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August 19, 2020 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 19 August 2020

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General Debate

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Kiwi_in_Paris

[Message from the Moderators: This Plandemic doco has been proven to be untruthful and not based on facts. In short, it’s whackadoodle crazy.

Future links to it will be removed by the Moderators.]
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December 19, 2019 8:01am
- Engelbert Humperdink
  
  Mods: Two comments on this link removal.
  
  [Mods don’t get into chitchat. Any post that tries is normally binned. If you want to grump about moderation email DPF. ]
  
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  December 19, 2018 2:33pm
  - wimpston peeeders
    
    Do you not get it? We cant watch docos proven untruthful but we can tune into our tv 6pm every night for an hour of it and get bombarded 24/7 via online msm mistruths and fake news.
    
    if it deviates from the narrative its gone.
    
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    August 19, 2020 2:44pm
    - Engelbert Humperdink
      
      WP: “Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about!!!”
      
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      August 19, 2020 3:29pm
- Doc Holliday
  
  Seriously? Is there no nonsense so patently mad you cannot believe it? Check Judy Mikovits.
  
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  August 19, 2020 8:43am
  - All_on_Red
    
    Splash!!!!
    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=idMa4a6eA9M
    
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    August 19, 2020 9:03am
    - Batman
      
      Well that was enjoyable. I can’t believe they went for a second go despite the loads put on the wings during the crash….
      
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      August 19, 2020 1:22pm
- bruceavon
  
  Tinfoil hat junk. Its disappointing to me that conservatives in New Zealand go down the conspiracy path both about stuff here and overseas.
  
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  August 19, 2020 9:08am
  - Engelbert Humperdink
    
    Why not be disappointed elsewhere.
    
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    August 19, 2020 9:45am
    - Batman
      
      Because plandemic is bullshit catnip for the deranged and makes KB look like we’re a bunch of conspiracy nutters.
      
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      August 19, 2020 12:42pm
      - RJ
        
        So do the trump conversations ?
        
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        August 19, 2020 4:34pm
      - Batman
        
        Well there are is a lot of MAGA kool aide drinking going on.
        
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        August 19, 2020 4:37pm
      - Engelbert Humperdink
        
        Well, you certainly have a head start on identifying people suffering from derangement.
        
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        August 19, 2020 6:51pm
  - The Proper Ghandi
    
    For real. The very idea that there are conspiracies is just a conspiracy.
    
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    August 19, 2020 1:05pm
  - Engelbert Humperdink
    
    So you would prefer to be in an echo chamber that all you get is the sweet sweet reflection of your own opinions?
    
    Is it not better to be able to measure how fringey some people are going and should you choose, provides in rebuttal?
    
    No, apparently it’s not.
    
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    August 19, 2020 3:28pm
    - bruceavon
      
      Not sure if you are talking to me. I didn’t take the link down and no, I am a publish everything sort of guy. Also someone who had a post hidden today because I criticised Judith. I understand why they moderate here, but I wouldn’t censor anything unless it was offensive.
      
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      August 19, 2020 5:29pm
- The Proper Ghandi
  
  Just curious: respectfully, “proven” by whom?
  
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  August 19, 2020 1:59pm
- Jules99
  
  Sure, it’s a private blog – you can decide on the content. The woman concerned is a whistle blower who is an expert in viruses and who worked at the Wuhan lab. I won’t be taking your word for it, or Wikipedia’s. I will watch it for myself and reflect on the content. It’s easier to find hard core porn on the internet these days, than any video criticising the trillion dollar vaccine industry.
  
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  August 19, 2020 2:54pm
- Kiwi_in_Paris
  
  This doco came out yesterday, that was a quick debunking. OK, if you would rather trust Bill Gates and the Clintons, who were best buddies with Jeffrey Epstein, then roll your sleave up for the little prick, cause mandatory vaccinations are coming to your door soon:
  
  https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-19/morrison-coronavirus-covid-19-vaccine-mandatory/12572992
  
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  August 19, 2020 7:17pm
- Kiwi_in_Paris
  
  No jab, no pay, lol. How many times did this guy stutter through this? Look on the bright side, those who get the jab will be able to buy and sell. https://twitter.com/blackjackpupil/status/1296031043410157568
  
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  August 20, 2020 2:09am
Tony Stuart

Megan Woods’ interview with Mike Hosking on Newstalk ZB this morning was revealing. What was revealed that it is now clear that Dr Woods was given the job of managing MIQ facilities not because of any skills she could bring to the role, but rather for her ability to bluff, obfuscate and generally run interference for the Prime Minister.

Of course though, it’s National that’s trying to make political capital out of the Covid pandemic; Labour would NEVER do that! Not half they wouldn’t 😀
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December 19, 2019 8:35am
- rangitoto
  
  Cindy herself said it’s a covid election. So yeah, not political at all.
  
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  August 19, 2020 8:37am
- alloytoo
  
  Question:
  
  What happens if Woods and Hipkins came down sick at the same time?
  
  Who’s running the fracking government?
  
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  August 19, 2020 8:43am
  - Bobba Fret
    
    Kelvin…………………….ok I was being silly.
    
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    August 19, 2020 8:51am
    - Clyde
      
      Bobba, the really silly thing is that Kelvin Useless is 2nd behind Jacinda in seniority. Point to ANYTHING that this muppet has achieved in politics. ANYTIME.
      
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      August 19, 2020 9:39am
      - Engelbert Humperdink
        
        He got born pigmented? Not a self-achievement but ya gotta admit, it’s earned him a lot of other people’s money over the decades.
        
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        August 19, 2020 11:02am
      - Dougal10
        
        Just like the labor number 1 . Nothing but a title.
        
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        August 19, 2020 1:38pm
      - Ronin
        
        I must admit, I do have a slight soft spot for Kelvin Davis taking the Te Tai Tokerau seat in 2014. The look on Hone Harawira’s face was priceless.
        
        Apart from that…? Crickets.
        
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        August 19, 2020 11:35pm
  - Chris R
    
    Alloytoo: Good question…given recent events, the Governor-General ought now be in charge. I understand that had Ardern not reluctantly agreed to a postponement of the election Peters, Collins and Seymour would’ve petitioned the G-G to wind-up what passes for a government in NZ. The result would’ve been continued mismanagement but we’d have been spared having to listen to Ardern & co’s puny excuses day after day. NZ is in a bad way currently and I see a gloomy future pending the election of capable people to the Treasury Benches.
    
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    August 19, 2020 9:00am
  - pdm
    
    Where is Struart Nash?
    
    Is he in WitlessProtection – again?
    
    If so – why?
    
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    August 19, 2020 9:01am
    - Bobba Fret
      
      Megan is back now so it’s Nash’s turn for a break.
      
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      August 19, 2020 9:29am
    - Engelbert Humperdink
      
      The Nashite rumors may not be true so I can’t detail them here.
      
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      August 19, 2020 9:42am
      - mark15
        
        Awwwwwwww!
        
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        August 19, 2020 12:09pm
      - pdm
        
        Engelbert – Please release me/them.
        
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        August 19, 2020 1:57pm
      - Engelbert Humperdink
        
        I am so sorry, I cannot.
        
        It’s not the fear of being hit with the ban-hammer, it is the fear that the rumours that are going round are actually less fraught than the reality.
        
        Some things are best left unseen / unimagined!
        
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        August 19, 2020 3:31pm
  - Maxx
    
    The fallacy in your question is that they are running things now.
    
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    August 19, 2020 9:20am
  - wimpston peeeders
    
    winston
    
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    August 19, 2020 10:12am
  - Fletch
    
    Woods sounded sick on the radio, like she had the flu…
    
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    August 19, 2020 11:18am
- lastmanstanding
  
  So how will history judge this Governments governance and management of the virus.
  IMHO it will say;
  
  1. The Government acted too late in closing the borders to non citizens and permanent residents.
  
  2. It should have quarantined citizens and permanent residents much earlier. The costs would have been much less than locking down the economy.
  
  3. It should have ensured the smaller facilities for older people were protected. Note the NZX listed retirement villages managed to ensure no outbreak.
  
  4. It should have protected others who were vulnerable through the GP service. GPs know their patients and who are suspect to the virus.
  
  5. At the outset it should have mobilised the defence services to provide security at quarantine facilities and nursing homes/smaller retirement villages.
  
  Because the virus arrived in NZ after the vulnerable had been identified elsewhere the Government had no excuses.
  
  I say this Government and other such as in Australia having got it so wrong are now refusing to admit it and change course through their hubris.
  
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  August 19, 2020 8:49am
  - artemisia
    
    Totally agree with wraparound protection of the elderly in rest homes, noting that they are nothing like retirement villages. Even if the NZX listed villages have rest home or hospital level care, they are well placed to take effective and decisive action because of their size and governance structure.
    
    There are a lot of small local rest homes and, while mostly providing top quality care for residents, they are small and have small management teams. And some are known to be struggling financially following big wage increases for care workers. Some have closed already.
    
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    August 19, 2020 9:00am
  - Nickc2
    
    I agree. WRT (3), I think the reason retirement villages escaped the COVIS-19 pandemic is that these premises and associated fabrics and furnishings etc are relatively new and as such are not yet infested with every disease known to mankind. However, what would I know. I don’t have a self given wanky name and pink hair. Just saying.
    
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    August 19, 2020 9:20am
    - Bob
      
      In general most retirement villages are a collection of individual appartments, occupied by relatively able bodies people, most of whom are well educated and know how to look after themselves. They come from a strata of society where cognitive agility was required to succeed in business/employment; so don’t need a schoolgirl PTPM telling them when to wash their hands.
      Hence no Covid in these facilities. The carehome residents are a very different case and require professional care and protection, something that the COL never thought about.
      
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      August 19, 2020 12:17pm
      - Nickc2
        
        I agree with everything you say Bob WRT Retirement Villages, I even went and had a look at one for myself sometime ago but I think I failed the ‘well educated’ criteria.
        Seriously, its only a matter of time before these villages become rather old and dilapidated and each unit and/or village is subsequently sold off through many sets of owners/residents. BTW, it was the communal areas that drew my attention to possible disease infested areas.
        Anyway, thanks for your feedback.
        
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        August 19, 2020 1:00pm
- niggly
  
  Megan Woods = “Smile and Waffle”!
  
  She’s really, really good at it …. even when she is caught out!
  
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  August 19, 2020 8:52am
  - BeeJay
    
    During yesterday’s Covid report Bloomfield referred to her as “Doctor Woods”! She has a PhD in History FFS! So many Of Labour’s lovers will be thinking – Dr Woods – OMG she must know what she’s talking about! Do they think we’re stupid? However, she will have her own place in history!
    
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    August 19, 2020 10:18am
    - Cassandra
      
      The convention is that you use your title when you’re dealing with that field. Unless you’re a politician in which case you use it all the time. Puffery, of course. This isn’t Germany; Dr should be restricted to medics, particularly in these pandemic times. In academia they can’t wait to ditch Dr (two a penny) and use Professor (and quite right, too).
      
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      August 19, 2020 10:30am
      - Maggy Wassilieff
        
        In the USA practically everyone lecturing at a University is called a Professor or Assistant professor.
        
        Here in NZ, the equivalent used to be a junior lecturer, or Lecturer.
        
        Associate Professor & Professor were once the most senior members of a faculty in NZ , but it seems that there is a movement toward the US system here.
        
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        August 19, 2020 1:25pm
      - Classic Liberal
        
        Title creep?
        
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        August 19, 2020 2:12pm
    - lifesgood
      
      Hipkins also called her Dr this morning on Mike Hosking. That is a deliberate attempt to make her sound as if she knows what she is doing.
      
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      August 19, 2020 2:04pm
- Maxx
  
  What’s galling about this whole fiasco is no one really believed that we could 100% stop transmission at the border, but we expected that they would a) do what they said they were doing, and b) the obvious thing to do of testing everyone considering we were ourselves being continuously told to test test test.
  
  And all this crap about forcing people to be tested, enforced isolation = rounding people up, and it all not being kind. You forced us (and potentially illegally) to stay in our homes to weeks
  
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  August 19, 2020 9:18am
- Jimmy White
  
  Megan’s biggest skill is to be able to make on sentence last two minutes without taking a breath and leaving the asker unable to use a pause of any type to interrupt her. Mind you Mike H. is always so taken back by her eloquence and the smell of $50m he never buts in anyway .
  
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  August 19, 2020 9:50am
  - Ruawai
    
    JA is also good at this.
    
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    August 19, 2020 10:41am
  - Loddenthinks
    
    You clearly didn’t listen to the interview – I suggest you do. He took it to her pretty good.
    
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWxse6au4bE
    
    Apologies – this is audio only on YouTube, and you may want to minimise the window to avoid feeling ill.
    
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    August 19, 2020 1:16pm
- RightFirstTime
  
  Woods was spinning so fast it’s a wonder her head didn’t fall off.
  
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  August 19, 2020 10:00am
  - Ruawai
    
    She told Garner there was no chance of mingling of people in quarantine and now she told Hosking the mingling is fine and not likely to cause infection. If mingling won’t cause infection then surfaces also probably won’t cause infection, how did the maintenance worker get Covid. She can’t have it both ways.
    
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    August 19, 2020 10:47am
Paulus Gnome

Sooooooooooo, what aspiration will turn out to be a lie today?
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August 19, 2020 8:00am
- Sir Cullen's Sidekick
  
  NZ Herald published a poll about Labour’s potential partner preference for a second term……So sheeple are still keen on Labour getting a second term.
  
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  August 19, 2020 8:16am
  - Peter Lane
    
    35% said Labour alone but, of course, the poll only included options with Labour as part of the government.
    
    Hardly a ringing endorsement is it?
    
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    August 19, 2020 8:27am
    - Tall Man
      
      Correct. 35% so down from election 2017 36%.
      
      While hardly scientific, I struggle to find 25% support for ardern during my daily travels and conversations. You just have to make it clear you are not an ardernist and the floodgates open.
      
      Now admittedly I don’t associate professionally or privatelywith dole bludgers and woke twats but I do run across them from time to time and even in those lower circles support is not 100%.
      
      The only outspoken supporters seem to be “virtue signallers” as they spent most of their time looking around to see who is watching them. Then there are the abject idiots and thankfully I have a good nose in detecting them rather quickly.
      
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      August 19, 2020 8:40am
      - Sir Cullen's Sidekick
        
        Finally my faith in GOD is returning.
        
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        August 19, 2020 9:05am
      - artemisia
        
        Heh, I had a chat this week to an older guy doing the garden next door for the owners. We mentioned a virus, as you do these days, and it was like pent up anger came pouring out. Said he was planning to vote ACT, first time in history.
        
        Sample of one.
        
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        August 19, 2020 9:05am
      - wimpston peeeders
        
        same experience, only once you announce your anti cindy stance do they come clean. a mate travels the country frequently and interacts with 1000s of ppl from all walks of life and fails to see any support that reflects polling but only time will tell I guess
        
        theres also many that praise jacinda and think shes great but would never vote for her or labour.
        
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        August 19, 2020 9:05am
      - MT_Tinman
        
        Now admittedly I don’t associate professionally or privatelywith dole bludgers and woke twats
        
        It’s a [Mod] thing.
        
        The vast majority of those who have one and those who act like one can’t see past the incumbent.
        
        😉
        
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        August 19, 2020 9:56am
- Classic Liberal
  
  And yet Hipkins is still telling us that they are the only source of truth! Just now on Hosking.
  
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  August 19, 2020 8:38am
  - Maxx
    
    Another line that has probably been thoroughly tested by the PR agency
    
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    August 19, 2020 9:23am
    - Hard Cheese
      
      They seem to have hired the world’s most annoying PR agency, with the word come down from on high that you must from now on refer to the virus as “tricky”. It’s like Hipkins, Woods, Robertson and Ardern think they’re in a battle of wits with an amoeba.
      
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      August 19, 2020 12:09pm
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    But yesterday they were giving out incorrect information about the Glen Innes Pak ‘n Save
    
    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12357670
    
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    August 19, 2020 9:26am
    - cmm
      
      They’ve learned from that and moved on.
      
      Keep Moving!
      
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      August 19, 2020 9:46am
      - Ruawai
        
        Labour are re-calibrating every hour, it is not until they are caught out that they implement anything.
        
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        August 19, 2020 10:50am
    - Loddenthinks
      
      And also named a business where someone with a (later) positive test visited, without informing the owner first – cheers for that!
      
      Fortunately David Latele is made of sterner stuff and is an all-round great guy, and acted swiftly to reassure his members and do all the right things.
      
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      August 19, 2020 1:21pm
- Engelbert Humperdink
  
  Lies? Everything they say including “and” and “so”.
  
  Stolen from a smart lady.
  
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  August 19, 2020 9:44am
mikenmildagain

Happy World Humanitarian Day!
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August 19, 2020 8:01am
- Simon
  
  100 years ago today Battle of Warsaw. The Christian right defeated the genocidal left as they attempted to take over Europe.
  
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  August 19, 2020 8:11am
  - kowtow
    
    The Poles get no credit for stopping the Bolsheviks on what could have been a march to Paris , via Berlin.
    
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    August 19, 2020 9:07am
- old skool reactionary
  
  It is indeed a happy day!
  
  US Democrat Convention viewership numbers collapsed by 50%!
  
  Hope for Trump yet!
  
  I guess months of FBI cultivated Antifa white girl and radicalised black mobs let lose on innocent Americans has backfired on the Dems/swamp creatures.
  
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  August 19, 2020 8:14am
  - Batman
    
    FBI cultivated?
    
    Are you high?
    
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    August 19, 2020 12:39pm
    - Engelbert Humperdink
      
      Are you on another planet?
      
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      August 19, 2020 3:33pm
      - Engelbert Humperdink
        
        Oh the truth hurts the downtickers so they feebly click.
        
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        August 19, 2020 8:40pm
fernglas

Have Ashley Bloomfield and Chris Hipkins visited an isolation facility since 13 July? https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12347619

Has the Prime Minister ever visited one?

Why are New Zealanders being prevented from returning home when there are nearly 2000 vacant rooms in isolation facilities? https://covid19.govt.nz/assets/resources/miq-data/miq-daily-update-2020-08-18.pdf
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August 19, 2020 8:01am
- Sir Cullen's Sidekick
  
  Sorry fernglas bro. PM is too busy preparing for her second term in office, she doesn’t have time to visit isolation facilities. Why should she??
  
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  August 19, 2020 8:17am
  - redeye
    
    Why? She could hug a few border guards for the press.
    She went to White Island a few days after the eruption and hugged a rescue worker for the cameras. It must have made a hell of a difference because I now keep seeing these Labour party memes that claim she led us through the White Island disaster
    
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    August 19, 2020 8:36am
    - sooty
      
      Phil Goff scooped up shit in his thousand dollar shoes as well!
      
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      August 19, 2020 8:55am
    - Sir Cullen's Sidekick
      
      She jumped into the valcano and saved kids. Sheeple will believe that too.
      
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      August 19, 2020 9:07am
      - Lance
        
        That was in another Saint Jacinda kiddies book
        
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        August 19, 2020 10:14am
    - Flossie
      
      I was away overseas when all that happened. Please tell me – what did she do?
      
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      August 19, 2020 9:19am
    - Nickc2
      
      Yes, photographs (later to be turned into Billboard Posters) were taken of her walking from Whakatane to White Island. As soon as Labour Party HQ can figure how to cut and paste a halo over her head, they plan to use these posters as an election advertisement. Unfortunately, no matter what they do, the halo keeps slipping and her Pinocchio nose keeps growing.
      
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      August 19, 2020 9:39am
      - Liberty
        
        “walking from Whakatane to White Island.”
        
        It’s been awhile since the last charlatan pulled that stunt.
        It has to be true. As the government isn’t spending 50million on a lush fund
        for its media minions. So the peasants are kept informed of the facts as supplied
        by the central committee.
        
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        August 19, 2020 11:08am
  - Paulus Gnome
    
    ‘Why should she??’
    
    The Kindergartens are closed. Her preferred demographic future voter base doing more nappy time at home
    
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    August 19, 2020 9:00am
  - fernglas
    
    “Why should she?” Gosh, I don’t know. Maybe to suggest to the people controlling and administering them that their jobs are important and need to be done properly? Maybe to show that she is prepared to get out of the Beehive theaterette and actually see for herself what is going on rather than relying on placatory reports? Maybe to show that she actually gives a fuck about something other than popularity contests and pulling the wool over our eyes?
    
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    August 19, 2020 9:22am
    - Loddenthinks
      
      All sensible answers and I can see where you;re coming from, but you’ve missed the obvious and most important first question Jacinda asks before taking any decision, any decision at all.
      
      What’s in it for Cindy?
      
      For example, the decision whether to close the borders in time to prevent COVID getting out of control in the community, or keep them open for the March 15 commemorations, letting in hundreds of people from overseas, and hugging every single one of them.
      
      Commemorations that the Muslim community made very clear they didn’t want. Jacinda’s decision? Keep them borders open, I have a date with a hijab and the world’s media, and nothing’s going to get in my way.
      
      Thanks goodness the Director-General of Health (allegedly) threatened to resign publicly if she didn’t call the commemorations off, or we would have been a hell of a lot worse off than we were – which is already a lot worse off than we should have been.
      
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      August 19, 2020 1:38pm
  - cmm
    
    She’s going to stay far away.
    
    Rule #1: If there is shit flying then keep far away.
    
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    August 19, 2020 9:49am
    - Hacked-Off
      
      Also telling that when asked by Hosking if she had been tested last week (remember the breezy Level One meme of “Say yes to the test”) she answered “No as it was Level One and she did not need on. If she can’t follow her own Government’s advice to us Peasants then why would she need to go anywhere close to a Quarantine Facility, acknowledge the importance of these people guarding the border or ensuring that they are tested or have adequate PPE. No votes in it I suppose. Surely the meme this election to counter Labour should be “Ardern endangered the team of five million”.
      
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      August 19, 2020 10:07am
      - Ruawai
        
        To be fair there is little point getting a test when you have no symptoms, just takes testing spots away from people who have symptoms.
        
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        August 19, 2020 10:55am
      - oldfella
        
        Maybe ‘Captain Ardern leads team of 5 million Kiwis to stunning defeat.’
        
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        August 19, 2020 11:28am
- Justitia
  
  Labour Ministers are effete academics – they don’t do field trips or get their delicate hands dirty. Ask Phil Twyford who has never deigned to visit the delay-plagued, badly managed Transmission Gully project just 20 minutes from his office.
  
  Oh, and the rooms you refer to are reserved for the large kiwi diasporas in Afghanistan and Pakistan who appear to be returning home in some number according details gleaned from to the 1pm COVID updates.
  
  See, there’s an explanation for everything….
  
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  August 19, 2020 8:19am
  - Maxx
    
    To be fair to Twyford, he thought Transmission Gully was an infectious disease
    
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    August 19, 2020 9:26am
- Peter Lane
  
  They’re all too busy passing the buck.
  
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  August 19, 2020 8:28am
- The Housekeeper
  
  fernglas, Ashley said the other day (can’t find the link) that quarantine was running at 60% occupancy which seemed crazy when so many citizens were being turned away. Did they already know it was out there and saved some beds for when the proverbial hit the fan? If so, it’s the first bright thing they’ve done!
  
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  August 19, 2020 10:08am
  - oldfella
    
    Where are the people who came to NZ for the Chch shooter’s sentencing? They must be out of isolation by now. Were they subject to the failed quarantine regime we’re currently witnessing? If so, Allah help us all!
    
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    August 19, 2020 11:54am
Classic Liberal

Unbelievable how Judith Collins was treated in Morning report: interrupted in every single sentence, and her microphone just tuned out if she tried to finish. No chance for the public to hear her finish a sentence or fully inform us of National’s intentions.

This is not just an insult to Collins but to everyone in NZ: we all need to know what we would be getting from National.
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August 19, 2020 8:03am
- maggiemay
  
  I felt same with interview on saturday. Wondered if her Phone had been turned down.
  
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  August 19, 2020 8:15am
  - emmess
    
    Yes, saw that on Youtube
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDN_52e2oBA
    
    It reminded me again, why I never watch broadcast TV.
    Poor TV set took a lot of abuse.
    
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    August 19, 2020 8:31am
    - dave_c_
      
      That interviewer is a bloody disgrace to the media profession.
      Darn ! I forgot, there are no standards in the media profession anymore.
      
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      August 19, 2020 9:55am
      - lifesgood
        
        What an obnoxious little twerp. Judith kept her cool but I don’t know how. Totally insulting for someone as intelligent and well qualified as her to have to be interrogated by that as***ole
        
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        August 19, 2020 2:25pm
- G152
  
  We know that the fake news is biased and who is its favourite.
  They actually do themselves great harm by such actions as having their ‘media’ belittle the opposition.
  And I always expect payback when the slighted party gain the reins.
  Certain ‘reporters’ would do well to reconsider their employment options
  
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  August 19, 2020 8:16am
  - Nickc2
    
    Agree, one fat one, one thin one and one with red hair.
    
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    August 19, 2020 9:47am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Corrin Dann interrupting/interviewing
  
  https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018760117/covid-19-judith-collins-on-border-testing-contact-tracing
  
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  August 19, 2020 8:18am
  - Durden
    
    Media bias is rampant and they don’t even have self awareness to acknowledge it when some one points out. You had to see the totally negative slant that TV1 surrounded Gerry Brownlee’s assertion on media bias to the press. TV1 started with a statement “Ooops ! He did it again” and went on to ridicule him by mischievous editing all through the piece.
    
    Good on Gerry though, he stuck to his guns.
    
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    August 19, 2020 12:23pm
    - Nickc2
      
      Agree Durden. It was interesting to see all those ‘chicky babes’ cluster around him screaming for him to quote an example of biased reporting. I’m pleased he didn’t for couple of reasons:
      
      1. It would have taken too long and
      2. They would have danced all over his grave had he done so.
      
      The old maxim still stands – The pen is mightier than the sword. Well done Gerry.
      
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      August 19, 2020 1:11pm
- budgieboy
  
  Don’t understand why Judith goes near red radio.
  
  She’s never going to get a fair shake and her chances of winning that audience are remarkably slim.
  
  It’s a pretty low return on the investment of her time in my view.
  
  On the other hand, I guess it’s great preparation for the debates…. going toe to toe with aggravated partisan leftists will have her well prepared for anything Jacinda might throw at her.
  
  Otherwise why would she bother?
  
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  August 19, 2020 8:23am
  - Tricati
    
    For those that listen to the appalling Dann behavior (and others), and are objective, will now realize what Jerry Brownlee is referring to when he said the media are biased.
    Keep it up Judith as it is highlighting in spades the bias and agenda.
    
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    August 19, 2020 8:51am
  - bruceavon
    
    No. She needs to do them. Ardern turns up to Mike Hosking every week. Part of the job. The one with Jack Tame on the weekend was a hundred times worse. Hipkins was on before treated like an old mate, then Judith attacked from start to finish. A disgrace.
    https://www.tvnz.co.nz/shows/q-and-a/clips/opposition-leader-judith-collins-says-her-party-would-have-a-far-more-competent-system-in-place-to-tackle-covid-19
    
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    August 19, 2020 10:04am
- wimpston peeeders
  
  and yet last night on the news after Gerry aired his thoughts on the media bias/predjudice robo and james shaw said no way theres nothing to suggest that… the reporters parting words were “must be another one or gerrys conspiracies”
  Yup no bias at all on tv or radio ay
  
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  August 19, 2020 8:23am
  - Nickc2
    
    Surely that $50m must run out shortly or is a top-up being offered for the additional month of electioneering?
    
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    August 19, 2020 9:52am
    - wimpston peeeders
      
      the 50mil was yet another broken promise, as of a few weeks ago only 18mil had been dished out.
      the govt is dangling the chequebook like a dogtreat and making the msm beg for it and perform lil tricks to get a payout… its not called a bribe tho apperently
      
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      August 19, 2020 10:50am
      - Lummox
        
        Is there a breakdown on how that money is being distributed? And who decides who is being paid? What criteria?
        
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        August 19, 2020 11:30am
- Prince
  
  It was a notable difference to the previous Hipkins interview, where he wasn’t interrupted once.
  But of course we must not question the media’s bias.
  
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  August 19, 2020 8:55am
  - pdm
    
    `But of course we must not question the media’s bias.’
    
    That is for sure – look at the tirade against Gerry Brownlee when he tried to tactfully do so yesterday.
    
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    August 19, 2020 9:07am
  - Paulus
    
    Its amazing what $50,000,000 can do !
    
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    August 19, 2020 9:39am
  - Jimmy White
    
    Not only that but if he missed out a Labour talking point the interviewer added it in for him
    
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    August 19, 2020 9:58am
- Clyde
  
  Moaning Report is particularly bad on interviewers interrupting. BUT it is the way that they have set up things. Automatically the interviewee’s channel is cut to nothing when the interviewer speaks. It is a system of audio limiting. I have complained to RNZ about this before but got ignored.
  
  Dann was particularly bad this morning and he got to the point where he was interrupting himself. The solution seems to me to for the interviewee to make it plain before answering ANY questions that they will not tolerate being talked over.
  
  The basic problem however is that the management and governance of RNZ are all politically appointed either directly or indirectly. You just need to look at the composition of their Board to realise why damn near every second story is about another East Polynesian grievance or perceived slight.
  
  Have a look at this to see my point
  
  https://www.rnz.co.nz/about/board-profile
  
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  August 19, 2020 9:47am
  - Ruawai
    
    Corin was promoting Labour ploicy as fact in Judith’s interview this morning.
    
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    August 19, 2020 10:58am
  - hilaryt
    
    RNZ routinely ignore me these days. Just means I feel free to fire off short pithy emails whenever they annoy me most. The bullets can still be fired.
    
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    August 19, 2020 11:08am
  - GJM
    
    Red Radio needs to be sold off and privatized. Natioanl should do unto the lefties what is done to them. TVNZ and RNZ are sold off or run on a commercial returns basis. No grants or loans
    
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    August 19, 2020 3:36pm
- Ruawai
  
  And after the interview they said National are putting out border policy this week, in fact Judith said they will put out border policy but gave not timeline for release.
  
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  August 19, 2020 10:57am
- Sir Cullen's Sidekick
  
  She should simply give answers in single syllables. That will annoy the heck out of the clowns running the morning report.
  
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  August 19, 2020 10:58am
- Loddenthinks
  
  I thought Judith was excellent with Dann, and let him get away with very little. He’ll always try and be a bulldog but Collins bulldozed her way through. A masterclass in my view.
  
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  August 19, 2020 1:54pm
krazykiwi

A well reasoned essay “The Challenge of Marxism” at Quillette. It’s a long read needing both sufficient coffee and time to ponder the points raised. One extract:

The Marxist goal of seizing the state and using it to eliminate all oppression is an empty promise. Marx did not know how the state could actually bring this about, and neither have any of his followers. In fact, we now have many historical cases in which Marxists have seized the state: In Russia and Eastern Europe, China, North Korea, and Cambodia, Cuba and Venezuela. But nowhere has the Marxists’ attempt at a “revolutionary reconstitution of society” by the state been anything other than a parade of horrors. In every case, the Marxists themselves form a new class or group, using the power of the state to exploit and oppress other classes in the most extreme ways—up to and including repeated recourse to murdering millions of their own people. Yet for all this, utopia never comes and oppression never ends.

Marxist society, like all other societies, consists of classes and groups arranged in a hierarchical order. But the aim of reconstituting society and the assertion that the state is responsible for achieving this feat makes the Marxist state much more aggressive, and more willing to resort to coercion and bloodshed, than the liberal regime it seeks to replace.

New Zealand is in the slowly strengthening grip of cultural Marxism, one where identity politics are being advanced to manufacture the oppressed/oppressor construct. Acquiescence is consistently easy, while countering this threat becomes more difficult with each passing year.
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August 19, 2020 8:04am
- MT_Tinman
  
  New Zealand is in the slowly strengthening grip of cultural Marxism
  
  KK, it ain’t slow!
  
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  August 19, 2020 8:54am
  - krazykiwi
    
    Actually, I think it is. Slow and seemingly inexorable this trend has been with us since the radicalisation of Maoridom in the 1970s. Ardern, naively interpreting Marxism as equity and kindness is currently stomping on the accelerator. Sane, rational members of New Zealand society need to find the handbrake.
    
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    August 19, 2020 9:28am
    - MT_Tinman
      
      Inexorable I agree but the push into Marxism has been accelerating dramatically over the last two years.
      
      The handbrake, footbrake, clutch and then getting into reverse becoming vitally necessary.
      
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      August 19, 2020 10:00am
- Odakyu-sen
  
  Hierarchies form automatically. They exist in nature.
  
  The issue is whether a hierarchy is based on ability (competence) or on power.
  
  Marxist ones are very much based on power.
  
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  August 19, 2020 9:06am
- Classic Liberal
  
  If leftards could just think, putting earnings in the hands of the workforce is actually very easy: have a fair market, let people run their SMEs with minimal red tape and only essential taxation and encourage people to save and invest.
  
  Voila: people who do the work get the money.
  
  But that’s not what Labour has been about for many years now.
  
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  August 19, 2020 9:24am
Durden

We are only talking about Rydges case as a potential cluster. But what about the two cases at NZ Post? And the Japanese (Ramen Shop Welling8) and the Belgian cases?
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August 19, 2020 8:05am
- Cinematic
  
  Denial is the refuge of those who can’t see beyond elimination as a strategy. It’s why the 1pm stand-ups have devolved into circular word salad sessions.
  
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  August 19, 2020 8:14am
Justitia

The best commentary I have seen on the appalling state of the New Zealand media has been published by the Free Speech Coalition on Twitter: https://t.co/NDDbC5McAT?amp=1

John Drinnan, take a bow.
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August 19, 2020 8:07am
- Classic Liberal
  
  Is the worm turning? Sotto-voce…
  
  “ But many journalists will tell you sotto-voce that there are some views that are not acceptable in newsrooms – red button issues like gender, race and immigration. The problem is said to be advanced at Stuff and Radio New Zealand. But as George Orwell wrote, “Journalism is printing what someone does not want published, everything else is public relations.”
  
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  August 19, 2020 9:58am
- Sir Cullen's Sidekick
  
  I will be the first person to do a little dance (aka Cindy style) when NZ Herald and Stuff close down.
  
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  August 19, 2020 10:59am
- Loddenthinks
  
  And yet they try and crucify Brownlee for pointing out to National Party supporters the astonishingly obvious and irrefutable fact that Labour has the assistance of a favourable media.
  
  When they ran after him and demanded examples, he could have simply answered “the fact you’re doing this for one, and for two – every front page of every media website or newspaper.”
  
  Methinks the media whores doth protest too much.
  
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  August 19, 2020 2:23pm
Frank the tank

Musings on the wet and wild day in Auckland:

1). Was Trump’s troll of Cindy an all time great? Seriously Jude could of proven half the cabinet was on P during question time and this burn still hurt Cindy the most. Was the first man nursing his balls in almond tea into the wee hours?
2). When does PPE become the new issue for government? Are you all confident Megs, Chippie, St Ash and Diggers have this under control given a world wide shortage of nitrile (i.e. gloves)?
3). Did anyone notice last night FakeNewshub went all nasty on the Government bar one – guess who it was and guess what she was still rabbiting on about?
4). If the border fiasco continues and a sacrifice on the altar of woke is required by week end who is the most expendable Diggers, St Ash, Megs or Chippie?

Feel free to add your input – even you Ian Boag.
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August 19, 2020 8:11am
- wimpston peeeders
  
  Nats are targeting chippie, they should be targeting jacinda or megan tho.
  
  whos winnie suggested needs to go?
  
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  August 19, 2020 8:26am
  - Sir Cullen's Sidekick
    
    I think Chippie could be replaced due to workload by none other than Kelvin Useless David.
    
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    August 19, 2020 11:00am
    - Frank the tank
      
      That…….would……..be………………………….awesome!!!
      
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      August 19, 2020 11:24am
- Paulus Gnome
  
  It MUST be a wet day when you invite IB to comment on your post. Have you considered a Netflix subscription as an alternative and you are tempted to read his response?
  
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  August 19, 2020 9:45am
  - Frank the tank
    
    Nah you have it all wrong I find it quite relaxing when all the down ticks start on his posts – makes me feel part of a community
    
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    August 19, 2020 11:27am
- The Housekeeper
  
  It was always going to be Ashley. The others will say he was the medical expert and they trusted him and he got it wrong. Lots of frowny faces. Then he can write a tell-all book on their incompetetence. Should be a bestseller.
  
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  August 19, 2020 11:14am
  - Frank the tank
    
    If they executed St Ash he would have a melt down – one gets the felling he loves the limelight as much, if not more than our dear leader.
    
    Diggers will go first – from all account the armed services have been useless as tits on the ball in MIQ. And remember a true airman will take it like a man.
    
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    August 19, 2020 12:04pm
Simon

Hipkins: Yeah well I want the testing done for real this time. I mean it this time. Its serious now. The spin just isn’t cutting anymore like it used to and Megan has gone dark.

MoH: Don’t worry about it. Its fine. We have a series of meetings coming up involving all stake holders to go over the throughputs and work out the KPIs. We aim to have this week’s testing numbers to you by the end of next month.

Hipkins: Ok sweet. I will let Jacinda know. She has a new dance ready.
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August 19, 2020 8:12am
- sooty
  
  Only a couple of weeks ago she was spread every where and had lots to say. Now you never see her!
  
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  August 19, 2020 9:00am
  - Loddenthinks
    
    Silver linings and all that…
    
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    August 19, 2020 2:36pm
Tomtoddy

It is now alarmingly apparent that the Coalition Govt has failed to protect us. Given one task, they failed. Incompetence? Yes, absolutely.

But it goes deeper. And it is important to focus on this because every govt makes mistakes. The PM and her couple of cabinet insiders lack judgement, political nous and experience in dealing with other human beings.

Faced with departmental officals who misled them they did not have the acumen that is essential in leadership to know whether they were getting “yes, minister”, “cover my backside” advice that needed careful checking, more questioning, more research.

So Jacinda stood up and put her head on one side and said we are testing border officials. Duped, misled, deceived because she has had no worldly life experience at dealing with people at a high level. School kid stuff. Nicely said but still naive.

That is why we should not re-elect her. That is why we need competence and wisdom that comes from years of experience.
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August 19, 2020 8:13am
- Sigmund Freud
  
  Interesting theory Mr Tomtoddy, but wrong: the Warehouse and internet have changed everything!
  
  Jacinda’s world view is that of the age of entitlement and this includes no accountability.
  
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  August 19, 2020 8:17am
- Benedict Yu
  
  All that was required was (at minimum) weekly progress reports showing progress on testing. In the last government Ryall and Joyce understood the importance of implementation, targets, and reporting. And it showed in the results they achieved. Just compare what Joyce achieved as Transport Minister compared to Twyford. Every major road project in construction today was initiated by Joyce.
  
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  August 19, 2020 8:24am
  - Tricati
    
    Agree BY, but first you have to document the policy and state reporting targets is non-negotiable – Without a ‘working group’ these clowns don’t have the collective intellect to write a shopping list and I’m calling BS on them requesting staff testing at all.
    
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    August 19, 2020 8:57am
  - rockape
    
    The first thing this useless government did was remove targets in education and health and yes even poverty to hide their failure to deliver.
    
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    August 19, 2020 9:22am
- Tall Man
  
  You say naive, I say deliberately dishonest. Goes to character which she lacks in spades.
  
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  August 19, 2020 8:29am
- Sir Cullen's Sidekick
  
  Do the sheeple understand that? Does Joanne on Struggle Street who thinks Jacinda is GOD understand that? Does aunty Betty who thinks Jacinda is nice understand that? Answer is NO and Cindy knows that very well. She can even burn NZ down and still she will get 65%. That is the fate of this country.
  
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  August 19, 2020 11:03am
  - alwyn
    
    “She can even burn NZ down and still she will get 65%.”
    You clearly think she is in the same state as Donald Trump in 2016. Do you remember him claiming this?
    Donald Trump claimed he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody” and not “lose any voters.”
    Sounds like what you are claiming for Cindy.
    
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    August 19, 2020 12:04pm
  - Frank the tank
    
    Yep she could execute and skin bambi at question time and sweet old Dot down the road will still think she is a lovely girl
    
    The next Reid Research push poll opening question:
    
    “Do you believe the nasty conspiracy theories Big Jerry and Judith are pushing on the public?”
    
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    August 19, 2020 12:17pm
- Ruawai
  
  @Tomtoddy I actually think JA, Hipkins, Woods etc did know these tests were not being done and were fudging the truth to NZers, telling us what we wanted to hear.
  
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  August 19, 2020 11:06am
Ford Prefect

The front page of the Dominion is exactly why JA wanted to close down government last week. The media wont ask the questions that the opposition do. Now they are forced to highlight the ineptitude of the COL.
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August 19, 2020 8:14am
bruceavon

Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
Just listening to Judith talking about covid failures. I have a horrible feeling she doesn’t know what she’s taking about with this disease . She needs to gets completely up to speed about how every aspect of covid works. Ardern is all over every this. Judith can’t keep referring to “Dr Shane Reti” as knowing what is going on, when she doesn’t seem to. Saying the contact tracing system is not working and blaming the app is just silly. Almost every kiwi I know is an expert on this bloody disease now, they know the app is just one tool in the response. She should get Reti to go the talking on this, or do some reading.
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August 19, 2020 8:16am
- Frank the tank
  
  I disagree – if Arden was ‘up to speed’ on the WuFlu then our borders wouldn’t be porous nor our quarantine hotels a complete gong show.
  
  Point is unless you are an epidemiologist/virologist you wouldn’t have the necessary skill set to be an expert on this. Even the pink lady is guessing most of the time.
  
  As a leader – you assemble your team of specialists around you however have a trust but verify mantra with appropriate assurance and audit of directives, decisions and actions.
  
  It’s simple moreover beyond Cindy & co
  
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  August 19, 2020 9:02am
  - bruceavon
    
    I agree you need to get experts and a team but you need to be versed in the stuff as leader. She just doesn’t sound like she is to me. The apps in the contract tracing system are only ever a part of it, not the main part. The effectiveness of the apps all over the world is patchy and disappointing. To say contact tracing is not working then blame the app is wrong. And I think the system seems to be working now. Judith also said it only had 5% download and a million are loaded down now, so that’s wrong too. To me the tracing system was useless before but they seem to have brought it up to speed, like everything else the government do, way after they should have. If you going to go out on a limb and risk criticism from the public for being “negative” you have to have all your ducks in a row.
    
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    August 19, 2020 9:49am
    - Frank the tank
      
      True the sheeple how downloaded the app however I don’t think that will make a lick of difference if the virus gets a foothold. The problem with the app is its always 2 steps behind.
      
      I think you are being overtly harsh on Judith. The main aim of the leader of the opposition is to get airtime and Judith is getting plenty of that. If the incompetence continues then at some stage mud will start to stick. The main thing is not chickening out or lifting the foot off the throat which is exactly what Simon did when the heat was applied by the 4th estate and the keyboard warriors.
      
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      August 19, 2020 12:22pm
      - bruceavon
        
        Never understood why this blog hides comments they don’t like so they never have to read them. Can’t we handle dumb comments or criticism? I make this comment because I want National to win and Judith has to do very well to beat Ardern in the election. I agree she has to attack but attack right and sound in complete control.
        In the interests of saying something constructive that I think will make her better, here are some attack lines and questions she could ask Ardern instead of blaming contact tracing because of the app.
        
        What percent of the population need to use the app to make it effective?
        Why isn’t it therefore compulsory?
        Or not used at all.
        Information suggests the first sign of the disease, before even a cough, is a raised temperature? Therefore.
        Are we temperature testing at the border, and of border / quarantine workers?
        If not why not? It’s cheap and easy?
        Why is there no database for contact tracing?
        Experts overseas say it’s the most important component.
        Masks are regarded as vital overseas, why aren’t they compulsory in public here?
        Why did Hipkins say if we have less than 20 cases today we are doing well? When he would have known how many we had was lower?
        
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        August 19, 2020 2:29pm
- surfing
  
  Jacinda has totally f***ed it up. No leadership going on there.
  
  Proof …Jacinda says, 15th July…
  “In a July speech detailing the Government’s Covid-19 resurgence plan, she said the frontline workers were “getting regularly tested”.
  
  Is she a liar, or a poor leader? You choose.
  
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  August 19, 2020 9:07am
  - pdm
    
    Surfing.
    
    Probably both but, especially a poor leader.
    
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    August 19, 2020 9:34am
  - Paulus Gnome
    
    I am going with liar and poor leader with professional word salad masterclass exponent for good measure (great descriptor ‘word salad’ cribbed from above)
    
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    August 19, 2020 9:51am
  - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
    
    Welllllll……. several of them were tested, a couple more than once!
    
    So clearly Cindy is telling us God’s own truth.
    
    You just have to read between the lines, Comrade!
    
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    August 19, 2020 10:03am
    - Ruawai
      
      The guy that sells the lines is now out on parole.
      
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      August 19, 2020 11:09am
- Sir Cullen's Sidekick
  
  Ardern can only talk BS and look serious with tilted heads. That is all she can do bro.
  
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  August 19, 2020 11:04am
Happychappy

After 6 months of using COVID-19 as a tool to harness the vote and have the media with the population of 5 million on Labours and the Prime Minister’s side Jacinda Ardern is calling to take the Politics out of COVID-19 as her quest for re election in October hits a self inflicted bumpy patch.
In Parliament yesterday Jacinda Ardern got a lesson in politics when being question on the Governments complete shambles at the border with Jacidas attitude to blame everyone else except herself and Ministers involved over testing those at on the front line that should have occurred months ago.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/08/jacinda-ardern-calls-for-politics-to-be-taken-out-of-the-covid-19-response-in-clash-with-judith-collins.html
Jacinda Ardern has a bad habit of living on the accolades of the media and praise of the NZ Population but deflecting the blame when it is well deserved and you put to the public if a CEO of Government Identity had made the same mistakes over COVID 19 as the Prime Minister they wouldn’t get a second chance so why should Jacinda Ardern.
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August 19, 2020 8:16am
Simon

It not good enough for the some Labour Minister to say the testing is for real this time.

Who believes this?

Because they cant be trusted to get it right. Labour just don’t have the capability. This Hipkins clown replaced the previous clown.

Labour are fast running out of clowns.
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August 19, 2020 8:17am
- Engelbert Humperdink
  
  “I’m from the Government and I’m here to help.”
  
  “I will spend your tax money wisely.”
  
  “The cheque is in the mail.”
  
  “I will respect you in the morning”.
  
  “We went hard and early and we’re still going hard and early and I am not responsible for these lowly officials who have disappointed me.”
  
  “Tarrant getting a firearms license in 2019 had nothing to do with the changes I supervised in 2018.”
  
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  August 19, 2020 9:50am
- Jimmy White
  
  They still have 50 more clowns to jump out of the car
  
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  August 19, 2020 10:04am
Benedict Yu

It is odd that Winston has suddenly turned into an Opposition MP criticising the performance of a government that he was part of, and which he imposed on the country.

On the testing debacle, I doubt that the key Ministers had the ability or motivation to ask the right questions about what testing was happening. Neither Winston or Jacinda strike me as being into the often boring grind of monitoring implementation and asking the right questions.
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August 19, 2020 8:18am
- peterwn
  
  It is not odd at all. Now that Parliament is effectively over for the election his CoL agreement with Labour is effectively over. There would be nothing in the agreement saying he has to support Labour’s campaign (which has been running for the last several weeks) and similarly Labour is under no obligation to have him as part of the next government (if Labour wins). If Labour wins outright, it would keep Winston on the outside. If Labour plus Greens win a majority, Labour would want Winston on board to lessen the influence of the Greens. Winston wants to run his own campaign on the basis he would go into coalition with either main party since this would give him maximum bargaining power if main parties need his support after the election..
  
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  August 19, 2020 8:47am
  - Paulus Gnome
    
    I would like to see Peters publish the ‘agreement’, all 32 pages with double spacing, handwritten notes in the margins, warts and all . . .
    
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    August 19, 2020 9:54am
  - Bobba Fret
    
    If Labour and Greens win a majority, I don’t think Labour would want Winston on board. I think they want him gone full stop.
    As for Winston being able to work with either major party, I guess if National were very desperate and needed him they may work with him to get in to power but otherwise, a vote for NZF is just a vote for Labour and the current COL in my opinion.
    
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    August 19, 2020 10:45am
  - The Boss
    
    Peterwn: Your comment implies Winston will get back to parliament. He won’t. Good riddance.
    
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    August 19, 2020 12:41pm
KevO'Brien

Ardern hits world stage–takes on Trump:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/08/wrong-ardern-slams-trump-zealand-virus-claim-200818054008412.html
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August 19, 2020 8:19am
- Benedict Yu
  
  Did she tell RT what her exit plan is? Or is she going to play whack a mole with the virus for the next decade?
  
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  August 19, 2020 8:28am
  - Frank the tank
    
    Whack a mole definitely.
    
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    August 19, 2020 12:24pm
KevO'Brien

And more in RT:
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/498255-jacinda-ardern-donald-trump-elections/
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August 19, 2020 8:20am
- Tauhei Notts
  
  Kev O’Brien; thank you for bringing that piece to our attention. An uptick is an inadequate way for me to express my thanks.
  
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  August 19, 2020 8:55am
  - KevO'Brien
    
    Thanks. Pleased to be of service.
    
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    August 19, 2020 12:16pm
- Paulus Gnome
  
  ‘The new rules now seem clear, if you are ‘liberal’ you can shut your borders, delay elections and intern people against their will all in the name of safety and you will be praised as a conscientious and benevolent leader. If you do exactly the same thing as a right-winger you are a racist tyrant. The hypocrisy should be astounding, but self-awareness in mainstream newsrooms seems to vanish even quicker than civil liberties in Auckland these days.’
  
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  August 19, 2020 9:59am
Maggy Wassilieff

It’s not what you know…
It’s who you know…

https://www.health.govt.nz/sites/default/files/images/our-work/diseases-conditions/covid19/auckland-august-cluster-diagram-18aug2020.png
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August 19, 2020 8:22am
- alex Masterley
  
  That sort of wiring diagram is fascinating.
  Shows how virulent this bug is.
  Finding the source of the infection is the most important job at the moment. I hope they succeed.
  What I am pleased to see is that both my local rugby club, Eden, and Mount Albert Primary do not feature on the score card.
  
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  August 19, 2020 8:37am
  - Tall Man
    
    From WHO …….
    
    https://www.who.int/health-topics/coronavirus#tab=tab_1
    
    so not a biggie.
    
    “A whopping 86% of infections were mild enough that people didn’t seek medical care or confirmation of their symptoms. These milder cases were only about half as contagious as the recognized infections, but because there were so many more of these undocumented cases than the documented ones, the unrecognized cases were the ones fanning the flames of the outbreak.”
    
    So no panic then.
    
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    August 19, 2020 8:51am
    - Wayne Mapp
      
      Not sure whether your comment is sarcasm or not. However, out of 90 positive cases, 6 are in hospital. I reckon that shows Covid is pretty serious.
      
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      August 19, 2020 9:08am
      - Batman
        
        So many whines about death rates and other straw men but none of you bring up the key part which is the ongoing after effects of Covid such as heart and lungs conditions which it leaves behind.
        
        It’s not just regular flu, as much as you want to believe. I wouldn’t wish it on you lot even if it would give you a dose of reality to puncture your bubbles.
        
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        December 19, 2019 12:50pm
      - wimpston peeeders
        
        how many influenza (True influenza not just a Any old wog) end up in hospital per 100 cases? Death rate per 100 cases/hospitalizations?
        
        Yea covids f**king nothing mate.
        
        btw I had influenza at 17yrs old I went from fine nothing wrong at tea time, out to it by 8pm ambo by 9pm and icu by midnight. if ambo was an hour later id have died, does covid do that?
        
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        August 19, 2020 9:16am
      - kowtow
        
        But do we know what they’re in hosp for . They could already be pretty unfit /unhealthy and are in as a precaution or heightened quarantine .
        
        And if so serious why aren’t they in ICU .
        
        So many questions , so few answers.
        
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        August 19, 2020 9:17am
      - MT_Tinman
        
        out of 90 positive cases, 6 are in hospital. I reckon that shows Covid is pretty serious.
        
        Actually, no, it doesn’t, without considerable more detail.
        
        Covid-19 attacks mainly those close to death with existing medical conditions.
        
        Those in hospital could (probably are) those who would be in hospital should they have contracted “flu” or similar illnesses.
        
        Influenza is still killing more people than Covid-19.
        
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        August 19, 2020 9:21am
      - krazykiwi
        
        It could also demonstrate that priority is being given to Covid-19 cases as a means of demonstrating political will to act. We saw this worldwide during the lockdowns as literally millions of patients with serious chronic illnesses (cancer, kidney disease et al) were sent home to ‘free up beds’.
        
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        August 19, 2020 9:22am
      - Tall Man
        
        Actually, according to ashley bullshitter, none are serious and even if they were, that is less than 7% of the “positives” that they have found so far so who knows, certainly not the scare mongers.
        
        Just as a matter of interest, how long would you want to see NZ locked up and economically destroyed …. asking for a friend.
        
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        August 19, 2020 9:41am
      - Sigmund Freud
        
        Most illnesses can be serious to vulnerable people Wayne.
        
        What is more serious is the less than free society (with outrageously high tax rates) that we endure to this day.
        
        You, Wayne, are sympathetic to this tyranny because you stood as a candidate for the Labour Party. When that failed for some reason which utterly escapes me you were accepted as a candidate for National.
        
        Wayne, I am totally opposed to your world view.
        
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        August 19, 2020 9:44am
      - Engelbert Humperdink
        
        We usually have 500 flu deaths a year, Wayne-O. We had 500 last year. Most of those end up in hospital before they pass. So, no, that figure does NOT show Covid is the extreme killer y’all think it is. We should be able to go about our lives with careful protection of the elderly and the immunocompromised.
        
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        August 19, 2020 9:52am
      - cmm
        
        “However, out of 90 positive cases, 6 are in hospital”
        
        There are not 90 positive cases. There are far more. Only 90 have come forward for testing.
        
        Why would people choose to be tested and sent off to be away from their kids, families etc when they can just lie low for a bit and hop it goes away (as it does for almost everyone).
        
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        August 19, 2020 9:56am
      - Jimmy White
        
        In 2019 ‘more than 132 patients caught influenza in hospital – at least five of whom died. That tally is from just three hospitals. The national toll of hospital-caught flu is unknown’
        
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        August 19, 2020 10:09am
      - backster
        
        And that justifies cancelling elective surgery throughout the region.
        
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        August 19, 2020 10:15am
- bruceavon
  
  Wow thanks. That’s exactly the sort of thing I seem to waste my time looking at not being able to work. Shows how scary this disease is and contagious. We must hope that the new cluster does not explode.
  
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  August 19, 2020 8:57am
  - Inandout
    
    bruce, wear your happy mask and all will be well. Just remember after 3 days of constant wear those masks become toxic, I suppose like under pants.
    
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    August 19, 2020 9:37am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Shows how scary this disease is and contagious.
    
    Actually, it doesn’t reveal that type of detail….
    
    We don’t know how long and how close some of those contacts were
    
    We don’t know how many other folks were exposed to the virus but weren’t infected….. (for instance…most folks attending one of the exposed churches haven’t been infected)
    
    All it reveals is that the virus is likely to spread by close contact.
    
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    August 19, 2020 9:49am
    - bruceavon
      
      Well we know this started with one breech and one case at the cool store around 31 July, now three weeks later we have probably over 100 and can see how effectively it spread through these groups. What would be good to know is how many have no symptoms, how many were sick? Five ended up in hospital. How old were they? Seems like a good snapshot to examine what we do next.
      
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      August 19, 2020 10:23am
      - Engelbert Humperdink
        
        The only way we can know how many have caught it and have no symptoms is to do the very thing this fuckup of a Govt have resisted doing for lo! these many months – test everybody who wishes to be tested, repeatedly. That is how to pick up community spread – by testing, yes, a community. Testing a goodly and feasible proportion of the 5 million. They did not want to test because they did not want to know because, Ardern Sainthood.
        
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        August 19, 2020 11:06am
    - Ruawai
      
      @Maggy except in the case of the maintenance worker whom the Govt tell us did not have close physical contact, hmmmmmm.
      
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      August 19, 2020 11:29am
    - Sacha
      
      . . . . . . and if you are within cough-spray range. You could work side-by-side with a carrier and not be infected – just as we do every winter with colds and ‘regular’ flu.
      People with coughs/colds should stay at home.
      Or wear masks that they change frequently – after 2-3 coughing incidents.
      
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      August 19, 2020 11:55am
  - Wayne Mapp
    
    With nearly 100,000 tests in the last few days, mostly in South Auckland, I think the just about all the current cases are being picked up. I doubt that Covid is raging out of control in the community with thousands of undetected cases.
    
    I know there is a view among many Kiwibloggers that Covid is no big deal, in fact it is not nearly as bad as the seasonal flu. But in the US (for instance) it is not usual for 180,000 people to die of the flu in a few months. And that is despite all the precautions, none of which are ever applied to the flu.
    
    So, no, I don’t buy the view that is widespread on this site that Covid is no big deal, and that the world has foolishly gone crazy over an imaginary pandemic. Even with all the precautions, Covid still proves to have a serious mortality rate.
    
    I guess a lot of downticks headed my way.
    
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    August 19, 2020 12:29pm
    - Engelbert Humperdink
      
      Where pray tell is the serious mortality rate? The world has gone foolishly crazy, the virus can kill, but we didn’t only have binary options Wayne.
      
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      August 19, 2020 3:38pm
Critical Thinker

Hydroxychloroquine Proven Safe in Over 1 Million Patients

“What do you need to know to evaluate these smears against hydroxychloroquine? The first thing to understand is that COVID-19 has two main stages. At the first stage, it is a flu-like illness. That illness will not kill you. If you are a high-risk patient and begin treatment immediately, you will almost certainly be done with it in a few days. When not treated, high-risk patients may progress. The virus then causes severe pneumonia and attacks many organs, including the heart. In this second stage, hydroxychloroquine is not effective.” – Harvey Risch, Professor of Epidemiology

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/hydroxychloroquine-works-in-high-risk-patients-and-saying-otherwise-is-dangerous

Democrat Governor for Minnesota Quietly Reverses His Ban on Hydroxychloroquine

There are now 53 studies that show positive results of hydroxychloroquine in COVID infections. There are 14 global studies that show neutral or negative results — and 10 of them were of patients in very late stages of COVID-19, where no antiviral drug can be expected to have much effect. Of the remaining four studies, two come from the same University of Minnesota author. The other two are from the faulty Brazil paper, which should be retracted, and the fake Lancet paper, which was.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/08/17/mn_governor_quietly_reverses_course_on_hydroxychloroquine__143978.html

Reconcile.
This is ground-shaking news. Why is it not being widely reported?
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August 19, 2020 8:25am
- old skool reactionary
  
  Because Trump endorses hydroxychloroquine.
  
  Also it is cheap, Big Pharma cant make a fortune out of it.
  
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  August 19, 2020 8:38am
  - alloytoo
    
    It’s also very safe with understood risks.
    
    Millions take it annually as prophylactic for Malaria.
    
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    August 19, 2020 9:50am
- cmm
  
  A million patients? More like a billion.
  
  HCQ has been in use for 60 years as one of the primary anti-malarial drugs. It is one of the best understood drugs on the planet.
  
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  August 19, 2020 9:58am
  - Batman
    
    If only Covid was Malaria!
    
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    August 19, 2020 12:51pm
    - cmm
      
      You clearly do not understand anything beyond what CNN told you.?
      
      According to the BoP DHB, up to 40% of prescriptions in NZ adults and 90% of those used with kids are off-label (ie are used for purposes other than what the drug was approved for).
      
      Are all our doctors dangerous quacks?
      
      Here’s how it works:
      1) A drug gets approved for use X.
      2) As it is being used, it is also found to have beneficial side effects for other conditions.
      3) Doctors start prescribing the drug for those other conditions too.
      
      For example, the contraceptive pill was found to help clear up acne and started to be prescribed for bad acne cases.
      
      Now HCQ is an extremely well understood drug with very well understood side effects. Hundreds of millions of doses are used every year for the last 60 years. Few drugs get that sort of work out.
      
      Off label use of HCQ is thus many times safer than off label use of many drugs that are used on a day top day basis in NZ.
      
      You have been spun a line of bullshit.
      
      https://www.bopdhb.govt.nz/media/60458/use-of-unapproved-medicines711p2.pdf
      
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      August 19, 2020 3:20pm
    - Engelbert Humperdink
      
      If only you could reason!
      
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      August 19, 2020 3:38pm
- Classic Liberal
  
  This should be huge.
  
  He makes very important points and distinctions: it is extremely helpful if used early in high risk patients. If used too late, the virus has already done too much damage. If used in low risk patients it is not necessary because they recover anyway.
  
  I guess these concepts are too complex for health authorities?
  
  “ most low-risk patients survive without treatment. Low risk means you are under age 60 and have no chronic conditions such as diabetes, obesity, and hypertension, have no past treatment for cancer, are not immunocompromised, etc. High risk means you are over 60 or you have one or more of those chronic conditions. High-risk patients need immediate treatment when they first show symptoms. One should not wait for the COVID-19 test result, which can take days and can be wrong. ”
  
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  August 19, 2020 11:18am
- Fletch
  
  Good post, thanks.
  
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  August 19, 2020 11:40am
Classic Liberal

Nobody really knows what they are doing.

Even Swedish policy seems opaque: officially just to ‘flatten the curve’ to manageable levels, but in this article emails of Chief epidemiologist Anders Tegnell show him at least considering herd immunity and its consequences. Even Sweden doesn’t officially dare say what Tegnell did in this email: “Finland’s modelling suggested closing schools would reduce the spread of Covid-19 among elderly people by about 10%, Salminen said in the email. Tegnell replied: “10% might be worth it?” (That’s 10% higher spread, not 10% of old people dead, before someone misinterprets that).

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/17/swedens-covid-19-strategist-under-fire-over-herd-immunity-emails

The official Swedish line is still not herd immunity. Kate Hawkesby interviewed a Swedish epidemiologist this morning.

The Epidemiologist said herd immunity was never the goal in Sweden but the policy has greatly spread immunity and there are now very few cases. The interview should have been much longer and more detailed: how exactly does the Swedish approach work? What is the aim of spreading immunity but not expecting herd immunity?
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August 19, 2020 8:25am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Why should we compare ourselves to Sweden.
  
  Taiwan is the model we should be following:
  
  *Rapid response when first notified of Wuhan outbreak
  * Masks, social distancing, rapid contact tracing, temperature checking
  *effective quarantine
  *No severe lockdowns
  
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Taiwan
  
  https://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/kiwi-traveller/122169330/a-kiwi-in-taiwan-my-new-homes-covid19-success-is-a-model-for-the-world
  
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  August 19, 2020 9:02am
  - bruceavon
    
    But Taiwan’s secret is the use of technology, and many mandatory measures, that many on this blog would not like. When people test positive their app becomes a monitoring device using the location systems on smart phones. You are to self isolate and if you move out if your house, the police turn up to ask why. They also have a modern efficient digital health system. So a database that tells the exactly where everyone is and their status. We don’t even seem to have a covid database, which is far more serious than how few people have downloaded the app. Judith should be talking about that. Also they have compulsory masks. And complete trust in their government and willingness to do what they say. I personally could care less about being made to wear masks and use the app etc, if it meant we don’t have lockdowns. But I am not sure the public would and whether any party has the balls to suggest it.
    
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    August 19, 2020 9:24am
    - Ed Snack
      
      Not so sure about masks as the data is equivocal on that, especially when outside as there are very, very few cases attributed to external exposure. But one thing that we haven’t used at all is temperature checking. A very recent paper (just heard about it) strongly suggests that unlike flu, Covid infections almost always begin with fever symptomsEs, even if mild. So widespread temp checking could potentially identify those with early stage infections. Isolate, test, treat with HCQ, and maybe this would help nip infections in the bud.
      
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      August 19, 2020 12:47pm
  - cmm
    
    We do not have a compliant population like they do in Taiwan, Korea etc.
    What works for them won’t work here.
    
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    August 19, 2020 10:00am
    - Engelbert Humperdink
      
      We have a population even more compliant than in Taiwan. We locked down without much of a murmur and we are being locked in again in the Auckland region by our police and our military.
      
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      August 19, 2020 10:22am
    - Ruawai
      
      We might become compliant if it means no lock downs.
      
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      August 19, 2020 11:31am
  - Jimmy White
    
    Taiwan had a plan, ours was dated 1974,
    
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    August 19, 2020 10:10am
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      Taiwan had a very clever Vice President
      
      https://www.nature.com/news/taiwan-s-sars-hero-poised-to-be-vice-president-1.19148
      
      He’s just become the Mayor of Kaohsiung.
      
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      August 19, 2020 11:51am
  - Classic Liberal
    
    Maggy, we should be looking at every county that is having some success.
    
    Czech Republic seems to be having some success cutting viral load w masks in confined spaces: https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/article/3097793/wearing-masks-can-cut-severity-covid-19-symptoms-reduce
    
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    August 19, 2020 11:21am
    - Engelbert Humperdink
      
      Masks are indeed useful in confined spaces. Elsewhere, ambient air currents, sunlight, and distance are way more useful.
      
      Outside of confined spaces especially those with directed air-conditioning airstreams, masks are more useful for scaring everybody, inducing a sheep mentality, and demonstrating the controllers’ control.
      
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      August 19, 2020 3:40pm
  - Batman
    
    But Maggy, how many have died in Sweden?
    
    Go on….
    
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    August 19, 2020 12:53pm
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      I’ve never advocated Sweden’s route… so why Quiz me over this matter?
      
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      August 19, 2020 1:32pm
    - cmm
      
      I’ll bite.
      
      Very few have died in Sweden. Way less than 1 in 1000.
      
      CV19 is nothing compared to the Spanish, Asian and HK flus that killed hundreds of times as many people.
      
      In Sweden, 15x as many (per million) died of the Spanish flu and one third of the population was obviously infected (ie. became sick).
      
      Here in NZ 9,000 people per million died and worldwide it was 25,000 per million. ie about 300x that from CV19.
      
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      August 19, 2020 3:27pm
    - Engelbert Humperdink
      
      Well Batman tell us how many people have died from the effects of the lockdown and will die* from the effects of delayed diagnosis and treatment, let’s transparently compare them with the death rate in Sweden but no, the New Zealand government are hiding those figures…
      
      * There are excellent studies, well peer-reviewed and statistically solid, from communities that have already gone through what we have been put through, and the morbidity and mortality from this government’s-style actions exceed those of the virus by at least one and sometimes two orders of magnitude. Add in the effects of long-term unemployment, family breakdown, supply chain woes and stagflation – expect it could rise to three orders of magnitude.
      
      Do your research, if you can.
      
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      August 19, 2020 3:41pm
Tony Stuart

Megan Woods’ interview with Mike Hosking on Newstalk ZB this morning was revealing. What was revealed that it is now clear that Dr Woods was given the job of managing MIQ facilities not because of any skills she could bring to the role, but rather for her ability to bluff, obfuscate and generally run interference for the Prime Minister.

Of course though, it’s National that’s trying to make political capital out of the Covid pandemic; Labour would NEVER do that! Yeah right!
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August 19, 2020 8:36am
- alloytoo
  
  A few minutes later Hipkins admitted that “eradication’ was impossible.
  
  However with all his spinning, I don’t think he realized it.
  
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  August 19, 2020 9:27am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    There is a subtlety between disease eradication and disease elimination…
    
    of Course Joe Bloggs won’t really realise this technical detail…… but it comes in handy when politicians want to suggest one thing but deliver something different.
    
    The Principles of Disease Elimination and Eradication
    
    https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/su48a7.htm
    
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    August 19, 2020 1:40pm
    - Engelbert Humperdink
      
      Very true Maggie. However, I’m sure most of us remember how when the Princess of the Pestilence used the word eradication at the very beginning of the lockdown, she didn’t bother to explain that it was a different meaning from the one universally applied by the OED, and not in the context of arcane epidemiological jargon. In my usual life, if I eradicate or eliminate something it don’t bounce back…
      
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      August 19, 2020 3:44pm
      - Maggy Wassilieff
        
        but that’s the beauty of jargon….
        soon we will be fortunate to live in a predator-free, carbon-zero, climate-static paradise.
        
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        August 19, 2020 4:45pm
mandk

From that diagram, it looks like there are 6 households and 12 cases where there is no transmission link to the workplaces where the initial outbreak occurred.
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August 19, 2020 8:39am
old skool reactionary

Awesome attack ad by Team Trump focusing on the senile dementia of Biden.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/oYZvj7uUsgw
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August 19, 2020 8:39am
- Classic Liberal
  
  Ouch, sad but true
  
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  August 19, 2020 11:26am
Maggie Pie

A timely reminder to the group….

There’s only 18 more Wednesday’s till Christmas.

Just saying.
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August 19, 2020 8:40am
- Tony Stuart
  
  Ho, bloody Ho, bloody Ho; bah, humbug!
  
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  August 19, 2020 8:47am
  - Engelbert Humperdink
    
    I used to send this on an A4 fax back in the (before I got married) day:
    
    Life is tough
    Times are hard
    Here’s your fucking
    Christmas card.
    
    It was always appreciated 🙂
    
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    August 19, 2020 9:54am
- mark15
  
  That’s ‘winterval’ if you don’t mind.
  
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  August 19, 2020 8:48am
- Paulus Gnome
  
  If I go online at the red shed today, I might just get everything by then with a bit of luck . . .
  
  Can’t wait.
  
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  August 19, 2020 10:05am
- Jimmy White
  
  Nine more Tuesday paydays
  
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  August 19, 2020 10:12am
Swifty

At a pre-arranged time later today, a light-manufacturing business in Avondale is being visited by ‘someone’ to assess their Covid-processes and procedures.

Can anyone tell me what this is all about? Is the government sending people into workplaces to inspect them? What, all workplaces in NZ?

I’ve heard nothing about this at all. Does anyone know?
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August 19, 2020 8:49am
- mandk
  
  This calls to mind those news reports showing Kim Jong-Un visiting a factory in N Korea, followed obediently by a host of generals and officials, notebooks in hand, eager to record every utterance of the Dear Leader.
  
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  August 19, 2020 9:09am
- alex Masterley
  
  Can’t be the PM, Pies or Chippie as they are in Wellington.
  
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  August 19, 2020 10:06am
- Jimmy White
  
  I bet that firm has a National Billboard on its wall
  
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  August 19, 2020 10:13am
- mark15
  
  Turn up and record the proceedings.If you get ushered away by threat of force by the police,let us know please.
  
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  August 19, 2020 11:55am
oldpark

Seems it was only make believe that the NZ Border Checks for Coronavirus was just a myth and never happened .It has cruelly being exposed.
Now that type of Lie was aided and abetted by Winston Peters selected Miss Ardern NZs Commander- in -Chief. Yes the wheels have fallen off her “System”
This is an Organizational Clusterfuck .
“Clusterfuck” a complete failure or a very serious problem which many mistakes or problems happen at the same time.
Not so long ago at Labours 1.00pm Party Political Broadcast Control Freak Ardern led the charge big noting how smart she was defeating the Coronavirus. Now the real truth is out . Border testing of arrivals didn’t happen . We are now paying a huge price for the Clusterfuck of the Ardern Government .
Ardern for the first time has a “Real Crisis” on her hands that affects the well being of Five Million NZs not just a handle of unfortunates in other situations in which she took maximum credit for.
Where was she when needed at the 1.00pm Coronavirus Political Broadcast yesterday to answers critical questions . Under pressure in a Crisis Ardern is proven to be a lite-weight and not up to it . In fact she is seen to be Running Scared Afraid to Show . She hides on Facebook.
Heard her speak in anger yesterday in Parliament saying the Coronavirus fuckup should not be “Politicized”. Yet Two weeks ago she said Labour didn’t need any Election Policies other than Covid -19 Elimination. Yes her running mate Coronavirus has bitten her on the rear by the exposure of the lack of any testing at our border. Now too little too late.
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August 19, 2020 8:52am
- Paulus Gnome
  
  It was always ‘too little too late’
  
  ‘hard and early’, my arse – Jim Royale
  
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  August 19, 2020 10:07am
I remember when

We definitely don’t want any conspiracy theories.
Hard to see why they would even happen with the 1pm Reports giving us all the real time updates.
Not like any of the information was incorrect or misleading in any way.
Of course, hopefully making “Conspiracy Theorists” the problem helps the COL deflect the blame for not providing facts.
Any port, isolation premises or post office in a storm!
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August 19, 2020 8:53am
- JackRabbit
  
  The CoL are getting upset about social media and disinformation. Clearly all mirrors have been removed from the homes and offices of the CoL. That way they do not have to look themselves in the mirror before delivering false information.
  
  It is the CoL that are delivering mis-information.
  
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  August 19, 2020 11:12am
- Ruahine
  
  Loose lips cause viruses.
  
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  August 19, 2020 11:32am
emmess

DNC drinking game
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-official-2020-democratic-national
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August 19, 2020 8:55am
I remember when

‘The Project’ had an item on the NZ Ploughing Championships.
Apparently the contestants are the same people nearly every year.
In a changing world the Ploughing Champs stay much the same.
Even more remarkably, they seem to get an item on television every year. Must have good PR.
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August 19, 2020 9:00am
- Engelbert Humperdink
  
  Do they dig Transmission Gullies?
  
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  August 19, 2020 9:54am
- mandk
  
  Do we need to start a campaign for more diversity in ploughing?
  
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  August 19, 2020 10:06am
surfing

Government is redefining language.

Elimination and eradication are not the same.

Jacinda has just proclaimed that ‘to decline a covid test’ is quite different from ‘to refuse a covid test’.

NZ must be one of the easiest countries in the world to control this virus yet the incompetence of people has no end. The rats and cockroaches are all scurrying for cover to avoid the ‘responsibility’ hammer.
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August 19, 2020 9:04am
- SB2
  
  When did Jacinda say that ?
  
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  August 19, 2020 11:28am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    In reply to Oral Q2 yesterday.
    
    https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2020/08/staff_pleas_to_be_tested_were_ignored.html#comment-2782523
    
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    August 19, 2020 11:54am
JibberJabber

We are living the ~~Dream~~ nightmare Clive…

“We must picture Hell as a state where everyone is perpetually concerned about his own dignity and advancement, where everyone has a grievance, and where everyone lives the deadly passions of envy, self-importance, and resentment.”

C.S. Lewis, 1962
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August 19, 2020 9:10am
- SB2
  
  Seems like a Libertarian credo
  
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  August 19, 2020 11:26am
Maggie Pie

Heard the spokeswoman from ‘Lotto NZ’ this morning. She was saying only 7 of the 10 First Division winners from the $50mil Power Ball draw have come forward so far.

(And i’ll bet every one of them had the same story…. “When I first checked the ticket, I honestly thort it said Five HUNDRED dollars!”)

F….ing losers.
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August 19, 2020 9:11am
- Tall Man
  
  Ummm …. $10 million Maggie ….. 😉
  
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  August 19, 2020 9:43am
  - Maggie Pie
    
    OK then. But want to see the money first 😛
    
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    August 19, 2020 10:25am
I remember when

At the present time seamen are spending a lot of time isolated. Isolated from both the general population and their families.
While I am sure careful attention has been given to their needs, it is the problem of sexual needs that raises special concerns.
We have already seen the stupid lengths some people in isolation have gone to. Imagine the difficulty in stopping frustrated seamen from satisfying a growing need after weeks at sea.
Desperate people will go to great lengths and devised very clever plans.
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August 19, 2020 9:34am
- fightingtemeraire
  
  It is estimated that 250K seamen are on ships and cannot be repatriated. It has got to the stage where Masters are refusing to sail as crew are MANY months past the end of their contract.
  
  Likewise Port State Control surveyors are doing the same.
  
  The Seamen’s Welfare organisations are saying that the Mental Health of Seafarers is being affected.
  
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  August 19, 2020 10:10am
  - Sacha
    
    There was a very interesting interview on national Radio, with a rep from the Seaman’s Mission. It had asked the government for (I think) about $800k to provide bases for the next year at ports where seamen could relax and use broadband to connect with their families. They would not be roaming the streets.
    The government, in its generosity gave about half the asked-for amount.
    When I think about all the free-handing going on I wonder at such tight-fistedness when it comes to these vital deliverers of our exports.
    
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    August 19, 2020 12:12pm
- Paulus Gnome
  
  Are the public swimming pools open again?
  
  Public swimming pools are the place where one can go, satisfy a ‘sexual emergency’ without penalty, or is that just the select religion?
  
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  August 19, 2020 10:12am
- Jimmy White
  
  Since lockdown I can confirm my seamen is staying close to my wife
  
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  August 19, 2020 10:14am
- wimpston peeeders
  
  Fleshlites are the go to now, I know a few single guys gone through quarantine at various parts of the world and thats the go to tool to get you through the long lonely stay.
  
  heaps of my mates have them and most reckon its better then the real thing but mainly due to it not talking/nagging. just throw it in the dishwasher and go to sleep.
  
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  August 19, 2020 10:16am
  - Ruahine
    
    Eh!!
    
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    August 19, 2020 11:29am
    - wimpston peeeders
      
      id post a link but id likely get banned, I spelt it wrong its fleshlight. im suprised they dont come free with a govt isolation hotel room… would stop a bit of the mingling going on.
      
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      August 19, 2020 3:00pm
- Classic Liberal
  
  Everyone can diy sexually. It’s more about social life and human warmth I’d expect.
  
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  August 19, 2020 11:33am
Maggie Pie

And i honestly think when Watercare casts the net again for a new CEO, they shouldn’t appoint someone who describes themselves “…… as a glass half-empty kind of guy”.

Just saying.
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August 19, 2020 9:48am
- sooty
  
  I wonder if while they are reducing the CEOs pay they could go throu the entire council and look at theirs, I’m sure they could save a bucket load!
  
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  August 19, 2020 10:44am
- Ruahine
  
  Maggie
  
  How about ……. a dam half-empty kind of guy.
  
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  August 19, 2020 11:28am
Clyde

Did anyone else hear Jacinda speaking in question time in the House? She tried to say the word “jeopardy” 3 times in the same answer and it came out each time as “jeopardry”. What is this speech impediment or affectation that causes her to turn “been” into “bin” and any word ending in”ty” to end up as “dy”? Just curious.
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August 19, 2020 9:54am
- Ruahine
  
  Teeth too long and tongue too short.
  
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  August 19, 2020 11:25am
  - lifesgood
    
    I’ve just noticed, she has enormous ears so I don’t think she has misheard these words.
    
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    August 19, 2020 2:45pm
- Ruawai
  
  Jepradise x 3 in one sentence. You would think someone would have told her by now!!
  
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  August 19, 2020 11:43am
  - hilaryt
    
    You would think that. Possibly they have but her pronunciation is ‘fossilised’. Same for her pron of ‘woman’ for the plural…that isn’t uncommon here. Just another reason on top of the haystack of them for not taking her seriously.
    
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    August 19, 2020 12:32pm
- Fletch
  
  I think it sounded like “jeprady”
  
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  August 19, 2020 11:44am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  What is this speech impediment?
  
  It isn’t a speech impediment.
  
  It is most likely to be a “class” marker… i.e. a sign that she hadn’t heard the word often in daily speech during her primary and secondary education or that no-one bothered to correct her speech patterns.
  
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  August 19, 2020 1:48pm
comm4nder

I know this is a silly question, but where is Air Commodore Webb? Wasn’t he meant to seal all the holes in the border procedures? Or are there just too many?
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August 19, 2020 10:05am
- Engelbert Humperdink
  
  He’s out there recruiting Top Men. Top. Men.
  
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  August 19, 2020 10:16am
  - sooty
    
    So was Mike Bush and he’s gone bush!
    
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    August 19, 2020 10:41am
- Ruawai
  
  Surely Digby should have appointed army personnel to run the hotels rather than security guards, army follow strict orders.
  
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  August 19, 2020 11:45am
Maggie Pie

Beats me why don’t they get those Security guys from Countdown to supervise the borders.
NOTHING would get in.
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August 19, 2020 10:11am
- Engelbert Humperdink
  
  Just ship in a boat load of Spanish duennas. Arm them. Sorted.
  
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  August 19, 2020 10:17am
- Biscuit
  
  Heh heh, Maggie.
  
  I used our local Countdown the other day, chatted with the checkout lass from behind Perspex as to whether or not she’d received the shares bonus that was bandied about as a ‘reward’ after Lockdown I (Answer: Yes), and then made to head exit-wards.
  
  ‘You can’t do that!’ said the lass.
  
  ‘Oh?’
  
  ‘He’ll stop you.’
  
  I looked…
  
  ‘He’ looked to be Jonah Lomu’s bulkier brother.
  
  Apparently, they were just locking one of the exits ‘for my convenience.’
  
  Grrr!
  
  These aging legs had to walk 25 metres (to the – now – only exit) more than was the plan.
  
  [If Jass, Chris and Megan are reading this, you’ll note I CHECKED with the checkout lass as to her getting her bonus. I had read reports that such HAD been paid out – but I’m a ‘Trust, but VERIFY’ sort of guy and preferred to hear it from the horse’s mouth. I recommend that strategy to our wonderful Government…]
  
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  August 19, 2020 10:30am
- SB2
  
  They strike me as pretty reasonable fellows who are only doing their job.
  
  As if border control were that simple as at Countdown.
  
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  August 19, 2020 11:20am
  - Sigmund Freud
    
    @SB2 Border controls ARE as simple as at Countdown.
    
    The difference, my commie inspired friend, is that Countdown can get into BIG TROUBLE if they get caught screwing up and the CEO can’t whine (like Jacinda) that he really, genuinely, honestly belief his staff have suddenly become angels who obey his every command to the letter.
    
    NO! The company could be fined or put out of business.
    
    The Jacinda government doesn’t care because the MSM have been paid $50,000,000 to cover for her.
    
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    August 19, 2020 11:36am
    - SB2
      
      Sigmund Freud, Countdown secruity are not trained at covid detection and screening?
      
      It is simple as that!
      
      ” commie inspired friend” ??
      
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      August 19, 2020 12:00pm
- wimpston peeeders
  
  the scummers seem to shop at countdown, we avoid goin there for that reason even pre covid.
  guna need good guards to stop a hoard of panic buying land whales in their ugg boot slippers and onsies esp on dole day.
  respect to those guards.
  
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  August 19, 2020 3:04pm
Stu2

I keep seeing “The govt has totally failed” comments – I think that is nonsense, what they failed to do was set realistic expectations. Unless they banned returning NZers the virus was going to get through whatever system was there to stop it.

This is a copy of a post I made last night

There seems to be a touching faith that our border setup (even if it was working perfectly) could keep the virus out. Not so.

Looking at the degree of infection of hospital staff around the world even they can’t protect themselves 100%. Sooner or later it would escape our system too.

The govt’s mistake is probably building the expectation they were somehow going to do the impossible. They got pretty close to the election!
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August 19, 2020 10:14am
- Biscuit
  
  Stu2, this Governmment seems to EXCEL at ‘building the expectation that they were somehow going to do the impossible’…
  
  Think, as just one example, about any utterance Phil Twyford has made in the last three years.
  
  There’s a FORTUNE to be made by the lab that synthesises the substance that allows said pillock to keep his butt glued to his Cabinet position(s).
  
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  August 19, 2020 10:47am
sooty

Can we place the blame for all of this CCP Virus out break fairly and squarely on the shoulders of the reverend david clark!
His boss said go early go hard!
But she was not talking about mountain biking at the time!
Did he not put enough effort into containing this virus and making sure the border was strong enough!
Personly he came across as a once over lighty type of guy. Diffiently not a heavy lifter in my opinion!
Did that set the tone for the following weeks of border breakdowns!
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August 19, 2020 10:39am
- cmm
  
  Not really. Clark was never up to the job.
  
  Blame the bell end that put him in a position outside his capabilities.
  
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  August 19, 2020 11:07am
  - sooty
    
    That’s my point! Why would you?
    Other than shallow puddles!
    
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    August 19, 2020 3:22pm
cmm

Hipkins is now saying no level 4 for Jaffaland.

That is exactly the opposite of what the pink KoolAid woman says.

She will be steamed! They trot her out as an expert when she says the Right Thing. Now they “refute” her when she says The Wrong Thing.

So is she still an expert? I’m struggling to catch up.

As for Level 4. No way. We didn’t meet the criteria for L4 in the first wave and we’re certainly not meeting it now.
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August 19, 2020 10:49am
- kowtow
  
  Too close to the election for L4.
  
  The test will be what they do with outbreaks post election ……..if we’re back to a Gr/Lab gubmint .
  
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  August 19, 2020 11:24am
cas

I was just thinking about what else this omnishambles of a Govt has got wrong. Our latest power bill is cheaper than the one for the same time last year. Petrol is miles cheaper at present than at the same time last year yet I thought they were going to run enquiries or something similar into both those sectors. Or will they try and spin that the decrease in costs was all their doing anyway?
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August 19, 2020 10:53am
SB2

For those who wave the herd immunity “white” flag the latest research from the Royal Society of Medicine Journal says that Sweden’s goal of herd immunity is nowhere in sight and especially
in comparison to their nordic neighbours Finland, Norway and Denmark who have chosen stricter lockdown processes

It is also observed that Sweden had higher rates of infection, hospitalisation and mortality

Also the rate of antibodies developed by the population is a low 15% The experts say it should be at least 70% ,

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/world/2020/08/new-study-finds-sweden-s-herd-immunity-goal-nowhere-in-sight.html

The published research is here ,

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0141076820945282
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August 19, 2020 10:55am
- Stu2
  
  Inconvenient facts = downticks?
  
  The Swedish case numbers and deaths have been very low for a month plus. I’ve been looking once in awhile to see if they have become worse than Italy in deaths/million, but they are only gaining slowly.
  
  I wonder if they have finally got their nursing homes reasonably secure. Victoria has shown what a challenge that is
  
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  August 19, 2020 11:34am
  - SB2
    
    downticks = impervious to facts and reason.
    
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    August 19, 2020 12:02pm
    - wimpston peeeders
      
      SB2 = impervious to reality
      
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      August 19, 2020 3:08pm
    - The Proper Ghandi
      
      Just say your bit, and move on mate. Shouting into the void questioning or speculating as to why you are being downticked makes you look sad and desperate.
      
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      August 19, 2020 4:09pm
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    I wonder if they have finally got their nursing homes reasonably secure. Victoria has shown what a challenge that is
    
    And let’s not forget that that’s where the virus was allowed to get away here in NZ….
    All of our Covid deaths are from vulnerable elderly.
    
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    August 19, 2020 1:55pm
    - SB2
      
      I would suggest the same elsewhere but on vaster scale as in the US and Sweden etc.
      
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      August 19, 2020 5:10pm
      - Maggy Wassilieff
        
        It is not the same as Taiwan:
        7 deaths
        486 cases
        
        Population: 23,822,665
        
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        August 19, 2020 8:07pm
- Classic Liberal
  
  T cells show real immunity. Antibodies die down over time.
  
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  August 19, 2020 11:38am
- Durden
  
  Alternative view from Sunetra Gupta, epidemiologist at Oxford University
  
  https://reaction.life/we-may-already-have-herd-immunity-an-interview-with-professor-sunetra-gupta/
  
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  August 19, 2020 12:41pm
cmm

Herald is reporting that only 20% of AKL businesses are at full capacity and there is general anxiety.

Here is Chch I got a letter from a painter pleading for work to keep their long-running family run business afloat.

Sorry mate, as much as I’d like to support you and your business I’m not painting this year even though the house needs it.

The cure looks a lot worse than the disease, but all the decision makers and their influencers are in say taxpayer funded jobs. No worries for them.

Not looking pretty….
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August 19, 2020 11:06am
- alex Masterley
  
  Yes, very quiet up here.
  Commercial clients have work till the end of the year then nothing on the horizon.
  The period between the first lock down and the second generated activity based on optimisim. the period after this one ends will be treated very differently.
  In the Herald piece the PM is reported as saying business activity would be 80% of normal (whatever that is). Another example of the reality being different from what the PM says it will be.
  
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  August 19, 2020 11:32am
- mark15
  
  One of our sections is doing 4 day weeks in september
  
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  August 19, 2020 12:05pm
- wimpston peeeders
  
  Our works dried up we usually flat out this time of year but only a 3 day job booked for the next 4months!!! Needless to say im searching around for casual work.
  have mates in construction related work and their 9months of work ahead has contracted to a couple of weeks, wage subsidy aint gunna save those 23guys jobs… hundreds of other businesses face the same fate.
  
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  August 19, 2020 3:15pm
SB2

Never mind removing automatic postal sorting machines Trump is determined to stay come what may ,

PRESIDENT Donald Trump has claimed that he will seek a third term in office because his 2016 campaign was “spied on.”

Trump made the statement at a rally in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, on Monday afternoon, despite presidents being limited to the number of terms they can serve.

According to the Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution, which was passed by Congress in 1947, a person is limited to being elected president two times for a total of eight years.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was elected president four times before the amendment was passed, is the only president to serve more than two terms.

Speaking Monday, Trump said: “We are going to win four more years. And then, after that, we’ll go for another four because they spied on my campaign. We should get a redo of four years.”

https://www.the-sun.com/news/1325957/donald-trump-says-he-should-get-third-term-spying/

What petulance!
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August 19, 2020 11:22am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Well he got your attention idiot. You (and others) just don’t know when you are being trolled by the best in the World. It is a game to him, he loves it – and it is good campaigning.
  Your TDS is strong today
  
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  August 19, 2020 3:12pm
- Critical Thinker
  
  Fake News!
  
  Trump has unequivocally stated that he is not going to just run for 3 terms. But is in fact going to be President forever! ??
  
  https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1142157838153895941
  ?
  
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  August 19, 2020 6:19pm
Maggie Pie

One of the girls from Tennis popped in earlier.
They live in a street just off the Avenue.
She was saying the house next to them sold at auction back in February for $1.2mil above it’s CV. The Chinese family who had owned it moved out a couple of weeks later, and since then no one has set foot in the place. It’s remained locked ever since with the lawns and gardens out of control. The spouting is overflowing and Briscoe mailers are spewing out of the letterbox. She said its fast becoming an ‘eyesore’ on the street and they don’t know what to do about it.
As my partner just said, what sort of people would pay $4.8m for what was a really nice home, then never go near the joint?
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August 19, 2020 11:42am
- sooty
  
  Rich ones!
  
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  August 19, 2020 1:23pm
  - Maggie Pie
    
    You’re sooo right there soots. There’s more than a hundred billion out of honkers looking for a home my partner heard.
    
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    August 19, 2020 2:03pm
Fletch

Did I hear on the news that another 90 people are going into quarantine in Christchurch, on top of the 600 odd already there? Why are people still coming in? I thought the commonsense thing to do would be to turn off the spigot until you’ve cleaned up the mess the flooding is causing.
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August 19, 2020 11:48am
alex Masterley

The Herald is reporting on the next shambles comming down the Pike, that is to say the border controls north and south of Auckland.
essential workers not being let in. the supply chain being disrupted beyond belief.
Who ever came up with the idea clearly did not know the volume of freight that makes its way up and down SH1 between Whangarei and Hamilton or the amount that moves between Auckland and Tauranga.
Likewise the number of people who move around in the area.
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August 19, 2020 11:49am
- Stu2
  
  Port of Tauranga is probably doing ok, they rail a lot of containers to and from their Auckland container park
  
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  August 19, 2020 12:00pm
Maggy Wassilieff

So, who to believe…

A person who has been in quarantine in one of the quarantine hotels…
or
The Hon Dr Megan Woods?

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/08/coronavirus-megan-woods-questions-credibility-of-kiwi-who-says-groups-mingled-in-managed-isolation.html
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August 19, 2020 11:58am
- Classic Liberal
  
  “Always…believe…the ministry… of truth… “
  
  (droned by a chorus)
  
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  August 19, 2020 12:34pm
- Fletch
  
  It’s funny how MP’s have this title of “honorable” when they are usually the least sorts of honorable people in society.
  
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  August 19, 2020 2:01pm
Jeremy

I wonder why anyone is getting a test if a positive result means they ship you off to a Covid-19 concentration camp, sorry I mean quarantine facility.

I’ll only get a test on entry to hospital now. Along with a bunch of other things I would have been willing to in March if we had behaved rationally as a country, treated as adults and got on with things. We’ve only been left with resistance to express our frustration and anger now, so resist I will.
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August 19, 2020 12:15pm
Surely Knott

Another low information article from the media.
Person who visited Hobbiton has returned to their home country (country not given) and has covid 19. People on tour were contacted.

Why are we not told what country they returned to like with previous cases? The person returned to their home country after visiting tourist destinations – were they here as an international tourist? I thought only nzers returning home were coming into the country? Finally, why only Hobbiton? If someone was in the country surely their would be multiple places they visited and stayed.
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August 19, 2020 12:24pm
Maggie Pie

Not sure if i heard correctly or not (I was busy creaming butter and sugar for my orange maderia cake.) But did anyone else hear Peter Williams say something about Karel Schrobek going to live in Peter Thiel’s house down in Queenstown?
I could be wrong….. just saying.
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August 19, 2020 12:26pm
- cmm
  
  Recipe.
  
  Now.
  
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  August 19, 2020 12:40pm
  - Maggie Pie
    
    225gm butter (softened)
    1 cup golden caster sugar
    3 tsp orange rind (+ tsp essence)
    1 tsp lemon rind
    3 eggs
    1 cup SR flour
    3/4 cup Wholemeal flour
    1/2 cup milk
    1 cup sultanas (soaked & floured)
    Cream butter and sugar until fluffy.
    Add eggs 1 at a time beating in.
    Sift half the flours over the mixture and fold until just combined,
    Add half the milk and fold in until just combined. Repeat with remaining flour & milk.
    Fold in sultanas.
    Pout into large loaf pan and smooth top.
    Bake 1 hour at 180c or until prick comes out clean.
    I like to ice with laemon butter icing and cover in coconut thread.
    It’s really really fab. Let me know how you go.
    
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    August 19, 2020 1:01pm
    - cmm
      
      Sounds excellent. I might try it on the w/e with a bit less butter otherwise my cardiologist will go all frowny-face.
      
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      August 19, 2020 1:14pm
      - Maggie Pie
        
        Dont need frowny-face 😀
        Have you tried using ‘BAKELS GOLD LABEL BAKERS BLEND’?
        
        It replaces butter in baking. Looks and acts just like the real thing although its vege oil based.
        Most bakeries use it and you wouldn’t know the diff. NW has it. Comes in 500g tubs for about $3. Keeps for ages in the pantry.
        
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        August 19, 2020 3:57pm
    - Steve Otto(North Shore)
      
      No madeira – must have drunken it
      
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      August 19, 2020 3:17pm
Stu2

We have had two known examples now of health screening tests not picking up infected people.

The infected hotel worker passed the temperature check and his cough was put down to an existing condition.

One of the two women released from isolation to go to the funeral in Wgtn had her cough put down to an existing condition. Neither were tested

Feels like they are looking for reasons not to test, not any reason to test. Might be partly down to how long it takes to get test results. Anyway paying the daily screening worker a sizable bonus for screening an infected border worker might fix that
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August 19, 2020 12:45pm
Batman

Oh dear me… How unfortunate for some…

Senate Panel Details Ties Between 2016 Trump Campaign and Russia https://nyti.ms/2Yd4kRt

“It provided a bipartisan Senate imprimatur for an extraordinary set of facts: The Russian government disrupted an American election to help Mr. Trump become president, Russian intelligence services viewed members of the Trump campaign as easily manipulated, and some of Mr. Trump’s advisers were eager for the help from an American adversary.”

And…

“Manafort conducted influence operations that supported and were a part of Russian active measures campaigns, including those involving political influence and electoral interference,” the report said.

Before, during and after he was forced out as Mr. Trump’s campaign chairman, the report said, Mr. Manafort offered inside information and assistance to these Russian-aligned interests. Mr. Kilimnik was Mr. Manafort’s intermediary with both Mr. Deripaska and the Ukrainian oligarchs, according to the report. It recounted how he briefed Mr. Kilimnik at an August 2016 meeting on the Trump campaign’s strategy to defeat Hillary Clinton, describing efforts in the battleground states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Minnesota and the margins by which Mr. Trump might win.”

Then…

“In written responses to Mr. Mueller, Mr. Trump said he could not recall discussing WikiLeaks with Mr. Stone, a response challenged in the Senate report. “The committee assesses that Trump did, in fact, speak with Stone about WikiLeaks and with members of his Campaign about Stone’s access to WikiLeaks on multiple occasions,” the report said.”

Some good news of sorts for those who say the FBI was in on the so-called plot…

“It also criticized the bureau’s handling of the so-called Steele dossier, a compendium of rumors about purported Trump-Russia links compiled by Christopher Steele, a British former intelligence agent. The bureau used some of Mr. Steele’s information in applications to wiretap Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser.

The Senate report nonetheless endorsed the F.B.I.’s decision to investigate Mr. Page. “Page’s previous ties to Russian intelligence officers, coupled with his Russian travel, justified the F.B.I.’s initial concerns about Page,” it said.”
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August 19, 2020 1:07pm
- Maggie Pie
  
  Have you seen this Bats? Telling the truth is now illegal…..
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HFxVurXjCg
  
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  August 19, 2020 1:15pm
  - Maggie Pie
    
    Whoopsie – removed for “Violating YouTubes policy on hate speech”
    
    Twitter also has Warning: “Link has been identified by Twitter or our partners as being potentially spammy or unsafe. It could fall into the category of violent or misleading content that could lead to real-world harm”
    
    GO FIGURE.
    
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    August 19, 2020 1:33pm
- Fletch
  
  Comey is in trouble –
  
  Former and Fired FBI Director Comey Is In Big Trouble – He Knew Carter Page Worked for the CIA But Signed Bogus FISA Warrants Anyway
  
  Nunes –
  
  “Comey already knew Carter Page was an asset of the CIA. You know how I know this? Carter Page before the first FISA warrant application, he sent Comey a direct letter that said I work for the CIA. I’m not a Russian spy. How do I know that? Because he gave me a copy of the letter, it’s in both of my books. It’s also part of his Congressional testimony you’ll recall. So isn’t it true that James Comey concealed this information from the FISA Court and perpetrated a fraud when he signed the FISA warrants?”
  
  https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/08/huge-former-fired-fbi-director-comey-big-trouble-knew-carter-page-worked-cia-signed-bogus-fisa-warrants-anyways/
  
  Marco Rubio on the release of the final volume of the Senate INtelligence report –
  
  Final volume of Senate Intelligence bipartisan & thorough investigation into Russian 2016 efforts is now public
  
  https://intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf
  
  We found no evidence of “collusion”
  
  But we did find troubling actions by the FBI, particularly their willingness to rely on “Steele Dossier”
  
  https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/1295711197300428801
  
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  August 19, 2020 1:55pm
  - Batman
    
    Gateway pundit and one committed Trump fanatic opinion piece does not make for hard evidence.
    
    Lame attempt given Comey isn’t even there anymore (fired by Trump for continuing the investigation into the links)
    
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    August 19, 2020 2:01pm
    - All_on_Red
      
      Narrator: “Poor Batman, the perfect exemplar of someone opining about things they clearly don’t know about”
      
      Hey, where’s my $100
      Clinesmith has been charged by Special Attorney to the Attorney General Durham.
      So there’s the first charge
      Clinesmith was on Muellers team too
      Oops
      Pay up
      
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      August 19, 2020 8:38pm
- RiP NZ
  
  Batman’s America
  
  @PortlandPolice
  have finally named Marquise Lee Love, 25, as a suspect in the brutal BLM beating of Adam Haner. Police have made attempts to locate and contact the suspect but have not been successful. #PortlandRiots #BlackLivesMatter
  
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  August 19, 2020 8:41pm
cmm

S1uff has an opinion piece by a law professor.

“Sign a prisoner transfer agreement. Exchange the Christchurch mosque shooter and make him serve out his sentence in Australia, as ruled by the New Zealand judicial system.”

From my reading of the Australian law, a prisoner cannot be forced into anything. They need to consent to being moved.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/122492118/jailing-the-christchurch-terrorist-will-cost-new-zealand-millions-a-prisoner-swap-with-australia-would-solve-more-than-one-problem
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August 19, 2020 1:11pm
- Engelbert Humperdink
  
  There is no need to spend millions on him.
  
  Build a separate, isolated concrete block cell with a concrete floor with a toilet bowl and a hand basin and a bed-plinth. Shovel meals down a chute. Put a fence around it. Video camera monitoring. Once weekly laundry and utensil replacement. End of story.
  
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  August 19, 2020 2:40pm
curry4me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPhCoCbbLUk
Slovakia v China.

Merkel is friendly to China. Slovakia wants Taiwan included
In international bodies, the Panchem Lama freed, and has
Been critical of the HK security law. They have also signed up
To the US Clean Networks plan. Slovakia has a right of center
Government since the recent election.
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August 19, 2020 1:18pm
curry4me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_4U2As5O8w
Did the Fourth Reich Blink?

It may be that the EU just blinked with a huge concession in the Brexit negotiations. As the EU Commission and UK Brexit trade negotiators gather in Brussels for round seven of the Brexit trade negotiations, some reports indicate that Brussels may have just blinked. And this is related to the issue of state aid rules, which up until now – the EU has been adamant that the UK must follow their rules and have them overseen by the ECJ. And that of course is a non-starter – well according to what we’re told by the PM Boris Johnson and the UK chief negotiator, David Frost. Now, it seems that EU negotiators are asking for sight of UK plans with regard to state aid going forward. And, if those plans look to be compatible with EU rules, then this might unlock the whole deal.
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August 19, 2020 1:18pm
- mandk
  
  Boris should tell the EU that the UK is no longer part of the club and is no longer subject to the club’s rules.
  
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  August 19, 2020 1:50pm
Peter Lane

This guy’s name rang a bell or two:

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=12357457

Then I remembered this from 2009. Hardly someone to inspire much confidence in his opinions:

A top public health expert is calling for a health tax on butter, saying it’s “pure, natural poison” and as bad as cigarettes.

New Zealanders eat more butter per head than any other nationality and Auckland University epidemiologist Professor Rod Jackson says that’s why our cholesterol levels are also among the world’s highest.

“We have a health tax on alcohol and cigarettes and there should be a health tax on butter. It’s the most poisonous commonly consumed food in New Zealand. It’s about the purest form of saturated fat you can eat and it has no protein and no calcium. Butter has had all the good things taken out and just left the poison.”

Jackson was commenting ahead of this week’s nationwide cholesterol testing programme being launched by the makers of Flora Pro-Activ cholesterol-lowering spread. Nurses in shopping malls will fingerprick test up to 10,000 people nationwide.
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August 19, 2020 1:21pm
- Engelbert Humperdink
  
  Professors gotta profess. Kinda like Hera Cook in his way.
  
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  August 19, 2020 2:38pm
- [email protected]
  
  I like butter – a lot, so I eat it – a lot. Don’t have a cholesterol problem.
  
  If butter needs to be health taxed, I’m OK with that but reduce other taxes such as GST so that the government doesn’t get extra money.
  
  Any new taxes based on health benefits need to be tax neutral because I am really getting tired of being taxed more and more.
  
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  August 19, 2020 5:55pm
Jack5

An informative article on the student-visa rorts is published on Stuff today.

I didn’t realise that a great part of the citizenship sale was being made by foreign agents and foreign-owned training establishments.

The rorts look like legalised slave labour.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/122467368/vicious-cycle-why-are-some-indian-migrants-so-badly-exploited-in-nz
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August 19, 2020 1:34pm
I remember when

For those who haven’t had the good fortune to listen to the 1pm-ish covid-19 update:
We haven’t underestimated to amount of work that is required to control the virus, and, continue to build on our world leading processes and innovative procedures.
We continue our ongoing work that builds on our success in combating covid in our first round of ‘elimination’.
This has involved many Government Departments so there has been some need to work on very complex situations and problems. We are working on ensuring that this work builds on our success in the past.
To ensure that our programmes have sufficient ‘teeth’ H2 will be involved in frontline surveillance and ‘bite’.
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August 19, 2020 1:41pm
- Ruawai
  
  Did Helen tell JA to bring in Heather Simpson?
  
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  August 19, 2020 1:51pm
  - sooty
    
    What are those two getting short of the moola?
    
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    August 19, 2020 3:14pm
- Ruahine
  
  Bite will be good. Nay. Very Good.
  
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  August 19, 2020 2:49pm
mandk

1.00 pm news: Prime Minister explains how her government will try to shut the stable door after the horse has bolted.
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August 19, 2020 1:47pm
- Engelbert Humperdink
  
  She expected better of the horse, the horse let her down, the horse also let the team of 5 million down, and she had been reassured that the horse was compliant.
  
  It wouldn’t be fair or entirely accurate to say that the horse had refused to stay in its stable, rather, it had declined to do so.
  
  Also, the horse had previously voted National. And was almost certainly wearing a Confederate flag saddle blanket. And was a palomino.
  
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  August 19, 2020 2:36pm
Stu2

Essentially she seemed to be hinting that MoH have not been able to get the DHBs to do the testing required, so they are bringing in muscle to sort this out. Doesn’t make MoH look good

Good move reducing the use of security guards, another thing that should have been done sooner
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August 19, 2020 1:50pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Oh dear..
  
  Unite Union won’t be happy if its Union brothers aren’t on the job.
  
  Same old story over in Victoria….. Labour Premier filled the quarantine Hotels (Rydges) with his union besties.. even though the Army were ready & waiting to do the job.
  https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6182116312001
  
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  August 19, 2020 3:29pm
- greybeard
  
  Exactly.
  Most of them look pretty thick. And disinterested.
  
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  August 19, 2020 4:58pm
Flossie

Really good news. PM is not happy with Facebook allowing nasty rumors and they’d better stop it. So important, and the small stuff like finding the cause of recent covid outbreaks can wait.
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August 19, 2020 2:16pm
- kowtow
  
  Just came across a term “wokescreen” .
  
  ‘To better understand the era we are living through, it might help to first understand the nature of the ‘wokescreen’. Like those billowy emissions of dry-ice in a 1980s pop video, this device is useful if you want to hide bad and egregious behaviour from public view.”
  
  https://unherd.com/2020/08/do-you-know-what-a-wokescreen-is/
  
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  August 19, 2020 3:45pm
Maggie Pie

Anyone else notice how good Paul Eagle is looking?
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August 19, 2020 2:29pm
- sooty
  
  Who’s Paul Eagle?
  
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  August 19, 2020 3:11pm
- mandk
  
  I’m always confused between Sam Eagle, from the Muppets, and Paul Eagle, from Labour.
  
  Are they, by any chance, related?
  
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  August 19, 2020 3:31pm
Engelbert Humperdink

I’d rather have a free bottle in front of me than a prefrontal lobotomy.
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August 19, 2020 2:37pm
Nickc2

A new Australian Greens Senator turns up for work on her first day. If you didn’t see it for yourself, you wouldn’t believe it. These things walk among us!
https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2020/08/new-greens-senator-lidia-thorpe-in-her-own-words-dressed-for-first-day-in-parliament.html
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August 19, 2020 3:08pm
- wimpston peeeders
  
  good honest comments there 🙂
  
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  August 19, 2020 3:21pm
- Suze Wainwright
  
  I’m confused – she’s not wearing any environmental/save the earth slogans…
  
  The comments say she actually got zero votes to get in there too. Wonder if Aussie msm will point out that little anomaly/hypocrisy?
  
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  August 19, 2020 4:35pm
  - Nickc2
    
    Suze, the STOP ADANI on her cap is all about stopping the opening of the ADANI Coal Mine in Queensland. As for votes, as far as I know, it’s one Green Senator replacing another in the Upper House of the Aust Commonwealth Government. To the best of my knowledge, she only serves the remaining time of the Senator she replaces. Hope this helps. It’s true stuff though. I have met Michael Smith and trust him. It’s his blog.
    
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    August 19, 2020 5:15pm
Maggy Wassilieff

Are we being drip-fed “rumours” from our Government?

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/300086004/coronavirus-auckland-isolation-snapchat-leak-wider-earlier-than-govt-claimed
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August 19, 2020 3:18pm
Swifty

Women transitioning to become men and expecting a whole bunch of male privilege to come their way find, to their horror, that it’s a myth….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQmJ44qcQlU

Honestly, worth a listen. You won’t know whether to laugh or cry.

I laughed BTW.
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August 19, 2020 3:38pm
- lifesgood
  
  Poetic justice for being so stupid.
  
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  August 19, 2020 6:09pm
Maggy Wassilieff

Where is the CoL’s Resurgence Plan?

The Prime Minister said it is publicly available.

6. Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Is the resurgence plan she referred to on 11 August publicly available, and is it being rolled out as effectively as she believed it would be?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes.

The Parliamentary Library can’t find it.

Today, we’ve heard nothing from the Prime Minister about a resurgence plan other than this, this document plus something that comes in behind it. It’s such a widely read document that the Parliamentary Library today could find no evidence of it at all, after a search. So it wasn’t just that we couldn’t find it; it’s the fact that the Parliamentary Library, which can find pretty much anything if it’s published—they couldn’t find it.

https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/hansard-debates/rhr/combined/HansDeb_20200819_20200819_08
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August 19, 2020 4:10pm
- RJ
  
  We will find out in 15 days
  
  https://fyi.org.nz/request/13514-covid-19-resurgence-plan
  
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  August 19, 2020 4:43pm
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    hahahaha..
    
    some poor health Dept scribe will be rushing a few cut & pastes into a new doco….
    
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    August 19, 2020 6:43pm
    - RJ
      
      Quick google, this one will do minister, just take out China and replace New Zealand.
      
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      August 19, 2020 6:46pm
- alex Masterley
  
  I’ve been wondering where this plan is.
  It must be contained within all that smoke which is being blown up our rear ends by the Prime Minister.
  
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  August 19, 2020 4:46pm
MJHNZ

What’s happened to Stuart Nash? On Newstalk ZB this morning they claimed he won’t respond to their calls and messages and keeps missing his weekly spot. Not a good look from a MP in Election year I would have thought….
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August 19, 2020 4:26pm
- cmm
  
  Probably a better look than showing up and proving he’s a fool.
  
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  August 19, 2020 4:47pm
  - RJ
    
    O e of the many labour politicians who don’t need to show up to prove they are fools, everyone already knows
    
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    August 19, 2020 5:01pm
  - Engelbert Humperdink
    
    If you don’t know why he’s not in public view these days, I hope for his sake you don’t find out.
    
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    August 19, 2020 5:56pm
Prince

There is no Plan. It is a tactic as old as the hills – identify your weakest point and highlight it as a positive, ie ‘We are unrolling our Plan…We have planned for this all along…Our Plan is proceeding apace…’
Fact is there is no Plan. If there was, it could easily be made public so we all could revel in its brilliance.

It hasn’t been a great day for the Govt.
* Obvious ‘political management’ of the 1pm campaign speech as PM arrives 10 minutes late and cuts questions off due to QT at 2pm.
* Revelation that they lied about the Isolation Leak.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/300086004/coronavirus-auckland-isolation-snapchat-leak-wider-earlier-than-govt-claimed
* Revelation that Lockdown was illegal
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/122450651/first-nine-days-of-lockdown-justified-but-unlawful-court-finds
* Revelation that Labour’s resource cupboard of ‘trusted safe hands’ remains bare, relies on 1999-2008 Govt hacks..
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300086077/heather-simpson-returns-to-spearhead-border-response-in-light-of-repeated-testing-failures
* Even stalwart Sharon Murdoch is sensing a few problems.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/94869389/sharon-murdoch-cartoons
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August 19, 2020 4:38pm
F E Smith

The government’s response to losing the first claim in the lockdown challenge rings a bit hollow:

“However the court did find that there was a breach of the Bill of Rights Act in the first 9 days of the Alert Level 4 lockdown, because the original oral request for people to stay home and in their bubbles was not put in a formal order until 3 April.”

It wasn’t a request. They continually used the word “must”. In fact, the judgment itself points that out, and said that it was the judge’s impression that it was a “must”. To call it a “request” is to attempt to re-write history.
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August 19, 2020 5:02pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

https://babylonbee.com/news/chicago-mayor-protects-citizens-by-arresting-7-year-old-having-a-birthday-party?fbclid=IwAR0K_6liNFh83OCRCXz5YtW0hiJ7rNFtl5XLjcEsAHE_nzrYRbBxbL2JN0o
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August 19, 2020 5:11pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Mods, look at the link, it MAY give you a slight clue as to what it is.
  
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  August 19, 2020 5:12pm
  - Engelbert Humperdink
    
    Careful, there is a hint of grumpiness in your remark and I can tell you, that does not bode well for ya 🙂 I better uptick you while I still can.
    
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    August 19, 2020 5:55pm
- RJ
  
  No one does satire better than the onion, Babylonbee is close
  
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  August 19, 2020 6:40pm
RJ

Whoopsie

The Government exceeded its powers telling us to stay at home and in our bubbles in the first nine days of the coronavirus lockdown, a court has found.

Stuff
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August 19, 2020 5:23pm
Maggy Wassilieff

So our PM and our Attorney General and Our Justice Minister and the rest of the CoL didn’t know the Law.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/122450651/first-nine-days-of-lockdown-justified-but-unlawful-court-finds

Seems the DG of Health didn’t know the limits of his powers, either.

So Simon Bridges was right (again).
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/121504944/coronavirus-simon-bridges-loses-showdown-over-lockdown-legal-advice-question-of-lawfulness-remains

Any apology coming his way?
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August 19, 2020 5:44pm
- cmm
  
  Time for another milk sop about how she’s a caring young mum who’s being awesome in every way, including telling us little white lies to protect us.
  
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  August 19, 2020 8:02pm
- Tauhei Notts
  
  The way Simon Bridges was treated over his questions as shown in that 14th May press release was outrageous.
  The Moderator will delete my comment if I explain the ethical standards that David Parker kept. My vocabulary is so limited that only obscene and profane words could describe that male homo sapiens; for to call David Parker a man is improper.
  
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  August 19, 2020 8:51pm
Engelbert Humperdink

Just reading the Supreme Court’s judgement of the government’s unlawful actions at the beginning of lockdown.

We’re pretty much hosed. Basically, the court is saying that yes it was unlawful but breaking the law was justified.

I wonder if I can use that excuse in future… yeah, nah. “Laws are for the little people”.
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August 19, 2020 5:54pm
- oob
  
  IANAL but the defence of necessity is a longstanding (though extremely seldomly accepted) common law principle.
  
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  August 19, 2020 7:08pm
- gorse
  
  At least the Court did say the Government had acted illegally. If that Judge had been appointed by this Government, as some people want, would the Judge have made the same decision? That is the problem the USA has with Government appointed Judges, some support Democrats, others Republicans. Thankfully we gave an independent Judiciary.
  
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  August 19, 2020 7:32pm
RJ

There doesn’t need to be a shake up, you just need to bloody do what you claim is being done

The Government has drafted in Helen Clark’s former chief of staff Heather Simpson and NZTA chair Brian Roche to shake up the beleaguered border system.

Ministers are currently scratching their heads as to why people working at the border were not being tested after apparently very clear instruction from Cabinet that they should be.

Stuff
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August 19, 2020 6:20pm
- Engelbert Humperdink
  
  “Ministers are currently scratching their heads.”
  
  Ministers need to commit hare-kiri.
  
  Purely in a metaphorical sense of course.
  
  They should live long, prosper, and enjoy a high standard of living on the salaries and benefits we the taxpayers gifted them because they are so incomparably competent.
  
  I would certainly not want anybody to think that I believe ministers should accept some degree of personal responsibility for them being completely useless consumers of the communal oxygen. Especially as even a plant can convert carbon dioxide to oxygen, and these ministers cannot even manage that.
  
  No no no, they deserve to live in a vegetative state until they die peacefully in a very expensive rest home many years from now. With a mask on.
  
  That is all.
  
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  August 19, 2020 6:55pm
- Stu2
  
  A major part of this is “you”
  The govt does not have line control of the DHBs that do lots of the testing.
  
  I imagine there isn’t enough resource in auck to deal with public testing, plus far more frequent quarantine worker and border worker testing. And some airline, port and airport staff. A lot of testing crews would be needed to hit every shift at every location once a week
  
  The heavy weights coming in to review the situation are probably going to recommend some mixture of testing resource from elsewhere and extra funding for private testers
  
  The journalists at the daily briefings have not been able to find out why things have not ramped up to the level desired.
  
  My guess is that the Ministers would have had to throw extra resource at this, lock the DHBs down somehow, and make border worker testing compulsory. Looks like they didn’t push that hard while we were at level 1, thinking they had time to get this all going
  
  It will probably take some mix of OIAs, questions in parliament and a full independent review to pin it down
  
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  August 19, 2020 7:43pm
Maggy Wassilieff

Especially as even a plant can convert carbon dioxide to oxygen,

No, it can’t.

Oxygen production in a plant results from the splitting of Water.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_reaction#:~:text=The%20Hill%20reaction%20is%20the,discovered%20the%20reaction%20in%201937.
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August 19, 2020 7:30pm
- cmm
  
  Well he’s kinda right in some ways…
  
  6CO2 + 6H2O -> C6H12O6 + 6O2.
  
  Ultimately the reaction consumes CO2 and releases O2 and without the CO2 the reaction would never happen.
  
  That the actual free oxygen come from the H2O and not from the CO2 is pretty much academic.
  
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  August 19, 2020 7:59pm
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Not if you are a plant physiologist or biochemist.
    
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    August 19, 2020 8:17pm
    - Engelbert Humperdink
      
      I’m just a deplorable taxed-sucker. Please have mercy on me.
      
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      August 19, 2020 8:50pm
Lance

Another hit job on Jerry Brownly on TV1 news tonight. Must be a day ending in ‘y’
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August 19, 2020 8:14pm
RJ

Have the govt been caught out in more lies and smoke screens?

Air Commodore Darryn Webb says the guest at Rydges who had Covid-19 may have passed it on to a nurse who then passed it on to a maintenance man at the facility.

Or could it be
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August 19, 2020 8:41pm
- RJ
  
  Hmm that other link was there each time I looked, deleted when approved? Reposting the second deleted link
  
  Returnees claim Rydges maintenance workers entered their rooms without PPE
  
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  August 19, 2020 9:02pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  You mean the workers who haven’t been wearing PPE gear at Rydges?
  
  https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/08/covid-19-returnees-claim-rydges-maintenance-workers-entered-their-rooms-without-ppe.html
  
  That’s not what the Air Commodore told Lisa Owen tonight.
  https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/checkpoint/audio/2018760222/webb-answers-questions-over-rydges-covid-19-mystery
  
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  August 19, 2020 9:36pm
  - Stu2
    
    One of the downsides of using hotels – some staff who don’t get it
    
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    August 19, 2020 9:54pm
  - RJ
    
    Yeah, for some reason mod deleted the second link.
    
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    August 19, 2020 10:08pm
Stu2

Thinking back to the TV news it showed ex-minister Clark waving the govt testing plan about. It was dated late June, and must have been just before he was shown the sideline

The plans I’ve been involved in were proposed with full knowledge of how they would be implemented and what that would cost, and certainty that they were affordable and feasible. And they had a solid timeline.

I wonder what was underlying Minister Clark’s plan
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August 19, 2020 10:09pm

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