General Debate 29 June 2021

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Happychappy

‘Out of her depth’: Ardern under attack for her defense of hate speech proposals.
Judith Collins has been saying this since the subject first surfaced but no one wanted to listen and like most other subjects and proposals af new Bill’s its Judith is racist and talking a load of crap,
but then Chris Faafoi and Jacinda Ardern front up on Newshub The Nation and make a complete fuck in explaining how it will work and Tova O’Brien seizes the moment with the headlines that afternoon being Jacinda Ardern has misled the public and shut down debate on hate speech laws.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/06/prime-minister-jacinda-ardern-under-attack-for-defence-of-hate-speech-proposals.html
As Judith Collins says Jacinda Ardern owns this proposal and no mater how she try’s to wriggle out of this proposal by having Chris Faafoi front it, it is hers full stop it was Jacinda who promised the Muslim community that she would fix it was her that promised this would never happen again and it is her that wants this draconian law for New Zealander’s.
Jacinda Ardern chose to use her Political Capital in this so let her spend it by holding her to account this time.
Remember this is what’s good for Jacinda Ardern not what’s good for New Zealand.
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June 29, 2021 8:00am
- KevO'Brien
  
  The world agrees:
  https://www.rt.com/news/527783-new-zealand-ardern-hate-speech/
  
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  June 29, 2021 8:44am
  - Isobar
    
    Whilst i agree with the sentiment – i dont think ‘RT’ is in any position to speak for the world!
    
    “RT is a Russian state-controlled international television network funded by the federal tax budget of the Russian government.”
    
    Lol
    
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    June 29, 2021 10:13am
    - KevO'Brien
      
      It can’t be, Biden hasn’t attempted yet to seize the site like I witnessed the other day for the Iranians Presstv.
      Sometimes foreign news sources give a fuller picture than the narrow view from NZ. One checks another.
      
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      June 29, 2021 11:42am
    - Padriv Ustoev
      
      So kind of like tvnz then. See we are not so diffirent from Russia
      
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      June 29, 2021 12:51pm
      - Nickc2
        
        but we are working on becoming less different. We’ve got another 18 or so months to get there. Cindy’s told her ministers what laws etc she wants changed but she has been negligent as to exactly what she wants changed (eg hate speech (thin on detail)).
        
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        June 29, 2021 1:21pm
      - Isobar
        
        Well not quite, NZ has a democratically elected government and TVNZ is funded largely by advertising (for now).
        
        I would also imagine anyone on TVNZ who criticised the head of state would not find themselves (at best) at a concentration camp. Cannot really say the same about the ruskis
        
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        June 29, 2021 2:30pm
- Flossie
  
  Adern came up with a new word this morning.. “cautiousness”. Maybe I’m wrong, but would “caution ” have been better. But then she’s the one with a degree in communication.
  
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  June 29, 2021 8:50am
  - Paulus Gnome
    
    I quite liked ‘biggly’ as far as new words go but, you know, orange man bad . . .
    
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    June 29, 2021 9:22am
  - Captain Mainwaring
    
    Flossie came up with a new word this morning..”Adern”.
    Maybe I’m wrong, but I thought the woman’s name was “Ardern”.
    
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    June 29, 2021 10:09am
    - Flossie
      
      Thanks for spotting my typo.
      
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      June 29, 2021 10:21am
- Suze Wainwright
  
  Did Tova accuse Ardern of being glib?! Heck!
  
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  June 29, 2021 9:01am
  - Sir Cullen's Sidekick
    
    Toxic Tova has just done the ground work for another $50M bribe.
    
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    June 29, 2021 9:34am
  - Mr_Blobby
    
    Quick Grant more funding for the propaganda team.
    
    Keep those money printing machines at capacity.
    
    This is life or death for us.
    
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    June 29, 2021 11:15am
- Benedict Yu
  
  I was thinking about this issue last night. I am willing to consider that there is some very harmful speech that should be outlawed. An I think that many people would be willing to listen to logical reason and practical examples.
  
  The person with the political capital to make such a case is the PM. However I do not think that she has the intellect to do so.
  
  Another thought. I understand that the justice minister was asked about that rugby player that said that gay people were evil and would go to hell. The minister was apparently asked whether this would be an offence. He said he didn’t know!
  
  Now let’s back up. This is a prominent person who tweets to his thousands of followers that gay people will go to hell. SURELY that would be outlawed? Because what thing worse could he have said? How about that Gays should be attacked or killed? Well that is ALREADY an offence.
  
  There are only two explanations. Firstly that Jacinda knows what the implications are of enacting this law. Alternatively she just doesn’t understand it. Sadly the latter explanation is quite possible.
  
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  June 29, 2021 9:12am
  - KevO'Brien
    
    A loving word out of concern for peoples’ immortal souls cannot be “hate speech”. Expect more.
    
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    June 29, 2021 11:46am
  - Fuzzysnuggleduck
    
    I don’t think saying that gay people go to Hell is a “terrible thing”, in the context of he was set up on Twitter; what is God’s play for gays? and in response he said unless they repent, then it is hell.
    Well, if you believe in such stuff and such a place then it is a proposal worth considering. If you don’t believe, then it means nothing much at all.
    Some people don’t approve of your lifestyle = Big Whoop.
    Drinking beer is sinful, or eating pork is filthy say some.
    Do I care? No. Should I be upset if they tell me my bacon is filthy? Not if it is just a damned Tweet.
    It is kind of like saying that If you do this, then Santa or the Easter Bunny will be upset.
    Nothing like that should be outlawed. Might be rude, might be unwelcome, but it is not an issue for police or the courts.
    
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    June 29, 2021 12:10pm
  - Sacha
    
    My mother didn’t like it -she considered such speech rude and a sure sign of a poor upbringing, but telling people to go to hell was a common expression of rejection/anger when I was brought up.
    I happen to agree with her, but it’s not hate speech.
    
    What IS hate speech? Hate is a very definite emotion, threatening even. It now seems that anyone can take offence, and claim that the offence was caused by an allegedly hateful comment. The commenter may well have forgotten it by the time the offended one publicised it, along with whatever emotions were engendered . . . . . . and so on, etc, etc.
    
    We live in woke-ish times.
    
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    June 29, 2021 12:21pm
  - maggiemay
    
    Did he really say they were evil?
    
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    June 29, 2021 1:21pm
- Scott
  
  Quite right happy chappy. It seems this hate speech law would protect certain favoured groups from criticism.
  “Islam is not a religion of peace”. [No we’re not allowing that accusation, sentence deleted – Mod]
  Muhammad married a 6 year old and consummated the marriage when the girl was 9.
  Is that hate speech? Serious question.
  
  It will also be used to persecute non favoured groups eg Christians, white people, old white men.
  
  So would this be hate speech. Jesus is the way and the truth and the life. No one gets to father God except through him.
  
  I can see Christian preachers being hauled away in the streets for preaching the gospel.
  
  This is an illiberal move from a socialist illiberal government.
  
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  June 29, 2021 9:49am
  - Batman
    
    Jesus is not the way, the truth or the life. Neither is Allah.
    
    That is not hate speech, nor would I expect to be held accountable under the Act.
    
    You’re overdoing it a bit with the paranoia.
    
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    June 29, 2021 11:25am
    - Phronesis
      
      That is essentially what Israel Folau actually said though, if you do not follow Jesus you will go to hell, and many considered that to be hate speech.
      
      The fundamental problem is that religious disagreement is as old as the human race and it’s necessarily an I’m right, you’re wrong kind of disagreement which (these days) leads to hurty feelings.
      
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      June 29, 2021 11:58am
      - Don Beckett
        
        You, and everyone else who criticises Folau’s tweet, leaves out to vital qualifier – “….if they do not repent.”
        That’s no worse than saying “if you jump out in front of my car while I’m driving, I’ll run you over & kill you”
        This was a gross over-reaction to an essentially harmless quotation from the most popular book in human history – the Bible.
        
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        June 29, 2021 1:39pm
    - NoFax
      
      I find that insulting Batman – under the proposed law that is hate speech. 3 years in prison for you!
      
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      June 29, 2021 12:17pm
  - KevO'Brien
    
    Indeed. I believe also we have been in the end times season for sometime. Now I suspect that has intensified as predicted. Christians will be guided and protected by the Holy Spirit as usual. Prayer can do more than many people are aware of.
    This is the to repent and be saved.
    
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    June 29, 2021 12:02pm
    - Fuzzysnuggleduck
      
      Clown world and the end of the world is not the same thing, luckily.
      The sun will burn out eventually, but we have a bit of time before the lights go out.
      
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      June 29, 2021 12:14pm
- oldfella
  
  Happy, got this email reply from a friend after I sent him the Faafoi ‘free speech interview’ debacle.
  Reasonable and rational people of New Zealand really need to start doing something to curb the insanity which is overtaking our wonderful country. We are constantly hearing from friends and neighbours of their annoyance and reluctance at the way the government are surreptitiously allowing and manipulating the social media of this country to be puppets of the Maori March for dominance. For what? There are only 1% of the population, if that, who speak Maori, so why do we have to have it thrust upon us. I’m sure that there are many like minded people in New Zealand who feel like us, throwing their hands up in disbelief at what is happening but simply don’t know how to help fight the onslaught.
  Unfortunately we are stuck with this lot for the foreseeable future God forbid. It would be good if someone started a movement to wake up the population of New Zealand to what is happening and what we are allowing to happen. Maybe Winston is the answer, at least he’s not afraid to call a spade a spade. Forgive the pun.
  
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  June 29, 2021 11:25am
  - Sacha
    
    I was REALLY taken aback, AND possibly offended last night when I was exposed to Fair Go (?) which had an item about dishonesty in the horse breeding business. Right in the middle of an item featuring men and women of European descent, the word ‘wahine’ was inserted into the narrative.
    Why? There was not another Maori word uttered in the item so no logical reason to use it.
    
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    June 29, 2021 12:30pm
- oldfella
  
  George Orwell: “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear”.
  
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  June 29, 2021 11:26am
krazykiwi

I’m dismayed at the way NZers seem to be blindly following the Covid eradication narrative when the rest of the world has realised that this disease has become endemic, and responses must reflect that reality. Our media who should be holding Ardern et al’s feet to the fire on this continue to parrot official line, while too few NZers seem capable of thinking for themselves.
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June 29, 2021 8:00am
- Frank the tank
  
  (little) Aotearoa is still in full swing. 50% of the population believe this is the second coming of the black plague and in the interim are content to allow the erosion of their liberties to continue at a pace akin to the Nazi war machine in early 1940.
  
  I said Nazi – does that mean I run foul of the new hate speech laws?
  
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  June 29, 2021 8:09am
  - pdm
    
    Aotearoa – where is this mythical place.
    
    I live in New Zealand.
    
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    June 29, 2021 8:16am
    - KiWombat
      
      Aotearoa is what the Maori call the main North Island, excluding all the smaller coastal islands including Great Barrier (which they call Aotea.)
      
      Spare a thought for us poor buggers down on the big island – we are left out of the entire arguement !
      
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      June 29, 2021 8:38am
      - Tall Man
        
        You all voted labour so “good job” …….
        
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        June 29, 2021 9:02am
      - Blackbob
        
        Actually it was a local name for the South Island and picked up by missionaries, has nothing to do with the Nth Island.
        
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        June 29, 2021 9:02am
      - pdm
        
        KW – just like us New Zealanders.
        
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        June 29, 2021 9:05am
      - lastmanstanding
        
        I recall it was a Pom civil servant who coined the name Aoteoroa some time in the 1860s or 1870s.
        I also recall the ToW documents referred to Nui Tirana or something similar at the time of the signing.
        
        I stand to be corrected but it seems to me Aoteoroa was never a Maori name for the country Abel Tasman named and is yet another of the many myths invented around the “Noble Savages”.
        
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        June 29, 2021 9:31am
      - Benedict Yu
        
        I devoted 8 years to mastering English and then extensive English Literature. Now 40 years later I am dealing with media and increasingly professionals who insert the Maori language at random into English communication. I find it horrible and I am unaware of ANY other comparable reatment of the English language in the world.
        
        I fully recognise that Maori is official language and people who speak and read Maori need to be catered for. So have Maori language media.
        
        Btw based on my experience with learning other languages I do not believe that you will teach people Maori by inserting it into English. You will just annoy the shit out of them.
        
        If people want to learn Maori they need to go to classes and apply themselves to learn Maori. It will take hard work and at least 1000 hours.
        
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        June 29, 2021 9:55am
      - Nickc2
        
        Must have been the South Islanders then that signed off on the ToW. There’s no mention of that Aotea whatever in the ToW.
        
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        June 29, 2021 10:10am
      - Don Beckett
        
        The word ‘aotearoa’ was reputedly used by Tama Te Kapua – the navigator on the Arawa Waka as they approached the North Island, and the upper part came into view – probably from the Hauraki gulf to the East Cape, and as cloud develops over land, particularly with bush on it he first saw the long cloud over the distant land -‘ land of the long white cloud.’ The canoe landed at Maketu at the mouth & estuary of the Kaituna river between Tauranga & Whakatane, near Te Puke.
        
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        June 29, 2021 10:34am
      - KevO'Brien
        
        @Benedict Yu
        I’m not sure this mixing of Maori and English is legal. A transliterated English word lent to Maori is not an English word in that form nor can it properly replace the original.
        English is being messed up. Is that the official approved language of New Zealand. We have no official mixtures.
        
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        June 29, 2021 12:31pm
    - Stupid nob head.
      
      Nah, you’ve mis-spelt that. You mean you live in Nieuwe Zeeland.
      
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      June 29, 2021 9:01am
      - kowtow
        
        Ah so , I thort it was San XiLan.
        
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        June 29, 2021 9:15am
  - chukar
    
    New Zealand needs its own Magna Carta moment right now.
    Like King John at Runnymede our politicians need to go through that same process.
    New Zealanders need to tell our leaders that the unbridled powers being exercised and misused by this Government , in particular, but not only hate speech ,are going to destroy the country our fathers and mothers fought for.
    The accountable democratic system that we once had has been bastardised by MMP until there is virtually no accountability for those “elected” to govern.
    If not elected they remain in the political system either as a party lackey or in parliament itself on the list. Elections have become meaningless .Individual human freedoms are being eroded by the day.
    New Zealand has lost the guidance of British law and the privy council, and don’t have a real or effective constitution .
    The template for law making has become arbitrary.This has enabled the entitled group running this country to do whatever they like!
    
    This means NZ politicians have few controls or guidance on their actions . Elections are meaningless
    The feelings they bring to law are not the hard headed concepts that have been created over the many centuries of human endeavour .
    Good law is the only real defence that individuals have against the might of the state.
    Absolute power corrupts absolutely
    
    New Zealand needs its own Magna Carta now !
    
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    June 29, 2021 9:52am
    - KevO'Brien
      
      Yes!
      
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      June 29, 2021 12:31pm
  - Fidel Cashflow
    
    They are leftists, so use the Stalinism analogue please.
    
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    June 29, 2021 10:51am
  - Surely Knott
    
    Does Nazi run afoul? Yesterday on our local community facebook page, a person exited the page saying “Leaving here as the right wing idiots are making it a Nazional platform. Bye.” This person was a previous labour list mp in 2014! Calling National party supporters Nazis is routine for the left. Nothing to see here.
    
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    June 29, 2021 10:55am
  - Mr_Blobby
    
    50% of the population believe that we need a one party state led by the national socialist party.
    
    And yes you are well over the line with hate speach.
    
    Off to the managed isolation re education internment camps for you.
    
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    June 29, 2021 11:10am
- exkiwi
  
  It was probably worth taking the bet last year on elimination as a short-medium term measure when the IFR was still unknown, although it was also a bet on vaccines really, which turned out ok luckily enough. But it is looking more and more like it really was just a ‘pull up the drawbridge’ plan, with no real idea how to get out of this.
  
  NZ and AUS look kind of wacky with the Covid Zero. Especially Australia, which actually has some vaccines but hasn’t wanted to use them because they are not the ‘right’ ones or something.
  
  Michael Baker is turning NZ into a science experience to see if he can ‘eliminate all disease’, and Nick Wilson wants to build quarantine prisons on the Central Plateau, and people seem ok with it. Not much freedom in New Zealand these days.
  
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  June 29, 2021 8:40am
  - lastmanstanding
    
    Both the NZ and Oz governments are adopyed a fear and rule mentality. They are also fearful that if they stop lock downs the Sheeple will come to realise that the only deaths will be the old frail with co-morbities and others with serious health problems.
    
    Remember 99.6% people who get Covid recover some dont even know they had it.
    
    These pollies are scared witless that the Sheeple will turn on them when they realise the lock downs werent necessary and were a panic command and control exercise. Even the loyal supporters will get pissed off at some point if they are inconvenienced enough. Its the collective pissing off they will sink governments.
    
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    June 29, 2021 9:36am
    - Benedict Yu
      
      You are not telling the full story. Many of the people who “recover” experience very serious illness. For example with the delta variant, if you are not vaccinated and have an underlying health condition you are at serious risk. And many people in New Zealand have such conditions. Asthma, heart disease, diabetes. About 40 percent of these people end up in hospital based on the delta variant spread in the UK.
      
      Without the vaccine, the delta variant would have collapsed the UK hospital system. So the discourse is more complicated than “most people recover.”
      
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      June 29, 2021 10:06am
      - Ed Snack
        
        Benedict, not true, and there’s little evidence that the “Delta” variant is either more infectious or more lethal.
        
        The best way to avoid the load on the hospitals is to treat anyone with a positive test prophylactically, using established successful medicines such as Ivermectin, HCQ, plus Zinc and Vat D supplementation, plus anti-clotting agents and specific antibiotics as appropriate. But most countries won’t, why ?
        
        These treatments work, as does the “MATHS ” protocols once someone does need to be hospitalised.
        
        And as a recent paper using Israeli data has shown, the vaccination risk for young people (<20 or so) (using Pfizer or Modena mRNA vaccines) is as high or higher than the disease risk for serious outcomes including death. Ethically, vaccination of those people is unsupportable.
        
        However there is a new vaccine out – Novartis I think is the supplier – it uses a more standard approach (same as used for their Pertussis vaccine) and does not appear to have the same risk profile as the mRNA ones.
        
        This whole Covid issue should be approached using the scientific method and to hell with politics. Use protocols that work, carefully monitor the outcomes, and change course if the data justifies it.
        
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        June 29, 2021 1:13pm
    - Mr_Blobby
      
      I would like to agree with you, I really would.
      
      But I think we have gone to far, by the time the sheeple wake up, it will be to late.
      
      Our socialist nirvana is upon us all hail dear leader saint jacinda.
      
      If you want some insight into what it will look like try venezuela.
      
      The main difference is that everybody will be equally poor and happy by decree, from dear leader.
      
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      June 29, 2021 11:22am
  - Hard Cheese
    
    To be fair, Australia couldn’t have foreseen the blood clot issue with AstraZeneca thats made it unpalatable with the public. If that hadn’t happened they’d be in the box seat now – further ahead with their rollout and with an endless vaccine supply from local manufacturing. Their failure was putting all their eggs in the AstraZeneca basket and now they have to scramble (lol) to replace it with Pfizer.
    
    NZ has done the same stupid thing, but in reverse. Despite picking a winner in the vaccine lucky dip, we’re still miles behind a driver who had stop and change a flat tyre.
    
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    June 29, 2021 11:40am
    - Ed Snack
      
      Pfizer has very similar problems and risks. I think we should be looking past those options now and trying to get hold of the Novartis non-mRNA version.
      
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      June 29, 2021 1:15pm
      - virtualmark
        
        Pfizer and Moderna appear to have some rare but serious complications with brain swelling and also with myocarditis. But the risk here is very very small – like less than 1 in a 100,000 – and unfortunately that sort of occurrence is just a fact you have to live with with any large-scale vaccination programme.
        
        Meanwhile they are both about 95% effective at stopping hospitalisations from Covid.
        
        Novavax’s vaccine appears to have equal protection from “original” Covid, better protection against the more recent variants, less side effects, and easier handling requirements. We (NZ) have ordered enough Novavax vaccine to vaccinate the entire population. But the Ministry of Health have elected not to use it.
        
        If I were a journalist looking for a story I’d be asking the MoH why they aren’t using these other vaccines that we have access to. Firstly, using these other vaccines would allow us to speed up the vaccine stroll-out. Secondly, Novavax in particular might prove to have a better vaccine than Pfizer.
        
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        June 29, 2021 1:45pm
- Master Mariner
  
  There is no end game but divide and conquer mentality.
  Everyone acknowledges we are too live with it overseas.
  On another note fuel security is the elephant in the room.
  Oil prices on upwards trend and now a shortage of LNG Tankers.
  Supply chains deteriating and more services looking at departing NZ.
  Energy security may pose a serious theat. In near future. Only COVID Keeping prices down now.
  In Te Anau and converging of polar and mid lat jet streams.
  Time to play in the snow
  
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  June 29, 2021 9:02am
  - Ehlana
    
    Fuel security? If only we have stores of oil, gas, coal etc. in our own country…
    
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    June 29, 2021 9:13am
    - kowtow
      
      While I don’t agree with the main thrust ie we must get greener , this guy makes some interesting and worrying points.
      
      “…a net-zero target that ignores imported carbon is conceptually dishonest.And unless the Government shows far greater ambition for this country’s manufacturing exporters, the Commission’s combination of rising carbon prices and reduced protection for trade-exposed, energy-intensive industry will cause closures and job losses.”
      
      https://www.newsroom.co.nz/climate-emergency/climate-plan-just-shifts-industry-overseas
      
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      June 29, 2021 9:19am
    - Nickc2
      
      Yep, Cindy can’t say she wasn’t advised of her stupidity.
      As an aside, the Defence Force had to destroy a whole Tanker load of fuel recently due to human error.
      
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      June 29, 2021 10:30am
  - Mr_Blobby
    
    NZTA, or whatever they are calling themselves today and AT have the answer.
    
    Bike lanes, we can all walk, bike and take public transport.
    
    There energy security.
    
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    June 29, 2021 11:26am
- Tom Hunter
  
  I’ve quoted this before at the start of the Great Chinese Sinus AIDS Pandemic and will quote it again::
  
  “Getting out of the lockdowns will be the big challenge since the question is around which restrictions can be lifted, followed by watching for upticks in cases and deaths at each stage, with increases met by what? Reinstating the restriction?”
  
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  June 29, 2021 9:05am
- Benedict Yu
  
  I am aware that many of my fellow commentators don’t agree with my view that covid is a real threat and my view that the vaccines are the key to the end of the of the pandemic. That’s fine. That is what I like about debate here.
  
  However I totally agree that the virus will become endemic in New Zealand. Dozens or hundreds of people will “get covid” in outbreaks from time to time. But if they are vaccinated they will suffer zero or mild harm.
  
  I honestly don’t think jacinda understands this. The ONLY way to “eradicate” Covid would be to keep the borders closed indefinitely. For many years.
  
  Now of course this would be ridiculous. But jacinda either will not or cannot articulate the post vaccine “path out”. I am deeply concerned that we will see other nations on their own paths out. While we take maybe 2 years to reach 50 percent vaccine cover while our leader is still talking about “an eradication” of the virus.
  
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  June 29, 2021 9:25am
  - Tall Man
    
    How can you say it is a “real threat” when we have had over 2,000 people infected in MIQ with only 2 needing medical treatment?
    
    Every year doctors have thousands of patients with the flu and hundreds of deaths yet you say covid is the real threat.
    
    Currently my doctor is treating more people with mental health issues than with sore throats.
    
    That is a real threat to our country’s future wellbeing.
    
    We have limited resources so should be prioritising our reactions and getting ardern the liar re-elected should not be a priority.
    
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    June 29, 2021 12:06pm
    - Benedict Yu
      
      I have concluded it is a real threat because of evidence of the havoc it has caused if it is allowed to run rampant in an community with no vaccinations.
      
      https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/portugals-health-system-brink-collapse-covid-19-cases-surge-2021-01-17/
      
      Do you think New Zealanders are somehow naturally immune?
      
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      June 29, 2021 12:32pm
      - Tall Man
        
        Actually I guess I do, in some way, afterall, all those who were positive but not sick were Kiwis weren’t they ….. weren’t they?
        
        Maybe you need to look more carefully at those “communities” to see how they were made up. I did and they bear little relation to what we have here in NZ.
        
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        June 29, 2021 2:17pm
    - virtualmark
      
      The people travelling, and so arriving in MIQ, tend to be the extremely low-risk demographics.
      
      Meanwhile the high-risk demographics appear to be smart enough to be hunkering down and not putting themselves at heightened risk through travel.
      
      If, hypothetically, you took all the residents of your local aged-care facility for a trip to the USA and back then you should expect that a lot of them wouldn’t make it through their 2 weeks in MIQ.
      
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      June 29, 2021 1:47pm
      - Tall Man
        
        You would also expect quite a few not to make it fullstop with or without covid.
        
        I have always advocated protecting the vulnerable by whatever means required …. If they wish.
        
        How’d you like me telling you how to live your life?
        
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        June 29, 2021 2:19pm
      - virtualmark
        
        My philosophy is that we should be free to make our own choices, as long as we respect the law and don’t harm others.
        
        But with infectious diseases our choices have a very real risk of harming others. So at that point it’s fair to me to have some prudent boundaries to protect the overall health of society.
        
        Sure, some of those restrictions grate. But I’m an adult, and I understand that sometimes I have to do my bit for the greater good. It’s just about being mature and selfless.
        
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        June 29, 2021 2:30pm
      - Tall Man
        
        As I have said before, if … if we accept that covid is to be the death of us all, why did we not just seal the borders as much as practicable and let the rest of us get on with whatever life we could. The lockdowns were a stupid overreaction that was absolutely pointless without widespread community transfer, something we did not have, and had we refused entry to an Italian steward or a lying Iranian we would have avoided infection almost completely and helped lower the Australian death stats.
        
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        June 29, 2021 4:42pm
      - virtualmark
        
        Who is accepting that Covid will be the death of us all? This is not an extinction event. But if we didn’t do anything at all then it’d likely kill something like 2%-4% of the population and cause long-term harm to at least another 20% or so of the population.
        
        So we did do something about it.
        
        We locked down in order to snuff out the existing infections.
        
        We tightly restricted our borders so that new infections couldn’t (easily) re-establish.
        
        We will vaccinate as many people as want to be vaccinated … which will probably be about 70% of the population.
        
        Then we will (have to) loosen our border restrictions and re-establish easier travel and trade with the rest of the world.
        
        That will inevitably allow new infections in, but the vaccination programme will put firebreaks around those and drastically reduce their impact.
        
        That will still lead to Covid-related deaths, and I suspect something like 0.25%-0.5% of the population will die of Covid in the next 5 years. Which is about 12,500-25,000 people, so not a fun outcome. But that will be the price we pay for moving life back to a new normal that’s similar to the old normal.
        
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        June 29, 2021 4:53pm
      - Tall Man
        
        2-4% dead!
        
        Is that you silly sean?
        
        Nowehere has had 4% dead.
        
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        June 29, 2021 6:34pm
      - virtualmark
        
        2%-4% dead = over 5 years, through multiple waves of different variants, with a health system repeatedly overwhelmed for capacity, with >80% of your population infected at least once in that 5 years.
        
        Note … that’s if you didn’t do anything. That’s the counter-factual to taking measures against it.
        
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        June 29, 2021 7:07pm
- Inandout
  
  krazy, 4 times an hour and sometimes for 2 minutes duration doth the C19 lady spout.
  ‘Radio propaganda is propaganda aimed at influencing attitudes towards a certain cause or position, delivered through radio broadcast. The power of radio propaganda came from its revolutionary nature. The radio, like later technological advances in the media, allowed information to be transmitted quickly and uniformly to vast populations. Internationally, the radio was an early and powerful recruiting tool for propaganda campaigns’.
  Your eyes can avert, but blocking hearing is bloody difficult.
  
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  June 29, 2021 9:25am
- Sir Cullen's Sidekick
  
  You just defined “Sheeple”.
  
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  June 29, 2021 9:35am
- Isobar
  
  Also the opposition should be holding the govt to account.
  
  Where are they on this topic?
  
  Silent.
  
  When the govt and the opposition both agree on the eradication approach – dont expect there to be any change in thinking.
  
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  June 29, 2021 10:15am
Kiwi_in_Paris

Turns out the majority of people dying in the UK of Covid (62%) have had at least one of the jibby jabs. So why am I getting the jibby jabby again doctor? Well, if you do catch Covid, it is more likely to kill you. OK, got it. Good job I’m not one of those crazy anti-vaxxers, eh doctor? Total fruitcakes.

https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/commentisfree/2021/jun/27/why-most-people-who-now-die-with-covid-have-been-vaccinated
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June 29, 2021 8:02am
- krazykiwi
  
  Here’s some info on the Eugenics-supporting developers of the AstraZeneca ‘vaccine’
  
  For instance, mainstream media has had little, if anything, to say about the role of the vaccine developers’ private company – Vaccitech – in the Oxford-AstraZeneca partnership, a company whose main investors include former top Deutsche Bank executives, Silicon Valley behemoth Google and the UK government. All of them stand to profit from the vaccine alongside the vaccine’s two developers, Adrian Hill and Sarah Gilbert, who retain an estimated 10% stake in the company. Another overlooked point is the plan to dramatically alter the current sales model for the vaccine following the initial wave of its administration, which would see profits soar, especially if the now obvious push to make COVID-19 vaccination an annual affair for the foreseeable future is made reality.
  
  Yet, arguably most troubling of all is the direct link of the vaccine’s lead developers to the Wellcome Trust and, in the case of Adrian Hill, the Galton Institute, two groups with longstanding ties to the UK Eugenics movement. The latter organization, named for the “father of eugenics” Francis Galton, is the re-named UK Eugenics Society, a group notorious for its promotion of racist pseudoscience and efforts to “improve racial stock” by reducing the population of those deemed inferior for over a century.
  
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  June 29, 2021 8:17am
  - Brian McDonald
    
    The Galton Institute is working on developing new habits for the Kiwi bird by crossbreeding it with the Nicobar pigeon (the closest living relative of the extinct Dodo bird) to adapt to being awake during the day without going Krazy. Oh, joy.
    
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    June 29, 2021 9:41am
- slightlyrighty
  
  Dude….
  
  In January, the UK was seeing covid deaths at a rate of about 1500 a day.
  
  They then started a vaccination programme.
  
  The 7 day moving average of deaths in the UK is now 17. Today they had 3.
  
  This is why I WILL get the jab.
  
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  June 29, 2021 8:23am
  - Cinematic
    
    Dude…viruses don’t kill at the same rate in perpetuity.
    
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    June 29, 2021 8:35am
    - Fidel Cashflow
      
      Like lockdown v no lockdown, nobody can claim they have worked without a control. Similarly, nobody can claim vaccines are significantly curtailing deaths without a control either. People may say in response “well, obviously there is a link.” But no, they cannot say this, because, as I said above, this is not a scientific conclusion: it just isn’t.
      
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      June 29, 2021 10:58am
      - Ed Snack
        
        The closest we have is to compare similar populations in areas where the Covid protocols were different. There are quite a few examples in the US where different states had quite different approaches. Using a broad brush, the conclusion is that lockdowns and masks have no affect on the spread or severity of the disease, but does have an impact on the economy.
        
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        June 29, 2021 1:19pm
  - Tall Man
    
    The deaths also taper off when the virus has run it’s course and claimed the lives of the most vulnerable.
    
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    June 29, 2021 8:39am
    - Paulus
      
      Last Saturday my US Cousin die in Arizona village.
      He had had two vaccinations and it is recorded as Corona Virus death – BUT he also had serious health problems and serious Parkinson disease 79 years old.
      
      Wife and I over 80 and I have health cautions – looking forward to hearing from anybody when we will have a jab – hope before the Almighty doesn’t get their first.
      
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      June 29, 2021 11:24am
      - Tall Man
        
        Plenty of long walks, up your vitamin D levels and be prepared to take a prophylactic antibiotic at the first sign of any infection.
        
        That would be the advice I would take myself if I was your age.
        
        PS:, the almighty has little to do with it if you don’t take care of yourself.
        
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        June 29, 2021 12:00pm
  - Happychappy
    
    Me too , but the question I would like answered is why those over 65 and have other problems with their health like breathing problems don’t seem to be getting any information on when it might be their turn, is this because of the computer hack of the Waikato District Heallth board or is it they are to slow in getting Vaccines available.
    
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    June 29, 2021 8:40am
    - Lance
      
      It is gross incompetency laid bare for all to see.
      At least a year to prepare and yet the utter shit show of the vaccine rollout is heaped upon us all the while being told it is the “gold standard”.
      
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      June 29, 2021 9:42am
  - krazykiwi
    
    It was 5,367 in Week 1 of 2021. That was the height of winter, and it’s now the height of summer. You may choose to solely attribute the reduced death rate to ‘vaccines’, but multi-decadal mortality datasets suggest there’s more involved.
    
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    June 29, 2021 8:46am
    - Fidel Cashflow
      
      And, as has been said before ad nauseum, the 5,367 figure is simply assumed-without-investigation to be deaths in which Covid was the operative cause. Absent a full autopsy, this conclusion cannot be made.
      
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      June 29, 2021 11:01am
      - krazykiwi
        
        Agreed. The curation of official datasets reflects a desire to build evidence in support of the narrative, rather than to reflect the truth. Revisionist history, with a 1-week period.
        
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        June 29, 2021 1:53pm
      - Batman
        
        Absent a full autopsy? So you’re now a qualified medical examiner Fidel, as well as a voting systems and auditing expert?
        
        You don’t need an autopsy in all cases.
        
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        June 29, 2021 2:43pm
      - Fidel Cashflow
        
        How can anything other than an autopsy determine the cause of death? That is the function of an autopsy.
        
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        June 29, 2021 2:49pm
  - david
    
    Clever virus that picked the vulnerable(low hanging fruit?) first.
    Who would have thunk it?
    
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    June 29, 2021 9:26am
  - Inandout
    
    slight, if you base your choices on one country’s way of dealing with C19 then go for it. You may however make it easier on your body if you wait for the single jab vaccine coming later in the year. You most probably won’t die twixt now and then.
    
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    June 29, 2021 9:30am
  - 2ic
    
    I can’t believe how many ‘likes’ this comment got.
    
    Please understand that Covid-19 – like other coronaviruses – is seasonal. Cases/deaths dropped away last summer in the UK also – with no vaccine. See for yourself:
    https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/
    
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    June 29, 2021 10:31am
  - Surely Knott
    
    Here is the cause of deaths from the UK. If you look at the chart showing cause of death in Feb. You can see that covid was 392.3.
    
    But even though all causes of death should be tracking up due to increased and aging population, all the other “selected causes of death ” are significantly down. Influenza deaths down by 1/3. Respiratory deaths down by 1/2. Heart disease deaths down. Stroke deaths down.
    Dementia deaths down. Interestingly they didn’t include cancer deaths or accidents. But where did all those deaths go? If you die of a stroke and then they test and find you have covid which is it?’
    
    Overall the first chart shows that deaths in Feb 2021 (males 1533 ) , Feb 2020 ( lowest in 20 years- males 1101) were lower than deaths in 2001. (males 1616.5)
    
    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/monthlymortalityanalysisenglandandwales/february2021
    
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    June 29, 2021 11:10am
- Brian McDonald
  
  Did you even read you link KIP, or just get excited by the headline?
  
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  June 29, 2021 9:30am
  - skyblue
    
    [this comment was reviewed by the Mods and DPF and found to breach the rules. It was mistakenly approved. The commenter gets a fortnight ban for submitting it for approval – Mods]
    
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    December 29, 2020 10:12am
    - Fuzzysnuggleduck
      
      goddamn, I had to laugh out loud for that one.
      Can’t say it adds much to the debate- the Mods are being lenient perhaps – but it surely is a stand out comment & will imprint in my memory more than any comment on Trump or the pandemic.
      
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      June 29, 2021 12:23pm
- Benedict Yu
  
  The article explains why that is the case. Very old or very vulnerable of people will still die of covid. But in small numbers. That WILL happen in New Zealand. I don’t think jacinda understands that.
  
  Think of this another way. Over the last month the delta variant has spread through the UK and covid cases havre surged. At the same time, hospitalisations and deaths have plummeted. For one obvious reason.
  
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  June 29, 2021 9:32am
  - Ed Snack
    
    What’s that Benedict, that the delta variant is much less lethal, or that treatment protocols are better, or that it is summer and Vitamin D levels are naturally higher, or …. ?
    
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    June 29, 2021 1:22pm
    - Batman
      
      Vaccination vastly reduces symptoms and effectiveness of the virus. Pfizer reduces risk of hospitalisation by 94%.
      
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      June 29, 2021 2:44pm
- UrbanNeocolonialist
  
  The vaccines are rapidly becoming less effective as covid variants evolve around the very specific targeting of the vaccine. This was foreseen by many experts, but is nonetheless depressing. Our futures will be full of booster shots for new variants.
  https://twitter.com/Undergroundsar3/status/1409531246095523843
  
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  June 29, 2021 10:29am
- virtualmark
  
  Well that Guardian article certainly seems at odds with the health statistics coming out of the USA. For example https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-health-941fcf43d9731c76c16e7354f5d5e187
  
  For those who don’t want to read the source here’s a money quote “analysis of available government data from May shows that breakthrough infections in fully vaccinated people accounted for fewer than 1,200 of more than 853,000 COVID-19 hospitalizations. That’s about 0.1%.”
  
  The quality vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna, Novavax, Astra Zeneca with some asterisks) are 95% effective at protecting from being hospitalised with Covid.
  
  You are free to choose if you want to be vaccinated or not – no one will be forced to be vaccinated. But you need to be adult about shouldering the consequences of the choice you make. Unfortunately Covid vaccines have become a political football rather than a medical one.
  
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  June 29, 2021 1:34pm
  - Batman
    
    Quite so VM but if one is to take a very dark look on things, perhaps it will be a benefit to humanity as those who refuse to get vaccinated for political or conspiratorial reasons will self-select themselves for a harsh lesson in personal consequences.
    
    I hope that survive their bouts of whatever variant they contract.
    
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    June 29, 2021 2:47pm
    - virtualmark
      
      There’ll be two levels of consequences.
      
      Firstly, if you aren’t vaccinated then over time you might find you’re unable to travel, or take part in some events and activities that you might want to, or in some cases you might need to find a new job. Let’s call those “social consequences”.
      
      Secondly, if you aren’t vaccinated then you’re sitting in Darwin’s waiting room. Frankly some of these people will die for their political beliefs. Let’s call those “health consequences”.
      
      I’m fine with people having the choice of whether to vaccinate or not. And right now our public health measures mean there’s no consequences of that choice. Yet. But once we start to open up again to the rest of the world then the options, choices and consequences will become more stark.
      
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      June 29, 2021 3:07pm
I remember when

Will the Wellington lockdown be the first lockdown without any community cases.
Total success.
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June 29, 2021 8:06am
- Frank the tank
  
  No there’s the Auckland one earlier this year. No cases were recorded after the lockdown.
  
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  June 29, 2021 8:11am
  - Fidel Cashflow
    
    Lockdowns do not work:
    
    https://thefederalist.com/2021/06/24/new-study-finds-lockdowns-didnt-save-any-lives-and-may-have-killed-more-people-than-doing-nothing/
    
    https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w28930/w28930.pdf
    
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    June 29, 2021 11:03am
- MCos
  
  There was one community case.
  
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  June 29, 2021 8:27am
  - Tall Man
    
    Not correct.
    
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    June 29, 2021 8:39am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Untrue
    
    No infections of Covid-19 have been detected in the New Zealand community since the man from Sydney arrived in Wellington.
    
    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/125592416/covid19-wellington-to-move-to-alert-level-1-at-1159-pm-on-tuesday-quarantinefree-travel-pause-extended
    
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    June 29, 2021 3:25pm
    - MCos
      
      The Australian gentleman tested positive when he arrived back in Oz.
      He must have been infected before or after his trip.
      He arrived back in Sydney Monday 11.30am & NZ was notified of the positive test next evening.
      One would think there wasn’t enough time to catch the bug & symptoms to appear to encourage the guy to get a test after leaving NZ.
      
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      June 29, 2021 4:21pm
- Cinematic
  
  Out of an abundance of caution can Doomfield, Baker etc please fuck off.
  
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  June 29, 2021 8:38am
  - artemisia
    
    Cautiousness is different though. Ask the PM.
    
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    June 29, 2021 9:34am
  - Great White Buffalo
    
    Something is very, very wrong. This highly transmissible, virulent, contagious, infectious, explosive, beast of a virus is proving not to be so. In spite of the messages from our health experts and Government which seem designed to instil in us all the fear of God, this virus is not spreading like wildfire through any of these communities. From the covid “outbreaks” in the Sydney northern beaches last year, to the situations in Papatoetoe in March, Melbourne in May, Wellington and Sydney now, something isn’t right. The infected woman who returned to NZ from Europe in January then travelled to Northland visiting many retail and hospitality passed the virus on to no-one, not even her husband. All close, immediate, casual, fleeting contacts of the two infected Sydney-siders that recently spent the weekend enjoying Wellington’s hospitality have not themselves become infected, not a single one. Something is wrong.
    
    Incredibly we find Wellington with social restrictions in place affecting Wellingtonians’ freedom and liberties and economy. No covid cases – restrictions enacted because one single infected person visited the city and might have passed the virus on. Something is not right. Even Gladys has panicked as we find all of Sydney with stay at home orders because of just 130 identified cases, 130 from nearly 400,000 people tested for the virus. There are just four people in NSW deemed ill enough with covid to be hospitalised and just one in the whole of Australia so ill from covid that he/she is in ICU. I would have expected thousands of cases from such a transmissible, explosive contagious virus. Something is not right. And out of an abundance of caution our Government has suspended quarantine free travel from all of Australia, home to an estimated 650,000 NZers because of these positive cases. There are 26 million people living in Australia. Something is not right.
    
    Why are our health experts and governments acting and treating us this way? When will the madness end?
    
    But all is not lost. I recently read a very encouraging announcement from several Singapore Government Ministers. “Instead of monitoring covid-19 infection numbers every day (and instilling panic), we will focus on the outcomes ”how many fall very sick, how many in ICU, how many requiring intubation etc.” Thank heaven! And “…covid-19 may never go away…it is possible to live normally with it in our midst. Every year people catch the flu. The overwhelming majority fully recover…with little or no medication. But a minority, especially the elderly and those with comorbidities, can get very ill and some succumb.”
    
    May such common sense find its way to our shores…and soon.
    
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    June 29, 2021 1:17pm
    - Cinematic
      
      Brilliant post.
      
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      June 29, 2021 1:29pm
    - Nickc2
      
      Agree. However, in NZ it has been successful in:
      1. Driving the country closer towards bankruptcy and
      2. Making our sheeplike voting population re-elect a Socialist/Communist Govt.
      
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      June 29, 2021 1:36pm
    - MCos
      
      On the other hand.
      A guy I knew in Thailand caught it from his wife who picked it up at the market and infected him and their kid.
      He died two days ago.
      
      So excuse me if you don’t mind if I go along with the status quo.
      
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      June 29, 2021 4:49pm
- Inandout
  
  Irw, as most in that area are public servants and work from home they won’t be affected. Just think though how the sheep are effectively herded once again and the more businesses going bust.
  
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  June 29, 2021 9:33am
  - Batman
    
    Working from home? Bahaha, nobody loves being in the office to have meetings more than the public service.
    
    You clearly are nowhere near a Wellington rush hour, especially in poor weather!
    
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    June 29, 2021 11:36am
- Sir Cullen's Sidekick
  
  Wellington Sheeple, who always vote Labour, love the lockdown and they want more.
  
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  June 29, 2021 9:36am
  - Batman
    
    1) not true about loving it. We mostly find it annoying, like anyone else.
    2) it’s not a lockdown, everyone is still going to work and going to bars and restaurants etc.
    3) the weather is currently more of a hassle than Level 2 haha
    
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    June 29, 2021 11:32am
  - KevO'Brien
    
    Let them have it. They can be fitted into Somes Island, possibly squashed, and Wellington freed of an excess of public servants clogging up the roads. Return by permanent swap for Cinders only.
    
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    June 29, 2021 12:40pm
- oc35
  
  If no cases in community then the same result as no lock down.
  
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  June 29, 2021 1:12pm
Frank the tank

Muzzles, muzzles everyone buy your government issued muzzle.

We might not have the Wuflu but darn it you all aren’t scared enough yet.

And how do I scan in if I have a Nokia 3210?
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June 29, 2021 8:06am
- Ehlana
  
  Frank, you’ll get to fill in a form. And therefore probably leave your contact details open to the world…
  
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  June 29, 2021 8:52am
  - Weetbix3ways
    
    Yessir, those are DEFINITELY my true and accurate contact details. That’s me, Frodo Baggins of the Shire!
    
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    June 29, 2021 9:15am
  - artemisia
    
    Those sign in lists have a preponderance of M Mouse and J Ardern. Who knew there are so many.
    
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    June 29, 2021 9:50am
  - Frank the tank
    
    Can you sign in as Batman?
    
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    June 29, 2021 11:15am
    - Batman
      
      I do hope you mean the character and aren’t suggesting identity theft of a poster.
      
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      June 29, 2021 2:50pm
- cas
  
  After several months of going back and forwards to MOH I got told to download Rippl, which is apparently approved for older phones. But if Rippl can work on older phones ( which it doesn’t always) why can’t the official MOH app do the same? No-one in my neck of the woods is scanning.
  
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  June 29, 2021 10:22am
Tony Stuart

It’s certainly cold out there this morning. And in fact it seems that hell may have frozen over, as Tova O’Brien has given the PM a right serve:

Tova O’Brien: Jacinda Ardern has misled the public and shut down debate on hate speech laws

OPINION: Jacinda Ardern is wrong about her own hate speech law. Completely and utterly wrong.

Not only is the Prime Minister wrong about the basic facts of the proposal, she was wrong to shut down debate on hate speech on The AM Show this morning with her glib, inaccurate dismissals.

The Prime Minister and Ministers develop policy and set policy directions for law. If they don’t understand the policy direction and intent of the law, how can they expect the judiciary to interpret and apply the law?

On Newshub Nation we questioned the Justice Minister about the proposed changes and tested his policy direction and intent with examples. He conceded that, for example, if millennials expressed hatred towards boomers they could potentially be found liable for hate speech.
Ardern is now contesting that, saying the law will only apply if it ‘incites violence’. That is wrong, the proposed threshold is as low as ‘insulting’ someone.

The Prime Minister was dismissive about the interview and said we were trivialising the need for the law change – the terror attacks on March 15.

It is insulting and irresponsible to pit journalists – or anyone who questions or debates the legislation – as somehow being in opposition to the needs of the victims of March 15th.

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/06/tova-o-brien-jacinda-ardern-has-misled-the-public-and-shut-down-debate-on-hate-speech-laws.html

O’Brien then goes on to itemise the areas where she believes the Prime Minister has misled the public, the last one being this claim:

“This is about trying to incite people to take action and activity against a group, the bar is high”
Is it? Because her Justice Minister made it sound like the bar could be quite low.
Which is precisely why we need to be able to have debate, discuss examples and question how the law could be applied.
By misleading the public and then shutting down debate Jacinda Ardern has struck the most magnificent own goal, totally playing into the hands of critics of the proposed changes who think it will stymie free speech.

This is an extraordinary piece from a journalist and political editor who has been on the of the PM’s strongest media supporters. Is it too much to hope that this could be the beginning of a trend, of the PM being held to account for the content of her word salads?
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June 29, 2021 8:08am
- Frank the tank
  
  Maybe, just maybe Toxic has lost her National leakers over the last week through a combination of fear and resignations…..
  
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  June 29, 2021 8:10am
  - Tony Stuart
    
    I think it’s more a case of 1) Ardern’s obfuscation on the AM Show yesterday, and 2) Journalists realising that they will be subject to these proposals as well. Hell hath no fury like a journalist scorned!
    
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    June 29, 2021 8:23am
    - DeepBlue
      
      And the second tranche of $55m has been awarded. How does one find out where it went?
      
      13 1
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      June 29, 2021 9:17am
      - KevO'Brien
        
        Where’s the authority for any such payment?
        
        6 1
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        June 29, 2021 12:42pm
  - Isobar
    
    Lol – considering we all know about the Collins late night meeting and the fact that Bridges sent her a subtle FU afterwards. I think its fair to say the leaks have not stopped, in fact her handling of the situation has probably encouraged more.
    
    I doubt those on the ‘anyone but collins’ team have anything to fear. National needs them now more than they need them. Collins getting rid of more of them will be the end of the party.
    
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    June 29, 2021 10:20am
- Gravelroad
  
  @Tony Stuart:
  For every one keyboard interview undertaken by O’Brien, Vance &co which seems to criticise the great one, there will be six more lauding Ms Ardern and her government.
  A short while back people were surprised to see that column from Ardern supporter, Andrea Vance, which inexplicably sought to cast doubt on Ms Ardern’s drive for transparency.
  But that was then.
  Have a look back at Vance’s column on 20/06/21 where she lectures and fumes at everyone from boomers and “rump” ACT supporters to stupid people who don’t get Jacinda’s new Aotearoa and react with “white grievance”.
  Ms Vance is all over the place – slightly more even than her heroine Ardern.
  See the last sentence of the diatribe of June 20 which seeks to justify her judging and insulting of large chunks of NZ society:
  “But it is evolution – and the majority of people are ready for a more liberal and tolerant era.”
  A “more liberal and tolerant era” under the control of government mandated anti free speech laws.
  Don’t think so.
  
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  June 29, 2021 8:44am
  - Tall Man
    
    “the majority of people are ready for a more liberal and tolerant era.”
    
    Actually Tony she is correct.
    
    We ARE ready after 3 3/4 years of this unadulterated crap as delivered by this government as Karl DuFresne says.
    
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    June 29, 2021 8:57am
- Bobba Fret
  
  Yes I think hell may have frozen over, as you say above, Tova has given our PM a serve, but check out the NZ Herald.
  Audrey Young has also turned on her!
  https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/audrey-young-jacinda-ardern-gets-it-wrong-on-hate-speech-proposal/DKFQ4JTNOINZZFJPQJHJJEFQSE/
  (sorry I think its pay walled).
  
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  June 29, 2021 9:23am
- Sir Cullen's Sidekick
  
  [Change the record – once is enough. Mod.]
  
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  June 29, 2021 9:43am
- Scott
  
  Credit where credit is die. Tova has done a great job with this article.
  Hate speech laws are a serious threat to our democracy.
  My understanding is that the prime minister was very hurt by Tova’s article. “For $50m all in expect is a little kindness”. ?
  
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  June 29, 2021 9:56am
krazykiwi

Postcard from Sydney:

Not much has changed in that year. Our visionary ‘leaders’ have come up with nothing new, save a revved-up vocabulary to keep us on the edge of our toilet seats: the anthropomorphised, cunning and clever virus hides and pounces when we least expect it, for it is a “beast” that, unlike any other matter in the universe, travels “at the speed of light”.

So scary is it that everyday descriptions are inadequate. Only the language of airport thrillers and Hollywood can capture the Clear and Present Danger of Jason Bourne’s Delta Variant; that’s why borders have to be “slammed shut” and the virus “hunted down”, “crushed” and “eliminated”. “Flatten the Curve”, an early instalment of the Pandemic Wars franchise, was nowhere near sexy enough.

Sadly, instead of action heroes leading us to safety (whatever that looks like), we have premiers tootling by again in their clown cars – parp, parp! – stuffed with their supporting cast of chief chuckle officers and assorted buffoons, blindly seeking a way out of the quagmire of hypocrisy and contradiction they have created.
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June 29, 2021 8:11am
- Ipanema69
  
  There are two possible explanations. The first is that Tov has been listening what Judith Collins and David Seymour have been saying about the hate speech laws. Additionally there may be somewhat of a realization by the media that these laws will directly impact their organixations.
  
  The second is that Tovs didnt get an invite to the wedding.
  
  More likely the latter IMHO
  
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  June 29, 2021 8:20am
  - RockyJ
    
    Brilliant! Comment of the day
    
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    June 29, 2021 9:19am
  - Sir Cullen's Sidekick
    
    Toxic Tova will never listen to Judith. That means she is not the bride’s maid for the Queen of NZ’s summer wedding.
    
    5 2
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    June 29, 2021 9:47am
  - Philview
    
    Yes, if anyone stirs up ‘hate’ against political opinion it is journalists. I was looking forward to seeing that one tested in court but sounds like Jacinda has made a captains call in a media interview.
    
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    June 29, 2021 9:57am
- KevO'Brien
  
  Delta variant scary but not so dangerous:
  https://conservativeplaybook.com/2021/06/28/follow-the-science-deadly-delta-variant-registers-a-99-9-recovery-rate/
  
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  June 29, 2021 8:49am
  - krazykiwi
    
    That is a Case Fatality Rate (CFR) of 0.1%. As noted in the article, the WHO suggests that only 1 in 20 infections become a ‘case’ given that the other 19 are so mild as to be undetectable. So the IFR is ~0.005%
    
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    June 29, 2021 8:57am
JibberJabber

Jeepers even ol` Audrey gets to criticise her idol over the “Hate” speech debacle from Ardern and Faafoi,
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/audrey-young-jacinda-ardern-gets-it-wrong-on-hate-speech-proposal/DKFQ4JTNOINZZFJPQJHJJEFQSE/

Maybe there is an unwritten rule that they can print one article per year disagreeing with their paymaster in an effort to show they are unbiased towards this clusterfuck train crash of an incompetent govt?
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June 29, 2021 8:16am
- yossarian
  
  Getting their “see we hold the government to account” articles out of the way so come 2023, they can return back to script on how the whole world loves our Prime Minister.
  
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  June 29, 2021 9:06am
- RockyJ
  
  I think you have a valid point. My observation is that when the main stream media criticise the government it is on every topic except Maori independence initiatives. That is so they can comply with the Public Good Journalism media corruption fund of $55million they are accessing.
  However, they do relate politicians’ announcements on this topic but in a negative light. Sly buggers but when you are losing money you get desperate.
  
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  June 29, 2021 9:25am
- Sir Cullen's Sidekick
  
  Audrey Not So Young suddenly realises she has a conscience. LOL.
  
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  June 29, 2021 9:55am
I remember when

Ardern and Faafoi have stuffed up the proposed hate speech law: Duncan Garner:
So another ‘airy, fairy’ Labour attempt at legislating something without due process runs off the rails.
Fortunately it has managed to do what Labour wanted by making people scared to speak out.
‘I hate speech.’
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June 29, 2021 8:22am
- Sir Cullen's Sidekick
  
  Duncan Labour Poodle Garner suddenly gets a vision that his Queen is wrong. But he will be back to his senses soon.
  
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  June 29, 2021 9:56am
R

It’s good to see some doctors in New Zealand are committed to science and oppose rollout of the experimental Pfizer vaccine.

“The infection fatality rate of COVID-19 has recently been estimated to be 0.15% which is similar to that of a severe Influenza season.“

http://www.nzdsos.com
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June 29, 2021 8:22am
- UrbanNeocolonialist
  
  depends on population age and co-morbidities. With large number of obese and less evolutionary adaptation to coronaviruses in the polynesian gene pool (early modelling suggested they would be at several times greater risk than Europeans) NZ would likely have a significantly higher IFR
  
  6 7
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  June 29, 2021 8:49am
  - Tall Man
    
    Unless the recently discovered “Asian” variety from 20,000 years ago has given them some ancient immunity.
    
    Also, we are now told that maori science and maori health treatments are awesome so they may be able to dodge the covid bullet 😉
    
    8 2
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    June 29, 2021 9:11am
  - UrbanNeocolonialist
    
    Note spanish flu killed 8x as many Maori as Europeans in NZ. It killed about 1-2% in most places, but 10-20% in many pacific islands.
    
    5 1
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    June 29, 2021 10:54am
    - Matt Long
      
      It was prior to antibiotics, how many died of secondary infection?
      
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      June 29, 2021 1:16pm
Maggy Wassilieff

If it’s your Government pushing to limit free speech by introducing a lower bar or lower test for hate speech – then school yourself up before you get schooled yourself.

It’s already against the law to incite violence in New Zealand – the proposals take it much further than what even Ardern knows, or admits to. It could be against the law to insult and/or offend people if these proposals become law – it significantly lowers the test of hate speech.

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/06/duncan-garner-jacinda-ardern-and-kris-faafoi-have-stuffed-up-the-proposed-hate-speech-law.html

I don’t think it is too difficult to realise that our PM is seriously out of her depth.
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June 29, 2021 8:22am
- Tony Stuart
  
  Simon Bridges, National’s Justice spokesman has a LLB from Auckland University, and a post-graduate Law degree from Oxford University. Kris Faafoi is a graduate of the New Zealand Broadcasting School, and Jacinda Ardern has a Communications degree from Waikato University.
  
  So whose opinion are you more likely to trust on a question of law?
  
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  June 29, 2021 8:27am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Here’s the extraordinary thing…
    
    I have no legal qualifications, but I can read.
    
    https://www.justice.govt.nz/assets/Documents/Publications/Incitement-Discussion-Document.pdf
    
    Kris Faafoi wrote the foreword to this document..
    He should have been aware of its contents.
    
    The Prime Minister could have at least realised that its title “Proposals against incitement of hatred and discrimination” was nothing to do with “Incitement to Violence”.
    
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    June 29, 2021 9:03am
    - insider
      
      No Kris signed the foreword. He probably only read a paper written by officials promoting the law change (because that was what they were instructed to do).
      
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      June 29, 2021 9:29am
      - KevO'Brien
        
        He can read?
        
        10 1
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        June 29, 2021 12:45pm
    - Benedict Yu
      
      Yes I have read it. If we take the rugby player with huge following who said gays belong in hell… Surely there can be no doubt that he would have been persecuted under these laws??
      
      Why can’t we be given ten “practical examples” of speech that would be lawful now but UNLAWFUL under the new laws? Then we can have a debate. Is that too much to ask?
      
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      June 29, 2021 9:40am
      - Matt Long
        
        Maybe you should look at what Folau actually said?
        
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        June 29, 2021 1:19pm
      - Bluegrass
        
        As I recall that rugby player quoted the Bible as the author of that statement. Hence the debate: e.g. should the Bible be banned as a repository of ‘hate speech’?
        
        Re your question about ten example, I suspect that your PM’s minders would veto that having regard to the general thrust of a basic rule of statutory and contractual legal interpretation: expressio unius est exclusio alterius.
        
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        June 29, 2021 1:19pm
    - pdm
      
      MW – Faafoi wrote or signed off on?
      
      There is a difference and in Faafois case it is easy to understand that he signed off on something he did not understand.
      
      He has never impressed me as a potential winner of Mastermind.
      
      12 1
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      June 29, 2021 9:50am
    - Ehlana
      
      I’m beginning to think a degree in Communications does not require excellence in English comprehension.
      
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      June 29, 2021 10:23am
      - kowtow
        
        or diction.
        
        19 0
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        June 29, 2021 10:33am
      - lifesgood
        
        It is a degree that trains you to bullshit, nothing more.
        
        16 0
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        June 29, 2021 10:49am
  - Sir Cullen's Sidekick
    
    Simon Bridges has also a degree in sharpening knifes and a PhD in leaking.
    
    1 27
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    June 29, 2021 9:57am
- tf78
  
  She is drowning in the proverbial car park puddle.
  
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  June 29, 2021 8:30am
  - sooty
    
    Better give her a snorkel!
    
    4 0
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    June 29, 2021 9:59am
- kowtow
  
  They are also trying to piggy back this draconian measure off the Royal Commission , when this had been one of Angry Andy’s babies well before that.
  
  Disgusting opportunism.
  
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  June 29, 2021 8:37am
  - RockyJ
    
    I notice that all of Jacinda’s outrageous moves to transform our society are someone else’s idea. You mention the Royal Commission on the Christchurch massacre.
    There is also the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigeneous People (leading to He Puapua), and the goals for climate change mitigation set by the IPCC.
    This is like a child found with her hand in the cookie jar saying “my brother made me do it”.
    
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    June 29, 2021 9:31am
  - Philview
    
    Yes, once again the Government is changing the factual timeline to sell their proposal.
    
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    June 29, 2021 10:08am
- KevO'Brien
  
  Recall!
  
  13 2
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  June 29, 2021 8:50am
  - Sir Cullen's Sidekick
    
    yeah right. She will retire in 2035. Only 14 more years to go.
    
    2 4
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    June 29, 2021 9:57am
    - KevO'Brien
      
      She may not make it to 2023. She has severely offended God. Her hate speech reached to the Heavens.
      
      2 3
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      June 29, 2021 12:49pm
- kowtow
  
  Paraphrasing David Seymour ;
  
  If the people making this law don’t understand it , what chance the courts , the police and the rest of us have .
  
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  June 29, 2021 9:09am
  - KevO'Brien
    
    It happens that Courts do have to decide from to time what the Parliament actually passed. They can be fooled and measures slipped in. Other times the language can be too obscure to be plain to a simpleton but understood by others. Not all MP’s can read a Bill or Explanatory Memoranda. Kindergarten level 3 English should be a requirement for MP’s.
    
    7 1
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    June 29, 2021 12:55pm
- Nickc2
  
  She’d be out of the depth in a carpark puddle.
  
  10 1
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  June 29, 2021 10:40am
lifesgood

I refuse to scan. It is too much of a “big brother” situation. Bloody cheek expecting everyone to offer up all their privacy. My life btw is ordinary, nothing to be ashamed of, but still! If it becomes the law looks like I won’t be going anywhere. Where is the outrage? Are NZers a bunch of mindless sheep? Are all the Aussie jokes right?
53 6
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June 29, 2021 8:24am
- KiWombat
  
  My Nokia does not scan anything, but if I wave it in front of the crazy box outside some establishments, everybody seems to be happy !
  
  46 1
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  June 29, 2021 8:47am
- mandk
  
  I have never scanned or signed in.
  
  26 5
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  June 29, 2021 8:53am
  - Steve Todd
    
    Yet.
    
    3 6
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    June 29, 2021 9:51am
    - mandk
      
      I could identify as Hipkins A Pratt, or SWMBO Ardern, or even Chicken Little.
      
      7 1
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      June 29, 2021 12:02pm
  - Don Beckett
    
    Me neither – & I won’t anytime – law or not. I don’t want ‘Big Brother’ knowing my every move. I’m pretty good at flying below the radar.
    
    12 2
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    June 29, 2021 10:51am
    - Isobar
      
      To be fair – if you have a phone that was made in the last ten years, big brother already knows.
      
      6 0
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      June 29, 2021 12:22pm
  - KevO'Brien
    
    I don’t have a cell phone.
    
    6 1
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    June 29, 2021 12:56pm
- Happy1
  
  Baa Baa black sheep.
  
  3 0
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  June 29, 2021 9:51am
- Sir Cullen's Sidekick
  
  Why do you think I keep using the term Sheeple all the time?
  
  6 0
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  June 29, 2021 9:59am
- lilman
  
  Scan in, FUCK OFF, never have ,NEVER will, I wont pay a fine and I will go to Jail on this one.
  
  What a load of shit.
  
  13 2
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  June 29, 2021 10:19am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  I don’t scan. I sign in if asked. Donald Duck, Hollywood. When they ask for a phone number I just tell them not to be silly, ducks don’t have phones
  
  22 3
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  June 29, 2021 10:22am
  - MCos
    
    Donald Duck
    
    Does it never occur to you why they humour you?
    
    2 11
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    June 29, 2021 11:38am
  - rangitoto
    
    That Don Duck gets around.
    
    8 0
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    June 29, 2021 11:55am
Swifty

A question for the day: Is Glasgow full of specky bams?

https://youtu.be/ZpBTNVre3fs
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June 29, 2021 8:26am
Maggie Pie

TRENDING

NewstalkZB reporting earlier that yet another MIQ ‘Security Guard’ has been dismissed, for what they described as….
“Inappropriate and unwanted contact towards a female returnee”

FFS, what is it with these dik-headed morons?
Put a uniform on and suddenly they think they’re God’s Gift.

I’ve been hit on dozens of times by creeps like this.
First thing I ask them…. “What do you earn?” then “What sort of car you drive?”, followed by “Where do you live?”

I can honestly say, not ONE of them has ever met the criteria 😀
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June 29, 2021 8:27am
- igm
  
  Good Lord, is that not profiling?
  
  21 1
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  June 29, 2021 8:40am
  - Maggie Pie
    
    No, not at all. I’ve already done that before I even ASK a question.
    
    28 3
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    June 29, 2021 9:05am
    - Don Beckett
      
      Aahh…….you’re a hard woman, Maggie. 😆
      
      9 2
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      June 29, 2021 10:55am
- 70andstilllearning
  
  You won’t need the questions soon Maggie. The new 6 story project developments will be right next door in Remmers!
  
  https://ourauckland.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/news/2021/06/auckland-council-considers-urban-development-policy/
  
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  June 29, 2021 9:00am
  - Maggie Pie
    
    🙁
    
    14 3
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    June 29, 2021 9:06am
- RockyJ
  
  FYI Maggie, I earn what the pension pays, I drive a Holden Commodore and I live in Auckland.
  
  10 0
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  June 29, 2021 9:33am
  - Batman
    
    When you eventually swap out the Commo you’ll be shocked at the quality and efficiency of other motor vehicles ?
    
    9 7
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    June 29, 2021 11:33am
  - Steve Todd
    
    Like Maggie said, Rocky, “not ONE of them has ever met the criteria[.]” ?
    
    8 0
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    June 29, 2021 11:41am
- Steve Todd
  
  First thing I ask them…. “What do you earn?” then “What sort of car you drive?” […]
  
  Heh, heh, that reminds me, Maggie. I went into a shop about 15 or 20 years ago, and the young woman behind the counter was wearing a T-shirt that said, “No Money, No Car, No Me”.
  
  I had to laugh — albeit inwardly.
  
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  June 29, 2021 9:36am
  - Maggie Pie
    
    Do you remember where the shop was Steve?
    Wouldn’t mind getting one of those 😀
    
    16 2
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    June 29, 2021 9:55am
    - Steve Todd
      
      It wouldn’t matter, I’m afraid, Maggie.
      
      Your best bet now would be a T-shirt shop, or, failing that, to specifically order one from a T-shirt printing company.
      
      A nuisance, I know.
      
      6 0
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      June 29, 2021 10:15am
      - Don Beckett
        
        Reminds me of back in the ’60’s, driving along in the car with a sign on it – NRNR. The last NR means No Ride. I’ll leave the first to your imagination.
        Ah for the carefree days of the 1960’s.
        
        9 1
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        June 29, 2021 10:59am
  - JibberJabber
    
    I had a laugh a while back when I saw across the back of a car window “grab ur bag Bitch, you’ve scored!” in 6″ high letters, the young fella was sitting all alone in his ’86 Toyota Corolla…?
    
    12 0
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    June 29, 2021 11:37am
- Benedict Yu
  
  I know you think it is funny. But I find women who ask me these questions 5 minutes after meeting me to be repulsive. It is a total red flag to most men. Run.
  
  15 0
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  June 29, 2021 9:46am
  - Batman
    
    My answer to that money question is usually “I earn fuck you money” and if they don’t get the musical reference then they don’t meet MY standards! Hahaha
    
    6 6
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    June 29, 2021 11:29am
- Greg Ettridge
  
  Maggie it can be misleading.
  I drive the same car as Gerry Harvey, a 1992 Lexus LS 400
  It’s done 480,000 kms, motor purrs like a kitten.
  Looks like a granny car, actually goes like the powers of piss when you floor it.
  I drive it because it is a great car to drive.
  The limiter on them at 255kmh on these is a little draconian.
  At my age, I am so happy it doesn’t attract live in house keepers, my kids are so much happier of this fact than I am.
  Have a great day
  
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  June 29, 2021 10:22am
  - Maggie Pie
    
    You weren’t ever a Security Guard were you Greg?
    
    12 2
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    June 29, 2021 10:55am
- lifesgood
  
  You only need to look at them, no need for questions.
  
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  June 29, 2021 10:51am
Maggy Wassilieff

Andrew Little says “stuff” is happening on the mental health front…

Then reveals that on the child mental-health front, all the professionals etc dealing with young children have yet to be vetted!!

FGS!!! If these counsellors are professionals already providing psychological and counselling services then they should have already been police vetted.

“We have a law that says anybody providing professional services to children have to go through a vetting process. That’s one of the conditions that has to be met,” he says.

“This has been an issue that we’ve debated many, many years… Children are too vulnerable to allow just anybody to deal with them on a personal basis.

“We’re actually going to have some safeguards in place and some standards, so that’s what we do.”

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/06/andrew-little-clarifies-government-s-mental-health-spend-after-revelations-of-just-five-extra-acute-beds-in-facilities.html
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June 29, 2021 8:40am
- Tall Man
  
  Misreported Maggy, he said “stuff all is happening”.
  
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  June 29, 2021 8:52am
  - Don Beckett
    
    How pathetic. 5 years ago, I had to be police-vetted just for entering rest homes & childcare centres – even though I never visited the childcare facilities.
    
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    June 29, 2021 11:02am
- Tony Stuart
  
  Have they learned nothing from the Lake Alice revelations, and the extraordinary treatment methods of Dr Selwyn Leeks?
  
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  June 29, 2021 8:54am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    I don’t think so..
    
    https://www.newsroom.co.nz/alarm-at-physical-restraints-of-kids-in-care
    
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    June 29, 2021 9:09am
Paulus

Am saddened to read the outline of the report on sexual molestation and rape by some of the Girls of Christchurch Girls High School.
Beecroft, Children’s Commissioner, was very good this morning on the radio about it and is calling for a National enquiry to the extent of these allegations as surely Christchurch is not the only college such affected.
However it is my hope that as there is prima facie evidence that the Police will proceed immediately and take prosecutions of the offenders who we presume are known – assume the girls wish to raise prosecutions or we assume they would not have revealed such information.
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June 29, 2021 9:06am
- Batman
  
  It is certainly disgusting and enraging. And I agree that it will be much more widespread than just Christchurch sadly, despite my prejudices against some of the nastier and knuckle dragging aspects of Christchurch society.
  
  Sadly the police side of things wont be as you assume. The charging and trial process can be awful for the victims and end up with their names being dragged through the mud despite the crime having been committed by the offender and nobody else.
  
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  June 29, 2021 11:19am
  - Zapper
    
    “nastier and knuckle dragging aspects of Christchurch society”
    
    Yep, that’s the dumbest thing I’ll read today
    
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    June 29, 2021 12:35pm
    - Batman
      
      We’re talking about Christchurch, New Zealand’s home of neo-Nazis and ‘first four ships’ types who treat their offspring’s love lives like horses being paired with the best mate for breeding purposes.
      
      It has a nasty undercurrent in some parts.
      
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      June 29, 2021 2:58pm
      - Zapper
        
        Well I moved to Christchurch from elsewhere and have lived there on and off for 15 years. I’ve never met either of those types of people.
        
        I’m sorry to say that you come across as a troll or someone who’s just a bit dim. I suspect it’s a bit of both.
        
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        June 30, 2021 1:25pm
- Fuzzysnuggleduck
  
  I did have to wonder what the bar set to classify for ‘sexual harrassment’ was, since in other cases & other studies it has been ‘Unwanted attention’ – which might even be staring.
  Like Milo Y. said about similar findings in the USA, if you just take the stats at face value, then a uni campus is more dangerous than an African conflict zone where they use rape as an instrument of war.
  I am just a little sceptical, just like stats on Maori health, access to services, justice, systemic racism proven. Or gender pay gaps. I know there is a lack of critical thinking or even plain out manipulation on some of those.
  So I am not clutching at my pearls just yet.
  
  As per the satirical headline “Comet strike -World ends – women and minorities worst affected”.
  
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  June 29, 2021 12:39pm
Yvette

“hate speech” –
From the submission by the Islamic Women’s Council of New Zealand (IWCNZ) to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Attack on Christchurch Mosques on 15 March 2019 –

48. Domestic media reporting of the terrorist attacks overseas was a major problem. The terms ‘Muslim’, ‘Islam’, ‘Islamic’, and ‘Jihad’ became synonymous with terrorism. There was little counterbalance by positive news stories from among the vast majority of peaceable Muslims many of whom were making positive contributions as citizens. Overseas research in 2017 showed that the more news people watched, the more negative their view of Muslims.

And mentioned several times – Muslim women, as the visible face of Islam, have been on the receiving end of a growing level of discrimination, harassment and abuse.
So much for the hijab, which the Prime Minister donned momentarily, but then could take off, perhaps because it was not really her, nor she them.

While Tarrant formed his views in Europe – influenced by incidents he saw of migrant “invaders” in what he perceived as the “Great Replacement” of European society structure – his selection here of Muslims to attack, was apparently more to do with their reproductive rate than the religion of Islam. And here that supposed replacement rate is not evident, so New Zealand as a venue for his atrocities was another great vast fundamental mistake, along with the warped thinking that formulated his hideous actions.

So, Tarrant’s shootings are claimed as instigating changes to New Zealand’s “hate laws”, but had little in fact to do with the dislike of Muslims as outlined in the IWCNZ submission (example above), being circumstances that existed before the attacks.

In conflating the “hate speech” law changes with the 15 March mosques massacres, the Government is actually confusing the issue, and the Muslim community is doing themselves a disservice by not pointing out that what was making their lives a misery, prior to Tarrant, is actually what needs addressing in some way.

As someone wrote recently – it is not “They Are Us”, but “They Are Using Us!”
What has the March 15 attacks to do with inciting – “… hatred on the basis of sex, marital status, ~~religious belief~~, ethical belief (meaning the lack of a religious belief), colour, race, ethnic or national origins, disability, age, political opinion, employment status, family status, or sexual orientation”.

Human Rights should be addressing what disturbing or harming Muslim life BEFORE Tarrant pulled the trigger. And the Muslim community itself may be involved in that solution – but what Arden, Little and Faafoi are doing, is not.

In using the March 15 attacks to incite us to accept their agenda of change, Ardern and others are breaching their own argument on language that incites, to the disadvantage of a minority group, as well as attempting the mislead the rest of us.
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June 29, 2021 9:10am
- Yvette
  
  Shorter version –
  Not only is the Prime Minister wrong about the basic facts of the proposal, she was wrong to shut down debate on hate speech on The AM Show this morning with her glib, inaccurate dismissals.
  
  The Prime Minister was dismissive about the interview [with Faafoi] and said we were trivialising the need for the law change – the terror attacks on March 15.
  It is insulting and irresponsible to pit journalists – or anyone who questions or debates the legislation – as somehow being in opposition to the needs of the victims of March 15th..
  – Tova O’Brien
  https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/06/tova-o-brien-jacinda-ardern-has-misled-the-public-and-shut-down-debate-on-hate-speech-laws.html
  
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  June 29, 2021 11:45am
KevO'Brien

Latest, IRD lead with folly. Govt embarrassment to follow–
Those individual taxpayers whose employers got the wage subsidy are being required to file income tax returns for the year ended 31st March 2021.

Despite PAYE, the individuals are being bombarded with requests for their filings by 7 July. One of my clients has been hit that way. This week I’ve had to deal with the staff worries and personal compliance.

With PAYE the return filing was largely dropped. It was always a nuisance and a worry as most people could not fill in such documents and IRD themselves had a problem communicating what was wanted.

Now it’s back. Even worse, it’s online. The questions are as obscure as ever and navigating the menus can be very hard. I have trouble, despite being an expert but IRD have their ways and bury the return filing several layers deep without a pointer to where to find it. Bamboozlement will prevail as who knows all the technical jargon referred to.

I don’t know how widespread this is yet but it should be for most employees. IRD want to make sure that the subsidy is included the persons taxable income and that some are not escaping tax.
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June 29, 2021 9:16am
- 70andstilllearning
  
  Noticed that if a residual terminal debit applies, the new “online” version defaults to a payment due date of 28/7/21 instead of actual terminal due date of 7/2/22. Looks like its editable but most people wouldn’t know they are being conned into paying early.
  
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  June 29, 2021 9:39am
  - KevO'Brien
    
    When IRD kicks a taxpayer they kick the Government.
    
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    June 29, 2021 9:48am
- alwyn
  
  Be grateful that you don’t live in Australia.
  Almost everyone there needs an Accountant to do their return properly.
  The New Zealand one remains a breeze by comparison.
  
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  June 29, 2021 9:45am
- Tauhei Notts
  
  Kev,
  It was sort of a pleasure to see that I am not the only one who finds the IRD website a torturous trail of unintelligible abbreviations.
  
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  June 29, 2021 9:55am
- KevO'Brien
  
  I’ve got a fix.
  IRD could use their extensive payroll datafiles and run a program against each taxpayer with tax deductions reported and simply see that the amount deducted matched the income reported. With a modest tolerance the ones needing a further look at would fall out. Most people need not be bothered.
  I’m surprised at IRD. Are they wanting to add to the govt fear climate too?
  
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  June 29, 2021 1:07pm
  - Ed Snack
    
    They already do.
    
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    June 29, 2021 1:35pm
    - KevO'Brien
      
      They plainly do as they know the annual balance due.
      
      Why then are they terrorising taxpayers and demanding returns? Is this a cover up for intensified tax collection? Are they only sending out these notices to those whom they know have an amount to pay? If so they are being deceitful in their statements.
      
      The Dept may be under pressure to collect what it can as Robbo’s massive spending has to have some redress.
      
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      June 29, 2021 2:18pm
slightlyrighty

https://www.insider.com/oli-london-white-influencer-criticized-for-identifying-as-korean-2021-6

Is there someone considerably more “woke” than I who can explain why it’s fine to self identify your gender, but not your race??
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June 29, 2021 9:33am
Happychappy

RMA reform first look : Housing supply must be considered in planning, climate change ‘ managed retreat ‘ takes shape.
Well just like Geoffrey Palmer did before him why would you ” Trust ” David Parker to fix the problem, as everything they have touched to do with the housing crisis has turned to crap.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/06/rma-reform-first-look-housing-supply-must-be-considered-in-planning-climate-change-managed-retreat-takes-shape.html
Let’s face it every time they need something to help their cause Jacinda Ardern calls for bipartisan agreement just like has happened with the hate speech law, but turns away help when the opposition and Judith Collins offers it. While the RMA has to go to move forward I believe many don’t trust Labour or Jacinda Ardern and David Parker to fix it without the Greens and Maori making it difficult.
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June 29, 2021 9:43am
alwyn

Anyone else think that these two kayakers are suitable candidates for Darwin awards?
How stupid do you have to be to think that going out in this weather is insane?
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300344346/severe-weather-kayakers-found-after-battling-southerly-swells-in-wellington-harbour
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June 29, 2021 9:51am
- Captain Mainwaring
  
  Apparently they do it all the time. They are ‘experts’ you know.
  
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  June 29, 2021 12:48pm
Rusty

Did Jacinda really mean building high rise apartments and not houses under her Kiwi build plan?

Our young people are never going to know what it is to own and live in a house. Those ghastly looking high rise apartments built in the UK during the 1960’s and 70’s for millions of Brits is a lesson not to copy.

Health, safety, noise, unruly neighbours etc, crammed into these high density areas are just some of the problems that will occur if we go down this road.

Goodness sake only 5 million people live in this country. Cant Jacinda and her cronies not see all this spare land in NZ capable of building thousands of houses on ?

But I suppose when you have lefties and Greenies running this country who would rather put trees and animals before human beings it isn’t surprising.
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June 29, 2021 10:07am
- rangitoto
  
  Do they have the service infrastructure ready for all these high rise apartments?
  
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  June 29, 2021 12:05pm
  - KevO'Brien
    
    Wellington is ready for them, not. Building on the sea doesn’t make it easy to provide for future service requirements like sewage etc.
    
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    June 29, 2021 1:10pm
- YesMinister
  
  There’s no “spare land” in NZ. There’s short-sighted building on farm land, which is the greatest and most precious resource we have, and which is being destroyed and built over with ugly, tedious subdivisions, for ugly, tedious, entirely obsolete people who are being pumped out by unimaginative replication units who can’t come up with anything to do with their lives than produce more unremarkable copies of themselves in a grand cycle of pointlessness.
  
  We could quite happily have wonderful quality of life on acre sections if people didn’t breed like bacteria gobbling up empty sections of agar on a petrie dish just so they could feel mildly ‘fulfilled’ or ‘proud’ of some nonsense human who will most likely forget them in a home one day anyway.
  
  If we insist on breeding being our main activity, soulless high rises are inevitable. They reflect the soullessness of the mindless procreation which made them necessary in the first place.
  
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  June 29, 2021 1:05pm
Maggie Pie

SCOOP….

Bet you wont read this in the MSM!

‘Hunter Biden invested biggly in Pandemic Research firm collaborating with the Wuhan Lab.’

https://twitter.com/RaheemKassam/status/1409549150266482691

(Check out the Replies….PRICELESS 😀 )
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June 29, 2021 10:08am
Yvette

Hate speech?
The Pike River mine will be sealed this week, despite families launching legal action against the move.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/125584522/pike-river-mine-to-be-sealed-despite-legal-action-from-group-of-families

Why mention this under hate speech?
Because it is how you turn an almost $50 million project into a pit of negativity and distrust with hardly saying a word.
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June 29, 2021 10:09am
Maggy Wassilieff

If Covid-19 nasty variants get a hold in NZ and/or NZ fails to receive effective vaccines for all its vulnerable folks by the end of 2021, then who will Team 5 Million hold responsible for these failures to keep us all safe?

“What this demonstrates very clearly is why politicians should not have governance roles when it comes to managing health emergencies like this, because no matter how hard they try, they are vulnerable to electoral risk – they need to be popular.

“It’s very hard to make completely objective decisions when in two and a half years’ time, you have to win a popularity contest.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/445726/covid-19-wellington-should-stay-in-alert-level-2-for-two-more-weeks-professor

My prediction, dear readers:
Our PM will begin to distance herself from Covid-19 decisions as this year rolls on.
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June 29, 2021 10:11am
- Albert_Ross
  
  The italicized words are very true. But they would be equally true if you substituted any area of public policy for “managing health emergencies like this”.
  
  The sad fact is that voters reward bad public policy choices and punish good ones so often that it should be regarded as a miracle on a par with the raising of Lazarus that any politician anywhere ever manages to even make, let alone actually implement, a good policy choice. It’s very easy to carp at them, but we should be aware of the constant, job-threatening pressure that they are under to make short-sighted and counterproductive choices.
  
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  June 29, 2021 10:58am
trout

Just think: if NZ was renamed Aotearoa the Olympic Team would be near the front of the queue entering the Olympic Games opening. Just behind Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, American Samoa, Andorra, Angola (all small teams – so no long wait).
But NZ will be remembered for this:
https://www.hubcityspokes.com/cartoons/af-branco-jun-26-2021#sthash.aGQj8lvA.dpbs
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June 29, 2021 10:15am
- Sacha
  
  Just think about it:
  Hamilton, NZ. or Hamilton, A.
  Auckland NZ. or Tamaki, A.
  Wairoa NZ. or Wairoa, A.
  
  The mail might never get through.
  
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  June 29, 2021 1:33pm
Maggy Wassilieff

Compulsory diversity training for Public servants

https://www.bassettbrashandhide.com/post/perhaps-george-orwell-was-right?postId=996e79e0-3358-4090-b956-253cef24ebad
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June 29, 2021 10:37am
- Nickc2
  
  In Democratic countries, the practice is known as Brain Washing. In Communist/Socialist countries, it’s called Re-education but in lil-olde-NZ, we call it Diversity Training.
  IMO, she’s Brain Washing our Public Servants and so far ironically it’s only been rejected by a few School Teachers of all things. How did that work out?
  
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  June 29, 2021 10:53am
- graham
  
  Wow … if the details in that post are correct, this is getting pretty nasty.
  
  I was one of several recipients of an email from somebody who works in the Ministry of Education. I don’t know their name, or their gender. But this is what the email said:
  
  “I am writing to you about the issue of compelled speech in the Ministry of Education here in New Zealand.
  
  …
  
  “We have also been pressured to attend Te Reo classes in working hours instead of doing our regular duties, and something called Te Arawhiti training is also now being pushed and, once again, paid for (all expenses included!) by New Zealand taxpayers.
  
  “In the latest part of this ideological push, this week I was personally called aside by my boss and told that I *must* now use Maori language greetings and sign offs in internal emails I send. There was a threat of reprimand if I didn’t do so.
  
  …
  
  “Not only is Maori being forced upon us now, but more and more internal documents include a huge number of Maori words that neither I nor any of my team mates understand or use by our own choice. It is getting to the point that many of these internal emails and documents are unreadable and incomprehensible to non-Maori speakers or staff, especially those whose first language is not even English.
  
  That last part is something many of us have seen for some time!
  
  But being told that you HAVE to use Maori language greetings and sign offs in internal emails? Wow.
  
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  June 29, 2021 10:59am
  - alloytoo
    
    One wonders, if you substituted another language would anybody notice?
    
    Maybe keep strategic macrons?
    
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    June 29, 2021 1:21pm
  - Paulus
    
    Buy a Maori English Dictionary then !
    
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    June 29, 2021 1:45pm
  - Yvette
    
    Graham – “… something called Te Arawhiti training …”
    
    Welcome to the Office for Māori Crown Relations – Te Arawhiti
    This is a new Crown agency dedicated to fostering strong, ongoing and effective relationships with Māori across Government. Our name, Te Arawhiti, means ‘the bridge’. The name symbolises the bridge between Māori and the Crown, the past and the future, and the journey from grievance to partnership.
    
    Te Arawhiti, and the priorities the office will focus on in coming years, is a reflection of the kōrero given by thousands of New Zealanders at hui held around the motu in 2018. By getting out and listening to the people in our communities, we have a clear idea of what New Zealanders want and expect this new portfolio to do.
    
    We will work to make the Crown a better Treaty partner, able to engage effectively with Māori on a range of issues. – https://www.tearawhiti.govt.nz
    
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    June 29, 2021 3:24pm
- KevO'Brien
  
  Is it lawful?
  
  6 1
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  June 29, 2021 1:12pm
Matt Long

Ministry for the Environment capture septic tank overflow as protected wet land. No earthwork within 100 metres septic tank overflow, I can’t find the words… https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/developers-warn-septic-tanks-overflow-meets-definition-of-wetland-hurting-housing-supply/KXF2AOS2VK7GHR2QVHSMF7RYIM/
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June 29, 2021 10:43am
- tf78
  
  Septic tank over flows?! Maybe the tank needs emptying.
  
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  June 29, 2021 10:49am
Maggy Wassilieff

Why are our daughters/grand-daughters enduring sexual abuse and harassment?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/28/new-zealand-must-tackle-epidemic-of-sexual-violence-says-childrens-commissioner
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June 29, 2021 10:50am
- Ruahine
  
  All they need to do is wear a mask. It works so well when nothing else does.
  
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  June 29, 2021 11:07am
- Fidel Cashflow
  
  While not to dismiss actual cases of rape (i.e. forced penetration with the penis) if the definition of “sexual assault” is changed and is very broad, of course the numbers will increase. Does it include, for instance, an unsophisticated 16 year old male grabbing a bum, or performing a range-finding brush of a breast, or putting their arm around a young lady when they have misread the situation? I don’t know, but nuance means that there is potentially a very wide spectrum.
  
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  June 29, 2021 11:09am
- Happychappy
  
  The silence was deafening when the interns laid serious Sexual Assault charges with Jacinda Ardern about the sex deviate that was working out of the Prime Ministers Office.
  After all the promises she gave about getting Justice for them it was quickly swept under the carpet for none to see.
  Where was the Childrens Commissioner then.
  
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  June 29, 2021 11:13am
  - Fidel Cashflow
    
    Their much-vaunted morality is very adaptable.
    
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    June 29, 2021 12:55pm
- Tall Man
  
  I don’t believe they are Maggy, although you may disagree.
  
  700 surveyed and 20 claimed rape. Was that “mallard standard rape” or other?
  
  Harrassment these days can be as low level as a “look”. The standard questioning that was carried out by practice nurses involved through GPs in NZ when I was told about it concluded that “rape” was whenever a woman felt “pressured” to have sex even with her partner. “Pressure” wasn’t clearly defined but included succumbing to “begging” …….
  
  Harrassment was defined as “feeling uncomfortable” without any direct or overt action by the “harrasser” required.
  
  Now I’m not saying that there isn’t a problem but certainly not worthy of the hyperbole in the article’s headline by labelling it an “epidemic” or is the covid standard of “epidemic” now the new norm?
  
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  June 29, 2021 11:23am
  - tf78
    
    Tall man, I heard wolf whistling can be very triggering too
    
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    June 29, 2021 1:05pm
    - Sacha
      
      When I was young, we felt quite flattered when we got whistles.
      We’d turn and wave at the culprits – usually men up on scaffolding on building sites – and hopefully get more, lol.
      Passing cars would get a wave too, but they seldom stopped, and all we would see would be a waving arm.
      It was nice to be appreciated.
      Gee, I really am old.
      
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      June 29, 2021 1:42pm
      - Tall Man
        
        And confident in yourself I would say as well.
        
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        June 29, 2021 2:12pm
- Benedict Yu
  
  I must admit I am surprised that 20 girls at the high school have been raped. If true that is disturbing. Was there a secondary question? “Did you report it to the police?” “If not why not?”
  
  I would then ask the police… over the last five years, how many girls at this high school have reported being raped? If the answer is zero, that would indicate that either (1) The girls are all lying, but why would they? or (2) the police campaign to urge the reporting of sexual violence is a total failure.
  
  Either way these results need to be followed up.
  
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  June 29, 2021 11:28am
  - KevO'Brien
    
    What definitions are being used?
    
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    June 29, 2021 1:13pm
- Ehlana
  
  And the solution to this is “boys should be taught” – the implication is, in schools. Which are also supposed to address our world-leading problems with depression and bullying.
  
  I wonder if the reporter was tempted to be honest: Many New Zealand parents are failing their children by not setting good examples for them, leading to their children behaving inappropriately, harming themselves and others.
  
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  June 29, 2021 11:31am
  - cmm
    
    Girls should be taught too about risk avoidance.
    
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    June 29, 2021 12:39pm
    - Tall Man
      
      By their parents and boys need good examples to follow and if anyone thinks current trends are providing this the we’re back to that bridge for sale again.
      
      https://www.instagram.com/p/CLPPqapAnT_/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=embed_video_watch_again
      
      https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/shocking-video-cuban-primary-school-17069629
      
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rwC4QrE6io
      
      And we wonder wtf is happening ……
      
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      June 29, 2021 1:21pm
    - Sacha
      
      But the reply from women activists to this is: boys/men should KNOW that their behaviour is offensive . . . . . .
      
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      June 29, 2021 1:45pm
  - kowtow
    
    In fairness our “culture” has been promoting ‘sex ,drugs and rock ‘n roll ” since the ’60’s .
    
    We ‘re reaping as we sow.
    
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    June 29, 2021 1:20pm
- hilaryt
  
  My question too. So much for empowered youth, after all these years of sex ed. Going to raise it with my 20 somethings and gauge their response.
  
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  June 29, 2021 12:13pm
- cmm
  
  I have no doubt there is some real rape that has occurred, but how much is “change your mind” rape?
  
  Girl willingly has sex, then feels like a fool later and then rather than take responsibility for her choices she rebadges it as rape to square the circle in her head.
  
  And no, I am not at all condoning real rape.
  
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  June 29, 2021 12:38pm
  - KevO'Brien
    
    These kids sound like they are teenagers do their usual. Others are playing with language as is their norm.
    
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    June 29, 2021 1:15pm
- Nickc2
  
  Does anyone know who commissioned the survey and why?
  
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  June 29, 2021 1:55pm
Benedict Yu

So the Herald thinks this is surprising.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/covid-19-coronavirus-singapores-surprising-new-plan-to-live-with-virus/EKXDOTWZYMUGFRRMF553CH2T5U/

It is exactly what New Zealand will need to do. If we ever get enough people vaccinated. Of course the virus will become endemic in New Zealand, Singapore and everywhere else. Yes a few people will be hospitalised and die in New Zealand every year. The dead ones will be mostly very frail people or the unvaccinated with comorbidities .

This will be the new normal. Yet afaik Jacinda still thinks the virus will be “eradicated”. Doesn’t she receive advice from health experts? Where is the articulation of New Zealand’s “pathway out” of isolation?
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June 29, 2021 11:24am
- hilaryt
  
  Most of us recall interviews with leading experts when all this kicked off, their predictions have come true, and the politics have taken over. That said, I blame the unthinking many who prefer the kindy mat and being told.
  
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  June 29, 2021 11:45am
- MCos
  
  In the meantime, however, Singapore has tightened up its restrictions on Australian visitors.
  
  Somewhere down the line NZ will face the same dilemma, but not yet.
  The main reason we went down the route we did, as you will recall, was because the health system was in no shape to cope with a big influx of hospitalizations.
  
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  June 29, 2021 12:27pm
  - Tall Man
    
    “SINGAPORE: Singapore on Thursday (Jun 24) announced tighter COVID-19 restrictions for travellers from the Australian state of New South Wales.
    
    From 11.59pm on Saturday, short-term travellers holding an Air Travel Pass with travel history to New South Wales within the last 21 days will not be allowed to enter Singapore, said the Ministry of Health (MOH) in a press release.
    
    Singaporeans, permanent residents and long-term pass holders who have travelled to New South Wales in the last three weeks will be placed on a seven-day stay-home notice at their place of residence.”
    
    Hardly Australia, just NSW currently.
    
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    June 29, 2021 1:12pm
  - kowtow
    
    It isn’t under ‘normal ‘ circumstances either .
    
    The shut down resulted in empty hospitals , practically no Wuflu admissions and huge backlogs for all sorts of other ailments not being treated.
    
    What was the point ?
    
    This mob still don’t understand “unintended consequences” .
    
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    June 29, 2021 1:18pm
    - MCos
      
      The point was, kowtow, that at the start of the Lev 4 lockdown last year 25/3, nobody knew what was going to happen in NZ, but in other countries hospitals were starting to overflow with seriously ill people.
      Might well have happened here too so non-urgent operations were delayed until the potential crises passed. Then normality returned.
      The alternative may have been a half arsed effort such as happened in the UK with similar repercussions that are still dragging on.
      
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      June 29, 2021 1:53pm
      - kowtow
        
        And what is normal ?
        
        Our hospitals can’t cope with regular influxes of sickies at the best of times.
        
        So this idea of being prepared for the plague is bullshit.
        
        ‘This week’s code black is the most serious manifestation of a problem which health planners nationwide are still trying to understand and manage. Not only are more people arriving at the country’s emergency departments, but when they get there they are more seriously ill than, on average, has been the case in the past.’
        
        https://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/editorial/code-black-must-not-be-new-norm
        
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        June 29, 2021 4:14pm
      - Tall Man
        
        As has been pointed out numerous times, our hospitals are often overloaded as we have an inadequate health system.
        
        Locking down an entire country where there was little or no community infection was just pathetic, like most of what this government does.
        
        https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2021/03/hospitals-across-new-zealand-stretched-to-breaking-point-as-government-promises-reform.html
        
        https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/439170/new-zealand-hospitals-in-crisis-after-biggest-january-february-on-record
        
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        June 29, 2021 4:32pm
- virtualmark
  
  Benedict,
  
  I think you’ll find the Government well understand there will need to be a transition from “eradication” to “endemic reality” new normal, and there will be a plan taking shape.
  
  But that transition won’t start until at least, roughly, 60% of the population are fully vaccinated. So certainly no earlier than Q1 2022.
  
  The difficulties for any Government, of any political persuasion, in this sort of situation are:
  (a) you need to keep people focused on today’s needs rather than next year’s, and
  (b) whatever plan you think you have now will evolve and change by the time (Q1 2022?) you will need to implement it, but if you set out today’s version of the plan today at least 20% of your population won’t have the mental flexibility to understand why the final plan ends up being different.
  
  So the reality is that you keep the messaging focused on what people need to be doing *today*.
  
  It’s messaging for the lowest common denominator. Which falls flat with people higher up the IQ distribution. But it’s the reality of what you have to do.
  
  The Nats would be doing the exact same thing if they were in Government today.
  
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  June 29, 2021 2:00pm
Benedict Yu

Hosking makes a good point.

https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/mike-hosking-breakfast/video/mikes-minute-govt-has-no-clue-over-proposed-hate-speech-laws/

The nutter who incites violence, if found, can be arrested under current laws.

The real effect will be for people to not say anything that may trigger the law. For example, I have read a number of comments on this blog in relation to the trans woman weightlifter. As I read the discussion document, there is little doubt that such statements on a prominent blog would be investigated by the police if a complaint were made. I am assuming that DPF could be required to disclose the identities of any commentator if requested by the police.
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June 29, 2021 11:39am
- Fidel Cashflow
  
  This blog is moderated, so I doubt that any moderated post can be “blamed” on the poster themselves, because they haven’t posted the comment, the moderator has. It’s different from Facebook, for instance (although, you could argue that Facebook are a publisher too).
  
  If am right, this blog and others will effectively be finished.
  
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  June 29, 2021 12:47pm
  - Tall Man
    
    Even a “moderated” post will be able to cause offense to a lilly livered labour loser who “wants” to be offended.
    
    That will trigger a police investigation and will lead to repercussions whatever the outcome.
    
    Tit for tat complaints will be the order of the day. Remember there were 55,000 calls with kiwis dobbing in covid breakers …..
    
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    June 29, 2021 1:09pm
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    This blog is moderately moderated.
    
    Defamation and abuse against individuals is regularly published here and the moderators don’t bat an eyelid.
    
    SB2’s statement to me on Saturday that I should deal with my Islamophobia was defamatory and yet another example of unwelcome harassment and smears that I’m subjected to on this blog.
    
    Anyone can see that I’d be on a hiding to nothing if I demanded some legal action against SB2.
    
    This blog is good example of what happens when you run a tolerant, open forum espousing a philosophy at odds with a certain section of political folk.
    
    Some folks will always try to foul the nest.
    https://medium.com/thoughts-economics-politics-sustainability/why-intolerance-should-not-be-tolerated-d1bc92228dec
    
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    June 29, 2021 1:42pm
    - Fidel Cashflow
      
      It is my understanding that some can just post on KB without the mediating step, usually by using their real name (e.g. Wayne Mapp or David Garrett). I could be mistaken, though. However, if a post is subjected to moderation and then published, then it would follow that the mod, and by extension DPF, has posted the comment, defamatory statements inclusive. Again for instance, David or Wayne may not have the same protection afforded by moderation.
      
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      June 29, 2021 1:56pm
      - Maggy Wassilieff
        
        You are correct..
        My posts are not moderated and appear as soon as I post them.
        I do not abuse other posters or break any of our host’s rules.
        
        The trolls repeatedly slip in smears, abuses, and lies on this blog whenever they can.
        
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        June 29, 2021 2:46pm
- KevO'Brien
  
  A trans woman weight lifter is not a genetic female weightlifter so may have illegitimate place in a properly matched competitive sport. Sport includes that fairness in competition.
  
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  June 29, 2021 1:18pm
Fletch

Video interview between former BBC reporter Anna Brees and Dr Roger Hodkinson, who has more quantifications than you can fit on your forearm. He reckons the rollout of this vaccine is totally unwarranted and totally irresponsible given what we know now about how it affects the heart. He uses strong language here, “heads will roll; there will be blood in the gutter – and that is going to happen very very soon. something as crazy as this cannot be suppressed. the truth will out.” He is part of some groups of doctors worldwide who are opposed to this.

https://odysee.com/@annabrees:5/Drrogerhodkinson:f

Has only convinced me more not to take this untested vaccine.
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June 29, 2021 11:47am
- Inandout
  
  Fletch, I am with you on abstaining on getting the jab. The worrying part which I did not realise is that the heart doesn’t regenerate if parts are damaged and may affect young people years ahead. Experimental vaccines are a worry at any time, and bugger me the covid lady is on the radio now spouting about how all the experts have tested the vaccine and ‘found it safe’.
  
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  June 29, 2021 2:43pm
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    All of those who have taken the vax will of course say They found it is safe – if they are alive
    
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    June 29, 2021 5:30pm
Captain Mainwaring

Anyone know why Fiji Airways is coming and going between Nadi and Auckland when Covid 19 is rampant over there?
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June 29, 2021 12:16pm
- marcw
  
  Containers of soft toys won’t fly themselves Captn. Seriously, it will be freighting of essential supplies, definitely not holiday tourists.
  
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  June 29, 2021 12:24pm
  - Inandout
    
    marcw, KFC packs or vouchers?
    
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    June 29, 2021 2:56pm
  - kowtow
    
    In some economies tourists are essential supplies.
    
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    June 29, 2021 5:32pm
cmm

Supreme horseshit from Stuff and Herald today.

Apparently we’re copping a Polar Blast. Nonsense. Very few places are below freezing. The South Pole is currently -64C.
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June 29, 2021 12:29pm
- MCos
  
  I’ve told you a million times.
  
  It’s a figure of speech.
  
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  June 29, 2021 1:34pm
  - krazykiwi
    
    How could anyone downtick that? Have a +1 🙂
    
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    June 29, 2021 1:56pm
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Rubbish,
    
    polar blast is layman’s terminology for a polar vortex.
    
    It specifically refers to a cold front carrying air derived from polar regions.
    
    For the Southern Hemisphere
    the polar vortex, known there as a “polar blast” or “polar plunge”, is a cold front that drags air from Antarctica which brings rain showers, snow (typically inland, with blizzards occurring in the highlands), gusty icy winds, and hail
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_vortex
    
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    June 29, 2021 2:17pm
    - Tall Man
      
      There’s snow on the hills above Kapiti at the moment ….. Finished work early to get close to the fire …. Effin cold that’s all I know .. Could use a bit of Global Warming please !!!!
      
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      June 29, 2021 3:28pm
    - kowtow
      
      Jim Hickey would have called it a polar rodent.
      
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      June 29, 2021 4:05pm
surfing

It is sadly hilarious watching people trying to define hate speech. That is why Ardern and Faafoi refuse to provide guidance on real world scenarios.

The public must think there is some super robot out there that will determine the threshold for hate speech.
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June 29, 2021 12:44pm
- KevO'Brien
  
  It’s going to be fun slipping around the edges of reality to describe the truth that others would deny. May have to resort to comedy in this intellectual/political/legal fiasco.
  
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  June 29, 2021 1:21pm
- Yvette
  
  Surfing, not some super robot, but the Police
  If it’s an opinion on a particular group, then again, it depends on what you say. If your intent is to incite hatred against them, then potentially But again, it’s up to the police and what you say. I’m the Minister of Justice, I don’t get to decide that – Chris Faafoi, in the now infamous Newshub Nation interview
  
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  June 29, 2021 1:26pm
- Fletch
  
  “A just machine to make big decisions
  Programmed by fellows with compassion and vision
  We’ll be clean when their work is done
  We’ll be eternally free yes and eternally young”
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ueivjr3f8xg
  
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  June 29, 2021 1:54pm
Maggy Wassilieff

Kelvin Davis finally gets a dose of reality…

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/06/children-s-minister-kelvin-davis-condemns-oranga-tamariki-staff-filmed-tackling-head-locking-kids-in-state-care.html

Some untrained youth workers do not have the skills to manage teenage boys.

Davis acknowledged there has been a reduction in the amount of qualified social workers at the facilities, with more youth workers – for whom there are no specific qualification requirements – filling the gaps.

Colour me surprised.

(and for the pedants amongst us… seems this journalist doesn’t know when to use number and when to use amount).
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June 29, 2021 12:58pm
- KevO'Brien
  
  It hasn’t changed in over 40 years. State institutions brutalise children.
  There are no decent ones. There have been reviews, inquiries, watchers, payments, retirements… Has there ever been a prosecution of any staffer or Minister?
  
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  June 29, 2021 1:26pm
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Has there ever been a prosecution of any staffer or Minister?
    
    There has been a concerted effort by Crown Law to obfuscate and defeat any attempts to prosecute the abusers of mentally ill patients and State wards.
    
    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300343935/un-antitorture-obligations-ignored-by-crown-when-lake-alice-claims-emerged
    
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    June 29, 2021 2:03pm
- kowtow
  
  Some coppers don’t either .
  
  Simple fact is he tried to stitch her up ;
  
  ‘The officer alleged the woman tried to hit him, however CCTV footage did not support his account.’
  
  False arrest , which is unlawful detention and assaulted her .
  
  And nothing’s been done .
  “police decided to not to file any charges against the officer.”
  
  Now that’s all well and good , but if they want us to have confidence in them then they have to treat all citizens , including coppers the same . We all know what would happen if it was Joe Public who hit a woman .
  
  https://www.odt.co.nz/regions/southland/police-accept-invercargill-officer-was-wrong-put-drunk-woman-headlock
  
  Maybe the Woke Commissioner should lobby the gubmint to reintroduce drunk in a public place and Constable Fuzz could then deal with it appropriately .
  
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  June 29, 2021 1:43pm
- Nookin
  
  Maybe they measure social workers assigned to wayward teenagers by volume — a bit like sumo wrestlers?
  
  More likely, however, the first draft referred to “less social workers” and the editor directed him to change it.
  
  My pet dislike is the use of “them”, “they” or “their” to refer to a single individual when the gender of the individual is unclear, unknown or not to be disclosed.
  The English language is sufficiently equipped to deal with such situations without having to bastardize pronouns.
  
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  June 29, 2021 1:45pm
Biscuit

Would some kind soul give me a time reference to the Top Dozen posts today?

To save me some time, like!

Me, I have already watched 14 goals at today’s two games in the Euro 2020 football tournament and I suspect a few more have slipped past my usually-alert radar.
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June 29, 2021 1:20pm
Maggie Pie

Have just Ubered back home after walking all the way to the city.
It took me 21 minutes to walk from our house to Queen St.
That, combined with our protected views of the Volcanic Shafts, means we’re completely safe from any cheapskate Chinese developers hoping to build their low-rent slums anywhere close.

Just saying.
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June 29, 2021 1:50pm
I remember when

Davis demands answers over mistreatment at state care facilities:
And it is agreed it is not good enough. However, Davis doesn’t need the answers, or he shouldn’t.
“If Oranga Tamariki staff don’t have the necessary skills to deal with children at care and protection facilities they shouldn’t be in the job”, he said.
And he is dead right again.
The facts are that he is, or at least most certainly should be, aware of the underlying reasons that have allowed the problems.
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June 29, 2021 2:02pm
Inandout

The Rubin Report discovers the great climate charlatan Al Gore has proven that imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery. Observe the new Orange Man:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfgQhlWScjY
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June 29, 2021 2:22pm
Maggie Pie

I think Trev needs to get to a Covid testing station urgently!

He seemed to sniff the entire way through ‘Speaker’s Briefing’
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June 29, 2021 2:30pm
lifesgood

This bloody nonsense in Wellington over someone supposedly arriving with covid is just one great big cluster f**k. We were told it was this amazingly virulent and highly contagious Delta variant, otherwise known as Indian variant and that it would spread through the country like wild fire. Poor old Wellington got a taste of what Auckland has been through and guess what? Nobody caught this highly contagious variant despite the man being all over the city in crowded places for days. We are being taken for fools.
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June 29, 2021 3:08pm
- virtualmark
  
  Firstly, the person who came here had had at least one vaccination shot. So we should expect their viral load was low, which would make them less contagious.
  
  Secondly, the person who came here was likely not contagious when they first arrived, but entered that contagious window while they were here. So some of their earlier contacts probably weren’t going to get infected.
  
  Thirdly, it seems the person who came here isn’t a “super spreader”. For as yet unknown reasons about 80%-90% of people with Covid go on to infect 1 other person or less. But the other 10%-20% of people with Covid somehow manage to infect lots of people. The virologists refer to that as the “k factor”. There’s a good explanation at https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/09/k-overlooked-variable-driving-pandemic/616548/
  
  The health response was sensibly based on the worst possible scenario. And I suspect it got tripped up on Sunday by the false positive in Masterton, which probably led to the 2 day extension. But in the end we were lucky to have a better outcome than the worst possible scenario.
  
  No one is being taken for fools. If the decisions don’t seem logical to you then stop and have a deeper think about the range of factors the decision makers are having to consider.
  
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  June 29, 2021 4:20pm
- cmm
  
  There is absolutely no evidence to support the notion that the Indian flavour is highly virulent.
  
  All up India have recorded 400k deaths. Population 1.4bn. That’s less than 300 deaths per million.
  
  Let’s compare what happened in NYCity: 33 400 dead out of a population of 8.5M (less all the people who have fled NYC in the last year). That’s 4000 deaths per million.
  
  4000/300 = approx 13. What hit NYC is 13x worse than India!
  
  So India’s Delta is way less impressive than what happened in NY City and, arguably the conditions for diseases to spread are 10x worse in India because people live much more tightly together with less ability to isolate and have far worse health systems, worse sanitation and nutrition etc.
  
  Take all that into account, then Delta is earning itself a failing grade as a virus.
  
  So, really, the Indian virus does not deserve its reputation the media and WHO and govts etc are giving it.
  
  But keep being frightened kids! Frightened people don’t think, they just do whatever they’re told.
  
  They’ve been yelling Big Scary Noises with the Pommievirus, the Saffervirus and now the Indianvirus.
  
  Stop believing them. There are no monsters in the cupboard.
  
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  June 29, 2021 5:46pm
  - virtualmark
    
    I doubt the variant question made any difference to the response to this Wellington visit.
    
    No matter what variant they’d had I suspect Wellington was going to have to go into Level 2 until at least the first circle of contacts had been tested.
    
    That said, I wouldn’t place any weight on any statistics coming out of India. Or out of China.
    
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    June 29, 2021 5:59pm
Maggy Wassilieff

Judith Collins reads from David Parker’s Draft reform of Fluff.

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/06/national-leader-judith-collins-brands-proposed-rma-reforms-a-grab-at-wokeism.html
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June 29, 2021 3:20pm
cmm

Bloody hell – look what these defence lawyers had to say:

“Lawyers for a widow on trial for manslaughter after her stroke-victim husband died in decrepit conditions at their South Auckland home have asked jurors not to view the case through the lens of a wine-sipping Remuera opera fan.

It’s important, defence counsel Mark Ryan suggested during his lengthy closing argument, that jurors set aside white privilege and try to see it through the eyes of “the underclass” and “the impoverished who struggle on a daily basis”.

FFS now it is white privilege to hold someone accountable for their actions!

What an outrage. That would annoy the shit out of me if I was a juror. Can the jury ask the judge/magistrate to tell the lawyers to pull their heads in?

I suppose a juror standing up and calling the prick a condescending c***s***ker would probably have got slammed by the court.

I suppose it is the bugger’s job to lube his client out of a hole by fair means or foul, but he’ll be making no friends in the jury.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/recliner-manslaughter-trial-stroke-victims-death-was-inevitable-defence-argues/NIIERZOOZQAUOVDCPLQS5HRDGI/
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June 29, 2021 5:26pm
krazykiwi

Gender, nationality, species: everything is fluid for Gen Z

It’s not so very long since Rachel Dolezal spawned a thousand op-eds explaining why cross-sex identification is okay but cross-race identification is not. Now, UK singer and Instagram influencer Oli London has sparked a backlash after ‘coming out’ as Korean with ‘neopronouns’ ‘kor/ean’ and a rainbow-coloured Korean flag. London explicitly defended a ‘transracial’ identity, declaring: “If you can be transsexual you can be TRANSRACIAL” and that “I was actually born in the wrong body!”.

Bring it on. The more batshit cross-identifications we get, the faster it will all unravel.
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June 29, 2021 6:11pm
- cmm
  
  It’s a fair enough proposition.
  
  Just as there are some people who feel more comfortable in the opposite gender, there are many people who feel more comfortable associating with being a different race.
  
  This was particularly important in apartheid-era South Africa where many black or coloured professionals fitted better in a typical “white” culture than that of their typical fellow race-mates. Indeed there was even a deed poll like system where people could sometimes negotiate the race bar. One of my better friends at university was a Griqua but identified as white and was fully accepted as such. He was even conscripted into the Army – a “white privilege” reserved for white males.
  
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  June 29, 2021 7:36pm
- The Feed
  
  I know I’ve always felt happier identifying as a Bell 505 Jet-ranger.
  
  Address me as heli/copter.
  
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  June 29, 2021 8:14pm
info@cruzpro.com

Kiwis stuck in Australia want the NZ government to help them get home.

I am sympathetic with these unfortunate people. They left NZ when the bubble was open and then while overseas the bubble got shut down.

Some realized this problem was imminent and cut their overseas travel short with few problems (have to isolate waiting for negative covid test results).

I suppose/hope that they realized when they took off overseas that this was a possibility and were gambling they would not get affected. If true, then while sympathetic, tax payers should not be paying their gambling expenses.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/travel-troubles/300344785/kiwis-stranded-in-australia-call-on-government-to-help-them-get-home
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June 29, 2021 6:13pm
- Tall Man
  
  We flew out in May and back on the 20th and realised we were taking a gamble but made plans for that possibility.
  
  We even extended the trip by a week when my son had unexpected surgery and faced the costs for that ourselves.
  
  I have zero sympathy for these people now whinging about my tax dollars being used to pay their expenses. AirNZ allow flight changes without cost for similar flights at similar times so what’s the problem?
  
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  June 29, 2021 6:40pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  There is a reason I am not in Alaska enjoying the summer. You all know who is at fault, not ne, not Alaska
  
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  June 29, 2021 6:58pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  They want the NZ Taxpayer to pay. The Govt only has OUR money.
  Your choice travelers – and when the shit hits the fan, YOU fucking pay, not me
  
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  June 29, 2021 7:07pm
- cmm
  
  I don’t sympathise at all.
  
  It’s completely obvious to anyone but a complete fool that the bubble is prone to popping without the slightest notice.
  
  If you chose to take that risk and then you get stuck you need to accept the consequences of that choice. It is wrong to expect the taxpayer to bail you out.
  
  This is what we get from people who have spent a lifetime being bailed out by society.
  
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  June 29, 2021 7:40pm
Maggie Pie

My partner reckons….that when Aussie becomes a nation of NARKS – we should all be worried.
Chopper Read will be spinning in his grave!

https://twitter.com/GuardianAus/status/1409716589579014150
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June 29, 2021 7:45pm
- Tall Man
  
  55,000 calls to the police reporting possible lockdown breaches in NZ after ardern’s “dob in your neighbours” plea.
  
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  June 29, 2021 8:41pm
MrTips

[Kids, partners and unfounded rumours which are all beyond what is acceptable – Mod]
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June 29, 2021 8:25pm