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April 30, 2020 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 30 April 2020

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mikenmildagain

Happy 100th birthday to Tom Moore.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcouA_oWsnU
Over £29 million raised for the NHS so far.
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April 30, 2020 8:00am
- Tony Stuart
  
  I hope Captain Tom gets a knighthood for his 100th birthday. What a remarkable man he is and an inspiration to us all.
  
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  April 30, 2020 8:08am
  - fernglas
    
    People like him make me feel guilty for being a cynic
    
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    April 30, 2020 8:20am
  - david
    
    A promotion would be in order. Major Tom has a nice ring about it.
    
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    April 30, 2020 8:57am
    - barnacle bill
      
      And a great old song it is. from way back in the sixties I think.
      
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      April 30, 2020 9:09am
    - CJames
      
      According to the Telegraph, he has been promoted to full Colonel – so maybe the Ministry of Defence didn’t want to risk him being called a Major.
      
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      April 30, 2020 1:07pm
      - Paulus
        
        Honorary Colonel – well done.
        
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        April 30, 2020 1:34pm
      - Biscuit
        
        https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8271309/Happy-Birthday-COLONEL-Tom-Queen-promotes-Captain-Tom-Moore-100th-birthday.html
        
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        April 30, 2020 1:50pm
    - Rachael Membery
      
      From ground control.
      
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      April 30, 2020 1:31pm
    - curry4me
      
      david: He’s Colonel Tom now.
      
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      April 30, 2020 8:13pm
    - tf78
      
      He’s been made an honourary Colonel.
      
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      May 1, 2020 1:22pm
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Moore_(fundraiser)
    
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    April 30, 2020 9:40am
  - artemisia
    
    He has just had a train named after him. Reckon he will like that better than a K.
    
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    April 30, 2020 11:55am
- Fitz
  
  He ought to get a knighthood, raising that much for the NHS. Also, the Queen might be sympathetic, being 94 herself.
  
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  April 30, 2020 8:19am
- Maggie Pie
  
  Was last seen boarding a private jet with busty blonde in toe….destination Cayman Islands.
  
  😛
  
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  April 30, 2020 8:19am
  - Tony Stuart
    
    And the best of British luck to him 😀
    
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    April 30, 2020 8:46am
  - Biscuit
    
    Let’s hope, heh heh, he can get his Zimmer over, Maggie.
    
    Re the knighthood, why the wait?
    
    Imagine the nightmarish scenario of Tom ‘passing’ beforehand.
    
    HM should use her own discretion and knight him herself. NOW…
    
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    April 30, 2020 9:37am
    - david
      
      A bit like a “ field commission” eh?
      
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      April 30, 2020 12:48pm
    - Rachael Membery
      
      With a two-metre sword for distance?
      
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      April 30, 2020 1:34pm
  - pdm
    
    Has he taken his 20 year old grandson with him to keep the Blonde happy – just curious.
    
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    April 30, 2020 9:46am
    - Biscuit
      
      The Grandson was only 16 the other day, pdm!
      
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      April 30, 2020 10:12am
  - Aunty
    
    That blonde’s name isn’t Bob, is it? Hey, I’m just saying. We live in the modern age!
    
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    April 30, 2020 11:09am
- mark15
  
  I can’t fault what he’s done,but
  
  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-7241025/Rise-NHS-compensation-bill.html
  
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  April 30, 2020 8:30am
  - mark15
    
    https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/doctors-basic-errors-are-killing-1000-patients-a-month-7939674.html
    
    Keep those blinkers on people.
    
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    April 30, 2020 10:37am
  - PhilBest
    
    I’m with Mark on this.
    
    https://delingpoleworld.com/dr-will-and-the-nhs/
    
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    April 30, 2020 10:56am
    - PhilBest
      
      Keep those blinkers on, people
      
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      April 30, 2020 5:24pm
- Aliog
  
  Thanks mikenmildagain for pushing the endlessly tedious Phil Best of the opening comment in GD.
  
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  April 30, 2020 12:59pm
PhilBest

St Jacinda is worshipped by the global progressive media for her “decisive leadership”. But Victor Orban in Hungary is savaged for “destroying democracy” for doing directly comparable things.
https://summit.news/2020/04/27/hungarian-minister-challenges-cnns-fake-news-about-suspending-parliament/
Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó frequently does a good job confronting antagonistic global media interviewers. Do watch the embedded video there, and if you have time it’s worth looking for other video of him in action.
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April 30, 2020 8:00am
- JackRabbit
  
  Professor Des Gorman would not agree with her “decisive leadership”.
  
  “New Zealand was ill-prepared for the Covid-19 pandemic and was caught with its pants down, leading academic Professor Des Gorman has told the Epidemic Response Committee.”
  
  https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12328348
  
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  April 30, 2020 8:29am
  - alloytoo
    
    Remember, remember March 15th………The day Jacinda was prepared to sacrifice the wellbeing of New Zealanders for.
    
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    April 30, 2020 10:25am
    - JackRabbit
      
      Yes, a day of self indulgent self gratification.
      
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      April 30, 2020 11:17am
  - Jack5
    
    Gorman, head of Auckland University School of Medicine from 2005 to 2010, was at one time a submariner and diver in the Royal Australian Navy.
    
    So it seems this white, blue-eyed bloke, like Steve Elers, the former West Australian cop who lectures at Massey University, is from the rising group of Australian Maori. Gorman’s university blurb notes affiliations with Ngati Kuri and Ngapuhi.
    
    Elers seems to be similar to Gorman in having an independent frame of mind and in being unafraid to speak up.
    
    Incidentally, looking online at Elers’s background at Massey, I found his School of Communication, Journalism and Marketing at the university has about 50 lecturers. Soon they will outnumber print journalists in New Zealand.
    
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    April 30, 2020 11:28am
  - Michael NZ
    
    I heard Prof Gorman wasn’t up to it.
    went to meetings talked a lot and did nothing, just reports.
    but being in charge of training he didn’t get much done
    not got an axe to grind has he?
    
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    April 30, 2020 8:23pm
- Inandout
  
  Phil. the failing CNN has now lost their huge (captured) airport audience, and by all accounts the $170k annual fee each was once charged. Yet we still have our radio stations and TV quoting CNN.
  
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  April 30, 2020 8:30am
  - ross411
    
    CNN gets heavily promoted and featured over less old boys club type endeavours on youtube, which likely is keeping them alive and helping them retain the brainwashing they inflict on those the audience they have captured.
    
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    April 30, 2020 10:31am
CJames

According to Morning Report this morning, there was a major water pollution event with dead eels, raw effluent visible and ecoli levels twice acceptable limits. Why wasn’t the Green Party protesting? Could it be that there was no dairy farms involved as it was in Remuera and the miscreant was Auckland City Council? Certainly shows where the double standards are.
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April 30, 2020 8:00am
- CJames
  
  Listening to the article again, the ecoli was 700 times safe swimming levels. And the council will just post a few signs and might fix the faulty infra structure over the next ten years or so. Where are the protests?
  
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  April 30, 2020 8:41am
- tui47
  
  I walk past that spot everyday and have to hold my nose! The problem with the stream that normally flows through a wetland area into the bay was the drought over summer. The water completely disappeared leaving the eels in no water. Once the water was gone the leftovers in the stream from council pollution dried out and were exposed to all. The council has generally been pretty lax about Remuera over summer. We had long weeds gathering in gutters for months that turned into full size plants stopping any water flow if it did rain. There has been a official at the top of the stream testing the water over the last two weeks. I think the council has been neglecting the area to save money.
  
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  April 30, 2020 8:48am
  - Nickc2
    
    I would have thought council neglect was because it’s Remuera and not too many Labour and Green supporters live there.
    
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    April 30, 2020 9:10am
    - CJames
      
      On the contrary Nick, places like Remuera are a hotbed of Green voters. All those doctor’s wives voting Green to salve their consciences for using the big 4WD SUV to ferry the kids to and from school 200m away. The very definition of virtue signaling.
      
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      April 30, 2020 10:05am
      - kowtow
        
        The type who have the bumper sticker “Fonterra, stop shitting in our rivers” , who never give a second thought to what happens after they push the flush button .
        
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        April 30, 2020 10:28am
- Brian McDonald
  
  Haven’t you heard? There’s a lockdown going on.
  
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  April 30, 2020 10:13am
  - alloytoo
    
    Pretty certain sewage is an essential service.
    
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    April 30, 2020 10:27am
krazykiwi

It’s been said that the Russian people will tolerate a bad leader, but they won’t tolerate a weak leader. The last 100 years certainly shown this to be the case, with a succession of strong leaders who have been, for the most part, disastrous for the freedom and liberty of the Russian people.

Strong leadership can be good leadership if it is accompanied with a few attributes that I’ll get to shortly, however strong leadership on its own it almost always authoritarian, self-serving and ultimately harmful. We can see this is leaders like Stalin, Kim Jong Un, Putin, Erdogan, Mao, Pol Pot, Maduro and a laundry list of others. Closer to home, there would be few people who would suggest that Muldoon wasn’t a strong leader, but fewer still who’d remember him being a good leader.

I’ve had the privilege to work alongside a number of outstanding leaders over the years. What made their leadership ‘strong’ wasn’t decisive, unilateral action but rather humility, authenticity (aka transparency), an openness to being wrong, and a willingness to allow others to take the credit for the good stuff, while being first to take responsibility for things that didn’t work out well. These leaders had an incredible knack of holding lightly a number of apparently contradictory ideas and options before coordinating what was, with the benefit of hindsight, almost always the right decision.

One word to sums up these leaders: wise.

Strength without wisdom results in leadership that is firstly dangerous, then harmful, and if not arrested, permanently toxic. With that in mind, it is notable how many media stories paint Ardern as a ‘strong’ leader. Examples are here, here, here and elsewhere ad infinitum. What is glaringly absent from these stories, and indeed from our observations of how she leads, is evidence of her applying the sort of wisdom I’ve described above to the extremely complex situation we are facing.

Instead it’s all about the promotion of her personal brand. The media, some of whom are in their death throes, are fixated with the person rather than critiquing their actions. Theirs is a sycophantic drive for subjectivity and hero creation, rather than one of rational objectivity. Sadly too many NZers unthinkingly lap up the propaganda. I suggest that were our PM a 60-year old male from the political right, then the very same actions Ardern is being praised for today would be ignored or ridiculed.

So the next time someone tells you that Ardern is a ‘strong leader’ I’d suggest saying New Zealanders today and tomorrow would be better off we had a wise leader, and that we almost certainly do not have a wise leader.
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April 30, 2020 8:00am
- PhilBest
  
  Absolutely! I’d also say that a “kind” but foolish person fails to understand that in a crisis like the current time, “being kind” is NOT one of the options they have at all! They have a choice between two different groups of people, which they are going to be cruel to. Quite possibly the “most visible” one is actually the smallest one by a long shot, but the “kind” fool will choose the worse evil rather than the lesser one.
  
  You are absolutely right about wisdom being the criteria.
  
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  April 30, 2020 8:24am
  - Gravelroad
    
    Years and years ago, at journalism school, we had to do a “personality” test. This was well before such typecasting was routinely required.
    One of the questions was along the lines of:
    What is more important for a reporter when assessing and writing a story – to be fair? Or to be kind?
    Some of us answered “kind”.
    This evoked absolute horror in our tutors who were well-known, successful and respected journalists – albeit in the latter stages of their careers.
    They shook their heads sadly and muttered about having a lot more work to do with this batch of students.
    Never forgot it.
    
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    April 30, 2020 9:29am
  - tf78
    
    The road to hell was paved with good intentions – we are on that road right now.
    
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    April 30, 2020 9:46am
  - Brian McDonald
    
    Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
    I know you’re absolutely bitter about Jacinda. But why use the ‘be kind’ phrase as if it was the only response. Or didn’t you notice as you waiting hopefully to drop manure as the first poster of the day?
    Here’s Fauci that man trying to put together the message for Trump and the Americans – note no ‘herd immunity,’ and the calibration of careful steps
    https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/world/fauci-second-wave-of-coronavirus-inevitable/ar-BB13nNLR?ocid=spartandhp
    
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    April 30, 2020 10:19am
    - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
      
      that wasn’t very kind of you Brian…..
      
      Bwuhahaha!
      
      Perhaps if the fatuous Cindy stopped trying to hug her way into the international media, and started trying to run a Cabinet and deal with an economic crisis, we might be a little er “kinder” towards her?
      
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      April 30, 2020 10:48am
    - PhilBest
      
      Fauci isn’t America’s Jacinda, he is America’s Bloomfield. It is up to the politicians to work out from all the advice they can get, what is “the lesser evil”. We can’t expect Fauci or Bloomfield to work this out, although many medical experts do show better instincts re “all causes mortality” BECAUSE OF “lockdown”, and BECAUSE OF economic damage. Politicians are responsible for who and what they choose to listen to, because of their own character. Trump instinctively understands the evil inherent in the lockdown itself, and wants to weigh up what is the “lesser”. The “kind” and economically illiterate fool can’t even start to imagine that there is any evil inherent in the lockdown, they delude themselves that they are “choosing the good over the evil”.
      
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      April 30, 2020 11:04am
- jv
  
  So people are breaking the rules, duh. Surprise, surprise, that is what happens when the rules have no more logic, no more sense, have been too rigid and have gone on for too long. Give us a break.
  
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  April 30, 2020 8:31am
  - lifesgood
    
    I have said all along that anger was mounting and people were giving the government the fingers. Everybody is sick to death with the daily funerial reports from Ardern and Bloomfeld. I have kept myself sane by not watching them. The societal damage by making us keep distance is huge. How can you catch it from a passer by when there is nobody out and about with the virus?
    
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    April 30, 2020 9:53am
  - JackRabbit
    
    “So people are breaking the rules, duh”
    
    As I have previous posted if you had access to what the COL having been doing, what the public have done will pale into insignificance.
    
    All tyrants give themselves liberties and luxuries all the while preaching fairness and “we’re in this together”.
    
    A honest leader will never ask the public to do what they themselves are not prepared to do.
    
    A dishonest leader will ask the public to do what they will not, and they will “tear the ring out” of both the letter and spirit of the law.
    
    Mx Ardern’s time in power is littered with taking huge liberties other leaders before her would never do. And abusing her position to do things that are unacceptable.
    
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    April 30, 2020 11:27am
- MT_Tinman
  
  KK, the only issue I have with your comment is the suggestion that the dictator is a leader of any sort.
  
  History demonstrates (Jones, Clark, Peters, Curran, Twiford, the Maori sheila with the unpronounceable name et al ) that there is zero “leadership” within the CoL.
  
  History will no doubt also show that far from leadership, the current panic measures are just the dictatorship’s selfish and blind following of instructions from the Pom Labour party and the UN-orientated God-Helen.
  
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  April 30, 2020 8:36am
  - Nickc2
    
    Ah, but they all have leadership aspirations, even that Maori sheila with the unpronounceable name. Luckily for us, Cindy is keeping all of them at bay.
    Hopefully come September 19. we never hear of any of them again.
    
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    April 30, 2020 9:35am
    - Paulus
      
      Or her !
      
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      April 30, 2020 1:39pm
- jv
  
  And something else that seems to have been lot; common sense
  
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  April 30, 2020 12:45pm
- herb1
  
  The world unfortunately is full of people with shallow Hal syndrome, when it comes to Ardern
  
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  April 30, 2020 1:00pm
- Manu-Rau
  
  Absolutely! What a great post: thanks krazykiwi.
  
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  April 30, 2020 1:30pm
PhilBest

YouTube censoring the truth about the pandemic.
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-big-tech-is-using-coronavirus-to-increase-its-power-and-the-us-is-becoming-more-like-china
Frontline doctors discussing real life statistics and medical discoveries is apparently “misinformation”. Yeah? As Mark Steyn said the other day, all the misinformation is coming from the political interests for whom “control” is a wet dream.
As Tucker says there, the media and big tech are not interested in speaking truth to power, they are colluding with it.
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April 30, 2020 8:00am
- Cinematic
  
  Yes a great piece by Tucker.
  
  Incredible to think that somewhere in the halls of Google sits someone capable of making such calls. They must be freakishly extraordinary in every way.
  
  Or they’re completely full of shit and very dangerous.
  
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  April 30, 2020 8:36am
- JackRabbit
  
  Trump has shut off funding and participation in a joint US venture with Wuhan labs creating viruses, something he probably didn’t know about until it was put before congress. This joint venture was put in place in 2015 by his predecessor.
  
  I think Trump is having trouble with all the ingrained underlying corporate thuggery in the US.
  
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  April 30, 2020 8:56am
- tf78
  
  I watched that video before it was removed but then stumbled across it again after googling Dan Erickson – it’s well worth a listen.
  
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  April 30, 2020 9:48am
  - Surely Knott
    
    I see that Newshub’s Dan Satherly is “condemning” the viral video claims. Newshubs article couldn’t be more biased. 1. Newshub says,” Dr Bergstrom pointed out that in New York, .14 % of the entire population has been killed by the disease already – far more than the .03 % mortality rate Drs Erickson and Massihi claimed.” But what Erickson actually claimed was that the .03% deathrate was statewide *in California* and they left the words in California out of the article. So it is Newshub and Bergstrom that are being misleading with the numbers. It is true and not misleading that NY has a greater mortality rate than California.
    2. The article then goes on to a Heading “Politicised Misinformation – The response to covid has become politicised with many on the right calling for measures like lockdowns and distancing to be lifted …and economies rolling again.” Why is it that when the right have a point of view the issue is considered politicised and misinformation. But the left’s point of view is taken as the correct default position. The Newshub article then goes on to highlight David Seymours comment that “the virus was not as bad as we thought.” how is this misinformation. It is correct. The early models were extremely overblown. David is correct.. Newshub smears David and Nats and others who believe it’s time to lighten up and focus on the economy as spreading misinformation. When in fact it’s newshub politicising the situation and of course he finishes his article linking people who want lockdown lightened as republicans and trump supporters. No mention in the article of how the left is politicising the situation at all, as our leader has been celebrated around the world for an elimination strategy that never meant elimination.
    
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    April 30, 2020 1:07pm
PhilBest

Dennis Prager warns Americans: The way the Democrats, the elites, the MSM, and Big Tech are talking and acting, it should be quite clear that the Police State is becoming a “new normal” policy option, because these people can and do invent crises as a pretext.
https://pjmedia.com/columns/dennis-prager/2020/04/28/our-dress-rehearsal-for-a-police-state-n385902
As Prager says, the data – if we get to see it – will not bear out the alleged need for the current Police State. People need to wake up about how pretexts are created. Fool us once, shame on you. Fool us forever, shame on us.
“…The reason I believe this is a dress rehearsal is that too many Americans appear untroubled by it; the dominant force in America, the left, supports it, and one of the two major political parties has been taken over by the left. Democrats and their supporters have, in effect, announced they will use state power to enforce any law they can to combat the even greater “existential” crisis of global warming…
…And that means, among other things, that at this time, a vote for any Democrat is a vote to end liberty.”
Can National be this staunch with its next campaign in NZ? A vote for the CoL is a vote taking us closer to a permanent Police State. These people can be guaranteed to abuse the power they now have proved they have.
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April 30, 2020 8:01am
- Exclamation Mark
  
  The Simpson’s has a great bit on manufactured crisis:
  https://youtu.be/V5ATxwXSvKo
  
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  April 30, 2020 8:47am
kiwitoffee

It might be me – I am fast approaching superannuation or at least it feels that way – but why is it that most of the people reporting what passes for news (in all forms of media) appear to be barely out of nappies and know almost nothing?

I ask this question as I recall a time when I watched, read or listened to news and it was delivered with a degree of gravitas by people who one felt could be relied upon to speak with some authority and who had left their egos or personality at the door.

I’ve heard, of course, that news has given way to infotainment but today even that has dwindled to merely ‘tainment’.

Our – or rather, their – current obsession with the nation’s DJ PM is a case in point.
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April 30, 2020 8:02am
- mikenmildagain
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  When you were younger, the people reading the news were older than you.
  Now you are older, the people reading the news are younger than you.
  I hope this clears things up.
  
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  April 30, 2020 8:12am
  - kiwitoffee
    
    mikenmildagain
    
    Well, that’s accounted for the age thing. Thanks.
    
    What about the ignorance, the egos and the almost non-stop fawning?
    
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    April 30, 2020 8:24am
    - mikenmildagain
      
      Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
      That will possibly remain with you no matter how old you get.
      
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      April 30, 2020 9:13am
      - kiwitoffee
        
        mikeandmildagain
        
        You appear to have missed the point, and opted for an attack on the messenger rather than the message.
        
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        April 30, 2020 10:09am
    - kloyd0306
      
      …..or simply that milky has never grown up…..
      
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      April 30, 2020 11:49am
  - Dougal10
    
    Really
    
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    April 30, 2020 8:36am
  - Random T Person
    
    Mike you do have a point (as you often do, and therefore get my uptick); but at the same time, I think it quite fair to concede that Kiwitoffee certainly has one too.
    
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    April 30, 2020 9:12am
  - Clyde
    
    Don’t let us confuse the newsreaders with journalists. Newsreaders like Dougal Stevenson et al would never have described themselves as journalists. Presenters possibly, but first and foremost they were newsreaders. TVNZ started the rot here when they decided that they needed people like Paul Holmes to cross the boundary between journalism and entertainment.
    
    It wasn’t long before those “journalists” started to offer their own opinions which led to the rise of people like Hosking. These people are not journalists in any sense of the world.
    
    As for the raft of people working in the media who are currently asking questions so many are totally bereft of ordinary life skills and knowledge. I’m aware of some journalists working nationally who didn’t even know what the Erebus crash was all about.
    
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    April 30, 2020 9:25am
    - tf78
      
      Jacinda is her own publicity spokesperson – she thinks she is doing really well. All I have learned from her is that she can indeed read – comprehend what she is reading I’m not so sure.
      
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      April 30, 2020 6:21pm
- John Warren
  
  Well, all those cute little blonde girls are much nicer to look at than Bob McNeil and Dougal Stevenson.
  
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  April 30, 2020 8:18am
  - KevO'Brien
    
    Bunch of harpies on TV1.
    
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    April 30, 2020 12:42pm
- Tony Stuart
  
  Being of a similar vintage Kiwitoffee (the meter clicks 65 in July), I share your despair. It’s hard to take callow youth like Jason Walls seriously when they question the D-G of Health about ingesting bleach, just to score points against another country’s leader.
  
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  April 30, 2020 8:28am
- cmm
  
  One thing that has really tanked in the last 20 years is journalism.
  
  Now they just seem to cut and paste quotes.
  
  It is easier now than ever before to do basic fact checking, but the journalists do not seem to be interested.
  
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  April 30, 2020 9:00am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    Not journalists, just repeaters. How often do we get shit from the UK, but none from NZ? Heaven forbid something negative is reported about pricks like Dr David Clark
    
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    April 30, 2020 9:24am
    - kloyd0306
      
      Whenever Clark’s name is written it should include the asterisk that his title was in theology, not medicine.
      
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      April 30, 2020 11:51am
      - mikenmildagain
        
        It is a common misconception, from the uneducated, to assume that only medical qualification should entitle a person to the honorific of ‘doctor’. It is quite ironic, given that most medical ‘doctors’ have no doctoral qualifications.
        
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        April 30, 2020 12:21pm
      - Manu-Rau
        
        Milky: It’s also commonly accepted that the holder of a PhD should only use the ‘prefix ‘Dr’ within the context of their own area of study. I have a PhD in History, but I only use the ‘Dr’ thingy when I am speaking or commenting on my own area of expertise. I wouldn’t, for example, book a flight as ‘Dr Manu-Rau’, for fear of being asked to assist with an in-flight medical emergency.
        
        In the same way, it is at best disingenuous, and at worst dishonest, for David Clark to call himself ‘Dr’ while masquerading as the Minister of Health.
        
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        April 30, 2020 1:45pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        What should we call Nick Smith?
        
        Like him, I have a PhD in engineering. I was “Dr Boag” at the uni where I lectured or at a conference. Otherwise just “Mr” or “Ian”. I may have used the Dr thing a couple of times when I was cashing a cheque someplace where I was not known 🙂
        
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        April 30, 2020 2:03pm
      - mikenmildagain
        
        Nick Smith always uses his honorific – the Hon Dr Nick Smith. Interestingly, Lockwood Smith also used his doctoral title, but insisted on being Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith. I don’t seem to remember Kiwibloggers’ invective being deployed against them on this absurdly trivial point.
        It is quite common for PhDs to use their title. Many of them, rather understandably, feel it was earned.
        
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        April 30, 2020 4:23pm
      - tf78
        
        They should be titled PDR – pretend doctor so people know not to call on them in an emergency.
        
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        April 30, 2020 6:24pm
  - Tricati
    
    They would be stuffed without ‘social media’ – Like a lot in life today, unless its quick and easy, then they are not interested in doing the donkey work
    
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    April 30, 2020 9:37am
- Nickc2
  
  Why is it that whenever an opinion to be presented on our TV Channels, it is predominantly from a young female who if she was lucky, could count all her periods on one hand?
  
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  April 30, 2020 9:46am
  - marcw
    
    A bit of an exaggeration Nick, perhaps you also think Police and Doctors are looking too young now? The reason for this has mostly to your own increasing decline into the geriatric class. It’s the same for all of us.
    
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    April 30, 2020 10:01am
    - Nickc2
      
      Point taken.
      
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      April 30, 2020 10:51am
    - Unity
      
      They say when Policemen look like boys, you are getting old.
      
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      April 30, 2020 3:33pm
- tf78
  
  kiwitoffee – that would be “containment” nowadays. You can see in the word itself, it’s just a big CON.
  
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  April 30, 2020 9:51am
  - kiwitoffee
    
    ff78
    
    Well, yes, you could be on to something there.
    
    It’s just mind-numbing stuff on the news – a combination of catastrophising, incitements to greed and just plain piffle.
    
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    April 30, 2020 10:19am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  why is it that most of the people reporting what passes for news (in all forms of media) appear to be barely out of nappies
  
  They are cheap to employ.
  
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  April 30, 2020 10:23am
  - kiwitoffee
    
    Good point.
    
    And, I suppose, cheaper to replace.
    
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    April 30, 2020 10:46am
  - Rachael Membery
    
    Work experience.
    
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    April 30, 2020 3:11pm
- Aunty
  
  No, it’s not you. Our media institutions, particularly TV are clearly ageist, and this is no less toxic, inappropriate, or harmful than any other form of isms, such as racism or sexism. When you devalue, depower and silence a whole sector of the community based on nothing more than their birth date, then you’ve got a society that is dysfunctional and sick. And when this is happening in something as important as the 4th estate, well the consequences of that don’t need to be spelt out do they? You’ve listed a number of the consequences above.
  
  Media in this country has failed. And it’s broke because of it. Bankrupt almost. Financially, as well as professionally and morally. What do they expect when they carry on the way they do? I tell you they don’t want to know because the truth of some navel-gazing and self-reflection is too painful for them to bear. Their apple pie, it don’t tatse so nice. The fault lies in them, NOT in Google and Facebook. And that is something that they just do not want to face up too. It’s just too hard.
  
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  April 30, 2020 11:33am
  - kiwitoffee
    
    Again, another good point re: ageism. Thanks.
    
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    April 30, 2020 2:23pm
- Rachael Membery
  
  It is the same making the news up not reporting it though. Jacinda is a manufactured product for reality TV.
  
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  April 30, 2020 2:39pm
Than

Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
Dr Anthony Fauci (director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases) has expressed optimism about a possible new coronovirus treatment, a drug called remdesivir. Which should be good news. Unfortunately there is reason to take this news with some caution.

Most of the time I would trust Dr Fauci’s statements. He’s been one of the most reliable sources of genuine, factual information coming out of this administration. As opposed to the dangerous mix of junk science and gibberish coming from the orange buffoon-in-chief.

But here’s the problem; Trump is absolutely desperate for some miracle cure to be developed that would make this virus just go away. And he is also (ultimately) Fauci’s boss.

Looking at the studies Fauci cited, the evidence for the effectiveness of remdesivir is not particularly strong, so it’s somewhat surprising he expressed such a degree of confidence in it. It’s possible that for some reason Fauci genuinely thinks this drug is promising. But sadly it’s at least equally possible he has been leaned on to say that Trump wants to hear.
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April 30, 2020 8:08am
- PhilBest
  
  “…Trump is absolutely desperate for some miracle cure to be developed that would make this virus just go away…”
  
  And you would trust, instead of this, leadership that absolutely desperately does not want cures developed as fast as possible because they are putting their Police State in place as their preferred first and only option?
  
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  April 30, 2020 8:26am
  - Than
    
    I would trust leadership that relies on finding solutions that actually work. Not just on finding snake-oil they can sell.
    
    Sure, we all want some development to happen that will let us put this pandemic behind us – a vaccine, a treatment, a drug, whatever. But the absolute first thing such a development needs is evidence that it actually works. Not mere hopes and dreams, actual documented results.
    
    But Trump doesn’t care about evidence. He just wants to sell people spin and bullshit.
    
    Case in point, hydroxychloroquine. Trump tried to sell it as a game-changer. The mounting evidence is it does sweet FA.
    
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    April 30, 2020 8:56am
    - All_on_Red
      
      ‘But Trump doesn’t care about evidence.’
      
      The evidence suggests otherwise
      Again from Dr Fauci
      ‘Dr. Anthony Fauci corrected the record Monday, announcing during the Coronavirus Task Force briefing that President Donald Trump had taken action when it was recommended.
      
      Fauci explained that a hypothetical answer from a Sunday morning CNN interview had led a number of outlets to suggest that Trump had ignored calls from the experts to shut things down earlier — and that just was not the case.’
      
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      April 30, 2020 9:49am
    - Ed Snack
      
      So you are just making up shit to “prove” a political point.
      
      Hey, EVERYBODY wants an effective treatment against COVID-19, except those like you who apparently want the deaths to continue so you can keep chanting “Orange Man Bad…”
      
      The only thing that can long term really affect the deaths from this virus are a vaccine or an effective treatment regime. Isolation can slow the spread, but unless we indefinitely continue to isolate NZ from the rest of the world the virus will continue to spread at some rate, killing as it does, until the rate reduces to a long term chronic disease with enough people immune to prevent mass epidemics. Note that naturally you cannot get to “herd immunity” to remove the disease unless the disease vector is an inefficient spreader (such as SARS and MERS) or by some freak it mutates to become ineffective.
      
      So wanting a treatment is something everyone should want. There are hundreds of different trials going on testing a wide variety of potential treatments including work at Phase 1 (pre human trials) for a device to insert a UV source into the lungs to treat the virus. UV is already used as a disinfecting mechanism externally.
      
      There are tests for a variety of anti-virals, for antibodies and antibody promoting treatments, trials for HCQ, lost of different methods. And the latest trail on HCQ was positive with effects roughly similar to Remdesvir, oddly enough the option of HCQ without the antibiotic was preferred. This trial didn’t compare it to a placebo which would be ideal, but compared it to other treatment regimes including Remdesvir – and in this survey HCQ seemed more effective than RDV.
      
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      April 30, 2020 11:05am
    - PhilBest
      
      There is not “mounting evidence” of that at all. The studies that have proven it works, specify that it only works if applied early. Left too late, the patient that is going to die anyway will die anyway.
      
      The doctors responsible for the successful studies actually claim that the contrary studies are being deliberately set up, by vested interests, to “fail” by only treating people too late. Why? Because there is money to be made by providing a new patentable treatment; and also because many countries health systems lack the efficiency to provide early treatment and they don’t want to be shown up by those who do. Britain’s NHS would be a classic example, no wonder their authorities are opposed to this treatment.
      
      Of course a treatment that works late as well as early will be ideal.
      
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      April 30, 2020 11:15am
      - PhilBest
        
        Keep those blinkers on about the NHS, people.
        
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        April 30, 2020 5:27pm
    - kloyd0306
      
      How did you get into Trump’s mind?
      Or, did he get into yours?
      I suspect the latter.
      Hydroxychloroquine, when administered early in the diagnosis is very effective. In advanced cases, not so much.
      Now, if only there was a vaccine for TDS…….
      
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      April 30, 2020 11:58am
      - Michael NZ
        
        plus Zinc daily and antibacterial…
        don’t forget..
        5 days hdroxy 2x day
        5 days anti bacterial 2x day
        5 days Zinc 1x day
        
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        April 30, 2020 8:41pm
    - JackRabbit
      
      Actually hydroxychloroquine is more likely to work than any vaccine. Note that very few vaccines work, work effectively or continue to work against viruses. Which is why when you get a virus, you don’t usually get medication. Which is why you get clusters of people getting the flu and dying in retirement or care homes, who were already vaccinated.
      
      All viruses are microscopic parasites. Parasites, from viruses to intestinal worms exist to eat bacteria. The problem becomes when they gravitate to a part of the body where they don’t belong, or to a body where they don’t belong.
      
      Vaccines work in some cases such as measles and some flus, but Covid-19 is different. Covid-19 has something very unique. Other viruses replicate and in doing so create corrupted or mutated versions of themselves. Covid-19 appears to have an inbuilt feedback loop which gives provides replication error checking. A much higher order of design and evolution, and very sophisticated. More like a microscopic Borg cluster.
      
      Over 50% of allergies and modern illnesses can be traced back to parasites in the body. Any good natropath will always advice going on a parasite cleanse before or in addition to other treatment.
      
      Man is playing havoc with the food chain with pesticides, chemicals and modification of food, This plays havoc with our bodies and parasites which in turn play havoc with us.
      
      According to both Bill Gates and Mx Ardern, life will not get back to normal until a vaccine is found. You have a better chance of Hell freezing over.
      
      They should be treated as a viruses, a parasite, that is in the wrong place, aided by compromised immune systems, poor air in buildings, and all the chemicals and crap we put in our bodies.
      
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      April 30, 2020 1:45pm
- MCos
  
  Trump isn’t Fauci boss.
  That would be Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, and he’s said he ain’t going nowhere.
  He is a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force headed by Mike Pence, from which he could be removed.
  
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  April 30, 2020 8:37am
- All_on_Red
  
  ‘sadly it’s at least equally possible he has been leaned on to say that Trump wants to hear.’
  
  No it’s not.
  ”CBS’ Paula Reid asked Fauci whether he was clarifying the comment voluntarily or because he’d been instructed to do so, prompting Fauci to rebuff her. “I am doing it — everything I do is voluntary, please. Don’t even imply that,” he said.’
  
  Looks like the good Doctor doesn’t like his integrity being impugned.
  https://dailycaller.com/2020/04/13/fauci-media-trump-coronavirus-mitigation/
  
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  April 30, 2020 8:40am
- bruceavon
  
  no. I have followed this drug through scientific channels and it looks legit. It hasn’t side stepped science like Hydroxychloroquine did, going from one French doctor, to Fox News hosts to Donald trump promoting it in briefings. I notice Fox have quietly abandoned promoting it as the first real tests come back and it doesn’t look promising. But remdesivir has been through clinical trials, double bind tests etc and looks good.
  
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  April 30, 2020 9:43am
  - Than
    
    OK, that’s encouraging to hear. Obvious anything that can reduce the impact of the coronavirus is nothing but good news.
    
    As I said, I would generally trust Dr Fauci’s statements and consider him a reliable source. But in this case he seemed to be going further than the data would support, and other authorities (notably the WHO) had declined to promote remdesivir. That, plus the fact that he was saying exactly what Trump desperately wants to hear, made a bit of skepticism justified. But if his endorsement is genuine and based on fact, that would be excellent.
    
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    April 30, 2020 10:09am
  - Ed Snack
    
    Early reports and trials didn’t look good for Remdesvir either, but it is good that a proper trail has been conducted even if truncated. It isn’t a miracle cure, and oddly enough the trial reports that there was no measurable difference in virus loads yet a reduction in the severity of symptoms.
    
    So it is unclear quite how this might operate, it almost sounds like an effective placebo test except for the double blinding aspect which should rule that out. Worth noting that RDV had initial positive apparent results against Ebola (its intended original target) but additional testing dispelled that.
    
    But it would be very helpful to have a treatment that improves outcomes regardless of how well we understand how it works and why it reduces symptoms without apparently reducing the amount of viruses in the body.
    
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    April 30, 2020 11:18am
    - bruceavon
      
      Yes. It in no way sounds like a ‘miracle cure’ but something that seems to help in some cases. Oh well. anything is better than what’s on offer now.
      
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      April 30, 2020 1:35pm
  - KevO'Brien
    
    It was also patented or its analogue in Wuhan just before the COVID-19 outbreak. The ownership is attributed to the Xi family. Something stinks.
    
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    April 30, 2020 12:47pm
    - bruceavon
      
      Yes I read that somewhere too. It wasn’t before the outbreak but it was registered in early January ffs. Gilead (the company that owns this drug)are also supposed to have an even more effective drug but don’t completely own it and people can make genetic copies of it so they make less money. So they are suppressing trials of it. Not surprised. Sounds like big pharmaceutical bullshit.
      
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      April 30, 2020 1:33pm
- tf78
  
  If you dig into Fauci’s background he’s not a very nice man.
  
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  April 30, 2020 9:52am
- Fletch
  
  Most of the time I would trust Dr Fauci’s statements. He’s been one of the most reliable sources of genuine, factual information coming out of this administration.
  
  The same Dr Fauci who said that “this is not a major threat for the people of the United States and is not something the citizens of the United States right now should be worried about”.
  
  That Dr Fauci? The same one who advises Trump.
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqg2kQDlPKw
  
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  April 30, 2020 10:37am
  - Batman
    
    And thank goodness Trump had those cases very quickly go down to zero, eh?
    
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    April 30, 2020 11:01am
    - PhilBest
      
      And thank goodness NYC, where 50% of the “USA” stats are, was onto the problem well ahead of the bumbling Trump, eh?
      
      http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2020/04/identity-politics-lied-new-yorkers-died.html
      
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      April 30, 2020 11:17am
    - Ed Snack
      
      Can’t resist can you, everything has to go through your shit coloured vision as Orange Man Bad.
      
      In Mid Feb the CDC and Fauci were saying that person to person spread wasn’t confirmed. So no doubt comments at that point about the case load easing were based on that assessment (which was of course quite wrong and they should have known at that point) and the fact that if that was so, then cutting of travel and contact should quite quickly reduce the cases. Both SARS and MERS were generally like that as they had R factors close to or below 1.
      
      Point being here that Trump can possibly be faulted for being too optimistic at that point, but he was definitely following the most expert guidance he had access to. And when that advice changed, Trump’s policies changed as well.
      
      If there is criticism, I’d direct it against the CDC and others in the US who should have been more alert to the pandemic possibilities and they should have been saying so. They could for example have consulted with Taiwan’s authorities who took this far more seriously at an early stage. That’s why politicians have experts to advise them.
      
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      April 30, 2020 11:29am
- Aunty
  
  Well, maybe Fauci by virtue of his background, experience, professional career, expertise, and training is in a better position to correctly interpret the findings of those studies and their strengths and weaknesses than you are?
  
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  April 30, 2020 11:41am
  - Ed Snack
    
    Actually, looking at a more expert statistical review of what Fauci was talking about, the evidence is very underwhelming. There appears to be no improvement in mortality, and a possibly insignificant difference in the reduction of symptoms, plus no difference in mean time to release from hospital. Fauci is also apparently talking about a NIH study of RDV, not the concurrent Gilead study.
    
    As much as we want and need a good treatment for COVID-19, so far, this isn’t it. On the basis of this study it isn’t superior to HCQ on a statistical basis. For example, HCQ study said 91.6% got better, this study reports an 8% mortality – can’t see much difference there.
    
    Unfortunately medical research is an area where p-haCking (monkeying with what is a significant p value in statistical tests) is endemic.
    
    So caution is needed, sadly an effective treatment may still be some way off. And just to note, I’ve seen numbers that suggest RDV is around $18K US per injection, HCQ is less than $1 per dose.
    
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    April 30, 2020 12:35pm
  - Rachael Membery
    
    Do they have a Siouxsie?
    
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    April 30, 2020 3:46pm
MrTips

So a guy and his wife are sitting one holiday at the beach having breakfast and she asks “Jim, if I died would you get married again?”
Jim takes affront at this and says “What a horrible thing to ask Margaret on this beautiful morning. I don’t want to hear anything more of it!”
For the next three days of holiday, Margaret persists and eventually wears him down “Jim, would you get married again if I died?”
Jim relents “Well, actually, yes I would”
So Margaret continues “Well, would you sell the house?”
Jim replies “No, why would I do that? I need somewhere to live”
“What about our bed. Would you sell that?”
“No, he says ” I have to sleep on something!”
“But what about my golf clubs, you wouldn’t let this other woman touch them would you?”
Jim replies “No, of course not. She’s left handed……”
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April 30, 2020 8:09am
- JackRabbit
  
  John was a salesman’s delight when it came to any kind of techie gadget. His wife Marsha had long ago given up trying to get him to change. One day John came home with another one of his unusual purchases. It was a robot that John claimed was actually a lie detector.
  
  It was about 5:30 that afternoon when Tommy, their 15 year old son, returned home from school. Tommy was over 2 hours late.
  
  “Where have you been? Why are you over 2 hours late getting home?” asked John.
  
  “Several of us went to the library to work on getting extra credits for a project,” said Tommy.
  
  The robot then walked around the table and slapped Tommy, knocking him completely out of his chair.
  
  “Son,” said John, “this robot is a lie detector, now tell us where you really were after school.”
  
  “We went to Bobby’s house and watched a movie.” said Tommy.
  
  “What did you watch?” asked Marsha.
  
  “The Ten Commandments.” answered Tommy.
  
  The robot went around to Tommy and once again slapped him, knocking him off his chair once more.
  
  With his lip quivering, Tommy got up, sat down and said, “I am sorry I lied. We really watched a DVD called Sex Queen.”
  
  “I am ashamed of you son,” said John. “When I was your age, I never lied to my parents.”
  
  The robot then walked around to John and delivered a whack that nearly knocked him out of his chair.
  
  Marsha doubled over in laughter, almost in tears and said, “Boy, did you ever ask for that one! You can’t be too mad with Tommy. After all, he is your son!”
  
  With that the robot immediately walked around to Marsha and slapped her three times!
  
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  April 30, 2020 8:38am
Happychappy

Have the media been helping Winston Peter’s to take their out of the story of the Mysterious NZ First Foundation funding of Clayton Mitchell Travel Junket while Winston Peter’s has been attacking the Ministry of Health over wanting to close our borders.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=12328392
Yesterday Peter’s used his cover talents by talking about himself and how he saved NZ er’s from being locked out and lessened the blow on our economy whilst knowing that his Party are again in the news for all the wrong reasons.
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April 30, 2020 8:10am
- fernglas
  
  Peters did nothing. The proposal to shut the borders to all was a health driven idea without a further step, namely to see if it could be done. It couldn’t. For Peters to suggest he somehow bravely fought back is just rubbish. In his earliest reported comments he apparently didn’t even know that to refuse entry to citizens would have been illegal. He’s an ignorant populist who was trying to grab attention with a piece of nonsense, and hallelujah, our media are so uncritical they swallowed it. Is there no-one in this pathetic country who can apply a bit of critical thinking to this whole debacle?
  
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  April 30, 2020 8:27am
  - WaveyDavey
    
    It was classic deflection/interference
    
    “Release” the story just before the 1pm presser, roll out the PM unexpectedly, whole (televised part) of the presser is only about this
    
    David Clark – who?
    
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    April 30, 2020 9:15am
  - Akarak
    
    After listening to Peters on Hosking this morning I have to ask myself what planet does Peters live on!
    His desire to remodel our export industries is based somehow on the premise of full-blown state ownership (Communism) and a return to a model based on New Zealand returning to the 19th century
    in order to recapture the past.
    Peters is living proof that there’s no fool like an old fool.
    
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    April 30, 2020 9:59am
    - PhilBest
      
      I remember Tom Scott referring to Winnie decades ago, as “Our Rob’s clone and stooge” or something like that. That is Rob Muldoon of course. The epitome of a Tory who thought that the point of politics was to be a more effective Statist than the people with Red in their party logo. The idea of letting markets work was anathema to them.
      
      We had “NZ assembled TV’s” that were a generation behind what the rest of the world were getting, at ten times the price. Just one example. Even if you dislike Roger Douglas, you need to read him and Prebble just for the stories of the nonsense that was going on back then in the name of “local jobs”.
      
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      April 30, 2020 11:21am
      - Mark Craig
        
        I suspect a great deal of those stories of Prebbles and Douglase were just bullshit and I am one who in the beginning was an admirer.I wonder if any of you blathering swivel eyed loons can tell me what the biggest man made forest in the world the Kaiangaroa was sold for ,just to privatise things the tax payer had forked out for ,I am told those two financial titans sold it for 20 cents a tree.I eagerly await a rebuttal,but most of you blind eadealogues will scroll on down .Shame on you .
        
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        April 30, 2020 9:03pm
    - Nickc2
      
      Yes Akarak. If Peters and Cindy had their way, each neighbourhood in NZ would have it’s own assembly line assembling stuff for Chinese $2.00 shops overseas using imported Chinese components. In Peters and Cindy’s eyes, we would be value adding.
      
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      April 30, 2020 12:09pm
  - kowtow
    
    When was the proposal made ?
    
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    April 30, 2020 10:46am
- PhilBest
  
  Oh boy, I hope that finishes him off politically. If there is one issue that should get Kiwis going now, it is the consequences of inadequate quarantining of returnees.
  
  I see on the front page of the Herald, Jacinda is still claiming her border closure was “early compared to other countries”.
  
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  April 30, 2020 8:28am
  - JackRabbit
    
    Nothing she says is believable. And I mean nothing.
    
    Can anyone on here give anything she had said that is true and that can be verified?
    
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    April 30, 2020 9:08am
    - Steve Otto(North Shore)
      
      Mike will be along shortly. He’s desperately trying to find something
      
      25 3
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      April 30, 2020 9:30am
      - JackRabbit
        
        Steve, you a down tick. Mike must have woken up.
        
        11 3
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        April 30, 2020 9:43am
      - Steve Otto(North Shore)
        
        Still no Mike, he is usually good at opinions
        
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        April 30, 2020 11:36am
  - alloytoo
    
    Which is nonsense the borders only closed weeks after we were told to stay at home.
    
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    April 30, 2020 1:29pm
  - Ruawai
    
    JA says they couldn’t close borders as they had to let NZers back in, but they could have closed to all other than NZers returning and all returning forced to quarantine and much earlier than they did.
    
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    April 30, 2020 2:11pm
    - Nickc2
      
      She could have let all NZers in and put them straight in quarantine for the required period. She stated a couple of days ago that was not possible because there was nowhere to put them. That was BS because she found places (hotels) later in the drama. She could also have put them up in Military Camps if she so chose. But no, she either wanted to be ‘kind’ or she didn’t have a F_ing clue. I’m inclined to go with the later.
      
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      April 30, 2020 2:17pm
Mobile Michael

All Public Servants were told yesterday that they’re not getting pay rises this year if they earn more than $100,000 and if they are below this pay rises will be small.

In return, they’ve been told there will not be any cuts to staff numbers.

The State Services Commissioner wrote to all Public Service Chief Executives saying as much: https://ssc.govt.nz/our-work/er/

The silence from the PSA and NUPE is deafening. But it’s a pretty sweat deal – job security is worth a lot more than money at the moment.
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April 30, 2020 8:10am
- cmm
  
  Sweet deal for everyone except the taxpayer.
  
  The one benefit of these downturns is that they clean out some of the weeds. That is not happening.
  
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  April 30, 2020 8:30am
  - Jules99
    
    I was working in the public sector during the GFC and it was used as an excuse to cut staff and restructure. Took them two years to do it though. Despite promises, many will be losing their jobs, including academics who will fail to get funding for their various projects.
    
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    April 30, 2020 8:38am
    - cmm
      
      I wonder if the academics that have severely distorted the truth for PriNZess will find themselves immune to the Grim Reaper.
      
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      April 30, 2020 8:48am
    - Tony Stuart
      
      Of course, the GFC came after nine years of the Clark government, where unemployment was artificially hidden by bloating the public service.
      
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      April 30, 2020 9:13am
      - pdm
        
        And Cullen had already taken the country into recession.
        
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        April 30, 2020 9:48am
  - MCos
    
    In the past there have been administrations that have put the lawnmower through the ranks of the public service in the belief that it will save money.
    Worked well for the Lange government when a third of the workforce were employed by the state.
    These days it’s more like 16%.
    Everyone always thinks that whatever the percentage is it’s too much and occasionally some government will institute a ‘sinking lid’ policy to squeeze the numbers down.
    Next minute.
    The departments have to hire long term contractors at premium rates to plug the holes.
    A guy I knew was paid an eye watering hour rate to work at IRD because they weren’t allowed to hire him full time.
    Sure, there’s a recession coming with a lot of unemployment, but in specific fields.
    
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    April 30, 2020 9:03am
    - mikenmildagain
      
      That was a side effect of the infamous ‘cap’ on staff numbers – just hire extra contractors (who cost more) if there is an arbitrary limit on employees.
      
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      April 30, 2020 9:18am
      - DeepBlue
        
        And then there was the switch to ‘Fixed term employee contracts’, once the OIAs requests started about contractors and consultants skyrocketing It’s all a cycle.
        
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        April 30, 2020 9:59am
      - Ed Snack
        
        That isn’t a Public Service only concept, I worked for a place that had 120 odd staff and an edict came from the (US based owner) that staff numbers were to be cut to 20 odd. Whole departments were laid off and contractors or external support organisations were used instead. Not sure that it saved any money short term, but they did refocus the business and work back to 40-50 odd staff over time, but using a rather different business model.
        
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        April 30, 2020 12:40pm
      - Paulus
        
        In Local Government, like Tauranga, contractors are invariably ex Council employees having taken redundancy.
        They contract to do the jobs they did when Council employed.
        The numbers of Council employees are reduced but the Council still continue to spend more money accordingly.
        
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        April 30, 2020 1:51pm
- fernglas
  
  I’ve been trying to get a basic response to a simple question from a Government department for weeks. It looks like they are all sitting on their arses doing nothing. Why are those who are doing nothing having their wages cut commensurately?
  
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  April 30, 2020 8:30am
  - krazykiwi
    
    A friend works for the Wellington City Council. Their role is in a completely non-functioning facility. They are now busy refurbishing their home. 7 weeks on full pay. No sign of any change.
    
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    April 30, 2020 9:44am
- Ruahine
  
  Votes for Labour. How nice.
  
  16 2
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  April 30, 2020 9:08am
- JackRabbit
  
  In a downturn, the first thing to do is to cut costs to match your income. Doesn’t look like it.
  
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  April 30, 2020 9:10am
- Tricati
  
  I have been thinking, what is it our Public Servants actually do – As tax payers, we shell out millions a year in wages and overheads for many government departments, yet we get daily reports of them under-performing.
  The recent report into EQC states they were ‘unprepared’, and now we are hearing the same of the Ministry of Health (No pandemic plan or contact tracing).
  It begs the question, what have all those bureaucrats been doing each day, and yet they keep a secure job and income and it appears no one holds them to account.
  
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  April 30, 2020 9:44am
  - MCos
    
    Your really don’t know what the public service does in New Zealand?
    
    Here’s a summary of last year’s budget (since blown out of the water by the current troubles).
    You can see where all the money goes.
    https://www.interest.co.nz/news/100030/budget-2019-summary-all-spending-plans
    
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    April 30, 2020 10:18am
  - GJM
    
    You need to watch the well known documentary “yes Minister “
    
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    May 1, 2020 8:07am
- freethinker
  
  And could be reversed 20/9/2020 by National if David Seymour gets 10 seats other wise Simon will do nothing as usual. Simon has had so many opportunities to gain support by announcing a National Govt would repeal/suspend/amend much of the coalition of clowns flawed legislation that I wonder if he under the influence of another outside party – CCP ??????? To ensure real change party vote ACT
  
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  April 30, 2020 9:51am
  - MCos
    
    National has opposed all sorts of legislation passed by Labour going back to the 1937 Social Security Act.
    Never seems to repeal anything.
    
    What legislation do you have in mind to reverse should National romp home at the end of the year?
    
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    April 30, 2020 10:26am
    - Ian Boag
      
      Muldoon repealed the Labour super scheme. You know – the one where you got a pension based on what you had paid into it. You got back all your contributions plus all the employer contributions. Brought in a pretty generous “pay-as-you” go system starting right now for anyone over 60. Of course people voted for it – the bribe of the century.
      
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      April 30, 2020 2:18pm
      - doggone7
        
        That’s the scheme that Brian Gaynor wrote about on a couple of occasions. Interesting to see the different perspectives from 12 years apart:
        
        https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10465138
        
        https://www.nzherald.co.nz/personal-finance/news/article.cfm?c_id=12&objectid=12192600
        
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        April 30, 2020 5:21pm
- curry4me
  
  Mobile Michael: A decent finance minister would go through the bloated civil service TOE with a chainsaw, cut 20% of the staff, and cut the remaining staff salaries by 20%. And freeze the rate for three years.
  
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  April 30, 2020 8:42pm
Yvette

At what point will Clark admit that moving house on the eve of the lockdown, and staying with his just moved family, is the reason why he insisted on staying in Dunedin, “refusing” (some sources say) to be in Wellington in his capacity of Minister of Health, at a moment when it was believed that “tens of thousands of Kiwis could die if the lockdown rules weren’t followed”?

“Under normal conditions I would sack the Minister of Health. What he did was wrong, and there are no excuses,” Ardern said at the time.
“But right now, my priority is our collective fight against COVID-19. We cannot afford massive disruption in the health sector or to our response. For that reason, and that reason alone, Dr Clark will maintain his role.

If the Minister of Health, David Clark – on the eve of the lockdown, the most massively disruptive event in New Zealand’s health history – rather than being in Wellington, could instead be on call in Dunedin, why would his sacking be a “massive disruption in the health sector or to our response”?

Which would be the greater – the disruption Clark has already caused, or sacking him?
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April 30, 2020 8:19am
- Akarak
  
  The house was in darkness
  Apart from one light
  And the sound of odd noises
  disrupting the night
  
  The neighbours were curious
  Who could it be
  Was the shape in the shadows
  The strange Doctor C
  
  But what was he doing here
  He had a new home
  And why would he be here
  At night, all alone
  
  They were aware of the problems
  He’d said they were true
  That he’d been an idiot
  Which they already knew
  
  And here he was skulking
  Alone in the glow
  With no one to talk to
  And nowhere to go
  
  Jacinda had said
  I know what I’ll do
  There are 20 in cabinet
  You’re now 22
  
  And so she took over
  She sent him away
  Back to Dunedin
  But still on full pay
  
  But he didn’t need to worry
  No reason at all
  He’d still be a minister
  Whatever the call
  
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  April 30, 2020 8:47am
  - Bobba Fret
    
    That’s brilliant! Your one down ticker obviously doesn’t appreciate your talent.
    
    16 1
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    April 30, 2020 10:00am
  - tf78
    
    Akarak – you need to start putting these in a book, they’re great, well done.
    
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    April 30, 2020 10:03am
  - Manu-Rau
    
    Excellent. And I can’t help wondering whether there wasn’t a grudging uptick or two there from the Fraser House trolls.
    
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    April 30, 2020 2:01pm
  - Bobba Fret
    
    You should post it over on the Standard they would love it. See how long until they ban you.
    
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    April 30, 2020 2:22pm
- Lee C
  
  You just haven’t realised that everything she says is BS, Yvette.
  
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  April 30, 2020 1:44pm
Suze Wainwright

Is it too soon for Cindy to have Winston ride in on his fine Arab Charger…? Who’s directing the govt Covid-19 play right now? Is someone rewriting the script?
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April 30, 2020 8:20am
- Tony Stuart
  
  It’s that time in the electoral cycle when Winston Peters rewrites the script, and distances himself and his party from every decision the Coalition has made.
  
  After quietly sitting at his bach at Whananaki, Peters has gone straight into campaign mode. It’s reasonable to predict there will be an anti-Asian rant in the very near future, just to shore up the redneck vote.
  
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  April 30, 2020 8:48am
  - Suze Wainwright
    
    Oh he’s already attacking China – what a god-given opportunity…
    
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    April 30, 2020 8:54am
  - Nukuleka
    
    Am disappointed Tony that you introduce a term like ‘redneck’ into a discussion of kiwi politics. It’s one of those US terms that are bandied about by progressives to impune anyone on the Centre right and is utterly inappropriate in the NZ context.
    
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    April 30, 2020 9:00am
    - tf78
      
      I still don’t get the term redneck – I would have thought it was from someone getting a sunburned neck from bending down toiling in their fields.
      
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      April 30, 2020 10:05am
      - fernglas
        
        Exactly. The dirt farmers in the southern US; conservative to a hombre.
        
        6 0
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        April 30, 2020 11:16am
      - Lee C
        
        I think it’s a racist term, ‘Redneck’.
        
        5 1
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        April 30, 2020 1:45pm
      - Michael NZ
        
        roinek
        
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        April 30, 2020 9:15pm
  - Steve James
    
    “Redneck” Tony, really? Once again, any white person (especially male) with an opinion is automatically labelled a racist. Pathetic.
    
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    April 30, 2020 9:07am
    - Tony Stuart
      
      I stand by the use of the word. There is a thankfully small number of New Zealanders who are deeply racist, and make no secret of it. And that number is far from exclusively male, or white, for that matter.
      
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      April 30, 2020 9:16am
      - Nukuleka
        
        There are certain terms used by those who deem themselves to be members of the intellectually superior elite and who wish to demonize those whom they regard as the great unwashed peasantry- and ‘redneck’ is one such word. It doesn’t belong in the lexicon of any serious discourse of politics.
        
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        April 30, 2020 9:46am
      - Unity
        
        I feel there are many NZers who abhor the racial divisions that our politicians are increasingly creating. It’s long overdue for us all to be treated the same. The Treaty achieved its original aim way back in the 1940’s and should be put to bed. The racist Waitangi Tribunal which ‘adjusts’ history to suit the ‘claimants’ should be disbanded immediately. Most of the negative history we hear today doesn’t resemble the reality. The Maori Seats should go as we have many people in Parliament today who have some Maori ethnicity, so there is plenty of representation for them.
        
        Surely now that our whole lives are changing forever would be a good time to rule a line under everything to do with race, including deleting mention of it from all legislation, and to start treating all the same – as New Zealanders.
        
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        April 30, 2020 3:46pm
  - Dougal10
    
    Rednecks like myself would never vote for wynston. Can you guess why sarc
    
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    April 30, 2020 11:45am
  - david
    
    And now we are within 6 months of the election, I believe that there is a rule, law, or convention that allows for no by-election in case of a vacancy which means that WP can wreak absolute havoc without actually bringing the Government down by way of needing a snap election.
    I might be wrong but if not, there is a possible explanation for his being Bolshoi towards his “coalition partner”.
    
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    April 30, 2020 4:06pm
  - curry4me
    
    Tony Stuart: His voting base are deserting to National, and the New Conservatives. Going with Labour was the last straw.
    
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    April 30, 2020 8:45pm
- oldfella
  
  Winny could borrow that little white pony Kim Jong Un rides. Obviously chosen to make midgets with an inferiority complex look big and powerful.
  
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  April 30, 2020 10:41am
Justitia

As we move out from one of the most extreme lockdowns in the western world brought about by the Coalition’s incompetent response to the pandemic through February to late March, the huge damage done to the economy is becoming clearer with each passing day. Sadly enormous damage has been done to community cohesiveness and in particular race relations as well. The government’s tolerance and even condoning of rogue, vigilante race based roadblocks which continue to spring up around the country, eg now Pakiri Bay, has greatly angered most New Zealanders. The allocation of more than $50 million for a Maori COVID 19 package while mainstream access to cancer drugs like Keytruda for lung cancer patients has been terminated has also stuck in the craw of many kiwis. It is increasingly becoming a “Them” and “Us” dynamic every time the government displays perceived race-based favouritism while the quality of life and freedoms of the majority are continually being screwed down. The Coalition will go down as one of the most divisive governments in our history.
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April 30, 2020 8:20am
- Komata
  
  Justitia@0820
  
  Re: The Coalition will go down as one of the most divisive governments in our history.
  
  But will the replacement be any better?
  
  Based on current performance and ‘Policies’ (or the marked lack of), the answer would seem to be ‘No’, and that what is in place now will be permitted to continue (and such is human nature, probably become worse).
  
  It don’t look good…
  
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  April 30, 2020 9:04am
  - ancient one
    
    One would have expected National to strongly assert that there was only one standard of citizenship in New Zealand not two.
    
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    April 30, 2020 11:16am
- Philview
  
  The Coalition are divisive but I am not detecting a lot of anger over Iwi issues. Property owners in Dunedin have just given away property rights under the new Wahi Tupuna zones without a wimper of protest. Iwi in Dunedin are now referred to as the Crown’s regional partner. This is part of Labour’s Crown – Iwi Sovereignty Partnership. I believe property owners in Queenstown now need to get resource consent from Iwi for changes to their properties.
  
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  April 30, 2020 9:17am
  - GJM
    
    It is the same everywhere. I had to get Iwi permission as part of putting down a replacement water bore. It is a money making scam and unless you pay whatever they ask, no consent. I can’t see National changing anything. This country is ruined
    
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    May 1, 2020 8:13am
MrTips

Questions of the day for one Mr G Robertson, Den of Iniquity, Downtown Wgtn, Mordor.

Why did you object to David Seymour introducing a bill to cut MP salaries by 20%? Labour and esp. Jacinda, made bold public announcements on this and committed to it. Who cares who introduces the bill and why haven’t you got it sorted yet?

The only direction the virtue signal will take you is NOWHERE.
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April 30, 2020 8:20am
- mikenmildagain
  
  Governments always vote down attempts by opposition MPs to seek leave to introduce new bills. It’s just a simple publicity stunt.
  
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  April 30, 2020 9:20am
- Bobba Fret
  
  I think HDPA asked him and he said its because they are doing their own bill on reducing salaries.
  I wouldn’t believe a word hes says though.
  
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  April 30, 2020 10:03am
- freethinker
  
  And could be reversed 20/9/2020 by National if David Seymour gets 10 seats other wise Simon will do nothing as usual. Simon has had so many opportunities to gain support by announcing a National Govt would repeal/suspend/amend much of the coalition of clowns flawed legislation that I wonder if he under the influence of another outside party – CCP ???????
  
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  April 30, 2020 10:04am
  - Tony Stuart
    
    Bridges has already stated that National will reverse the ban on future oil and gas exploration, and withdraw New Zealand from the UN Migration Pact. Todd Muller has promised significant changes to the Zero Carbon Bill, particularly insofar as it affects farming. Judith Collins has a complete reform of the RMA underway.
    
    National is likely to give the go-ahead for campaigning to resume very soon, and with the election now just 4 1/2 months away, you will hear plenty of differentiation between National and Labour.
    
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    April 30, 2020 10:25am
  - Loddenthinks
    
    Do you really think he’ll win votes by effectively stating he will increase MP’s salaries?
    
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    April 30, 2020 11:53am
- Libertarians are right
  
  Because It’s only the Labour Ministers that got pay decreases. Jacinda has no power over the backbench MPs and they weren’t willing to take a pay cut. If Robertson allowed this to go through there would be an uprising from Labour’s back bench.
  
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  April 30, 2020 10:05am
  - marcw
    
    I would like to see all MP’s made to accept just the $530pw odd that taxpayers have been granted, and that would be all they get until GDP is back in positive figures. Nothing like giving them incentive and having skin in the game (like other SME’s are having to accept) to get their lazy asses off the couch.
    
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    April 30, 2020 10:17am
    - Tony Stuart
      
      That’s a nice thought Marc, but the Government has also said it expects employers (i.e. US, the taxpayers) to top up the subsidy to at least 80% of the normal wage.
      
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      April 30, 2020 10:27am
      - marcw
        
        That’s good then, let them have 80% of their normal wage – they still have skin in the game then as an incentive.
        
        8 1
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        April 30, 2020 10:32am
RW Capitalist

Finally, a professor of medicine, on AM Show, saying what a dogs breakfast this govt. has been on this covid19.
Even Duncan said they had advice in February to shut the boarder immediately and refused.
Pointing out that we live with a moat around us (has he been reading my comments?).
The Dr went on to offer that we didn’t have a strategy (going back decades), but then went off into tactical response.
A strategic action, must be broad and modify our health service to:
1. Spread the load, (involve private insurance and hospitals in delivery of all services)
2. Pandemic response needs to be very flexible.
For instance, say Zika or malaria type is the next pandemic. How do you lock own mosquitoes?
3. MoH needs to stop pandering to every petty pressure group and focus ONLY on health outcomes.
There are 20 DHBs in New Zealand and each DHB is governed by a board of up to 11 members. DHB boards set the overall strategic direction for the DHB and monitor its performance. The Minister of Health appoints up to four members to each board, and the board’s chair and deputy chair.Feb 12, 2020
20 DHB’s in a small country like NZ????????
how about 4, 3 in the North Island and one in the South Island.
From 220 board members to 44.
More coordination, flexibility (resources can be moved to where they are most needed NOW.
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April 30, 2020 8:20am
- mikenmildagain
  
  NZ should have a single national health service, instead of fragmented service delivery overseen by partly elected boards that have little real power.
  
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  April 30, 2020 9:25am
  - marcw
    
    As I understand it, the NHS is divided up in a series of Trusts which are regionally based. Each of these is operated independently, but under the overall umbrella of the NHS. ie. Much the same as our Health Department with individual DHB’s. The question to me is, are there too many DHB’s?
    
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    April 30, 2020 10:06am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    I was trying to explain to Hubby why there was such a delay in getting information about where the virus was and how many people were infected /recovered…
    
    He gaped in astonishment when I explained each DHB collated information separately before sending it to the MoH.
    
    “Haven’t they heard of computers”, he queried.
    
    From Parliament, Yesterday:
    
    Question No. 5—Health
    5. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) to the Minister of Health: What percentage of COVID-19 close contacts identified between 18 April and 24 April were successfully contacted, and how many of those contacts were made within three days?
    
    Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): The latest national data available for cases notified is to the period 18-20 April. For this period, 100 percent of close contacts were followed up within three days. National data collected from all public health units requires manual collation from a number of sources, therefore there is a time lag between activity and reporting. The close-contact data for probable and confirmed cases notified 21-27 April will be available in coming days.
    
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    April 30, 2020 10:54am
    - Hard Cheese
      
      It was shocking (but not unexpected) hearing that from Clark. MOH trying to track the spread of a pandemic using data that’s a week old. It’s like they’ve never heard of computers.
      
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      April 30, 2020 11:43am
    - Hard Cheese
      
      Some Labour numpty with a patsy question for Clark in QT today, trying to put on a dog and pony show that we’ve achieved “gold standard” for contact tracing.
      
      Sure, one where the latest data that can be retrieved is a week old. Gold standard in stupidity achieved though.
      
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      April 30, 2020 3:19pm
  - alwyn
    
    They aren’t meant to have any power. They were set up to provide political cover for the Minister and the Government.
    Anything that goes wrong can be blamed on the DHB Board members and the Minister is out of the firing line.
    Its been like that for the last 20 or so years.
    You can thank the Clark Government I think. Or maybe it was Shipley. It was a long time ago anyway.
    
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    April 30, 2020 12:41pm
  - Michael NZ
    
    just like education mikey?
    
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    April 30, 2020 9:22pm
- Groggy
  
  And who setp the 20 DHB’s? (plus a number of CHE’s that fortunately are long gone)… The double dipper from Dipton, nice to see KB posters admit his solution was and still is rubbish.
  
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  April 30, 2020 10:02am
  - waripori
    
    This is just wrong. The Nats set up the RHA’s and CHE’s as a way of creating a funder provider split. The RHA’s made sense. Making public hospitals into competing enterprises probably sounded like a good idea but might have been a bridge too far.
    
    The DHBs were Annette King’s bright idea. The idea was to promote local decision making and integrated all levels of care again. That might have made sense if they had retained the RHA structure ( IE two in the North and one for the South ) but 20 for NZ and 3 in Auckland was just stupid.
    
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    April 30, 2020 11:30am
    - mikenmildagain
      
      The RHAs were a silly idea, as was the whole idea that policy, funding, and operations need to be separated institutionally. The DHBs were a partial wind-back, and no one has had any appetite to restructure the health sector since, which is a good thing, because even flawed models can usually be made better without the massive losses from smashing existing organisations and building new ones.
      
      3 3
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      April 30, 2020 12:43pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Yep,
  Under prepared and asleep on the job.
  
  https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/04/duncan-garner-we-allowed-covid-19-to-be-walked-into-new-zealand.html
  
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  April 30, 2020 10:37am
- doggone7
  
  Had they shut the border down at the earliest inkling the reaction through the country would have been crazed. No more anywhere than here methinks. From pillar to post Ardern would’ve been called
  MaoTse-tungHitlerStalin.
  
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  April 30, 2020 5:24pm
CJames

There is a major split occurring in the Nurses union.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/121349234/three-more-resignations-at-new-zealand-nurses-organisation
Very much politics is more important than looking after their members.
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April 30, 2020 8:22am
- RW Capitalist
  
  Very much politics is more important than looking after their members
  and you are surprised?
  All unions have forgotten…they are a UNION OF THEIR MEMBERS
  not a political vehicle for the union leaders.
  They rely on
  Misleading the membership
  Apathy of the membership
  
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  April 30, 2020 8:54am
- rockape
  
  The NZNO is in the middle of a coup mounted by its Maori wing. The next union leader will be Maori and the Nurses will suffer. This morning my Mrs was informed her ED department would not be replacing a full time nurse who has left.
  Kerri Nuku is the backstabber who has been stirring this pot for years.
  
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  April 30, 2020 10:00am
voltaire

Is it just me? Having watched most of the 1pm media briefings I cannot recall one that started on time. If no one less than the PM can’t do a simple thing like being punctual it makes me wonder why anyone should have confidence in the Government being able to handle the difficult things.
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April 30, 2020 8:23am
- Tony Stuart
  
  No, it’s not just you voltaire. I have commented to my wife about it a number of times. My long-gone father was a stickler for punctuality, and that’s a trait he passed on to me. His view was that being late showed disregard for the value of the time of the person you were meeting.
  
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  April 30, 2020 9:07am
  - alex Masterley
    
    Tony, My mantra is early is on time. On time is late. Arriving after the appointed time is a grave discourtesy.
    
    34 2
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    April 30, 2020 9:50am
    - Tony Stuart
      
      That’s a fine mantra to live by Alex. Shall we just say that SWMBO does not always share my fondness for being on time, and that it is sometimes a cause of conflict!
      
      10 1
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      April 30, 2020 10:28am
      - alex Masterley
        
        I have similar issues chez Masterley.
        
        8 1
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        April 30, 2020 10:55am
- tf78
  
  How can you bear to listen to her rabbit on as if she’s doing us all a favour by appearing. She should go and read up on some policies instead of relying on speech writers to do it for her.
  
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  April 30, 2020 10:14am
- jv
  
  Part of her playing us game.
  
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  April 30, 2020 10:51am
- calendar girl
  
  Didn’t Ardern “go early, go hard”?
  
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  April 30, 2020 7:46pm
Steve James

Jeez… Yemen must really be a shit-hole. With just one case it appears that even the Coronavirus doesn’t want to live there.
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April 30, 2020 8:23am
- mikenmildagain
  
  Perhaps the non-stop bombing from Saudi Arabia and its US-backed allies has positive side-effects for disease control.
  /s
  
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  April 30, 2020 9:26am
  - Libertarians are right
    
    Just like ignoring all of the Left wing hobby horses:
    Heat helps get rid of Covid 19 off surfaces so yay climate change!
    UV light helps as well so yay ozone layer depletion (although there is a very real cost to this).
    Low density increases the ability to distance so yay non-intensification!
    Driving cars instead of public transport increases the ability to distance so yay private cars!
    
    Then of course this dishonest government claim that they are the reason we’ve had success as if these proven strengths didn’t exist (despite the wishes of this government).
    
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    April 30, 2020 10:11am
    - mikenmildagain
      
      Something, something…every cloud has a silver lining…
      
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      April 30, 2020 11:46am
Ruahine

The truth is finally coming out.
Finally the media has woken up. This of course has been blinding obvious to any thinking person. We all know why Ardern would not close the border.
Well Done. Professor Des Gorman.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12328348
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12328189
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April 30, 2020 8:23am
Paulus

Hallelujah
I heard Wynston Peters yesterday talking with long words and saying sweet FA – his usual rhetoric and Pius platitudes – his holiday has helped suggest
So HE is back and no doubt will be feted by the so called media until the election – when he will get booted out despite the media.
It is suggested that his comments re returning New Zealanders and a Cabinet decision is typically absolute bollocks as it does not happen.
Cindy will have words with him I am sure !
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April 30, 2020 8:29am
Maggie Pie

Just wondering how much Rotorua Labor MP, and small business owner Tamati Coffee, would have received by way of the wage subsidy scheme?

Asking for a friend.
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April 30, 2020 8:30am
- Random T Person
  
  About$150k, I believe.
  
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  April 30, 2020 9:15am
- Tony Stuart
  
  T2, which is the company owned by Coffey and his husband, received $157,000 for 23 staff.
  
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  April 30, 2020 9:27am
  - Maggie Pie
    
    WOW. My partner was wondering if they were already in the shit?
    
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    April 30, 2020 9:46am
  - pdm
    
    Should it not be Q2? Just saying.
    
    Maggie -yours is worth more than one uptick.
    
    18 1
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    April 30, 2020 9:52am
    - Tony Stuart
      
      T2 – Tamati and Tim, I presume.
      
      13 1
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      April 30, 2020 10:17am
  - Libertarians are right
    
    I hope he’s got evidence that he asked every employee for their permission to get the subsidy on their behalf and followed all the other rules.
    Govt politicians have to be held to a higher standard and MUST be seen to follow the rules to the letter.
    
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    April 30, 2020 10:19am
- freethinker
  
  $1 would be too much.
  
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  April 30, 2020 10:19am
Benedict Yu

So someone states the obvious. And there is no considered response. Just a “rejection”. Key point is that if we had introduced harder borders earlier we could have avoided the economic damage of L3 and L4. This is not a hindsight thing. Commentators here were making this point ih mid February.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12328348

“Covid 19 coronavirus: NZ ill-prepared, caught with ‘pants down’, says Professor Des Gorman; Jacinda Ardern rejects criticism”
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April 30, 2020 8:31am
- Suze Wainwright
  
  Oh look – Cindy’s rejected the criticism. That’ll be plenty reassuring for her adoring throng (and the media)
  
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  April 30, 2020 10:22am
pdm

This morning I received an email from a cousin who lives in Dunblane Scotland extolling the praises of Ardern.

Shows the extent of the ill informed adulation throughout the world..
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April 30, 2020 8:32am
- cmm
  
  Yesterday I got the same from an otherwise sane person in Baltimore, USA.
  
  #CinD4UN is an international force. Clearly some big clout behind it.
  
  Heck, I’d even support #CinD4UN to get her out of our hair.
  
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  April 30, 2020 8:52am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    H1
    
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    April 30, 2020 9:48am
- Sacha
  
  I got a rave email from an old Kiwi in Vancouver.
  And a friend in NSW keeps sending me all the fawning stuff she sees in the Aussie media.
  I ignore both.
  
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  April 30, 2020 10:17am
  - tf78
    
    Send you friends back some facts for them to pass around.
    
    5 0
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    April 30, 2020 6:37pm
- oldfella
  
  That is so spooky, possums. I got an email yesterday about Adern. It was actually from Doctor Chocalocamumba in Nigeria who said he was sure any citizen of a country with such a lovely, kind leader would be happy to send him the few thousand dollars he needs to unlock the vast fortune he can access if he can just find the funds. I’m still thinking about it, but finding it hard to refuse. How unkind would I be if I said ‘No’?
  Anyone else on KB want in on this? Sounds like a gold plated chance to make some easy money while still locked down?
  
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  April 30, 2020 10:38am
  - KevO'Brien
    
    The Nigerian Scam re-appears!
    
    5 1
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    April 30, 2020 12:56pm
    - Rachael Membery
      
      We have our own scam.
      
      3 1
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      April 30, 2020 5:33pm
- Odakyu-sen
  
  Are we seeing the development of a personality cult for the PM?
  How long before she makes it onto the currency and postage stamps?
  
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  April 30, 2020 11:08am
  - mikenmildagain
    
    I don’t believe any NZ prime minister has made it on to a postage stamp since Seddon (1979).
    
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    April 30, 2020 11:51am
  - Nickc2
    
    There is a fortune to be made by putting her melon on toilet paper rolls.
    
    8 2
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    April 30, 2020 12:22pm
    - tf78
      
      Especially when there’s a salmonella outbreak.
      
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      April 30, 2020 6:39pm
  - Peter Lane
    
    Someone wrote a letter to the Herald this morning suggesting a national holiday to celebrate us ‘eliminating/eradicating’ Covid-19.
    
    What’s the bet Cindy’s birthday will be suggested?
    
    Ardern Day (don’t laugh it could easily happen in the current environment of sycophantic crap).
    
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    April 30, 2020 2:55pm
- Overworked
  
  All of those fawning Guardian articles are not for nothing. The lack of balanced NZ news overseas means that all of these expat cretins will be lining up to vote for “Jacinda” next election.
  
  Even the otherwise sane sounding ICU nurse from Invercargill who looked after Boris Johnson began to act like an overheated teenager at a rock concert when she was asked what she thought about Jacinda. “She’s my hero” was what she said in the interview I saw.
  
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  April 30, 2020 11:17am
  - marcw
    
    A nurse who received her tax payer subsidised training in Southland, and hasn’t worked in NZ for the last 15 years. Good on her for her success, but not a really good investment for the taxpayers.
    
    15 1
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    April 30, 2020 11:26am
    - mikenmildagain
      
      I suppose we could forbid people from leaving NZ until they had paid back any money owed to taxpayers (student loans, etc). But how could we stop anyone leaving if we had not recouped all the other monetary investment in their health and education, etc?
      
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      April 30, 2020 11:53am
  - tf78
    
    Good thing is the Guardian is about to go broke in Aus and I’m sure the UK will follow.
    
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    April 30, 2020 6:40pm
- thirteenstars
  
  But God forbid someone suggest she’s gonna win by a near-landslide come September. Think it, but never say it. Oh, no.
  
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  April 30, 2020 11:24am
KevO'Brien

Ardern does the impossible:
http://joannenova.com.au/2020/04/new-zealand-win-community-spread-of-coronavirus-eliminated-lockdown-eases-a-bit-tonight/
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April 30, 2020 8:35am
- JackRabbit
  
  Talk about gilding the truth.
  
  “Level 3 will see retailers, restaurants and schools allowed to reopen on a smaller scale.”
  
  – will see SOME retailers, and restaurants open on a MUCH reduced scale, with no physical access or click and collect only. Other will never reopen.
  
  “Workers will also be able to resume on-site work, provided they have a Covid-19 control plan in place, with appropriate health and safety and physical distancing measures. ”
  
  – CONSTRUCTION Workers will also be able to resume on-site work. Most working in retail will not and many office workers will not be back at work until Level 1.
  
  – “I ordered 2 fish and chips – you didn’t give me that”
  
  – “Yes I did, you got two fish and chips”
  
  – “I expected 2 pieces of real fish and more than 6 chips. You’ve given me 2 fish fingers.”
  
  – “Well its 2 fish and chips is it not? And too much meat is bad for you, don’t you know?”
  
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  April 30, 2020 8:50am
Ruawai

In an interview with immigration NZ this morning on RNZ he said we have 300,000 people in NZ on temporary work visas. He said they will need these visas extended and welfare when their jobs are no longer there. It would be cheaper for the government to charter flights and send these people home. This would solve many problems, we would have 300,000 less people to find jobs for, it would cost us less to fly them home than to house them and provide welfare . This would also free up the housing market for NZers and open up jobs for NZers that will lose their jobs from CV19. A win win solution for NZers and the Government. This would solve housing and unemployment and reduce our welfare costs as less unemployed.
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April 30, 2020 8:38am
- DeepBlue
  
  It would have been good if the UK, French, and German governments ran a few more repatriation flights too. Might still happen for all the trouble brewing in Queenstown.
  
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  April 30, 2020 10:05am
  - freethinker
    
    I am hearing rumors of ex hospo workers in QTown & Wanaka sleeping on the beach. No job, no money , no accomodation time for our “caring & kind” assistant part time pm to show her true colours. Those unemployed don’t vote so aptpm will do noting as usual.
    
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    April 30, 2020 10:25am
oldpark

What a web they weave when they set out to deceive.
Two days ago on the HDPA show .Grant Robertson was asked why did he vetoe the proposed legislation by David Seymour to cut back on some of the huge incomes that Politicians were getting paid for when Private employees were in dire financial straits. . He lied to her saying there was something else in the pipeline that would take care of that .
Today i heard the Electoral seat three time loser David Parker saying he did not blame the Chinese
for the Coronavirus. Yes it is not to hard to see in another time NZs Electors refused to vote for him as half the lies he was telling even then was not true .Yet he is a List MP still telling lies .
Now here is the daddy of them all complete grandstanding by Winston Peters and his selected Prodigee ms/Ardern deliberately misleading NZs by saying they headed off the Health Minister who said NZs borders should be closed to keep out returning NZs leading up to the Lockdown .
Yes a complete lie by both also rans .Why? in 1961 NZ through the UN International law it would not have been legal to close the border to Citizens .
Both of them knew that yet went and grandstanded and big noted how they had turned down such a threatened proposal .
Seems a hint of panic by the Peters selected band of nohopers to run NZ is starting to kick in when they have realised that NZs economy is in ashes when they set out to distract NZs citizens to admire their lies .
Just listen to the real NZ at the moment and the terrible feeling of dread for the wellbeing and future of its Citizens . Think it is time that Ardern and gang stopped treating NZs like Mushrooms and keeping them in the dark. Yes we did hear from Ardern that Queen Elizabeth bless her sent on a best wish message to our economy destroyer Ardern not realising she loves the limelight big time ,also not being aware that she also suffers from ”Narcissistic Personality Disorder”.Not forgetting also that not so long ago she was a great supporter of the dictator Maduro who runs Venezuela with jack boots and and Iron Fists. Yes that is a grat example how Socialism is being played out in that unfortunate Country. Reminds me of how good NZs economy was five weeks ago wonder can we still say that today . Evidence says NZs economy is in ashes thanks to the present inept inane Regime .
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April 30, 2020 8:43am
- Philview
  
  I recall seeing Youtube footage of her singing the Internationale which has verses like the one below.
  
  “Contemptible you are in your wealth,
  You kings of coal and steel!
  You had your thrones, parasites,
  At our backs erected.
  All the factories, all the chambers –
  All were made by our hands.
  It’s time! We demand the return
  Of that which was stolen from us.”
  
  25 3
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  April 30, 2020 9:25am
  - freethinker
    
    If that is the same video I saw of ardern in a leather corset and fishnets stockings – just short of the whip although that did emerge from her mouth frequently.
    
    [Mod – that’s getting into the realm of too much information]
    
    10 2
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    April 30, 2020 10:29am
    - Engelbert Humperdink
      
      Pictures or it didn’t happen…
      
      2 1
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      April 30, 2020 12:53pm
      - tf78
        
        I videoed the video on my phone it was real.
        
        1 0
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        April 30, 2020 6:49pm
- Benedict Yu
  
  “he did not blame the Chinese for the Coronavirus. ”
  
  I have been to some of those markets. They are astounding. So long as people (and China I am looking at you) have live wild animals, domestic animals, and people in close quarters, these disasters will happen. And if said people have a fondness for eating bats and pangolins, there is your problem.
  
  So the whole mess is kind of China’s fault, or at least their practice of chowing down on endangered animals, which is the same thing.
  
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  April 30, 2020 9:35am
  - david
    
    What has the endangered status of an animal got to do with its propensity to be the source of a virus?
    Genuine question.
    
    2 0
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    April 30, 2020 5:53pm
lastmanstanding

“This is the recession we had to have. I wasnt prepared to see hundreds of thousands of my people die as a result of the virus. But we will get through this if we stand together. ( insert usual Maori slogan”

This is the spin we are going to get from Cindy as she tries to walk back the fact that the Coalition of Morons wasnt prepared and made bad decisions.

Sadly too many citizens are going to fall for it hook line and sinker. These are the same citizens who lack the intellect to understand the poor governance behaviour of the COM. They will suffer much pain as a result and even more over the next 3 years unless they wake up.
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April 30, 2020 8:45am
- Ruawai
  
  Don’t like her calling us ‘my people’ I would rather be referred to as NZers, I do not belong to her.
  
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  April 30, 2020 8:48am
  - cmm
    
    Dude she sees you as her tax and voting livestock.
    
    31 2
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    April 30, 2020 8:53am
  - pdm
    
    Ruawai -that is not how she sees it and she is in full control while the country is in lockdown – and she is loving it.
    
    32 1
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    April 30, 2020 9:04am
  - tf78
    
    Remember she was NEVER elected – she was chosen by the not so wise one – we are now reaping what he sewed. She is not my prime minister and I will never accept her as such.
    
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    April 30, 2020 6:51pm
    - marcw
      
      Tf you are falling into the same trap as those who say Trump “is not my President.” You can disagree with the policy, you can object to her Government, but whatever, according to our electoral laws, she is our Prime Minister. Don’t become one of the “Never Trumpers” (= never Ardern), it lowers your credibility.
      
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      April 30, 2020 7:02pm
    - Nickc2
      
      More up-ticks required here please guys.
      
      2 0
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      April 30, 2020 8:48pm
I remember when

The International Spiritualists’ Federation was formed in 1923.
Table turning, Quija boards and other attempt to commune with the spirit world were popular in the 1920’s.
Society hostesses hired mediums for after-dinner seances. Groups of young people gathered in the dark for a spot of ‘table tipping’ and young ladies explained to friends that they were probably ‘mediumistic’.
People sitting around in the dark making things up.
That wouldn’t work now would it?
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April 30, 2020 8:45am
- kowtow
  
  Taking advantage of the hundreds of thousands of bereaved post WWI.
  
  Total scum.
  
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  April 30, 2020 11:03am
Belinda

Happy 80th birthday Air New Zealand.
I for one am sad to see you on your knees.
Miss those big birds flying over everyday.
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April 30, 2020 8:46am
Inandout

Transmission Gully under National was all set to open around now, but the The Shambles has delayed it until next year. Who has won….the Greens because the Auckland rail has sucked billions out of the budget.
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April 30, 2020 8:51am
- emmess
  
  The Hamilton bypass has been delayed by a year or so as well
  
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  April 30, 2020 9:28am
- Benedict Yu
  
  On that subject, I read the other day that the ressurected Otaki to Levin section of the motorway cannot start for five years – 2025. That is how long it will take to get the consenting and planning finished and land acquisition done. It is astounding – this thing has been on the drawing board since Steven Joyce. Two years OK, but five years :-(?
  
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  April 30, 2020 9:38am
seismac

Tamiti received supposedly $150,000 for T2 Hospitality
Willie Jackson 35000
David Parker 323000 for Pharmazan
mmmmmm something about conflict of interest?
43 3
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April 30, 2020 8:54am
- Mark Craig
  
  THERE i WAS THINKING LABOUR HAD NO ONE WITH ANY BUSINESS EXPERIENCE
  
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  April 30, 2020 9:35pm
I remember when

I’m sure the Level 4 rules mentioning that if you had a box/carton/article and you were moving house. You could use your mountain bike to transport it from your old house to the new house.
When you have done so you are able to use your Campaign Vehicle to return to your existing residence.
It was in an addendum or fine print or somewhere.
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April 30, 2020 8:54am
I remember when

KO’B
Was it in the newsflash about Vietnam not having had any new cases for 10 days.
9 1
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April 30, 2020 8:57am
Maggie Pie

Christchurch based Ibraahin Farez, describing himself as being an unemployed Somalian Refugee and long time National supporter, posts to Facebook he will never vote Blue again while Simon Bridges remains as leader.
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April 30, 2020 9:03am
- Komata
  
  Maggie@0903
  
  Well, THAT was an easy ‘Turning’ wasn’t it?
  
  I wonder what ‘benefits’ he received, and from whom..?
  
  25 2
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  April 30, 2020 9:11am
- Lee C
  
  Lol!
  
  22 1
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  April 30, 2020 9:15am
- emmess
  
  Wow, I never knew the unemployed Somalian refugee community was such a big part of National’s support base.
  You learn some new every day.
  
  42 1
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  April 30, 2020 9:30am
  - Paulus
    
    I assume he has the right to vote ?
    Is he a New Zealand Citizen as well or on some other form of visa ?
    
    3 1
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    April 30, 2020 2:07pm
  - curry4me
    
    emmess: There’s hundreds of them in Cashmere. It’s become a lot more colourful lately. Simons a gone burger. -:)
    
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    April 30, 2020 9:18pm
- MT_Tinman
  
  Yet another vote for yellow then.
  
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  April 30, 2020 10:12am
- Suze Wainwright
  
  Don’t laugh people; this bloke’s got a demonstrable issue with Simon Bridges’ white privilege…
  
  11 2
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  April 30, 2020 11:23am
  - KevO'Brien
    
    And Cindy has no white privilege?
    
    7 1
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    April 30, 2020 1:02pm
    - Suze Wainwright
      
      Sarcasm Kev – the point is that some of Cindy’s apparent new Facebook converts have accused Simon Bridges of ‘white privilege.’ Bridges is Maori. But yes, Cindy would have ‘white privilege’.
      
      10 1
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      April 30, 2020 1:44pm
all true

Before any proposals are worked out, how about that the government and councils go thru their own books and weed out seriously their heavenly overstaffed departments with all these half cooked managers.
The world democracies and personal freedoms are deeply looking down the barrel.
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April 30, 2020 9:04am
- JackRabbit
  
  Have you ever seen a dictatorship dismantle their hierarchy?
  
  A) That would 180° from the leaders “I’ll look after you stance”.
  B) It would invite dissension in the ranks. Dissension that would erode her loyal support structure.
  C) It would destroy her voter base.
  
  This shouts out in no small way that it is all about her and her party. If she tried to do the right thing her puppeteer would roll her in an instance. She didn’t plan all this, it has evolved and she is in it because she didn’t say NO when she had the opportunity.
  
  Tyranny has a momentum which sweeps up all those involved, and no-one wants to stop because it will all come crashing down like a house of cards, and end up in extreme embarrassment.
  
  If you bury one body of someone who challenged you, you keep on burying bodies to prevent that body being found and to show you are not to be challenged. One body eventually becomes millions.
  
  There are a lot of lessons about tyranny and individuals caught up in tyranny in “The Man in the High Castle”. Its a long series, but well worth the watch.
  
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  April 30, 2020 9:36am
Handyman

Just thinking…
Lots of photos of people risking certain death by walking on beaches and lots of videos of McDonald’s careful preparation for safe operation.
But I haven’t seen any photos of commuters getting on and off trains. Has anyone got any first hand knowledge of this?
The AT video shows one passenger per bus, but I cannot see how it will be effective with normal volumes. It says do not enter by the front door so you do not go past the driver, (fair enough) yet you must walk past other passengers to get to your seat.
Why was public transport not cancelled as part of level4 and 3?
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April 30, 2020 9:04am
- Ruahine
  
  Unions wanted their members working.
  
  13 3
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  April 30, 2020 9:14am
- Maggie Pie
  
  Poor people still have to get into WINZ and the various food banks.
  
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  April 30, 2020 9:14am
- mikenmildagain
  
  Many essential workers relied on public transport to get to work in L4.
  
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  April 30, 2020 9:31am
  - JackRabbit
    
    Since Covid-19 can remain suspended in the air for hours and travel large distances due to air flow, public transport is an incubation chamber. That is precisely why New York stats are so high because of public transport.
    
    Allowing public transport to continue, and schools to open signals that there is no longer a risk. Why are we in lock down?
    
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    April 30, 2020 9:52am
  - Benedict Yu
    
    Yes but I have seen dozens of buses with zero or one passenger during L4. These are vehicles using lots and lots of diesel. So I challenge your “many” descriptor.
    
    Surely it would have been cheaper to ground the buses and put all the drivers on unpaid leave, and use the money saved to give essential workers without cars free (or heavily subsidised) uber rides?
    
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    April 30, 2020 10:42am
    - Batman
      
      Then you’d just have a bunch of Uber drivers in close proximity to essential workers.
      
      It’s actually better to have a medium bus where let’s say 4-10 essential workers can be spaced out.
      
      5 3
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      April 30, 2020 10:58am
    - mikenmildagain
      
      Hey, I don’t know. How about you research the question of how many passengers were being carried during L4 and report back with benefit-cost calculations?
      
      2 12
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      April 30, 2020 11:57am
- Brian Marshall
  
  I can’t speak for other areas of the country, but for my part of the Hutt Valley when I go past the Silverstream train station and a train pulls up and leaves, there might be 1 or 2 people catching the train during the day. Buses are mostly empty that I see too. No one is willingly catching public transport from what I can see.
  
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  April 30, 2020 10:18am
  - Benedict Yu
    
    In Christchurch during L4 the buses were driving empty or sometimes with a single passenger.
    
    11 1
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    April 30, 2020 10:43am
  - alex Masterley
    
    It is similar in Auckland.
    During the level 4 lockdown there were regularly 6 carriage trains on the western line with 1 or 2 passengers.
    Likewise the buses. One or two passengers at the rush hour.
    
    7 1
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    April 30, 2020 12:41pm
Maggy Wassilieff

Boris and Carrie have a son
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-52469079
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April 30, 2020 9:21am
- Tony Stuart
  
  Hearty congratulations to Boris and Carrie!
  
  26 2
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  April 30, 2020 9:24am
  - mikenmildagain
    
    Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
    How many bastards has he racked up now?
    
    2 41
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    April 30, 2020 9:32am
    - Nukuleka
      
      I guess Milkey that you would like us to return to the good old days of children being deemed either legitimate or illegitimate on their birth certificates. Good to see that you are such a bastion of moral rectitude.
      
      21 3
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      April 30, 2020 9:50am
      - JackRabbit
        
        Or perhaps “Moral Wrecktitude” ?
        
        https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=wrecktitude
        
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        April 30, 2020 10:10am
      - Tony Stuart
        
        It’s sad that mikenmild cannot simply be happy for the couple. I’m not a fan of the PM, but I congratulated them on the birth of Neve, noting that life as they knew it had changed forever! I did likewise for Julie Anne Genter and her partner.
        
        The birth of a child is a significant moment, whatever the political stripes of the parent.
        
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        April 30, 2020 10:20am
      - mikenmildagain
        
        Just tongue in check, remembering all the Kiwiblog references to NZ’s ‘first bastard’.
        
        4 10
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        April 30, 2020 11:59am
    - All_on_Red
      
      Not as many as your mother.
      
      11 4
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      April 30, 2020 9:52am
    - Steve Otto(North Shore)
      
      Not as many as the solo mother’s club in NZ
      
      11 2
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      April 30, 2020 9:58am
    - Inandout
      
      m&m, you were triggered at the mention of Boris.
      ‘Pavlovian theory is a learning procedure that involves pairing a stimulus with a conditioned response’.
      And to add the word ‘bastard’ because they weren’t married, well look to your own back yard.
      
      7 3
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      April 30, 2020 10:36am
      - JackRabbit
        
        He could be in De Nile.
        
        4 2
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        April 30, 2020 11:32am
    - skyblue
      
      [Deleted and a week off for posting offensive comment. Mods.]
      
      1 1
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      April 30, 2020 3:06pm
    - GoVege
      
      Apparently its Boris himself who is “the bastard”.
      His eldest daughter was quoted calling him “a selfish bastard”.
      Hope he sticks around longer for this one of his kids for longer than the other five….
      
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      April 30, 2020 7:01pm
    - Cod Weyne
      
      Clever…..
      
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      April 30, 2020 9:15pm
Tony Stuart

The Epidemic Response Committee has an interesting line-up of “guests” this morning, including the boss of Auckland City Mission, the head of Women’s Refuge, and the Police Commissioner. The theme of today’s sitting is Social Impact, which seems to be getting greater by the day.
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April 30, 2020 9:23am
Happychappy

Instead of talking up what they are to do about unemployment it would nice to actually here the plan of how they are going to manage the 100,000 people that Tresury expects to be out of a job very shortly.
Social Development Minister Carmel Supuloni said the Government is already looking at more schemes to get NZer’s working and told TVNZ breakfast show this morning about the Government’s future plans and said they will be acting quickly and proactively to keep NZer’s working.
” The work has already begun ” Ms Sepuloni said.
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/govt-looking-more-support-systems-after-treasury-predicts-100k-unemployed-kiwis-post-pandemic?auto=6152689613001
Ms Sepuloni seems to be good at talking but not so good at telling us where the jobs will come from.
Oh wait on I wonder if it’s Winston’s Manufacturing plan.
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April 30, 2020 9:26am
- Philview
  
  I struggle to see how 100,000 untrained people can be put to work on construction projects. It is going to be a very slow process despite all the shovel ready talk coming out of Government. The switch from being say a chef to an HGV driver isn’t that simple.
  
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  April 30, 2020 10:16am
  - KevO'Brien
    
    Are Twford Sepuloni synonymys?
    
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    April 30, 2020 1:04pm
- Sacha
  
  Maybe they could put all the able-bodied and out of work men and women onto publicly funded projects.
  Men were sent to plant pine trees on the Central plateau. A hundred billion trees –
  
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  April 30, 2020 10:33am
Maggy Wassilieff

75 years ago the 1000-Year Reich came to a sudden halt.
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/adolf-hitler-commits-suicide
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April 30, 2020 9:28am
- mikenmildagain
  
  The Third Reich struggled on for another week or two, until all the armies had surrendered and Hitler’s successor, Donitz, was ignominiously arrested by the British.
  
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  April 30, 2020 9:37am
  - Ed Snack
    
    Close Mikey, 1 week as the final surrender document was signed at Reims on 7 May, all forces everywhere to all allies. Forces in Italy and Austria surrendered on 2 May as did the remains of the Berlin Garrison. May 4 was the Lunenberg Heath surrender of all the troops in North Germany and Denmark. Breslau surrendered on 6 May.
    
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    April 30, 2020 2:09pm
    - mikenmildagain
      
      Donitz headed up a Nazi government in Flensberg(?) for another week or so, pretending to govern till the British got fed up and arrested him.
      
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      April 30, 2020 3:10pm
- JackRabbit
  
  Hitler had banned smoking, ostensibly because he suffered giving up and didn’t like being reminded of it.
  
  It was an offense to smoke in uniform, one you could be punished for. You could rape, beat, shoot or send Jews to the ovens while in uniform, but smoking was not allowed, it was a serious offense.
  
  On hearing of his death, the first thing his “loyal” senior staff did, was immediately light up a cigarette.
  
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  April 30, 2020 10:16am
  - Inandout
    
    Jack, but times don’t change when tax is involved-
    
    ‘At the same time, tobacco was never outlawed in Nazi Germany. It was too important a source of revenue. According to Proctor, by 1941 tobacco taxes made up a whopping one-twelfth of the government’s income. In wartime, this was important funding’.
    
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    April 30, 2020 10:41am
    - JackRabbit
      
      That may be true, but my reference was to those in uniform, while in uniform.
      
      1 1
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      April 30, 2020 11:33am
- Biscuit
  
  Maggy, I remember my History tutor making us, one day, write an essay on what Hitler did right.
  
  The ‘winning’ essay, sadly not mine, was very succinct and wasn’t much longer than ‘Hitler is never given enough credit for his greatest achievement: he was, after all, the man who killed Hitler.’
  
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  April 30, 2020 10:24am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    We had to prepare a speech on a famous person in the 3rd form… I did one on Dag Hammarskjold.. and being a decent kind of public speaker thought I’d do quite well.
    
    But to our class’ collective horror, the winning speech was by a lad on Adolf Hitler.
    I think it was the first time any of us had heard anything positive about Hitler. We were gob-smacked.
    
    The speech winner went on to be Dux of our school.
    
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    April 30, 2020 11:29am
    - mikenmildagain
      
      Hopefully by the time he was dux, he had learned the difference between famous and infamous.
      
      4 6
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      April 30, 2020 12:00pm
      - Biscuit
        
        You made me laugh there, mike.
        
        Remember Kenneth Williams in ‘Carry On Cleo’:
        
        ‘Infamy, infamy, they’ve all got it infamy…’
        
        4 0
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        April 30, 2020 1:46pm
      - JamesP
        
        You apparently missed the class on subsets.
        
        3 1
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        April 30, 2020 2:02pm
      - Maggy Wassilieff
        
        I think even now, he would be too polite to tell you to consult a good dictionary.
        
        As he was the top Latin scholar (and became a well-known Latin teacher), he might have quoted Tacitus’ use of the adjective when describing Martina
        famosum veneficiis Martinam
        
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        April 30, 2020 2:14pm
Maggie Pie

My partner is a huge fan of President Trump and all that he stands for. He reckons the only reason Trumpy wants people to inject bleach, is that he believes it will make everybody white.
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April 30, 2020 9:33am
- Inandout
  
  Maggy, on a more serious note, my daughter believes the sound bite that ‘Trump wants people to inject disinfectant’. She refuses to discuss the fact that if Trump was actually serious about what was reported, surely the injector would need to be a drug addict to be so desperate.
  
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  April 30, 2020 10:46am
  - Batman
    
    To be fair, and with respect, both you and your daughter are being a bit obtuse there.
    
    He speculated about using light and/or disinfectant to kill the virus, “almost a cleaning”, as he said. He did mention injection but it wasn’t as firm as ‘people should be injected’ despite the damage being done by the stupidity of the whole thing.
    
    Meanwhile, your insistence around them having to surely be an addict is both A) wrong, and B) naive and callous towards the lives of people with addiction issues. It also fundamentally misunderstands how drug addiction works, which at least shows that you’ve not been one!
    
    People can be driven to thinking such things are valid by a number of factors, including general intelligence, political loyalty, and trust in traditional authority (“but it’s the President” syndrome). Just look at the numbers of people in the US who called their local poison hotline to ask whether there was any truth to it or to check it wasn’t true!
    
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    April 30, 2020 10:55am
    - Ed Snack
      
      But they didn’t, that’s fake news. The surge in queries about bleach poisoning started before a Trump mentioned it and no doubt relates to a considerable increase in the use of disinfectants and bleaches for cleaning purposes throughout the USA.
      
      Any surge post that briefing, if there was one, is also down to the widespread misreporting about what was said.
      
      And just in case you didn’t know, there is a company with a proposal to use UV light via a catheter into the lungs to treat COVID-19 lung infections. At the initial stages of testing. Practical, we don’t know, personally I’m sceptical of how well lung cells will tolerate UV, but maybe there’s a window where virus particles are susceptible and human cells can tolerate it.
      
      In the absence of any well tested and efficacious treatment for the virus, a great many things are worth investigating. And I’ve seen a google docs list of well over 100 trials and proposals for trials already underway.
      
      3 2
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      April 30, 2020 2:19pm
      - All_on_Red
        
        ‘And just in case you didn’t know,’
        
        Hahahahaha
        There’s a LOT Batman doesn’t know
        
        4 2
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        April 30, 2020 3:21pm
All_on_Red

Wonder how many millions in Damages Law Firm Covington Burling will end up paying General Flynn.
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April 30, 2020 9:40am
- mikenmildagain
  
  Nil?
  
  3 11
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  April 30, 2020 12:08pm
  - Ed Snack
    
    Maybe some people in the FBI will end doing time though. Just released, hand written notes from FBI staff where they discuss getting Flynn to lie so they can get him fired. Almost the veritable smoking gun as to a politically motivated hit job.
    
    And as regards Covington Burling, as a very minimum I would imagine that their legal fees as paid by Flynn will be refunded. It seems that a separate, illegal, agreement they made with the SC’s prosecutor that was concealed from the judge will come back to bite them.
    
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    April 30, 2020 2:23pm
emmess

Fish Tank Cleaner lady under investigation for murder

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/woman-who-blamed-trump-after-giving-her-husband-fish-tank-cleaner-now-under-investigation-for-murder/
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April 30, 2020 9:49am
- cmm
  
  After the “disinfectant incident” there were reports of many (IIRC over a hundred) 911 calls from people who said they had consumed bleach because OMB told them to.
  
  All fake.
  
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  April 30, 2020 11:32am
Don Beckett

A woman walks into an opticians office, carefully carrying an attache case. She places the case on his desk and steps back. The optician gingerly opens the case, then recoils in horror. Sitting in the case is a huge human turd.
He asks the woman, “Is this yours?’
She replies, “yes.”
He says, ” You should be seeing your doctor about this – not me.”
She replies, “My doctor told me to come to see you.”
The optician replies,” Why on earth did your doctor send you to me?”
She replied, ” Every time I have one of these, my eyes water.”
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April 30, 2020 10:00am
Fletch

Meanwhile, back in Wuhan 😛

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsHnstkljug
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April 30, 2020 10:46am
Tony Stuart

Question 1: Why did the PM’s office contact Stuff, and ask them to amend an opinion story published at the weekend, written by Dr Steve Elers, senior lecturer in media and communications at Massey University.

Question 2: Why did Stuff then publish an addendum to the story, instead of protesting the direct intervention of the PM’s office to “correct” an opinion-piece that the PM didn’t agree with?

https://twitter.com/i/status/1255606267273293824

Question 3: Is this an isolated incident, or does the PM’s office regularly get stories rewritten to suit the PM?

Question 4: Did the package of $50m of government assistance to media (with more promised in a second package) influence Stuff’s decisionmaking around this matter?
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April 30, 2020 10:48am
- doggone7
  
  All the time, people say our media is crap, including on this site, saying that they a poor job and our MSM is second rate.
  
  Have you ever contacted some branch of the media about something they’ve got wrong? Should people be allowed to do that? Should politicians not be allowed to d0 that?
  
  Someone didn’t just come on here and whinge about it something on Stuff but contacted them to correct what was written.
  
  “Political offices have every right to complain about factual inaccuracies, perceived or otherwise. This is routine across all sides.”
  
  “Politicians from all sides engage with media outlets to give feedback all the time. His article wasn’t altered; the PM’s office was given space to respond. If Dr Elers had done his job properly, he would have got their comment first.”
  
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  April 30, 2020 2:06pm
  - emmess
    
    That is what we have comment sections for. But the MSM has removed them.
    
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    April 30, 2020 2:55pm
    - doggone7
      
      Maybe that indicates the egregiousness of what was written. This site along with other blog sites mightn’t be the MSM but I’m sure some comments get removed or not displayed.
      
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      April 30, 2020 5:31pm
MrTips

Horrific reality coming up.

With all the criticism being directed at our MoH and DHBs at the moment, over measles, vaccinations and the run down public health system uncovered by COVID19, we can expect a thorough review of our health system right?

Well, yes we can, it’s being done right now.

By none other than Heather Simpson. H1.

God help us.
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April 30, 2020 10:56am
oldfella

This blog just been slagged off by the Mongrel Mob PR pony. They’re social workers, not criminals. They don’t sell P. They are essential workers, cooperating with other Maori to help their people. So there…
Apparently DF is to blame for the confususion and has amended yesterday’s KB story three times, apparently to correct errors. Can’t wait for DF’s update. Or abject, grovelling apology (yeah, nah).
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April 30, 2020 11:06am
barnacle bill

Just who’s leg is young Kim pulling now ?

https://www.news.com.au/finance/work/leaders/kim-jongun-inside-leaders-pleasure-train-filled-with-tall-and-beautiful-virgins/news-story/bbf439f05e41c13c1415f70fc99aba56
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April 30, 2020 11:12am
- Jack5
  
  Did you mean to say, Barnacle: Whose legs are young Kim pulling now?
  
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  April 30, 2020 11:46am
  - barnacle bill
    
    Maybe so Jack, but I cant imagine Kim going on for long, he would likely fall asleep after a couple of mins.
    
    Most likely it just another propaganda exercise ?
    
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    April 30, 2020 12:49pm
curry4me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cT-Y4lkPXtw
CCP virus recession. Could China buy up distressed firms
cheaply? China invested $25 bill in the USA. It’s part of Made in China 2025.
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April 30, 2020 11:18am
curry4me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRza2l85LMA
UK fishing expected to change post Brexit.
EU fishing quotas are too high.
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April 30, 2020 11:19am
- cmm
  
  Yup, what used to be UK waters got shared out to all the EU nations and the UK fishing fleet got screwed over.
  
  Now the poms can have that back and EU fishers will have to work a lot harder to find fish.
  
  No doubt many EU fishing companies will just throw in the towel as they would need to gear up for deep water Atlantic fishing.
  
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  April 30, 2020 11:54am
Lee C

that convid counter – is that equating to us losing $2500 every second from our economy?

If so that really needs to be publicised in teh right places…
9 3
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April 30, 2020 11:44am
- UrbanNeocolonialist
  
  $2500 per second (75 billion over a year) is probably a low-ball figure if you integrate the long term cost impact of huge unemployment and business closures.
  
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  April 30, 2020 12:29pm
Local Miller

Here’s an interesting bit of research linking Vitamin D deficiency to the severe impact of the Covid-19 virus. Mortality rates in the northern hemisphere (coming out of winter) are mostly higher than the southern, where Vit-D levels would be heigh. Most Nordic countries already supplement Vit-D due to known low daylight hours, and these (apparently) have lower mortality rates compared to Italy & Spain.
Of course this means being in lockdown is a BAD idea because you go out less, get less sun on your skin, so less Vit-D. Unless you supplement of course.
https://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Article/2020/04/28/Clear-link-between-vitamin-D-deficiency-and-severity-of-coronavirus-says-researchers?utm_source=copyright&utm_medium=OnSite&utm_campaign=copyright
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April 30, 2020 12:04pm
- rangitoto
  
  This is an interesting read.
  
  https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2020/04/28/covid-update-focus-on-vitamin-d/
  
  Keep up your vitamin d3 intake over the winter folks. My wife used to get lots of colds over the winter but hasn’t had a cold or flu for five years since taking d3 supplement in the winter.
  
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  April 30, 2020 2:06pm
- cmm
  
  It has been known for a long time that VitD is a building block for the immune system: no Vit D, no immune system.
  
  Apart from obvious seasonal variations, Vit D is also lower in dark skinned people since the pigment blocks VitD production. Having been evolutionary selected for living in tropical areas, black people struggle with VitD production in northern (and southern) areas.
  
  Surprise, surprise: up to 40% of the Swedish CV19 deaths are Somalis even though they are only 1 or 2% of the Swedish population. Add other dark skinned people from other countries and probably more than 50% of the Swedish deaths are dark skinned people.
  
  Surprise, surprise: black people are faring very poorly in CV19 deaths in USA.
  
  Surprise, surprise: The seasonal levels of Vit D in a NZ study match the flu season almost perfectly. Remember that the flu season isn’t just about flu – it is a time when people are prone to all sorts of ailments and deaths.
  
  Surprise, surprise: Vit D is lower in obese people (who also have worse CV19 outcomes an outcomes from all infections).
  
  Surprise, surprise: Vit D levels are lower in SI than in NI. SI has had more deaths per million than NI, but not statistically valid.
  
  https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/publications/vit-d-status-nzadults.pdf
  
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  April 30, 2020 3:10pm
burt

Anyone keen to take bets on this guy having Labour Party membership and getting these charges dropped so as to not effect his future employment options?

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12328494
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April 30, 2020 12:08pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Prob having a chat with Nash and Little right now
  
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  April 30, 2020 12:29pm
  - cmm
    
    Well they better also ask Sonny and Wally otherwise they will feel left out and get hurt feelings.
    
    1 1
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    April 30, 2020 4:05pm
chaos

Interesting times ahead. Things are going to get a bit to the point we plan to hanker down again and not go shopping until it is over. If you are that way inclined I suggest you start buying a few extra things.
5 1
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April 30, 2020 12:24pm
rangitoto

Captain Tom is promoted. Not to Major but Colonel:

“Queen promotes Tom Moore from captain to COLONEL as he turns 100 today”

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8271309/Happy-Birthday-COLONEL-Tom-Queen-promotes-Captain-Tom-Moore-100th-birthday.html
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April 30, 2020 12:45pm
- alex Masterley
  
  All that can be said is: Well done that man.
  Looks like his 100th will be quite a big gig. I hope he lasts the distance.
  
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  April 30, 2020 1:33pm
Prince

Is there any other country in the world that allows their leader unfettered access daily to the State broadcasters to declare what a great job they are doing, without serious questioning from an adoring media ?
16 2
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April 30, 2020 1:05pm
- Philview
  
  When I have watched it she actually chooses who gets to ask the questions so I wonder if there are journalists who never get a look in. Some of them look like they are barely out of school.
  
  7 2
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  April 30, 2020 3:11pm
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    Tova got the first question today, as usual.
    Not that I watch that shit anyway
    
    4 2
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    April 30, 2020 4:16pm
  - kevn
    
    @Prince/Phil/Alex/Steve… Most interesting is to catch how few actual reporters are in the room. Business reporters banished apparently, just a few sycophants with patsy questions that have been supplied.
    Rarely, the camera will pan part of the room. Rarely.
    
    4 1
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    April 30, 2020 5:14pm
MrTips

Far out. Cindy just admitted that the govt is using media reports to justify actuating investigations into alleged lockdown breaches, even in the absence of an actual complaint!

Pravda is a joke no more – that’s spooky stuff.
21 3
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April 30, 2020 1:11pm
- doggone7
  
  Good, the Government’s catching up with the general public. We go online, read a few headlines and decide who’s done what or not, who’s guilty or innocent of whatever.
  We take that and spread our version broadly and try to incite others to grab their metaphorical ropes and find the right tree. That’s how we operate. That’s how we want to operate,
  
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  April 30, 2020 1:45pm
Philview

A very hard hitting commentary from Mike Hoskins today. I have never heard a news man hit this Government so hard before, maybe Mike does it alot and I haven’t heard it.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12328469
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April 30, 2020 1:14pm
- doggone7
  
  You still have never heard a news man hit this Government so hard because he is not a ‘news’ man, he is an ‘opinion’ man.
  
  To be fair to him, this morning he said, “I’m so over the media in this country.” Then he got into his work of being the media.
  
  6 6
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  April 30, 2020 1:54pm
- Captain Mainwaring
  
  Hey Philviews.
  His name doesn’t have an ‘s’ on the end of it. Does it piss you off when I put one on yours?
  
  2 0
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  April 30, 2020 9:14pm
  - Captain Mainwaring
    
    Philviews:
    I’ll go further. Instead of an ‘s’ his name has a ‘g’.
    Hosking.
    
    2 0
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    April 30, 2020 9:15pm
Johnboy

Jeeze. JAFA folk get “shocked” easily.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/news/300000864/coronavirus-woman-shocked-by-passengers-packed-into-air-new-zealand-flight
She should have hopped on a ship FFS. 🙂
8 2
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April 30, 2020 1:22pm
- alex Masterley
  
  Mate if she is that concerned she should bloody walk.
  Entitled whiner.
  
  10 2
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  April 30, 2020 1:34pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Why isn’t she at school? Obviously a schoolteacher
  
  5 3
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  April 30, 2020 1:58pm
  - doggone7
    
    Do her actions indicate she’s a teacher as much as yours might indicate you’re a pupil?
    
    1 4
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    April 30, 2020 4:19pm
- UrbanNeocolonialist
  
  poor Karen.
  
  5 0
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  April 30, 2020 2:46pm
Johnboy

What a twit.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/300001624/prince-harry-misses-army-and-tells-friends-his-life-has-been-turned-upside-down
What did the pathetic ginga think would happen? 🙂
21 2
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April 30, 2020 1:26pm
- mikenmildagain
  
  Could have been worse: he might have completely lost his mind and moved to Wainui.
  
  3 6
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  April 30, 2020 2:12pm
Maggie Pie

Just got back from the Vicky Ave dairy (needed Creme Cheese to make icing for the hummingburd cake). Overheard a woman in there telling Raj about “…the dreadful stench coming from the creek across the road from her”.
Well butter my butt and call be a muffin! What can you expect when you chose to live below sea level in Portland Rd? My partners mum was saying it even used to be a state-housing area in years gone by 🙁
7 2
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April 30, 2020 2:04pm
- trout
  
  Lower Portland Road is a reclaimed swamp. The road was put in and state houses built in the 50’s. The problem at present is caused by uncontrolled weed growth in the Portland Road stormwater canal, and a weir at the Shore road end that holds the water back. In the absence of rain there is no flushing of stagnant water. In times past the Council cleared the canal of weeds and silt that allowed flow but this does not now happen; perhaps they are creating a wetland? I guess the amenity of local residents can now be sacrificed to ‘Green’ objectives.
  
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  April 30, 2020 3:04pm
  - Maggie Pie
    
    Thanks for that info, trout. That’s pretty much as Ma remembers it she said.
    On the odd ocassion, my partner has trapped a few ducks down there – but certainly wouldn’t now.
    
    3 1
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    April 30, 2020 3:38pm
Critical Thinker

Hmmmmm…. ?

World Health Organization praises Sweden for coronavirus response resisting shutdowns

“What it has done differently is it has very much relied on its relationship with its citizenry, and the ability and willingness of citizens to implement physical distancing and to self-regulate, if you want to use that word,”

“I think if we are to reach a new normal, Sweden represents a model if we wish to get back to a society in which we don’t have lockdowns,”

https://nypost.com/2020/04/29/who-lauds-sweden-as-model-for-resisting-coronavirus-lockdown/

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/world-health-organization-praises-sweden-for-coronavirus-response-resisting-shutdowns
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April 30, 2020 2:12pm
- niggly
  
  Oh oh … COL are now out of step with WHO thinking!
  
  Maybe MSM will also take notice and ask PM why Sweden is in a better position – economically, people’s health and well-being, families are connected etc – compared to NZ!
  
  5 1
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  April 30, 2020 4:00pm
Biscuit

Maggie, way back in the day, my annual treat to myself was to fly to Auckland on Boxing Day and get myself out to four days of racing at Ellerslie and two nights of trotting/pacing at Alexandra Park.

I dunno where it was exactly but one year I stayed at a motel that was on that nice bayside walk into the bottom of the city.

On one of those walks, I stopped off at a roadside ice cream store and was almost knocked over by the stench of ess aith eye tee coming from a nearby stream.

That would have been the mid Eighties, I think.

I ceased my annual treat once the two racing clubs stuffed up their Christmas programmes.

Seems like not a lot has changed…
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April 30, 2020 2:19pm
- Maggie Pie
  
  SHIT bikkie – no need to spell it out.
  Nothing upsets me these days 😀
  
  3 1
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  April 30, 2020 3:30pm
brett68

You need to ditch those counters on the side, they’re a massive resource hog they’re using up around 30% of my CPU.

No doubt it will be the same on everyone elses computer.
2 5
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April 30, 2020 2:35pm
- cmm
  
  DPF’s cunning plot to help cause climate change…
  
  5 2
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  April 30, 2020 3:22pm
Critical Thinker

This is great news ?

“There are promising therapies produced by Gilead, and that’s Remdesivir. Remdesivir. And that’s a drug used for other purposes that’s been out and has had very good results for other purposes, but it seems to have a very good result, having to do with this virus.” – President Trump 19th March

“What it has proven is that a drug can block this virus,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious-disease expert. “This will be the standard of care.”

The US government says it is working to make the antiviral medication remdesivir available to patients as quickly as possible.

https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/world/us-drug-proves-effective-speeding-coronavirus-recovery
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April 30, 2020 2:49pm
kevn

Nice to see John Key supporting NZ with his thoughts and suggestions..
9 1
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April 30, 2020 3:09pm
Inandout

Magic Plunket’s stand in is very woke, quite a laugh actually. Won’t take any callers that really criticise the Maori road blocks or he will cut you off; they are protecting their whanau you see. … [Del – Mod.]
9 1
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April 30, 2020 3:18pm
Surely Knott

You can do some gentle mountain biking or swim at the beach in level 3 according to Jacinda as long as it’s your local. Yet in Auckland the gates to the parks and reserves are shut with “:this facility is closed” signs. Is this happening in any other parts of NZ.
8 2
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April 30, 2020 4:00pm
I remember when

Biscuit
There seems to be the start of a move to bugger up the Christchurch Show week races too.
Let’s move a couple of the main races to the North Island because most of the horses are from there and with covid-19.
Just waiting for the day NZ horses make up to bulk of the field in Australia and they suggest the same thing. NOT
5 2
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April 30, 2020 4:05pm
Manolo

One feels sorry for poor old Joe after watching the video. Put him out of his misery and just cart him away to the rest home.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/apr/28/joe-biden-appears-fall-asleep-hillary-clinton-town/

Conservative Twitter feeds and websites exploded with mirth Tuesday when Joe Biden appeared to fall asleep during a virtual town hall meeting with Hillary Clinton.

The livestreamed event was designed to highlight Mrs. Clinton’s endorsement of Mr. Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

During the event, Mr. Biden frequently cast his gaze down as if consulting notes.
5 1
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April 30, 2020 4:14pm
secondcumming

NBR reporting (pay-walled) that *Augusta Properties* has lost millions in deposits on commercial buildings it’s unable to settle on.

*Covid-19* will expose who’s not wearing togs when the tide goes out. Does not bode well for investors in the property syndication market by the sound of things……
5 1
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April 30, 2020 4:14pm
Peter Lane

The Herald’s ‘Social Media and Trending Reporter’ wrote this alarmist piece of drivel.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12328668

I thought we had ‘eliminated/eradicated’ the virus? Does it sit around waiting to jump on people picking up food from takeaway joints?

Absolutely pathetic.
10 1
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April 30, 2020 4:15pm
Peter Lane

And then we have this from the Herald report on today’s presser.

“This year’s election and Budget
Ardern said there are no plans to change the election date from September 19, and the three-month campaign period before that date will remain the same.

Ardern said “giving more income to those who have the least” would be a Budget priority.

But she would not go into detail – saying she would not be making Budget announcements today.

Ardern said legislation cutting MP pay by 20 per cent will be before the House “soon”.

Ardern said the Government has been trying to “pick up the pace” when it comes to MSD data, such as benefit numbers.”

And there we have it – “giving more income to those who have the least”.

No mention of small business owners as usual.
16 1
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April 30, 2020 4:25pm
- Nickc2
  
  Small businesses are not Unionised – YET!
  
  5 1
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  April 30, 2020 4:33pm
- cmm
  
  ” MP pay by 20 per cent” another lie.
  
  6 2
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  April 30, 2020 4:47pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

I hear lots of boat motors starting up just now, and they are not going out for the evening.
Hello? PTPM, your SUBJECTS have had enough of your socialist shit
10 5
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April 30, 2020 4:38pm
- barnacle bill
  
  For those who do not know what the meaning of PTPM means that Steve mentions here, let me update you on that.
  
  The meaning is Perfectly Timed Prime Minister ie PTPM
  
  We should all be very grateful to Winston making this happen and his foresight in doing so
  After all, it had been a very long period of neglect previously , which Winston new only to well.
  
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  April 30, 2020 7:25pm
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    The downticks say otherwise for the Part Time Prime Minister
    
    0 0
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    May 1, 2020 8:29am
kevn

Phoned our vet, cat needs a jab for the cattery, Nup, cant do it until level 2. The most basic contactless process. We go in the door, cat goes in cage, We back away, vet comes in with gloves/mask, grabs cat, jabs, puts back in cage, Owners steps forward, get cat from cage, pays per paywave. Goes home. Done.
What an insult to a medical professional. Prob worried someone might dob him in. Enjoying your taste of socialism sh*t folks?
This is rubbish I tell you, while KFC and Maccas lines ’em up
13 2
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April 30, 2020 6:16pm
- [email protected]
  
  Scuba diving is illegal because about 9 divers end up needing emergency help a year. But it’s OK to go swimming even though hundreds of swimmers get into trouble every year and need emergency help. Go figure!
  
  11 2
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  April 30, 2020 7:31pm
Poppa

You must behave you cretins, so says the princess or you will be put in the naughty corner

Don’t treat me like a 2yr old you useless bint, I have been around a while & know a bit more about life than you do
13 2
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April 30, 2020 6:40pm
- doggone7
  
  I’m trying to work out ways to talk to fellow citizens who act like two year old cretins. A lot of them think they know a lot more about life than others but they don’t know the main thing – that they act like two year old cretins.
  
  4 2
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  April 30, 2020 8:04pm
John Warren

If ever you needed evidence of how stone dead ignorant and out-of-touch the imbecile PM is, here it is:

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/04/jacinda-ardern-asks-private-sector-to-value-your-workforce-the-way-government-has.html

As a private sector employer severely compromised by five weeks of lockdown, I say go fuck yourself, Jacinda.
20 1
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April 30, 2020 6:59pm
- Poppa
  
  Yeah but the private sector pays out of their pocket not the tax payer
  
  Not that she would have any idea
  
  11 0
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  April 30, 2020 7:24pm

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