. One of my very white, very gay, brothers in law died of HIV/AIDS.
      
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      March 6, 2020 11:03am
- Inandout
  
  cmm, Joburg has about 55 murders a week so I don’t think they are Corona scared. Also Aids is quite widespread there.
  
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  March 6, 2020 9:31am
- john1234
  
  Wait till COVID-19 gets set in an environment with:
  – poor healthcare
  – overcrowding
  – poor lung health due to either bad nutrition or a lifetime living in heavily polluted air.
  
  Parts of China would be one example. But think of North Korea, Bangladesh and parts of India.
  
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  March 6, 2020 9:47am
- SB 2
  
  cmm, largely untrue according to this report,
  
  “Amid mounting concern that progress in fighting the global AIDS epidemic is stalling, campaigners were given a boost from a surprising quarter this week.
  
  Confounding expectations, South Africa — home to the world’s largest population of people living with HIV — has recorded a significant decline in the number of people contracting the virus.
  A major national survey conducted by the Human Sciences Research Council, South Africa’s main official statistician, found that the number of new HIV infections had dropped by 44 percent since the last major study in 2012…”
  
  https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/fall-number-new-cases-hiv-sparks-surprise-south-africa/
  
  Still, the presence of a first case and beyond won’t presage your deep hankering and yearning for the good the old days of apartheid.
  
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  March 6, 2020 10:05am
  - cmm
    
    Stephie, what exactly did I say that you are trying to refute?
    
    South Africa has the highest HIV/AIDS rate – well known – undisputed.
    
    I made no claims about the number of NEW HIV cases increasing.
    
    Of course the number of NEW cases is falling. That is not the same as the number of cases falling.
    
    Once you have an extremely high infection rate (over 60% in some areas) then the number of people available to become infected is dramatically diminished and the number of NEW cases must drop off. And of course the basic health messages (condoms etc) are getting through to some, further reducing the number of NEW cases.
    
    All you seem to prove, once again, is that you are completely clueless about statistics.
    
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    March 6, 2020 10:27am
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      And once again, stephieboy shows that he can not process text.
      
      Never once on KB has cmm expressed any hankering for the return of apartheid, but stephieboy attaches a filthy smear that he does.
      
      Why the heck are his smears tolerated on this blog?
      
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      March 6, 2020 10:59am
      - Swifty
        
        He absolutely can’t control himself.
        
        Ban after ban after strike after strike – it makes no difference. He is completely without the ability to form cogent arguments so he resorts to that of which he is capable; snide smears and slurs.
        
        BTW – if one of us, without any foundation, accused Muslim posters of hankering for imposition of the Sharia I’m sure we’d get the short shrift from the Mods quick smart.
        
        He really makes KB an unpleasant place to be when he’s around.
        
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        March 6, 2020 11:31am
      - cmm
        
        Maggy: I have corrected him on my stance on apartheid numerous times, but he continues with these slurs.
        
        It is beyond tiresome.
        
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        March 6, 2020 1:44pm
    - Random T Person
      
      Of course the other elephant in the room is that SA’s health services are so destroyed that trusting anything they say is, well, foolish.
      
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      March 6, 2020 12:06pm
      - cmm
        
        SA’s health system is swamped with corruption.
        
        BBBEE (affirmative action) makes it nearly impossible for them to fill critical staff positions with the skills that are required.
        
        My sister has postgrad training in HIV management. She can also speak two African languages fluently (+ of course English and Afrikaans). Get a job in a hospital crying out for her skills? No, sorry sis – got the wrong colour skin!
        
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        March 6, 2020 1:48pm
  - alloytoo
    
    “Still, the presence of a first case and beyond won’t presage your deep hankering and yearning for the good the old days of apartheid.”
    
    You do realize that the extent of the epidemic in Sub- Saharan African occurred post apartheid?
    
    Mostly as a result of throwing out the plan developed prior to the ANC’s coming into power, and persistent denial exhibited by the Mbeki regime which delayed treatment rollouts and allowed rural hospitals to wither on the vine.
    
    The social and economic effects were devastating for the communities effected.
    
    It’s fantastic that there appears to be some improvement in the situation.
    
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    March 6, 2020 10:30am
    - cmm
      
      South Africa’s position as HIV capital of the world was most definitely boosted by two Presidents, Mbeki and Zuma, both claiming HIV/AIDS could be cured/treated by having a shower after sex.
      
      All good, except:
      A) many people in SA do not have access to a shower
      B) it doesn’t really work.
      
      Zuma at least has the excuse of only getting Standard 2 (NZ Year 4). MBeki has no excuse.
      
      Add to that all the customs of polygamy etc, mixed in with copious prostitution and you’re looking at a perfect storm for HIV/AIDS.
      
      For example, in rural Zululand, if a man dies then his oldest brother will inherit the wives. If the man died due to HIV/AIDS (maybe imported from a prostitute) then he probably infected his 2 wives before his death too. They now join the clean brother and his 3 clean wives and soon they are all HIV positive…. and so on to the next brother…
      
      Showering or not, it is damn hard to make progress in a situation like that.
      
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      March 6, 2020 4:38pm
- lastmanstanding
  
  I suspect what we will see is that the countries with the best health services and system will control/contain better than the others. I expect Africa Middle East will the most impacted if Covid-19 takes hold. Despite what we all including myself say NZ has a world class health system and this will become evident if Covid-19 morphs into a Spanish Flu.
  
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  March 6, 2020 10:35am
  - Ed Snack
    
    See my post above, the lack of cases in Africa maybe because of genetic variations in populations and Africans in general may be more resistant to this new virus.
    
    Remains to be seen if that is correct of course.
    
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    March 6, 2020 12:22pm
    - cmm
      
      Anything is possible, but it could just be very poor reporting out of African countries.
      
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      March 6, 2020 12:46pm
- Random T Person
  
  Where’d you grow up CMM? I was born in Grey’s Hospital and grew up in Howick/Merrivale.
  Think the case you refer to is in Hilton?
  
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  March 6, 2020 11:08am
  - cmm
    
    I grew up in the Hilton/Winterskloof area. I was born in the private hospital in Pmb: St Annes.
    
    Greys Hospital was once excellent – it is now just a tragedy. So was Edendale Hospital. I knew heaps of staff at both.
    
    The first SA case is certainly from the Pmb area, with the rumour mill reporting it being a man from Hilton.
    
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    March 6, 2020 12:44pm
    - alloytoo
      
      My father’s cousin has the misfortune to having to go to King Edward’s in Umbilo.
      
      There is no bedding, and you’re advised not to take you own least it be stolen. (or anything that you fear may be stolen for that matter).
      
      The sadness of this is compounded by the fact that his granddaughter attended the same college my son here in Auckland.
      
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      March 6, 2020 2:37pm
Happychappy

Why were the people traveling back from a Coronavirus hot spot Italy allowed to board another aircraft and travel to Provincial NZ without test resulting now in two further cases of Coronavirus, now bring the total to four.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/03/fourth-coronavirus-case-confirmed-in-new-zealand.html
David Clark has many mockups while being the Minister for Health, with action on Meningococcal and the measle disaster being two of the worst so why would the NZ public have faith in the decisions he makes.
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March 6, 2020 9:09am
- cmm
  
  Doctor David Clark.
  
  That’s why the public has faith in him.
  
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  March 6, 2020 10:29am
  - alloytoo
    
    Ah so he’s some sort of faith healer?
    
    A sceptic finds that rather septic.
    
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    March 6, 2020 10:32am
  - geoff3012
    
    Hes a Doctor of bible school studies…..
    
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    March 6, 2020 11:31am
    - cmm
      
      But that’s still a Doctor!
      
      Here’s the stupid thing about our lizard brain. Even when our higher order brain tells our lizard brain that he’s not a real doctor, the lizard brain blinks, flicks its tongue and still hears “doctor” and gets some comfort from that.
      
      If you really think your higher order brain can control your lizard brain then consider porn: higher order brain knows it’s just pixels on a flat screen, but lizard brain still gets jollies anyway.
      
      Of course many people don’t know the truth and think that Dr David Clark knows how to use a stethoscope, making it a bit of a lie when Stuff call him Dr David Clark.
      
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      March 6, 2020 12:56pm
      - alloytoo
        
        It’s a doctorate in “Magic explanations” and in his case I don’t even believe you can equate that to ethics.
        
        And yes I have met ethical priests (a small minority though)
        
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        March 6, 2020 1:44pm
      - Paulus
        
        Correctly, The Very Reverend Doctor David Clark, I believe.
        
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        March 6, 2020 2:03pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  The total must be at least 5.
  
  If case #3 caught it here in NZ from a family member, then that family member (who had been in Iran…… and isn’t patient #1) should also appear in our statistics.
  https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12314240
  
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  March 6, 2020 11:04am
  - Jules99
    
    You would think it would be easy to count to five – apparently not. And this is our government.
    
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    March 6, 2020 12:14pm
  - cmm
    
    Bugger, going to need to take your shoes and socks off to count them soon!
    
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    March 6, 2020 12:57pm
- madamezucchininz
  
  …..this couple who have traveled from Northern Italy and then several domestic flights…were handed the pamphlets with all the info, had mild symptoms etc and yet still went about their daily business of flying, shopping, going to a crowded concert…Obviously, for some people, the words on the pamphlet to “self quarantine”, need to be fully explained. My husband had his regular check up at the Dr’s today and asked the Dr what he thought about the governments response….with eyes rolled “It’s shambolic and the messages are mixed and confused”…..so we have a patient who has not traveled to a hot spot but has had contact with two people having returned from Iran with no symptoms, but we are still being told that it is virtually impossible to be infected by someone with no symptoms. It is my belief that there are probably many cases in our Island Nation, and still there is no talk of Public Health Testing Stations. Due to the incompetence of this government all citizens need to have their own sensible plan
  
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  March 6, 2020 2:23pm
453mm

A farmer and a sheepdog were mustering some sheep.
Dog: “All done boss. All 40 sheep in the pen.”
Farmer: “That’s strange, we only have 39.”
Dog: “Yep, I rounded them up.”
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March 6, 2020 9:10am
- RW Capitalist
  
  A Friday joke?
  
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  March 6, 2020 10:19am
  - RW Capitalist
    
    or
    Was the dogs name “Grant Robertson”?
    
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    March 6, 2020 10:20am
rjay

Jeanette Fitszimons passed away last night after a stroke. No one can argue that she was not consistent in her environmental advocacy.
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March 6, 2020 9:19am
- Nutta
  
  Some people will downvote anything…
  
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  March 6, 2020 10:42pm
Simon

Senior Conservative MPs will next week try to pass a law to ensure that the UK’s telecoms networks, including 5G mobile phone infrastructure, do not contain any Huawei equipment after 2022.

The move comes after Boris Johnson in January decided to grant the Chinese telecoms equipment maker a limited role in supplying kit for the UK’s 5G networks, although it proposed confining Huawei’s market share to 35 per cent.

https://www.ft.com/content/3f6320e2-5ef1-11ea-b0ab-339c2307bcd4

Winning.
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March 6, 2020 9:22am
- curry4me
  
  Simon: That’s good news. To draw a WWII analogy, it’d be like buying a German phone system where the lines were known to be already tapped by the Gestapo; and the company owned by Himmler.
  
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  March 6, 2020 10:53am
RW Capitalist

Jeanette Fitzsimons has died, aged 75.
Is it speaking ill of the dead to point out she had shares in a wind farm technology company, while in parliament promoting the expansion of wind farms.
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March 6, 2020 9:26am
- Batman
  
  They were appropriately declared, that’s how we know about them.
  
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  March 6, 2020 9:54am
  - RW Capitalist
    
    NO
    we know about them after I wrote a letter to the Dompost, after looking on the companies register.
    She replied the next day, that she had sold them.
    I checked the companies register, to find that they had been hidden behind a wall, that said any inquiries into the nature of shareholders with shares less than (her amount) had to be requested directly from the company.
    It appears, in 2010, I believe, while still an MP, the nature of the shareholding was changed and she became a director of a company that held shares in this company.
    
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    March 6, 2020 10:11am
    - Batman
      
      Great so I assume you checked the parliamentary disclosures beforehand right?
      
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      March 6, 2020 10:15am
      - RW Capitalist
        
        YUP
        
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        March 6, 2020 10:21am
      - RW Capitalist
        
        From the beginning of wind farms, she had shares (declared) in Aeolian Property Co. Ltd.
        The company, at the time, with sole (I believe) development rights for, buying/selling land to put govt. built wind farms.
        So many conflicts of interest, so little time to list all of them.
        
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        March 6, 2020 12:04pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Yep,
  and it was lousy technology – very dependent on subsidies.
  
  https://www.odt.co.nz/star-news/star-christchurch/chch-wind-turbine-business-runs-out-time-and-money
  
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  March 6, 2020 11:14am
Manolo

Pocahontas is out.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/05/elizabeth-warren-drops-out-of-presidential-race.html

Elizabeth Warren quit the Democratic presidential race on Thursday, leaving Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders as the last major contenders battling for the nomination to challenge President Donald Trump this fall.
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March 6, 2020 9:36am
- MrLovebucket
  
  And there will be those that claim the reason she is out is due to systemic sexism, ignoring the fact that she was also a weapons grade nut-bar socialist with zero personality.
  
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  March 6, 2020 9:52am
  - Swifty
    
    And the lies she kept being caught telling…..
    
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    March 6, 2020 10:09am
- RW Capitalist
  
  It looks like Bernie is up against the Male version of Hillary Clinton.
  But at least Hillary could string a cognitive sentence together.
  
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  March 6, 2020 9:55am
  - KevO'Brien
    
    Hilary had her weaknesses too. She was accompanied by a neurologist fulltime throughout her the 2016 campaign. When she faltered and went to her daughters her body double stood in for her.
    
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    March 6, 2020 10:51am
Bill felt

RIP Jeanette Fitzsimons
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March 6, 2020 9:36am
Jimmy the Brush

RIP Jeanette Fitzsimons, we were neighbours in the early eighties in Meadowbank, Auckland and I went to the Rudolf Steiner school in Ellerslie with her children. Regardless of her political views I remember her as a kind, caring mother and my sisters and I were welcomed into her home and we really enjoyed their company. My sincere condolences go out to her family.
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March 6, 2020 9:40am
- Misha Beattie
  
  Totally different in outlook from Green Party politicians of today.
  
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  March 6, 2020 9:49am
- john1234
  
  She and Rod Donald were Greens first and politicians second; they had principles and they stuck to them.
  So different to the current “Green” party that effectively expelled genuine Greens such as David Clendon and Kennedy Graham in favour of the political/socialist element.
  
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  March 6, 2020 9:50am
Andrew Worth

Italy went from 3 cases of the coronavirus to over 3,000 cases in 12 days, I’m confident NZ has done what it needs to to make even faster progress.
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March 6, 2020 9:40am
- Charmaine Hawke
  
  I suspect there are many more cases than those reported as this virus is quite mild in the majority of cases and most people will not have seen a doctor and been tested.
  
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  March 6, 2020 9:50am
  - Andrew Worth
    
    Bruce Aylward:
    “In Guangdong province, for example, there were 320,000 tests done in people coming to fever clinics, outpatient clinics. And at the peak of the outbreak, 0.47 percent of those tests were positive. People keep saying [the cases are the] tip of the iceberg. But we couldn’t find that. We found there’s a lot of people who are cases, a lot of close contacts — but not a lot of asymptomatic circulation of this virus in the bigger population. And that’s different from flu.”
    
    So no, as it stands what we’re seeing is not the tip of the iceberg with losts of mild cases, the mortality rate really is in the 1 – 5% range.
    
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    March 6, 2020 9:59am
    - SB 2
      
      “I’m confident NZ has done what it needs to to make even faster progress”
      
      Like what?
      
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      March 6, 2020 2:38pm
      - Andrew Worth
        
        Like almost nothing
        
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        March 6, 2020 3:33pm
- john1234
  
  You make it sound like the number of cases rose from 3 to 3000. The actual number of cases was probably already 3000 or more when they reported “3”.
  
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  March 6, 2020 9:57am
  - Andrew Worth
    
    So you think there are already 3000 cases in NZ?
    
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    March 6, 2020 10:21am
- Bobba Fret
  
  Confirmed cases no. 2 and 4 the couple that flew back from Italy are doing the best they can…………
  Wife took a domestic flight to Palmerston North and the husband attended the Tool concert at Spark arena.
  
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  March 6, 2020 4:21pm
  - Fletch
    
    What an idiot. The Guardian has covered it as well…
    
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/06/man-with-coronavirus-went-to-packed-rock-concert-at-new-zealand-arena
    
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    March 6, 2020 5:28pm
    - rightoverlabour
      
      Soon be on the banned list of countries. Thanks Idiots in Government…..
      
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      March 6, 2020 9:02pm
Scott

In the debate about China and Huawei and 5G, it should not ever be forgotten that China is a Communist country that is rolling out intrusive surveillance of all of its 1.4 billion citizens.

According to the March edition of Barnabas aid agency – the Chinese government has the capacity to closely scrutinise the lives of China’s 1.4 billion population through the vast network of advanced artificial intelligence surveillance technology being rolled out across the country. Much of the technology has been tested and perfected against Chinese Muslims.

The system can identify and record citizens every move. Individuals are identified by face recognition or even by how they walk. The system monitors their purchases, Internet activity, social media feeds, as well as facial expressions and other behaviours toward a “social credit” score.

Those who are found to break government rules or do not conform are subject to a variety of punishments that range from Internet throttling and slower hotel checkouts to flight bans and restrictions on loans and rent. The social credit system has the potential to severely affect the day-to-day existence of minorities such as Christians and Muslims, especially if they are deemed to demonstrate “dissent”.

Monitoring programs will also allow the government to fully access the vast amount of data transmitted across Chinese networks and housed on servers in China, including those belonging to all foreign owned companies as well as Chinese individuals and entities. It will cover every district, every ministry, every business and other institution, basically covering the whole of society.

These people want to monitor and control and spy on every Chinese citizen. Does anyone seriously think they would hesitate for a second to spy on foreign countries if they got the chance to implement 5G networks in those countries?? China is not our friend!
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March 6, 2020 9:44am
- Brian McDonald
  
  China not being our friend but I don’t see how that makes other countries who might also spy on us our friends Scott.
  
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  March 6, 2020 10:00am
  - Michael NZ
    
    Oh yeah, let’s deflect just for a moment Brian….
    
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    March 6, 2020 9:37pm
- JerJer
  
  …and we help them out by exporting good quality commidities for a cheap price, which they then turn into garbage and sell back to us for a profit to further fund their expansion. Rule of thumb should be not to buy this slave manufactured crap at all, any of it, and definately not 5G.
  
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  March 6, 2020 10:04am
- SB 2
  
  China is our friend economically and even politically if you look at Peter George’s recent posts
  
  Besides ordinary Chinese citizens are finding ways and means of pushing back against the surveillance society,
  
  https://qz.com/1659328/chinese-people-are-pushing-back-on-beijings-digital-surveillance/posts!
  
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  March 6, 2020 10:17am
  - Jack5
    
    Have you lost touch with your Uighur mates, Stephie?
    
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    March 6, 2020 10:32am
- cmm
  
  Scott, can you draw me a picture explaining how you think Huawei and 5G can be used to spy on NZ?
  
  You are also conflating the base technology (5G or whatever) and the application layer (social credit system). These are completely different “layers”.
  
  If you buy 5G from China it does not mean we have to use their social credit system or their servers.
  
  Huawei 5G does not link you up to servers in China. All it is is a radio link backbone, just like any other radio link backbone. What we do with that depends entirely on us.
  
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  March 6, 2020 10:36am
  - Scott
    
    cmm – I don’t know how they will do it. All I know is that they will want to do it and have no moral qualms or compunction about spying on foreign countries.
    They are very sophisticated. They have world leading technology and the resources of the entire nation to spy.
    
    Does anyone believe that China won’t try to spy? And can any tech person absolutely guarantee that it is impossible for Huawei to spy on NZ if they installed our 5G network? You can be absolutely sure we can detect any back doors?
    
    Bottom line – they want to spy on us and if they can, they will. China is not our friend.
    
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    March 6, 2020 12:33pm
    - cmm
      
      If you try spying on backbone networking you have two huge challenges:
      1) Encryption: Anything worth stealing is encrypted. Once it is encrypted it is no longer worth stealing.
      2) You have to get the data you are spying on from the backbone network via a back door onto some other network to send it off to China/where ever. That is challenging to do for a couple of reasons:
      a) The customer generally does not help you out like that.
      b) You can try sending it through other 5G connections, but network monitoring makes it challenging to hide such “spy”/”backdoor” packets in the network stream. Network monitoring systems like wireshark etc can quickly identify backdoor packets.
      
      Sure, if someone leaves the gate open then people will want to spy, but I would not make this about CHina. Other countries/organisations could do so too.
      
      I will acknowledge that Huawei is more likely to try something than, say, Cisco. At one stage there was a lot of concern about Cisco spying for the Yanks, but that is now an international organisation with development teams in China, India, Europe and USA. It would be hard to keep them all quiet in the interests of the Yanks.
      
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      March 6, 2020 1:10pm
oob

Jacinda Ardern and David Clark are responsible for exposing the NZ population to the Coronavirus CINDY-19 plague.

This isn’t merely their usual incompetence, it’s negligence tending to downright malfeasance. In the aftermath, ensuring they are held to account should be a national priority.
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March 6, 2020 9:48am
- RW Capitalist
  
  After the refusal of 30000 vaccines for meningococcal disease, just before 2 people died of it.
  A measles outbreak in Samoa, traced back to the failures in NZ, by this govt.
  Why would we trust these gang of circus clowns, to do the tight thing now?
  
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  March 6, 2020 10:00am
- SB 2
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  oob, snooze button alert!
  
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  March 6, 2020 10:15am
Pete George

As Editor of The BFD I wish to point out something about Kiwi Blog. This morning Kiwi blog has written nothing about the huge revelations regarding the National Party. Some of our commenters in the past have accused The BFD of not writing bad stuff about NZ First when Kiwi Blog was going to town on them. Today Kiwi blog has its head in the sand going “la la la I can’t hear you” completely ignoring what has been revealed about National. I wonder if anyone will be complaining at Kiwi Blog that the Editor is ignoring such a huge story?

https://thebfd.co.nz/2020/03/nat-party-we-know-nothing-what-money-wasnt-us-in-the-photos/

Perhaps ‘Kiwiblog’ is doing some research rather than working as an activist mouthpiece for Peters/Ross.

There agenda is made fairly clear (again:

There is a fetid, corrupt swamp that needs draining, and it needs draining fast. National’s caucus can pull the plug on the swamp by saying enough is enough and removing both Paula Bennett and Simon Bridges. It is their ill-considered actions that have landed the party in this quagmire. Peter Goodfellow has presided over all of this, helped cover up some of it, and therefore the party needs to remove him too.

Jami-Lee Ross really is a whistleblower and he’s blown time on National’s leadership.

Ross and Peters and Slater and WO/BFD et al have been trying to blow up National leaders and the party for years.

Also:

With own goals like those, it is little wonder that caucus members are now openly talking about insurrection.

https://thebfd.co.nz/2020/03/how-national-were-trapped-into-backing-dodgy-curry-munchers/

Standard trying to talk up division and mutiny again – these little suggestions typically fail to eventuate in anything (the same as solid evidence from Peters/Ross/Slater/Atkins).
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March 6, 2020 9:52am
- Pete George
  
  Transcripts from Question Time and Ross’ donation speech yesterday that appear to show Peters and Ross colluding.
  
  https://yournz.org/2020/03/06/jami-lee-ross-claims-national-received-foreign-donations/
  
  It happens that Ross and Peters both have The BFD promoting their causes and trying to dump on Bridges and National.
  
  And something else Peters/Ross/Slater/WO/BFD et al have in common are histories of making allegations, claiming to have evidence and not producing it.
  
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  March 6, 2020 9:59am
  - Tarquin North
    
    Is the BFD still going? You should get out more and stop listening to bankrupts Pete.
    
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    March 6, 2020 10:09am
    - Paulus Gnome
      
      That is why PG is here. No traffic = not much to edit.
      
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      March 6, 2020 11:00am
  - Poppa
    
    Slater’s blog has really gone to the dogs now.
    
    I really don’t bother with it other than sometimes reading comments on general debate. The rest of it is just junk
    
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    March 6, 2020 10:17am
    - curry4me
      
      Poppa: It was OK when it was still Whaleoil. I commented there as curry4me too. I especially liked their no trolls policy. When it became the BFD, and went subscription based, I couldn’t be bothered.
      
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      March 6, 2020 11:00am
      - Bernard Black
        
        Yeah I agree Curry, I remember you. I used to comment there as Taxpayer, the new site does not work well on my phone, most of the good commenters are gone, leaving the likes of Wibble ( dribble more like ) making lame jokes on every thread, even the daily Roundup is now used to attack national, can’t be bothered anymore.
        Did have a look at the post Pete George was talking about, almost exactly the same comment there from SB, SB is Pete George?
        
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        March 6, 2020 3:33pm
    - rockape
      
      Has he still got his guns, despite his mental health issues?
      
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      March 6, 2020 11:59am
    - rightoverlabour
      
      Have not been there for years. Used to be addicted in the good old days….
      
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      March 6, 2020 8:55pm
    - Cam Pervan
      
      I still go there when I’m bored and have a nosey at who is commenting on General debate, but a lot of the good old commenters have long gone. It’s not the same fun place that Whale Oil was.
      
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      March 6, 2020 9:37pm
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Jacinda Ardern is going to have to be very careful if her Deputy PM is colluding with JLR.
    
    She’s increasingly finding it hard to distance herself from the actions of Winston and co.
    
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    March 6, 2020 11:23am
    - niggly
      
      MW, that’s quite a perceptive comment … I would add to it “Jacinda Ardern is going to have to be very careful if her Deputy PM is colluding with JLR and WO/BFD“.
      
      Imagine the uproar if the MSM put 1 + 1 + 1 together … Jacinda will be accused of siding with “dirty politics operatives” and Brand Jacinda’s credibility will be shot to pieces!
      
      Oops Labour polling drops into Angy Andy’s sub-30 territory!
      
      (Perhaps we can “thank” WO for their unintended consequences of sinking JLR, NZF … and Labour)!
      
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      March 6, 2020 2:25pm
- Than
  
  This morning Kiwi blog has written nothing about the huge revelations regarding the National Party.
  
  Oh FFS, it’s all of 10am. And unfounded accusations from somebody with an axe to grind are hardly “huge revelations”.
  
  Cam Slater’s rapid vendetta against the current National Party leadership really is getting tedious.
  
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  March 6, 2020 10:21am
  - Sacha
    
    did you mean to say ‘rabid’ vendetta?
    
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    March 6, 2020 12:28pm
    - Than
      
      Yes, thank you.
      
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      March 6, 2020 7:27pm
- KevO'Brien
  
  JLR has been proven to have had a mental health problem and it seems to be continuing.
  
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  March 6, 2020 10:54am
  - cmm
    
    Exploiting a mentally disturbed person like JLR is beyond irresponsible.
    
    It’s like holding a lolly scramble for 4 year olds in the traffic.
    
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    March 6, 2020 11:08am
- Random T Person
  
  Poor Juana ‘Schoolteacher’ Atkins. Doesn’t understand what a ‘news’ medium is, has no idea of the meaning of ‘ethics’, and doesn’t know the difference between a blog and a news media organisation.
  Now, not to speak for DPF, but as I understand it, he has no obligation to write on ANYTHING, let alone the issues she and her collaborators (Peters, Ross, Lusk, etc) deem important or noteworthy.
  
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  March 6, 2020 11:18am
- Pete George
  
  This is quite funny. Some responded to the above quoted comment by spanishbride – “How much did you write about the Peters corruption scandal?”
  
  She replied:
  
  Personally nothing as unlike the National donation scandal it is only at the investigation stage. No one has been found guilty of anything. What we did publish were articles that provided balance against the state media’s non-story about NZ First that included smears.
  
  That’s very funny.
  
  Ross is being prosecuted but no one has been found guilty yet either over the National donation ‘scandal’, yet she tried to coerce DPF into running unsubstantiated Ross and BFD style attacks on National. They seem to hate their hit jobs being ignored by media, and now by DPF.
  
  And, balance at The BFD? I think she may seriously thinks that.
  
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  March 6, 2020 5:15pm
brett68

As it’s been said multiple times Bridges and national were fucking idiots for not waka jumping Ross.
This shit is going to go on all the way up to the election, doesn’t matter if it’s lies or exaggeration Ross can say whatever he wants under parliamentary privilege and the media will report it.
It’s not helped by the fact that National still has a raging hard-on for anything Chinese, even though it probably would be politically wise to back off a bit.

Seriously how the fuck did Bridges and national think it was going to play out?
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March 6, 2020 10:32am
- MCos
  
  The National Party have promised to repeal the Waka Jumping Act next time they’ve got the opportunity.
  It would be unseemly to use it to banish Jamie-Lee Ross in the interim.
  As it is nobody seems to be taking much notice of his latest shock, horror revelations thus far.
  
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  March 6, 2020 12:00pm
Evadne

I was going to add this to yesterday’s Coronovirus thread, but that is now dying (no pun intended), so I’ll leave it here instead.

Reading the thread, I noticed that a number of people are conflating mortality rate and fatality rate. This is not surprising given how many journalists are doing the same. However, it matters immensely as the difference is significant in any discussion of “how many people might die”.

Mortality rate refers to the number of people who die out of the entire population

Fatality rate refers to the number of people diagnosed with the disease that then go on to die.

(These rates are calculated and defined by a certain period of time, in a certain geographical or demographic group.)

Since case fatality rates are calculated from the number of people with the disease, they are wildly inaccurate for any “common” illness that people don’t bother diagnosing or notifying.

Seasonal flu, for example, affects thousands of people a year who just tuck themselves up in bed and self-medicate. How do we count those accurately? A case fatality rate can only be estimated by guessing how many people might catch it. However, we do know that some people get sick enough to seek medical attention, and that some of these die. These deaths are recorded, we know the population of NZ, and can then say flu has a mortality rate of about 0.01% (going by the figures I just googled – from the Herald, though). Most of those deaths are people aged over 65.

Measles is easier to understand. It is easily identified, and as a notifiable disease, records are kept centrally of every diagnosis. The NZ case fatality rate is about 0.1%, but rises to 50% in children with low immunity, which is a concern. About 10% of cases are hospitalised, and it can cause long term health issues for many of those. Measles gets a lot of attention from health officials because it is entirely preventable (if people just vaccinated their kids).
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March 6, 2020 10:34am
- Evadne
  
  The other thing to bear in mind with any disease is the contagion rate – that is how easily it can be passed from person to person.
  
  This is the R0 – the basic reproduction number. On average, how many people will an infected person pass it on to?
  
  Some one with COVID-19 is expected to pass it on to about 2-2.5 people.
  
  For comparison:
  
  Measles – 15 (another reason why it’s taken so seriously)
  Mumps – 5.5
  SARS – 3.5
  Flu – 1.5
  
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  March 6, 2020 10:50am
  - Evadne
    
    Being a new disease, case fatality rate estimates vary immensely depending on where the data is coming from, and what assumptions you make about how many mild cases there are, and how wide the testing is (and how accurate the reporting). Also, we don’t know how many people currently suffering from it will go on to die from it in a few days/weeks.
    
    It seems the best guesses at this stage put it in the range of 1-3%
    
    We do know that the people most susceptible to it are also those most susceptible to the flu. Will there be an overlap? Will flu deaths drop this year because die from COVID-19 instead (before they get a chance to catch ‘flu)?
    
    Mortality rate is impossible to calculate at this stage.
    
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    March 6, 2020 11:17am
  - Ed Snack
    
    R0 calculations have varied a lot, I’ve seen one suggesting that COVID-19 is up around 6-7, but I agree that it is hard to be sure of numbers at this stage. There does seem to be a “super-spreader” possibility as certain people seem to have been able to infect large numbers. Italy hosted one of these putative S_S’s.
    
    And I posted above a paper that suggests that some populations are more vulnerable than others, so the R0 may be different in those different populations.
    
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    March 6, 2020 12:47pm
- UrbanNeocolonialist
  
  What really matters is what is the CFR when you can’t get hospital treatment. Is it most of the 10-15% who require hospitalization? If it is then everything, the whole globe needs to shut down for 2 weeks of home isolation to stop it spreading and killing half a billion.
  
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  March 6, 2020 11:41am
- MCos
  
  I don’t think anyone died in NZ of measles during the recent epidemic.
  The last NZ death appears to have been in 1991.
  
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  March 6, 2020 12:07pm
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    But 2 women lost their 2nd-trimester babes.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_New_Zealand_measles_outbreak
    
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    March 6, 2020 3:59pm
- Ed Snack
  
  Though I’m sure you note that children with “low immunity” as you put it, are not vaccinated as the chance of an adverse reaction to the vaccine is too high. They rely on herd immunity not to catch measles.
  
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  March 6, 2020 12:44pm
- cmm
  
  No matter the definition of the rates, one big problem is that they are talked about as if they are hard properties of the disease (eg. Coronavirus has a mortality rate of x%, so expect x% to pop their clogs).
  
  This is of complete bullshit because it also depends on the susceptibility of the population to that disease.
  
  For example, heavy smokers and those living with air pollution are many times more likely to end up dead from a coronavirus infection and other pneumonia-killing diseases than non-smokers with clean air.
  
  Since smoking rates and air pollution rates differ widely (over 50% of Chinese males older than 40 or so smoke heavily, vs just a few % of NZ Europeans), we can expect both the mortality and fatality rates to be far lower in NZ than in China.
  
  The same is also true of diseases like type 2 diabetes which is dependent on diet etc.
  
  Contagion rates are also susceptible to all sorts of factors such as living density. Wuhan is basically 10+ story apartment blocks. It is almost impossible to go anywhere without traveling in a lift and encountering somebody. That makes things very different from NZ. Even Auckland is going to be very different from Chch.
  
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  March 6, 2020 5:00pm
curry4me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCtRq5EIaMI

Turkey accelerates hostilities against Greece / Agrees to ceasefire in Idlib. It looks like things might get interesting in the Med.
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March 6, 2020 10:36am
curry4me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTonVp-z0OI
German businesses may leave Fourth Reich for the UK. A US-UK trade deal would give them tariff free access to the US market.
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March 6, 2020 10:37am
- cmm
  
  har har har
  
  Perhaps Merkel will end up retiring to a cottage in the Lake District.
  
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  March 6, 2020 11:39am
Fletch

Unbelievable and unprecedented. Chuck Schumer, the Democrat Senate Minority Leader, at a pro abortion rally put on by Planned Parenthood, threatened two Supreme Court Justices by name if they didn’t vote the way he wanted on a case that relates to abortion (the Supreme Court heard a challenge to a Louisiana law that requires doctors who perform abortions to have hospital admitting privileges.)

“Now, we stand here today because behind me, inside the walls of this court, the Supreme Court is hearing arguments, as you know, for the first major abortion right cases since [Justice] Kavanaugh and [Justice] Gorsuch came to the bench. We know what’s at stake. Over the last three years, women’s reproductive rights have come under attack in a way we haven’t seen in modern history. From Louisiana, to Missouri, to Texas, Republican legislatures are waging a war on women, all women, and they’re taking away fundamental rights. I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you, if you go forward with these awful decisions.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHGrzoS9AbE

If it were a conservative like Trump making these threats against a Supreme Court justice, all hell would have broken loose. Yet you’re not hearing much about this because Schumer is a Democrat and is pulling for abortion.

Also, it troubles me to see someone standing up there, issuing threats in order to keep allowing the killing of babies…
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March 6, 2020 10:44am
- Batman
  
  “If it were a conservative like Trump making these threats against a Supreme Court justice, all hell would have broken loose.”
  
  Except Trump did exactly that, attacking two liberal Justices just couple of weeks ago.
  https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/02/25/trump-attacks-sotomayor-and-ginsberg-demands-justices-recusal/4865900002/
  
  Now, you may also have missed that Schumer was quoting Kavanagh’s own words from his outburst during the confirmation hearing.
  
  Now, Schumer clearly should not have had a crack at the Justices in that way. However I don’t see Roberts admonishing Trump for his inappropriate attacks on Justices, judges, and juries either.
  
  End result: a pox on all their houses.
  
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  March 6, 2020 11:19am
  - Fletch
    
    There is such a thing as the separation of powers. Trump was rightly critical of Ginsberg. How can he appeal to the Supreme Court if he needs to when he knows that one (or more) of the justices is politically biased against him? Ginsberg later apologized for her comments but obviously you know where she stands. Yes, we all know that some of the justices are liberal and some are more conservative but they are supposed to make their rulings impartially, based on the Constitution.
    
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7w49HhK3sM
    
    Also, asking for justices to recuse themselves is in no way similar to issuing threats like, “you will reap the whirlwind […] pay the price [and] you won’t know what hit you if you make these awful decisions” (eg, if you don’t decide the way I want you to there will be a price). What “price”? Justices are appointed for life. What price is he talking about?
    
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    March 6, 2020 11:34am
    - SB 2
      
      Fletch , you don’t obviously understand the political nature of the Supreme Court acting in it’s capacity as the third branch of government and the often highly charged political nature of appointments ( especially under Trump).
      
      Of the kind that would be completely unacceptable under our constiitional arrangements.
      
      https://www.countable.us/articles/28667-political-leanings-supreme-court-justices
      
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      March 6, 2020 2:50pm
  - Ed Snack
    
    Bullshit Batman, once again you have no understanding of the differences.
    
    A suggestion even by the President that a Justice (or Justices) should recuse is not a threat to the health or well-being of those Justices. It is a suggestion, in that case a well founded suggestion, that based on very public pronouncements that a those Justices are politically biased and should not sit on cases specifically involving Trump.
    
    It was entirely inappropriate for Ginsburg and Sotomayer to publicly disparage POTUS and then sit on cases involving him. Would you accept as a judge someone who personally pronounced your unfitness for your position and disparagfed you in no uncertain terms on public TV ? Would you consider that reasonable ? Or would you feel it quite appropriate that you request a different judge preside – they may be equally or even more biased, but are restrained enough not to say so.
    
    Schumer made a direct threat of possible physical harm. He tried to say that he meant that it was the GOP Senate he was referring to – I’m sure we all quote Justice’s names and point to their Court when we intend to refer to someone else.
    
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    March 6, 2020 12:56pm
    - Batman
      
      And once again you are so dense when it comes to Trump so as to make debate pointless.
      
      If you can’t see the issue with the head of the executive branch attacking Supreme Court Justices on multiple occasions, that’s on you. I agreed with you on Schumer but you clearly react angrily to any criticism of your favourite cranky boomer.
      
      None so blind as those who will not see etc.
      
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      March 6, 2020 3:23pm
      - Tall Man
        
        So a mod is permitted to call another poster dense but me telling someone they are a “sad wee man” needs to be deleted?
        
        I guess my call for explanation and consistency has fallen on deaf ears.
        
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        March 6, 2020 9:35pm
  - Fletch
    
    I note that 14 GOP senators have now moved to have Schumer censured.
    
    https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/03/05/josh-hawley-14-gop-senators-move-to-censure-chuck-schumer-for-threatening-justices/
    
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    March 6, 2020 2:34pm
    - Batman
      
      Of course they have. They’re doing it to show fealty to Trump’s appointments. Duhh.
      
      Given their craven behaviour over the last decade, this move has no weight to it whatsoever.
      
      Also, only 14? Pathetic, come back to me at 50 haha
      
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      March 6, 2020 3:30pm
Monique Watson

JLR is in the shit. Peters is in the shit and Bridges isn’t being investigated by the SFO but look! The other two are. It’s called throwing shade. But shade can’t stick. There. Fixed it for you.
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March 6, 2020 10:52am
cmm

Hugzilla urges voters to condemn Jone’s comments.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12314407

No sweetie. THATS YOUR FUCKING JOB!

Just fire the prick.
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March 6, 2020 11:38am
- rightoverlabour
  
  I have been wondering about Jones vs Jacinda. The question one need to ask is would you rather have around for a BBQ? With Jones there will be good banter, dirty jokes, much beer and meat and probably a few porn clips. With Jacinda.. umm, uhh banality. I know who I would prefer. Having said that I still think Jones is a bombastic twat, but having heard many of the Government minions answer questions recently, he is the best of the whole fucking lot!
  
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  March 6, 2020 8:49pm
  - Nickc2
    
    It’s a pretty shallow talent pool you are fishing in.
    
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    March 6, 2020 10:13pm
Fletch

Sky News Australia speaks to the teenage “anti-Greta”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKET8Hs2aac
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March 6, 2020 11:40am
- SB 2
  
  The response to Greta’s critcs,
  
  Greta Thurnberg and her critics
  
  5 Things To Know About Greta Thunberg’s Climate Activism
  
  5 Where is Greta Thurnberg from?
  Sweden, a Small Country known for Greta Thurnberg
  
  4 Why does she feel so strongly about climate change? /She has this incredible capacity to think ahead
  
  3 How did she travel to the USA?/ She travelled on a boat that maintained Zero Carbon emissions by using up churned up blue whales as fuel
  
  2 What is her speaking style ? / A weird combination of honesty and clarity.
  
  1 She shouldn’t she be at school? / Shouldn’t you be at work?
  
  https://www.theonion.com/5-things-to-know-about-greta-thunberg-s-climate-activis-1838460045
  
  LOL!
  
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  March 6, 2020 1:06pm
  - rightoverlabour
    
    Greta has the same intelligence as you. Basically not much, and is being used by unscrupulous activists. You on the other hand are just a twat who likes to be pilloried at every occasion.
    
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    March 6, 2020 8:44pm
- lifesgood
  
  What an intelligent young woman. Puts Greta to shame.
  
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  March 6, 2020 2:37pm
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Yep
    At age 19, she has a degree (BA – economics and Business Admin).
    
    At School she topped a Physics competition, placed 2nd in Maths.
    https://www.wn.de/Muenster/Stadtteile/Handorf/2013/02/Handorf-Gymnasium-St.-Mauritz-Erfolgreiche-Jung-Forscher
    
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    March 6, 2020 4:08pm
- curry4me
  
  Fletch: Thanks, I was going to put that up tomorrow. Saved me a job.
  
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  March 6, 2020 8:15pm
Kabull

Interesting article on RNZ News about the submission by the Islamic Womens Council to the Royal Commission. Apparently they reckon that
“The Islamic Women’s Council believes it’s likely the Christchurch mosque attacks would never have happened if the public service – including police and security agencies – had not ignored their repeated warnings. .”

One of the Council members says “council members had tried for years, through both the current and previous governments, to engage with them, to persuade them of the urgency of the situation: to convince them that Islamophobia and alt-right activity in this country was on the rise.

In hundreds of pages of evidence, the women carefully document the exchanges between different parts of the government, police, and of meetings with security agencies.

But in the end, the council says the public sector dramatically failed to protect the Muslim community and the country from the Christchurch terror attacks:

Given that the offender is not a New Zealander but was a visitor, and there appears to be (so far) no direct evidence that any New Zealander assisted him, it is stretching the argument somewhat to claim that the attack was a failure by NZ public sector agencies.
I have full sympathy for those affected by the attacks, but attempting to attribute blame in this way is, to say the least, unfortunate.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/insight/audio/2018737122/ignored-by-the-state-how-muslim-women-tried-to-warn-of-impending-danger
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March 6, 2020 11:51am
- cmm
  
  The problem with these non-specific warnings of “impending danger” is they are not helpful to the police etc in actually doing and achieving anything.
  
  “While little might have been able to be done when the gunman opened fire, there was a multiplicity of actions that could, should, but were not taken by the public sector in the years prior to the attacks.”
  
  So years of non-specific warnings about non-specific threats and they expect the cops to have acted? How? Did they want the cops to put up armed patrols around the mosques 24/7?
  
  “In more recent years, as the submission explains, the council’s attention began to focus more on how events overseas”.
  
  Ok, so now are the NZ cops are supposed to have taken action to sort out issues overseas?
  
  Devoid also chips in saying there were huge worries between 2012 and 2016.
  
  All this crying wolf achieves nothing and could not have prevented 15 March last year without such massive intrusions into civil society that it would have been acceptable to nobody.
  
  There are, however, two things Islam could do to reduce threats from crazies:
  1) assimilate more. so that crazies are less likely to perceive them as different or a threat.
  2) do a better job of dobbing in your own extremists and terrorists to prove you are on “our side” (ie. on the side of civil society) and thus not a threat.
  
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  March 6, 2020 2:34pm
  - MCos
    
    With regard to your ‘assimilate more’ comment.
    Who exactly do you want us all to ‘assimilate’ with. My mother came to NZ from a foreign country in 1946. She continued to cook her traditional food for the rest of her life. We didn’t go to kindergartens or state schools and were discouraged from mixing with kids not of our religion.
    Mum was English and we were Catholics.
    
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    March 6, 2020 6:12pm
KevO'Brien

Is Muslim activity in NZ not on on the rise too? They don’t have a mandate to remake NZ.
16 1
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March 6, 2020 12:13pm
- SB 2
  
  Kev O’Brien, they’re not asking too!
  
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  March 6, 2020 1:03pm
- MCos
  
  Haven’t noticed
  They don’t come knocking on my door trying to fill my head will God stuff like other religions do.
  
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  March 6, 2020 2:16pm
mandk

Winston Peters’ puppet asks Indian voters not to punish her for Shane Jones’ racist comments.

But she won’t sack him.

Was there ever a more cowardly Prime Minister?
27 1
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March 6, 2020 12:16pm
- Poppa
  
  Nope she takes the cake
  
  She can’t sack him anyway that would bring down the govt & she then can’t win the election
  
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  March 6, 2020 1:37pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  She’s a racism enabler.
  
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  March 6, 2020 3:02pm
  - sooty
    
    She is sex abuse enabler!
    
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    March 6, 2020 4:25pm
- Bobba Fret
  
  I hope the Indian community turns against Labour for this.
  
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  March 6, 2020 5:02pm
  - rightoverlabour
    
    There are many that are Nat anyway – this may turn the few that vote Labour…. It will also be interesting to see how the “Kill the Baby Brigade” do in terms of the Polynesian vote.
    
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    March 6, 2020 8:40pm
slightlyrighty

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/120069583/work-more-earn-less-tax-system-may-be-to-blame-for-gender-pay-gap-economist-says

I wonder if the author has thought through the ramifications of implementing a gender based taxation system in a society where people are allowed to self identify as the gender of their choice?
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March 6, 2020 1:48pm
- Tall Man
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4_eSW6D6sc
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFwP2huyNzg
  
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  March 6, 2020 9:25pm
Misha Beattie

Is it just me or are the ‘signers’ standing next to Government Ministers and officials at press conferences kind of distracting?

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/120069317/coronavirus-ministry-of-health-updates-on-outbreak

I mean great if there are thousands of deaf people watching, I guess. There is one very large guy with a beard that stands next to the PM doing his signing thing. I always watch him instead of the PM.
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March 6, 2020 1:49pm
- greybeard
  
  Do you think that big guy is actually translating what she says ?
  I reckon he is just commenting on the last round of Super Rugby, or what he is going to have for dinner that night.
  
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  March 6, 2020 3:54pm
- sooty
  
  He’s more important than the Comrade!
  
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  March 6, 2020 4:23pm
- lifesgood
  
  Straight out virtue signaling. It would be way better with rolling script at the foot.
  
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  March 6, 2020 4:53pm
Maggie Pie

Both Countdown & New World are reporting long queues of shoppers buying…. Laxatives.
A number of Supermarkets and Chemists in West Auckland have seen their shelves completely cleared of stock. It’s believed to be the same people who last week ‘panic bought’ all the toilet paper.
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March 6, 2020 4:09pm
- Tall Man
  
  That just gives me the shits ….
  
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  March 6, 2020 8:53pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

All those non productive leftie state sector employees gone home yet? If not, tough. Her is something to start a fight at your happy hour drinkies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVcgZYC7NYQ
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March 6, 2020 4:10pm
- rightoverlabour
  
  Why can’t we have young, hot, beautiful TV presenters….. We get Paddy Gower and John Campbell FFS.
  
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  March 6, 2020 8:38pm
Happychappy

So Winston Peters has rearected his bottom line for those that want to partner NZ First in the next election and has made his two demands, first the PFG must continue in its same form, with Immigration moved from its present form in NZ as it can’t survive in its present form with the numbers that are allowed in.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/411107/nz-first-election-policy-winston-peters-highlights-immigration-provincial-growth-fund-tax
Who in there right mind would do a deal that only favours Winston and NZ First after the carry on that Shane’s Jones has been guilty of inthe last two and a half years in what a lot of people say is blatant corruption.
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March 6, 2020 4:42pm
MCos

Right now anyone in prison is not allowed to register to vote.
At present about ten thousand people are incarcerated.
About 36% are on remand.
A further sixty thousand are remanded on bail or at large.
From what I under these people will be able to vote, under the law as it stands.
However a number of people on bail would be in prison if their circumstances were different. For example they might have an acceptable abode, access to support etc.
Likewise is a person sentences to home detention able to vote?
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March 6, 2020 4:53pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

PREDICTION ~
(of what DNC’s trying to do):
It’ll be Biden & Hillary as his VP candidate.
He will PARDON her of ALL crimes!?
As his health worsens, (brain surgery, etc.), he’ll resign …
And Voila …
It’s Madame President at last!??
AND, if he’s “indicted” for his Ukraine corruption, she’ll PARDON him!?
Yep, it’s as OBVIOUS as the noses are on our faces, folks!?
Get behind President Trump, Patriots, and let’s make sure the SWAMP finally gets DRAINED, once and for all!?
MAGA2020 & KAG2020 …
God Bless America!
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March 6, 2020 5:04pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  And you just know that if in the remote chance that Biden should beat Trump, he will be Arkansased
  
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  March 6, 2020 5:05pm
- MCos
  
  Steve of North Shore.
  Keeping in mind all this quasi patriotic, wild eyed conspiracy theory, hokum, is that the Auckland North Shore?
  
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  March 6, 2020 5:44pm
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    Well it ain’t the Hawaii North Shore son
    
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    March 6, 2020 6:43pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

https://babylonbee.com/news/biden-i-am-the-only-candidate-who-can-beat-ronald-reagan?fbclid=IwAR18YqBXSdXbMr-A-8nU85K4Jxh7OywB0CMBsWFRGSv5NNkOBGcON6w-Y3k
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March 6, 2020 5:16pm
Misha Beattie

Christ. Imagine if this guy had power. We would be Greece. Yes being unemployed and on welfare is hardship. It is designed that way. We are importing tens of thousands of migrants to fill low/medium skilled job vacancies, like manning petrol stations.

Working at a petrol station for 40 hours per week will get you $756 per week before tax plus all the WFF and accommodation supplement benefits. That is WAY more than the dole. And if you knocked on the door of gas stations you WILL get a job unless you are a criminal or stoned .

This advocate and his fellow travellers is an absolute menace.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/119972879/its-time-for-benefit-increases-to-save-those-who-are-drowning-not-help-them-tread-water
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March 6, 2020 6:30pm
emmess

This is interesting,
The Huntly bypass is now appearing on Google Maps

https://www.google.co.nz/maps/dir/Auckland/Hamilton/@-37.5457222,175.1611783,13.25z/data=!4m19!4m18!1m10!1m1!1s0x6d0d47fb5a9ce6fb:0x500ef6143a29917!2m2!1d174.7633315!2d-36.8484597!3m4!1m2!1d175.1865321!2d-37.58136!3s0x6d6d3eceb800ad0f:0x373032c56416811a!1m5!1m1!1s0x6d6d227487a63621:0x500ef6143a29903!2m2!1d175.279253!2d-37.7870012!3e0

AFAIK, it is not open yet
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March 6, 2020 6:49pm
Maggy Wassilieff

Looks like one hand isn’t talking to the other hand

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/03/dhbs-accused-of-charging-doctors-for-personal-protective-gear-amidst-covid-19-outbreak.html
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March 6, 2020 7:33pm
- sooty
  
  What workforce has to pay for their own PPE?
  Nasty, Nasty, employer!
  
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  March 6, 2020 9:49pm
rightoverlabour

LOL Hope they enjoy being stuck.

https://electroverse.net/yet-another-icebreaker-finds-itself-stuck-in-unexpectedly-thick-arctic-ice/
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March 6, 2020 8:31pm
soundhill1

The Kiwiblog tree ticker being up to 247 million tree deficit means about 922 trees per square kilometer. So not allowing for it to be cities or mountains that would mean over 1,000 trees per every square kilometer of NZ. Or a lattice of trees every 30 metres.
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March 7, 2020 11:44am

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