General Debate 29 April 2020

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CJames

There seems to be a concerted PR campaign underway to try to convince peeople that the devastating economic effects of the lockdown was necessary. First the article in the Herald trying to convince us that even though our health figures are worse, we did better than Australia. All done by manipulation of statistics and a new model. Then the disgraced WHO saying we had a world leading response. I wonder what the next one will be? Sainthood for our PM? I note Stuff didn’t get the memo, as one of their writers thinks Trump may have been right (but for the wrong reasons) in his response to China and the WHO.
No doubt the government’s polling has told them they are very vulnerable to the adverse effects as the lockdown induced recession starts to bite, so they need to start counteracting that early.
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April 29, 2020 8:00am
- emmess
  
  We’ll be the judge of that, at least on September 19
  
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  April 29, 2020 8:08am
  - peterwn
    
    If the election is still held 19 September, Jacinda has it in the bag – without Winston’s help. She and Robbo can keep sufficient people appeased until then without the economy completely imploding.
    
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    April 29, 2020 8:53am
    - UrbanNeocolonialist
      
      No chance. The govt can’t borrow enough money to keep everyone at their current level of comfort. There will be massive belt tightening and devastating financial hardship and ruin for 10’s of percent of the population. We are tied to the tracks on this one, and the train is coming.
      
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      April 29, 2020 9:03am
      - DeepBlue
        
        Plus for a further 30%- 50% there is the anxiety of uncertainty about their work and lost lifestyle (credit card debt, house value falls, no bonuses, no travel) plus social harm caused by lockdown.
        
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        April 29, 2020 9:19am
      - Jack5
        
        UrbanColonialist is right. The economic hurt is just beginning. Act 2, Scene 1 is about to start.
        
        The Jacinderella-entranced media won’t stop people questioning why we didn’t keep business going like some countries.
        
        These countries with low economic damage will include both Sweden, with a higher pandemic death toll than us, but various others like Taiwan and Slovakia, with lower pandemic tolls than us.
        
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        April 29, 2020 10:18am
    - PhilBest
      
      Bob Jones: A Nation of Sheep
      
      https://nopunchespulled.com/2020/04/25/a-nation-of-sheep/
      
      Jacinda could order the sheeple to do almost anything and they would naively comply….
      
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      April 29, 2020 9:06am
      - Akarak
        
        Hello Jacinda
        Just ringing to say
        My husband and I
        Heard the good news today
        
        You on your own
        Have eradicated this flu
        Which leads us to think
        You could do it here too
        
        Boris called me this morning
        He’s a really nice man
        He suggested I call you
        And borrow your plan
        
        Your people adore you
        The press say it’s true
        Along with the accolades
        From far distant shores
        I think that a dame hood
        Might just be yours
        
        Our thoughts remain with you
        May your worries be over
        Sorry Jacinda must go
        Charles has arrived in the Rover
        
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        April 29, 2020 10:14am
    - DeepBlue
      
      People keep saying we’ll know more about the effects at Week 12 once the wage subsidy ends. Rubbish. Business owners have had to top up the wage subsidy and have also used that cash elsewhere on rent etc, they’ve already found out the level of bank support depends on cashflow. And that cashflow has to start matching predictions this week.
      
      I say come Week 8 businesses will implement exit plans to preserve some capital and use any of the remaining wage subsidy as four weeks notice.
      
      There is zero chance Jacinda can hide the economic effects for four months.
      
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      April 29, 2020 9:15am
      - Suze Wainwright
        
        Oh silly – Carmel Sepuloni is going to tell people about the unemployment. I can’t be seen to do that icky bad news stuff…
        
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        April 29, 2020 12:05pm
    - krazykiwi
      
      peterwn, you’re an astute chap, so I’m interested in your thinking here. There can be little doubt that she and robbo are preside over the largest economic catastrophe in our country’s history. How can they obfuscate this away?
      
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      April 29, 2020 9:22am
      - rouppe
        
        First you ignore the economic catastrophe because other countries have it worse, therefore nz is a winner, under her leadership.
        
        Second, you continually plug the “isn’t Jacinda Adern wonderful” international press releases. She was, after all, president of the international socialist youth, her then peers who are now all in key useful positions such as foreign media and political staffers themselves.
        
        Third you regularly remind the folk of March 15 2019, and the glowing international media reporting of that.
        
        Fourth you regularly remind folk of the White Island eruption and the glowing international reporting of that.
        
        Fifth you continue to hammer “9 years of neglect” despite the fact that the response to the gfc and more than one devastating earthquake was then just as important to nz. Remember that the ONLY thing the left talk about from that time is the increase in debt, whereas the only thing the Left DON’T talk about now is the increase in debt.
        
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        April 29, 2020 10:09am
      - thirteenstars
        
        Because the Cult of Jacindarella is a fully-owned subsidiary of NZ Media Inc.
        
        The problem I see for those who favour a more liberal regime is the incessant denial of the power of that cult. The blinkers are on and those that think somehow there’s going to be an awakening of the populace at large are deluding themselves as much as any Ardern acolyte.
        
        Nope. You get something close to a landslide. You get fuel, alcohol, tobacco, and numerous other special tax hikes. You get GST at least at 17.5%, possibly a jump straight to 20%, possibly a transaction tax, and numerous Green infrastructure “investments” to turn an emergency into an opportunity. And you get hate speech laws to help silence dissent of the whole sordid ideology.
        
        Not that National wouldn’t resort to many of the above. The test there is to see what National has to say when Labour implements them. Anyone holding their breath there’ll be a strong statement about rolling them all back once National regains the treasury benches?
        
        Don’t faint from lack of oxygen.
        
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        April 29, 2020 11:24am
    - jaysper
      
      Maybe. Maybe not.
      It is too early to tell right now and I grant you that a landslide victory for Malibu Cindy is indeed the most likely outcome.
      However, if she can’t shovel enough cash into the furnace to stop the every man seeing the carnage she has brought upon us, she could well be toast.
      
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      April 29, 2020 9:52am
    - Than
      
      I’m not so sure about that.
      
      True, right now Jacinda Ardern is riding wave of (frankly nauseating) undeserved sycophantic worship. If the election was held tomorrow or next week, she would win in a landslide, with or without Winston or the Greens.
      
      But the election isn’t next week. It’s five months away, and it’s pretty certain they will be five economically very painful months. There will be five months of second-guessing, and discussion of the (valid, but inherently unanswerable) question, “could we have stopped the coronavirus while inflicting less damage on the economy”. The government books will be a disaster. The next government will need a plan to turn that around, and financial management is not exactly Labour’s strong suit (which goes double for the current bunch of incompetent muppets).
      
      In short, just because people think Ardern walks on water today, there is no guarantee they will still feel that way come September.
      
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      April 29, 2020 10:15am
      - Evadne
        
        And there’s also the assumption that we’ve “stopped the cornavirus”.
        
        Unless we’re unique in all the world, we’ve still got plenty of asymptomatic (and therefore untracked and uncounted) cases in the wild. Weve still got winter to come, with its attendant susceptibility to respiratory viruses, and perfect environment for a resurgence of cases.
        
        We haven’t eliminated it, or eradicated, or whatever fancy word they have for it now. Covid will always be with us.
        
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        April 29, 2020 11:14am
      - Isobar
        
        Holding out hope that something that will happen in the future is faint at best.
        
        Firstly – they will argue that the economic hit is global and that in large part, we are a cork bobbing in the ocean and can only do so much.
        
        Secondly – if the economy opens up before others as it looks like it will they will argue that their “swift actions” not only avoid deaths, but allowed the economy to get back on its feet faster.
        
        Even if unemployment hits 10 or more percent there will be plenty of countries that we compare ourselves to, that will have higher unemployment rates than us and they will say “because of our astute leadership we avoided this”.
        
        Unless NZ becomes the worst in the world for either deaths or unemployment compared to other developed countries – which looks incredibly unlikely, watch Jacinda ride a massive wave of success to the ballot box in September.
        
        And – dangerously, possibly the next election after that too.
        
        I cannot see it any other way, National under Bridges are toast. But it might not be a bad one to lose.
        
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        April 29, 2020 2:22pm
    - kloyd0306
      
      My fear is that the uninformed combined with a compliant media will result in a Labour/Greens win.
      
      The mess may be so great that National/ACT may not want the responsibility of cleaning it up.
      
      Winston’s selection will go down as the greatest act of traitorism the country has even known.
      
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      April 29, 2020 10:31am
      - Sacha
        
        It’s already being said that this is an election to lose – if I weren’t so concerned for we, the people, I’d say let them have another term!
        
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        April 29, 2020 11:52am
    - Sir Cullen's Sidekick
      
      Finally somebody gets my point. The sheeple who are baking cakes and singing and recording kumbhaya videos and spereading love through facebook posts think that L4/L3 is the way to go for ever. As long as we have them in majority, Cindy will get absolute majority along with 4-5 Green frogs.
      
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      April 29, 2020 12:11pm
      - Hard Cheese
        
        In a couple of months these idiots are going to get an ice cold bucket of reality dumped on them.
        
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        April 29, 2020 1:02pm
    - KevO'Brien
      
      The economy has been imploded already. More businesses will close and the whole commercial decision making processes slowed down.
      Tourism has been scuttled. The international ramifications for NZ are below the radar only for a short while.
      
      By the time of the election the COL will be hoping not to be elected.
      
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      April 29, 2020 3:46pm
    - Cod Weyne
      
      Well while I wouldn’t put any cash up against it peterwn, I talk to and work with ( all the prison rules being abided by) an awful lot of workers…not much love for the PM is what I am hearing.
      
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      April 29, 2020 6:02pm
  - The Proper Ghandi
    
    While Bridges is no Trump, he needs to approach the election by being Trumpian in his tactics. That is, tell people what the people know to be true, but that the “normies” and chattering classes have a fit when they hear it:
    
    That the lock down in NZ (forget what other countries did) was both late and initially ad hoc and illogical (despite what Ardern tells us); and then totally over the top and unnecessary, based on fanciful predictions made by people who are generally secure in their positions and removed from the reality of most working people (despite what Ardern tells us).
    
    Like with Trump, people may not want to tell a pollster or their brainwashed neighbour what their views are and how they will vote, but, like 2016, on the day they will give Bridges/National the mandate to come in and do what we know to be necessary.
    
    The principle of “never letting a crisis go to waste” is symmetrical – it applies to both the government and the opposition. Now is not the time to meekly bottle it, Mr Bridges.
    
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    April 29, 2020 10:11am
    - Isobar
      
      Its a bit hard (though probably very Trumpian) for him to go back on his own support for the lockdown. I think people will just look at him as a fool if he tried that.
      
      The fact of the matter is he is too late, the public just yawn when they hear him speak. He’s is simply a lame duck leader now.
      
      If a new leader could step in, they might be more authoritative and be able to take that line.
      
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      April 29, 2020 2:28pm
      - KevO'Brien
        
        We should try that on Cinders too–a moving mouth without freedom to think.
        
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        April 29, 2020 3:48pm
- cmm
  
  What next? Here you go.
  
  International #CinD4UN crowd reframing nothing extraordinary as a massive win by Ardern.
  
  “With just 239 active Covid cases in the country, New Zealand is now the focus of headlines in the UK, USA and Australia.
  
  The Daily Telegraph in the UK reported New Zealand being on the verge of a “brilliant victory” and Australia’s mass-market news.com website said New Zealand had won a major battle. The New York Times and Washington Post have both featured articles on how New Zealand is combating the threat.”
  
  https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12328100
  
  The more you look at this thing, the more it looks like a huge international power grab.
  
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  April 29, 2020 8:11am
  - krazykiwi
    
    Perhaps a new policy platform for National: “We will legislate for a restraint of trade on cabinet ministers such that they may not work for the UN or any UN agency until two years after their cabinet term concludes”.
    
    There is no doubt in my mind that the lives and welfare of NZers are being sacrificed in Jacinda’s bid to secure a UN role, and that ‘preventing covid deaths’ is a convenient lie.
    
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    April 29, 2020 8:19am
  - PhilBest
    
    One of my favorite conservative essays about “The Decline and Fall of the West” specifies loss of powers of logic as a prime indicator.
    
    The obvious lack of logic about lockdown in NZ is that seeing COVID-19 takes 3 to 8 weeks to lead to death, the lockdown can’t possibly have been the reason that NZ didn’t continue to have exponential increases in deaths through the lockdown itself, with curve peak coming at a logical delay after imposition of the lockdown. This is what happened everywhere that there was a valid reason for lockdown.
    
    Obviously it isn’t just Kiwis who lack this logic, it’s the global progressive media in toto. And cuckservatives everywhere are as bad for slightly different reasons – you might be able to explain the logic to them but they will always default to “running up the white flag on this issue was the only thing we could do”.
    
    I now, with the experience of the current time, find it impossible to believe that there is any issue major enough that cuckservatives will actually fight it.
    
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    April 29, 2020 8:24am
    - Random T Person
      
      PhilBest I generally seek out your comments for their logic and sense, but the use of ‘cuckservative’ is somehow distasteful. Just sayin’, and all that, but do keep up the great commentary.
      
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      April 29, 2020 8:44am
      - PhilBest
        
        I have usually used the term “Vichy conservatives”.
        
        I believe the term “cuckservatives” actually means “cuckolded conservatives”.
        
        That is, they’re raising kids someone else fathered with their missus. This describes limp “progressivism Lite” centre-right politicians at least as well as the “Vichy” analogy.
        
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        April 29, 2020 9:09am
      - Engelbert Humperdink
        
        Phil reads his Alinsky and puts its lessons into practice. We all should. Well played Phil.
        
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        April 29, 2020 10:30am
    - cmm
      
      As a species, we used to revere logic, now we flee from it.
      
      Logic is damn hard work. It starts with comprehension: being able to read reasonable amounts of text, extract the important details, then process it.
      
      This requires attention and time, both of which are starved and stolen by social media.
      
      In this post-twitter world even 140 characters is too much to read. People seem to rely on memes. If you can’t make your point in 3 seconds, and less than 1 sentence, then it is lost.
      
      3 seconds, even 30 seconds, is far too little to exercise logic. All we have now is emotion.
      
      On top of that, logic and thought are hard because they often lead to conflicting details that need to be resolved and understood. That can feel uncomfortable (aka cognitive dissonance). For some, that conflict spurs interest and a desire to understand. Unfortunately those are in the minority.
      
      People generally avoid discomfort and just prefer to be served up little soundbites.
      
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      April 29, 2020 9:01am
      - JackRabbit
        
        The attack on proper education, and logic has been going on for a long time. Advances in Technology have just made things easier.
        
        If you are a Star Trek fan, especially Next Generation or Voyager, there are episodes of note. Where the crew have arrived at a planet where the entire planet or just one country is under tyrannical rule, as a result of some “threat” that is not real, or created by clandestine technology. The public, kept in fear and brainwashed, are easily to manipulate. In some cases there is continual war, all kept alive by some arms dealer.
        
        And you feel for the people of that country or planet, seeing them as victims. The sad part is that we are those people, living in fear and being controlled through the media and communications.
        
        It is always easy to see such control and manipulation from the outside, not so easy to spot when we are the victims, being fed propaganda through the media, and continual attempts to keep everyone in fear. Threat of a Nuclear Winter,Global cooling last century, Global warming, Global Climate change, Global pandemics where the mortality rate that is not much different that any other flu variant…
        
        Somewhere, out there, will be some passing intergalactic ship, with the senior crew saying “Those poor bastards.”
        
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        April 29, 2020 9:29am
      - cmm
        
        JR: DO you also get the feeling we’re living in that Star Trek episode?
        
        This seems pervasive.
        
        At one level we seem this constructed narrative to push #CinD4UN. SHe has been a wonderful puppet for Winnie. I am sure some UberPowerful people would love her running UN.
        
        At a different level we have police leadership having cozy chats with the gang leadership. WTF? It’s like Churchill and Hitler discussing WW2 strategy over a game of golf.
        
        We now have Google, FB etc pushing narratives and swaying elections. Well at least trying to.
        
        This crap has been going on for a long time (at least back to the 1970s) and is just getting more prevalent.
        
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        April 29, 2020 9:44am
      - JackRabbit
        
        @cmm
        
        Star Trek Terra Nova, Episode #28652
        
        Data: “The Romulan Spy, also known as MxArdern is causing havoc in New Zealand. She has the country in lock down as a result of the “pandemic”. They are passing laws while in lock down to allow prisoners the vote and passing “hate” speech laws.”
        
        Picard: “As you know Data the Prime Directive prevents us from interfering.”
        
        Data: “Sir, it appears they intend to hold a general election while under a form of lock down, during which MxArdern has banned electioneering, and she has control of the media, and media is being saturated by her face and narrative.”
        
        Picard: “She is repeating similar tactics used by previous tyrants.”
        
        Data: “Sir they are planning an identity chip to do contact tracing in order to “track” this “pandemic”.
        
        Picard: “Data, where are we at with the investigation into the possible Borg infiltrators? Could they be behind this chip?”
        
        Data: ” It is possible sir. I’ll look into it.”
        
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        April 29, 2020 10:06am
    - JackRabbit
      
      One section of the public that do not what to know about politics, believe that governments like our current one act logically. It doesn’t.
      
      Another section of the public believe that governments like our current one are considering our needs and welfare and are looking after those that “cannot”. It doesn’t.
      
      Another section believe that governments like ours are just politicians part of the game of politics, you get what you get. It isn’t.
      
      A smaller section of the public believe that governments like ours are overtly socialist (communist) power mongers, aided by the green movement who are red on the inside. Sort of true, but not entirely.
      
      The real truth is that what dictates politics is money. Behind all political power is money. Big money. Those who benefit from war. Those who benefit from Climate Change Scams. Those who benefit from the current world economic destruction.
      
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      April 29, 2020 9:14am
      - Maggy Wassilieff
        
        https://memecrunch.com/meme/ALB5I/follow-the-money/image.jpg
        
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        April 29, 2020 9:29am
  - Benedict Yu
    
    The United States could have done just as well as New Zealand. No excuses. It could have morphed from a nation of 330 million people with two land borders totaling 12,000 km, and at the centre of world commerce, INTO a tiny island nation at the bottom of the planet with 4.8 million people. No excuses 🙂
    
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    April 29, 2020 8:31am
  - Simon
    
    “The more you look at this thing, the more it looks like a huge international power grab.”
    
    Naw its just fragile funny money Marxist economies crashing at a minor shock.
    
    NZ like most of the Western world. Too much debt, too much immigration, perpetual housing bubbles, too much central planning, useless over governance, over taxation & PC culture. Its all come crashing down.
    
    Now they are even reverting to Ardern cultism. And talking about bull shit like negative interest rates. It will get much worse before it gets better.
    
    GFC was the warning shot but government didnt reform so reform will be forced by the market.
    
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    April 29, 2020 8:37am
  - Suze Wainwright
    
    It appears to me that some overseas media are getting confused between eradicate and eliminate and what those words really mean… The silly billys
    
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    April 29, 2020 8:43am
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      The time to worry is when another eliminate/eradicate synonym is introduced into the mix…
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxD-5z_xHBU
      
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      April 29, 2020 9:36am
      - Cod Weyne
        
        I can’t wait for “exterminate” to be uttered.
        
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        April 29, 2020 11:18am
  - cmm
    
    … and here’s another …
    
    “Covid 19 coronavirus: Revealed – the data showing the success of NZ’s lockdown over Australia’s ”
    
    Apparently we bedda than Oz, according to some Otago experts. Clearly bullshit. There is no statistical difference in our death rates.
    
    But Cindy’s the best. You can’t argue with “Otago University Associate Professor Brian Cox, a medically-trained epidemiologist and specialist in public health.”
    
    Dude, I don’t care how many certificates you have on your wall. What matters are the numbers.
    
    For all the people claiming success in NZ the evidence does not support that it is anything special that we did. For the most part it comes down to two things:
    1) We’re in the Southern Hemisphere which gives us huge advantages.
    2) Low population.
    
    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12327959
    
    https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-covid-deaths-per-million?year=2020-04-28
    
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    April 29, 2020 8:48am
    - Cinematic
      
      Of course, as you know, and anyone still possessing some measure of free thought knows. Success of the response cannot be measured in covid-19 deaths alone, rather the overall health outcomes of a nation.
      
      It’s fraudulent and dishonest for academics to peddle over-simplified covid-19 nonsense such as they are.
      
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      April 29, 2020 9:37am
      - cmm
        
        I agree with what you say there, but even if you just stick to what he is saying it is wrong.
        
        If Random Bellend gets something wrong then that is just some dumb guy on the internet.
        
        If a person who is pushing his credentials as “Otago University Associate Professor Brian Cox, a medically-trained epidemiologist and specialist in public health.” is peddling falsehoods then that is, on the face of it, gross negligence at best and fraudulent at worst.
        
        He is using these fake numbers to push public policy. Not good.
        
        Astoundingly the media do not even do the most basic fact checking before breathlessly publishing this.
        
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        April 29, 2020 10:41am
  - Durden
    
    “New Zealand being on the verge of a “brilliant victory” Please don’t remind of Dean Barker and America’s cup. Nightmare! 🙂
    
    Wasn’t $67.74 million subsidy claiming The Warehouse’s Tindall involved in that too ?
    
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    April 29, 2020 9:12am
  - tf78
    
    Look at the steps taken since September 2017 :
    2017 : Get selected, shut down oil and gas.
    2019 : Christchurch – disarm the people
    2020 : Covid – Lock down and control
    
    Results so far :
    Economy crashes
    Oil crashes
    No planes
    No cars
    Police control
    Snitching on your neighbours
    No Jobs
    
    U.B.I and voila you have THE NEW GREEN DEAL
    
    Job done
    
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    April 29, 2020 10:35am
    - Nickc2
      
      Thanks Winston – NOT!
      
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      April 29, 2020 1:32pm
    - Isobar
      
      Do you think this would be any different under a national Govt?
      
      How would they stop these things in a global depression?
      
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      April 29, 2020 2:31pm
- Simon
  
  The 34 day home detention was one of NZ’s most embarrassing episodes – but the Ardern cult will be even worse. The cringe.
  
  Cult is what failed banana republics do. NZ decent into failed banana republic was pretty quick.
  
  Cult of personality –
  
  Cult of personality is a term, usually pejorative in nature, which refers to a situation where a public figure is presented to the populace via propaganda as an amazing person who should be admired, loved, and respected.
  
  https://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-a-cult-of-personality-definition-examples.html
  
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  April 29, 2020 8:28am
  - Blackface Twin Reverb
    
    Just scrolling through the Linkedin feed, see that a former colleague liked an article from the Atlantic, singing Cindys praises…
    the sycophantic praise poured out in the comments is astounding… honestly, you’d think educated business professionals would exercise more discernment…
    
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    April 29, 2020 9:13am
    - Jules99
      
      I have a feeling that the people who comment and like on Linkedin are not the ones who are educated business professionals. Most of the commenters I see are in taxpayer funded jobs who are supposed to be ‘doing good’ and they are expressing FEELZ. The rest of us don’t bother.
      
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      April 29, 2020 11:57am
  - Surely Knott
    
    The deifying, hero worship, celebritization of the leader is bizarre and unhealthy. I can’t remember the last day the Herald feature story didn’t use a picture of the leader, no matter what the topic.
    
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    April 29, 2020 9:20am
  - JackRabbit
    
    Hitler
    Stalin
    Che Guevara
    Fidel Castro
    
    Hell, if your media team are good enough, and can do the fluffing real well, you can even get additional advertising on the cover of Time Magazine. Time are not picky about who they put on the Cover.
    
    Hitler – 1938
    Stalin – 1939, 1942
    Greta Thunberg – 2019
    
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    April 29, 2020 9:45am
    - cmm
      
      To be fair to Time, they just select news makers. It is not an endorsement.
      
      I’ll bet 3 servo pies PriNZess is in the running for 2020.
      
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      April 29, 2020 11:16am
      - JackRabbit
        
        cmm, some of us know they just select news makers.
        
        “Person of the Year (called Man of the Year or Woman of the Year until 1999) is an annual issue of the United States news magazine Time that features and profiles a person, a group, an idea, or an object that “for better or for worse… has done the most to influence the events of the year”.
        
        The trouble is the public see it as an endorsement.
        Time is an establishment media mouthpiece, so even the “bad” people get reported in a good light. And the majority of the public fall for it.
        
        Any rational media publication would refuse to put dictators and butchers on the cover.
        
        Nelson Mandela was part of the “peace makers” cover in 1993. There is nothing peaceful about condoning the “necklacing” of police informants caught by the ANC.
        
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        April 29, 2020 11:45am
      - cmm
        
        JR: If it was just necklacing police informants that could be somewhat legitimised as them being part of the “apartheid regime”.
        
        But they were necklacing other black people that they saw as being political rivals.
        
        ie. terrorists, not freedom fighters.
        
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        April 29, 2020 12:52pm
      - JackRabbit
        
        cmm
        
        Very true. And that is the problem with terrorists who portray themselves as freedom fighters.
        
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        April 29, 2020 1:12pm
- kowtow
  
  The coverage of the end of L4 by all arms of the Media party ,was all coffee and kfc with a light sprinkling of tradies but a very heavy angle of back to normal showed they are very out of touch with the broader economy and what the effects of L4 and Wuflu will have on society.
  
  But the Party message is clear , ‘happy times’ , which of course it’s anything but.
  
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  April 29, 2020 8:30am
  - Simon
    
    Comrade as things fall apart the Ardern cultists will be talking about “recovery”.
    
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    April 29, 2020 8:40am
    - PhilBest
      
      What is most frightening and sickening about the CoL is that they regard WASTE as the way to “restore the economy”! This won’t restore the economy, it will be bullets to its head.
      
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      April 29, 2020 9:11am
  - Philview
    
    Many thousands of people have lost jobs, have mortgages and are in a frightening predicament. Very concerning to see the media slip under Government control and become a propaganda tool. I wonder where to next as a country.
    
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    April 29, 2020 9:21am
    - Shaun the Sheep
      
      33,000 new applications for Jobseeker benefit
      
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      April 29, 2020 10:03am
    - artemisia
      
      If anything it is worse for the hundreds of thousands who don’t know if they have a job or not. But pretty sure they don’t.
      
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      April 29, 2020 2:43pm
  - Surely Knott
    
    This morning’s Herald feature headline was “Live: ‘Like killing weeds’ – What health chiefs are closely watching as Kiwis embrace ‘Threedom'” but when you click on it the headline changes to “Covid 19 coronavirus: Virus won’t be eliminated until there’s a vaccine, says PM” Well that is the actual news here. VIRUS WON’T BE ELIMINATED. Which is completely different to what she said our plan was and what we were lauded for in international media less than two days ago. Jacinda first in the world to eliminate the virus. And yet we aren’t what an embarrassment. And the Herald bury their real news headline under a business as usual headline.
    
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    April 29, 2020 9:27am
    - The Proper Ghandi
      
      People can only be pushed so far before they refuse to comply with official edicts. We’ve been very patient with this silly bitch, but our patience is waning fast. Silly soundbites only go so far before reality intrudes.
      
      If necessary, I’m willing to risk arrest and prosecution as a form of political protest. I am totally serious. We run the country, not the politicians – they are only there by our good grace.
      
      If enough people rejected lock down measures and just went about their business, there is simply no way in hell the “authorities” would cope. Even if they rounded a lot of people up, that is when the consent of the governed has gone. The optics would be terrible.
      
      What ultimately overthrows governments? Mass public dissent. It really is that simple. Even in China, the 1.5 billion have more power than the CCP – but they are cowed into obedience. It’s all just an illusion.
      
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      April 29, 2020 10:25am
  - John Warren
    
    It’s far from fucking back to normal for me and my employees. There’s no end yet in sight for this nightmare.
    
    My rural property goes on the market next week. Whether I can actually sell it, and what I can realistically get for it, are still unknowns.
    
    Thanks Cindy, for absolutely fucking up my life – my retirement plans are now fucked, and probably the business I’ve spent 17 years of my life quietly building up.
    
    My life is disintegrating into tatters while fucking Cindy soaks up adulatory praise from sycophants at every compass point.
    
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    April 29, 2020 9:37am
    - Nickc2
      
      Don’t expect any sympathy from the CoL John. To them, you and your employees are just numbers in a computer model.
      I’m picking a lot of us who contribute to this blog sympathise with you and yours.
      
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      April 29, 2020 11:11am
      - John Warren
        
        Cheers, Nick. All is not lost yet, but I get bloody angry. There’s still a chance I can hang on to my rural property, but it depends on how the business comes through the next few weeks, months maybe. Putting it on the market is a pre-emptive measure which I hope I do not have to follow through on.
        
        I’m trying to hang on to my four staff, but they all know the situation.
        
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        April 29, 2020 5:42pm
    - graham
      
      Words are not enough, John – as Nickc2 said, I imagine the majority of people reading your situation will be feeling for you.
      
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      April 29, 2020 5:58pm
  - JackRabbit
    
    Level 3 = Level 4 + takeaway coffee + long queues.
    
    “It is inhumane, in my opinion, to force people who have a genuine medical need for coffee to wait in line behind people who apparently view it as some kind of recreational activity.”
    – Dave Barry.
    
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    April 29, 2020 10:10am
- GazzaW
  
  @CJames
  
  Sainthood for our PM? Not today it seems but we can make do with a phone call from Her Majesty in the meantime.
  
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  April 29, 2020 8:33am
  - DeepBlue
    
    How come the Queen didn’t phone Dame Patsy? Where is Dame Patsy when the nation needs an independent figurehead?
    
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    April 29, 2020 9:23am
- backster
  
  We have shown the rest of the world that a response can have its’ effectiveness improved by changing the definition of a few key words. For Instance the word ‘eliminate’ can be defined as not getting completely rid off, but to partially get rid off. Thus you can fool most of the sheeple some of the time.
  
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  April 29, 2020 9:12am
  - John Warren
    
    I never have understood this particular semantic pin dance. My OED and any number of online dictionaries are quite at odds with Cindy’s definition of “eliminate”.
    
    But the socialist way has always been to warp language to suit the message.
    
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    April 29, 2020 9:55am
    - JackRabbit
      
      There is no message, just smoke and mirrors.
      
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      April 29, 2020 10:21am
  - JackRabbit
    
    “This will not be over until we have a vaccine.”
    
    Beware of people offering constricted choices or choices that channel you like sheep to one particular outcome.
    
    Since they don’t have vaccines (or effective vaccines) for most of the influenza variants, I wouldn’t hold up your hopes for a Covid-19 vaccine. Covid-19 like most viruses are actually microscopic parasites.
    
    “We won’t let you out of complete lock down until Hell freezes over.”
    
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    April 29, 2020 10:17am
- jv
  
  Maybe we should offer her today to the UN, or WHO, so that she can save the world too.
  
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  April 29, 2020 9:17am
  - tf78
    
    jv – you really just want her gone don’t you.
    
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    April 29, 2020 10:51am
- all true
  
  NZ Herald is actually an extended arm of this communistic government, also very poor in regards to journalism and don’t understand people who pays for that one sided and opinionated crap.
  
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  April 29, 2020 11:17am
PhilBest

Sorry I missed the discussion thread late yesterday. Not as much spare time now we’re back to Level 3.

I have suggested a “what if” hypothesis re Health Minister Dave Clark, in the past, at the time of Bikegate and Family-outing-gate; and the more things he does that looks like outrageous and unbelievable hypocrisy, the more it bears repeating.

“What if” he never agreed with a Level 4 lockdown, he’d considered all the evidence that someone in his position SHOULD consider, and quite RIGHTLY decided against it. But he was over-ruled and sidelined and has been gagged in some way to prevent him from publicly airing his concerns about the lockdown?

But he’s thought, dammit, I’m going to at least make some “public statements” in the form of action….

Not impossible?

The alternative is breathtaking political incompetence, if you’ve signed on to a politically motivated power-tripping socialist nanny state lockdown, you don’t blow the cover on your own bad faith by so totally demonstrating your own lack of belief in it. The rest of the CoL probably includes many others who get it deep down about the bad faith, but wouldn’t dream of emperilling the experiment in power-grabbing.
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April 29, 2020 8:02am
- alloytoo
  
  That sounds plausible, if Clarke were competent and capable.
  
  There’s absolutely nothing to suggest he is.
  
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  April 29, 2020 8:34am
- Loddenthinks
  
  Completely impossible. That would ascribe UK Labour operative levels of cunning and rat-fuckery (as per their efforts to convince Corbynites that they were advertising his policies whereas they were really running much more moderate ads, not that it did them any good).
  
  Clark simply fell out of the stupid tree, hit every branch on the way down and landed in a deep pool of entitlement.
  
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  April 29, 2020 9:01am
- Raphael
  
  You’re assuming a level of competence from our esteemed Minister of Health that is not in evidence.
  
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  April 29, 2020 9:36am
  - chwaga
    
    So much so that he was trumpeting the sewerage in the wall at Middlemore in the house yesterday when that has been vigorously denied by the CMDHB
    
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    April 29, 2020 9:49am
- John Warren
  
  No, he’s too stupid for that. Besides, a man of actual principle would have resigned.
  
  Clark is a fuckwit, pure and simple.
  
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  April 29, 2020 9:57am
Scott

Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota refused to implement a stay at home order.
She says they put aside over 2000 beds for virus patients and so far they have had 63 patients.

South Dakota has had 2000 cases of the virus and 12 deaths.

“She added that she values freedom and liberty too much to infringe on her constituents right. ”

Her people were so grateful that they threw a parade in her honour.

Now that’s a woman leader we can all get behind!

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/04/south-dakota-residents-throw-parade-republican-governor-refused-implement-lock-orders/
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April 29, 2020 8:03am
Benedict Yu

I heard this ‘hospitality industry spokesperson’ on radio News Talk ZB last night urging cafes and restaurants to increase prices to “restore profitability”. She was asked by the interviewer what cafes should charge for a take away coffee. She said $6 ?

Well I have news for you. The 50 percent of cafes that survive the next 6 months will be setting up stalls and delivering coffee with a smile for $3.50. Welcome to markets.
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April 29, 2020 8:04am
- Raphael
  
  Tim Pool did a brilliant item explaining that these people simply do not understand money.
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmrBB1C2gsQ
  
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  April 29, 2020 9:38am
- John Warren
  
  We were being urged to do our utmost to support local businesses struggling post-lockdown. I don’t see how we can hope to do that when we’re all broke and/or jobless.
  
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  April 29, 2020 9:59am
- cmm
  
  Why not just make it $20 and they’ll be sorted by the end of the week?
  
  Was this a real ‘‘hospitality industry spokesperson” or some numpty they found at their local hole in the wall?
  
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  April 29, 2020 11:06am
  - Benedict Yu
    
    No it was a real spokesperson. I don’t have time to track it down. The interviewer was HDA. She said that competition had reduced margins and the prices were unsustainable. I find the cost of dining out in New Zealand very high by world standards. Cafes like MOJO in Wellington take the piss. $19 for mince on toast.
    
    The Wellington cafe scene is going to be a train wreck. The ones that have been charging high prices for fake food will be the first to fall over. Oh my other favourite at MOJO are the $9 sausage rolls and 12 dollars for a microwaved bacon and egg roll.
    
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    April 29, 2020 11:26am
    - cmm
      
      If you don’t like MOJO’s prices why do you keep going back?
      
      Or are they all that bad?
      
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      April 29, 2020 11:55am
      - Benedict Yu
        
        I don’t go there at all. Appalling place. But they are set up in the lobby of my building. So I see the menu board.
        
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        April 29, 2020 3:12pm
      - Brian Marshall
        
        Wellington cafe prices in the CBD are all pretty bad. Mojo’s makes do make good coffee though. Most places in Wellington tend to make good coffee. If they didn’t, they’ll go out of business.
        
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        April 29, 2020 3:54pm
MT_Tinman

A TVNZ headline this morning stated that “up to 80% of businesses open in level 3”.

I admit to only quickly perusing the site but would be unsurprised to read elsewhere on it headlines stating: “Steamrollers Do Roll Steam”, “Chocolate Fish Do Swim” and “The Moon Is Made of Green Cheese”.

20% of New Zealand businesses are tourist orientated and the CAN be no tourism under current conditions, retail cannot open, restaurants can not open.

Up to 80% indeed!

Still, I suppose they at least got the “up to” correct which is more than the dictatorship has.

If they, as the dictatorship assert, have eliminated Covid-19 what are people going to spread if they resume normal life?
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April 29, 2020 8:04am
- kevn
  
  @MT… Massaging numbers to make it seem all is fine. Media bullsh*t.
  
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  April 29, 2020 8:46am
  - MT_Tinman
    
    Exactly Kevn!
    
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    April 29, 2020 8:53am
- Philview
  
  I heard that as well. In my city the shops, restaurants, pubs, offices are still shut. That 80% is BS.
  
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  April 29, 2020 9:04am
  - Ruawai
    
    JA was saying it will be 75% business open but no one fact checked her.
    
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    April 29, 2020 10:00am
    - Tony Stuart
      
      My brother-in-law is a school principal in a largely blue collar area, where lots of people work is “essential” areas. Less than 10% of his enrolled students are rocking up to school today.
      
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      April 29, 2020 10:12am
- Inandout
  
  Tin, I found 80% of retailers closed.
  
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  April 29, 2020 9:25am
  - MT_Tinman
    
    I’m sure you did.
    
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    April 29, 2020 10:03am
  - cmm
    
    It says “working in one form or another”.
    
    So maybe their website is working. Maybe their voicemail is working.
    
    That’s a huge difference to actually “working” as functioning economic entities.
    
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    April 29, 2020 11:08am
- rockape
  
  I am sure a lot are working. Like the upholsterer who delivered my settees yesterday. He has had them recovered sitting in his business for weeks. What changed, is he has had no work for a month so change the price downward for cash. I am sure he won’t be alone!
  
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  April 29, 2020 9:48am
  - cmm
    
    “the price downward for cash”
    
    So straight into the back pocket, not GST, no tax and he’ll still be getting some hand out.
    
    In many ways I do not begrudge him that, but it does show that the economy as Cindy and Robbo think of it (that source of tax) is still a long way off.
    
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    April 29, 2020 11:10am
- John Warren
  
  Utter bullshit. Just take a look around you to see the nonsense in that figure.
  
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  April 29, 2020 10:00am
- Loddenthinks
  
  Yep, and of those businesses that did manage to open – especially in hospitality – the additional costs required to operate “safely” and the limited volumes that will necessarily follow mean they will almost certainly be losing money as long as Level 3 continues.
  
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  April 29, 2020 10:07am
  - MikeMan
    
    Those that had some inventory will probably see cash flow as king to try and save the business. Some income is better than none and most of the costs still existed as rent still needs to be paid and the handout expects staff to be at 80% pay as a minimum.
    
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    April 29, 2020 12:28pm
cmm

The reaction by some to DPF’s story yesterday about a gang murderer getting essential worker status really shows the stupidity of picking on little details in the name of “fact checking”

Someone, in this case DPF, reported some things with a few minor errors, in this case that the police had granted “essential worker” status.

That teeny tiny detail was probably wrong – someone else would have given that status, but, quite likely (and I have no proof of this), the police were consulted by the people dishing out “essential worker” status. Thus, quite possibly that detail was still correct in that the police were involved in giving out this status.

No matter if this teeny tiny detail was wrong, the big issues – that people really should get bothered about – remain:
1) Sonny Fatupaito was having weekly calls with police deputy commissioner Wally Haumaha and other gangs.

Deals are being made and there is quid-pro-quo going on here. Police and gangs are colluding. Sonny’s “services” and deals to keep the Mob’s heads low do not come for free. This is not the first time we’ve seen it , and not the last either.

2) Sonny Fatupaito has inserted himself into the food relief delivery process. This gives him a huge position of leverage over more vulnerable members of society. eg, perhaps, you want a food pacel then I’ve got a little job for you… or maybe it is just using taxpayer funded food parcels to boost the profile and image of the Mob as the Good Guys. Either way, it is disgusting that any part of any government agency allowed this to happen. Worse still is that they defend their actions.

This gives the gangs more strength and credibility and in the short and long term it compromises police, but worse still, it compromises the safety of society – especially those that the gangs have the most control over, the most vulnerable.

The police have lost a lot of goodwill amongst law abiding and seem to be dead set on making the situation even worse.
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April 29, 2020 8:05am
- Clyde
  
  So lets get indisputable facts out there and into much wider discussion than this forum as this is a serious issue. If there is collusion or quid pro quo going on between maori gangs and DC Haumaha whether it by granting of status or turning a blind eye to the regular meth trade, or manning illegal roadblocks, then make sure its factual and can be backed up by real evidence. The police’s only plan with the gangs should be their total elimination. A really hard programme of investigating every gang member’s finances would be a good start and zero tolerance for any infringement whatsoever.
  
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  April 29, 2020 9:32am
  - The Proper Ghandi
    
    Since Brenton Tarrant has a lot of time on his hands, why don’t they send him in to clean out the filth at the gang HQs? We know he can get shit done. That would be an excellent example of ‘restorative justice.’
    
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    April 29, 2020 10:32am
artemisia

The Deputy Prime Minister on the wireless this morning – New Zealanders need to be making stuff not importing it and not exporting raw materials to other countries. Specifically he said exporting raw logs that then get reworked to add several times the cost in value. Makes no sense he said.

There is a problem right there. New Zealand is one of the easiest countries in the world to start up a business and we know a whole lot about exporting. And it’s not like we have a paucity of retail outlets.

So if locals can make the big bucks by adding the value here why aren’t they doing it already?
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April 29, 2020 8:05am
- Random T Person
  
  Two possibilities: 1. The Deputy PM doesn’t understand economics, either, or 2. he does understand economics, but prioritises optics and politics.
  
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  April 29, 2020 8:49am
- kevn
  
  @art… I also heard whinney yapping. Talking milk then logs. Processing blah blah etc etc.
  What a waste of space.
  He is the original problem.
  
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  April 29, 2020 8:49am
- whostoblame
  
  He campaigned on exactly this leading up to the last election and the one before that. But once in power has reneged. Shortly he will be rollng out the anti asian line as predicted again even though he was part of the govt who signed off the Free trade agreement with China. “There are dark clouds on the horizon ” There certainly are Winston and one of them has your name on it.
  
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  April 29, 2020 9:08am
  - artemisia
    
    Mr Jones’ slush fund has promised dosh to some forestry projects. That will be enough to show they succeeded.
    
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    April 29, 2020 2:40pm
- cmm
  
  Winnie’s strength is that he says a lot of things that sound pretty reasonable to those that don’t understand the details.
  
  Yes, on the face of it we should not be selling logs. We should be using that wood to make higher value items (2×4 framing timber, doors, paper, whatever) and selling those.
  
  This would make a whole lot of extra profit and employment.
  
  The problem with that thinking is that NZ labour is very expensive and logs are cheap on the world market. It is a buyer’s market, and the buyers want raw logs so they can keep their own people and factories employed making 2x4s, paper etc.
  
  If NZ does not sell raw logs then there are other places that will step in and sell them (Russia, Canada, USA,…).
  
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  April 29, 2020 9:08am
  - PhilBest
    
    Our urban planning system now, like the British one for decades, actually hamstrings any businesses that require space, that will require a lot of transport coming and going, and that generate noise and by-product. Plenty has been written about this in the British context, by urban economics experts.
    
    It is interesting to even observe “industries” in British cities of the kind that require space. They are inevitably doomed to inefficiencies from the sheer cost of the space they need but can’t afford. For example, car repairers spend half the day shuffling cars around in their limited space, just to get them into the workshop and out again for the customers picking them up. Warehouse and supermarket aisles are narrow, creating logistical inefficiencies. And so on.
    
    There tends to be far less businesses such as recyclers and sellers of second hand stuff, because there isn’t the profitability relative to the space they need. I’d say NZ is heading down the same track, absurdly given our space to burn.
    
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    April 29, 2020 9:22am
  - backster
    
    Let’s not forget Winston colluded in closing down our coal mines forcing us to import hundreds of thousand tons of inferior product from Indonesia, and also closed down Taranaki oil industry.
    
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    April 29, 2020 9:25am
    - artemisia
      
      Does National have a policy to dig and drill? Worked for ScoMo.
      
      Have to pay somehow the freight train full of bills coming at us. Still there could be a few snails to save, got to get the priorities right.
      
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      April 29, 2020 11:16am
      - Benedict Yu
        
        They will never attract the capital. Investors will know that the next Labour government will shut them down. Our resources industry is permanently crippled. Thanks for that.
        
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        April 29, 2020 11:28am
  - Oskar
    
    I am not sure what the situation is now following all the free trade agreements that NZ has signed, but years ago logs into North Asian countries generally went in duty free but the more processed the log was the higher the duty on it. The idea was of course to keep out wood that had been processed overseas to create domestic jobs.
    
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    April 29, 2020 9:40am
  - tf78
    
    I think already a lot of our log market had been taken over by Russia – before this Newflu BS.
    
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    April 29, 2020 11:06am
- amospicton
  
  Correct and I guess we don’t want our export markets to choose to ‘buy local’ either. More hypocrisy.
  
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  April 29, 2020 9:10am
- Benedict Yu
  
  I heard him too. It was a horror show.
  
  “Specifically he said exporting raw logs that then get reworked to add several times the cost in value. Makes no sense he said.”
  
  Um yes it does otherwise it would not happen. That is markets. Jim Anderton spent millions of dollars trying to have furniture made in New Zealand. Remember “economic transformation”? ugh.
  
  https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/economic-transformation-key-understanding-budget
  
  The ONLY way to achieve what Winston Peters outlined yesterday would be to introduce tarrifs, and/or import licencing and bring back capital controls. And I guarantee we will be able to turn those pine logs into furniture in New Zealand. And the price of a dining room table will triple. At least.
  
  Essentially what Winston Peters was saying is lets go back to pre 1984. I hope it is just another sound bite that will be forgotten. With the debt, and 25 percent unemployment, and then this thing, New Zealand will be ruined. That is not hyperbole.
  
  When the borders reopen, I expect a flood of people to Australia. Australia has recovered faster than New Zealand from every economic shock since the 1960s. It will be no different this time. Sure things will be tough in Australia for a while, but it will not be a smoking ruin.
  
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  April 29, 2020 9:11am
  - Swifty
    
    You’re on to it.
    
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    April 29, 2020 9:38am
  - Loddenthinks
    
    New Zealand recovered from the GFC much faster than Australia did, mind you it was under the superb economic stewardship of Bill English. For a number of years we led the OECD, not just Australia, in GDP growth and most economic indicators.
    
    It will be very different this time, for sure.
    
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    April 29, 2020 10:15am
  - kowtow
    
    Quite funny , buy local and furniture .
    
    There was a story in the ODT the other day ,where a local furniture supplier and the paper were pushing exactly that line , buy local.
    
    The irony which I suspect was lost on both the supplier and the author was that the local supplier said he had X number of containers sitting at the port with goods ready for distribution . No talk of local production of said product , no doubt it was sitting at the port as it had been imported !
    
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    April 29, 2020 11:02am
  - tf78
    
    Wooden furniture would have to be sold as flat pack, but Ikea are on top of that.
    
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    April 29, 2020 11:09am
- Swifty
  
  “So if locals can make the big bucks by adding the value here why aren’t they doing it already?”
  
  And that is exactly the point artemisia. I’ve been having similar conversations since the 80s. For those that can take raw wood, add value to it and market it either internationally or domestically I wish nothing but the best – but what Peters is wanting (once again) is nothing but protectionist bullshit.
  
  He wants to use the power of the state to force forest owners to sell locally at prices lower than they receive internationally. By doing so he would lower incomes and destroy jobs at the grower end.
  
  He seeks to do this for no other reason than he thinks there’s votes in it for NZ First – him being ‘the saviour’ of the local wood processing industry.
  
  NZers must not fall for it.
  
  NZ forest owners have invested bundles of cash and 25-30 years or more of risk, time and effort and must be free to maximise their returns by selling what they want, to whomever they want and at any price acceptable to them.
  
  (Another point is that NZers cannot have a highly regulated manufacturing environment with a very high minimum wage, by international standards and cheap manufactured goods. They can, largely, have one or the other. But not both.
  
  Unless, of course, we can attract large amounts of foreign capital with far-sighted owners to establish highly-automated wood processing facilities on a large scale allowing the production of competitively prices products the world wants and is prepared to pay for.
  
  However, the Greenies, Labour and NZ First usually have strong objections to those sorts of operations, ironically!)
  
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  April 29, 2020 9:21am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Yes, it would be great if NZ could produce high quality processed wood products that the world is desperate for.. but the reality is we produce vast quantities of wood that is regarded as being of low quality.
    
    The world won’t run out of softwoods (gymnosperms/conifers)… but sustainable quality hardwood is as scarce as hen’s teeth…
    Such a pity that NZ didn’t progress it’s efforts with Beech/gum/blackwood.
    
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    April 29, 2020 10:21am
- DeepBlue
  
  Winston’s lungs are catching up with him. Yesterday in Parliament he could barely wheeze and gasp through his speech, leaning for support.
  
  I’m not sure people will be listening to Winston, while the sun is shinning so brightly from Jacinda.
  
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  April 29, 2020 9:31am
  - kloyd0306
    
    Yes, I noticed that when she turned to her right then bent down to fix her shoe laces, this bright light illuminated his papers.
    
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    April 29, 2020 10:52am
- Nickc2
  
  This is Winston rolling out his age old platitudes about trade where he knows full well that in order to value add: firstly the nephs have to get off the couch and acquire more skills than are required to use a play-station and secondly, some real smart nephs will be required to establish markets where value added goods can be exported at a lesser cost than foreign competitors.
  Lets face it, Shane’s nephs could turn all the logs we have into coffee tables but where are we going to sell them when China can get logs from South America, turn them into coffee tables and sell them to the world at approximately a quarter of the cost of Shane’s nephs’ coffee tables and still make a sizable profit.
  Winston has preached this stuff before and the only place he found any solace for it was among brain dead NZ1st/Labour voters and those in receipt of taxpayer handouts.
  
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  April 29, 2020 9:42am
- chukar
  
  Going to build our own cars are we ?
  Then border control fx regulations and tariffs to make sure we have to buy them and create a new class of fat cats
  Ha bloody ha
  
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  April 29, 2020 9:43am
- Sideoiler
  
  ….So if locals can make the big bucks by adding the value here why aren’t they doing it already?
  
  Because they can’t, New Zealand may well be one of the “easiest countries in the world to set up a business” but compliance costs are the killer’ minimum wage laws, piss poor employment law, staff that are virtually impossible to get rid of if they don’t perform.
  Environmental protections.
  
  Try getting resource consent to build a timber processing plant, special people consultation fees, neighbors to be consulted, ecomentalists to be placated, councils to be paid etc, that’s why locals are not making the big bucks.
  
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  April 29, 2020 10:18am
  - artemisia
    
    And on your point about how hard it is for employers to get rid of low and average performers – we can be 100% sure that there are quiet meetings behind closed doors about right now being the perfect opportunity to do just that.
    
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    April 29, 2020 11:25am
    - Sideoiler
      
      artemisia: There will be more than a few non doer’s and window licker’s looking for a new career in May I suspect. A perfect opportunity for the employer to skim the dross from the talent pool.
      
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      April 29, 2020 12:06pm
- Capricardo
  
  It’s alarming although not unexpected to read these comments by Peters
  It just goes to show his absolute lack of knowledge of economics particularly as related to New Zealand
  He states “We are too reliant on Fonterra sending milk to China”
  He also states that cars and pharmaceuticals should again be manufactured in New Zealand.
  Does he not have the faintest ides of why these items are no longer manufactured here?
  And how would he replace the Fonterra business to our major market?
  Or is it just because when he is lacking in the adulation he so desperately needs he will make stupid comments such as these to make sure the media pick it up and thus keep him in the limelight.
  Perhaps in that way he is very like Trump!
  
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  April 29, 2020 10:32am
alloytoo

David Clarke always has an excuse that his transgressions were only small of nature, just outside the clearly defined rules. Anyone can do that, as long as they don’t get caught. He got caught.

There’s absolutely no difference between what he did and business owners being allowed to enter their premises during lockdown by themselves.

That was strictly forbidden.

Clarke behaved like an Orwellian Pig.

What’s perhaps more disturbing is his scheduling of the move that close to lockdown.

Suggests:

a) Clark was out of the loop re lockdown.
b) The lockdown itself was a kneejerk reaction, unplanned by the Government.
c) The lockdown was forced onto the government by someone or persons unknown.
d) Lockdown was planned for after March 15. (plenty of time to move house.)
e) Clarke is an idiot. planning to move house during a pandemic.
f) All of the above.

As an aside this may explain the media assault on Bridges and smear on Key, but I think this is a squirrel for something much bigger down the road.
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April 29, 2020 8:06am
- Loddenthinks
  
  Great analysis, personally I think it’s (f).
  
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  April 29, 2020 10:23am
Tomtoddy

The evidence is now in.
https://youtu.be/sfiFoXtfVU8?fbclid=IwAR1SgV2NTRa9fhE_1xyrsv9YK8fvYoy2-K2WszO816hsrRH0S18uHeCy_Lc

Lockdown is not necessary. STOP now before any more damage is done.
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April 29, 2020 8:07am
- Inandout
  
  GlueTube tried to stop the full version, but the internet is a wonderful place. It popped up elsewhere.
  
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  April 29, 2020 9:32am
NeverMindTheBollocks

Isn’t it great that we’ve had balmy weather this autumn. Likely helping to prevent the spread of C-19. Thank goodness for global warming!
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April 29, 2020 8:08am
Im Right

#meetoo!?
Where are you all now that it’s a Democrat accused of sexual assault?
During the Kavenaugh hearing they had protests and in the news hourly it seemed. But nothing now, I guess the takeaway from their silence is that they pick and choose their targets and if you are an accused man of the left in politics then the woman accusing him is a liar?
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April 29, 2020 8:09am
- Inandout
  
  IR, I have noticed even on Hosking he veers away from this sort of controversy, but when you have been purchased by the government I guess you have to tread warily.
  
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  April 29, 2020 9:34am
Bobba Fret

So will anything even be mentioned today by Adern about her health minister doing part of his house moving during level 4 lock down?
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April 29, 2020 8:12am
Maggy Wassilieff

A long read….but with much food for thought

https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2020/04/29/1140950/new-zealand-wasnt-ready-for-a-pandemic
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April 29, 2020 8:14am
- RW Capitalist
  
  NZ not ready
  Because the PM wanted to make(and was talking about) the ceremony commemorating the Christchurch shooting her main focus.
  Any more ready to build 100 000 houses
  Any more ready to plan 1billion trees
  etc etc
  
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  April 29, 2020 8:26am
- woodburner
  
  If I read this rightly, the underlying suggestion is that the imposition of the lockdown was really just to buy the MOH time to gear up to do better contract tracing?
  
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  April 29, 2020 8:56am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    It wasn’t just contact tracing… It was also the ability and time taken to test.
    
    When the first “possible” case turned up in Gisborne, a sample was taken at the hospital and delivered to Gisborne Airport… where it was Flown to Auckland and then put on a Flight to Christchurch. There it was processed over 2 days in one of the few labs able to undertake the work.
    The DHB got a result (negative) 4 days after sample taken.
    
    Up in the Shetland Islands, they can now get results in just over an hour.
    
    “We put the patient sample into a cartridge, it’s got all the reagents we need”, he said. “We put it into the machine, it churns out the result in basically an hour, and hour and 10 minutes.
    
    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-52441255
    
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    April 29, 2020 10:43am
Simon

David Clark wasn’t arrested so that just leaves Ardern’s moral authority. Ardern has no moral authority as everyone knows Ardern covered for a rapist. Clark acted accordingly.
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April 29, 2020 8:15am
- Libertarians are right
  
  Jacinda needs to fire Clark and then, if the Police haven’t done anything, fire Nash and ask for the resignations of both Police Commissioners.
  
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  April 29, 2020 9:02am
Maggie Pie

Admits to feeling “very lucky” she wasn’t named Karen.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EWCI14iUEAMH2qi?format=jpg&name=360×360
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April 29, 2020 8:15am
- pentwig
  
  Good grief!
  All us males should sincerely thank Clark for taking one for the team.
  
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  April 29, 2020 9:22am
Lee C

I was thinking the other day how refreshing it was the Simn Bridges came out fighting and defended his position against the ‘facebook Backlash’ (is that actually a thing?).
I wish he’d sad something like “I’m not going to roll over because of the criticisms of a small number of people who live in a fairy-tale bubble.”

I’d like to see more of this kind of thing, The ‘concern-trolls’ are just pack-hunting bullies who like to present themselves as a victimhood.

The election is going to be about communicating with the ‘shy’ voters who saw through the pandemic bs and who need a representative brave enough to stick a pin in the bubble.
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April 29, 2020 8:19am
- Scott
  
  Lee C – quite agree. Simon Bridges needs to fight against the mainstream media by making his arguments clearly and forcefully and not backing down.
  National politicians have for decades been frightened of the mainstream media and the politically correct crowd. It doesn’t get them very far. Basically we have the same policies in place from the previous labour government, just with slightly lower tax rates.
  
  I would like to see Simon continue to push for the reopening of the economy. He would do well to side with small business owners and workers who are struggling to pay their rent and make ends meet. There is much fertile ground for the leader of the opposition to work with.
  
  He will get lots of opposition from the mainstream media who just adore the Prime Minister. But he needs to stick to his guns. Our Prime Minister is determined to use the crisis to implement all of her wish list of green energy and gender equity and “social justice”. Now more than ever the people of New Zealand need an articulate and determined opposition leader. Hopefully Simon can rise to the occasion!
  
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  April 29, 2020 8:28am
  - Paulus
    
    But, But the so called MSM political pundits are nearly all women hence their total support continually for Ardern.
    Don’t tell me, a mere elderly male, that I am wrong !
    
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    April 29, 2020 8:41am
  - Miritu
    
    Simon has no principles, he just wants to be liked. National abandoned their founding principles long ago and their only selling point is that their version of socialism is better than Labour’s
    
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    April 29, 2020 9:27am
    - Komata
      
      Mirtu@0927
      
      Sadly, you are correct.
      
      I recently spent an inordinate amount of time trying to get my local (National) MP and an acolyte to show me exactly where I might find the Nat’s ‘Set in Stone’ policies; the ones that are non-negotiable, the ‘Founding Principles’ etc.
      
      No luck!
      
      It seems that these actually don’t exist, but that ‘all will be revealed after the Lock down has ended’ when Simon et al will reveal their policies for rebuilding NZ.
      
      And the Nat’s wonder why they’re losing support; at least Cindy has a goal, even if it IS the imposition of ‘Socialism’ on NZ.
      
      The Nats’ apparently don’t even have an ‘ideology’ any more; nothing that they are prepared to put down as making them ‘different’ from all the others.
      
      The phrase Labour Lite’ writ large…
      
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      April 29, 2020 10:46am
      - Sacha
        
        All of NZ is ‘Labour Lite’.
        To become a hard-nosed rightist party, National would have to trim down Social welfare in all its forms, abolish living wages, and so on.
        There’d be very few NZers willing to vote for that in the present climate.
        Most of us want people to be looked after if they can’t look after themselves – but we also want the freedom to make our own way without crippling Government interference.
        The difficulty is to strike a balance – and at present the odds don’t look good for those who would give it a go.
        
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        April 29, 2020 12:25pm
  - oldfella
    
    FWIW, talking of green energy, Mrs Oldfella and I watched Michael Moore’s ‘Planet of the Humans’ last night on YouTube.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk11vI-7czE
    An absolutely devastating take down of the renewable – green – energy scam. I can’t wait for someone to ask Cindy if she’s seen it, and if it has changed her mind on this subject. I expect her to say something like, ‘No, I strongly disagree with Michael Moore on this matter, even though he is almost as venerated on the left as I am.’
    
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    April 29, 2020 11:46am
- igm
  
  Having listened to Nash, Mitchell, and Hosking, it is easy to see we are in serious trouble.
  All Nash could say was how Ardern has done a good job; when asked what they were doing for small business he could not answer.
  As my wife said, “Labour is now showing how commercially inept they are, and we have real problems with these irresponsible socialist fools trying to handle any matters fiscal”.
  What a contrast to hear John Key with Paul Henry, answering questions off the cuff with straight, honest, concise answers.
  Winston has committed this country into the arms of China . . . no two ways about it!
  
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  April 29, 2020 8:31am
  - kevn
    
    @igm… I almost saw the Paul Henry programme but his last few nights have been very underwhelming so flagged it.
    Maybe look on replay.
    
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    April 29, 2020 8:51am
- Tony Stuart
  
  Bridges continues to stand by the comments he made last Monday, and all power to him. All too often, there’s an insincere apology for maybe offending someone, but Bridges has dug in, and has been vindicated by events which have since transpired.
  
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  April 29, 2020 8:47am
- Swifty
  
  Very well said Lee C.
  
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  April 29, 2020 9:34am
- DeepBlue
  
  Watching press conference yesterday, Jacinda and Minister Sepeloni. Minister announced some govn job website and 2 other things. Question time and every question went to Jacinda and off topic, she even embarrassingly said ‘remind you that Minister is here’ which was ignored.
  
  Jacinda’s presidential playbook is about to hoist her so far up by her own petard, that the fall will be horrendous.
  
  The only way Bridges can fast-track her collapse is to find an economic king hit and National present a solid economic recovery policy backed by a team of front line people who can deliver. President v Team.
  
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  April 29, 2020 9:43am
  - Komata
    
    DB@0943
    
    See my 1046 answer to Miritu; At the moment the Nats’ haven’t GOT a ‘Solid ‘economic recovery package’ and won’t have one until AFTER the Lock down has ended.
    
    Not too hopeful is it…?
    
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    April 29, 2020 10:54am
  - marcw
    
    It would not be a good idea for National to present it’s alternative economic recovery plan yet. At the least, it should be after the Budget in mid May. Otherwise Labour will just covert their options, claim that was what they were planning all the time, and National will be left in the dust floundering for traction.
    
    We all know Robertson will have no real ideas of his own, so why give him some clues now? Actually, National should “leak” a bogus plan with catastrophic outcomes, and see if Robertson is ~~bright~~ dumb enough to fall for it.
    
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    April 29, 2020 11:31am
    - greybeard
      
      I agree. The timing has to be right. Plus he has to do it without the support of the MSM, and will have to find other ways to get the messages across.
      
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      April 29, 2020 12:11pm
I remember when

SO IT ISN’T NEW!
MedPage Today 24 March
Covid-19: Abnormal Clotting Common in More Severe Disease.
Endothelial damage and subsequent clotting is common in severe and critical Covid-19, which has implications for treatment, Chinese clinicians said at a ‘Webair’ co-sponsored by the Chinese Cardiovascular Association and American College of Cardiology.
“Clots in small vessels of all organs, not only the lungs but also including the heart, the liver and the kidney, were described by Bin Cao, MD of the National Clinical Research Centre for Clinical Diseases in Beijing.
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April 29, 2020 8:21am
RW Capitalist

Q: How many people actually went to work yesterday?
4 days ago they said 1 000 000
2 days ago they said 400 000
Looks like a fraction of this. Even though the govt. said 75% were “eligible” to go to work…more weasel words.
Have MSM actually attempted to find out?
Has David Clark been fired yet?
In any other business this kind of breach of health and safety rules, especially by a senior manager, would mean a fine from MBIE and INSTANT DISMISSAL.
Where is his boss (the person who gave him his job)….Jacinda is AWOL.
Not an acceptable attitude from a PM.
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April 29, 2020 8:22am
- igm
  
  Talking to a few employers, many considering laying off staff, not realising the drop in orders would be so severe.
  Seems fast food and bottle stores are the only ones to show confidence, most supported by beneficiaries, supported by already stretched taxpayers.
  
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  April 29, 2020 8:37am
  - RW Capitalist
    
    When the real impact comes and unemployment hits 25% (my belief it could) no business will be safe.
    The downward spiral they started just after the election, will be compounded by their panic with regard to this virus, will see international businesses cut their loses and move to Australia.
    As happened under Helen Clark.
    
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    April 29, 2020 9:04am
  - cmm
    
    There are some canaries in the coal mine that indicate some tough times ahead.
    
    Steel & Tube are laying off 200. They supply to construction which means there has been a construction turndown. Those 200 indicate quite a few thousand in the sector as a whole.
    
    They were already having issues before CV19. This has just made it worse.
    
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    April 29, 2020 9:37am
    - DeepBlue
      
      Rio Tonto have no reason to stay now either. One pot line is already shut for Lockdown 4. Who is going to buy their aluminium in next 2-3 years.
      
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      April 29, 2020 9:49am
  - Inandout
    
    Builders yards are laying off as we speak and there must be others we haven’t yet heard of, but like tsunamis they approach very quickly. I can understand why Jacinda wants to stave off the inevitable, it won’t be pretty.
    
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    April 29, 2020 9:40am
- backster
  
  Cindy needs to tell him to ‘Hang in there.’
  
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  April 29, 2020 9:35am
  - Sacha
    
    And call an election for next week –
    
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    April 29, 2020 12:28pm
- RW Capitalist
  
  Drove past Pomare station at about 9:30am today.
  Usually the car park is full (possibly a couple of hundred cars.
  Today………3 cars.
  Taita college empty, apart from the grounds keeper mowing the lawn.
  
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  April 29, 2020 4:47pm
Happychappy

In 2017 Winston Peters decided that this was to be the end of Capitalism unless.he wanted to use like the allegations of the NZ Foundation and the rich donor’s that have happened to have deposited large donations that apparently go against electoral law.
So today he has announced a statement saying he has for years been warning of the ” Pitfalls of Globalism “.
Winston Peters has called for more autonomy for New Zealand in post COVID-19 saying ” if we can grow it make it” we should, this is a time of critical perception on the possibilites the future holds for New Zealand.
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/winston-peters-says-if-nz-can-grow-make-then-we-should-do-so-in-covid-19-hit-economy
Winston likes to preach a lot on what he likes and dislikes around the World but has no hesitation of using it for himself if oppo tunities arrive.
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April 29, 2020 8:23am
- Swifty
  
  The man is a charlatan and NZers would be fools to trust him.
  
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  April 29, 2020 9:29am
oldpark

Heard Winston Peters the Claytons grandfather of ms/Ardern saying it is time NZ reformed its economy. Maybe the question is what economy. Just over Five weeks ago we had a stuttering economy results of Peters mad dog decision to install a bunch of Amateur Politicians to in charge of NZs Treasury benches ..
Now think that was bad then . Well his Prodigee his Claytons grandaughter named ms/Ardern with a Narcisstistic Personality Disorder turned the economy to ashes . Yes rumour has it she got the virus and turned the lifestyle and well being of NZs back to the 1970s. With massive unemployment forecast.
Peters now wants to reform the pile of ashes which was once our economy. Sounds like he wants another turn of running NZ . He says he is experienced. Selecting ms/Ardern as NZs PM how did that work out .
What a bloody indictment of a Meglamaniac who still dosnt get the disaster he created for the Nation of NZ when in 2017 he went against the wishes of the majority . Just Saying .
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April 29, 2020 8:26am
I remember when

Wasn’t it great to hear John Key’s concise summing up of the Covid-19 requirements. Take the necessary actions as the need arises and keep it simple. In other words control as much as you can but leave room for industry to find solutions to their problems.
Don’t make todays actions to-morrow’s problems.
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April 29, 2020 8:27am
- MCos
  
  Just like everyone else
  
  Plenty of advise and no responsibility
  
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  April 29, 2020 8:53am
  - Inandout
    
    Mcos, I will advise you that Key’s advice is spot on.
    
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    April 29, 2020 10:26am
    - MCos
      
      Maybe it is. I don’t know because I don’t know what it is and, anyway, I can’t see into the future.
      However I notice that a lot of knowledgeable people have been tripped up with their ‘spot on’ advice. No problem because it’s not their head on the block.
      I read the other day that one of these here gurus devised a model that predicted deaths in the US would peak at six thousand or some such.
      
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      April 29, 2020 11:36am
- alloytoo
  
  What’s impressive is how much he is across the geo-political analysis.
  
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  April 29, 2020 9:31am
G152

If the Minister of Health cant take a pandemic seriously why the hell should we ?
And when all the crap hits the fan, businesses close, rents and leases fall due and are unpaid and there are no jobs and those that remain are tenuous.
Then election
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April 29, 2020 8:33am
- Tony Stuart
  
  Precisely. Clark’s own officials at the Ministry of Health developed the lockdown rules, and he signed off on them both as Minister, and as a member of Cabinet.
  
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  April 29, 2020 8:49am
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Celebrities spell out “We’re all in this Together” with their yachts.
https://babylonbee.com/news/inspiring-celebrities-spell-out-were-all-in-this-together-with-their-yachts?utm_content=buffer44a01&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer&fbclid=IwAR3CT47yLv2YoGiiiAahx0TDd7KN1Hz5RIAtEHbhXxNiRrxkghN6gwSIi4c
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April 29, 2020 8:34am
- curry4me
  
  Steve Otto (North Shore) I thought this was real when I saw it on FB. Completely plausible.
  
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  April 29, 2020 9:31pm
I remember when

How do we know how many Active cases of Covid-19 there are?
On the 10th April there were 1283 cases of Covid-19 according to the daily report. There are now 1472 as of yesterday MOH.
So since the 10th April there have been 189 new cases. If we take that away from the 239 Active cases MOH that means 50 cases have been Active for 18 days. Presumably that includes the Rosewood Home 20?, who will also be the majority of the hospital cases.
Are we about to see a dramatic drop in Active cases?
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April 29, 2020 8:39am
- Loddenthinks
  
  The number of active cases has dropped every day – this is one instance where Stuff provides some data that is actually useful.
  
  The Health Ministry has admitted in its own briefings (see yesterday’s for example) that it gives one figure for domestic consumption (that’s your 1,472 figure) which includes confirmed PLUS probable.
  
  They give a different figure for international consumption (1,124) to WHO, which is only the confirmed cases.
  
  They also report that 1,214 people have recovered – more than the number that were confirmed to even have it! What they don’t say is how many of the 1,472 that recovered were actual cases that recovered, or probable cases that never had it.
  
  Keeping the domestic numbers high instills more fear and makes it easier for Jacinda to keep tight control over our activities and movements, and renders us ever-more dependent on gummint support for survival.
  
  Keeping the international numbers low increases her adoration and fawning from international press, WHO and of course her ultimate destination, the UN.
  
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  April 29, 2020 10:52am
Happychappy

Even Barry Soper says Jacinda use of words is misleading, but she still puts out statements like this ” Jargon to blame for confussion over CORID-19 elimination ” when really it was there to lie and con those that had trouble understanding the figures being produced daily.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=12328097
As long as we have the media having orgasmsover Jacinda Ardern and her ability to do nothing wrong these example of untruths will continue to confuse and allow misinformation to be fed to those that don’t understand.
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April 29, 2020 8:39am
- Tricati
  
  For my sins, I listened to Carmel Sepuloni and Chris Hipkins on morning TV, and the over-riding sense I got from both of them, is there is no coherent plan to get NZ economy back on track – They just don’t understand the issues.
  They sat on their arses in opposition for 9 years and did nothing, resulting in numerous working parties & consultant reports to set policy, and now after 5 weeks of lock down they have done FA planning to get us out of the mire they created.
  Could it be they are just dead-set useless, and don’t know what to do, and totally reliant on the ‘Celebrity’ PM, aided by a compliant MSM to get them through.
  
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  April 29, 2020 9:00am
mikenmildagain

Happy International Dance Day!
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April 29, 2020 8:48am
- barnacle bill
  
  Hi Mike.
  
  I reckon the word “Happy” is beyond most on KB.
  I doubt they know what the word even means.
  
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  April 29, 2020 9:06am
  - Tony Stuart
    
    Pot; meet kettle. Your negativity towards National Party MP’s and those who support them is relentless Bill.
    
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    April 29, 2020 10:14am
  - Komata
    
    BB@0906
    
    Re: ‘I reckon the word “Happy” is beyond most on KB’.
    
    Since you are obviously ‘Only here for the food’, perhaps you should go back to your mates at the Standard then; all this imposition of Communism by their beloved and sainted leader is making them happy beyond all belief and there is much joy and merry-making through-out their land.
    
    I’m SURE you’ll enjoy yourself far more than here.
    
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    April 29, 2020 11:03am
    - barnacle bill
      
      Thanks for the tip Komata.
      
      I will pop on that site and take a look for myself.
      
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      April 29, 2020 1:48pm
- cmm
  
  Foxtrot Oscar.
  
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  April 29, 2020 9:16am
  - mikenmildagain
    
    No, I won’t.
    
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    April 29, 2020 9:35am
    - Garbageman
      
      Awww go on it’s well past time you had another tanty telling us all how nasty we are and vowing to never come back again, it’s not as if you add anything of substance to this blog these days anyway any petulant child can hammer out 50 snide comments a day you might not be missed
      
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      April 29, 2020 11:56am
fernglas

How can the PM say two days ago that the virus was “eliminated” and say today that it won’t be “eliminated” until there is a vaccine? The WHO definition of elimination is that there are no cases in a particular region. None. Here, it seems to mean that there is a small number of identified cases, and there may be a significant number of others as yet unidentified because they are asymptomatic. Perhaps she should be using the word”suppressed” Or is that too accurate and not good enough for the headlines? Bloomfield is complicit by attempting to explain that a plain English word with a clearly defined popular and medical meaning in fact means something else, and is dependent on what level we are in. If you expect people to behave sensibly and responsibly, perhaps the best idea is to treat them as such, rather than as fools.
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April 29, 2020 8:52am
secondcumming

Anyone else catch the John Xi Key interview with Paul Henry on TV3 last night?
(Even Paul dubbed him the ‘Chinese Whisperer’ ….. BoL!! )

For a moment there, he almost had me convinced that maybe, just maybe, either the USA or Oz were actually responsible for releasing the Coronavirus 😎
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April 29, 2020 8:53am
- igm
  
  You were obviously watching a different programme to me. He pointed out that China was easy to trade with, had plenty of buyers, so what is your problem.
  Bet you have consumed Chinese food on more than one occasion!
  
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  April 29, 2020 9:44am
  - secondcumming
    
    Agree with you in parts igm.
    China certainly has ‘plenty of buyers’……especially for land, businesses, and politicians 😎
    
    (And yep, you got me on the Chinese food – yuge fan of Gang Ped Pet Yang.)
    
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    April 29, 2020 10:20am
    - igm
      
      Percentage of Chinese-owned land and businesses is very small.
      Also businesses are only run efficiently by those prepared to work, take a financial risk, and have a large degree of commonsense . . . this precluding anyone from the left.
      
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      April 29, 2020 1:49pm
kevn

@mma.. Dancing to the JA tune?
Enjoying your taste of socialism?
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April 29, 2020 8:56am
- marcw
  
  Ironically kevn, he will be beside himself with joy. Just what the socialist doctrines strive for – total control of the population and dependency on Dear Leader for crumbs.
  
  Tractors and turnips for all comrade!
  
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  April 29, 2020 11:41am
Don Beckett

Why are there so many deaths in NY City?
This nurse gives an exposee on the shameful situation in NY hospitals.
https://realclimatescience.com/2020/04/nurse-expose-of-nyc-hospitals/
10 min. video.
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April 29, 2020 8:59am
- Inandout
  
  Democrats are a funny lot, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they wanted many deaths; all Trump’s fault.
  
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  April 29, 2020 10:28am
MCos

I was amused to see a picture of Mike Pence at the Mayo Clinic not wearing a mask after being specifically told that all visitors were required to wear masks to guard against the transmission of COVID-19.
I suppose if you’re at the top of the heap your farts don’t smell.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/covid-19
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April 29, 2020 9:05am
- mikenmildagain
  
  Mother has only told him not to meet other females alone. Perhaps she hasn’t given him instructions about masks.
  
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  April 29, 2020 9:36am
  - MCos
    
    Perhaps she has
    
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    April 29, 2020 9:49am
- kowtow
  
  Who ever was in charge of the clinic is at fault.
  
  Excuse me Mr Vice P , no mask , no visit . It’s literally that simple.
  
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  April 29, 2020 11:09am
Libertarians are right

So Winston has now come out and said we need to reform our economy. This is after the Greens and Labour (including explicitly both Robertson and Ardern). The next step will be to push it as a matter of urgency (i.e. must be done now, before the election).
They have no mandate. They know they have no mandate and they want National to point it out.
The second National say the words “no mandate”, they’ll call an early election to get that mandate, claiming that National forced them into it and ride high on their current propaganda which National have been willing to ride out in the short term.

And they accuse National of playing politics!
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April 29, 2020 9:09am
lastmanstanding

Can Labour pull of a three peat in 2020.

1957/1960, 1972/1975. In each case it was the economy that undid them and in each case the economy was nowhere near as grim as its going to be later in the year.
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April 29, 2020 9:11am
- Swifty
  
  Here’s hoping for NZ’s sake..
  
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  April 29, 2020 9:23am
- MCos
  
  Major difference back then was the popularity of the National leaders; Holyoake & Muldoon.
  Simon Bridges has many notable qualities. The ability to inspire confidence isn’t one of them.
  
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  April 29, 2020 9:24am
- Philview
  
  This time they control the media message and can “eliminate” much of the negative noise around the economy or at least can spin it that the blame lies elsewhere. Anyone who sticks their neck out on social media will get a verbal bashing.
  
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  April 29, 2020 9:28am
I remember when

M T Tinman 8.04 Was it on the AM show that Jacinda mentioned a figure of 90% of businesses back at Level 3.
Probably Herald and Jacinda are right if you remove all the shops and small businesses that will not re-open.
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April 29, 2020 9:19am
- Philview
  
  I heard it on the TVNZ news last night. The shops, restaurants, pubs, offices in my city are still effectively closed so that figure is just another Government propaganda message.
  
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  April 29, 2020 9:34am
  - kowtow
    
    And the “news” is propaganda .
    
    It is designed not to inform but to elicit an emotion .
    
    Last night the emotion was “feel good” , and that’s why they all ran a very heavy dose of “Granny meets the grand child again” , happy ever after , back to normal ,it’s all good now.
    
    And before the lock down it was all on fear and scare mongering in order to get us conditioned for what ever was coming.
    
    Same tactic is used in global warming , and remember all these “news’ organisations have signed themselves up for it.
    
    “Covering Climate Now is a global journalism initiative committed to more and better coverage of the defining story of our time. ”
    
    https://www.coveringclimatenow.org/
    
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    April 29, 2020 11:16am
- MT_Tinman
  
  Try this.
  
  I have no idea what the “AM show” is, having no interest in broadcast media due to the very high percentage of leftist lies it contains.
  
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  April 29, 2020 10:01am
bennerg

Newshub reports today “Britain is on track to record one of the worst coronavirus death tolls in Europe, after data published on Tuesday showed nationwide fatalities topped 24,000 nine days ago.”

I checked the UK annual death stats from previous years, and in 2014 there were over 28,000 deaths from Influenza. And not too dissimilar figures in other years.

So it appears that normal life in all countries involves deaths from “the flu”, and in this case it seems they may have just a bad year … but so far, in the UK, not as bad as 2014. Note that they are coming into Summer now, out of Flu season.

In New Zealand on average over 800 people a year die of Influenza and Pneumonia. My guess is that these people are mainly elderly, and/or with compromised health – the same candidates for Covid-19. To date in New Zealand we have less than 20 people die from Covid-19. Makes you wonder does it not.

For NZ Statistics check out: https://minhealthnz.shinyapps.io/historical-mortality/
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April 29, 2020 9:21am
- krazykiwi
  
  The 1999-2000 flu season (so named because it spans Norther Hemisphere winter) caused between 500,000 and 690,000 deaths (usually referred to as EMR [Excess Mortality Rate]).
  
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  April 29, 2020 9:33am
- bennerg
  
  A quick correction, the current average deaths in New Zealand for 2011 – 2016 (the latest stats) is over 700, not 800. Note that it peaked in the mid 80’s at 0ver 1,500.
  
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  April 29, 2020 9:34am
- Cinematic
  
  Yes the warm weather has arrived. Unfortunately they’re all being forced to shelter indoors. So it may as well still be Winter. Dumb and dumber.
  
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  April 29, 2020 9:52am
- bennerg
  
  I just came across a Scientific American opinion piece that seems to cast doubt on statistics for “flu” deaths. I guess flu is not necessarily a killer in itself, more the “straw that breaks the camel’s back”.
  
  https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/comparing-covid-19-deaths-to-flu-deaths-is-like-comparing-apples-to-oranges
  
  What we do know is that community diseases, whether we all it “flu” or whatever, hasten the demise of a certain section of our community. That is the way of things – life’s vacuum cleaner.
  
  We live is a hostile environment, and we are either strong and develop immunity (yay, let’s hear it for a healthy body), or we don’t, and it kills us, or at the least, makes us weaker for the next round.
  
  Two things come to mind here, first we have to accept the basic reality of life, that people die, and why (I’ll leave that up to you to fill in the gaps). The second is that life is maintained by staying healthy, eating healthy, exercising and developing strong and positive relationships etc…. and a but of luck.
  
  But death comes to all of us at some time, and that we must accept without thinking we are God and can change that.
  
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  April 29, 2020 9:53am
greenfinger

Gees, I can’t wait till they lift the travel restrictions. It’ll allow Ardern to head over to NY for her dream UN job. May be she’ll be able “ELIMINATE or ERADICATE” COVID19 from the world by unleashing her Level 4 lockdown, do you think?
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April 29, 2020 9:30am
BeaB

What a treat to hear Sir John Key on Paul Henry last night. Knowledgeable, authoritative, full of good ideas, eloquent.
What a loss to NZ that we have such second-raters running the country (into the ground?) when there are brains like his being ignored.
How brilliantly we could do if we had a War Cabinet made up of people like Key and English.
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April 29, 2020 9:41am
- Tony Stuart
  
  I would like to see Bill English and Steven Joyce added to the National Party list for September, at positions #3 and #4, i.e. immediately behind the leader and his deputy.
  
  If Labour wins the election, they can relinquish their places easily enough, and the next names on the List get in. But if National wins, wouldn’t it be great to have that experience and competence readily available. They wouldn’t even need to become Ministers, but both could be “consultants” right across the whole Government.
  
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  April 29, 2020 10:18am
  - chaos
    
    I doubt either want to go back into that shit hole especially with the huge mess that has been left there now.
    
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    April 29, 2020 10:48am
  - All_on_Red
    
    Extraordinary times require extraordinary solutions.
    Your idea has merit
    
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    April 29, 2020 10:53am
  - marcw
    
    It would get the supposed 500,000 small and medium sized business operators on their side – and that’s a lot of votes.
    
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    April 29, 2020 11:46am
- Martin Williams
  
  New Zealand would have had a lot more deaths. This is because Key particularly would have placed the economy above the lives of Kiwis.
  
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  April 29, 2020 10:38am
  - All_on_Red
    
    How do you know we won’t see anymore deaths.
    You realise we don’t have Herd Immunity yet.
    
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    April 29, 2020 10:55am
    - Sacha
      
      And let’s hope that we have a sunny winter – not long weeks of rain and clouds where everyone stays indoors spreads infection in stuffy rooms and offices.
      The ‘office cold’ could be well replaced by CoVID 19.
      
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      April 29, 2020 12:39pm
  - chaos
    
    You speak so much shit. Under the idiot in power now we got lucky, nothing else, lucky. The shut down was caused by businesses and medical experts demanding she close the boarders and shut the country down. She was too busy wanting to have her Christchurch memorial until Bloomfield threatened to resign if it went ahead. The wealthy in NZ is who are responsible for 7 plane loads of medical supplies that the govt was too incompetent to get. Very telling when talking to my gp he states they found out in an emergency to turn to private business, not govt for supplies.
    
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    April 29, 2020 11:02am
  - bennerg
    
    Martin, the people who are dying “from Covid-19” are those with compromised health conditions. It appears that Covid-19 just tips them over the edge.
    
    It may very well be that they will appear in this years flu mortality stats, or in the next 12 months as social distancing is reduced.
    
    This is called life, and since we lost over 700 of these individuals last year to flu – to no great alarm – one may say that the dramatic approach taken here, compared to the more relaxed style, and equally effective, in Australia has been a tragic mistake.
    
    Without an effective economy we cannot pay for health, education, housing and food – all of which keep the rest of us healthy and alive.
    
    We could save over 300 lives a year by fitting speed limiters to our cars so that they cannot drive faster than 30km/hr … but we don’t, and so accept the fact that people will die as a result.
    
    We accept risk, danger, and death as a part of life, for without it, we cannot live.
    
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    April 29, 2020 11:05am
    - MCos
      
      I don’t know where you are talking about, in the UK they held a minute’s silence for the more than hundred NHS staff who have died.
      
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      April 29, 2020 12:52pm
      - bennerg
        
        Check the figures. The NHS employs approx 1.154 million staff out of a population of 66.6 million – that’s 1.7% of the population. With 162,350 deaths nationwide, that would suggest by proportion 2,811 should be dead.
        
        But as we know most hospital staff would be healthy, so to have only 100 die, indicates that those who died represent only 3.6% of the mortality seen elsewhere in the population.
        
        Figures without context tell the wrong message.
        
        Having said that there may well be an exacerbating issue, that is lack of proper PPE for real front line staff, as overload of the virus I accept can greatly affect healthy people. Otherwise it can be easily explained as those people being vulnerable, employment as a healthcare worker notwithstanding.
        
        BTW the 100 NHS workers were not all front line staff BTW, it included people like 111 telephone workers (their 111 service is a healthline). So any headlines as to their vulnerability as a whole should be questioned.
        
        When you see figures like this, it’s good to put it in context, as it’s such a pity our Media for the most don’t do the research, in such a basic way as done here in 10 minutes.
        
        https://www.bbc.com/news/health-52242856
        
        https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/nhs-workforce-statistics/nhs-workforce-statistics-march-2016-provisional-statistics
        
        https://www.healthcareers.nhs.uk/explore-roles/wider-healthcare-team/roles-wider-healthcare-team/clinical-support-staff/integrated-urgent-carenhs-111-roles
        
        https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html
        
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        April 29, 2020 4:46pm
  - cmm
    
    We still have flu season coming.
    
    CV19 is still going to pick a few armfuls of daisies.
    
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    April 29, 2020 1:24pm
  - alwyn
    
    Perhaps you will explain to us how Taiwan, with about 5 times our population has had only 429 cases and 6 deaths?
    
    And they did that without having to close down schools and businesses..
    
    I’ll give you a hint. They prepared for it back in January. They didn’t stuff around until mid-March because our PM wanted to show off her collection hijab to our foreign visitors.
    Instead Taiwan implemented contact tracing and strict quarantine procedures right back in January.
    https://thediplomat.com/2020/04/how-taiwan-battles-the-coronavirus/
    Why didn’t we do the same?
    
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    April 29, 2020 3:03pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Socialism has become SO powerful it can be used to change the meaning of English language words.
“Eliminate”
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April 29, 2020 9:45am
- cmm
  
  People keep on misquoting her. Grossly unfair.
  
  She said “eliminade”. That means something entirely different.
  
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  April 29, 2020 10:24am
  - Komata
    
    cmm@1024
    
    So someone gave her a drink she didn’t order and that she didn’t like, and her clearly-enunciated expression of disgust (as per the UoW Comms degree student handbook) was ‘eliminade’?
    
    Just asking…
    
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    April 29, 2020 11:10am
  - alloytoo
    
    Is that like Lemonade?
    
    Lots of lemons in this government.
    
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    April 29, 2020 11:14am
    - Steve Otto(North Shore)
      
      Fucking full of them
      
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      April 29, 2020 1:19pm
  - kevn
    
    @cmm…. ‘bin’ this and ‘bin’ that is also a little annoying.
    
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    April 29, 2020 11:24am
greenfinger

Since Ardern lifted the lockdown, the queue of international dignitaries lining up to hold court with her can now been seen stretching all the way to London. Gosh, even the Queen wanted a piece of our own Princess. Now that the Jacinda brand is so powerful, perhaps she should start her own line of products and employ all of us who have lost our businesses and jobs to work for her? Or am I being an idiot? She doesn’t start business. She end businesses?
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April 29, 2020 10:01am
Swifty

“Māori more likely to be targeted if police stay armed, says justice advocate”

https://play.stuff.co.nz/details/_6152683569001

That’s odd. I have many, many Maori family and friends and never once have they had the police ‘target them with firearms’.

I have though seen the police respond with firearms to threats from people being violent but irrespective of their ethnicity.

If this woman really is a ‘justice advocate’ perhaps she might better direct her efforts to the victims of violence and crime – again, irrespective, of the ethnicity of offenders.

On the other hand perhaps she is just a confused nincompoop. I truly wonder if this person thinks that because more poor people eat KFC that KFC is to blame for them being poor.
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April 29, 2020 10:04am
- Garbageman
  
  And morbidly obese
  
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  April 29, 2020 12:06pm
Ruawai

Amazing that we have had record use of food banks and yet when we get to level 3 we have Hell’s pizza saying they have had their best sales day ever.
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April 29, 2020 10:14am
- chaos
  
  Hmmm, I got takeaways last night, have never had a food bank parcel. Not sure why you jumped straight away and tried to make a connection
  
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  April 29, 2020 10:46am
  - Tall Man
    
    Because for many there would be a connection.
    
    After a month of semi lockdown a takeaway was not even a close consideration on the list of must do’s.
    
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    April 29, 2020 5:30pm
Tauhei Notts

I have a few bob in shares, both here and Australia, and I get several emails from brokers and investment advisory outfits. As I read them I think;
“I’ve read this before”
So I grab a cup of coffee and a gasper and go in the garden to think. Then it came to me; I last read so much optimistic garbage from investment advisors about November, or was it December, 1987.
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April 29, 2020 10:21am
- Tall Man
  
  November/December was post crash. Optimism was a tad premature at that time unless a really long term strategy was in play.
  
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  April 29, 2020 5:32pm
Durden

Got this link from a breathless friend in UAE yesterday. https://www.facebook.com/18793419640/posts/10158314233079641/?sfnsn=mo

Another piece extolling Jacinda–by CNN no less ! But unsurprisingly, dig just a bit, and a NZ connection appears. You can add the sycophantic Julia Hollingsworth of CNN to the bunch of Kiwi bred “journalists” happy to place fawning stories. Read more about Julia in her bio https://edition.cnn.com/profiles/julia-hollingsworth#about

Presume “Disco Pants” currently at the Canadian broadcasting Corporation will turn her attention to Queen Jaz once she stops drooling at Tru ‘Doh’.

I wonder if it is the Union connections, or drunken university shagging, or the PM’s PR person having excellent influence. They have now covered off the Guardian, Washington Post, CNN and whole bunch of stories on Al Jazeera from the large Kiwi contingent there.

Am I right in saying the most of these reporters are female journalists from NZ ?

But back to my friend I had to point out the comparison with (right wing) Australia on KB achieving the same in a less draconian way, the redefinition of the word “elimination” on the fly, and to wait and see the impact of a gold standard turd of a contact tracing system that is 2-days behind the virus even with low infection rates. We pay Jaz’s > $1B/day subsidy to keep the lock-down going so that she can bask in sycophantic publicity.

I pointed out the planting of other stories in intl.press, her UN ambitions, sent him her IUSY antecedents and 15xComrade speech.

Also pointed out that NONE of her pre-election promises that require actual work have been met, only those that involved simply doling out my money with the stoke of a pen. The mistake of oil & gas ban, and the failure of gun ban.

I also pointed out that no one believes Treasury forecasts and he should wait till unemployment goes upwards of 25%. And I told him that the coup-de-grace was being prepared for delivery by ex-FM Cullen who is advising on 2020 budget (translation– writing it ‘coz Robertson is tits at it). This will get at the “rick pricks”. Something Cullen failed to do during his tenure and now has a option for redemption. For creating a legacy for himself. “Cullenomics” will surely kill the country. Unless the doddery dotard’s and NZ First’s self-preservation instincts kick in.

I pointed out that on the cards were:
— GST to 17.5 or 20%
— Progressive income tax up to 49% at top range
— Illegal re-direction of government’s superannuation funds to NZ projects
— Illegal re-direction of citizens’ Kiwisaver funds to NZ projects
— Wealth tax
— Financial transaction tax
— Inheritance tax
— Death duties
— CGT
— A bunch of Green taxes
— And a bunch of temporary levies that will become permanent.

Welcome to New Venezuela. No thanks.
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April 29, 2020 10:27am
- Ruahine
  
  Durden.
  I guess that is where a lot of the $50 million is going.
  You can buy a lot of friends for that sort of money.
  
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  April 29, 2020 1:58pm
Martin Williams

Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
Excluding San Marino and Andorra, Britain has the 5th worst Covid-19 deaths/captia in the world.

They sit behind Belgium which has had a horror run but does count those dying from Covid-19 outside hospital. Italy which had no warning, Spain and France which is famously fatalistic about such things.

The ONS is preparing the British public for their Covid-19 death toll to rise by up to 40%.

This is what happened when you have an unkempt tramp in Number 10 who refused to lock the country down because it wasn’t British. He also boasted he was still shaking hands two weeks before he finally acted.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/europe/300000626/coronavirus-uk-heading-for-europes-worst-death-toll-official-figure-could-be-40-per-cent-higher

Beware those who put the economy above the health of the people…
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April 29, 2020 10:30am
- MrTips
  
  You’re really good at fiction Martin. I would say you should turn pro, but …..
  
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  April 29, 2020 10:59am
  - Tall Man
    
    He’d need to find a bigger idiot than himself to get paid.
    
    With reasoning like the above he would struggle.
    
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    April 29, 2020 5:35pm
- MT_Tinman
  
  I’ll type this slowly for you:
  
  Every time an economy has dropped in recent history so has the average age for death of the populace.
  
  It is the “economy” that pays for medical care, hospitals, medicines, medical equipment etc.
  
  Based on your comments I despair even the level of communist-wannabe trolls this site now attracts.
  
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  April 29, 2020 11:13am
- cmm
  
  Beware those who put the health of a few people above the health of many people.
  
  The main reason we’re doing well compared to Europe and USA comes down to two things:
  1) Southern vs Northern hemisphere. Being in the SH gives us numerous advantages. Even complete basket cases like South Africa are going pretty well numbers wise.
  2)Population density.
  
  Stop eating up the crap they spout in the media. So much of it is bullshit. Fact check it yourself.
  
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  April 29, 2020 11:45am
- Jack5
  
  The Wuhan flu has yet to begin its devastation in Africa, Martin Williams.
  
  And by the figures in this international chart, the UK has fewer reported cases of Covid-19 per million of population than Spain, Belgium, Ireland, Switzerland, Italy, France, and Portugal. In deaths per million from the disease, the UK has fewer than France, Italy, Spain.
  
  Source, which claims to be updated to today:
  
  https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
  
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  April 29, 2020 11:50am
kevn

@benn… Be interesting to see the drop in UK ‘normal flu’ death numbers in this last period.
Died with (not of) covid will be common.
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April 29, 2020 10:30am
- MCos
  
  You might be interested to know that in the 16th week of 2020 double the usual number of people died in the UK. That is 22,351 died, which is 11,854 more than average over 27 years.
  https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/world/2020/04/coronavirus-united-kingdom-on-track-to-have-one-of-europe-s-worst-death-tolls.html
  
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  April 29, 2020 12:40pm
  - rangitoto
    
    How many of the additional deaths were caused by the lockdown rather than the Wuflu?
    
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    April 29, 2020 3:01pm
  - Tall Man
    
    Lets wait for a 12 month period and see if there is a discernible aberration to get excited about.
    
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    April 29, 2020 5:27pm
Martin Williams

Question:

Is Curia currently polling people’s views on the return of John Key to the National Party?
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April 29, 2020 10:57am
- rockape
  
  He has just moved to the USA so I doubt that.
  
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  April 29, 2020 11:00am
  - Martin Williams
    
    Ah, yes. When the problems started mounting at ANZ he quit and ran away.
    
    Some things never change.
    
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    April 29, 2020 11:52am
    - rockape
      
      What problems were those. Falling unemployment ,growing economy, just what exactly?
      
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      April 29, 2020 12:18pm
    - barnacle bill
      
      Correct Martin.
      
      ANZ is not the only one he ran away from.
      
      As I have said previously, his Government got very lucky with the Canterbury Earthquakes and all the economic activity that resulted from that.
      No way can the Earthquakes and the Corona Virus can be compared.
      
      EQ had a massive financial inflow in to NZ, and Covid -19 has a massive cost to NZ.
      
      They cannot be compared and those who say that Key and his mates has the answers are just full of bullshit.
      
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      April 29, 2020 1:34pm
      - Jack5
        
        Barnacle Bill: You, too, are lying about John Key and the ANZ. See posts below. Key is still a director of the ANZ, and the bank, whose NZ branch is the biggest bank in this country, is lucky to have him on its board.
        
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        April 29, 2020 4:11pm
      - barnacle bill
        
        Tall Boy @5.16 pm
        
        Jezz Wept Tall Boy.
        
        You are like a Stuffed PoP Up Toaster.
        
        Toast arrives all burnt and dry and not very welcome.
        
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        April 29, 2020 8:09pm
      - barnacle bill
        
        @Jack 5 # 4.11pm.
        
        I guess if one try’s often, then eventually he got lucky.
        
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        April 29, 2020 8:13pm
    - igm
      
      What a display of socialist envy . . . John Key never took a salary, put us into the black, and reduced unemployment. What have your Labour slugs done?
      Totally fucked everything.
      
      19 3
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      April 29, 2020 1:44pm
      - barnacle bill
        
        Do you mean that the Covid – 19 has fucked everything ?
        
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        April 29, 2020 2:06pm
      - Tall Man
        
        Crap billie, ardern had this country fucked well before the flu got here.
        
        Take your silly glasses off and try to see the real world.
        
        Fancy joining forces with women hating victim blaming martin. You are judged by the company you keep and as far as I can see you aren’t scoring very high.
        
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        April 29, 2020 5:16pm
      - MCos
        
        In reality John Key claimed he was going to donate part of his PM’s salary to charity.
        Of course he earned ten million dollars from his investments so who needs the puny salary anyway.
        
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        April 29, 2020 7:27pm
    - alwyn
      
      And who feeds you this line of b**s Martin?
      Perhaps you will explain how you come up with statements such as “When the problems started mounting at ANZ he quit and ran away.”
      I’ll refer you to the links of the Board members for the ANZ in both New Zealand and Australia.
      Sir John Key features on both.
      https://www.anz.co.nz/about-us/our-company/anz-management/
      https://www.anz.com/shareholder/centre/about/board-of-directors/
      
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      April 29, 2020 3:13pm
    - Jack5
      
      What a liar you are, Martin Williams.
      
      John Key is still a director of the ANZ Bank.
      
      Rank among the things that never change, Martin, your bullshit.
      
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      April 29, 2020 4:10pm
    - Tall Man
      
      “somethings never change”, you mean like ardern telling lies and people like you attacking victims of sexual abuse?
      
      I’d like to think that things can improve but people like you and labour’s lackys are so consumed with envy you are terrified someone will get more of the pie than you.
      
      Looking at a few of the newer labour mps there’s far too much pie being wolfed down than should be anyway.
      
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      April 29, 2020 5:19pm
- Tall Man
  
  What a really stupid post.
  
  Just because helen is getting a hard on controlling her wee puppet ardern doesn’t mean other ex pms are keen on staying around.
  
  Those who are successful like Sir John Key have no need to look back, they are far too busy cracking forward with their lives.
  
  Only labour losers realise they have nothing outside of fucking up others’ lives.
  
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  April 29, 2020 5:21pm
Wired-one

What a pleasure it was to see Sir John Key on Paul Henrys show last night, no teleprompter, completely understands the Covid-19 economic recovery needs and he was talking plain, frank sense. I don’t know how many others watched it, but Ardern needs to make that phone call. Key was asked if he would be open to leading a economic recovery team and he said yes, will it happen? NOPE. He also asked the government to come at the recovery in a way that asks “what can we open” and review this daily, not a ideological blinded this will be shut until then etc viewpoint. Will the government use commonsense moving forward? NOPE. Bring back John, Stephen and Bill!
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April 29, 2020 11:20am
- MCos
  
  There’s an election coming up.
  He can stand if he thinks he has all the answers.
  
  Did he have any views on AirNZ?
  
  4 11
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  April 29, 2020 12:29pm
  - Harriet
    
    With all the turbulence that industry is always under I’m starting to wonder if it should be a form of nationalisation.
    
    Along with Qantas and Singapore airlines. They can all operate under whatever structure they like and include the pacific islands as well.
    
    Is there really that much money to be made domestically in NZ with a population of just 5 million. Or covering an entire continent with just 25 million. Or Singapore without one. Or the islands without one. Given the size of the international market where they make most of there money[or should] they can handle government regulation in the domestic market to keep prices low. Govt assistance to get international profit is what they should be concentrating on, with the flow on into the domestic market.
    
    Visa and travel overhauls and other general participation matters especially health, are long over due between these countries. Look at the measles outbreak.
    Those airlines will still face there major competition from all other airlines but at least the base they are working off is far more stable, leading to times like this where it wouldn’t be of such great concern getting up and running again between all these places.
    
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    April 29, 2020 1:08pm
Wired-one

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/04/david-seymour-calls-on-government-to-explain-ministerial-pay-cut-plan-following-veto-to-proposed-bill.html

Very interesting.
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April 29, 2020 11:26am
- Tall Man
  
  “Noise” for the public doesn’t always transfer into actual action.
  
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  April 29, 2020 5:12pm
Tony Stuart

Guess who’s forming his own political party:

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=12328220

Yes, it’s Jami-Lee Ross, and the Advance New Zealand Party. I needed a laugh, this morning, so thanks a bunch JLR 😀
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April 29, 2020 11:28am
- Swifty
  
  More foolishness from JLR.
  
  He would have been better spending his time gearing up for a life, and income, outside politics.
  
  He’s had his time and he blew it.
  
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  April 29, 2020 11:35am
- chaos
  
  *caution, woman don’t join*
  
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  April 29, 2020 11:35am
  - marcw
    
    Maybe Allison Mau, or I hear Lizzie Marvelly is looking for a new gig ATM. Can’t see any potential probs 🙂
    
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    April 29, 2020 11:56am
- Inandout
  
  TS, I wonder if Andrea Vance had a say in the name?
  
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  April 29, 2020 11:40am
  - Tony Stuart
    
    Haha – I doubt it though. JLR leaked all his attacks through Tova O’Brien at Newshub. We have TOP; the TO’B Party might have got confusing 😀
    
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    April 29, 2020 12:03pm
- Maggie Pie
  
  I think Sarah Dowie will be looking for a new job.
  Maybe JLR could get her onboard for the ‘Womans Affairs’ portfolio?
  
  😛
  
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  April 29, 2020 12:11pm
  - Paulus
    
    Understand that Sarah Downie is leaving Parliament at the end of this terms and returning to her Law Practice.
    She actually was renominated by her local Party prior to her decision.
    
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    April 29, 2020 2:32pm
- rockape
  
  Good luck with getting 500 paid up members!
  
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  April 29, 2020 12:16pm
  - Tall Man
    
    Good luck with getting 50.
    
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    April 29, 2020 5:09pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Perhaps he has a few foreign supporters who need help with splitting cheques.
  
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  April 29, 2020 1:29pm
- artemisia
  
  No show without Punch. And no show of setting up a party, winning an electorate or being front runner for a high paid new job is about right.
  
  I guess he thinks he has plenty of local support, hasn’t figured they are laughing at, not with. Still he will get paid well until the end of the year.
  
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  April 29, 2020 5:06pm
Gravelroad

Has anyone applied for dental treatment lately?
I have a couple of issues – broken filling, pain etc.
I phoned up regular local dental practice and the remote message for level 3 was same as for level 4:
Do not ask for treatment unless an emergency.
Leave message and someone will contact you but only in case of a real emergency.
I wouldn’t describe my situation as an emergency so took it no further.
Guess I will have to wait until level 2 or beyond?
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April 29, 2020 11:29am
- rangitoto
  
  Get it attended to as soon as you can. Dental problems can have severe downstream health impact.
  
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  April 29, 2020 12:10pm
- MCos
  
  Can you go to A & E for dental treatment?
  
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  April 29, 2020 12:20pm
  - chaos
    
    No
    
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    April 29, 2020 12:47pm
- chaos
  
  Follow through the call, risk of infection should make it an emergency
  
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  April 29, 2020 12:49pm
- All_on_Red
  
  There’s are Emergency Dentists working.
  If you’re in Auckland iirc there’s one at Smales Farm and another at Kohi.
  Probably more- usually where there’s also 24 hour private A and E and Chemists.
  
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  April 29, 2020 1:08pm
  - Paulus
    
    One in Tauranga A&E 2nd Avenue. Telephone first for confirmation of times.
    A&E 8am to 6pm 7 days
    
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    April 29, 2020 2:34pm
- Tall Man
  
  That is an emergency.
  
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  April 29, 2020 1:09pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  I wouldn’t describe my situation as an emergency so took it no further.
  
  No-one knows your pain threshhold.
  
  If you are in pain, make a fuss.
  
  It might cost you mega $$$$ if you have to wait around a few more weeks…
  
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  April 29, 2020 1:33pm
- MikeMan
  
  I just spoke to an optometrist about my daughters eye test that was scheduled for 8/4/20.
  
  She has been having headaches when doing close work for the last 3 weeks and is struggling to complete online schooling as it is largely laptop based.
  
  Cannot be seen until Level 2 they tell me 🙁
  
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  April 29, 2020 1:53pm
  - Gravelroad
    
    The other aspect of this is strange:
    In the town where I go for Dr/dentist consultations it’s often claimed there is a shortage of medical professionals. If you want a doctor’s non-urgent appointment, you can expect a wait of a fortnight at least.
    Family members who moved back to the district a year ago were perturbed to discover that they were put on a wait list for some weeks before being accepted into a GP/dentist practice.
    Now these same GP’s are saying that consultations are now down by over 50% and they are experiencing financial difficulties.
    So does that mean that a lot of people in normal times visit doctors and dentists when they don’t really need to?
    
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    April 29, 2020 3:46pm
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    That’s not acceptable..
    
    Ring your GP and demand that she is seen immediately by a medical professional.
    
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    April 29, 2020 4:21pm
Jack5

Captain Cook landed in Australia 250 years ago today.

The result of Cook’s visit to Australia and New Zealand has been a continent, and our nearby archipelago of New Zealand, developing into English-speaking, Western, developed countries.

These parts of the world otherwise could now be speaking French, Spanish, Chinese, Indonesian. The Maori tongue and Australia’s many indigenous languages would not have remained dominant.

Peter Fitzsimmons writes about Cook’s arrival fairly in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age:

https://www.theage.com.au/national/here-s-what-captain-cook-s-landing-should-be-about-20200428-p54nu8.html
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April 29, 2020 11:33am
- mikenmildagain
  
  “Such are the consequences,” Cook wrote with bitter regret, “of a commerce with Europeans and what is still more to our shame, civilised Christians. We debauch their morals … and we introduce among them wants and perhaps diseases which they never before knew and which serves only to disturb that happy tranquillity they and their forefathers have enjoyed. If anyone denies the truth of this assertion let him tell me what the natives of the whole extent of America have gained by the commerce they have had with Europeans.”
  
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  April 29, 2020 12:44pm
  - rangitoto
    
    Perhaps by happy tranquillity he meant constant warfare.
    
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    April 29, 2020 1:13pm
    - mikenmildagain
      
      He wasn’t speaking about early modern Europe…
      
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      April 29, 2020 2:30pm
    - UrbanNeocolonialist
      
      the freedom to make a good meal for your enemies.
      
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      April 29, 2020 10:19pm
  - UrbanNeocolonialist
    
    Literacy, vastly increased comfort, opportunities and life expectancy, freedom from famine and war. Varied diet and of course (Mr Cleese):
    sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, fresh water system, and public health
    
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    April 29, 2020 10:19pm
curry4me

This might be useful for anyone who spends time in the USA, or does business there.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/openingamerica/
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April 29, 2020 12:17pm
curry4me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qfGc1taUxg
Belgium has a high CCP virus death rate. It’s part of the Belt and Road
Initiative. The Belgian elite support it. Antwerp has a BRI taskforce. It’s been busy. Many
Chinese experts have been trained there. There are six Confucius Institutes there too.
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April 29, 2020 12:18pm
- Batman
  
  That’s a hell of a lot of line drawing.
  
  You should get in touch with Nicky Hager, you two could write his novels as a duo!
  
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  April 29, 2020 12:52pm
curry4me

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/28/cruz-bill-pentagon-china-film-215942
The SCRIPT Act would block cooperation between the DOD, and Harveywood studios
That accept CCP censorship.
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April 29, 2020 12:18pm
ex-golfer

Once again the daily obituaries show many people in the 80+ age group dying. While unfortunate, this is a fact of life – older people die!

So far the majority of deaths attributed to COVID-19 in NZ has been a person in the older age bracket, most (probably all but we are not told) with pre-existing health conditions. On the daily 1pm Ardern and Bloomfield lecture we get expressions of sympathy, furrowed brows and tilting heads – all designed to show compassion for the families of the latest “victims”……but never hear any sympathy for the numerous other people that have passed away in the previous 24 hours.

Why?

Hint: political point-scoring and posturing.
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April 29, 2020 12:32pm
- Ruahine
  
  On average 90 people die every day in New Zealand.
  
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  April 29, 2020 1:49pm
artemisia

I see the 1pm standup photo op is back on again today, though we were told they are now over. Maybe an announcement, and it would have to be either good or bad news, not same old same old. I am picking it will be a firm date to move to level 2.
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April 29, 2020 12:37pm
- ex-golfer
  
  Nope – SWMBO will continue to front every day for the limelight it gives her. She “took advice”.
  
  The election date was quietly confirmed in Parliamentary committee this morning so the advice would have been short:
  
  Recommendation: Continue to attend daily 1pm stand-ups and tell NZ how wonderful you are – and schedule them everyday until 19 September.
  
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  April 29, 2020 1:26pm
Maggie Pie

Are Health Minister David Clark & Shane Jones related?

Asking for a friend…..
8 2
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April 29, 2020 12:49pm
- chaos
  
  Yes, they both come from the blood line plonker
  
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  April 29, 2020 1:11pm
Faroffsound

Meanwhile once the PM and her experts have eliminaded the Wuflu and the economy is working again they will turn their attention to future-proofing.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-29/military-leaders-warn-australia-prepare-for-worse-coronavirus/12193228

Or maybe not ….
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April 29, 2020 1:12pm
ex-golfer

I find it very sinister that decisions to move down Alert Levels are no longer based on the original definitions of the Levels, but rather on the “behaviour” of New Zealanders.
Jacinda (and now Uncle Ashley) says if we all behave, we may get rewarded.
How kind.
How very motherly.
How authoritarian.
Kim Jong-Un would be proud.
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April 29, 2020 1:13pm
- MCos
  
  You know very well that the spread of COVID-19 curtailed by a variety a measures, social distancing, personal hygiene, international arrivals quarantine and so on.
  The vast majority of people have stuck to the strictures thus far and as a result the new infections are down to hardly any. Two day.
  My understanding is that the goal is to keep the numbers down as we step back through the levels.
  If the infection rate takes off I suppose it’ll be the government’s fault. If it doesn’t they overreacted.
  Whatever.
  In a few months time there’s going to be a big surge in unemployment because the construction industry will be in trouble. It always is in a recession.
  So, with the right attitude from the multitudes, we will have kept COVID-19 at bay, but that’s only going to be part of the problem.
  
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  April 29, 2020 1:55pm
  - Cinematic
    
    Nothing unexpected about Kiwi’s response to this virus. No need to pat ourselves on the back.
    
    There is however a need to dissect this governments mishandling of the virus. Australia did much better.
    
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    April 29, 2020 2:04pm
    - MCos
      
      What’s this constant fixation with Oz?
      I’m guessing the people over there don’t give a rat’s arse what’s going on over here. We went one way, they have gone several different other ways. Every state is different.
      We can look at any country in the world and say didn’t we do well or whatever.
      
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      April 29, 2020 7:10pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Standard Lefty bullying technique..
  
  They never acknowledge that their lousy planning or inaction was to blame for any failure.
  They lay the blame on the victim.
  
  It’s a bit like the scam religious healers use… If you have faith, then you’ll be healed.
  When you fail to heal, it’s your own fault for not having enough faith.
  
  And that’s all our PM seems capable of when the chips are down:
  Threats and bullying behaviours.
  
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  April 29, 2020 2:01pm
  - Tall Man
    
    Exavtly, ask martin.
    
    Any woman silly enough to be sexually assaulted bears all the blame, especially if assaulted by a serving member of the elite, that’s labour party for you peasants.
    
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    April 29, 2020 4:59pm
rangitoto

Two new cases. Cindy has zero tolerance for cases, so she will be huffy today.
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April 29, 2020 1:16pm
WaveyDavey

Aah… Winston’s border statement makes sense

Interference for Clark – that would have been the main topic otherwise
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April 29, 2020 1:21pm
- WaveyDavey
  
  and just before the 1pm
  
  Skillz
  
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  April 29, 2020 1:27pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Words of Wisdom.
‘The water ain’t gonna clear up until you get the pigs outta the creek’
Author unknown
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April 29, 2020 1:28pm
Jack5

The WHO, discredited by its cover-up of the Wuhan flu warning from Taiwan, damns New Zealand with praise from its “Western Pacific incident manager,” Abdi Mahamud.

The Red Radio web site reports him as saying:

“Our view of New Zealand’s response has been one of the strongest in the world, and there’s a lot that global communities can learn from the response,” he said.

Next there’ll be a handout to WHO from New Zealand to help meet the gap after its finances were Trumped.

Mahamud pushed New Zealand to provide finance for Pacific islands in their fight against Wuhan flu.

That will help Jacinderella get a big UN-type job, so stand by for taxpayer funds going the WHO way.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/415375/covid-19-new-zealand-s-response-has-been-one-of-the-strongest-who
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April 29, 2020 1:38pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  C130 was practicing yesterday, and flew out today.
  A pallet load of cash for WHO????? Only YOUR money, not her’s.
  
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  April 29, 2020 3:16pm
  - mikenmildagain
    
    Rumour has it was taking some South Africans home – they couldn’t stand it on the North Shore any more.
    
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    April 29, 2020 4:31pm
Michael NZ

China and CCP still bullying and lying…

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15931/coronavirus-china-cuba-venezuela
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April 29, 2020 4:44pm
Michael NZ

why didn’t I think of drugs with Maduro and Venezuela..

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15921/venezuela-maduro-cuban-army
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April 29, 2020 4:45pm
Michael NZ

EU falls over..
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15943/coronavirus-china-intimidation
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April 29, 2020 4:46pm
Michael NZ

Finally something good form Trudeau’s Canada

https://www.macdonaldlaurier.ca/communist-partys-rule-fear-endangers-chinese-citizens-world-共产党依靠恐吓为主的政/
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April 29, 2020 4:55pm
Wired-one

Lefties always talking about raising taxes to cover the spend for this pandemic. How about our public sector become more efficient and we start thinning out the weeds from the chaff? Why is the answer always more taxes? It should be less taxes, less regulations, more freedom, less government, more efficiency and more accountability from those who live off tax payer money. Wake up NZ!
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April 29, 2020 7:28pm
Poppa

Out in the community I have noticed that there is no longer the “middle ground”

People are either besotted by Cindy’s [del. – mod] or totally against her. There is no longer such a thing as a swinging voter

We are in for a very interesting time over the next few months
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April 29, 2020 7:56pm
Rob2

[Deleted – World Daily News – WHERE FACTS DON’T MATTER. Mod]
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April 29, 2020 8:05pm

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