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December 21, 2021 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 21 December 2021

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General Debate

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krazykiwi

Here we go again. It is looking increasingly likely that Omicron was lab created and subsequently leaked.

Omicron is not normal. No immediate progenitors are known; its closest relatives are viruses last seen in early- to mid-2020. The orthodox explanation for this awkward fact, is that it has spent the last 18 months lurking “in a geography with poor genomic surveillance … or … in a chronically infected individual.” The simpler explanation is that it leaked from a laboratory.
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December 21, 2021 8:00am
- alloytoo
  
  Given how it’s displaced Delta in South Africa, with far fewer severe cases I’d say we might want to thank someone then.
  
  UK Data should be interesting, estimated most of the population infected by New year. Similar population numbers to UK, but completely different profile, weather and living arrangements.
  
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  December 21, 2021 8:06am
- Simon
  
  Omicron eh? Its mostly harmless in almost unvaxxed younger South Africa but in heavily vaxxed older Western Europe and hermit countries like NZ it could be a problem.
  
  Thats the issue. They know in S Africa omicron its fine. But with the vaxxed hermit country NZ it could be very different.
  
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  December 21, 2021 8:17am
  - alloytoo
    
    The younger SA population may be unvaxed but may also have prior immunity from Delta infection.
    
    UK data in the next few weeks will be interesting.
    
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    December 21, 2021 8:27am
  - mawm
    
    I think we might see what the effect of OAS will be on the vaccinated cohort. Interesting times.
    
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    December 21, 2021 8:37am
- ClanMcleod
  
  I’m sure the lab leak story is a conspiracy theory. Almost as bad as that fool Aristarchus of Samos and his ramblings about heliocentric universes.
  I saw Twitter and Youtube disabling people’s accounts and the Fact checkers were all over the “lab leak” story months ago. We even had two esteemed NZ experts, Otago University virologist Dr Jemma Geoghegan and Massey University infectious disease ecologist Professor David Hayman reporting in the NZ Herald that it wasn’t true so it must be fake news.//
  
  https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-coronavirus-why-the-lab-leak-theory-is-still-unlikely/KHHERHFGT5HUE2UPDR52VJQCXA/
  
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  December 21, 2021 8:46am
  - Sacha
    
    It may well be the natural viral cycle – Omicron crowding the Delta variant out, and finally exhausting itself in the process.
    And the unvaccinated cohort may yet be the saviour of the vaxxed.
    Now if I just had some Ivermectin . . . . . . .
    
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    December 21, 2021 9:28am
- krazykiwi
  
  That phylogeny chart is particularly telling. Look at the long, unvaried lineage of Omicron vs the rest, c.f. the black arrow on the chart. Then look at the regular root and branch pattern created by the other mutations.
  
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  December 21, 2021 9:22am
  - John Pakes
    
    Krazykiwi this is a conspiracy theory, long ago debunked.
    Stop digging.
    
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    December 21, 2021 10:14am
    - Steve Otto(North Shore)
      
      Pakes – as you say, debunked. How about citation. Otherwise it is you who is conspiring. Your rock is in the corner mate, next to Mike’s
      
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      December 21, 2021 3:03pm
  - krazykiwi
    
    Here is a better chart via Yuri Deigin. He also reports that a Durban lab used convalescent plasma taken from recovered Covid patients in June-August 2020, i.e. the same time point when Omicron split off from its last common ancestor. That research was funded by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
    
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    December 21, 2021 10:32am
- Reid
  
  Yeah it looks like someone on our (humanity’s) side put it out there. It’s got two changes both of which run counter to its normal evolutionary cycle as it evolves through mutation in the SA population.
  
  In SA only 5% are vaxed and since the vax is non-sterilising there was no pressure on the virus to drop its lethality as it has done. It could have stayed in the deep lung like all the others have but instead it mutated itself into a virus that inhabits the upper lung area, much less serious for us, so good news there, but why from an evolutionary perspective, did it do that? Where was the natural pressure to do that so it could outcompete the other variants, in the SA population?
  
  Second there is the highly mutated spike protein. I believe it has thirteen amino acid variations on it, meaning it blows straight past vaccine-induced coronovirus antibodies, which is why it’s so infectious. The vaxed have absolutely no protection because the anti-bodies they have generated through their version of the spike protein inside their own bodies, doesn’t recognise the new guy on the block and lets him walk straight past the muscular antibodies, who do nothing but continue their hunt for the dreaded spike protein, v1.0.
  
  But there was no evolutionary pressure on it to do that, either. 13 amino-acid changes is a LOT of mutation and why did it go to all that effort when only 5% of its new hosts were only offering only token resistance and 95% of them had no defence at all, against you.
  
  None of that is speculation or theory, those are the facts as they stand today on Omicron. Was it natural?
  
  Well, it’s the best Christmas present from God ever if it was. But God doesn’t do miracles that way when He does them. So I think it’s from a group of friends of ours, because it takes their whole agenda off the table if it blows through the world and everyone gets it and hardly anyone dies and then, since we’ve all had it, what’s the point of any more vax, any more lockdowns, get back to normal.
  
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  December 21, 2021 9:25am
  - mawm
    
    Something Fauci said struck me as being odd at the time. He essentially said of the Omicron variant that they hadn’t expected it to have such low level of pathogenicity. Does this sound like someone put it out there and it hasn’t done what it was meant to do?
    
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    December 21, 2021 10:53am
    - Reid
      
      Who did he say that to mawm, can you recall? Agree, it’s an interesting comment.
      
      Malone once said it’s like they’re working to a plan like they’ve wargamed it, but since they’re not military but basically just bureaucrats, they have no idea what to do when the plan disintegrates at first contact with the enemy. It’s true, it does look very much like that. Malone speculated on factors they might not have expected, like they expected the vax to be much more effective at protection but they blindly carried on pretending until they were forced to admit to the evidence in front of everyone that it did nothing of the sort. Stuff like that.
      
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      December 21, 2021 11:29am
      - mawm
        
        I can’t. It was just one of those odd things that stick.
        
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        December 21, 2021 2:17pm
      - mawm
        
        Here’s Malone on Bannon’s War Room. “Was the new variant manufactured?” Interesting answer. There are obviously virologists who think so.
        
        https://rumble.com/vq478d-was-the-new-covid-variant-manufactured.html
        
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        December 21, 2021 3:09pm
- Reid
  
  BTW, on the original version being man-made, the DNI – Director of National Intelligence – during Trump’s Administration pretty much admitted that the intel was unequivocal that it was a release. He said that a few weeks after he left office, IIRC, on Maria Barteromo’s Sunday show.
  
  Navarro in his book In Trump Time has said if they had known Fauci had been funding the research he was back in the early Spring (March/April) of 2020, they would have gone to China and demanded the blueprints of the virus, threatening war if they didn’t comply.
  
  It has to be man-made. The spike protein has two HIV sequences in it and two prion sequences. Why did nature choose to put those in there? The smoking gun however is the furin cleavage site that joins the S1 and S2 proteins together. Bats don’t use furin in their biochemistry, but humans use a lot of it. How did a bat produce a virus that depends on a furin-based process for such a critical function to a virus as entry into a host’s cell?
  
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  December 21, 2021 9:44am
  - coge
    
    It’s possible. I think the original Covid19 version behaved quite oddly in terms of it’s daily transmission rate. In populations prior to any measures being taken against it’s spread. A reliable increase of spread of 40% per day. Which appears, at least in my opinion, to be a smoking gun. A human fingerprint.
    
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    December 21, 2021 11:00am
    - Reid
      
      The purpose of a bioweapon is not to kill, it’s to maim, so the enemy is otherwise occupied with caring for them.
      
      So you’d engineer a toxin that smouldered away, inside the body, and any diseases that then appeared, look as if they are just a disease, it was just cancer, they are expecting everyone to say, when their relative dies of that awful malady that just seemed to come out of nowhere…
      
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      December 21, 2021 11:33am
      - ISeeRed
        
        I can believe it. Leaky, non-sterilizing “vaccines” based on experimental mRNA technology are imposed upon the population under duress. Years from now, the number of idiopathic auto-immune disorders soars and overwhelms national health systems and economies. New “safe” miracle cures based on the latest experimental medical technology will magically appear and be recommended, encouraged, and eventually mandated. And the cycle repeats.
        
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        December 21, 2021 1:02pm
      - UrbanNeocolonialist
        
        It’s a crappy weapon, kills few, SARS-1 and MERS were way more dangerous. It was a lab fuckup, not deliberate.
        
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        December 21, 2021 1:42pm
    - Reid
      
      WHY can’t you [bring] yourself to believe it?
      
      Serous question, in the face merely of today’s evidence alone.
      
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      December 21, 2021 7:35pm
  - Bluegrass
    
    “…they would have gone to China and demanded the blueprints…”.
    
    Who is “they”?
    
    PS I appreciate your posts.
    
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    December 21, 2021 1:20pm
  - Ian Boag
    
    Good on yer Reid. We have all these scientists and epidemioligists and stuff, but the dinkum oil is here on KB from an anonymous keyboard warrior.
    
    Is there a conspiracy here .. ? Do we know who the conspirators are …
    
    Possibly I am the only KB poster here who has a bit of trouble with the sniff test …
    
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    December 21, 2021 8:33pm
    - Reid
      
      No you’re not the only one Ian and no it doesn’t pass the sniff test and that’s not a theory it’s a fact.
      
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      December 21, 2021 8:45pm
- Sean OConnor
  
  Oh for goodness sakes. The cure is worse than the disease. We are going to completely ruin this country with debt and inattention to every other problem to prevent up to 0.35% of the population dying, the majority of them 0 – 5 years sooner than they were going to anyway.
  
  Let’s thoroughly protect the rest homes and let Omicron rip. Yes, there could be mass death, but it’s not the Black Death and the current strategies are going to kill us as a nation for sure.
  
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  December 21, 2021 9:52am
  - UrbanNeocolonialist
    
    omicron IFR is way way lower than previous variants. It really is nothing more than a cold from the lack of hospitalizations and deaths being seen in SA, UK and Denmark. There are something like 90k new cases a day in UK at the moment and near zero deaths caused by omicron (a few have incidentally had omicron while dying of other things, remembering that about 1 in 25000 people die on any given day, at 90000 a day infected 3 or 4 will die anyway and perhaps 100 will die of not-omicron during time when they are still have virus in their bodies)
    
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    December 21, 2021 10:44am
- lastmanstanding
  
  The question was it accidentially leaked or deliberately leaked. And if so by whom.
  
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  December 21, 2021 9:54am
  - mawm
    
    It’s hard to tell the white hats from the black hats.
    
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    December 21, 2021 10:55am
- Ed Snack
  
  I think there is a theory (and I think it was in a comment a few days back) that Omicron “could” have incubated as a chronic infection in an immune compromised individual, probably one with An HIV infection. That individual obviously survived the infection for a considerable time with the virus actively replicating and accumulating mutations.
  
  However I also understand that SA has a laboratory that cultivates and studies viruses including Covid. Omicron could also be an escape from this lab. Escapes are not unknown, a researcher at a Taiwanese medical laboratory became infected with Covid in their laboratory a month or so ago.
  
  Difficult to know unless a lab origin can be traced. Omicron is certainly far distant from the standard circulating variants thought to be present in SA at the time. Typically a new variant has around 5-8 point mutations, rarely they may have 8-13 or so, but Omicron has at least 20 and that is almost unheard of, so some sort of unusual explanation is probably necessary.
  
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  December 21, 2021 11:56am
- virtualmark
  
  Krazykiwi,
  
  There’s no real way to know for sure how Omicron came about … but the most plausible take I’ve seen is that it is a hybrid of Covid and another coronavirus that causes head colds.
  
  Basically, that someone with a head cold also caught Covid and somewhere in the replication of those viruses they crossed over RNA.
  
  That also would plausibly explain why it’s more contagious but focuses on the bronchial tubes rather than the lungs.
  
  Occams razor … the head-cold mutant/hybrid theory is much simpler and more plausible than the “evil people working in a lab funded by Bill Gates and George Soros”.
  
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  December 21, 2021 12:03pm
  - krazykiwi
    
    I don’t believe there are “evil people” working on this stuff. What intrigues me is that enormous gap in the phylogeny chart. It would be like meeting someone who claimed to be Capt. James Cook’s son.
    
    So Occams razor? Sure, unless the evidence makes simple simply wrong.
    
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    December 21, 2021 4:35pm
    - virtualmark
      
      That gap would be there if, as I outlined, Omicron was a hybrid with another pre-existing coronavirus. That would introduce a number of significant mutations in one swoop. And it would go some way to explaining why Omicron primarily infects the bronchial tubes rather than the lungs, and its apparent mildness.
      
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      December 21, 2021 8:13pm
Yvette

♥ Coronavirus: Waitangi Tribunal says COVID-19 response breached Te Tiriti
The Waitangi Tribunal has released a scathing ruling of the Government’s COVID-19 response and vaccine rollout, saying Māori were put at risk.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/12/coronavirus-waitangi-tribunal-says-covid-19-response-breached-te-tiriti.html

♥ Delivering her first Waitangi address, Ardern stood on the mahau of Te Whare Rūnanga on the upper Treaty grounds and asked to be held to account.

When we return, in one year, in three years, I ask you to ask of us what we have done. Ask us how we have given dignity back to your whānau, ask us what we have done to improve poverty for tamariki, ask us what we have done to give rangatahi opportunities and jobs. Ask us, hold us to account. Because one day I want to be able to tell my child that I earned the right to stand here and only you can tell me when I have done that.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/02/hold-us-to-account-has-prime-minister-jacinda-ardern-honoured-her-2018-waitangi-pledges.html

♥ Waitangi commemorations cancelled under Covid’s shadow
All commemoration events at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds have been cancelled and the gates will be closed to the public on February 6
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/waitangi-commemorations-cancelled-as-covid-looms
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December 21, 2021 8:00am
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  I scanned my copy of the Treaty of Waitangi, and nary a mention of active protection nor equity could I find.
  
  Must be in the te reo version.
  
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  December 21, 2021 9:08am
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    On reflection, the Treaty of Waitangi does indeed promise equality; but equality of treatment, the same as every other citizen, neither more or less.
    
    The Tribunal has interpreted that as equality of outcomes, which had led to the perverse outcome of small numbers of Maori holding the rest of the country to ransom.
    
    Judicial meddling at its worst
    
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    December 21, 2021 9:16am
    - David Garrett
      
      Nevermind: Quite so. It was always dollars to donuts that the Tribunal would find that the government had breached the latest lot of invented “Treaty principles”.
      
      God knows I am no fan of this government but what more were they supposed to do to persuade reluctant Maori to get vaccinated? They had vaccinators go into Maori communities and talked to people. They offered bribes – fish n chips and KFC – to try and attract Maori. Over and above all that, they chucked a bunch of money at the “Maori problem” of low vaccination rates.
      
      Just exactly what else were they supposed to do? I can’t be bothered reading the Tribunal report, so perhaps some kind person with time on their hands could summarize the main points in a comment here.
      
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      December 21, 2021 9:51am
      - lastmanstanding
        
        Now some might say that Maori in general are a lazy people but of course I couldnt possibly comment.
        
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        December 21, 2021 9:58am
      - Philview
        
        If there had been 20,000 Maori deaths I could understand the need for an investigation. We have a Maori population in good health and per reports 90% have had first jab.
        
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        December 21, 2021 11:03am
    - alloytoo
      
      Socialism is inherent in a Victorian era treaty? Weird.
      
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      December 21, 2021 10:00am
  - Yvette
    
    Treaty of Waitangi– Article 3
    For this agreed arrangement therefore concerning the government of the Queen, the Queen of England will protect all the ordinary people of New Zealand and will give them the same rights and duties of citizenship as the people of England.
    https://teara.govt.nz/en/document/4216/the-three-articles-of-the-treaty-of-waitangi
    
    The protection at the moment is vaccination, and some hygiene measures (wash your hands, and wear a mask) and social spacing rules.
    Citizenship rights also are accompanied by duties, or responsibilities, which the individual should consider along with New Zealand Human Rights and the UN Declaration of Human Rights, which say the individual has the right to decide to be vaccinated or not.
    
    All rather simple, unless one too is too simple.
    
    (the Treaty nowhere mentions a “parternship” – that Don Brash is aware of )
    
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    December 21, 2021 9:33am
    - David Garrett
      
      Yvette: There is no mention of “partnership” in the so called treaty. The idea of a partnership between sovereign and subject – the treaty makes Maori British subjects – is of course a logical absurdity.
      
      The 1987 Court of Appeal said only that it “created a relationship in the nature of a partnership”
      
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      December 21, 2021 10:56am
      - Yvette
        
        Hi, David
        I specifically said ‘the Treaty nowhere mentions a “parternship” ‘
        The mention of Don Brash may have been confusing, but I was attempting to indicate, some one as thorough as him, regarding this matter, can’t find such a reference :o)
        
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        December 21, 2021 2:27pm
    - NeverMindTheBollocks
      
      ‘rights and duties’.
      
      You seem to hear more about rights than about duties.
      
      Funny, that.
      
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      December 21, 2021 12:22pm
- Alan Wilkinson
  
  The worst thing you can tell anyone is that their race matters more than their actions. The Waitangi industry should be prosecuted for criminal damage
  
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  December 21, 2021 10:44am
  - Yvette
    
    No, Alan, I would contend that “ the worse thing you can tell anyone is that their race matters “ but for eons, say that their societal performance places them among, or actually for real, at the bottom of all societal statistics – as did, in the USA, enslave the America’s Africans for a second time (1st physically, 2nd mentally), as the same factor here colonises Māori for a second time, without their recognising the true source: their own actions, or lack of them – while telling them “Learn our histories, listen to our stories, honor our knowledge and align or get out of the way “ – Maori’s own words, as if that will eliminate or star-dust their social position, with that yet confirmed by “lagging behind all other ethnicities in vaccination”.
    
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    December 21, 2021 12:12pm
peterwn

In the news that a number of cars have travelled the new Transmission Gully road. It seems to me that the road could have been opened for Christmas even with a 70 or 80 kph temporary speed limit, so taxpayers could get some benefit for their taxes. And it would have beneficial for climate change reasons. Seems that Labour politicians both in Parliament and on the Wellington Regional Council were quite happy to see the road not open before Christmas. If they had the will, the road could have opened. If need be Parliament could have put through a simple piece of legislation under urgency to sweep aside the bureaucratic hurdles.
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December 21, 2021 8:00am
- John Pakes
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  Waka Kotahi decided not to open the road, it had nothing to do with Labour or Wellington politicians
  
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  December 21, 2021 8:30am
  - Cassandra
    
    So an operational decision, not able to be changed by the Government. So the minister and the local MP do what precisely?
    
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    December 21, 2021 8:34am
    - peterwn
      
      The teachers payroll debacle some years ago could well have been classed as an ‘operational matter’ for the Education Secretary to sort out. But it was not going to go away and John Key put one of his senior Ministers on the job to get things sorted. The Education Secretary left soon after (for other reasons too) with a nice 6 figure payout.
      
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      December 21, 2021 9:05am
    - SoloView
      
      @ Cassandra – re operational decisions
      Under the system of Government we have in use, ministers can not tell a department to do something which is operational. e.g. the police can not be told to arrest the ministers next door neighbor for something the minister doesn’t like.
      By the same token – if the Transmission Gully is not ready, it’s not ready.
      We don’t have to like it.
      Just have to live with it.
      
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      December 21, 2021 9:52am
      - bronny1
        
        no they can’t – but they do. I see evidence of this in my work all the time.
        
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        December 21, 2021 10:56am
    - Opie
      
      I can tell you what the local MP (Teresa Ngobi) does and it is precisely nothing.
      
      Elected with no campaign, a year in and no statements or action on anything of local importance.
      
      Big flash office in Paraparaumu, never once have I seen the lights on there.
      
      Would like to see her time sheets…
      
      Prove me wrong?
      
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      December 21, 2021 10:20am
  - hmmokrightitis
    
    You seriously believe that?
    
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    December 21, 2021 8:38am
  - peterwn
    
    Now pull the other one, mate.
    
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    December 21, 2021 8:47am
  - Nukuleka
    
    Waka Kotahi? Didn’t he play as a flanker for the All Blacks back in the day?
    
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    December 21, 2021 8:48am
    - alloytoo
      
      As I recall, incapable of travelling in a straight line.
      
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      December 21, 2021 10:02am
    - I remember when
      
      Waka Kotaki was picked for the All Blacks but did get to play.
      He wasn’t ready for play at the time – hadn’t passed his resource consents.
      
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      December 21, 2021 2:27pm
  - ex-golfer
    
    Waka Kotahi you say?
    The same Waka Kotahi whose Board is led by Labour sycophant Brian Roche.
    OK sure – the Government had nothing to do with Waka Kotahi dragging its heels on Transmission Gully.
    
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    December 21, 2021 9:00am
  - Captain Mainwaring
    
    John, you really do live in a dream world of your own making.
    
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    December 21, 2021 9:05am
    - John Pakes
      
      Dear Captain
      The cars that peterwn refers to were probably about 60 that drove on it recently. They were there as a staff reward put on by the CPB HEB joint venture and all were invited guests. They drove through in escorted groups of 10 at a maximum speed of 40 kph.
      The road cannot be opened until it has passed all of its safety reviews, which are done by an independent reviewer, and those reviews are not finished. At last report they were only about 25% completed.
      AS CPB HEB said at the time of the announcement of the delay, the road will not be opened until it has been safely completed.
      No politician would ever step in and demand that the road be opened and then have to suffer the consequences should an accident happen with a safety assurance not completed.
      The dream world is yours. Try to look a little bit further past your own nose.
      
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      December 21, 2021 10:26am
      - virtualmark
        
        John, there’s little value in pointing out facts to people who poured their first rum at 9am.
        
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        December 21, 2021 12:05pm
  - Tony Stuart
    
    Who funds Waka Kotahi John? Oh, that’s right, the Government does, from our taxes. Every decision WK makes has political overtones and implications.
    
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    December 21, 2021 9:12am
    - SoloView
      
      @ Tony – link may help with who funds Waka Kotahi
      https://www.transport.govt.nz/about-us/what-we-do/queries/how-land-transport-is-funded/
      
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      December 21, 2021 9:44am
    - pdm
      
      Inv – my little protest. I still call it NZ Transport Agency as I do with Kainga Ora – Housing Corp.
      
      It is the least I can do.
      
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      December 21, 2021 11:45am
  - Bob
    
    John!!
    the Labour MP’s are determined to undermine any successful infrastructural development in NZ.
    They hate the competence and efficiency of PRIVATE enterprise; thus will do anything to discredit the PRIVATE PUBLIC PARTNERSHIP concept. Probably the most sensible system of funding developments ever devised; but the advantages are beyond the cognitive comprehension of Labour supporters and MP’s
    
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    December 21, 2021 9:37am
    - John Pakes
      
      And it has been stated frequently in the press that in this instance the PPP system did not work because the contract that was signed by the National Party had an impossible to meet budget because the bean counters double dipped on the savings that they perceived private industry could bring to the party.
      
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      December 21, 2021 10:30am
      - All_on_Red
        
        Citation needed
        I would genuinely be interested in you proving what you assert
        Thanks
        
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        December 21, 2021 11:47am
      - John Pakes
        
        All-On-Red was asking for a citation of this, sorry, only the report button has popped up so I will give one of many links here:
        Thomas Coughlan in Stuff on April 20
        
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        December 21, 2021 12:35pm
    - RW Capitalist
      
      https://www.treasury.govt.nz/sites/default/files/2016-09/mppr-jul16.pdf
      Check out the classification near the bottom of the document.
      In 2016, Transmission gully project was considered, GREEN ie on time an on budget.
      now it is behind time and substantially over budget.
      Remind me who has been the govt. responsible in this time?
      
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      December 21, 2021 12:32pm
      - RW Capitalist
        
        PS
        When you consider this govt.s excuse for the 3 waters bullying …ie to stop privatization.
        You start to see why they have deliberately hamstrung this project….it is a PPP.
        
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        December 21, 2021 12:33pm
      - RW Capitalist
        
        Heard rumors, at the time, that David Lange deliberately stopped payments of the loans for Motonui.
        So penalties would be incurred and the project could be seen to be losing money.
        Labour with past history of this behaviour?
        
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        December 21, 2021 12:47pm
      - John Pakes
        
        Indeed RW and so it was. Just like most projects, the problems seldom appear until middle to end of a contract. So it is with Transmission Gully. The problem of having an unworkable contract is only rearing it’s head now. But remember, the problem was cemented into the contract at the very beginning by the National Government.
        
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        December 21, 2021 1:56pm
NeverMindTheBollocks

It’s noteworthy that those places famed for their wind – looking at you, Palmerston North & Wellington – have had virtually no outbreaks of Covid. It would be interesting to graph Covid case location by daily hours of wind speed above, say, 20 km/ph.
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December 21, 2021 8:01am
- G152
  
  Are you saying then that all this will BLOW over ???
  
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  December 21, 2021 8:17am
- peterwn
  
  Like the line from Parent Trap (mark one). Girl attending Summer Camp – “my mom is most concerned my room will be well ventilated”. Camp boss woman – “YOU will be well ventilated”.
  
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  December 21, 2021 8:18am
  - alloytoo
    
    Sounds like a line from a Dirty Harry (or Death wish) movie.
    
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    December 21, 2021 10:04am
    - RW Capitalist
      
      Don’t encourage him, you’ll just make his day.
      
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      December 21, 2021 12:51pm
- notreadyet
  
  interesting point, however my understanding is that little or no transmission occurs in the street and is usually indoors hence high spread in winter when all indoors and in high density residential areas, think globally Europe, New York etc.
  be interesting to see the how spread occurs here now we all outdoors for the summer, may / June will be our interesting time same as what’s happening in northern hemisphere now
  
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  December 21, 2021 8:23am
  - David George
    
    What’s up with all the people on the street, even walking in a park, with their masks on. It’s that wonderful time of year when the beautiful young women are scantily clad, covering up their faces, is a crime against nature.
    
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    December 21, 2021 8:55am
    - RightNow
      
      Facemask and nothing else… it’s a thing now
      
      11 0
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      December 21, 2021 9:55am
    - lifesgood
      
      They are nut jobs. I refuse to wear a mask when walking outdoors. Only ever wear one under sufferance. They are so darn stifling. In this heat you can hardly breathe in them.
      
      26 3
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      December 21, 2021 10:15am
      - RW Capitalist
        
        Many of my customers insist on indoor mask wearing for indoors.
        Mine is a physical job, try wearing a mask for 8hrs while exerting yourself.
        Stifling is an understatement.
        
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        December 21, 2021 12:55pm
    - ByGolly
      
      Morons, quite simply.
      
      5 1
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      December 21, 2021 12:23pm
  - NoFax
    
    Maybe for once our poorly built houses with drafts all over the place actually helped us.
    
    13 0
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    December 21, 2021 9:28am
    - Alan Wilkinson
      
      They were always more healthy than the ridiculous enclosures festering mould our building bureaucracy now prescribes. My buildings all have built in vents to ensure continuous fresh air.
      
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      December 21, 2021 10:49am
  - virtualmark
    
    It’s unusual, although not impossible, to catch an airborne virus outdoors, in summer, especially if there’s any sort of modest wind.
    
    The wind disperses the airborne particles extremely quickly, so it’s unlikely you will breathe in a critical-sized dose.
    
    The sun and the wind also very rapidly dry out the virus particles surface, which destroys them.
    
    But indoors, with poor air movement, and especially if people are singing or breathing deeply …
    
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    December 21, 2021 12:10pm
CAKE FACE1

I just pulled up one my posts from 18 months ago – June 2020. It is interesting to see what I thought and wrote way back then. How did I do? Obviously, we had the landslide election since, but not much else has changed…

“The Black Lives Matter protests did a huge favour to the world, because they destroyed any semblance of lockdown in many countries. It was time.

CAKE FACE predicts that by our election time, virtually the entire world will have opened their borders, except New Zealand. Europe is opening now. The Americas and Asia will follow. The world will learn to live with this nasty flu.

Unfortunately, Cindy is so invested in a hysterical madness, foolish pride will stop her opening the borders in NZ, while the rest of the world moves on.

We, alone, will continue to be prisoners, trapped in our little island prison.

I used to post on Stuff comments, exhorting the hacks to ask Cindy what her exit strategy was, in the propaganda shows she ran. They never did.

The government has no exit strategy, except a wish for a magic perfect vaccine, that may take years or even decades to develop and test.

When all the dust settles, NZ will have dealt with the crisis the worst in the world. The nasty flu will still inevitably come here, but we will have vandalised our economy for far longer and more savagely than anyone else.

I predicted this in the first week of the crisis, and now I’m feeling omnipresent.

I’ve stated the above to all my friends and family, and persuaded none of them. They agree that that a perfect vaccine or antiviral is unlikely for years, but they still want to keep the borders shut. For some of them, I think this is self-interest speaking. They are at an age where the nasty flu could be deadly, and the economic effects don’t really impact them greatly. It is the young who will again bear the costs of boomer selfishness. Others simply don’t appear to have thought about it. They believed the scientists who said a perfect vaccine should be available in 12 months, despite history indicating it may well take years longer.

To have no exit strategy for the foreseeable is to me negligent and irrational.

Unfortunately, Cindy is in charge of this country and is an exceptionally feeble minded and weak character. Paradoxically, weak people often act in an arrogant and aggressive way, in order to puff themselves up, and appear strong. When New Zealand switched from the mitigation strategy to the elimination strategy, it did so on the basis of extraordinary levels of conceit and hubris. Cindy won’t admit that she got it all wrong – she is too full of foolish pride for that.

Woe is me!”
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December 21, 2021 8:03am
- notreadyet
  
  exactly, and while I never wrote anything down all the talk at the time with my peers, all retired, felt this was not going to work out well and we’re highly annoyed at the cost that would be lumped onto the next couple of generations.
  we now appreciate that it was never really about health, didn’t take me to long to start questioning a few things and come to that conclusion, but a “golden opportunity” for power and control to implement radical policies that would normally be acceptable
  
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  December 21, 2021 8:33am
  - Local Miller
    
    Notreadyet – “implement radical policies that would normally be acceptable”
    I assume you meant “implement radical policies that would normally NOT be acceptable”
    
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    December 21, 2021 8:59am
    - notreadyet
      
      meant to be Unacceptable
      
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      December 21, 2021 9:15am
- Bluegrass
  
  CakeFace – you pulled up one of your past posts?
  
  Wow. How did you do that?
  
  I can do that on Disqus blogs, but not on this blog.
  
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  December 21, 2021 1:32pm
  - CAKE FACE1
    
    Sometimes I save into a word document before posting. I got into this habit because Stuff wouldn’t publish 99% of my posts, so sometimes I would recycle the post for another blog.
    
    Sometimes (like now) I just type directly into the box, and don’t save it.
    
    So sorry I didn’t pull the post from here (actually the post above was made into another blog in any case).
    
    CAKE is no help at all.
    
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    December 21, 2021 5:25pm
alloytoo

At last a sensible article about Carbon Zero and our energy generation capacity.

https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/national/no-time-to-be-silent-on-nz-s-electricity-future/ar-AARUgUT?ocid=entnewsntp
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December 21, 2021 8:07am
- JJ56
  
  Little surprised at the number of upticks for a comment that links to a article from Newsroom that tells us we all are doomed unless we change our genes, stop breeding, and doesn’t realize the second law of thermodynamics is with us no matter which hair shirt we put on.
  
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  December 21, 2021 11:18am
Tomtoddy

Waitangi tribunal has found the Government broke the treaty over Covid. Now there is a surprise.

Waitangi tribunal recommends Government spend more money on Maori. Oh!! Another surprise.
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December 21, 2021 8:08am
- Cinematic
  
  A bit like the CTU petition being delivered to Labour today demands an increase in the minimum wage of over 10%. Huge surprise and not at all inflationary.
  
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  December 21, 2021 8:11am
- RockyJ
  
  I think most of us are by now ignoring such silliness. Just as accusations of racism have lost their venom. Nowadays when I am accused of being racist on social media I almost regard it as a complement.
  
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  December 21, 2021 8:12am
  - Than
    
    Yep, pretty much.
    
    I find it particularly ironic that The Maori Party, a party literally built around race and advancing one race over others, is always the first to scream “racism” when anybody dares to disagree with them.
    
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    December 21, 2021 8:45am
- Julie
  
  The Treaty has evolved from equal citizenship to a Partnership, what’s next ?
  Hint I do know the answer!
  
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  December 21, 2021 8:15am
  - Nickc2
    
    A rewritten Treaty is already on the horizon. The University of Waikato’s Maori Studies Faculty is hard at it. Any resemblance to the original TOW is expected to be purely coincidental.
    If you think 3 Waters is a rort, wait till you see this Treaty. It will make He Puapua fade into insignificance.
    
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    December 21, 2021 9:09am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  But why didn’t the Maori MPs push for their people during the vaccine roll-out? Are they out of touch with them?
  
  The tribunal says Cabinet’s decision to go against official advice and not prioritise Māori in the vaccine rollout breached the Treaty principles of active protection and equity.
  
  Bloomfield wanted to lower the age at which Maori first became eligible for the vaccine.
  
  https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/12/coronavirus-waitangi-tribunal-says-covid-19-response-breached-te-tiriti.html
  
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  December 21, 2021 8:15am
  - Benedict Yu
    
    “Bloomfield wanted to lower the age at which Maori first became eligible for the vaccine.”
    
    Why? Are they physiologically different to other people?
    
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    December 21, 2021 8:19am
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      By age 55, their physiology may be well buggered:
      
      One study found that non-Pacific, non-Māori (mostly European) people aged 80 years had similar risk of developing a clinically severe infection as Pacific people aged 55 years. Additionally, Pacific people have a three times greater risk of hospitalisation due to Covid-19 than non-Pacific, non-Māori people.
      
      https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/news/2021/02/17/why-maori-pacific-people-should-get-vaccine-first.html
      
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      December 21, 2021 8:37am
      - All_on_Red
        
        Is that because by age 55, a high percentile are Obese?
        
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        December 21, 2021 10:30am
    - emmess
      
      He wants to impose myocarditis on Maori children.
      What a racist bastard!
      
      25 1
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      December 21, 2021 8:39am
    - notreadyet
      
      my understanding is that in a way yes, they are an anomaly given skin colour in a temperate environment and don’t pick up Vit D important for natural immunity in the same way paler skin does.
      and while not a physiological thing there’s appears to be some other factor that leads to poorer lifestyle choices that seem to work against a lot of them
      
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      December 21, 2021 8:41am
    - Chuck Bird
      
      I do not think so. A Maori who is not obese and does not smoke or take drugs would at less risk than an obese non-Maori who smoked.
      
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      December 21, 2021 8:48am
      - Maggy Wassilieff
        
        Yes, of course,… but the Health data is taken on a statistical basis..and the only analysis that seems to run in NZ is one based on ethnicity…
        Never a look at the social status of those with lousy health stats.
        
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        December 21, 2021 9:01am
    - Julie
      
      Dreadful diet, too much alcohol and smoking will do it too you. Any body who eats and drinks like this has the same profile. This is one of the main reasons the US and UK badly hit and places like Japan not.
      
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      December 21, 2021 8:53am
    - Jack5
      
      Some differences in health are related to racial characteristics.
      
      Maori don’t suffer as much skin cancer as non-Maori New Zealanders despite tending to live in the sunnier parts of the country.
      
      Some health differences are related to cultural aspects, such as food.
      
      Maori tend to suffer a higher incidence of gout than New Zealanders over all, because they eat more shell fish.
      
      Then there’s the Polynesian “fast-twitch muscle” development that is raised from time to time.
      
      Are Polynesians just predisposed to be fatter and heavier than most races, with the problems that entails?
      
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      December 21, 2021 9:10am
      - UrbanNeocolonialist
        
        Evolution doesn’t tend to put as much emphasis on benefits of having productive contributing grandparents when you live in a neolithic hunter-gather culture with high rates of death from warfare. Martial prowess and fecundity are more essential in R-selection type cultures closer to the tropics, and it seems they don’t live as long on average as people who’s ancestors lived and evolved in colder climate K-selection type environments for a long time.
        
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        December 21, 2021 11:13am
- Benedict Yu
  
  The thing is a farce. Jacinda should just say “FO. We did everything we could. Thousands of you have been too lazy to go back for your second shot. So we are going to ignore your bullshit finding. Merry Christmas.” ??
  
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  December 21, 2021 8:17am
  - Charmaine Hawke
    
    If she did that Benedict then she would have nothing left, our economy is a mess and race relations in this country have never been worse. Suicides up, poverty in some communities up, waiting lists for houses up nothing she would want in the positive column.
    The reality is without covid she is shown up as nothing more than a slogan machine with little understanding of the real world.
    No I am picking she will go mad in 2022 trying to keep us under her thumb and be gone by the end of the year (I hope sooner but need to be realistic).
    
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    December 21, 2021 8:29am
    - Paulus
      
      Minimum wage to go up to so called Living Wage – Robertson to announce very shortly.
      More lower paid jobs will be lost as smaller employers cannot afford it.
      
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      December 21, 2021 1:57pm
  - amospicton
    
    A real leader would do exactly that Benedict. I’m not holding my breath!
    
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    December 21, 2021 8:36am
  - Surely Knott
    
    Well I agree Jacinda should fuck off with forcing the shots. The reason people haven’t taken them isn’t because they are lazy, haven’t had a chance nor their race.
    Here’s DirtySesh (Mike King’s kid) NZ rapper laying it out. He’s not uninformed. He is concerned what is happening to our country , concerned with the racial division, unhappy that we are having a medical procedure forced on us. “Choice is freedom – freedom is choice”, he finishes. He is making a choice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTJ7Q-NQGFc
    
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    December 21, 2021 9:20am
  - ByGolly
    
    It’s not laziness THEY DONT FUCKING WANT IT.
    
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    December 21, 2021 12:29pm
- Cassandra
  
  Defund the Waitangi Tribunal (and in the meantime at the very least stop conflicts of interest) and while you’re about it defund the Royal Society. Then start defunding a few others – Mr Foon needs to find a real job, and the top HRC fellow should return to his native land, all before Christmas, so he can spend time with his old mum.
  
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  December 21, 2021 8:38am
- KH
  
  Treaty might have been useful 200 years ago. But times progress and now it needs to be ripped up.
  
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  December 21, 2021 8:51am
- Yvette
  
  Coronavirus: Waitangi Tribunal says COVID-19 response breached Te Tiriti The Waitangi Tribunal has released a scathing ruling of the Government’s COVID-19 response and vaccine rollout, saying Māori were put at risk.
  https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/12/coronavirus-waitangi-tribunal-says-covid-19-response-breached-te-tiriti.html
  
  • But the whole nation – well, those who have recently watched ONE, TWO, THREE or PRIME – most know TWO SHOTS entitles you to screw – DO THE DEED, or SKINNY DIP
  
  Surely this adaptation from a much dirtier-worded US wrapper, is specifically targeted at Maori youth – rangatahi?
  
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  December 21, 2021 8:57am
- cas
  
  This was an interesting article in the Sunday Star times contrasting how Whanau Apanui went about things ( almost 90% double jabbed) and how there were conflicts between the Tuhoe hierarchy and its people about what should be done. So I would say it’s all in their own hands as to what they do or don’t do.
  
  https://www.stuff.co.nz/pou-tiaki/127272199/thoe-organisation-accused-of-failing-to-counter-covid19-vaccine-lies
  
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  December 21, 2021 9:13am
- Rich Prick
  
  I’m curious, what does race have to do with Covid, all taxpayer funded assistance has been universally available? In fact just about all of the advertisements pandered sufficiently. It must be about “special” treatment withheld.
  
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  December 21, 2021 9:15am
  - bronny1
    
    uh no. They got plenty of special treatment. They weren’t offering whitey’s the incentives they offered the bros to get the jabs.
    
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    December 21, 2021 10:59am
- backster
  
  Maybe the Government need to use Maori Science to cure Covid in part maori people.
  
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  December 21, 2021 10:39am
Cinematic

It’s amazing how many scary viruses are out there if we test for them. Prior to the global testing psychosis humankind bumbled along pretty well for a few million years. I wonder how?
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December 21, 2021 8:09am
- MCōs
  
  Humankind didn’t ‘bumble along pretty well’ at all.
  Various plagues and black deaths wiped out vast numbers of people.
  The Black Death c1350 killed half the population of Europe.
  The Spanish Flu killed more than 20% of the population of Samoa.
  It killed 9000 people here in two months when the population was c1,120,000.
  
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  December 21, 2021 9:02am
  - ClanMcleod
    
    Don’t forget the contributing factors that really caused so much death in those particular plagues. You’ll find basic lack of clean water and horrendous living conditions were responsible for most of the mayhem.
    With the Spanish Flu there was the added factor of hundreds of thousands of young from around the globe fighting in rat infested, filthy conditions then travelling back to their various homelands. You couldn’t find a better breeding ground except maybe a lab in China.
    Even with that, our immune systems evolved naturally and gave us the best possible protection against future viruses, and they didn’t have a single conflict of interest unlike the pharma companies making billions. All our immune system wanted was for us to survive, no personal reward or enrichment. Commie bastards!
    
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    December 21, 2021 9:59am
    - alloytoo
      
      For much of our recent longevity we have Chlorine to thank, that chemical that Greenpeace wanted to ban.
      
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      December 21, 2021 10:08am
  - Cinematic
    
    Yet here we are. Multitudinous. Billions and billions of humans.
    
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    December 21, 2021 10:17am
  - rangitoto
    
    It’s been argued that the Black Death also ended feudalism and would have left the surviving population with greater resistance to the disease. Life has always been a battle. As they say, “it’s an ill wind that blows no good”.
    
    My take. Back in the day, Homer reports that the Achaeans were struck with a plague for annoying the god Apollo. Once they freed the daughter of Apollo’s priest and Odysseus made suitable offerings on behalf of the Achaeans, Apollo called off the plague. Someone has really upset Apollo this time. Just need to find a suitable way to appease the god.
    
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    December 21, 2021 3:35pm
Simon

Conscientious objectors were just trench warfare hesitant.
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December 21, 2021 8:11am
- Jack5
  
  I wouldn’t have had the guts to be a conscientious objector even if I’d wanted to be one.
  
  Have you read how Archibald Baxter and other conscientious objectors were treated in World War 1?
  
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  December 21, 2021 9:14am
  - UrbanNeocolonialist
    
    Field punishment number 1 (being tied to a post all day every day in range of German guns, in a sort of mock crucifixion)
    
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    December 21, 2021 11:16am
- Alan Wilkinson
  
  Utterly stupid comment. Ever figured out what WW1 was about?
  
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  December 21, 2021 10:53am
Tony Stuart

An excellent piece from Simon Bridges at BusinessDesk. Within it, he says:

A sugar high

When you have an economy that is overheating, the last thing you should do is add more fuel to the fire. But that is exactly what the government is doing by pumping in big fiscal stimulus – like a sugar-filled syringe.

National will not be critical for the sake of it on this count, especially with the benefit of hindsight.
Stimulus, even if not perfectly doled out, was right at the start of the pandemic. We can argue retrospectively about Grant Robertson’s big spending, or indeed Adrian Orr’s, but in one of the most overused phrases of all time: it is what it is.
The problem is the emergency spending hasn’t stopped.
When the government spends, that money competes with every other dollar for scarce labour and resources. Some 15,000 more public servants in a relatively small economy makes a real dent. As does paying over the odds for land, rentals, consultants, and so on. Today, government spending is more than 40% higher than when Labour took office four years ago.

My larger concern is where we are going. Last week’s HYEFU shows spending 68% higher than 2017 – with $128 billion of government spending to be pumped into the economy next year alone.
Mr Robertson is giving himself $6b of new money in Budget 2022, almost quadrupling the budgets National delivered when in office (Remember Bill English – he gave us two zero budgets to ensure we got back into black).
Allocating such high levels of new operating spending is an extraordinary decision when the economy is already overheating. While the size of this spending matters – especially given the debt our country is taking on to pay for it – what matters more to me is whether the spending is an investment or just spending for the sake of spending.

And when the government can waste more than $50 million “exploring” the Auckland Bike Bridge it later cancelled, it all looks pretty loose to me.
Indeed, when the finance minister says it’s all necessary and to argue otherwise is some sort of “neoliberal” austerity, I will briefly go against my rule of not looking back and note a significant portion of the $50b covid fund spending to date has been spent on things not even vaguely covid related.

Weighing up the costs

If all the new spending had been invested in hospitals, transport, and bobbies on the beat then at least it would be an investment in better public services. But too much of Robertson’s new spending has been sprayed on favoured groups and pet projects which never would have passed a half-decent cost-benefit analysis.

Grant Robertson’s approach to fiscal policy reminds me very much of St Augustine of Hippo when it comes to matters of the flesh: “Oh Lord, give me chastity and continence, just not yet.” Talk of reining in the cash splash is always in the future, and as we know tomorrow never comes.
History tells us that an expanding state (for legitimate reasons of emergency) does not tend to quickly revert back to more appropriate levels. It’s a bit like a diet, it’s a lot easier to put on the calories than lose them.

https://businessdesk.co.nz/article/opinion/grantonomics-risks-rousing-the-inflation-dragon

This is a really interesting approach from Bridges, selectively criticising Robertson for what is perceived as low-quality spending; and it’s not as if he is short of examples! Robertson’s defence of the $51m spend on consultants reports for the canned Auckland cycle bridge suggests that this is an area where Robertson will be particularly vulnerable. The average Kiwi, struggling to make ends meet as inflation rises, is unlikely to see things through the same lens Robertson does.

It’s early days, but thus far Bridges is making a good job of the shadow finance portfolio. As the economy runs into trouble, as it almost inevitably will in 2022, the contest between Bridges and Robertson is going to be one to watch.
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December 21, 2021 8:13am
- alloytoo
  
  Opening statement for the prosecution?
  
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  December 21, 2021 8:31am
- All_on_Red
  
  Its a good approach and I would like to see more of it. Their spending is not very effective- what Govt spending is?
  The US experience indicates that if we go too far on spending then we will see inflation- which we are seeing glimmers of now. Our cost of living is far too high
  Inflation would be the death knell for all those SMEs teetering on the edge of ruin.
  But Labour doesn’t care. Their trolls will tell us ‘but they don’t deserve to be in business if they cant pay’.
  
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  December 21, 2021 8:35am
  - Tony Stuart
    
    Not just their trolls AoR – that comment was made by Dr Deborah Russell, a tax expert and second-term Labour MP!
    
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    December 21, 2021 8:36am
    - All_on_Red
      
      Unfortunately I’m not surprised by that.
      Also thanks Tony, for sharing your insights on what has been going on in National this year.
      Its been good to learn of the many things not mentioned by the media and its been appreciated.
      
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      December 21, 2021 8:47am
  - bronny1
    
    Glimmers?????!
    
    6 1
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    December 21, 2021 9:15am
    - Tony Stuart
      
      I agree bronny – inflation is already staring us in the face, interest rates have already been raised twice, with as many as five rises signalled next year. Those aren’t glimmers; they’re the headlights of an oncoming sixteen wheeler!
      
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      December 21, 2021 11:20am
- 7kiwi11
  
  It’s just a shame that it stuck on a business website, preaching to the converted. It should be in the MSM. Instead we get the Herald ‘Cold Desserts in the Edmonds Cookbook Ranked’ and ‘Sinister reason behind woman’s insatiable thirst’
  
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  December 21, 2021 8:44am
  - Tony Stuart
    
    Yes, but at least it isn’t paywalled, so feel free to share the link widely and increase its readership ?
    
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    December 21, 2021 9:17am
- KevO'Brien
  
  An excellent former Crown prosecutor also shows his ability to be an excellent Minister of Finance.
  I’m most pleased.
  
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  December 21, 2021 10:48am
KevO'Brien

Seconded:
https://basedunderground.com/2021/12/14/is-omicron-another-lab-creation/
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December 21, 2021 8:13am
Benedict Yu

This guy Baker is at it again.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300482669/covid19-government-to-announce-possible-changes-to-booster-shot-rollout-border-reopening

Wants the borders to stay shut. Not a word about the misery this would cause to the thousands in Australia who have booked to come home.

It will be interesting to see what they announce today. I think they will leave the border unchanged. They will also announce boosters after 5 rather than 6 months.
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December 21, 2021 8:15am
- Pavel
  
  Easy to say when you’re on a government paycheck for a job that doesn’t require overseas travel. This man has zero empathy. When we went into our lockdowns, all government servants should of been put on the wage subsidy. Maybe they would think twice about lockdowns when their put on $600 a week minis tax. Would of been great to see politicians lead the way by taking the wage subsidy, give them some insight into the consequences of their policies.
  
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  December 21, 2021 8:30am
  - ClanMcleod
    
    Pavel not only does Baker have zero empathy, he is a narcissist who has dreamed of this moment for many years. The idea of an island nation hunkering down in a deadly pandemic has been his wet dream since forever. He has talked and written about it many times. Here is an insight into the man’s mind.
    
    https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0178732#sec016
    
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    December 21, 2021 9:04am
  - bennerg
    
    A bigger problem is that all these ‘specialists”, Baker, Jackson, Wiles etc, are having the Andy Warhol 15 minutes of fame, and they have become addicted on it.
    
    It is a pity is that they are not big picture types, and see everything in terms of the virus.
    
    The worse pity is that Ardern can use these few select “experts” to justify anything she wants to do.
    
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    December 21, 2021 2:21pm
- emmess
  
  Interesting that now on the Stuff (a MSM site), the comments and upvotes are about 50/50
  I wonder how left (not quite right it’s not even a left/right issue any more), pro-authoritarian the readers of Stuff lean as opposed to the general population.
  
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  December 21, 2021 8:48am
  - Alan Wilkinson
    
    Way more Left. Its readers/commenters are even thicker than its journalists which is why they need a safe thought-free space.
    
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    December 21, 2021 10:57am
- ClanMcleod
  
  And no matter how often the goalposts are shifted, so many people accept it. Mass formation really is a thing and it is disturbing watching it in action.
  I would love to see Baker, Hendy and Jackson in a live televised debate with Dr Robert Malone, Ivor Cummins and Joseph Mercola. The Kiwis would be wiped over the studio floor in 5 minutes which is precisely the reason why it will never happen and why we continue to have a “single source of truth”.
  
  Hell, I think 3 of the commenters from Kiwiblog could do the job in 10 minutes including a coffee break!
  So many very basic questions never asked around completely illogical policies and glaring contradictions. Because to do so publicly would destroy the narrative in an instant, which is why it will not be permitted in Ardern’s private mainstream media.
  
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  December 21, 2021 9:01am
  - Sean OConnor
    
    I got a lot more hopeful in the last few days. I see that in the USA, the penny is starting to drop that the controls aren’t working.
    
    I saw Chris Cilizza (!) and Brian Stelter (!!!) of CNN both acknowledge that Omicron is the end of pretending vaccines can prevent infection on the population level.
    
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    December 21, 2021 9:56am
- Ehlana
  
  I work with people who have family overseas. How about we do a swap – we’ll send Baker away from his family, and another of his colleagues, and my colleague can have his wife and child back again?
  
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  December 21, 2021 11:09am
- Ra Henare
  
  ANNOUNCED: 4 months to boosters and MIQless returns slipped 6 weeks.
  MIQ shuffled out to 10 dayys from 7 days
  
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  December 21, 2021 3:37pm
- Benedict Yu
  
  “I think they will leave the border unchanged. They will also announce boosters after 5 rather than 6 months.”
  
  I am wrong again.
  
  Boosters after 4 months – and if you are in a mandated group you will lose your ‘vaccinated’ status if you refuse a booster.
  
  And opening of border with Australia now delayed to at least the end of February 2022. 🙁
  
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  December 21, 2021 3:56pm
  - Captain Mainwaring
    
    Boosters after 4 months eh?
    Our 4 months ended in mid November, but the earliest we can get the booster is Mid January. That’s actually 6 months, so bullshit castle is working overtime.
    
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    December 21, 2021 4:27pm
KevO'Brien

An inside look at modellers:
Crucially, the modellers did not look at any scenario in which Omicron causes milder disease than Delta or if people start to change their behaviour in the coming weeks in response to the variant.

SAGE’s chief modeller Professor Graham Medley from LSHTM revealed this weekend that the committee does not consider optimistic scenarios because ‘that doesn’t get decisions made’.
Typical ‘experts’ in their own bubbles-watch out for the Kiwi variety. This lot want want to re-shape the UK.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10328333/Why-easier-believe-Father-Christmas-SAGEs-6k-Covid-deaths-day-projection.html
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December 21, 2021 8:16am
- alloytoo
  
  Yet there is new science which indicates that Omicron infection is markedly different from prior variants.
  
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  December 21, 2021 8:32am
  - KevO'Brien
    
    Its only danger is what the WHO can drum up again. Is Tedros still working for the CCCP and Bill Gates financing the WHO?
    When advisers are blinded by money its foolish not to be very wary.
    
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    December 21, 2021 10:52am
- Stellaboxer
  
  Starting to stink isn’t it. Governments trying to ramp up the hysteria rather than calm the situation with facts. I hear Wiles is already spreading fear and warning of more strict mask mandates. So after failing to prevent Delta with lockdowns and BS mask wearing they’re going to try the same thing again only harder. They must of gone to The Douglas Haig school of strategy. Maybe it’s time to get rid of the ideologically aligned “ experts “ and try something different.
  
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  December 21, 2021 8:42am
  - amospicton
    
    They’re certainly trying to maintain the hysteria. Case in point the 9 year old who is now a covid death stat. The reality is that he was only discovered to have covid in the post mortem i.e. he was in hospital for other reasons, reasons we’re not told about for ‘privacy reasons’. For all we know it could have been a car crash. And yet this poor child is being used as propaganda to vaccinate children. It’s beyond sick.
    
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    December 21, 2021 9:56am
- ClanMcleod
  
  Same here in NZ with the doom merchants, Plank, Hendy, Baker et al.
  
  “Corona has vastly expanded the ranks of pandemic planners and public health botherers. Unless something is done, these people will destroy all of society in their radical pursuit of a few viruses.”
  
  https://eugyppius.substack.com/p/the-pandemicists-must-be-stopped
  
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  December 21, 2021 9:07am
- virtualmark
  
  As someone who’s done their share of modelling and simulations …
  
  Let’s say you run a model that can consider 100 different scenarios, ranging from good/best to bad/awful.
  
  Now you need to make a major decision based on those scenario outputs. Like decisions on lockdowns and so on.
  
  Where do you pitch your decision? Do you base it off the best possible outcome? Or the 50th percentile? Or the 20th percentile? Or …
  
  Lots of people here whinge and complain, without (a) ever having been in a position like the one they’re complaining about and (b) ever having thought through what they would have to consider and balance.
  
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  December 21, 2021 12:16pm
Sarkozygroupie

‘Jessica, then Tova’: Jacinda Ardern defends her special people. It’s a courtesy to always let them have all the questions and always to be first!

Also you can see a photo of a “Jessica, the Tova” t-shirt! Get yours today!

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/jessica-then-tova-jacinda-ardern-grills-reporters-in-reverse-press-conference-on-the-hits-with-jono-and-ben/BNT2EH6PIBATPG62EFKZRGK3K4/
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December 21, 2021 8:18am
- Local Miller
  
  What a BS excuse. the question time is only a few minutes, certainly not enough to break a deadline over.
  What grinds my gears about the few minutes of the interview is how they all think this is very funny.
  
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  December 21, 2021 9:18am
Maggy Wassilieff

Yet more on the Auckland University “debate”

https://pointofordernz.wordpress.com/2021/12/20/dawn-freshwater-kicks-for-touch-on-matauranga-maori/
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December 21, 2021 8:18am
- Jack5
  
  Interesting paragraph in the Point-of-Order piece on “Maori science” and the inquisition of those who question it :
  
  New Zealand’s mainstream media has almost entirely avoided covering the debate but the society’s disciplinary action — and its earlier statement rejecting the professors’ views as “misguided” with the potential to cause “harm” — has sparked international outrage and condemnation from heavyweight public intellectuals.
  
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  December 21, 2021 8:54am
Grey Skills

Lovely weather and the longest day for NZ is tomorrow.
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December 21, 2021 8:22am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Harvest your garlic tomorrow.
  
  (ancient scientific knowledge)
  
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  December 21, 2021 8:46am
  - KH
    
    Yes Maggie. Got a stupendous crop this year. (Central Otago). Folk keep asking if they are leeks.
    But I might give them till New Year.
    
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    December 21, 2021 8:57am
  - Matt Long
    
    Well Maggie, you have a PhD don’t you? Wrap a bunch of confirmation bias, a funding application, shonky statistics and political interference, and modern The Science will tell us now is the time to harvest garlic.
    
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    December 21, 2021 9:12am
    - bronny1
      
      I wish The Science would tell me how to avoid rust on my garlic!
      
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      December 21, 2021 9:17am
      - KH
        
        So far, dry country in the South works.
        
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        December 21, 2021 9:27am
      - bronny1
        
        KH – i’m in Chch and it was rusty well before the rains hit! Might need to give it a miss for a few years.
        
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        December 21, 2021 11:02am
      - Matt Long
        
        https://blog.nutri-tech.com.au/silica-the-hidden-cost-of-chemicals/ fungal disease in plants can be due to a lack of plant available silica
        
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        December 21, 2021 1:09pm
    - Alan Wilkinson
      
      Nothing wrong with an aide-mémoire. Just don’t claim it as science rather than tradition.
      
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      December 21, 2021 11:02am
  - KH
    
    Bronny1. Buggat. I was hearing the rust eas a humid climate thing. But it haven’t got it. Fingers crossed it stays that way.
    Only solution I have heatd so far is plant and harvest extra early. (NZ gardener)
    
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    December 21, 2021 1:42pm
    - bronny1
      
      I’m gonna look into natural sources of silicon as per Matt’s linked article above. I suspect those organic sprays of EM might help too.
      
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      December 21, 2021 6:07pm
      - Sarkozygroupie
        
        Applications of liquid seaweed to strengthen the plants natural defences.
        
        And this;
        
        https://www.ediblebackyard.co.nz/how-to-deal-with-garlic-rust/
        
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        December 21, 2021 9:22pm
Stellaboxer

Interesting article here on a country run by grown ups policy re. vaxxes;
https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/japans-vaccination-policy-no-force-no-discrimination_4163500.html?utm_source=morningbriefnoe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-12-18&mktids=20d9c32c17b660862aca18d2c6a3e022&est=lpugH64CsK8UK3w9GecuAA8cIFRfpZT5z9ZSJo7NpP2NC1t5pWyCouH15nkjCK08TLQ%3D
Nothing mandatory about it, no pressure. All given full advice on adverse reaction BEFORE vaccination, all allowed to freely choose whether to take it or not. Any discrimantion or threats from anyone to enforce vaccine uptake strictly illegal.
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December 21, 2021 8:22am
- bronny1
  
  And interestingly, high vax rates
  
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  December 21, 2021 9:17am
- ClanMcleod
  
  Stellaboxer – and allowed to use alternatives such as Ivermectin if they decided they would like to as an alternative or in conjunction with the jab. Why would any country deliberately prevent people having access to a very safe and potentially helpful drug?
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1GF0H9V_1g
  
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  December 21, 2021 9:20am
  - Ed Snack
    
    Because they are evil bastards is the best description. Ivermectin is an extremely safe drug if (as is true of ALL substances) used in appropriate amounts.
    
    The exclusion of treatments, even proven treatments, in favour of a vaccine only regime is one of the biggest medical mistakes ever made. Especially as we find out that the vaccines are only partially effective.
    
    Even on the “first do no harm” principle, allowing and promoting the use of Ivermectin would be nothing but a plus for NZ.
    
    Quite why the medical powers that be, world wide with some exceptions (parts of India, Japan) insist that Ivermectin not just be falsely characterised as ineffective but be actively banned with criminal sanctions, is hard to explain without at least some sort of conspiracy involving pharmaceutical company profits.
    
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    December 21, 2021 12:14pm
Maggie Pie

My partner reckons ClarkE’s mum & dad will be breathing a big sigh of relief that the cost of a wedding is traditionally picked up by the Bride’s parents.
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December 21, 2021 8:23am
- fightingtemeraire
  
  MP
  
  Do you honestly think that Ross will be paying for this boondoggle???
  
  Jacinda will be getting as much as she can FREE being a good Socialist. Look at the advertising Peter Gordon will get.
  
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  December 21, 2021 8:48am
  - Sacha
    
    Pfizer will see her right –
    
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    December 21, 2021 9:48am
Spoff

“The data released under Official Information Act (OIA) Grant Dixon obtained figures from Medsafe through an OIA request graphed here:
https://dailytelegraph.co.nz/news/relationship-between-vaccination-and-all-cause-mortality-for-the-60-cohort-in-new-zealand/
The temporal association between all cause deaths and vaccination for the 60+ age cohort during the roll out of the mRNA vaccine in NZ between the beginning of March 2021 to the end of October 2021 is graphically rather obvious even to a lay person. As weekly vaccination numbers rise to a peak, deaths peak. As vaccination numbers begin to fall, deaths also fall. The number of excess deaths in the weeks following vaccination is consistent with reports of 670 suspicious deaths proximate to vaccination submitted voluntarily to NZDSOS and NZ Health Forum and could actually be larger.”
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December 21, 2021 8:23am
- mawm
  
  This has been identified in other countries following the vaccine route but not reported in the media.
  
  It is criminal what our governments are doing – supressing information necessary to be able to give informed consent and then coercing people who have been subjected to a campaign of fear sponsored by the government to get a “vaccine” that is neither safe nor effective.
  
  I will not go quietly into the night.
  
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  December 21, 2021 8:58am
- Local Miller
  
  It is telling, but it would be more compelling if there were some historical data to compare with. While I suspect it’s unlikely, this may be a normal distribution over our winter months.
  
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  December 21, 2021 9:26am
  - Reid
    
    Considering what this vaccine is doing to you, by design, you should be taking the most delicate care with this thing, with antennae quivering for every signal there’s a potential issue, emerging over there.
    
    But no, we’re charging ahead like a rampaging rhinosaurus.
    
    The reason utmost care should be being taken, is because the vaccine deals with an area of the body we currently don’t fully understand, called clonal selection. How your body identifies you so it knows what is you and what is a foreign invader. We know a huge part of our DNA is devoted to controlling this aspect of our earth suits, so it must be pretty important, but our understanding of precisely how it functions is currently incomplete.
    
    Your body’s cell wall has a thing on it called a MHC (Major Histocompatability Complex) which is basically the signposts for every protein the cell’s protein factories (ribosomes) are making. When the RNA from the vax enters one of your many cells with an ACE2 receptor, it takes over the ribosomes and gives them new instructions, to make the spike. The MHC duly updates itself and when your T-Helper security patrol sees the spike is being made, it tags the cell for destruction by T-killers and other types of security guards in your body’s military.
    
    That’s what happens inside the body’s of the vaxed.
    
    Now normally a vaccine will introduce a heat-treated or otherwise attenuated version of the virus they want you innoculated against. Your body reacts to it as a foreign invader, takes “photos” of each segment, loads them into memory cells and you now have immunity.
    
    But that’s not what’s happening here. Here, your own body is using its own cells to make a foreign invader inside your own cells. Can you see how that would touch on clonal selection? Which functions we don’t yet fully understand? Can you see why we should be seriously cautious about this before embarking down this road?
    
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    December 21, 2021 11:12am
    - Ed Snack
      
      Reid, I think that the issue with this description is the assumption that the ACE2 receptor is involved in the take up of the mRNA from the vaccine.
      
      I am pretty certain that is incorrect, the vaccine packages the mRNA in a special lipid container that itself merges with the cell wall to deliver the payload. Muscle cells don’t have ACE2 receptor in general.
      
      The S protein itself binds to ACE2, but supposedly (and here I rely on the literature that asserts so) modified form of this protein as specified by the mRNA lacks the complete ACE2 binding region and so cannot actually bind to that. Instead there are other binding domains, supposedly to the CD35 receptors that are intact on the parts of the S protein normally hidden within the virus envelope. That binding is the one that makes the S protein cause myocarditis and related issues.
      
      That CD35 binding may also produce the issues you cite above, but by my understanding, it is NOT caused (if it is caused at all) by the vaccines or th vaccine mediated S protein molecules binding to the ACE2 receptor.
      
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      December 21, 2021 12:20pm
      - Reid
        
        Yes it was my miswording Ed, if I could have edited it out I would have but by the time I’d picked it up that window had closed, but you’re quite correct, the ACE2 receptor is not involved in cell entry for the lipid-encased mRNA scriptase, the lipid packaging does that part of the job. I was thinking of the virus as well at the time I wrote that and inadvertantly conflated the two in my head. Thanks for picking up and clarifying.
        
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        December 21, 2021 12:57pm
  - UrbanNeocolonialist
    
    Yeah, deaths in oldies always goes up in winter. Would need to compare against seasonal averages to detect any true vax related signal
    
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    December 21, 2021 1:55pm
- bennerg
  
  This is of especial significance because of the unique circumstance where we have had so few Covid-19 infections. This add extra weight to the assertion, that the additional deaths can be linked directly to the vaccinations, not the virus.
  
  Watch this get hidden by the mainstream media.
  
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  December 21, 2021 2:28pm
Jack5

Christchurch folk can thank Judge Jane Farish for having this monster doing community work near them:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/127337970/going-to-prison-used-to-be-my-job-former-gangster-dean-noble-tells-judge

Note the SS symbols on his left cheek. He doesn’t know the SS fanatics despised non-Whites.
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December 21, 2021 8:33am
- Benedict Yu
  
  Thanks. I will keep a look out. 🙁
  
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  December 21, 2021 9:14am
  - All_on_Red
    
    On a positive note, he should be easy to spot.
    
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    December 21, 2021 10:37am
- zulumonster
  
  Judge Farish is confident he “can make a real go of it this time around”.
  It’s not like the charges were serious – meth for supply and possession of an air pistol et al.
  Those factors are obviously far outweighed by the cultural report and positive letters of support …
  The judge hopes he is “as confident as she is” that he can make a go of it this time!! FFS.
  
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  December 21, 2021 9:33am
  - Nickc2
    
    Can’t the Police appeal a sentence handed down by a court in NZ?
    
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    December 21, 2021 1:04pm
Cassandra

Luxon wants the National party to be kinder and his MPs to stop using their phones and looking round the room at social functions. HIS MPs? He seems to think that leader of a political party is like being CEO of a company. This is not going to end well. And being kind when dealing with fanatics in the Labour Party will not cut it.
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December 21, 2021 8:43am
- Sacha
  
  Maybe he rather likes old-fashioned good manners? Using your phone at a social function gives the impression that the others present are less important than the phone, and constantly looking around while in the presence of others gives the impression that there might be someone else more worthy of attention.
  If I am talking to someone who constantly scans the room in stead of paying me the courtesy of attention, I leave. And I certainly wouldn’t vote for them.
  
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  December 21, 2021 9:55am
- lifesgood
  
  Oh God! Are you going to start carping about Luxon now? I’ve had it with so called Nat supporters who endlessly carp about whoever is leader of the party. Mind you, I am making an assumption here. You are very likely one of the many Labour luvvies who comment here.
  
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  December 21, 2021 10:27am
  - KevO'Brien
    
    The carpers are frequently Labouring trolls.
    
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    December 21, 2021 10:57am
Maggie Pie

TRENDING….

Remember a couple of months ago when top Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai posted ‘sexual assault allegations’ on Weibo, against a very senior member of the CCP?

At the time, she said to her alleged abuser, Zhang Gaoli, “I am like a moth drawn to a flame, inviting self destruction, I will tell the truth about you”
(she stopped just short of calling him an asshole)

The post was scrubbed from the internet within 30minutes by Chinese censors. Then Peng sort of disappeared for a bit 🙁

Anyway, she’s back again now with a new vid, DENYING she said any such thing…..

https://youtu.be/98p7JKLj12A

Rumors circulating on FB, suggest Peng may have also decided to donate a kidney to a close friend in Beijing. Bless.
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December 21, 2021 8:51am
- ClanMcleod
  
  She sounds just like Jacinda Ardern telling us there would be no coercion to vaccinate. It must be a communist thing?
  
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  December 21, 2021 9:28am
  - jgw739
    
    Hipkins told us today that parents would get to decide if they get their 5-11 year olds vaccinated.
    He also said parents would be strongly encouraged to do so.
    
    This all seems very familiar and I can see this being left like a steaming pile on principals desks up and down the country, just like business owners in 2021
    
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    December 21, 2021 5:27pm
- virtualmark
  
  It won’t be Peng that has donated the kidney.
  
  Each of her close family will have donated a kidney.
  
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  December 21, 2021 12:19pm
Yvette

One death …
The first death of a child with Covid-19 in New Zealand has prompted calls for Māori children to be prioritised in the next stage of the vaccine rollout, as the country grapples with racial inequalities compounded by the pandemic.
A Māori boy, under the age of 10 and who had tested positive for the virus, died last week, becoming the youngest New Zealander to die with Covid, the Ministry of Health confirmed. It is unclear whether Covid-19 was the cause of the boy’s death, as New Zealand records all deaths of people considered active Covid cases in its official count. It is the country’s 49th death of a Covid-positive person since the start of the pandemic. Māori make up an estimated 17.1% of the population but they have accounted for 32% of all Covid-19 related deaths.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/20/death-of-child-with-covid-19-prompts-calls-for-maori-to-be-prioritised-in-nz-vaccine-rollout

… this prompted calls for Māori children to be prioritised in the next stage of the vaccine rollout
– calls for establishment of a Labour national policy decision

another death …
Police name 10-month old baby that died in Starship Hospital with ‘non-accidental’ injuries
Chance Kamanaka O Ke Akura Aipolani-Nielson arrived at Starship on Wednesday night with critical injuries. Police said an investigation into his death is ongoing and on Saturday was upgraded to a homicide probe.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2021/12/police-name-10-month-old-baby-that-died-in-starship-hospital-with-non-accidental-injuries.html

… this prompt nothing, as yet … again … and again

(Warning: the above may be “hate korero”, term coined by Devoy. “You will know it when you see it” when we finally legislate against what you can hear, quote: a definition devised by Jacinda Ardern – but do not let this detract from the point I attempt to make above!)
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December 21, 2021 9:00am
- bronny1
  
  How do we know that the kid that died with covid wasn’t beaten to death by his “caregivers”. Or run over in the driveway. Or drowned. They are all common causes of childhood deaths and nothing to do with covid.
  
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  December 21, 2021 9:33am
- Cassandra
  
  And according to Health Aotearoa Maori obesity is a breach of the Treaty of Waitangi. Seriously, I’m not making this up.
  
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  December 21, 2021 9:48am
  - KevO'Brien
    
    Puketifinau where this crazy “treaty” tribulation is going. Obese Maori breach the Treaty? Do they need body trimmers for their chiefs? There are machines.
    
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    December 21, 2021 11:01am
Tony

Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
A little reality check:
An article on Newsroom comparing similar sized countries to NZ for covid response.

https://www.newsroom.co.nz/comparing-covid-how-new-zealand-stacks-up

Broadly speaking, we should take great pride in the fact that our Government, working closely with experts in the health ministry, independent epidemiologists and modellers, has developed cautious policies that have protected us to an extraordinary degree against the worst ravages of Covid.

And

When Christopher Luxon, leader of the National Party, asserts that, in order to protect businesses against further losses, New Zealand should be emerging from social restrictions much faster than the Government is permitting, he is joining Bloomberg in valuing big business over the lives of people at risk of dying of Covid.

Yes, I know we don’t have land borders as do many of the countries compared here, but the fact remains NZ has done bloody well, probably the best in the world.
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December 21, 2021 9:02am
- NoFax
  
  The good news is that nobody actually reads Newsroom. Go to their Facebook and they get about as many engagements as I do when I post a nice sunset photo – totally irrelevant.
  
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  December 21, 2021 9:40am
- Cassandra
  
  Banning cars would reduce the road toll. The Labour approach to this virus is not sustainable in the long term.
  
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  December 21, 2021 9:50am
- amospicton
  
  Absolute tosh – given our natural advantages we should have done better, in terms of virus spread and deaths given that was our stated priority, but particularly in terms of the social and financial cost of this narcissistic exercise by our dear leader. This is not the world champs of covid. We aren’t competing for the gold with the drug cheats of Belarus, or our big cousins across the ditch. We should be trying to get the best OVERALL result for New Zealanders. In reality we’ve been focused on the best political outcome for the Labour Party. It’s disgusting.
  
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  December 21, 2021 10:05am
Lee C

Leaked documents suggest US govt co-owns Moderna vaccines according to an agreemnt reached in 2015. (And yes, it’s ‘Pre-Trump’)
https://www.facebook.com/100012254620481/videos/462777302133438
The guradian is already on record indicating pharma has been ‘lobbying’ governments since 2016:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/19/big-pharma-money-lobbying-us-opioid-crisis
Russell Brand has a breakdown of some of the benefits to pharma of such ‘lobbying’ indicating teh opoid crisis (conservatively estimated to have killed 250,000 Americans):
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=848378159073864

Follow the money.
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December 21, 2021 9:05am
- NoFax
  
  Two years ago the Left hated “big Pharma” now they shout “trust the science” (one of the most unscientific statements around). So let’s remember the Left will pick up any weapon to bash and attempt to control society.
  
  They don’t actually care about the argument or if there is consistency just conttrol.
  
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  December 21, 2021 9:44am
plc

Anybody else concerned that being PM is nothing more than a vanity project for Chris Luxon?

Does he have the fortitude, drive etc to make meaningful change that would set NZ on a path where the principles of small government, personal responsibility and equality of opportunity were key drivers?

My concern is that becoming PM is his end game rather than access to the levers of change.
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December 21, 2021 9:10am
- bronny1
  
  What you are worried that he’s in it for the same reason as Jacinta?
  
  Oh no that’s right, she’s still climbing the ladder…and she is incompetent and sociopathic. So I think I’d give him a chance as the unknown rather than sticking with the known.
  
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  December 21, 2021 9:35am
- NoFax
  
  No, only you mate have that concern.
  
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  December 21, 2021 9:44am
- Cassandra
  
  It looks that way, although perhaps it’s all intended to secure the slightly left vote. National has always been Labour-lite.
  
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  December 21, 2021 9:45am
- H. Upmann
  
  The Luxon regeim will not end well. Every Ardern communist era change will stay in place.
  
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  December 21, 2021 9:53am
- Sean OConnor
  
  Fortitude? The guy has already said he’ll send his fellow believers to prison for peacefully protesting against abortion 120m from a hospital, and disowned meeting as a Christian for 5 years.
  That’s how he behaves towards the all-powerful God he serves and his fellow believers. How little will he sell his voters out for?
  
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  December 21, 2021 10:01am
  - rockape
    
    There isn’t a God,just saying!
    
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    December 21, 2021 12:47pm
    - Sean OConnor
      
      There is, and regardless, leaders should have the spine to stand up for their beliefs. A cowardly Christian will be a coward on other issues too, that’s the point.
      
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      December 21, 2021 10:44pm
- Sacha
  
  @ plc : I am assuming you are not a troll – but anyone who aspires to the top job usually has multiple motives: they think they can do the job; they think they have the skills; they want to have a go; they think they can make things better, which will be for the good of everyone. They have the energy and intelligence to achieve results. Some would call it animal cunning – if they don’t have it when they start out, they learn on the job (if they’re clever).
  And all this makes them attractive to those of us who don’t have those attributes, so we vote for them. We know it’s hard work, and we’re too lazy to do it ourselves.
  
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  December 21, 2021 10:07am
  - plc
    
    Diversity of opinion =/= Troll
    
    In the spirit of evenhandedness, I’ll assume you understand that 🙂
    
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    December 21, 2021 11:00am
- lifesgood
  
  And another one! Good grief!
  
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  December 21, 2021 10:29am
- KevO'Brien
  
  Is the basement dry again in Fraser House?
  
  8 5
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  December 21, 2021 11:03am
  - plc
    
    You are so wrong in your assumption.
    
    Securing of power should not be a destination but waystation
    
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    December 21, 2021 11:09am
- BAM
  
  He’s going to be the same type of PM as Key.
  Become PM, meet and greet with all the worlds power players.
  
  Set up next leg of career, post-politics.
  
  To be able to do that, he has to stay in power, so will play it straight down the middle and won’t rock the boat at all, no policy reversals, just minor tinkering at best.
  
  Just another National party PM who will further entrench labour party policies.
  
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  December 21, 2021 11:14am
- Nukuleka
  
  Another Labour troll attempting to undermine National.
  
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  December 21, 2021 3:56pm
MCōs

I see Donald Trump was booed when he told a crowd of supporters he’d received a booster vaccine dose.
What’s all that about?
https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/trump-tells-audience-he-got-covid-19-booster-shot-crowd-boos-him-20211221-p59j5f.html
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December 21, 2021 9:12am
- UrbanNeocolonialist
  
  At 75 years old it’s almost certainly the best choice given what we know of risks from covid and vaccines respectively.
  
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  December 21, 2021 9:21am
  - Ed Snack
    
    Well, Trump actually had Covid and survived without too much trouble. So he would be basically permanently immune anyway.
    
    I think he is rather proud of his work in pushing through the production of vaccines in record time, but probably also recognises that for people over 50 at least, as far as we can tell (absent any unexpected long term detrimental effects yet to surface on volume) that getting even these current relatively poor vaccines provides a significant degree of protection.
    
    He is still against compulsion and mandates, but in probably the most sensible way, recognises the advantages for some.
    
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    December 21, 2021 12:27pm
- Jack5
  
  I hope you don’t mind me asking, MCōs, what’s the story behind the macron in your pseudonym?
  
  Am I wrong in thinking it’s a relatively recent modification?
  
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  December 21, 2021 9:30am
  - lifesgood
    
    It’s a ridiculous affectation, same as the maori use of it.
    
    15 3
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    December 21, 2021 10:31am
  - MCōs
    
    The macron is an accent common in a number of written languages, such as Maori, but not English, and alphabets used to indicate a drawn out vowel sound.
    cos can be pronounced with a short sounding ‘o’ which is incorrect.
    
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    December 21, 2021 11:42am
    - lifesgood
      
      Don’t be ridiculous. Maori did not have a written language.
      
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      December 21, 2021 12:51pm
      - MCōs
        
        No language had a written version before it had a spoken one. Obviously.
        Interestingly the English written language didn’t have consistent spelling until Caxton invented the printing press.
        The macron was used to replace the need for a double vowel. English doesn’t use accents, by Māori being a new written language using the Latin alphabet isn’t restrained thus.
        
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        December 21, 2021 2:16pm
    - Cobolt24
      
      So, a touch of wokeness or to make your name seem more special.
      
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      December 21, 2021 12:53pm
      - MCōs
        
        That’s my prerogative when using a nom de plume isn’t it, Cobalt24.
        
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        December 21, 2021 2:19pm
    - Bluegrass
      
      Sorry, accidentally reported you.
      
      Meant to reply as follows:
      
      Re the macron – what language does your poster name relate to?
      
      I speak Swedish, German and French [as well as Arabic and Japanese on the street] and am familiar with their diacritics.
      
      But macrons not so much.
      
      Interested, as I like languages.
      
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      December 21, 2021 1:53pm
      - Sarkozygroupie
        
        Perhaps Dutch or South African?
        
        Macron over cos = coos. Mcoos.
        
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        December 21, 2021 9:45pm
- Reid
  
  MAGA wonder why on earth he still supports the vax in the face of all the evidence they have.
  
  His Administration included a lot of times his inner circle led him astray, but the public disquiet over it is so obvious and so ubiquitous amongst MAGA that its incredible to them 45 isn’t getting it.
  
  He’ll have to explain himself to them on this one day, I’m looking forward to that day.
  
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  December 21, 2021 10:33am
Rusty

So why don’t we ever hear about vaccine problems in our Indian, Chinese, or new immigrants communities in NZ?

The Pacific island community seems to have sorted it out but this on going saga with Maori not taking vaccines seriously or there spokesman saying govt/health officials treat them worse than other groups doesn’t stack up.

In my view the blame lies with certain Maori in positions of authority who are exploiting their own people with blatant mix messaging for their own gains.
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December 21, 2021 9:22am
Lee C

Oh yes, but it was ‘a very tiny group’ according to Trump…

I supose we are a ‘tiny group’ according to the current ‘poo-poo’ narrative.

But we shall see about that, won’t we?…
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December 21, 2021 9:27am
Lee C

Here’s one such ‘tiny group’: https://www.facebook.com/100074886520270/videos/995027301432232
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December 21, 2021 9:28am
Fishing in the dark

Our foreign minister is complaining about Chinese Government how they are interfering into Taiwan Affairs and in the same time the NZ government does criminal acts ie. Three Waters, stealing assets paid by the rate payers without any consultation or referendum binding.
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December 21, 2021 9:32am
Sean OConnor

How many people here would vote for a right wing populist party with no baggage if its single defining issue was completely ending the COVID police state and letting nature take its course?
10%? 20%?

There must be 5% of the population that would send such a party to Parliament by now.
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December 21, 2021 9:59am
- Lee C
  
  I would consider it.
  
  using my views as a barometer, I wrote to Seymour and asked him to consider being that guy – for if he doesn’t, someone like Winston Peters, or a similalry opportunistic power-hungry demogogue will.
  
  If ACT were to come out tomorrow and call out the civil liberties and Human Rights abuses the current bunch are overseeing (and I include National in this) and caall for an end to mandates and lock-downs out of hand, he would knock Naational’s recent up-turn into a cocked hat.
  
  IMO.
  
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  December 21, 2021 10:45am
Fletch

So Hipkins is going to tell us all at 2pm what the govt is going to do about Omicron. Honestly, I am more worried about govt actions than I am about Omicron.
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December 21, 2021 10:19am
- kevn
  
  @Fletch… Another lockdown forecast for early Jan I gather.
  Let the plebs out to to play for Xmas and New Year, then nail us down again saying it is our fault.
  
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  December 21, 2021 11:02am
  - sooty
    
    But only after the wedding. We’re safe till then!
    
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    December 21, 2021 12:11pm
CAKE FACE1

I saw this protest against Labour in the UK over Scottish Independence, and it made me giggle:

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

Perhaps I should invest in a rickshaw and the Vader soundtrack for a celebrity wedding in Gisborne…
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December 21, 2021 10:29am
Truman lodge

Lockdown late January I’m picking. We are already getting hints the traffic light system will get canned for omicron. How many more beatings we will accept from the shot caller in prison? Honestly we will do as we are told and continue the propaganda like the movie Equilibrium.

I’m guessing omicron will somehow only be in Auckland and that Aucklanders will be jailed for another few months while the rest of Nz is at level 2. We will get the same old thanks Auckland for doing the mahe etc and for allowing us to hug our loved ones blah blah. When will people realise this is a scam designed to eliminate the private economy in a slow and steady Manor ready for Central banks to control the planet.
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December 21, 2021 10:35am
- Lee C
  
  I posted a ‘rumour’ indicating early January for comment yesterday Truman.
  
  Meanwhile here are police in Odessa refusing to go up against demonstrators.
  
  https://www.facebook.com/100010665030382/videos/1368255803539908
  
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  December 21, 2021 11:01am
- bronny1
  
  no, it will be in Christchurch this time, given all the MIQ peeps that have it are in chch.
  
  And lockdown can’t be till after the royal wedding, which despite avoiding MSM i feel i heard its in Feb?
  
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  December 21, 2021 11:07am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Late January, I think.
    https://www.gisborneherald.co.nz/local-news/20211220/muriwai-setting-for-pms-big-day/
    
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    December 21, 2021 4:46pm
ClanMcleod

I do not wish to constantly appear to be pushing doom and gloom, but at the same time I feel compelled to share data and analysis around covid when I think it is accurate and relevant. Covid is a once in a generation event, whether you are a sceptic or living in abject terror of the virus. To stay shtum when you believe you have information that may help in a decision making process for your fellow human beings. If I post things that are demonstrably wrong I will retract and apologise. I don’t post anything for malice or political gain.
This is one of those scientific articles that concern me so much about the direction we appear to be being driven to.

“Worse Than the Disease? Reviewing Some Possible Unintended Consequences of the mRNA Vaccines Against COVID-19”

https://ijvtpr.com/index.php/IJVTPR/article/view/23
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December 21, 2021 10:40am
- Fletch
  
  I just read this today, too! Very good. The upshot is that we have no idea how these vaccines are going to affect humans in years to come.
  
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  December 21, 2021 11:40am
Lee C

Anti-Government protest in Australia:
https://youtu.be/OWjEvWPjH9Q
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December 21, 2021 10:52am
graham

Interesting headline in the Herald:

Tom Frewen: Politicians remain the masters of control over TV

It’s paywalled (natch) so I can’t read it, but the first line sure has me interested.

OPINION:

The Government could be about to create a state media machine that would have George Orwell rolling in his grave, argues Tom Frewen.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/tom-frewen-politicians-remain-the-masters-of-control-over-tv/FN7PG4HJ2EWE7NDBFQARIUVUTE/
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December 21, 2021 11:09am
- Fletch
  
  It goes through the history of govt and media, ending with the fact that the Ministry for Arts, Culture and Heritage called for submissions in 2015 around the “implications of what it called the “convergence” of production and distribution technologies in telecoms, IT, media and entertainment.”
  
  Most submissions were unpublished, but through an OIA we got to see 3 pages of notes from a meeting between NZ on Air and aforementioned ministry which had a couple of lines suggesting that “a multimedia contestable funding system, with a cultural purpose, is a useful model to address the complexities of a converged media landscape”.
  
  He notices that under Ardern, NZ on Air’s annual funding has risen from $132 million in 2018 to $182 million this year and that is it poised to become a State media machine. Kris Faafoi is scheduled to deliver an announcement soon on “new public media entity”
  
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  December 21, 2021 12:03pm
- Tony Stuart
  
  Speaking of state media, I see former National MP and Minister Simon Power has been appointed as the new CEO of Television New Zealand.
  
  https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/tvnz-appoints-simon-power-as-ceo/NOT2RZAGFPFE63EPOBVHULTPWQ/
  
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  December 21, 2021 1:29pm
  - mikenmildagain
    
    He was a great loss to the national party. Got shafted for not realising the national party would do anything for the armed forces except pay for them.
    
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    December 21, 2021 3:34pm
    - Jack5
      
      ?Kia ora, Milky
      
      Do you think Simon Power, as CEO, and Andy Coupe, as chairman, can complete the transition of TVNZ into a solely Maori-language service?
      
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      December 21, 2021 5:25pm
      - All_on_Red
        
        He wont have time for that
        He will be too busy telling them all how great he is
        His nick name isn’t FIGJAM for no reason.
        
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        December 21, 2021 6:19pm
curry4me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQN22qAzqGA

Mandate Protests in Spain.

Well, people in Spain don’t like mandate apartheid either. [1:54]
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December 21, 2021 11:36am
curry4me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ShfSqTwSmc

McBLOG: “Jessica then Tova” – the real background story.

“Jessica then Tova” is now almost as much kiwi slang as the phrase “yeah right”. There’s even merchandise available based around it. But did you know where it came from? We don’t want to skite, but……. [8:21]
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December 21, 2021 11:36am
- fightingtemeraire
  
  Tova is Jacinda’s ex flatmate and Jessica is married to one of Jacinda’s bodyguards.
  
  Keep it in the family
  
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  December 21, 2021 2:10pm
curry4me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzkHwcpYS0c

‘We need to move away from fear’: Perrottet says NSW ‘ready’ to live with Covid.

New South Wales’ response to the pandemic must “move away from fear” and take on more hope and confidence, says Premier Dominic Perrottet. “That is what will get our state through this difficult period of time,” Mr Perrottet told a media conference on Monday. [3:31]
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December 21, 2021 11:36am
70andstilllearning

Lol – Must be Xmas week – just went to get the week’s “fresh produce” supplies at local Countdown. See their demand/supply model is working perfectly. As the producer’s supplies increase to meet the demand the retail price increases accordingly.//
– in the order of 30 – 50% above end of last week for the standard “seasonal” fresh goods prices.
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December 21, 2021 11:52am
- surfing
  
  Our local Countdown sucks, avoid it like the plague. Their meat cuts are scrappy and to be avoided. They regularly run out of common items too.
  
  Unfortunately, the best supermarket (paknsave) is also the furtherest from us. Mind you, even out of the three paknsaves around town, the best paknsave is also the furtherest from us and you need to go through a toll road. But, it is so good (butchery unmatched), we still try to use it.
  
  Merry xmas 🙂
  
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  December 21, 2021 12:53pm
  - ByGolly
    
    Beats me why anyone shops at Countdown.
    Any one of them.
    
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    December 21, 2021 2:25pm
  - 70andstilllearning
    
    We only use CD for fruit and vege if our butcher can’t supply. The guy’s taking a holiday this year (for once) so he’s letting his non butchery perishables run down which I’ve got no problem with. He deserves a break after all the crap those guys have been put through in the last 20 odd months. So merry Xmas all round really 🙂
    
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    December 21, 2021 2:38pm
    - andydownhere
      
      I only go to Countdown for the cheap tonic, for my gin. Need alcohol to get thru Ardern’s standups.
      
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      December 21, 2021 9:42pm
Alan Wilkinson

This is the OIA response to my request for details of 3 Waters expenditure to date:
https://1drv.ms/b/s!AuhKWHlH5hzQhPR8c5IHXATmU5XVCw

It shows $432M already spent but with no detail. I have asked again for details.
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December 21, 2021 12:01pm
- krazykiwi
  
  That a lot of, ahem, ‘consultation’. I wonder which groups are the freshly enriched recipients of the fee bonanza?
  
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  December 21, 2021 12:50pm
- 70andstilllearning
  
  “I have asked again for details.”
  Suspect you’ll get something eventually with an awful lot of redactions. But really interesting to see the spend time frame for something that didn’t really see the light of day until this year, and further to that, something that has been suddenly “delayed” in Parliament until next year. Beginning to think that the “lycra user’s bridge” investigation spend is starting to look like a bargain for this lot.
  
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  December 21, 2021 1:09pm
I remember when

“Rage at the violence of racism: MP joins chorus of outrage at Farmers.”:msn.com:
Is this indicative of the level of outrage expressed when all a business is doing is trying to ascertain the facts.
Surely any apology before the matter has been fully investigated is simply paying ‘lip service.’
If Marama was to express her outrage at the level of shoplifting that occurs in the retail world, it would be justified.
If she was to express disappointment that she has been unable to help reduce homelessness and poverty, surely serious contributors to this problem, it may have added context to the problem Farmers faces.
Every judge knows there are two sides, often differing widely, to every case.
Hence the need for investigation.
Or, do Farmers simply punish staff whenever a complaint is received.
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December 21, 2021 12:11pm
I remember when

What is happening at NZ Post.
Are they assisting their wanted demise of the common letter and card.
Just been told of a Post Shop that doesn’t have any stamps and have suggested that to arrive before Christmas letters had to be posted by the 14th December.
As we have today received cards dated 15, 16 and 17 December, the information hasn’t reached everyone.
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December 21, 2021 12:27pm
- KevO'Brien
  
  Are the stamps not printed in NZ? That should be simple.
  
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  December 21, 2021 6:28pm
I remember when

Further to NZ Post and the availability of stamps.
Second Post Shop has revealed that stamps are in short supply and they never get what they order.
They have become used to the situation and always order in excess of their needs.
Often receive half of the amount they have ordered.
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December 21, 2021 12:37pm
Maggie Pie

On a more Christmasy note, next time you head to the Supermarket, grab youself a bottle of …….

‘Flying Goose’ brand ‘BLACK SRIRACHA SAUCE’

OMG! Spicy, Sweet, Tangy, Hot(ish), Caramel decadence.

Fab on Ham off the bone. Ma and me just had a big fat sandwich.

Thank me laters 😀
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December 21, 2021 12:43pm
- fightingtemeraire
  
  Maggie
  
  Burger King do a good Schiracha Burger
  
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  December 21, 2021 4:02pm
- bronny1
  
  Is it vegan – the sauce ones, not the sandwich?
  
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  December 21, 2021 6:29pm
surfing

Just me or are there noticeable shortages on many types of consumer products, from tarpaulins and hooks and camping tents, to ice cream and chocolate, video cards, gaming consoles, and even deodorants.

Things sold out tend to be of intermediate pricing. ie, still lots of cheap crap for sale, and high end, but, middle range items all gone-ski or very few around.
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December 21, 2021 12:48pm
- Fletch
  
  Can’t get Paul Newman’s own sauces…
  
  3 1
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  December 21, 2021 1:33pm
  - Maggie Pie
    
    He’s dead silly!!
    
    1 1
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    December 21, 2021 5:58pm
- UrbanNeocolonialist
  
  yeah its getting more noticable. A major squeeze on shipping due to covid regulations and shipping companies mothballing some capacity.
  
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  December 21, 2021 2:10pm
Julie

Looking at the lastest figures from the UK , the second highest daily total but 133 less in hospital and deaths going down as well.
Omicron seems to be killing off Delta resulting in less hospitalisation and death.
Gosh how are Labour going to like that? They will be desperate to keep omicron out and Delta in!
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December 21, 2021 1:06pm
- mandk
  
  Yes the number of cases sky-rocketing, but both hospitalisations and deaths decreasing.
  
  How is Ardern going to keep the sheeple scared and compliant if the same happens here?
  
  This will never do.
  
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  December 21, 2021 2:19pm
- westernScientest
  
  listening to chippy, that is exactly what they are trying to do. Changes to MIQ etc. to make it harder to get over the boarder, jabbing 5 year olds, reduction to 4 months for boosters, and you dont meet the employment mandates if you dont get it in time, etc. etc. I really hope this finally gets though to the populous.
  
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  December 21, 2021 2:24pm
rouppe

It’s there anywhere where I can see which hospitality venues are not using vaccine pass?
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December 21, 2021 1:32pm
- bronny1
  
  I don’t think it’s written anywhere cos all hospo except takeaway have to use it. There are some private fb and telegram groups where such info may be shared, but not as a list
  
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  December 21, 2021 6:32pm
- andydownhere
  
  I went to a bar in Wgtn on Saturday nite, 50 there at the time, no vax pass asked for. Not going to name it tho. If the vax is so good, why do the vaxxed fear the non-vaxxed? Im not an anti vaxxer. I had my pass ready, just not asked for.
  
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  December 21, 2021 9:47pm
Alan Wilkinson

Rents rocket skyward in yet another Government policy failure:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/homed/300482871/warning-for-renters-prices-likely-to-set-new-records-in-2022

Labour knows how to punish the stupid for voting for them so the masochists will keep coming back for more.
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December 21, 2021 1:35pm
- Suze Wainwright
  
  I think you’ll find the standard response from this govt to any negative news over the next two years will be: “owing to decades of underinvestment” in the hope that it will get them off the hook for anything…
  
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  December 21, 2021 1:49pm
CAKE FACE1

Huge media fear mongering is happening at the moment.

Whenever I turn on the radio, the gimp announcer talks about how “scary” Omicron is. Ho hum.

I would love a centre-right billionaire mogul to buy up a big part of the NZ media, because currently the NZ media is controlled by socialists.

It is not fair to have such an imbalance of views in the media – and even less so when the socialists pretend their lefty opinions are facts.
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December 21, 2021 1:37pm
- bronny1
  
  Sean plunked The Platform coming soon. Can’t be soon enough unfort.
  
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  December 21, 2021 6:32pm
Fletch

Hipkins on TV now – it’s all about the boosters. Recommending the time be reduced from 2nd dose to booster to 4 months. All health workers and other workers who had to get mandatory vaccinations will have to get the booster. They seem to think this will protect against Omicron, though why I do not know, being that it’s a different strain. Oh, yeh, and vaxes for kids ahed 5-11 to be rolled out next month, with Hipkins calling the jabs “safe and necessary.” I reckon they are neither.

The self-isolation scheme for Kiwi travellers from Australia has been pushed back to the end of February
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December 21, 2021 2:18pm
- Zapper
  
  Let’s do all the things that didn’t work the first time
  
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  December 21, 2021 3:26pm
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    Let’s keep the fear porn going. Election soon? Nope, that is how long you will put up with this shit fear porn
    
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    December 21, 2021 4:08pm
- septic skeptic
  
  Eleven doses of Pfizer Cominarty show a 73% reduction in serious disease or death from Ebola.
  
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  December 21, 2021 5:24pm
Battier

“Hiraeth
– is a Welsh word that is somewhat difficult to describe in English, for the reason that there is no single English word that expresses all that it does. Some words often used to try to explain it are homesickness, yearning, and longing…for who or what you have lost, losses which make your “home” not the same as the one you remember.”

I’m a Melbourne based Kiwi who perhaps naively thought we might finally catch a break and be able to redeem what I used to think we were entitled to as a citizens of NZ – the opportunity to spend time with with family and friends, to explore the land and to enjoy the last days of summer freedom

More vague and cowardly border decision deferrals, more uncertainty, more tragedy to be borne by Kiwi families missing their last moments together.

Make no mistake, this is a choice that the powers that be could make otherwise, and I hope no-one forgets this.
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December 21, 2021 2:53pm
Maggie Pie

My partner’s mum wanted to be dropped down to the city after lunch.
(I suspect she was heading into S&C’s to get me the usual ‘Xmas Gift Voucher’ 😀 )
Anyway, I just went in again to pick her up and take her home.
She was saying she’s never seen so many ‘great-unwashed’ in Queen St, since Helen Clark and Phil Goff were protesting there and spitting at our retuning Vietnam Soldiers back in 1971.
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December 21, 2021 3:23pm
- mikenmildagain
  
  Kiwibloggers never get tired of that old lie. Clark and Goff were antiwar protestors, but there is nothing in the claim they spat on soldiers.
  
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  December 21, 2021 3:38pm
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    You were there right? Lefties are good at scrubbing the google cache.
    I will not mention a name, but the Waihi thing got torn down and no leads as to who was involved. Scrubbed, and you know it Mike
    
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    December 21, 2021 4:05pm
    - mikenmildagain
      
      I don’t know what ‘the Waihi thing’ was. Did you mean the 1913 miners’ strike?
      
      3 9
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      December 21, 2021 4:23pm
      - Steve Otto(North Shore)
        
        Wanker – kiddie fiddling
        
        3 6
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        December 21, 2021 4:53pm
      - Tom Barker
        
        The Waihi strike was in 1912, Mike. The waterfront strike was the following year.
        
        2 0
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        December 21, 2021 5:44pm
  - KevO'Brien
    
    Have you swabbed them?
    
    2 2
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    December 21, 2021 6:24pm
  - GJM
    
    The veterans who were there disagree with you.
    Bottom of page
    https://www.w3vietnam.org.nz/story_12.htm
    
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    December 21, 2021 9:50pm
- surfing
  
  You’d think it would be great for Uni students, as the foreign students are all gone and it should be easier to find accommodation.
  
  The opposite is true of course, because the government filled the empty rooms with criminals and homeless people .
  
  Which is probably one reason why central Auckland is so awful.
  
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  December 21, 2021 3:39pm
TS Child

The border opening has been pushed back until the end of Feb. So we can all get more vaccines. The government really needed to go on holiday a week ago. Merry Christmas to all of us who were hoping to see Australian family in the new year. I’m trying not to be bitter – there are many in similar, or even worse, situations. It’s not actually the end of the world – yay for FaceTime. But this is a time when families try to gather in person. I can’t see the big picture anymore. Just the pain of all the ordinary people who are hurting right now.
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December 21, 2021 3:35pm
- Suze Wainwright
  
  Reading a few FB comments re the inability to travel and visit loved ones. Comments from bread & butter Labour voters. (Kind of understand dear leader of course, but still really, really pissed off; heh)
  
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  December 21, 2021 4:47pm
- Inandout
  
  TS, so long as kiwis bend over to be shafted this will continue…unless you know someone with a private jet and lots of money.
  
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  December 21, 2021 5:45pm
mandk

https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/us-canada/300483432/bidens-welcome-new-puppy-and-cat-major-to-stay-with-friends

Someone should tell the President that Brandon is a good name. Then, when it is time for walkies, sleepy Joe could say ‘Let’s go Brandon’.
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December 21, 2021 3:54pm
- Inandout
  
  [deleted by Mod, Godwin rule and Nazi comparisons]
  
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  December 21, 2021 5:48pm
- UrbanNeocolonialist
  
  If someone could sneak Let’s go Brandon onto Biden’s teleprompter you just know he would read it out (the wheel is still spinning but the hamster is dead), would be greatest prank of a generation.
  
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  December 21, 2021 6:15pm
Surely Knott

Covid Death vs Vaccine Death process.

The headline in relation to the most recent vaccine death “Coroner investigating after autopsy links Dunedin man’s death …”

So a vaccine deaths appear to have an autopsy, followed by a panel clinical assessment, followed by a coroner investigation. Rory Nairn died on Nov. 17 so the process took just over a month.

So my question is about the process with the Covid Deaths – have we seen any coroner reports from the first wave of covid deaths. And more recently we had a cluster of 4 covid deaths at home. The first a man in his 40’s in Manukau.

The news said, “The person had been isolating at a house in Manukau and was found by a family member visiting on Wednesday.

The cause of death is unknown and may have been Covid or something else, the Ministry of Health said.”

(A councillor) “said he hoped this person’s death was not falsely linked to the vaccine, as happened after rapper Todd Williams’ death.” (had the person recently been vaccinated?) “The death will be referred to the coroner, the health ministry said. It was also working with agencies routinely involved in any sudden death, including police and other health organisations.” (November 3 report). So when will the cause of death be finalised and made public?

Then 2 days later a man died in his 50’s with covid at home. The reports said “Last Wednesday, a 40-year-old man with the virus was found dead in his Manukau apartment by a family member.”

“Those deaths are being investigated by the Ministry of Health.”

Have we had the results of those reports. Why aren’t they investigated by the independent medsafe panel of doctors? Who in the ministry of health is investigating? When will we get the results? And will their be a coroners report made public?. Both these deaths were before Rory Nairn’s whose death has been fully investigated and made public, so presumably the results should be available any day? Where are the actual cause of death investigation reports for the 49 covid deaths recorded? With a vax death it shows which ones have been looked at by the panel whether they are likely , unlikely or confirmed vax deaths. Where is the same info for covid deaths?

Will the young child from MIQ a month ago who was recently recorded as a WHO covid death, cause of death be made public.

And finally Dr Baker has said previously a problem with our system is you can only report one cause of medical death but what about non-medical deaths. So for the man who was shot in the driveway will he be recorded as a covid death AND a murder still on our police statistics.
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December 21, 2021 4:06pm
Aldousk

Here is a fascinating fact presented on the EXPO 2020 DUBA UAE website:
http://www.nzatexpo.govt.nz/study
“All New Zealand universities are ranked in the top 3% of universities worldwide”
QS and Times Higher Education would be most interested
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December 21, 2021 4:22pm
TT500

I see Marcus lefty Lush busy shilling the vax again

Can not recall a time when so many irrelevant
people have offered so much advice
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December 21, 2021 4:27pm
- MCōs
  
  “Can not recall a time when so many irrelevant
  people have offered so much advice”
  
  You got that right & I’m not referring to Marcus Lush.
  
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  December 21, 2021 5:24pm
Maggie Pie

TRENDING

Woke softcock ZB Host agrees with moronic talkback caller….. that lawyer Hannah Rawnsley should be ‘struck-off’ 🙁

SHEESH there’s some w*nkers out there!!

When’s HDPA back?
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December 21, 2021 5:34pm
- greybeard
  
  Tim Roxborogh: wet, left and totally purchased by Jacinda’s mob.
  A disgrace to NewstalkZB.
  
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  December 21, 2021 7:35pm
  - Maggie Pie
    
    An embarrassment to the human race GB!
    He’s agreed with every bludging Labor beneficiary that infests the airwaves…. “the Wanaka couple” should be hung, drawn and quartered.
    
    He makes my skin crawl 🙁
    
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    December 21, 2021 7:50pm
Fletch

More overblown rhetoric on 1 News tonight, that Omicron is “devastating communities” in Australia. What utter rubbish. Where? Yes it quickly spreads, but it is mild. I can’t get over how dishonest and irresponsible the media are. They are the source of most disinformation.
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December 21, 2021 6:08pm
- krazykiwi
  
  Indeed. If devastation is measured by the rate of spread then state propaganda wiped out humanity in March 2020.
  
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  December 22, 2021 7:02am
kowtow

The media message is very clear .

It’s not the gurnermunt that’s ruining everything , it’s omicron.

This is now the ‘flu and look at the disruption .

Oh and “fully vaxxed, double jabbed” didn’t last long did it before the latest redefinition .

Jabs for ever.

Jabinda Ardern.
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December 21, 2021 6:10pm
surfing

“There’s no doubt this is disappointing and will upset many holiday plans“

Hipkins on the border opening postponement.

Insulting to the people who travel for other reasons than a “holiday”.

I know of students stuck in Aussie now who can’t get back to their studies. We are talking about careers and educations being damaged, not just “holidays”.

I’d break the fug if I had to describe hipkins today.
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December 21, 2021 6:28pm
Captain Mainwaring

Excuse my French, but why does any random fuckwit who feels the need to comment on anything related to Covid automatically an ‘expert’?
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December 21, 2021 9:21pm
- Fletch
  
  The point is that we know what experts are saying overseas. Especially when it comes to Omicron. The doctor who discovered the variant in South Africa is reporting that it’s very mild, no one has been hospitalized, and that vaxxed and unvaxxed alike recover in about 5 days. It’s been around 5 weeks now. She is just about shouting it, saying that countries have gone into a panic for no reason. But no one will listen.
  
  Instead the response is more of the same. Another booster of a vaccine that was developed against the Alpha strain, from which we’ve moved on a couple of strains now. As well as the vaccination of children to whom the virus poses no threat. We all know this. Stats from overseas overwhelmingly show this. So where are the govt getting the info from that they make these hairbrained decisions? It’s certainly not based on any statistics or studies.
  
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  December 21, 2021 9:51pm

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