General Debate 17 May 2020

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krazykiwi

This is a speech I’d like to hear Simon Bridges deliver ….

National supports the principle that New Zealanders are sovereign, capable individuals needing less government intervention in their daily lives. In contrast, this Labour government has rushed into countless limitations of your civil liberties, some of which were unlawful, and many of which have resulted in profound and unnecessary damage to your hopes and dreams.

A National government will reverse these changes. We pledge to not only restore your civil liberties, but to strengthen them. Today I am announcing a range of policies that are based on that commitment.

Firstly, we will revert to ‘Level 0’ on Monday 20th of September. There is no pandemic. There is no justification for the type of nanny-state restrictions implemented by this Labour government. We recognise that New Zealanders like you are smart, capable, and when provided with the facts, can be trusted to make good decisions about your health, and about the health of those in your communities. In support of this, the government will direct its agencies to publish comprehensive, accurate health statistics on a weekly cycle, and we pledge to never track New Zealanders as they go about their law-abiding lives. The minute we take office you can go down to your local café or shopping mall and tell them to rip up that list of names and addresses that they’ve been forced to keep.

Secondly, we will repeal the COVID-19 Response (Urgent Management Measures) Legislation. This chilling legislation, which National vigorously fought against, was ill-conceived and rammed through without due process. It ushered in the beginnings of a Police State, one where you or I can be stopped in the street and have identity details demanded of us; a country where Police can enter your home without a warrant and demand that you take some unspecified action which you are legally obligated to undertake. In all my years in law and in parliament I have never seen such an abhorrent piece of legislation. A government I lead will immediately get rid of it.

Thirdly, we will work hard to restore New Zealander’s trust in the Police. There is well documented evidence of enforcement overreach in some circumstances, and turning a blind eye to illegal activity in others. This isn’t acceptable, and my team are ready start work on this the minute we assume office. It’s time our Police upheld the law, rather than implemented the directives of the government.

Fourthly, a National Government will table a “Get New Zealand Working” budget within 30 days of taking office. Left unaddressed, the Labour government’s budget looks set to devastate the New Zealand economy further, entrenching hardship for both the current, and the next generation of taxpayer. National believe that your lives and welfare are best chartered by you, not by legions of bureaucrats in Wellington. Our budget will reflect that belief. We will be ruthless in cutting low value spending, while recognising that the dire economic situation we are now in will need the government to target money where its most needed. We will unleash the innovation and creativity of New Zealanders through tax and regulatory reform, and by incentivising the investment of private energy and wealth into business creation.

Lastly, a National Government will immediately establish a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Labour government’s response to Covid-19. The lives of a great many New Zealanders have been significantly, and permanently impacted by the decisions of a handful of people. You have a right to know how those decisions were made, and who made them. Importantly, you have a right to live in a country where you can trust your leaders to make decisions that are in your best interest, rather than in their own. The Terms of Reference will make it clear that we are committed to strengthening legislation so that the damage done to New Zealand society in response to Covid-19 cannot be repeated.

Albert Einstein, known to be a smart fellow, once said “No problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created it”. The Labour government has created this mess. They are not capable of fixing it. National is, and we’re ready to go. Give us your vote on 19th September and we’ll make it happen.”
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May 17, 2020 8:00am
- Komata
  
  KK@)800
  
  You too, yet, because so far there’s been no indication by Simon B that he’es even sympathetic to the ideas you express, I doubt it (or it’s equivalent) will ever be uttered.
  
  It’s easier to tacitly agree with the current administration than to put your head above the parapet and be visibly different.
  
  Hopefully I will be proven to be wrong, but I have my doubts…
  
  Thank you.
  
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  May 17, 2020 8:27am
  - krazykiwi
    
    Alas I concede you’re probably right, Komata. NZ needs a stark, even radical, choice this election. There are strong people on the opposition benches, however they’ve been conditioned in the time-honoured tradition of political nuance. That won’t cut it this time.
    
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    May 17, 2020 9:06am
    - Komata
      
      KK@0906
      
      Thank you. Unfortunately (and sadly) with no Founding Document / Principles, Statement of Intention / Vision and only two stated ‘Policies’ to date, the NZ National Party now has little to differentiate it from the CoL (especially from the NZLP) and as a result, no alternative for the citizens of NZ.
      
      Thanks to the likes of Key, English and Bridges, the ‘Communisation’ of the originally anti-Communist NZ National Party is now almost complete.
      
      Socialism Rulz, OK!!
      
      Messers Holland, Holyoake, Marshall , Muldoon et el are no doubt spinning in their graves.
      
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      May 17, 2020 9:36am
      - PhilBest
        
        What I ask now is why certain people even stand for selection as National Candidates at all, other than that they are leftist and Green stooges merely taking the “Long March Through the Institutions” into the so-called political opposition. Seeing they long since have the media, the universities, the legal profession, all bureacracies, the police force, the clergy, the teaching profession, etc etc they might as well take over “centre right” political parties too.
        
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        May 17, 2020 9:56am
      - projectman
        
        Muldoon doesn’t fit into your categorisation. He was quite socialist in his outlook.
        
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        May 17, 2020 11:04am
    - LTA1955
      
      Heres the jingle that will set the Labour election meetings going OTT. That great Song by Kevin Rowland Too Rye Aye just replace the Come on Eileen with CommieArdin……your going in the bin, its catchy I’m sure some one can fit this around some other words in the first stanza. Need a punch line and this is it 100 people singing that would mess em up biggly.
      
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      May 17, 2020 6:00pm
- Martin Williams
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  The Labour government has created this mess.
  
  What mess? The mess that is one of the very lowest death rates in the Western world? Seems like a good sort of mess to have created. I’m sure Einstein would agree.
  
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  May 17, 2020 8:33am
  - Odakyu-sen
    
    Death rate for whom?
    Where is the context?
    
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    May 17, 2020 8:38am
  - Benedict Yu
    
    There is so much I could say but it is best to ignore you.
    
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    May 17, 2020 8:41am
  - The Other Enoch
    
    You’re in trouble Martin. You’ve been drinking far too much Jacinderella Kool Aid. Give up now, before you become deluded.
    
    [Mod. Instead flinging abuse, please disagree with or discuss the poster’s comments.]
    
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    May 17, 2020 8:41am
  - [moderated]
    
    Of course you can’t see the mess, you’re unable to comprehend what we’re plainly pointing out. You’re so fixated on “saving” some lives you’ll happily sacrifice an infinite number of unseen lives. You are the epitome of a “useful idiot”.
    
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    May 17, 2020 8:41am
  - Suze Wainwright
    
    You’re just being cynical & political Martin – go away you inconsequential little man
    
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    May 17, 2020 8:43am
  - Paulus Gnome
    
    31 and away you go!
    
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    May 17, 2020 9:03am
    - JackRabbit
      
      He’s totally smitten with the Jacinda pheromones. Hearing “go hard, go early” probably pushed him over the edge.
      
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      May 17, 2020 11:02am
  - rockape
    
    Isn’t 300 billion of debt a big enough mess for you?
    
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    May 17, 2020 9:03am
  - Ruawai
    
    We and Labour got lucky, low density population, summer, not an international hub for flights and an island nation.
    
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    May 17, 2020 9:12am
    - RW Capitalist
      
      The exact reason, they could have kept it out altogether, WITHOUT a ridiculous lock down, that created this economic mess.
      The disease didn’t put our economy on life support, this SLG’s reaction/ response to it did.
      
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      May 17, 2020 10:15am
      - sam green
        
        Sorry your side lost.
        
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        May 17, 2020 11:46am
  - Mr_Blobby
    
    Suicides up
    Crime up
    Economy essentially fcuked.
    
    Years of increased taxation, borrowing, printing money to pay for everything.
    
    Wasting money on vanity projects
    
    Borrowing to pay for expenses like benefits
    
    Looking like there will be no hope of ever paying it back.
    
    Ask yourself a question what is this debt per household $50,000 what is the average net worth per household, see the problem.
    
    As for saving people from the flu every country has a natural death rate the, people die all the time, we won’t know the true answer untill total deaths are compared with the yearly average.
    
    Will it be worth the cost. Absolutely not.
    
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    May 17, 2020 9:25am
    - sam green
      
      Hey. Let’s be like Vicki and make shit up about suicide stats.
      
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      May 17, 2020 11:47am
  - rouppe
    
    Troll.
    
    Anyone can look at one metric and say “look how good that is”
    
    The sign of good administration is to look at all the metrics and come up with a proper balance.
    
    If you were to stand on a rusty nail, I could completely avoid you contracting tetanus by amputating your foot. Wow! Look at that! By going “hard and early” I’ve avoided a nasty infection.
    
    Shame you’ve been left lame.
    
    That’s what this government has done. Executed an extreme manoeuvre to counter a mild to moderate problem.
    
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    May 17, 2020 10:36am
  - SmokerGuy
    
    Well let’s see in a few years time what kind of mess we’re in. I suspect that the forecasts by treasury will be so far off the mark and we will be saddled with massive amounts of debt for a very long time. The budget is incredibly reckless by Labour.
    
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    May 17, 2020 3:15pm
- JackRabbit
  
  Thank you. That was perfect.
  
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  May 17, 2020 8:43am
- Brian McDonald
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  Simon will an audience to speak to, real people that he needs to connect with. Most of what you are writing about is already reaching its use-by date. Your objections and pre-occupations are simply that.
  
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  May 17, 2020 8:50am
  - krazykiwi
    
    The principle of liberty has no use-by date, unless one is a tyrant.
    
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    May 17, 2020 9:18am
    - Brian McDonald
      
      Just slogans, talk to the man in the street.
      
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      May 17, 2020 10:47am
      - JackRabbit
        
        The man in the street has been brainwashed by the daily speeches from the Chancellor, chanting fear porn. Even those who know its a con, still fear contact because of lingering doubt.
        
        Hospitals are having problems with older people over 60 who are refusing to return to work, who know the risk has passed, but have the fear of Covid-19 pumped into them everyday by the fear monger, who should have remained a Fish (and chip) monger.
        
        Said with the conviction of snake oil salesman or bible basher:
        -Covid-19 is lethal.
        -There is no cure.
        -Life will never return to normal until we inject a universal vaccine (and a Borg tracking chip)
        -We could easily return to widespread infection if just ONE person comes into the country infected.
        -In which case tens of thousands will die.
        -And we will have to return to lockdown level 4
        -And you will be dragged off and put in Mr McCready’s black bag (V for Vendetta), never to be seen again if you even think about breaching a rule.
        -Have 11 people at your home, or kiss your grandchild and you will doing porridge and picking up soap in the prison showers for the next 10 years.
        -“We are the single source of truth”. Jacinda, March 2020.
        
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        May 17, 2020 11:18am
  - Martin Williams
    
    Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
    Yep. Faced with the horror of Bridges as PM people will tick Labour in droves in September. No one is going to vote for Simon.
    
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    May 17, 2020 9:31am
    - Paulus Gnome
      
      I am.
      
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      May 17, 2020 10:16am
      - RalphT
        
        Ditto. Simon is someone I’m sure I can trust, which can’t be said for most of those on the other side of the fence.
        
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        May 17, 2020 11:25am
      - sam green
        
        Really Ralph – his wife can’t.
        
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        May 17, 2020 11:48am
      - Liberty
        
        Me to
        
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        May 17, 2020 1:21pm
    - freethinker
      
      Bet the farm on it Martin the odds will be in your favour but probably not the result.
      
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      May 17, 2020 10:57am
    - JackRabbit
      
      I think that any sane rational person, faced with the consequences of a choice between Mx Ardern and Simon Bridges, may fear that Simon is not strong enough, but would be experiencing Absolute Terror at the thought of Jacinda Arden getting back in.
      
      Indeed, the prospect of a bleak future at the hands of the maniacal Fuhrer, has already resulted in a number of citizens committing suicide, And older people who recognise the current ScamDemic and lust for power as reminiscent of Nazi Germany are just giving up and dying.
      
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      May 17, 2020 11:34am
    - igm
      
      Ardern is only held in esteem by the bottom end of society, those of any substance find her, and her sycophants abhorrent.
      
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      May 17, 2020 4:50pm
    - Cod Weyne
      
      I am.
      
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      May 17, 2020 10:23pm
- Bat Man
  
  Too Weak, Too Wimpy, too soft, we are at War.
  
  Labour are the enemy and are working with the enemies of NZ to bring about its destruction
  and the enslavement of all New Zealanders.
  
  They will do this through stealth or removal of wealth and increasing of debt.
  
  They will ignore laws and make others to advance
  their communist agenda.
  
  Increasing the powers of the Stazi the NKVD and KGB are just a necessary steps.
  
  All going exactly to plan as planned.
  
  You have not realised that yet you have an inkling
  something is not right but your arguments
  like your research are too weak and impotent.
  
  You actually fail to realise who pulls the strings
  behind these twerps.
  
  And who and what you are up against.
  
  COVID is nothing WORSE is coming
  
  WAKE UP.
  
  Go for.
  
  Compulsory or Mandatory Ownership of military Style Semi Autos.
  
  Compulsory or Mandatory Service in the NZ armed services without which
  YOU DO NOT GET TO VOTE.
  
  Einstein was a plagiarist
  
  New Zealander
  Ernest Rutherford is the Father of Nuclear Science
  any way. Nuclear technology could have solved
  the worlds energy problem
  Einstein and his fellow morons made bombs
  and bombs only PACK OF RETARDS
  
  Though Time the South Pacific got Nuclear Armed. NZ and AUs.
  
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_power_grows_out_of_the_barrel_of_a_gun
  
  Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun
  
  Maos Maori Feather Cloak is in Tepapa
  
  So GET WITH THE PROGRAM
  
  Like the Man says
  
  AOTEAROA NZ
  
  Oh thats right the country was disarmed
  
  WE ALL KNOW WHY?
  
  You Want to be the Switzerland of the South Pacifc
  
  YOU ALL LOVE ISRAEL so so so Much
  
  DO WHAT THEY DO
  
  There are two countries that will not roll over
  like little lap dogs.
  
  AND GROVEL TO THIS FILTH
  
  Xi is Mao’s Clone.
  
  You could never prove it but to me it is clear
  
  Agent J and the other traitors gets orders for XI and implement them.
  
  End of Story.
  
  If you have not figured that out yet – you will soon.
  
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  May 17, 2020 10:35am
- oldfella
  
  So the Gummint flip-flopped on the instructions to make shops get contact details from their customers. Changed the rules, but somehow didn’t tell anyone. Incompetent is about the kindest word I can think of at the moment.
  https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/300014153/coronavirus-level-2-rule-flipflop-hasnt-helped–retail-nz
  
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  May 17, 2020 10:36am
- freethinker
  
  Can only give you 1 uptick but will register another 20 virtual upticks.Sadly Simon is incapable fo delivering such a speech but I m confident David Seymour would be, mean it and deliver it.
  
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  May 17, 2020 10:43am
- KevO'Brien
  
  ☑️☑️National produce results☑️☑️
  
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  May 17, 2020 11:02am
- SGA
  
  Albert Einstein, known to be a smart fellow, once said “No problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created it”.
  
  That seemed an odd thing for Einstein to say, so I did a little digging. From what I can tell (unless someone has a sourced quote to the contrary – if so, I’m happy to stand corrected), it’s a horrible corruption of something Einstein wrote when asking for money –
  
  First, Einstein didn’t say anything about levels of consciousness. The quote, as printed in front of chakras, waterfalls and dreamy photos of clouds is horribly mangled, ripped out of context, and a particular favourite of those pushing bullshit…
  
  Einstein had recently installed himself as the chair of the newly formed Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists, … This group wrote a telegram to a set of wealthy Americans, asking for donations to help their cause — to campaign for peaceful uses of nuclear power, as opposed to its escalating use in weapons. …
  “We need two hundred thousand dollars at once for a nation-wide campaign to let the people know that a new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels.”
  
  https://www.quora.com/Einstein-said-that-you-cannot-solve-a-problem-from-the-same-level-of-consciousness-that-created-it-What-did-he-mean-with-it-Can-you-use-a-concrete-example
  
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  May 17, 2020 11:25am
- kloyd0306
  
  Let me guess…….
  The four downticks (as of 11:25am) are:
  Simon ‘the commie’ Gotlieb
  Milkey ‘the wet’
  Brian McDonald ‘the uber socialist and all round dumb ass’
  Batman – otherwise known as Battyman
  
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  May 17, 2020 11:27am
  - kloyd0306
    
    If there is a fifth downtick it will no doubt be from Martin Williams, whose singular brain cell is perched on Jacinda’s nose – ready to be blown.
    
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    May 17, 2020 11:33am
  - Ed Snack
    
    Just note, there are two similar nicks in use on Kiwibloggers, and they should not be confused. There’s the mod and commentor Batman, and there’s the “out there all caps style” bat man.
    
    The space in the name is doing a lot of work.
    
    [Mod (Not Batman) – thanks for pointing that out Ed]
    
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    May 17, 2020 12:38pm
    - Nostradamus
      
      Mod: “Bat Man” uses a writing style with excessive spacing , which adds to the length of his comments, without adding much (if anything) to the sum of human knowledge. For those of us who read Kiwiblog on mobile phones, as I sometimes do, could I suggest that you ask “Bat Man” to be more considerate?
      
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      May 17, 2020 6:11pm
- Sir Cullen's Sidekick
  
  Dreams are free bro. Labour is set for another three terms for sure even if they raise the taxes by 40%. The sheeple are so drunk on Jacinda Kool-aid, I will be surprised if National gets more than 30% of the party vote this time.
  
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  May 17, 2020 11:40am
- Pheobe
  
  Have you sent this to Simon, will save him having to write his own.
  
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  May 17, 2020 1:50pm
- IC5000
  
  > This is a speech I’d like to hear Simon Bridges deliver ….
  
  Maybe you’ll be luckier in 2023 if Beijing Bridges is still around.
  
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  May 17, 2020 5:59pm
- wilderbeast
  
  I like it!
  
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  May 17, 2020 9:23pm
PhilBest

There is someone in the world who knows things about COVID-19 that no-one else does.
The CCP.
The evidence now has been leaked from the Five Eyes program, that there was a crisis at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in October 2019.
Who is thinking through the implications of this? How long have our watchdog intelligence agencies known this? Remember, the fact has just been leaked. It is not a fresh Intel discovery.
But run the whole saga through your mind again, with the knowledge of this new start to the time-line – and bear in mind someone contracted this virus in France in December.
Chinese General Practitioner doctors started noticing something amiss during November and December, and were suppressed. Some of them were even “disappeared”.
Deduction: the CCP hoped that COVID-19 could make its way through the populace of China and the world as just another “flu-like illness” that causes a modest increase in mortality that wouldn’t be remarked on as anything more than “a bad flu season” like some countries had anyway in 2017/18. And maybe its origin would remain a mystery forever.

Once the CCP couldn’t suppress the information anymore from its own people, they flipped to attempted eradication in Wuhan, and quarantining Wuhan from the rest of China. They also initiated a strategic program of buying up and cornering the stocks of PPE worldwide, even as they influenced the WHO to lull the rest of the world into indifference about the threat. It was up to the rest of the world to halt travel from Wuhan, China was not going to do it for us even though it acted in its own self-preservation.
The rest is mostly common knowledge, but we need to reconsider it from the point of view that the CCP knows things no-one else does.
Their tactics to suppress COVID-19 in Wuhan were extreme beyond anything done elsewhere in the world, because the CCP “can do this”. The CCP also conducted the world’s first economic shutdown, showing that influential people within the CCP had assumed that eradication of COVID-19 might be possible this way.
But it is important to note that they re-opened probably more rapidly than anyone else in the world. They claim to have eradicated the virus, and their entire apparatus of suppression is now geared to imposing that fake reality. Meanwhile the apparatus of suppression run by Western Big Tech takes the opposite line: WE must remain locked down forever.
Remember the CCP knows the most about this virus. They have calculated long since that trying to eliminate the virus is more costly than just riding it out. They claim that they are not locked down “because they have eliminated the virus”. It is obviously to their geostrategic advantage if the rest of the world is fooled into believing they too can “eliminate the virus like China did” – by the hardest possible of lockdowns.
The advocates of this approach that infest the west, need to consider the extreme bad faith of the CCP in making the false case that this approach “works”. Actually they are suppressing any information and reportage of ongoing infections and deaths, to sustain the advantage of an open economy.
The CCP clearly has enough knowledge that this is not the doomsday virus that is going to kill everyone. Otherwise they would have continued the brutal quarantine tactics they tried in January. Obviously THEY believe in herd immunity and that the cost of attaining it is the lesser evil. But for the rest of the world, all the propaganda being pushed by institutions under CCP influence, including the WHO and Big Tech, have flipped from the early “no risk” to “stay locked down forever”. Toooo convenient!
Apparently it is “against WHO guidelines” and therefore “misinformation” that will get you de-personed by Big Tech, if you even point out that sunshine is a virucide and being outside in it should be promoted by government, not suppressed. We need to wake up to the bad faith and evil of the people perpetrating this subterfuge to the “end in itself” of a Police State. President Trump is not only “not wrong” to defund the WHO, he is showing up other leaders as complete fools or stooges on this.
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May 17, 2020 8:00am
- Komata
  
  Philbest@0800
  
  A phrase well-known to those who have served time in the Far East was ‘Never trust a Chinaman’.
  
  This latest little circus would seem to reinforce the point…
  
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  May 17, 2020 8:30am
  - Odakyu-sen
    
    It might be more helpful to say:
    “Never trust someone from a culture or regime in which the ‘truth’ is a malleable construct.”
    
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    May 17, 2020 10:33am
  - fightingtemeraire
    
    Especially a Communist Chinaman
    
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    May 17, 2020 10:37am
  - quarterpack
    
    Perhaps you should read a little on the shameful duplicity of the round eye in events surrounding the Opium Wars to understand
    
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    May 17, 2020 5:15pm
    - RockyJ
      
      Mate, that was a hundred and fifty years ago
      
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      May 17, 2020 5:24pm
    - PhilBest
      
      As a China expert said on the James Delingpole podcast a few weeks ago, the Chinese have long memories for harms done to them by others – such as the round-eyes in the opium wars – and no memory at all for harm done to themselves – such as Maoism
      
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      May 17, 2020 7:35pm
      - Harrywenjie
        
        You cut yourself and you gonna blame yourself for the rest of your life? No, you will bandage it and carry on. But if others do harm you, you will want to get square. You can say get it over it easily if your are not on the victim side. But think it this way, if the other side is being nice thereafter, then all is cool. But if they keep trashing talking to you and or even making you an enemy. What would you do?
        
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        May 18, 2020 4:23am
- JackRabbit
  
  Thanks. What you have written ties in with two very important facts.
  
  (1) Covid-19 was in overseas countries late last year, and initially arrived here in NZ late last year.
  
  (2) Through “Five Eyes”, the NZ government was aware of it last year.
  
  (3) The CoL used this knowledge to prepare and create a ScamDemic, including stockpiling cash late in 2020.
  
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  May 17, 2020 8:47am
  - JackRabbit
    
    Sorry, stockpiling cash in 2019
    
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    May 17, 2020 10:39am
  - kowtow
    
    “Scamdemic”
    
    Excellent, for that is what we’re in.
    
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    May 17, 2020 11:14am
    - JackRabbit
      
      A pandemic, in NZ, that has no published actual infection / mortality rate but locking the country down anyway, is as dodgy as investing your life savings with Bernie Madoff all based on some smooth rhetoric on a brochure.
      
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      May 17, 2020 12:44pm
      - quarterpack
        
        Isolation, enforced by government or by human instinct, is standard practice in case of pandemics, and has been since the middle ages. The New Zealand governments practice is give or take pretty much in line with every other country in the world. The economic carnage that follows is therefore 90 percent imported and is and always was going to be unavoidable.
        
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        May 17, 2020 5:36pm
  - Nickc2
    
    Yes JackRabbit, I agree. I have been chasing the 5-eyes bit for a couple of months now but everything has gone quiet. The only responsible person making any noise about it was Sen Cotton (R). There was some vague noise out of Australia but nothing major.
    
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    May 17, 2020 12:29pm
  - Ed Snack
    
    No evidence it was in NZ before late Jan at the earliest. Some evidence it got to France via Italy in Mid-late December, which fits with the general narrative that the first known Chinese case was around late November to early December. As that first case has no known contact with either the wet market or the lab, he almost certainly got it from someone else who had it earlier. That suggests a first emergence early November or even late October. That could fit with a lab release, but there’s little known with any certainty.
    
    Of course we could have had low symptom cases prior to late January, just no evidence that we did.
    
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    May 17, 2020 12:42pm
    - JackRabbit
      
      “No evidence it was in NZ before late Jan at the earliest. ”
      
      No “published” evidence it was in NZ before late Jan at the earliest.
      
      – There fixed it.
      
      “Of course we could have had low symptom cases prior to late January, just no evidence that we did.”
      
      No, the cases I know about where not low symptom cases.
      
      It is just that the medical fraternity did not know what the “new flu with strong symptoms was.”
      
      How can anyone know that it was Covid-19 when the name had not immigrated to NZ at that point.
      
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      May 17, 2020 1:51pm
- Pete George
  
  President Trump is not only “not wrong” to defund the WHO, he is showing up other leaders as complete fools or stooges on this.
  
  But Trump may or may not be actually going to stop WHO funding.
  
  U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday his administration was considering numerous proposals about the World Health Organization, including one in which Washington would pay about 10% of its former level.
  
  In a posting on Twitter, Trump underscored that no final decision had been made and that U.S. funding for the global health agency remained frozen.
  
  Fox News, citing a draft letter, reported late on Friday that Trump was poised to restore partial funding to the WHO, matching China’s assessed contribution.
  
  https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-who-trump/trump-says-he-is-considering-restoring-some-funding-to-who-no-decision-made-idUSKBN22S0LD
  
  Trump could change his mind again, either way.
  
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  May 17, 2020 9:52am
- oldfella
  
  Yep, as they say in Hong Kong. ‘Don’t trust China. China is asshole.’
  Look forward to seeing ‘China is asshole’ on local T-shirts and bumper stickers. Of course the cops would probably intervene and label it as hate speech?
  Better idea might be to get some of the Maori gangs to add the slogan as a patch on their leather jackets. No way the cops would ask them to cover up.
  
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  May 17, 2020 10:44am
- Tall Man
  
  Pure fantasy but thanks for sharing.
  
  Covid 19 is not and never has been the problem. It has been the reaction of many stupid politicians throughout the world that has created the crisis and if you think that the CCP knew how the world would react to a new flu then you really have lost the plot.
  
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  May 17, 2020 12:28pm
  - Ian Boag
    
    the reaction of many stupid politicians throughout the world
    
    Here I was thinking you only knew what Ardern should have been doing. But no – it is “many around the world” – called out by KB’s “Tall Man”.
    
    Can you help with a list of a few of these many?
    
    That could give your post a bit of substance …. would (say) 10 be OTT?
    
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    May 17, 2020 6:22pm
  - PhilBest
    
    I actually didn’t say the CCP assumed how the world would react. You are reading something into my statement that wasn’t my point.
    
    But the CCP certainly reacted very strongly themselves in Wuhan. I am just saying that they know more about this virus than anyone else, and they started by trying to contain it, and then they changed their minds and decided the costs of lockdown weren’t worth it. They are possibly the only regime in the world suppressing alarmism among their populace, while the “free world” is suppressing calls for level heads and pragmatism!
    
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    May 17, 2020 7:43pm
dave_c_

Are there no depths to which our commy PM is not prepared to go.
The latest – Photo op at some cafe, where the story goes she was refused entry as the cafe was full
How the frig can this possibly be newsworthy ?
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May 17, 2020 8:00am
- igm
  
  It is amazing what a little financial bribery produces from failed left-wing-promoting enterprises such as APN/Fairfax!
  
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  May 17, 2020 8:26am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Shows she is just like us…one of the people hanging out for a flat-white (almond milk) and possesses the common touch… no special privileges.
  
  It’s the same reason Chairman Mao wore a Worker’s uniform……
  
  It’s a Potemkin Device.
  
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  May 17, 2020 8:35am
  - lifesgood
    
    And I don’t believe a word of it. Clearly a set up. Why on earth would a staff member chase them down the road as they clearly had high demand and didn’t need them. Unless, of course it was a woke cafe in which case I need to know its name in order to avoid it.
    
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    May 17, 2020 9:34am
    - NeverMindTheBollocks
      
      Olive on Cuba St
      
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      May 17, 2020 9:55am
      - Nickc2
        
        Well you read it here first folks. GIVE IT MISS!
        
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        May 17, 2020 11:40am
    - PhilBest
      
      Are any cafes in Wellington not woke? But you raise a good point; I wonder if there is a business model to positioning as the rare unwoke haven in a sea of woke like Wellington is.
      
      27 2
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      May 17, 2020 10:02am
    - Scooter
      
      Exactly, did the queue end at JA, so in the time she left and they raced after her there were no other customers to be next in? Total BS
      
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      May 17, 2020 10:30am
- Suze Wainwright
  
  For ‘the people’ man….
  
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  May 17, 2020 8:35am
- Souvlaki
  
  IMO a deliberate/ orchestrated/ ersatz situation…” engineered” purely for yet another PR fluff piece. Shabby of NZME ….but entirely in character.
  
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  May 17, 2020 8:37am
  - Scooter
    
    Funny how these “she’s one of us” pieces crop up every now and then eg the handing a bottle opener to someone in the koru lounge now this. All seems very staged and abit desperate.
    
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    May 17, 2020 9:10am
    - Akarak
      
      And now we are told that NZ’s first man helps colour our PTPM’s hair and clips his daughter’s hair with a budget priced pair of scissors. Gee life’s tough for those earning in excess of $400K (non-subsidised)
      as coronavirus sweeps through the country like a dose of epsom salts. Why doesn’t he just get out of our lives and take her with him!
      
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      May 17, 2020 9:47pm
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    [Mod. Please don’t bring children into the discussion. Not justified here.]
    
    4 1
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    May 17, 2020 9:59am
    - sam green
      
      Oh come on Mod – [ Arguing with mods gets you noplace. Complain to DPF ]
      
      0 10
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      May 17, 2020 12:11pm
- Dougal10
  
  Probably had room for 1 or 2 but with her stazi protection crew it would have tipped numbers over the top.
  
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  May 17, 2020 8:50am
  - Rachael Membery
    
    Inconsiderate really
    
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    May 17, 2020 12:16pm
- MCos
  
  In New Zealand our PMs have often been portrayed as typical Kiwis with their numbers in the phone book, in the days before cell phones.
  There’s some examples here of Holyoake, Lange, Clark, Muldoon & Key a few pages down in this in this article.
  Helen Clark often replies to people on Twitter with a reasonable issue to raise. Give it a go.
  https://books.google.co.nz/books?id=1T93CQAAQBAJ&pg=PT17&lpg=PT17&dq=holyoake+finds+lost+luggage&source=bl&ots=85wHy0qRLN&sig=ACfU3U2htfHCQPboZ_1WcvDnHvOKuBuyQA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwik-rOBnbnpAhWZIbcAHYGEAdUQ6AEwAHoECAUQAQ
  
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  May 17, 2020 8:55am
  - Paulus Gnome
    
    That is true and remains so I am pleased to say.
    
    I mean, where else in the world would a convicted drug smuggler have the Prime Minister on speed dial?
    
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    May 17, 2020 9:09am
    - MCos
      
      SROUBEKGATE!
      
      26 1
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      May 17, 2020 9:46am
  - brett68
    
    It’s the problem with having a religious guy as leader, many can’t relate to that or feel uncomfortable.
    
    2 30
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    May 17, 2020 9:13am
    - Tall Man
      
      Works for Australia and Morrison is vastly more outwardly religious than Simon Bridges so I call bullshit.
      
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      May 17, 2020 12:31pm
- kevn
  
  @dave-c… It was a carefully planned outing by JA with a known outcome.
  I’m sure Topham Guerin are managing the whole show.
  
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  May 17, 2020 9:14am
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    Never attribute to malice what is easily explained through stupidity.
    
    Consider that Jethro was reportedly in charge of making the booking.
    
    22 1
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    May 17, 2020 9:56am
- freethinker
  
  I heard that she later returned, possibly after most patrons left knowing who was going to arrive.
  
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  May 17, 2020 10:50am
- doggone7
  
  So what did Ardern do? What heinous lengths did she go to this time? In a disgusting show of communism?
  
  Ah, she went out for a coffee! Such depths! Disgusting. And worse, reporters from the free world of free commerce took her photo! Oh no, the world is going to end!
  
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  May 17, 2020 7:36pm
PhilBest

‘Disease Mitigation Measures in the Control of Pandemic Influenza‘ is a 2006 paper recommending against quarantining whole populations during a pandemic. The author writes:

“The negative consequences of large-scale quarantine are so extreme (forced confinement of sick people with the well; complete restriction of movement of large populations; difficulty in getting critical supplies, medicines, and food to people inside the quarantine zone) that this mitigation measure should be eliminated from serious consideration.”
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May 17, 2020 8:01am
- Brian McDonald
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  You’re condensing your own conspiracies into a belief they are widely shared. People have to get on with it and are.
  
  4 47
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  May 17, 2020 9:02am
  - PhilBest
    
    Actually they are not conspiracies, as anyone who follows my links will know; and I do not believe at all that they are widely shared. I do however believe that they NEED to be. And I get it that that is the true main objection of people like you who want a Police State as the normal state of things.
    
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    May 17, 2020 10:04am
Luke Piewalker

Prediction: Cindy’s bumbling fools about to blow $100plus billion and will have NOTHING to show for it.
83 2
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May 17, 2020 8:04am
- G152
  
  How much was it claimed that liebor would owe.
  And how many billions was it under the actual current projected cost ???????
  
  28 2
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  May 17, 2020 8:23am
  - Paulus Gnome
    
    Only in New Zealand is $11,000,000,000.00 now thought of as chump change . . .
    
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    May 17, 2020 9:12am
Lee C

Who amongst us would be sure enough to put $50. on Bridges being next PM?

I’m toying with the idea…
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May 17, 2020 8:06am
- Hacked-Off
  
  Well I put a hundred on it by giving a donation to the National Party last week.
  
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  May 17, 2020 8:08am
  - Chuck Bird
    
    Any donation from me will depend on how many National MPs took the 20% pay cut.
    
    I hope plenty get asked.
    
    7 23
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    May 17, 2020 8:52am
- Suze Wainwright
  
  Have you seen something in Best Bets…?
  
  8 0
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  May 17, 2020 8:11am
- Benedict Yu
  
  I miss ipredict.
  
  14 0
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  May 17, 2020 8:12am
  - Chuck Bird
    
    Try Sportsbet Aust.
    
    1 1
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    May 17, 2020 8:52am
- projectman
  
  If you think it’s worth doing, donate it to the NP’s campaign funding.
  
  27 0
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  May 17, 2020 8:13am
  - Gravelroad
    
    I’ll consider donating to the National Party when someone, anyone, answers my email about an issue that impacts not just on me – but in a wider context as well.
    Even if the reply says nothing can be done, at least it would be acknowledgement. Three weeks have gone by with nothing so guess that will be it.
    
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    May 17, 2020 8:32am
    - [moderated]
      
      Or it was spam filtered
      
      15 1
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      May 17, 2020 8:45am
    - tf78
      
      Gravelroad, I always get an automated reply from Simon’s office but sometimes depending on what I’ve emailed get a direct response from Simon or Paul Hunt on his behalf.
      
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      May 17, 2020 9:15am
      - Michael NZ
        
        tf78
        I call bullshit on that one!
        I have never ever had a reply and they have my email on file as I signed up for updates.
        
        0 0
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        May 17, 2020 12:05pm
      - Tall Man
        
        Ditto.
        
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        May 17, 2020 12:33pm
    - info@cruzpro.com
      
      Simon Bridges replied (albeit a short reply) to my email within 72 hours.
      
      14 0
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      May 17, 2020 9:33am
    - maggiemay
      
      I sent an Email to Simon And someone replied within 15 mins. Admittedly it was thanking him for his efforts.
      
      14 0
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      May 17, 2020 9:34am
      - fightingtemeraire
        
        Same here and automated from JA
        
        4 0
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        May 17, 2020 10:39am
      - Ruahine
        
        Ditto. 20 minutes. Quite a nice reply actually.
        
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        May 17, 2020 4:36pm
    - freethinker
      
      Same here but got a reply from David Seymour and a follow up, my membership of ACT will complete next week.
      
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      May 17, 2020 11:06am
    - wilderbeast
      
      I don’t know Bridges from a bar of soap but he’s personally replied to two of my emails – he got my vote with that.
      
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      May 17, 2020 9:26pm
- PaulP
  
  Beware of living in your own echo chamber.
  
  The general public are still in love with Cindy, even if they have lost jobs.
  
  This could be one election that disproves the theory that a government can’t win if the economy is tanking.
  
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  May 17, 2020 8:13am
  - Lee C
    
    Yes, agree, with the public loving Ardern, but I am not sure that after the Green and NZ Fist votes are counted she’ll be loved ‘enough’ to win a majority..
    
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    May 17, 2020 8:28am
    - yossarian
      
      She won’t need the greens or Winston this time round. Labour will be a govern on their own…just let that sink in
      
      9 5
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      May 17, 2020 10:00am
      - gorse
        
        Labour will not get over 50% of the vote, let that sink in. If you believe a UMR poll you are deluded. They might make 42%, but National will better that. ACT will get enough to push them over the line.
        
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        May 17, 2020 5:59pm
  - calendar girl
    
    “The general public are still in love with Cindy…”
    
    Is there a reputable opinion poll that shows the weight of female preference for Ms Ardern v. that of male respondents?
    
    21 2
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    May 17, 2020 8:57am
    - Lee C
      
      I have a face book page which critiques the current situation Ok there aren;t many on it, but I’m the only man. This has been shared organically. My neighbour (female) ‘hates’ Jacinda Ardern – refers to her as ‘a witch’.
      
      My wife, a Jacinda fan has gone a bit quiet lately…
      
      Well, quieter than usual, I should say – some pretty well-calibrated measuring devices are required for that last one….
      
      39 2
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      May 17, 2020 9:12am
  - bruceavon
    
    yes. I agree about echo chambers. some on here possibly don’t get about in the population like I do. I see a lot of people from all sorts of backgrounds and lots of younger people. Definitely some people have “converted” from the right to support Labour and Ardern. And you can’t say a word against her on Facebook etc. The odds are very much in the governments favour. Even before covid it seemed to me if Peters got to 5% they would be sure to get in. Basically for national to have a chance things have to go really badly wrong for the country, like another round of the disease and another lock down. If we eliminate the virus and have moderate but not catastrophic economic failures they will win. People are comparing us to the mess overseas, in the UK and the US, and thinking we have done well. They won’t keep thinking that forever, but they election isn’t that far away.
    
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    May 17, 2020 9:01am
    - Paulus Gnome
      
      National voters do not change to labour voters.
      
      Swing voters are fooled by lack of knowledge and understanding of the best way forward for New Zealand as one. National voters are more astute, savvy and, are not fooled by a youth adjacent air head riding with a clippies bestie.
      
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      May 17, 2020 9:18am
      - Tony Stuart
        
        Quite so Paulus. In our electorate, membership renewal numbers are well ahead of target, and we have new members joining up every week.
        
        Unfortunately though, and this applies to both National and Labour, these are not the people who win and lose elections. The ones who do are the “floating voters”, who switch between National and Labour, and even flirt with the Greens and NZF, depending on who is offering them the most. Why else do you think Grant Robertson has kept back $20 billion to spend between now and the election? Never mind that it’s borrowed money, that our children, grandchildren and those not even born yet will have to pay back.
        
        When a political party has $20b from the taxpayer to campaign with, it kind of puts the donations the Left gets so upset about into perspective.
        
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        May 17, 2020 9:40am
      - Chuck Bird
        
        Paulas, I would not be so sure. Hosking mentioned how 75% of the public supported helicopter payments.
        
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        May 17, 2020 9:48am
      - bruceavon
        
        “National voters do not change to labour voters.” of course they do, how do you explain the 2002 when National vote sunk to 20%? where did those votes go? New Zealand has a very large section of voters who swing. Not only right/left but the other way left/right. From what I see out in the world it is not so much support for Labour, as for Ardern. The polls will come down but I am not sure in time for September.
        
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        May 17, 2020 10:00am
      - Tony Stuart
        
        Labour did not win an outright majority in 2002 Bruce. Many National voters switched their vote to Peter Dunne and his United Party.
        
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        May 17, 2020 10:04am
      - bruceavon
        
        @Tony Stuart. Yes I know labour didn’t get a majority, was a very weird election with spread voting everywhere. But my point is that many national voters do sometimes change. I come from a family, who on my fathers side have always voted National and always will. But I have friends who have voted for just about everyone.
        
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        May 17, 2020 10:13am
      - Pete George
        
        “Swing voters are fooled by lack of knowledge and understanding of the best way forward for New Zealand as one.”
        
        That’s a stupid generalisation. What you seem to be saying is that people who don’t see things the same way as you must be stupid.
        
        A lot of people weigh up which party they think might be the best suited to what the country is experiencing at the time. I think that’s smarter than blind allegiance to one party, or to one side of the political spectrum or the other. And a lot more common than party sheep realise.
        
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        May 17, 2020 10:14am
      - Brian McDonald
        
        What Tony said, swing voters in the middle rule.
        
        7 2
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        May 17, 2020 10:51am
      - doggone7
        
        You absolutely 100% do not know that National voters do not change to labour voters.
        
        That is what my hero would call ‘Fake News.’
        
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        May 17, 2020 7:39pm
  - fightingtemeraire
    
    I had a handy man in my place yesterday to do some repairs.
    
    He said that there a lot of people fed up with JA
    
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    May 17, 2020 10:40am
  - Wangas Feral
    
    She is a living saint to people who get their news from the TV. She will romp home in the election. Sadly.
    
    I had a work mate last night say that he did not care that the police can kick in your door without a warrant now and search your house because Cindy was keeping us safe. I almost cried at how afraid people who should know better can be.
    
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    May 17, 2020 10:46am
  - freethinker
    
    It may also validate the quote that Govts are voted out not in.
    
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    May 17, 2020 11:07am
  - RockyJ
    
    What Jacinda should do is stand up to Winston Peters, publically, over his corruption in regard to the racing industry. For goodness sake, while he is under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office for electoral fraud over undeclared donations from racing industry figures, the government makes a $75 million grant to the racing industry!
    If she had the guts to say no to him he would either back down or force an early election which she would win.
    
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    May 17, 2020 5:29pm
Lee C

https://youtu.be/Vn3EE7EMfXc

Meanwhile in Italy –
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May 17, 2020 8:17am
Justitia

Is there polling underway? Have the Ceausescus been reincarnated in Aotearoa? The glorification of our Dear Leader is running amok. Here we read of her sharing our suffering as she is turned away from a Wellington cafe because Jethro forgot to book a table:https://i.stuff.co.nz/life-style/food-wine/121535304. It was also fortunate a TV crew just happened to be on hand, as they often are, to film the nobility of her grace and humility in the face of such overwhelming disappointment, and then the joy of the redemption as a newly vacated table became available. Even better was the top billing on last night’s TV bulletins of this inspiring morality play for our times. Next week, St Jacinda displays her stigmata on the Project.
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May 17, 2020 8:21am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Should have got the staff to kick out a filthy national voting capitalist
  
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  May 17, 2020 8:32am
  - Komata
    
    Steve@0832
    
    Wrong cafe:
    
    Winnie goes (or used t0) to the ‘Frog, while Simon spends so little time in Wellington at the moment I doubt he will have a favourite…
    
    But a question: As the appointed PM owns a very expensive property in Auckland, doesn’t THAT make her a ‘Capitalist’ by virtue of owning ‘capital’ ergo a property.
    
    Good and ardent Communist that she is, the PM will, of course, see no contradiction in the situation.
    
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    May 17, 2020 8:49am
    - Steve Otto(North Shore)
      
      Different when the left do it
      
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      May 17, 2020 9:07am
      - yossarian
        
        Helen has half a dozen properties doesn’t she?
        
        21 0
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        May 17, 2020 10:02am
    - NeverMindTheBollocks
      
      Reportedly, Helen Clark has a residential property portfolio.
      
      That could make for an awkward conversation.
      
      25 0
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      May 17, 2020 10:03am
      - freethinker
        
        And that portfolio is about to be much diminished in value-thanks to – Socialism – Karma!
        
        10 1
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        May 17, 2020 11:15am
    - Paulus
      
      Wellington better as have full time staff, cleaners, bed makers and chefs.
      Plus Mum and Dad, plus Dip Pro Squad Police – chauffeurs.
      Cheaper than living at home too !
      
      15 0
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      May 17, 2020 10:32am
- Salacious Crumb
  
  They didn’t report one the patrons who promptly left in disgust at being made to eat in proximity of the vile socialist who has trashed this country on every measure.
  
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  May 17, 2020 8:40am
  - Loddenthinks
    
    Any patron feeling that way – and there wouldn’t be many, this is Wellington after all – would surely have lingered over their meal to keep her out in the cold. I’d have ordered an extra dessert, and I don’t even eat dessert.
    
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    May 17, 2020 9:41am
- Suze Wainwright
  
  Wouldn’t be surprised if the Labour comms division is currently editing a meme depicting Simon Bridges and his family happily sitting at a cafe…
  
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  May 17, 2020 8:40am
- alex Masterley
  
  Interesting that she did not visit one of the cafes close to Government House. Instead she goes down town.
  Hardly supporting local.
  
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  May 17, 2020 9:00am
  - Ruahine
    
    The class of voyeurs in Wellington Central will be possibly of a much higher quality than those in the Hutt Valley.
    
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    May 17, 2020 9:19am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    If I recall things in Wellington correctly… Downton Wellington is closed in the weekend.. Folks have to go to Cuba Street.
    
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    May 17, 2020 10:26am
  - Tony Stuart
    
    She doesn’t live in Government House Alex. And Premier House is only a km from Parliament, so downtown is pretty local.
    
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    May 17, 2020 11:19am
    - alex Masterley
      
      Wellington is the one place in NZ I haven’t spent much time in. Hence the geographical misstep. I have no intention however of remedying that lack of knowledge.
      
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      May 17, 2020 11:51am
- Nickc2
  
  Anyone with half a brain would have booked a table. The way they were dressed indicated they were not just passing by and felt hungry. I don’t think that clip was made for NZ consumption, it’s more than likely made for the overseas market (tourism maybe?).
  
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  May 17, 2020 9:12am
  - Loddenthinks
    
    Good point about consumption for the overseas market, although much more likely to be self-serving for the UN and Vogue rather than any selfless gesture to promote tourism.
    
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    May 17, 2020 9:43am
  - bruceavon
    
    I can’t find the clip. Where is it? I deserve to receive my daily annoyance at the PM and the very annoying Gayford.
    
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    May 17, 2020 10:25am
    - Nickc2
      
      bruceavon, just for you. Try not to throw up.
      https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12332448
      That’s what $50m buys you. But that’s not all …..
      
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      May 17, 2020 11:32am
      - bruceavon
        
        Thanks Nick. Yeah I had seen that. Someone said a film crew were there already and filmed it which made it sound like a complete BS set up. But I think that part is not true. dammit. No photos either. just a tweet from some guy called ‘Joey’. So the conspiracy aspect unfulfilling. But is has managed to travel round the world, in the guardian, even on Fox. that’s annoying. “PM goes out for breakfast!” FFS.
        
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        May 17, 2020 1:45pm
- Mummy
  
  Actually not sure a TV crew was actually there? We saw a split second shot of the First Parents holding a very young First Babe in arms but that would’ve been a file shot because said babe in arms is now nearly 2 years old and wouldn’t still be swaddled in her mother’s arms. Then we saw a shot of the front door of the cafe followed by a shot of its name sign but I’m pretty sure we didn’t see the whole drama actually unfold in real time. I stand to be corrected if I am wrong.
  
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  May 17, 2020 2:53pm
RiP NZ

Imagine for moment, if Yrump had implemented an incoherent, inhuman policy around funerals.
Imagine CNN and the like, the progressive crocodile tears.
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May 17, 2020 8:21am
- Martin Williams
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  The funerals issue. People can always have a bigger service later if they want – I mean the deceased isn’t going anywhere, right?
  
  I’d say it’s not a life or death issue but it is if a funeral was to spark another outbreak.
  
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  May 17, 2020 8:39am
  - kowtow
    
    ‘I mean the deceased isn’t going anywhere, right?’
    
    Haitians might disagree.
    
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    May 17, 2020 8:47am
    - Martin Williams
      
      Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
      Lol.
      
      If your dearly departed has disappeared after Level 2 there’s a good chance:
      
      a) grave-robbing is a thing again
      b) your loved-one is actually Jesus
      
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      May 17, 2020 9:38am
  - [moderated]
    
    The best satire is when you can’t tell if it’s real or not. Is Martin the prefect parody of an Ardernite?
    
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    May 17, 2020 8:56am
  - Rich Prick
    
    Yeah thanks. A close friend passed away after emergency surgery during the lockdown. And no, she’s not “going anywhere” but all of us close to her are still here living through extended grief. What a heartless comment.
    
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    May 17, 2020 9:00am
  - Mags
    
    Well if you were looking to get a reaction, you have succeeded. Unfortunately you have picked the wrong topic to agitate on. This just highlights that you are more interested in a response and the ability to point out how smart and clever you are, and bugger the feelings of people you intentionally haves offended. #bekind, yeah, right!
    
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    May 17, 2020 9:09am
    - Martin Williams
      
      Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
      Kiwibloggers have feelings?
      
      This doesn’t fit with the insistence by most here a few Covid-19 deaths is no big deal as long as the economy is untouched.
      
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      May 17, 2020 9:40am
      - [moderated]
        
        This doesn’t fit with the insistence by most here a few Covid-19 deaths is no big deal as long as the economy is untouched.
        
        What is the correct open road speed limit Martin?
        
        I genuinely await your answer because any speed you pick over about 30 km/hr means I can accurately state the following:
        
        Martin Williams insists a few road deaths is no big deal as long as he gets where he’s going as fast a possible.
        
        It’s easy spinning something to an extreme end point. It takes skill and compassion to reach a nuanced middle ground. I realise Ardern has tugged on your heart strings and blinded you to reality but dig deep, you might have some logical abilities that could be called on.
        
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        May 17, 2020 3:10pm
  - Lee C
    
    Ok Martin.
    
    F**k, – words actually fail me.
    
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    May 17, 2020 9:15am
    - Suze Wainwright
      
      It’s Sunday – he’s getting double time…
      
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      May 17, 2020 11:08am
    - Rachael Membery
      
      Headline. People die in NZ. Of something.
      
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      May 17, 2020 1:06pm
  - Nickc2
    
    Muslim funerals are to be conducted within 24 hours of death unless killed in battle and the body can’t be immediately retrieved. These are F_n big funerals.
    
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    May 17, 2020 9:22am
  - Tony Stuart
    
    I think the Invercargill family whose last sight of their suicide death son was in a body bag before the Police took him away might disagree with you.
    
    And why is the PM allowing pubs to reopen, when a bar in Matamata produced New Zealand’s second largest COVID cluster, in one night of drinking?
    
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    May 17, 2020 9:26am
  - yossarian
    
    Or just call up 300 gang members and the police will do nothing
    
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    May 17, 2020 10:03am
- Loddenthinks
  
  And then completely ignored their own policy if the funeral is attended by dozens of bikies in Matamata, for example.
  
  Plods were summoned, and did nothing. When interviewed later, PC Dobbin stated “I couldn’t do nuffing. Their gang was bigger van our gang.”
  
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  May 17, 2020 9:46am
- MCos
  
  Imagine if Trump had implemented a policy . . . . .
  
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  May 17, 2020 9:50am
  - RiP NZ
    
    The point is Mcos, Arderns popularity is artificially inflated by sycophantic wide eyed ‘journalists’
    Had her government, at any stage of their term had the same blow torch applied they would be on 20%.
    Failure after failure. Where the fk has the RFT revenue gone? What do we have to show for it? Just one of the flagship policies amounting to zero.
    
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    May 17, 2020 10:21am
Happychappy

All Winston Peters has to do is say to Jacinda jump and and she asks how far , then gives Shane Jones $ 500 million to top up the NZ First Provincial Growth Fund.
Then when Paul Goldsmith, Simon Bridges and the National Party try to hold them to account on the $200 billion that that is part of the borrowing that hasn’t been spent yet Jacinda Ardern calls them out for “Cynical politics”.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/video.cfm?c_id=280&gal_cid=280&gallery_id=220089
Pork barrel Politics at it best and the putting our Children ,Grandchildren and more in debt to fund Jacinda’s dream.
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May 17, 2020 8:39am
- Nickc2
  
  Yep, and Socialism/Communism will be imbedded in NZ for many generations as a result. Cindy has achieved all this in less than three years. Thanks Winston and a paid for media. NOT!
  
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  May 17, 2020 9:29am
- G152
  
  She doesn’t reply as shes to busy jumping.
  Peters says, she does
  
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  May 17, 2020 10:21am
Tasman Terror

If you want to get rid of these parasites join Act and National and do some volunteering. When was the last time any of you delivered a pamphlet to support your political views? Or volunteered to be a scrutineer?Echo chambers preach to the converted.
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May 17, 2020 8:40am
- rockape
  
  Have you? If so. We should know each other! Maybe I have your name on my volunteer list for Wrst coast Tasman?
  
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  May 17, 2020 9:16am
I remember when

Auckland: Rainfall 1284mm (50.6 inches)
You would have to be careless and short-sighted to run out of water.
A couple of options to reduce water shortages.
* The use of grey water for things like toilets, lawns and gardens.
*Tanks to catch the runoff from the spouting.
In the early 1990s the firm I worked for sold 700 such tanks in a couple of months, largely in the Auckland region, because of drought conditions.
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May 17, 2020 8:43am
- kowtow
  
  Another issue .
  
  How much has Orks population grown in say the last 30 years and how much has the city’s water storage capacity grown?
  
  How much do “planners” get paid , and exactly what do they plan?
  
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  May 17, 2020 9:24am
  - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
    
    hahahaha!
    
    Very true.
    
    Planners these days are “smart planners” and they give us cycle lanes where no-one cycles, congestion by taking out road lanes, and doubled the price of parking.
    
    they also commission all those glorious depictions of happy commuters walking in the sun – they have obviously never seen a windswept desolate bus shelter smelling of wee…
    
    Water, sewage, infrastructure,” oh that’s not our department!”
    
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    May 17, 2020 9:51am
  - freethinker
    
    Kowtow, answer to your questions, too much and the next pay rise and holiday from doing little.
    
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    May 17, 2020 1:41pm
- Nickc2
  
  The Waikato river has heaps of the stuff, use it! You can’t destroy water.
  
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  May 17, 2020 9:33am
  - oldfella
    
    Apparently Auckland asked 7 years ago for permission to take more water from the Waikato river than is currently permitted when their storage runs low. Like now.
    The request is apparently still stuck at the consent stage. Believe it or not…
    
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    May 17, 2020 10:59am
    - Nickc2
      
      The person in charge of Auckland water should be told by Phil Goff to get his shiny arse out of his office, jump in his ratepayer funded car and go talk to the person(s) required to give that consent and open the valve to flood the dam on your way back. If he doesn’t, Goff and the Water Buffoon should be sacked now.
      
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      May 17, 2020 12:13pm
oldpark

Whats with the gang of three . Labour/Greens / NZ First. They recently fast tracked a punitive law allowing the Police “Carte Blance” to enter the homes of NZs without a warrant in the pretext they were checking on Coronavirus abusers.
At the same time schoolchildren back to school, groups of ten at Restuarants at each individual table up to 100 totally in the room . Also as an after thought with massive pressure from the public and the National Party they increased the group of ten people at a time, to 50 for funerals . In fact basic rules have been adopted for many business outlets. All well and good .
Sadly one of the most important things have been denied for a lot of NZs voters by the gang of 3 parties led by Peters/Ardern / Shaw .
Yes totally alleged Religious descrimination against all forms of worship in NZs Churches or Mosques . Seems unusual that of all the groups allowed to remove the Lockdown mentality the mentioned places of Worship have been denied question has to be why . Not the claptrap and lies already almost daily burbled by the group who unilaterally Locked down NZ illegally for at least ten days in the beginning of the Coronavirus threat .
Cant help but think why is there so much almost deliberate discrimination by the present regime against Religious Groups in NZ . China and North Korea have virtually tried forever to deny people the right to worship and have failed . Up to now NZs Politicians have suceeded.
I have heard the Peters selected PM often talk about the Human and Civil Rights Abuses in China . Well in the last few days seems NZs way of life and well being have taken a huge hit .
First it was the Punitive Law for Police to charge into the Private residence of NZs using the old Coronavirus trick as well as alleged Religious Discrimination . They are also using the old trick divide and conquer . The secret agenda by the Communist inspired regime seems to be well on its way using the Codie-19 threat, to making sure that the type of laws used in China and North Korea are having a dress rehearsal in NZ . Surely not,not half .
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May 17, 2020 8:46am
- Dougal10
  
  Communism is it’s own religion it doesn’t have room for gatherings that aren’t part of the regime . Hence the rules on churches and funerals and I assume wedding’s.
  
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  May 17, 2020 9:02am
  - Nickc2
    
    Yep, Cindy doesn’t believe in marriage/weddings.
    
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    May 17, 2020 9:41am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  I’m predicting the religious gathering numbers will be relaxed before Saturday 23rd May.
  
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  May 17, 2020 9:02am
  - Nickc2
    
    Maybe only in Christchurch with Police in attendance.
    
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    May 17, 2020 12:17pm
Lee C

This MP is the only who was visible, communicative and actually engaged on facebook over the lock Down. Hear her speech about Level 2 – This is a star in the making.

https://www.facebook.com/NicolaWillisMP/videos/678068216291630/
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May 17, 2020 8:53am
- MCos
  
  I never read politicians on social media.
  They’re either full of promises they never/can’t keep or undeserved self aggrandizing.
  
  Years ago I bought my first iPhone so I could keep up with cricket scores. Poor old CricInfo has been reduced to making lists of all rounders from the 1980s with the least run outs.
  
  I make an exception for President Trump, Leader of the Free World. He’s such fun, which is a bit disturbing.
  
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  May 17, 2020 9:17am
- Tony Stuart
  
  Nicola is indeed a star on the rise, but she was far from the only National MP engaging on FB or other social media. Chris Bishop, Dr Shane Reti, Tim McIndoe, Paula Bennett, Todd Muller and Simon Bridges himself have all been excellent.
  
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  May 17, 2020 9:29am
- kevn
  
  @Lee C…. The Nats have some tremendous talent. Even the newcomers having a go at seats look good.
  
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  May 17, 2020 10:08am
  - barnacle bill
    
    @kevn.
    
    Tremendous talent –
    Like Smith, Smith and Goldsmith.
    Ok they have a couple of other has beens, like Brownlee, Collins and Bridges.
    
    If that is as good as they have, then they will remain on the opposition benches for many years to come.
    
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    May 17, 2020 11:41am
    - Wired-one
      
      Yeah Twyford, Curran, Whaitari, Lees-Galloway, Davis, Genter, Clark, Jones, Sepuloni and Davidson are political heavyweights arent they…I’ll take Nationals talent over anyone in Labour, any day of the week.
      
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      May 17, 2020 1:48pm
    - barnacle bill
      
      Damn. I forgot the one from out west. cant say she is a has been, as she never was any way.
      
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      May 17, 2020 2:21pm
- Scooter
  
  What a relief to the ears to hear someone speak so eloquently without ummms and arrrrs every 5 secs.
  
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  May 17, 2020 9:37pm
I remember when

The “Lucky” Government:
Has there ever been a luckier Government in New Zealand.
Firstly, there was the way they managed to select the right new leader at the last possible moment.
Next they became the Government in rather unlikely circumstances.
Then they were given a year of minimal activity with numerous working groups without any real pressure from the media or public.
The birth of a baby managed to overcome the need for meaningful legislative activity. And these delays and the competing needs of the various parties probably meant they didn’t do anything to upset the voting public.
Both of the major disasters that befell them were an ideal opportunity to showcase the PM’s strengths.
Now we have covid-19 and we have a spell of weather that means the worst possible outcomes have been avoided. Minimal standing in the rain in queues and great weather for the daily walks and the children.
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May 17, 2020 9:04am
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  Napoleon wasn’t interested in good generals, or clever generals, or astute generals. He wanted lucky generals.
  
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  May 17, 2020 10:07am
- bruceavon
  
  Yes. We were moaning about this over our beers on Friday. They are very tin arsed. They have been just behind the ball in many areas with this virus, but just manage to sort it in time. or seem to get away with it. And then you have a crazy world where a liberal finance minister is able to borrow 50bn dollars to do what he wants with, and no one blinks an eye. Tim Watkin called him the luckiest finance minister in history. And certainly Bill English and even Michael Cullen must be looking on in amazement.
  
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  May 17, 2020 10:32am
  - Rachael Membery
    
    Made their own luck?
    
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    May 17, 2020 1:27pm
Yvette

Accompanying a UK “Guardian” article on the Budget, a photograph shows Winston Peters, Jacinda Ardern, James Shaw and Grant Robertson walking in two pairs, shoulder to shoulder, to the house during Budget 2020 delivery day at Parliament on May 14, their formation displaying an absolute disregard for 2 metre, or even one metre, social spacing. [1]

They are photographed inches rather than feet apart.
Given their banning of religious meetings at present, because of expected inter-mingling despite the denomination and quite different conduct of each, can any of the four politicians explain their position on this, literally?

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/15/the-budget-has-given-new-zealand-an-opportunity-it-cant-afford-to-squander
Getty images – https://www.gettyimages.co.nz/photos/jacinda-ardern-budget-2020?family=editorial&phrase=Jacinda%20Ardern%20Budget%202020&sort=best#license
lower series of photos
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May 17, 2020 9:09am
MrTips

As a Catholic, I really wish we had Bishops with spines. Dew is a special kind of jellyfish, but that’s another story regarding that Francis-groupie.

The COL has bought itself a fight regarding Churches and religious gathering restrictions. Think about it.

A Catholic 60 yr old came back infected from the USA early in our outbreak, went to Mass, and…….

nothing. Procedures in place prevented a cluster. But no, you can’t go to Mass.

A patron goes to a pub in Matamata. Another airline steward goes to a wedding in Invercargill. Both significant clusters. But planes can fly and pubs open on Thursday.

Stuff you Cindy and your quasi-socialist enablers.

And EXTREMELY disappointing display of spineless invertebrate fainting syndrome from the Catholic Bishops. Who’s side are you on ?
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May 17, 2020 9:13am
- kowtow
  
  They’re all very “woke” , and if they weren’t and were outspoken they’d get the Pell treatment .
  Pell was targetted cos he was an outspoken conservative and the Media Party got the result they were pushing for.
  Dangerous times.
  
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  May 17, 2020 9:29am
- Yvette
  
  Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
  
  If Brian Tamaki arranges his “drive to” church gathering so that cars arrive by an entry other than that by which they depart, does the whole deal become a “drive through” and is no more restricted in numbers than getting a takeaway hamburger?
  
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  May 17, 2020 9:30am
- lifesgood
  
  Sadly they are all Labourites. They are confusing being charitable and kind and caring for ones neighbour with the load of bollocks the left preaches. You hit the nail on the head, spineless wimps and, OK, kowtow, you’ve got a point. Bishop Pell was always innocent and has been completely exonerated but Australia’s communist national network, the ABC, are still after him. Poor man.
  
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  May 17, 2020 9:46am
- Peter S
  
  Agreed.
  While I would not, under normal circumstances, go to a Destiny church, today, if I was nearer, I would on principle.
  Freedom to worship (and its counterpart, freedom not to be compelled to, or compelled to in a state prescribed form) are fundamental rights, and those that don’t care because they have no interest in religious expression obviously have not thought things through far enough to realize that, in failing to protect and protest the right to be allowed to worship, they are eroding the very thing that protects them from being compelled to by another government.
  
  I have voted across a number of parties over the years. I look to see which is presenting policies either most aligned (or most often least disaligned ) with my beliefs, views and needs.
  
  I will never ever (ever ever ever ever ever ever…. ad infinitum) vote for a party that voted for this latest law. (and yes, I have voted both sides of the left/right divide in the past)
  
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  May 17, 2020 11:08am
- RightNow
  
  I was raised in the Church so to speak. My family are tribal Labour (except for dalliances with social credit) and all the church people I knew/know are very left leaning. Anti-National is probably more accurate.
  My point is that the CoL won’t get any significant blow back from churches, with the notable exception of Destiny Church and potentially Brethren churches.
  
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  May 17, 2020 11:29am
Tauhei Notts

I have become despondent. Nine weeks ago I thought Labour would win. I was sad. Then I noticed a trend that got me happy. I could sense the tide turning. But now I can see that tide ebbing away and I think Labour might get back in.
That touchy feely story about Her and Gayford almost missing out on brunch; that is the sort of story that will gather a huge number of voters, all of whom have the depth of thought of a supermarket car park puddle, and the taxpayer funded Tv news were there to film it!
Please give me a cure for my despondency.
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May 17, 2020 9:24am
- Brian McDonald
  
  Seriously no one gives 2 f….s about such stories except here on KB.
  
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  May 17, 2020 9:35am
  - lifesgood
    
    For once you might be right, Brian. No one gives a fuck so why bother? Poor hard working, Labour voting NZers who can’t afford a trendy brunch will not be impressed.
    
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    May 17, 2020 9:49am
- RightNow
  
  Cheer up Tauhei, at least you’re not Brian McDonald.
  
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  May 17, 2020 11:32am
- emmess
  
  Please give me a cure for my despondency.
  
  Ok then
  Given that we have had no public polls since the start of the coronavirus. And only hearsay about Labour party polls which I do not trust.
  
  I think the best thing to do is to take Canada as a proxy, as they have basically the same sort of ‘woke’ left government in power, a (I’ll generous here) a male Jacinda
  
  Look at the graph
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_44th_Canadian_federal_election
  
  At first glance, you see a big jump for the Liberals.
  But that mostly appears to be at the expense of the other left-wing parties (NDP and Greens), the CPC has taken maybe only a 2-3 point hit.
  
  I think that would probably translate here in NZ as well.
  
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  May 17, 2020 11:37am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Please give me a cure for my despondency.
  
  Try and organise your life so that it matters not a whit if JA and her mates get in again.
  
  Why let those dozos dictate your mood?
  
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  May 17, 2020 1:09pm
mandk

Interesting article by Sue Bradford:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/121532143/this-is-not-what-a-postcovid-budget-should-look-like

I don’t agree with a lot of what she says, but at least she is principled – unlike the Greens scum now in Parliament, who have sold their souls for a morsel of power.
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May 17, 2020 9:27am
- RiP NZ
  
  Principled?
  She ran around like a rabid dog, sitting in streets for TTPA…..then shut her trap for the ‘PTTPA’
  
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  May 17, 2020 10:26am
Steve Otto(North Shore)

How is this for leftist bullshit? The guy must be on drugs.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/05/power-hungry-mayor-garcetti-says-la-beaches-will-open-exercise-wet-sand-no-sunbathing-dry-sand-video/?fbclid=IwAR07TSvhndaLuqYDckgJgh2Mlk1zVnn2oLzaKD7ZXq3odijBzHoWc31-GQI
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May 17, 2020 9:28am
artemisia

Wellington City Council is asking for public input into temporary street changes so people don’t walk or bike too close to each other. Because, some reason.

And including pop up bike lanes and removing more than 200 car parks. No agenda then.

The changes cover thousands of metres, not trivial. No costs supplied AFAIK, but most costs borne by Transport NZ.

Seems we are trusted to walk ahead or behind others but not next to each other.

The decisions will not be made for another month.

WOFTAM. Please tell the council to stop wasting our rates for their Green agenda.

https://wellington.govt.nz/have-your-say/public-inputs/consultations/open/covid-19-response-projects—proposed-traffic-resolutions
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May 17, 2020 9:31am
Brian McDonald

Getting back to the budget and the economy of which there is not a single post above. There will be hopefully 1000s of businesses looking to take advantage of training NZers with the skills to replace the temporary overseas workers, and with work on hand.
I hope there is an effort to arrest the fact as to why young kiwis are not going into the trades, the result of which is that many workshops have a majority staff of immigrants. I am not expressing anything against such people but want to know why younger kiwis are not in training for such roles. They seem few and far between these days. In the past, I have trained apprentices in a small way and now do the same with drivers in a small way – something I will come back to.
From what I understand of the budget, basic courses will be provided hopefully like those provided by colleges that had ‘technical’ classes to teach the basic necessities to be able to move to apprenticeships. We have driving courses now and unfortunately a convoluted method of licenses that in some areas result in adults being on learner licenses for years.
Back to truck drivers when big horsepower rigs arrived in NZ around 20 years ago there was a spate of crashes resulting in the HD licenses qualifying age being raised from 18 to 26. The apparent result has been a shortage of NZ drivers for years, too long to wait. Many young PI and Maori are lost to that type of job, work they are often naturals at. We need to reduce the age back to 21 with training starting at least 6 months before that time for lower classes an 12 months earlier (or possibly even earlier) for the heavier weight classes. Give theses younger blokes a chance. Along with maybe 12 months pre-training for apprentices to start at 17 to 18 with dispositions for 16-year-olds who show the capability.
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May 17, 2020 9:32am
- old skool reactionary
  
  “younger kiwis are not in training for such roles.”
  
  White population birthrate through the floor for decades now.
  
  This is really bad for a an economy that is predicated on expanding credit not actual real productive activity.
  
  Ergo import lots of 3rd Worlders to man Globalist logistcal chains, low skill low wage service industry.
  
  Slam interest rates through the floor so 3rd Wolders and local yokels can take out million dollar mortgages and go shopping at Harvey’s Saturday morning for 75inch Sony ultra high definition OLED TVs and Samsung Galaxys with zeor interest rate terms for 48 months.
  
  Whats not to love about Globalism?
  
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  May 17, 2020 9:44am
  - Brian McDonald
    
    There is also a productivity loss often because of language and different standards of work quality. Where we’ve missed out with the immigrant workforce appears to be that they are not taught the expected standards in NZ before going to work – I know things are even easier now but previously an employer needed to show he could not find local applicants before being given the approval to bring in someone from overseas. Split that approval toward schools pre-training NZ drivers and potential tradesman as a priority – in fact, we have to do now or as soon as possible.
    Time for employers to get their 2 cents worth in before we get training schemes that are not properly targetted and effective. We’ve had enough of them.
    
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    May 17, 2020 11:13am
- WaveyDavey
  
  Yeah, I’m hearing about this “re-training”
  
  Putting tradies to one side – and I’m all for that, I wish I had a practical physical skill rather than academic ones right now – what are these sunrise industries where our burger-flippers and retail assistants can suddenly upskill and reinvent themselves as high-earning high-value employees?
  
  I’m not seeing any leaping out at me. And as for the “nature-jobs” hah – pulling up weeds is never going to be anything but minimum wage work.
  
  BTW although lots of tradies is great – where are the building materials going to magically appear from?
  
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  May 17, 2020 10:35am
  - Gravelroad
    
    Wavey- even if “nature jobs” were to pay a good deal more than minimum wage (subsidised by our benevolent government) there is no guarantee our cosseted citizens would want to do them.
    I know someone who works in the vineyard/grape growing industry. It is very difficult to get locals to take up jobs there and it’s not just about the money.
    Here are a list of reasons why people won’t work in “green jobs”:
    They are mostly outside
    People don’t like working outside in all weathers:
    Too hot, too cold, too windy, too wet, too far away from town, can’t be bothered travelling, too hard – can’t climb up hills, too boring, what about my doctors appointment, school pickup and iPhone connection???????? My hands/feet are sore.
    Then there’s the health and safety which includes no alcohol, smoking or drugs.
    And – big machinery : noisy and dangerous.
    No, most people these days want to sit inside looking at screens ………..
    It’s much easier, especially now when the govt is in full societal control mode and happy to pay us to do nothing at all.
    
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    May 17, 2020 11:18am
    - Tall Man
      
      Planted trees as a student.
      
      Even then the unemployed locals refused to do it as it was too hard, too hard and to make decent money you had to work your arse off.
      
      That’s why I’m very comfortable now and those locals are voting ardern.
      
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      May 17, 2020 11:55am
    - WaveyDavey
      
      Really? I could have sworn that pre-lockdown many, many developers and builders were all over the media talking about a lack of materials.
      
      In fact there was a massive shortage of concrete apparently. I remember the radio interview where a construction guy was saying there was a 2-3 month lead time and god help him if everything wasn’t in place for the pour at the set date and time.
      
      Did I imagine that or were they being economical with the truth?
      
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      May 17, 2020 3:43pm
      - WaveyDavey
        
        For the comment below of course
        
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        May 17, 2020 5:17pm
  - Brian McDonald
    
    Plenty of building materials, NZ can pre-cast its own concrete (has for decades), produces rebar, roofing iron, treated timber, various roofing products, make guttering, pipes, tap fittings and it goes on. We can import steel beams for lintels and construction, we make our own cement, aussie has plenty of sealing membranes and so forth. I think we even make our own scaffolding – though a lot is imported. We have always relied on importing heavy machinery and cranes. We are missing the gap between tech workers and those that don’t work but could be pulled into trades.
    
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    May 17, 2020 11:22am
    - Tall Man
      
      You sound like someone who knows what a hard day’s work is and feels like. Many don’t and don’t want to.
      
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      May 17, 2020 11:56am
  - emmess
    
    Retraining = ‘Learn to Code’
    
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    May 17, 2020 11:39am
- Tall Man
  
  Maybe you need to get on the pointy end of employing these “young Kiwis”. I have been there in the past and now work with those on it. It isn’t as rosy as you think.
  
  You will find there are severe issues to overcome including drug abuse, lack of motivation, laziness and a large dose of “entitlement attitude”.
  
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  May 17, 2020 12:00pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  The pressure for young folk to turn away from trade training and stay longer at school (beyond 16) and head for University or paper-based courses at Polytechs was driven by Helen Clark’s “Knowledge Wave”.
  https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/knowledge-wave-conference-statement-co-chairs
  
  Admittedly, it had become harder for folks to pick up apprenticeships when Government Departments (Railways/MofW/Post-office) disappeared in the 1980s.
  
  I’ve never regretted the fact that I not only have paper qualifications, I have practical work experience as a qualified gardener.
  
  Hubby was brought up in precision engineering workshops, so has always been able to build/fix equipment.
  
  It’s hard not to think that academic qualifications will lead to a great career, because that has been the route out of the lower working class for many of us,
  but when every 2nd person has a degree (let alone a Ph.D), then it pays to have one or two other skills up your sleeve.
  
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  May 17, 2020 1:27pm
MCos

This morning I heard a bloke on the radio talk about what people wanted when Level 2 set in.
Of course top of the list was meet up with family and friends. Many people wanted a haircut, or visit to a restaurant or just go to the shops.
I noticed nobody mentioned a wish that the shops were still actually there.

From what I’ve seen the shops in Mangere Bridge have all reopened, including the butcher run by a couple of Cambodians. The Vietnamese hairdresser is blazing away. I bought a broom from one of the Two Dollar shops. The Chinese woman told me she’d spent the duration at home sewing, but it was great to be back.
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May 17, 2020 9:36am
- old skool reactionary
  
  “Cambodians….Vietnamese…Two Dollar shops…. The Chinese….”
  
  Welcome to Aotearoa.
  
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  May 17, 2020 9:54am
  - Brian McDonald
    
    It is Aotearoa, some of the kiwi kids won’t get out of bed. If they don’t want to go to uni provide them with trade training or send them to farmers for a couple of years working on the land, we’ve become too soft and comfortable.
    
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    May 17, 2020 11:30am
    - Tall Man
      
      labour, soft on crime, soft full stop.
      
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      May 17, 2020 11:52am
    - Pheobe
      
      A few years ago we tried to get someone to work on our farm, and as we were a we way out we offered free board and meals, and suggested working 4 days on, 4 days off. We had one person turn up and when they realized they wouldn’t be home every weekend, to meet up with their mates that was the end of it.
      
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      May 17, 2020 5:37pm
    - Sacha
      
      The last thing farmers need is a crew of reluctant kids being sent to ‘work on the land’.
      The army would be better – hey! that’s an idea – why not reintroduce compulsory military training?
      I’d vote for that.
      
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      May 17, 2020 8:16pm
      - MCos
        
        The army wouldn’t. They don’t want reluctant recruits either.
        
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        May 18, 2020 6:46am
old skool reactionary

Notice how upbeat all the news media are? They all got the memo obviously and sit around the editorial meeting room figuring out all the “Good News”angles they will deploy each morning.

They are like the musicians playing on the deck of the Titanic.
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May 17, 2020 9:51am
Tasman Terror

Nelson electorate, on my 6th campaign.
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May 17, 2020 9:55am
- Tony Stuart
  
  Good for you TT. National does perennially well because of the efforts of thousands of grassroots members like you and I who get off our arses and help.
  
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  May 17, 2020 11:23am
- rockape
  
  Then we d finitely know each other! I attend most functions at Nelson although active in Tasman. I will wear a red rose in my lapel at the nxt pizza and politics or lunch!
  
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  May 17, 2020 11:33am
- Happychappy
  
  I was born in Nelson and like most young ones in them days voted Labour because that what my Parents did and it was only once. But in them days Nelson was a Labour strong hold with very likable MP’s Stan Whitehead and then Mel Courtney but since then it has had mainly a National MP. But let’s hope that Nick Smithholds his seat and retires before the next Election. I live in the Waikato now but still take more than a interesting what happens on the top of the South Island.
  
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  May 17, 2020 2:01pm
Chuck Bird

At 11 am on the political hour on Radio Magic they will have Don Brash and Peter Dunne. It should be interesting.

National should not just focus nearly 100% on the economy. They should push strong on law and order.

They should also push for one law for all but do it in a respectful way to Maori. There are plenty of Maori who were unhappy with the roadblocks. They are are not happy with gangs. Many with vote National and ACT.

Labour get the votes from the Maori on the benefit. There are definitely a disproportionate number of Maori on the dole. However, there are still plenty on an above average income.

I would like to see National promise a referendum on the racist Maori seats.
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May 17, 2020 9:58am
oldpark

@MrTips 9.13 am

Wonder how or what her Mormon/Muslim huggy friends feel about the now seen as completly planned discrimination alleged shutting down of all Worship and Church actitivities in NZ. Bet by the time it gets close to the election the gang of Three Peters/ Ardern /Shaw will hope that the attack on the Human and Religious rights of many many NZs voters will have been forgotten . Perhaps Nats/ACT will oblige the voters on what type of control freaks
that Peters installed in 2017 Election and how the Nation of NZ is been very quickly turned into the “Socialist Republic of the South Pacific.”
Would be great if some of the Worlds Media would print the truth about NZ. Instead of telling fake news and lies about an unelected woman known as Ardern NZs PM being so popular when really her true claim to fame was addressing a crowd of Communist Youths and screaming Comrade !Comrade!Comrade! at least Fifteen times .At least for most true to themselves NZs the truth would set all of us free.
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May 17, 2020 9:59am
Maggie Pie

My partner has arrived back early from the farm. Only one duck!
The weather was sooo beautiful, he was saying the birds were flying that high, you’d risk straining the barrel if you took a shot. And to make matters worse, in his haste to get away yesterday, he left his duck-call under the bed.
When he first got down to the maimai, he could hear the shrill ‘ZEEK ZEEK’ call of a lone female Parrie. Cupping his hands to his mouth, he let out a couple of “Duckduck. Duckduck” calls. Amazingly, it swam into sight out of the reeds. The poor creature didn’t stand a chance. He gave it a face-full of No 6 steel.
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May 17, 2020 10:03am
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  Thank you, Maggie, for posting a non C-19 story. I am fed to the back teeth with C-19 stories.
  
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  May 17, 2020 10:11am
- Fletch
  
  I thought May 23rd was the start of the season?
  
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  May 17, 2020 10:36am
  - Tall Man
    
    Pretty sure you can shoot on your own land.
    
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    May 17, 2020 11:50am
- Lee C
  
  Have you checked to see if the duck has a price-tag or tyre-marks on it Maggie? – his story sounds dodgy to me.
  
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  May 17, 2020 12:43pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
  
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  May 17, 2020 12:58pm
  - Maggie Pie
    
    OH PLUCKING HELL!!!!!! 🙁
    
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    May 17, 2020 1:42pm
In Vino Veritas

Grant Robertson remembers the the Lange Labour Govt and Richardsons budgets. And his Government’s budget isn’t going to be the same as those budgets.
Nope. He is going to create the situation where some OTHER Government is going to have to do it. Well played Grant. Another student politician with zero idea about anything. Even when you are an adult.
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May 17, 2020 10:11am
- emmess
  
  No, his budget was ‘Muldoon on Steroids’
  
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  May 17, 2020 11:41am
JibberJabber

https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/sex-workers-relieved-return-work-alert-level-2

Politicians looking after themselves first…..again.
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May 17, 2020 10:12am
- Tony Stuart
  
  Who does one practice social distancing in a brothel? I’m asking for a friend, of course ?
  
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  May 17, 2020 11:25am
  - Maggie Pie
    
    Voyeurism ? 😛
    
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    May 17, 2020 11:37am
  - Cod Weyne
    
    Multiply 8 inches in and out, however number of times required to reach 2 meters…….simple really.
    
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    May 17, 2020 10:27pm
old skool reactionary

There is A LOT of hurt out there in media/journo /columnist land. NZ Herald is shedding them like snake skins!

So spare some kindness and wish them well as they learn to code.
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May 17, 2020 10:24am
WaveyDavey

Why we’ll most likely be following the Swedish model in the end

https://unherd.com/2020/05/britain-might-end-up-following-the-swedes-lead/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups%5B0%5D=18743&tl_period_type=3
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May 17, 2020 10:29am
Fletch

They just had former finance minister Bill Birch on NewstalkZB and asked him about the latest budget. He thought a moment and said it was “extraordinary” the “speed and the haste” with which it has been put together at the beginning of one week. Also the “lack of detail”.
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May 17, 2020 10:34am
- Maggie Pie
  
  My partners mum said she was listening to that.
  She reckons he’s always been such a ‘dry-balls’.
  LOL!!
  
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  May 17, 2020 10:56am
- RW Capitalist
  
  Summary
  Ill considered
  Ill advised
  and dangerous.
  
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  May 17, 2020 11:13am
Ipanema69

As somewhat of a thought experiment I am trying to think of simple policy changes that National could make to assist in the economic recovery due to the COL response to COVID 19.

One idea that I have had is to ammemd the local government act to put rate demands on the same basis as virtually any other commercial invoice. That is eliminate local governments ability to recover unpaid rates by adding outstanding balances to mortgages and or forced sales.

It would force councils to operate on a more commercial basis. It may in a small way induce them to reduce rates to achieve more voluntary compliance.

Any thoughts?

The big stuff is important but a large number of small changes that can be rapidly implemented may also be useful.
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May 17, 2020 10:40am
- Tall Man
  
  Just restrict all and any increase to inflation less 20%.
  
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  May 17, 2020 11:46am
The worm that turned

Asking for a friend. Did Jacinda and co actually ever take a 20% pay cut? Seems some doubt. Citation please.
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May 17, 2020 10:41am
- MCos
  
  Get your friend to speak to Karl Sroubek.
  According to someone above he has a direct line to the PM and should be able to find out.
  
  I wonder what became of John Key’s salary that he promised to relinquish?
  
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  May 17, 2020 11:46am
  - Tall Man
    
    Ask him.
    
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    May 17, 2020 2:17pm
- Captain Mainwaring
  
  Still waiting in the queue behind such important things as giving votes to prisoners.
  
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  May 17, 2020 1:02pm
- cmm
  
  You mean the 10% pay cut.
  
  20% for 6 months is 10%.
  
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  May 17, 2020 1:47pm
RW Capitalist

If hydroxychloroquine coupled with an antibiotic, is so useless.
Why are still moving on massive, expensive trials?
Why is the anecdotal evidence piling up?
Why do the anti brigade always refer to it in association with Trump?
Why do even, the anti brigade, say that all that is wrong with it. Is the lack of clinical trials with regard to Covid 19? When as a human disease, covid19, did no exist before last year?
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May 17, 2020 11:09am
- rangitoto
  
  Coupled with Zinc and Antibiotic. The Zinc is the key ingredient. It interferes with the viral replication. The hydroxycholoquine helps transport zinc to the cellular interior.
  
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  May 17, 2020 11:30am
  - Michael NZ
    
    I have upped my Vit C, D and Zinc.
    David Sinclair at LifeScience has links to science reports not newspaper.
    The working doses have been
    
    Hydroxycholoquine 2x day for 5 days
    Antibiotic 2x day for 5 days
    Zinc 1x day for 5 days
    
    best to start as symptoms start.
    not best for late term, but early to mid term.
    
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    May 17, 2020 12:18pm
    - cmm
      
      First off, I would not play this game on your own.
      
      Not all antibiotics are the same. They have different therapeutic side effects. You need to use one that is appropriate.
      
      But all this can be avoided by just getting enough Vit D. Easy enough to do in NZ by just walking in the sun. If you have dark skin, you’ll need a bit more than that.
      
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      May 17, 2020 1:46pm
      - Jules99
        
        You have to walk in the sun when it is 40 degrees or more from the horizon. Lower than that, and no UVB hits the ground, and thus you won’t make vit D. So, in the South Island there are several months over winter when you cannot make vit D from the sun. That’s why vit D deficiency is so common there. Even in Auckland there is a month in winter when you can’t make vitamin D, so you have to top up ahead of time.
        
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        May 17, 2020 4:27pm
      - cmm
        
        Jules: While “none” is incorrect, the UVB levels during winter are indeed very low (about 10% what it is in summer in AKL and a bit lower than that down south) and while your body cannot make enough Vit D for its day-to-day use, it still makes a small amount.
        
        Luckily your body stores Vit D so it is able to make up the difference from reserves – so long as you have topped up during autumn.
        
        The Vit D lag vs sun is approx 1 to 2 months suggesting your body stores Vit D for approx 3 months (but those stores will decline as they are being used).
        
        There is an interesting paper looking at Vit D levels in older people in NZ. Short answer: men in NZ with a healthy lifestyle do not need Vit D supplements, women maybe do.
        
        https://books.google.co.nz/books?id=pyK2iDVWxfwC&pg=PA590#v=onepage&q&f=false
        
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        May 17, 2020 6:09pm
- MCos
  
  I think you’re asking the wrong people.
  
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  May 17, 2020 11:52am
rangitoto

The Wuhan virus was not sourced from the wet market:

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.01.073262v1?rss=1
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May 17, 2020 11:10am
- MrTips
  
  Not only that, in silico modelling suggests that, right from the get go, in early COVID patients, the virus was supremely well adapted to human-human transmission. A preprint but from a group that understands virus mutation well. https://arxiv.org/abs/2005.06199
  
  The lead author, Petrovsky, raises a valid point: how does something so new, become so adapted to human transmission, despite never having purportedly seen human cells?
  
  Unless Fauci and NIH funding helped along the way. Ockhams razor is well applied here, but we still have to see.
  
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  May 17, 2020 11:45am
- emmess
  
  Interesting, I have been saying for a while that there is no proof that it originated in the wet market.
  While this paper is not conclusive proof that it did not, it appears to be a major step in that direction.
  
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  May 17, 2020 11:54am
- chaos
  
  There is no Wuhan virus. It started its life in the USA.
  
  Ever seen countries close their boarders and suicide their economy for a virus?
  
  Now a biological weapon that took a virus and altered it, that’s something to shut the boarders for. They just cocked up the virus and it didn’t do what they wanted.
  
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  May 17, 2020 3:05pm
  - Captain Mainwaring
    
    A boarder is someone who pays you to stay in your spare bedroom. A BORDER is what you have to cross to get into another country.
    
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    May 17, 2020 3:21pm
  - chukar
    
    Chaos,
    Uptick meant to be down.
    Satire or just bloody rubbish?
    
    4 2
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    May 17, 2020 4:03pm
The Boss

When even the Simon-hater Tova warns about Govt’s $20 billion slush fund to buy votes one must become afraid, very afraid. Combine that with more Wellington cafe like theatre to come our way and one has to ask: Is this the most unlevel playing field we have ever had for an election?
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May 17, 2020 11:57am
Tasman Terror

Did Jacinda have Chardonnay with her brunch to mark the death of the butcher who died suddenly when his business went into liquidation in Lockdown ? Did she walk to brunch to save the environment? Did she have lots of toothy grin selfies in the cafe with the heavily tattooed under size hat wearers with lots of face junk? Did she autograph the paper napkin and hug the wait people? These are all hard questions Stuff and NZ Herald chose not to ask. In a democracy like ours this is simply inexcusable.
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May 17, 2020 11:59am
I remember when

St Cinders the kind.
St Cinders the caring.
St Cinders the empathetic.
St Cinders the politician?
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May 17, 2020 12:03pm
Maggie Pie

When my partner received this link from the Police, he found it quite intriuging.
He said it sounds to him like the government has already passed ‘Hate Crime’ laws 🙁

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EYKmzaCU4AEDVa9?format=jpg&name=medium
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May 17, 2020 12:07pm
- Tall Man
  
  ardern hates ordinary Kiwis. Please make her stop ….
  
  MAGA 2020
  
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  May 17, 2020 2:08pm
I remember when

Everyone knows that politicians don’t tell the truth.
Everyone knows that politicians aren’t to be trusted.
Everyone knows better than the politicians.
So obviously it is Trump’s fault when something he makes an aside comment about doesn’t seem to be working.
Being kind is acceptable when trying to project a positive outlook but suggesting remedies to encourage positivity isn’t.
Both would seem to have the same chance of success.
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May 17, 2020 12:14pm
Michael NZ

Does anyone know about the “grasscutting of our bank accounts” treasury are working on at the moment?
They are apparently looking at leaving $5k?

I’ve asked for more info but my source is 2nd hand so am awaiting a follow up.
I will give more info later as I get it.
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May 17, 2020 12:15pm
- Philview
  
  Here is some information called the Open Bank Resolution. Rather than taxpayers bailing out a failing bank, depositors would take a haircut on their savings.
  
  https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/regulation-and-supervision/banks/open-bank-resolution
  
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  May 17, 2020 2:59pm
greybeard

100 people go out to dinner at a restaurant.

They then decide to go to a funeral for one of their friends, but only 50 of this group of 100 can go to it.

After the funeral these 50 people decide to go to a church to pray for their friend, but only 10 of these 50 can do so.

Same people in all three locations.

Three different sets of rules.

Someone: please help me understand this logic.
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May 17, 2020 12:26pm
- cmm
  
  ” logic”
  
  Sorry mate, that’s where you went wrong. You are not supposed to use logic.
  
  You are supposed to focus on what matters:
  * NZ has the best policies in the world.
  * We did better than everyone else.
  * PriNZess is awesome.
  * If you lose the faith then it is back to Level 4.
  
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  May 17, 2020 1:41pm
  - Tall Man
    
    “* If you disagree then it is back to Level 4.”
    
    Fixed it.
    
    5 2
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    May 17, 2020 2:28pm
Happychappy

It seems a Labour MP Maja Lubeck trying to do a hit on bar owner Leo Molloy went horribly wrong with her post on twitter.
Rodney Labour MP try to discredit the bar owner put a screen shot up on twitter of the wage subsidy supposedly recieved by the Auckland bar owner without realising that the subsidy was actually recieved by a unrelated business in Nelson.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=12332489The arrogance and ignorance of Labour MP’s is more frequently and shows just how far out of their depth they are.
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May 17, 2020 12:54pm
- MrTips
  
  Lol. Lubeck is all hat and no cattle.
  Your link didn’t work though HC, try this one: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12332489
  
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  May 17, 2020 1:37pm
- Nickc2
  
  The Herald must be monitoring this site, the page has been taken down.
  
  5 1
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  May 17, 2020 1:37pm
  - Tall Man
    
    Drop the THE at the end of the link 🙂
    
    3 3
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    May 17, 2020 2:27pm
cmm

So according to the Washington Post, small nations did better than large nations. Then they go cherry picking, and in the case of NZ – lying, to make their case.

Of course you could cherry pick to make the opposite case just as easily:

Central Europe:
San Marino, one of the tiniest populations in the world at 34000, has the world’s highest death rate at 1225 deaths per million.

Western Europe: Tiny Belgium. Worst CV19 death stats for the region.

South America: Smaller Peru worse than neighbouring larger Brasil, and smaller Equador is even worse.

And of course, NZ worse than Australia.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/300014277/when-it-comes-to-coronavirus-response-superpowers-may-need-to-study-smaller-nations
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May 17, 2020 1:37pm
Maggie Pie

As much as i love Liz, honestly, her hubby can be such an old misery-guts sometimes 🙁

https://twitter.com/KimDotcom/status/1261194909995790337
6 3
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May 17, 2020 2:02pm
Inandout

Zoom reinforces the belief that marriages involve male and female. Tut tut…bad..
https://www.wnd.com/2020/05/academics-say-using-wedding-family-photo-zoom-background-offensive/
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May 17, 2020 2:33pm
curry4me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoRrjksWpJ4
What will it take to get US supply chains out of China?
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May 17, 2020 3:18pm
curry4me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ts8d8kMdmfM
Soros worried that CCP virus pandemic could destroy
the Fourth Reich.
1 2
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May 17, 2020 3:18pm
- Inandout
  
  Well curry, it has destroyed the Fourth Estate.
  
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  May 17, 2020 3:22pm
  - kowtow
    
    They’re destroying themselves.
    
    2 2
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    May 17, 2020 6:58pm
  - curry4me
    
    Inandout: Yes, indeed. That’s a great start.
    
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    May 18, 2020 12:04am
Inandout

I thought the hundreds of millions given to Maori were supposed to stop this?
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/120345591/father-jailed-after-ramming-bottle-into-babys-mouth-causing-head-injuries

Dirty rotten bastard should have the same done to him.
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May 17, 2020 4:15pm
mike45

Grasscutting bank accounts? Presumably this refers to the fact that the govt can take our savings and give us a Bond in return.
Apparently there is no limit to the amount they can take. Australia has the same law but they can only take from accounts with over $50,000.
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May 17, 2020 4:20pm
Jack5

Computer software used in Britain that led to a covid-19 shutdown is labelled a disaster in an article behind the paywall at the Telegraph.

Coding by Professor Neil Ferguson and his team at Imperial College, London, has been branded by “leading figures” as totally unreliable , the newspaper said, adding that many have claimed that it is almost impossible to reproduce the same results from the same data, using the same code.

The model simulates transport links, population size, social networks and healthcare provisions to predict how coronavirus would spread.

Questions arose after researchers released the code behind it, which in its original form was “thousands of lines” developed over more than 13 years.

The Telegraph says Ferguson placed the proportion of infected people who would die from covid-19 at 0.9 per cent. “That led to a dramatic reversal in government policy from attempting to build ‘herd immunity’ to a full-on lockdown.”

The newspaper says that in the early 2000s, Ferguson’s models incorrectly predicted up to 136,000 deaths from mad cow disease, 200 million from bird flu and 65,000 from swine flu.
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May 17, 2020 4:29pm
- WaveyDavey
  
  Full takedown of the Imperial model here
  
  https://lockdownsceptics.org/how-convincing-is-imperial-colleges-covid-19-model/
  
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  May 17, 2020 5:22pm
- Peter S
  
  4 things that are fundamental to a useful model.
  A good model design.
  Good code.
  Realistic parameters.
  Proper calibration.
  Get any of those wrong and the results are junk.
  
  The model that was used for NZ got at least one of those wrong.
  The 80,000 predicted deaths was based upon estimates/parameters related to European conditions (winter, high population density, mass transport).
  Within a few days it was obvious that the numbers were off by a huge amount.
  At the very least, a recalibration or re-estimate based on more realistic parameters was in order, but the 80,000 was too sexy a number, so we have been fed a known lie to continue justifying a level of lock down that should have been relaxed.
  That was why the narrative changed from flattening the curve to elimination. It keeps people from asking questions, keeps them scared and compliant.
  
  I am not one that argues that covid is no more than flu. But the numbers tell me that the threat (in our local conditions)has been grossly over egged.
  Just so you know, I do have an idea what I am talking about.
  I have an MSc in the strategic use of data and 20+ years of programming, data analysis & data modeling.
  
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  May 17, 2020 10:26pm
- Bat Man
  
  Socialist Science
  
  Like everything they do it is shite they
  Pull our of their A r s e s and Ram down your throats
  
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  May 18, 2020 12:00am
mike45

On another subject. Does anyone else find it crazy that you have to write your details to go into some establishments. I questioned the “guard” at one as to how many people had handled the pen and clipboard since it was last sanitised. Suprised look on his face and the answer, predictably, “we have never sanitised them.” Thank you.
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May 17, 2020 4:30pm
- Inandout
  
  mike, Bunnings did away with that shit, too many people flowing through.
  
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  May 17, 2020 5:06pm
  - Pheobe
    
    https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/300014153/coronavirus-level-2-rule-flipflop-hasnt-helped–retail-nz
    
    Retailers don’t need to collect names now
    
    5 1
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    May 17, 2020 6:50pm
- krazykiwi
  
  I stopped at a cafe today. When presented with this register I said “No thanks”, and apologised to the owner “Please note that in your reporting back to DIA or whoever”. $20 stays in my pocket, not paying staff or suppliers.
  
  4 3
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  May 17, 2020 5:12pm
  - mikenmildagain
    
    Yeah, penalise the small business owner for trying to do the right thing.
    
    5 11
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    May 17, 2020 5:31pm
    - krazykiwi
      
      Not at all. The state has demanded that businesses harvest my private data. I will give my custom to those that choose not to. Simple.
      
      6 1
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      May 17, 2020 8:27pm
oldfella

Just been reading a story on MediaIte about Tara Reade who’s accused Joe Biden of sexual assault.
Wow, the comments from the left are … vile, disgusting, hateful… you get the idea.
It’s a pleasure to come back to KB where the tone is almost polite by comparison.
I guess having the comments moderated makes the difference, even if sometimes we want to argue with the refs decisions.
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May 17, 2020 5:25pm
gorse

Listening to the radio right now and had a chuckle. They are playing “where are the clowns”. I thought National or ACT could use it on a TV ad, showing Adern and co. at work with this nice piece of music playing but saying they are found in the Beehive top office, that’s where the clowns are. Well I thought it might be funny.
7 3
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May 17, 2020 5:51pm
MCos

Tweet of the day
https://twitter.com/hannahrosequeen/status/1261194793398517760?s=21
2 3
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May 17, 2020 5:59pm
- mikenmildagain
  
  I liked the reply to that one:
  “My mom said we should speak Thai in public so we don’t get targeted for speaking Mandarin and I think it’s so sweet that she’s nice enough to believe that these stupid fucking racists can differentiate between Asian languages”
  
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  May 17, 2020 7:46pm
gorse

Had an exchange of emails with a National MP. I now believe they will do three more years in opposition. Hopeless.
3 4
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May 17, 2020 8:16pm
- Ian Boag
  
  So give us an anonymised summary ….
  
  1 3
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  May 17, 2020 8:39pm
wilderbeast

Just back from a spin on the state highway where our roading agency has numerous neon signs up instruction us to “Play safe, stay calm, be kind”. When did we hand over our ability to think for ourselves?
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May 17, 2020 9:30pm

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