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March 4, 2023 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 04 March 2023

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General Debate

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krazykiwi

The UK’s manifestly moronic Matt Hancock is an archetypal politician: only a passing acquaintance with truth, terminally narcissistic, and is no more capable of introspection than would be a standard household doorknob. Things have been a bit torrid of late for the hapless lockdown shagger, with the release of 20,000 Whatsapp messages in which the execution of his public duties has shown him to be vapid, manipulative, and about as far from Following The Science™ as is possible. His plethora of personal and professional failings aside, Dr David McGrogan observes:

Perhaps the more pertinent question is what to make of a political system which ends up with Matt Hancock as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. (He was actually being talked up as potential winner of the Tory leadership contest in 2019 and hence Prime Minister. I’ll let that sink in for a moment.) The strongest argument against big government, and particularly against technocratic government, has always been that in the end even technocracies are run by people, and the kind of people who will be in charge will tend to be awful. It might be the case that political Platonism – the idea that there could be an elite capable of identifying the greater good and implementing it on behalf of the hoi polloi – is achievable in theory. But it’s a moot point, because, at least in the absence of a natural (merit-based) ‘aristocracy’ (of the existence of which few are in favour), in any modern political system such an elite will inevitably comprise careerists and sociopaths who couldn’t be less interested in what’s good for anyone but themselves.

Milton Friedman’s way of understanding things, as always, had the most merit. For Friedman, Matt Hancock and his ilk are inevitable by-products of the existence of a political system. You will always get the faeces rising to the top, as it were. Since this is the case, the ideal system is one in which those people are able to do as little as possible, and ideally are incentivised so their selfishness produces tolerable outcomes.

Indeed. With this as a baseline, then, who are the noble politicians in our midst? David Seymour is not perfect by any stretch, but I’d rank him towards the top of what I suggest is a rather short list.
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March 4, 2023 8:00am
- Chris Nisbet
  
  As a rough guide, to find out who are the more ‘noble’ politicians, can’t we look at the amount of control these politicians want to exert over us? Isn’t that what makes Seymour one of the better ones? i.e. he (generally speaking) wants to exert _less_ control over the masses, not more.
  
  Let’s look at climate policy – this is one where the government exerts more control over us – subsidies, restrictions/bans, interference in agriculture, 15 minute cities (sweet Jesus), you name it – the government is involved.
  Then there’s 997 Waters – there are so many layers of control involved in that monstrosity and the regular folk are nowhere to be seen in the decision making process.
  
  Anyway, as far as I’m concerned, the less a politician wants to involve himself in my life, the better. That’s my tuppence worth. Conversely, the more a politician wants to involve himself in my daily doings, the more I distrust them.
  
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  March 4, 2023 8:15am
  - Ra Henare
    
    and of course allowing other actors to get involved in National politics and policies.
    
    Did I hear US in that response?
    The biggest meddlers in foreign politics.
    
    A list pre Ukraine, but apply the principles to Ukraine (and NZ) and all will be revealed.
    
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wIOqHSsV9c
    
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    March 4, 2023 1:25pm
- Philview
  
  I have never voted for ACT but I like the fact that David Seymour clearly didn’t go into politics for the reason of wanting power over people. He chose a party in alignment with his own political philosophy. He has done very well to rebuild ACT.
  
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  March 4, 2023 8:21am
  - lastmanstanding
    
    A Government that divides its society by race is a Government determined to destroy that society. We have that Government.
    
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    March 4, 2023 9:27am
    - slightlyrighty
      
      South Africa is a funny case study in that. One could argue that the move away from apartheid has ruined that country.
      
      However, in an otherwise free society, where appointments are made based on Race and politics and not merit as a qualification, the results are usually catastrophic.
      
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      March 4, 2023 11:04am
      - Michael Johnston
        
        I guess it depends what one means by ‘ruined’. South Africa went from being a country that treated a large majority of its citizens as little better than slaves, to an economic and political basket case. One could argue that they sowed the wind, and are now reaping the whirlwind.
        
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        March 4, 2023 11:41am
      - NZer In Exile
        
        It appears they replaced one kind of racial bigotry with another. And the (loony) left in NZ are attempting the same. Genius!!
        
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        March 4, 2023 3:36pm
  - Matt Long
    
    Credit where credit is due, Todd Muller, Christopher Luxon and to a lesser extent Collins rebuilt ACT.
    
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    March 4, 2023 10:11am
    - leoj
      
      Very clever.
      Totally true.
      The Nats have lost it by trying to be all things to all people instead sticking to their original principles.
      They have become followers and not leaders.
      Sticking a wetted finger in the air to see which way the wind is blowing is not leading.
      They have become the party of woke, weak and slow.
      
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      March 4, 2023 10:50am
      - Matt Long
        
        Luxon and National great hiking company by your definition. 😝😝😝😝
        https://www.insider.com/dont-push-slow-friend-over-bear-escape-national-park-service-2023-3
        
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        March 4, 2023 11:48am
    - Michael Johnston
      
      They certainly helped. But Seymour gave disaffected National voters somewhere appealing to go.
      
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      March 4, 2023 11:42am
  - Paulus
    
    Yes he has done but I will still note vote for Act.
    Anything to get Labour Greens Maori LGBGT ? out as far as possible and ghat will take a deliberate vote to National, whether I like them or not.
    Any Act vote will dilute the result.
    
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    March 4, 2023 3:51pm
    - Michael Johnston
      
      Not if you vote ACT for the list and National in your electorate. A strong ACT will be in a position to demand some sensible policy. Just as importantly, they’ll be in a position to stop National doing stupid stuff.
      
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      March 4, 2023 4:53pm
- Taieri
  
  the execution of his public duties has shown him to be vapid, manipulative, and about as far from Following The Science™ as is possible.
  ——————-
  
  This reminds me of Someone else…
  
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  March 4, 2023 8:22am
  - Lee C
    
    ..but this could never happen here…
    https://youtu.be/g6oafHRmE2o
    
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    March 4, 2023 9:28am
    - Bridgenag
      
      There is a tik tok video NFL or NBA? which I am not smart enough to pass on. If anyone can do it it is well worth looking at
      
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      March 4, 2023 10:04am
    - Dr John
      
      wow!
      Thanks Lee.
      What a speech!!
      
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      March 4, 2023 12:06pm
    - NZer In Exile
      
      I often listen to the Ted Cruz podcast. He has his head firmly screwed on and would be a top contender for Prez or senior leadership.
      
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      March 4, 2023 3:39pm
- ClanMcleod
  
  kk – there was a great post on the BFD site a couple of days ago. An article by someone who had queried ACT about their policies during the covid nightmare.
  
  They got a reply in which Seymour attempts to defend ACT’s response versus the other parties. There is some clever deflecting and bending of the truth. It makes for interesting reading and at first, it looks like Seymour was a “defender of freedom”
  
  The reality is that he was little better than Bishop or Hipkins in the desire to hunt down the unbelievers and untermensch and punish them. Apparently the readers of the BFD see things a tad differently if the comments are anything to go by.
  
  How about ACT just admitting they were wrong about every mitigation strategy including masks, closures, lockdowns and especially the vaccines. The vaccines were useless, expensive and harmful. That’s the minimum standard for credibility. Otherwise shut up and go away.
  
  This response beggars belief. So politicians unanimously enacted aparteid in NZ, ensured unvaxxed were sacked from their jobs, gleefully oversaw families and society viciously divided and stood by (and participated) while unvaxxed were derided on social media and MSM. Yet despite all of that we were supposed to adhere to his set of ridiculous rules? All, by the way, were lies made up by politicians and MSM as an excuse to not meet with us. Just when I thought my disgust and disdain for politicians and MSM could not get stronger……
  
  Nobody does hypocrisy better than a politician.
  The ACT/David Seymour version is here for all to see.
  One wonders if David Seymour still reads this blog, if so he knows that he is being called out and by not fronting his accusers, it is thus shown to be what callous cowards that he and his party really are.
  The same goes for Cristopher Luxon and National.
  Just a bunch of cowardly hypocrites with their snouts in the trough.
  
  “time to move on and get rid of this disgusting and damaging government.”
  Except for the seemingly inconsequential fact that ACT and David Seymour didn’t really try very hard at all before falling into line AND becoming part of the disgusting and damaging govt for a time.
  
  Even now ACT and David Seymour will not admit that they were wrong, rather they obfuscate and misdirect questions they’d rather not be asked….. What does that say for ACT’s and Davids integrity?
  
  If David just came out and said, Hey we got it wrong and we apologise to all NZ’ers for the debacle that was covid, he’d gain a lot more than he would lose.
  
  Worth reading all of the comments. They follow the same vein, some even more damning than the examples above.
  The main theme though is consistent. If someone would grow a spine, stand up and admit it was a total clusterfuck, apologise to the whole country, particularly those marginalised and punished – THEN – we MIGHT be able to address this shit and start working to getting this country onto some sort of decent path again.
  
  The current refusal to even acknowledge there was a problem and waiting for it all to be forgotten is not only moronic, the longer it goes on the harder it will be to fix.
  
  It will never be forgotten by a substantial number of NZers. Luxon or Seymour. You have an opportunity here. Grab it and run with it.
  
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  March 4, 2023 9:03am
  - Philview
    
    I rarely go onto the BFD site now. There is too much support for NZ First and seems like attacks on ACT are really about directing voters towards Winston Peters.
    
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    March 4, 2023 9:16am
    - RoboRob
      
      Slater and co were / are paid hacks for NZF. So many whaleoil readers voted NZF to pull National to the right. Lol, how did that go. I know members of NZF and repeatedly warned they were much closer to Labour.
      
      Don’t go / read BFD. Slater lost all credibility with his actions.
      
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      March 4, 2023 9:24am
      - ClanMcleod
        
        RoboRob – I don’t “go” to the BFD site. I came across that particular article via a referral.
        
        I have to be consistent, so I’ll say to you what I have said to lefties and liberals every time they have went after one of my posts. Please don’t do the ad hominem thing. It’s intelligence insulting. Do me the service of addressing the content of what I am referencing.
        
        As far as I can see, all of the salient points made in the post, (by someone called OAP, not Cam Slater), are 100% accurate. Pretending they aren’t or not wanting to acknowledge these problems isn’t going to fix anything.
        
        Barring some miraculous Damascene moment by Luxon and National, I will certainly vote ACT. I just wish I was doing so because of their honourable actions but I’m not. I’m doing so out of desperation and that sucks.
        
        Don’t worry, the “right” will be getting both my votes.
        
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        March 4, 2023 9:57am
      - NZer In Exile
        
        I do go to the BFD (occasionally) and even Bitchute. If you look carefully there are some gold nuggets in there among the nuts. 😄
        
        Why? Because these are havens from loony-left cancel culture.
        
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        March 4, 2023 3:16pm
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      Slater hates it when you rubbish that idiot Peters, I got banned for saying I thought explaining is losing, he didn’t like it
      
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      March 4, 2023 10:07am
      - NZer In Exile
        
        I think National die-hards have a somewhat unhinged hatred for Peters.
        
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        March 4, 2023 3:40pm
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        NZers in exile 3.40 pm
        If you think this [Mod – Tone your language down] deserves anything less after what he did in 2017 just because he hated English is not fair then you are in Slater the haters camp
        
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        March 4, 2023 4:16pm
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    At some point, Clan, you’ve got to let it go.
    
    I think you’re right about David Seymour’s position on Covid, but we only have the ability to influence the next three years, not the last three years.
    
    Anyone who refuses to vote for parties of the Right at the next election will be supporting parties of the Left.
    
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    March 4, 2023 9:21am
    - ClanMcleod
      
      NMTB – no doubt I will be voting parties of the mythical “right”. They are only to the right of Labour and the Greens because those clowns are off the scale to the left.
      I will do so because they are “better than the other shit”. I dislike having to vote this way, it is depressing.
      
      I am commenting here as I see things. I presume this is what the site is for, putting forward opinions on topics de jour. If it appears negative, it is. But I will do whatever it takes to try and move the political spectrum a couple of mm back to the right.
      
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      March 4, 2023 9:48am
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        MMP has forced the mythical right to straddle the centre, parties have to play the possibilities, that’s why the Nats would never win going to the right, and if they did there would be no ACT
        
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        March 4, 2023 10:13am
    - Sparrow
      
      I fully understand where you are coming from on pinching your nose and voting for the least useless lot. Again I fully understand that by not voting it is a wasted vote. Its a matter of conscience (yes again an old fashioned ideology and useless with politics). Can I bring myself to vote for a party or parties whose policies over the years I have opposed to get rid of this most incompetent and divisive government. Thats the dilemma facing many of us.
      
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      March 4, 2023 11:28am
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        I can’t see many policies the Nats support at all, main thing co governance will be gone, 3 waters, Māori health authority, and all these Marxist taxes will be gone, if you don’t like that, then you are happy with the worst government in our history
        
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        March 4, 2023 12:25pm
  - leoj
    
    I am constantly getting emails from ACT asking for donations or to join.
    Every response from me is: Apologise for hiding behind Jacinda’s skirt, apologise to the protestors for not speaking to them and I will donate and join.
    Reckon my money is safe.
    
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    March 4, 2023 10:54am
  - Ra Henare
    
    Maybe See more can emulate John Campbell.
    APOLOGISE, admit you were wrong about masks.
    
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3vY2LyQn1A&t=228s
    
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    March 4, 2023 1:28pm
  - blue collar
    
    Bang on clan .
    Seymour’s my man . This is his one stain . Admit fault . Apologise. Move on .
    De Santis did this well . Then he attacked woke and biggest victory ever . Do our politicians not realise the appetite of the general public for this approach ?
    
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    March 4, 2023 1:39pm
    - ClanMcleod
      
      Cheers blue collar. I agree with you. I don’t like “politics”. I hate the games they all play. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see debate and discussion based on truth and what people actually believe in?
      
      I know, I am being “unrealistic” and “naive”. So be it. What we’ve suffered under the last few years has been an abomination, and all parties in NZ supported this assault on NZ citizens.
      
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      March 4, 2023 7:46pm
      - Keith White
        
        I share your views and I am also often accused of being unrealistic. Don’t care.
        
        I forget who said it, but someone said “in the end, all progress depends on the unreasonable man”.
        
        Because, if people say oh well this is a reasonable approach, let’s not change anything – then nothing changes and things can’t improve.
        
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        March 5, 2023 12:18am
- The Redbaiter
  
  The latest Roy Morgan poll has both National and ACT slipping back.
  
  I guess Luxon’s strategy of making National like Labour, (as encouraged by Kiwiblog’s two ticks blue mob) isn’t working that well.
  
  It has resulted in a lift to NZ First though, who are now over the 5% threshold. Well done Mr Luxon.
  
  Just amazing how people considered to be intelligent enough to run the country are apparently unable to see obvious outcomes like this.
  
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  March 4, 2023 11:26am
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    There is no new Morgan poll fFS, if do put it up, I can only see the poll that was for Jan released on Feb 6 which was Hipkins bounce, there has been no poll or leaked Labour internal polls since, I suggest poll on one news Monday night, but it’s very strange that Labour has released no internal poll-like they did at the end of Jan
    
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    March 4, 2023 12:33pm
    - Paulus
      
      If Labour Party Head office, for sale, say there has been a poll favouring them then there has been.
      
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      March 4, 2023 3:55pm
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        They only leaked the first poll with Hipkins slight bump, the Labour Party and the greens could still not govern, there has not been any leak, or any other poll since
        
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        March 4, 2023 8:40pm
  - coge
    
    Winston’s been courting the votes of the 2022 protestors, and those who were sympathetic to them. An easy couple of hundred thousand votes right there for the taking.
    
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    March 4, 2023 12:39pm
    - NothingLeft
      
      Winston has and is dooming NZ.
      
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      March 4, 2023 1:06pm
      - blue collar
        
        True . But what a massive opportunity presented on a silver platter by the lockstep parties.
        You can’t blame Winston .
        They created a vacuum and he’s filling that vacuum
        
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        March 4, 2023 2:11pm
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      But I thought those votes were Kings? This is the problem, every body fighting over the last few votes, well good one NZers for delivering the election to Labour
      
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      March 4, 2023 4:18pm
      - ClanMcleod
        
        Good one National for failing to do the right thing by a large proportion of the citizens of this country.
        Labour fucked them over, National and ACT supplied the lube. It’s a total disgrace and every single one of them should hang their heads in shame.
        
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        March 4, 2023 7:51pm
Tomtoddy

National has two problems. One is that the media continues to hound Christopher Luxon and criticise everything about him they can, no matter what he does or how he does it. The second problem is Christopher Luxon. There is an element of truth in the criticisms.

Luxon is just too nice, too smiley, too quick to agree with everybody and everything, bordering on smarmy, not believable and somehow untrustworthy. Most people saw his potential and willed him to drop his business, leadership style and become more political, incisive, tough and clear. Instead, he is still an old style salesman. Put a boater hat on and a cigar in his hand and he could pull a role in a 60’s New York movie.

If you listen long enough there are policy positions being spelled out and he is choosing many of the right targets. He is obviously very intelligent and capable. For some reason there is a lack of gravitas, a lack of believability, too many cliches, no cut and thrust. It is classic “nice guys finish last” stuff.

Is it fixable? Of course. He needs a dose of Muldoonism. Forget the generalisations. Develop a serious even hard demeanour. Find Hipkin’s jugular. Stop talking sometimes. He doesn’t have to explain everything, correct everything, cover every detail. Research and find better hit points. Stop listening to his advisers and establish a reform package – positive and strong.
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March 4, 2023 8:05am
- krazykiwi
  
  I’m not sure Luxon is fixable. We’re getting his natural, unfiltered personality and it’s not a good fit for what the country needs. Sure, he’s better that chippy or Ardern .. but a relative improvement from utterly ghastly to just not good won’t fix the festering social ills and economic brokenness.
  
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  March 4, 2023 8:13am
  - pdm
    
    The aspect I like least about Luxon is his persistence in supporting Todd Muller in `sucking up’ to the Greens on Climate Change.
    
    FFS Chris – climate change is the weather.
    
    Have a look on Facebook at the Old Hawkes Bay Group. There has been flooding in the areas affected by cyclone Gabrielle since the 1880’s (and probably before) and about every 20 years since. I remember the ones in the 50’s 60’s and 70’s when main roads were closed by flooding two or three times most years..
    
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    March 4, 2023 8:48am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      And Nats do not want to ban shit, they want science to do the work, there is a huge difference, and after the floods they will only lose huge support for saying climate change is not true, just like Bridges did by poking his nose in during covid far too early
      
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      March 4, 2023 8:43pm
- Pavel
  
  The biggest problem National has is that they don’t have a leader, they have a CEO.
  
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  March 4, 2023 8:13am
  - Ghost
    
    It doesn’t matter who National have as a leader some of you are always going to be unhappy and snarking at whoever is leader.
    
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    March 4, 2023 9:07am
  - I remember when
    
    And is a CEO what we need.
    The rest of the members simply getting on with their job.
    Look at the Cyclone recovery work.
    Chris Hipkins making lightning visits to wherever.
    Meanwhile the real work is being quietly done with little input, apart from money, by the government.
    Doesn’t this show us that regions should be controlling their own waters.
    
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    March 4, 2023 9:44am
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    And that’s exactly what this country is going to need
    
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    March 4, 2023 8:44pm
- Suze Wainwright
  
  Yeah, but Ardern was a ‘new kind’ of leader and look at how well she did…
  
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  March 4, 2023 8:19am
- Lee C
  
  I would hazard a guess that Ardern had the following:
  A mentor
  A motivational life-Coach
  A psychologist
  Scripts
  Acting lessons
  analysis of her live on-camera image on a frame-by-frame basis
  Ditto for photographs
  A detailed schedule of talking points
  Enforcers and silencers to cow the ranks into silence
  A vocabulary list of how to reframe ‘sticky’ issues.
  
  This is the modern political reality.
  
  This is what Luxon needs. And that is before any policy can be proposed.
  
  He also needs to develop his ‘click-bait’ appeal and by-pass conventional media. Smash the bell-jar.
  
  The difference between Labour and National is that Labour takes that presentation stuff seriously, while National still seems to come across as believing the fairy-tale fantasy that the ‘people’ will ‘reward’ the ‘nicest’. Judith Collins fell on that sword in spectacular fashion.
  
  If Luxon and his team can’t nail their media presentation, what on earth makes them think they will present as the professional and winning alternative to an organisation that has nailed ‘style over substance’?
  
  People love that slick shit. Give it to them.
  
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  March 4, 2023 8:23am
  - G152
    
    You missed low IQ large ego
    
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    March 4, 2023 8:41am
    - NothingLeft
      
      Whole population is getting measurably thicker. Average IQ is dropping measurably (reverse Flynn effect), as a result of perhaos worsening education or possibly impact of internet and social media
      
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      March 4, 2023 1:10pm
  - TS Child
    
    I really wish this wasn’t the case, but suspect you are right. People are better at emotion than at reason. This has always been true, but whereas before we were in an age that at least valued reason, today we are in an age where emotion reigns. So, please god, yes good policies, and then cover them in the emotions that people understand – nice isn’t enough, to win you need to evoke the sympathy of the crowds.
    
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    March 4, 2023 8:49am
  - kowtow
    
    ‘Acting lessons’
    
    That’s where her “performative caring” came from.
    
    Innit.
    
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    March 4, 2023 9:02am
    - Lee C
      
      yes, of course.
      
      You think she was like that in private?
      
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      March 4, 2023 9:30am
  - Nickc2
    
    Based on Ardern’s and Hipkins tenures as PM’s the next election should be Luxon’s to lose. However, he doesn’t have to go about losing it.
    IMO, his handling of the Maureen Pugh debacle and his dyed-in-the-wool defense of Man Made Climate Change has only served to highlight he’s largely on the wrong side of politics for me.
    
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    March 4, 2023 12:06pm
  - NZer In Exile
    
    Plus, a feminist, wink wink. The rest doesn’t matter according to a lot of very dumbed down women who are life members of this cult.
    
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    March 4, 2023 3:22pm
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    State of the nation tomorrow
    
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    March 4, 2023 8:45pm
- Taieri
  
  Is it fixable? Of course.
  ————-
  
  No. He hasn’t got what it takes. He’s a capable manager but not a leader.
  
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  March 4, 2023 8:24am
- RoboRob
  
  He seems to worried about offending anyone to actually stake a claim to any view.
  
  Take three waters, most don’t like the idea of co governance. National comes out against it but while Luxon will say no co governance he is too scared to say no to Maori to strongly. So he comes out wishy-washy and unbelievable.
  
  Even Chippie and Jacinda are stronger than Luxon. They are willing to stand up for what they think is right (it’s just that what they think is right is actually stupid).
  
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  March 4, 2023 8:28am
- Philview
  
  It doesn’t matter who National put. They tried the strong leader in Judith Collins and the media onslaught nearly tipped her over the edge. National don’t have anyone in the ranks who would enjoy an intense hate campaign directed at them by the NZ media.
  
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  March 4, 2023 8:33am
- Simon
  
  Luxon is supposed to counter left wing sewage which is wrecking NZ. The only time Luxon has been animated “in opposition” was against the unjaxxed and those who dare question climate fraud. Otherwise against the people harming NZ it’s meh.
  
  Luxon is useless out of touch neolib jobsworth and would be a lot happier running some Woke Corporation into the ground.
  
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  March 4, 2023 8:48am
- Chuck Bird
  
  “He is obviously very intelligent and capable.”
  
  Please expand. If he is so intelligent why does he support James Shaw? Maureen Pugh at least has an inquiring mind.
  
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  March 4, 2023 9:32am
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  Media know well thought out policy is coming, voters are over vulgarities in media, they are possibly helping Luxon get cut through
  
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  March 4, 2023 10:14am
  - leoj
    
    Rubbish. Luxon is a lost cause.
    Far too weak to be leader of the opposition.
    No guts, no glory. Way too passive.
    Throwing Pugh under the bus, being conned by the climate change nonsense and a maori sympathiser, tells all.
    Hiding behind Jacinda’s skirt was very telling.
    Not for me and not for many of us.
    National has lost the plot.
    
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    March 4, 2023 11:04am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      Only if you are an impatient fool, state of the nation tomorrow, snd policy over tgd next few week’s coming
      
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      March 4, 2023 8:48pm
- slightlyrighty
  
  They said the same about John Key.
  
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  March 4, 2023 11:06am
  - fredonas
    
    We need a NZ version of Ron DeSantis who uses common sense and sound moral values instead of polls and focus groups. Luxon is a senior manager type from central casting who tries to be all things to all people and that never ends well for a politician.
    
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    March 4, 2023 1:04pm
    - blue collar
      
      Exactly .
      A set of morals combined with individual responsibility.
      Hang on, didn’t that USED TO BE nationals mantra ?
      
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      March 4, 2023 2:17pm
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      Try that and Nats roils be mid 20s by Easter
      
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      March 4, 2023 8:49pm
  - ClanMcleod
    
    Luxon isn’t a shadow of Key. Key was eloquent and could debate off the cuff. Luxon is a nodding dog following “focus” groups.
    
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    March 4, 2023 7:58pm
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      Key was not actually eloquent at all ffs, he was quite the opposite
      
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      March 4, 2023 8:51pm
- Jim
  
  Luxon is a typical corporate CEO type who will capitulate to the latest buzz in order to be compliant and not rock the accepted narratives.
  
  With that passive approach, he will continue to get his nose bloodied in politics
  
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  March 4, 2023 12:57pm
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    Oh ffs , and how do you think he would go buy stating climate change is bullshit, ffs what happened to Bridges when stating Labour were failing on COVID just after they shut tgd border?
    
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    March 4, 2023 8:53pm
- crikey
  
  Tomtoddy: “ He needs a dose of Muldoonism”, aka a bit of mongrel.
  
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  March 4, 2023 4:24pm
  - Jim
    
    I wouldn’t describe it as such, I would say ‘smart’ and ‘quick whited’ to have political impact without being too verbose (e.g. unlike Ardern’s waffle word soup)
    
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    March 4, 2023 5:33pm
artemisia

Wellington CBD is grubby and increasingly boarded up. That’s the net of a Stuff article today – an article which rather suggests the jury has actually decided – though from my on-the-ground observation ‘grubby’ is seriously euphemistic.

Is Wellington an expensive ‘drain hole’? The jury’s out

But the Wellington mayor says – “… alongside transforming streets and fixing pipes, the council would continue its focus on enabling housing intensification, accelerating zero carbon and waste free transition, and upgrading cultural and community spaces”.

I think we all know where her priorities lie, pun intended and including fixing pipes at the start of the list is not fooling anyone.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/wellington/131046760/is-wellington-an-expensive-drain-hole-the-jurys-out
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March 4, 2023 8:11am
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  The first thing Wellington needs to do is to stop providing free accommodation in the central city to every transient vagabond who turns up. If they have to be accommodated, move them to container houses in the Makara hills. Or in the garden of Premier House.
  
  And, hose down the streets more regularly.
  
  It’s a fine line between edgy & exciting, and down-at-heel & scummy; Wellington crossed it the moment they invited vagrants to live around Courtenay Pl.
  
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  March 4, 2023 9:57am
  - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
    
    Yup. place stinks like a sewer, closed shops all over, vagrants and beggars all up and down lambton quay pissing in doorways, and gang members taking over courtney place and cuba st at night.
    
    I believe this is known as “vibrant”
    
    I avoid Wellington now. Made a small pilgrimage up to Slowboat a week or so ago, its all looking very sad and seedy.
    
    Fortunately extra cycleways will fix everything.
    
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    March 4, 2023 3:26pm
    - NZer In Exile
      
      Copying San Fransicko and other modern day shit-holes it would appear.
      
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      March 4, 2023 3:49pm
- ClanMcleod
  
  Wellington is a shit hole. No doubt due to the inhabitants of the beltway and the assorted hangers on living in the suburbs.
  2o years ago it was a buzzing, vibrant place.
  
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  March 4, 2023 8:01pm
Tony Stuart

Stuff reports:

A National Party candidate received a very cold welcome from climate strikers in Wellington, with booing and abuse hurled during the entirety of her speech on her party’s climate policies.

It certainly was a baptism of fire for Emma Chatterton, who was only selected as Remutaka candidate a couple of weeks ago.

But it also runs contrary to the media narrative that it’s the right wing of politics that is abusive and angry. And it does nothing but harm for the case of Make it 16 campaigners, who want the voting age lowered.
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March 4, 2023 8:13am
- krazykiwi
  
  Why would they boo? National’s ‘Climate Policy’ is indistinguishable from Labour’s: Fossil fuels are evil, carbon taxes are essential because reasons.
  
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  March 4, 2023 8:22am
  - Lee C
    
    LoL.
    
    It simply illustrates how stupid Luxon’s fawning and public admonishment of Pugh was.
    
    Perception is all.
    
    Trust is even aller.
    
    (feel free to quote that).
    
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    March 4, 2023 8:26am
    - crikey
      
      “Facts are facts but perception is reality.”
      
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      March 4, 2023 10:53am
  - RoboRob
    
    It also shows why Luxon need not tip toe around climate change. No matter what national do or say re some policy areas, the left will simply believe them evil. National should grow some balls and say what they really think. They’re never winning votes from the climate extremists.
    
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    March 4, 2023 8:32am
  - RoboRob
    
    Greta thurnbugh was arrested protesting AGAINST wind turbines. Yor CAN’T please the climate extremists, and there is no point trying.
    
    Even Labour/ Greens get shit from them. Thay only get the votes because to climate extremists anybody on the right of politics is Hitler.
    
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    March 4, 2023 8:36am
  - ClanMcleod
    
    kk- it’s like one of those WWF Superstars of Wrestling crowds. Booing the “baddie”, cheering for the “goodie”. It’s a sham.
    
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    March 4, 2023 9:08am
  - rouppe
    
    Because the climate crisis is a headline excuse.
    
    They were also there for the “make it 16” cause. So like most things, the message is getting mixed and diluted.
    
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    March 4, 2023 10:13am
- Philview
  
  It has been good publicity for Emma so it backfired on the young Labour activists.
  
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  March 4, 2023 8:24am
- Tomtoddy
  
  Young people’s antics on climate change supported by an arrogant, even evil media is just an empty charade. Ask them to forego even the smallest item they own or enjoy with a fossil fuel origin and they are busted.
  
  It is all a game, a demand to be noticed, to be the clever dick and gain attention from a scurrilous reporter.
  
  There is ample scientific, incontrovertible evidence that there have been numerous rain events of similar magnitude on the East Coast since record began. There is no greater intensity or regularity now.
  
  Go back to school kids and get a decent education based on truth and facts. If you must protest, hit on the education system and the socialist unions running the place.
  
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  March 4, 2023 8:26am
- Chris Nisbet
  
  Do National really believe in this Net Zero insanity, or are they simply trying to gain a few votes from the Net Zero nutcases? If the latter, then I’d rather they (try to) educate them on the impossibility of Net Zero, the perils of involving the government in every aspect of their everyday life, which is what is required to achieve it (they’ll achieve the control over your life, but not Net Zero). This is not something I’m making up – James Shaw comes right out and says it…
  ““The Emissions Reduction Plan is a plan for the whole of New Zealand. The Government will play a key role in getting the system settings right and accelerating the use of low-emissions practices and technologies”
  
  If the former, then what they’re going to achieve by implementing Net Zero policies is carnage, not Net Zero. James Shaw says as much when he tells us that massive changes are coming.
  
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  March 4, 2023 8:28am
  - krazykiwi
    
    Luxon should read this from earlier in the week: Half the World Faces Starvation Under Net Zero Policies, Say Two Top Climate Scientists
    
    Billions of people around the world face starvation if Net Zero policies ban the production of nitrogen fertiliser derived from fossil fuels. This is the stark warning from two top American scientists who say that eliminating fossil fuel-derived nitrogen fertilisers and pesticides “will result in about half the world’s population not having enough food to eat”. They add that eliminating Net Zero fertiliser will create “worldwide starvation”.
    
    In a wide-ranging paper titled ‘Challenging ‘Net Zero’ with Science‘, Emeritus Professors William Happer and Richard Lindzen of Princeton and MIT respectively, along with geologist Gregory Wrightstone, state that Net Zero – the global movement to eliminate fossil fuels and its emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases – to be “scientifically invalid and a threat to the lives of billions of people”
    
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    March 4, 2023 8:35am
    - Widogast Corwin
      
      Yes exactly. To pick one example. Last year the Sri Lanka government decided to ban the importation of nitrogenous fertiliser. Result was massive crop failures.
      
      Natural gas is the feedstock in almost all nitrogenous fertiliser manufacturering. Without it billions of people will starve. Of course, none of these climate strikers understand this. Because the education system is collapsing. They are more likely to be studying gender dysphoria than physics and chemistry.
      
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      March 4, 2023 8:55am
      - ClanMcleod
        
        Talking about gender dysphoria, a bit of entertainment to hopefully raise a smile while discussing such a frustrating topic.
        
        US Admiral Rachel Levine with some very important information. March is national nutrition month apparently…..
        
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4W1TUFrYamc
        
        We really do live on clown planet.
        
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        March 4, 2023 9:15am
      - Widogast Corwin
        
        An obese ‘woman’ who used to be a man, dressed in an Admiral uniform is giving advice about nutrition.
        
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        March 4, 2023 9:33am
      - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
        
        How would they ever know? Social studies is all about feelz and the oppression olympics. Nobody studies actual science or economics till university.
        
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        March 4, 2023 3:29pm
    - gravedodger
      
      Yep yip that is what it is and you will know it when you see it.
      Of course many will have missed recent very clear warnings from Venezuela and then more graphically in Sri Lanka.
      Then insipid democracies missed all such clear warnings when Mussolini made trains run on time and Herr Schicklgruber even published his plans in a bloody book a decade before he strode over the remnants of the Weimar Republic with the blessing of a dying WW1 General as President of Germany.
      
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      March 4, 2023 9:32am
- kowtow
  
  In the South Island turn out was very poor .So much so that the Dunedin pupils had to ask the extreme left Climate Extinction to organise the event for them.
  
  And they want they vote ?
  
  ‘ School Strike 4 Climate Christchurch asked Extinction Rebellion to stage Dunedin’s School Strike 4 Climate rally because the Dunedin group was not active and unable to rally a crowd, she said.’
  
  https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/smaller-protest-crowd-still-vocal
  
  The lesson for Luxon in this booing affair is ; no amount of lickspittle appeasement will win them over so why be disloyal and treacherous to your base trying to win over brain dead, far left, cultural revolutionists.
  
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  March 4, 2023 8:49am
  - ClanMcleod
    
    Who are the organisers of these events? They are not spontaneous. A bit of digging into which organisations are driving it might be very revealing.
    
    WYMO is a registered company, I’m not sure what WYMO stands for. Possibly “World Youth” something or other?
    Sophie Todd seems to be the “boss”. Their website link doesn’t work. They have a FB page. 418 likes. 447 followers. Lots of photos of Ms Todd “saving” the planet. Lots of calls to “protests”.
    
    Curious indeed. There will be more to this no doubt.
    
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    March 4, 2023 9:25am
    - rouppe
      
      Green Party flags are prevalent at these things
      
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      March 4, 2023 10:16am
    - rangitoto
      
      Someone paid for the banners, which were professionally printed. Unlikely that the students are funding it.
      
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      March 4, 2023 10:36am
  - Widogast Corwin
    
    So National gets shouted down on climate change policy when their climate change policies are virtually identical to the Government’s policies.
    
    Labour strategists must be laughing like hyenas at the stupidity of the National Party.
    
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    March 4, 2023 9:35am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      Labour were shouted down as well, Anderson received the same treatment, this was a rotten hit job from the greens
      
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      March 4, 2023 10:19am
      - leoj
        
        Well, boo hoo.
        Rotten hit job eh?
        Then get a leader who can face them down and tell it like it is rather than going along with this climate change nonsense.
        That’s the issue with Luxon. He is a greenie.
        
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        March 4, 2023 11:12am
  - Jim
    
    To be honest though, Dunedin is a place that would benefit from a 1.5 degree temperature rise. //
    
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    March 4, 2023 1:57pm
- Widogast Corwin
  
  It is definitely the left that are abusive and angry. They are vicious and many will set out to destroy anyone who has different views.
  
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  March 4, 2023 8:50am
  - Ruawai
    
    I heard a vote 16 spokesperson say we can’t have a referendum on the voting age as the majority would get to decide for the minority and the majority have got the wrong opinions and haven’t been educated on the topic. I wonder if she knows the definition of a democracy?
    
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    March 4, 2023 9:07am
    - Widogast Corwin
      
      Let’s take a deep breath and look at the world.
      
      There are 195 countries in the world. 99.5 percent of countries have the voting age at 18 or older. Now maybe they have all got it wrong but I doubt it.
      
      There are four countries that have a voting age at 16:
      
      Argentina, Cuba, Austria, Brazil
      
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_age
      
      With the exception of Austria, those countries are not really models for stability and prosperity.
      
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      March 4, 2023 9:42am
    - Flossie
      
      Many of us against the Votes for 16’s have been parents of teenage kids and we KNOW they haven’t got the brains they were born with !!
      Busy with their hormones and trying out their wings. And 99% of them depend on an older generation for their food and shelter amongst other things.
      
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      March 4, 2023 11:44am
- pdm
  
  Inv – in Christchurch those `nice’ climate change protesters trespassed in the Council Offices I believe.
  
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  March 4, 2023 8:51am
  - double d
    
    My teenage daughters both at school in Christchurch laughed when I asked them if they thought about going to the climate protest. They told it was the usual suspects that had pronoun problems that attended – not a cool thing to follow – kids more interested in the latest episode of Outer Banks or the upcoming Harry Styles concert- climate change total cbbs.
    
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    March 4, 2023 9:18am
  - ClanMcleod
    
    pdm – like Greta? Here she is “protesting” outside a building before being carried off smiling by two nice police officers, obviously with media cameras capturing the moment.
    
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuOKp8RQ6c8
    
    We really do live on clown planet.
    
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    March 4, 2023 9:30am
- Simon
  
  Climate fraud is now deeply engrained within govt operations and emotions. It’s religious in nature and used against society as means of govt control.
  
  Climate protesters are mentally ill and should be regarded as sick. Openly abused by govt as a weapon against potential unbelievers
  
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  March 4, 2023 8:56am
  - ClanMcleod
    
    It is a cult. The same as covid was a cult.
    Society is being dangerously divided by so many fraudulent narratives, it’s hard to keep up. It’s gaslighting on steroids.
    
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    March 4, 2023 9:32am
    - NZer In Exile
      
      Marxists have used these methods to destabilise countries for over a century.
      
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      March 4, 2023 3:27pm
- emmess
  
  Why do National send speakers to hostile crowds to get booed at?
  What we’re they hoping to achieve?
  It is just so naive.
  
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  March 4, 2023 9:20am
  - Ehlana
    
    It’s one of those no win situations. If they don’t show up, screaming and crying and carrying on about how they don’t believe in democracy/ care about the climate etc. etc.
    
    If they do show up, screaming and crying and carrying on because when you’ve already decided you hate someone, why bother listening to them?
    
    It was, however, a good opportunity to demonstrate why 16 year olds should not vote. Any time that’s raised again, they can simply replay this and ask the advocates to explain again about how young people are capable of making good decisions.
    
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    March 4, 2023 10:38am
  - Bob
    
    just so naive….
    emmmss.. the protestors behaviour highlighted the support base for the present government; very very childish and immature. Seemed to only be capable of memorising a three word chant.
    
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    March 4, 2023 10:48am
  - rouppe
    
    If you don’t you look scared
    
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    March 4, 2023 11:01am
- Steve Todd
  
  One wonders why National chose to throw a political neophyte to the wolves, the way they did.
  
  Where was Nicola Willis or Chris Bishop?
  
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  March 4, 2023 10:15am
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    They said all MPs were out of town, they may just have been in flood areas, note Hipkins went to Si, the candidate is standing against Hipkins, she is an awesome candidate, and it looks like a lot of time is going into her, she has already got press by being booed by vulgar teens
    
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    March 4, 2023 10:22am
  - Ghost
    
    It was meant to be Gerry Brownlee
    
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    March 4, 2023 10:24am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      He couldn’t get there, and all Wellington based MPs we’re out of town, what did you want them to do, as I said Labour Mp Anderson was booed as well
      
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      March 4, 2023 8:57pm
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  Same shit in the states, I note Andersen got the same treatment, Shaw asking parents to vote for what the kids want is utterly pathetic, this hatred from these nasty smug kids should be taken with a grain of salt, now we know why the left are so into 16 year olds voting
  
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  March 4, 2023 10:17am
- MCōs
  
  If anyone was going to speak for the National Party it should have been their Climate Change spokesperson, the hapless Todd Muller, not some who probably isn’t too different in background to those she was attempting to speak to, but is basically still a nobody.
  
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  March 4, 2023 10:31am
  - NZer In Exile
    
    He’s the random weather and same old climate cycles minister. OK. Sounds like a very useful position.
    
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    March 4, 2023 3:29pm
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    He lives 300 kms away ffs
    
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    March 4, 2023 8:57pm
- Bob
  
  Looking at the presence of some of those ‘protesters’; I would suggest that we need to raise the voting age by about 25 years.
  
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  March 4, 2023 10:45am
cas

From what I could tell from the TV coverage of the kid’s protests yesterday, those participating were predominantly white and probably privileged, with no doubt a very up to date cellphone.
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March 4, 2023 8:23am
- kowtow
  
  Yes , I agree .
  
  Looks to be the children of the Teal types.
  
  I note too they don’t want any carbon extraction.
  
  So there’ll be no more ooh ahhing on facebook about the size of the diamonds that Tarquin presents them at the proposals .
  
  Gosh if I were a De Beers shareholder I’d be selling now !
  
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  March 4, 2023 10:38am
- blue collar
  
  Should’ve rocked up with a couple of bbqs , one gas fired , one coal ….n calmly laughed at them while cooking a feed 😁
  A suitable backdrop would be a giant sign with coal burning quantities since labour got in .
  Dammit . Opportunity missed
  
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  March 4, 2023 2:22pm
Taieri

harm for the case of Make it 16 campaigners
————–

Have they got a case though?
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March 4, 2023 8:26am
- Ehlana
  
  They want it, they feel bad about not having it.
  
  Aren’t their feelings case enough for you?
  
  More seriously, the argument advanced is (I understand) that young people are capable of good decision making when they have information and quiet time alone to reflect (as you would in a polling booth). Bad decisions are made due to peer pressure.
  
  The problem I see with this argument is that it explains very well drinking/drugs/driving/sex decisions made at a noisy party with your peers.
  
  But the decision to attend the party where it was likely these things could happen – that was presumably made at home, in that time for quiet reflection alone. And they still went.
  
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  March 4, 2023 10:43am
Nickc2

I noticed yesterday in one newscast, kids in the Akld Climate Change protest chanting that Wayne Brown (Akld Mayor) must go. WTF has that got to do with Climate Change or is it just another School Teacher’s indoctrination of kids against anything that’s not Labour or Green?
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March 4, 2023 8:26am
- MCōs
  
  Multitasking
  
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  March 4, 2023 10:32am
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    Multitasking is the art of doing many things at the same time, all of them badly.
    
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    March 4, 2023 1:27pm
- Bridgenag
  
  As I posted yesterday The majority looked like leftover hippies from the 60’s Hardly any students [rent a crowd?]
  
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  March 4, 2023 10:45am
Chuck Bird

I had a great night at the showing of “Last Words” by the Free Speech Union in Hamilton.

Alongside the screening, there was a Q&A with Jonathan Ayling, Chief Executive of the Free Speech Union, and the person singly most responsible for the defeat of the Government’s hate speech laws. He was joined by a member of the Free Speech Union Council Dr Melissa Derby from Waikato University.

I am not sure where they are going next but I would recommend viewing it if it comes near you.
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March 4, 2023 8:31am
- Suze Wainwright
  
  Fascinating that a number of leftie tweets are now championing free speech – is the narrative currently being edited – or a new one being written…?
  
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  March 4, 2023 8:40am
- Rodney Hide
  
  I am a great fan of Jonathan. He is principled, intelligent, well-reasoned and effective.
  
  But he is wrong about Drag Queens’ story time for children as a free speech issue.
  
  https://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/131393894/the-free-speech-door-swings-both-ways
  
  It’s grooming.
  
  I am afraid it doesn’t change matters that the parents may be in on it.
  
  I understand why mums and dads and grandads and nanas want to read little kids bedtime stories. But why do men who like dressing up as women like to read to kids?
  
  I am open to being persuaded that I am wrong.
  
  Rodney Hide
  
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  March 4, 2023 8:56am
  - Chuck Bird
    
    You are right Rodney. In my council we had them. Even worse they were paid out of my rates.
    
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    March 4, 2023 9:24am
  - Scott
    
    On TV3 late news last night Ingrid Hipkiss read out that gay rights are under threat in America. Drag queens are being banned from performing in front of children!
    The governors are requiring parents to be told if their child is transgender! Sexual reassignment surgery is being banned for anyone under 18!
    
    Ms Hipkiss read this out as if this was all terrible. A terrible blow to gays everywhere. No dissenting voices were heard.
    
    https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/world/2023/03/lgbtq-community-furious-after-growing-number-of-us-governors-wage-war-on-drag-queens.html
    
    What’s wrong with us? Of course highly sexualised drag queens shouldn’t be performing in front of children.
    Of course parents must know if schools are diagnosing their children as transgender.
    Of course children shouldn’t have their bodies mutilated by trans surgery.
    
    Is there anyone on this blog that disagrees with what I’ve said?
    
    How can a major news network go so utterly against the views of the majority of NZers?
    
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    March 4, 2023 9:37am
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    I agree. Drag Queens have human rights. But if they want to read stories to children in public facilities (which begs the question of why) then they need to do so out of Drag. There’s a time & a place for most things, but that ain’t it.
    
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    March 4, 2023 9:51am
    - kowtow
      
      We all have human rights , but some people have more rights than others .
      
      The key though is this is not about getting children interested in reading and books . That’s the claimed excuse for this infiltration.
      
      The reason it’s being done and they don’t deny it is to indoctrinate children into this gender identity politics thing .
      
      Targetting three to 11 y.os is not freedom of speech or a human right . It is grooming.
      
      btw where is the similar recipricocity of rights for parents and/or significant others when to comes to “conversion therapy ” , oh that’s right they’ve made that a crime !
      
      Make no mistake these people are the REd Guards of the new Cultural Revolution ( like the dupes in the climate hysteria marches) only this chapter aren’t wearing blue Mao suits and waving a Little Red Book they’re dressing up as a parody of women and waving gender identity crap in the face of toddlers and their useful idiot parents , who’re probably relatively wealthy white Teals .
      
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      March 4, 2023 10:52am
  - Chuck Bird
    
    Rodney would you please email me at chuckbirdnz@gmail.com
    I wanted to ask you something.
    
    Cheers
    Chuck
    
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    March 4, 2023 10:37am
  - Justitia
    
    I thoroughly agree with you Rodney. It is not the FSU’s role to lend its support to the grooming and sexualization of young children. As a founding member and regular donor, I have asked the FSU “please explain”. Crickets.
    
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    March 4, 2023 12:09pm
  - blue collar
    
    Exactly. Definitely grooming . First question to mum and dad afterwards … why are those men dressed as women ?
    Looks fun , I want to be one ,
    At worst sowing the seed for future recruits .
    At best sowing confusion in vulnerable minds
    
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    March 4, 2023 2:28pm
- Justitia
  
  As an FSU member and donor, I think you overestimate Ayling’s contribution. I credit the thousands of people who submitted to the Justice Select Committee, pointing out the absurdities and contradictions in giving State protection to religious belief. Hipkins knew they were on a hiding to nothing with a policy that was most closely associated with Ardern in any case.
  
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  March 4, 2023 12:06pm
- Paulus
  
  Suggest you read Chris Trotter today – one of the best articles I believe he has ever written about New Zealand recent History and from whence he and his family came.
  
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  March 4, 2023 4:03pm
Jethrod

How do you get rid of all the intrusive ads on the Kiwiblog website?
I am sitting here with a cows arse and a waving cows tail distracting me from important opinions of NZ’s right.
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March 4, 2023 8:39am
- info@cruzpro.com
  
  Lots of ads on KB when using Firefox on Win10 PC but almost none when viewing KB on Android tablet using Brave browser.
  
  Didn’t install any special software on tablet.
  
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  March 4, 2023 9:18am
  - H. Upmann
    
    I use Firefox on Win10 PC with DuckDuckGo search engine. No adds.
    
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    March 4, 2023 10:35am
  - Ra Henare
    
    Brave browser is available for Windows. I use it exclusively, have done for more than a year. Its brilliant. Accepts Chrome addons.
    
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    March 4, 2023 1:40pm
- peterwn
  
  The converse to advertising is DPF would need to pay for Kiwiblog out of his own pocket,and even if he is willing Mrs DPF may have other ideas.
  
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  March 4, 2023 9:57am
- MCōs
  
  Maybe send Mr F a wad of money and he’ll tell you how.
  
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  March 4, 2023 10:34am
- Matt Long
  
  The last decade or so companies like Microsoft worked out there is more money to be made selling spyware and spambots disguised as Operating Systems and Browsers than in selling actual software.
  Hence now we need to look for Software that at least gives a positive user experience and pretends it doesn’t share our data.
  
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  March 4, 2023 10:56am
Prince

It’s a strange world.
Nats polling Dec 2021 – 23.4%
Nats polling now around 35%

He has already seen off Ardern, before the election !

Kiwibloggers. – Wah Wah, Luxon needs to be more like Collins. Luxon needs to grow a pair. Luxon needs to refute climate change, Luxon needs to attack the media. Luxon needs to ditch Maori funding. Luxon needs to say everything I believe.
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March 4, 2023 8:44am
- Prince
  
  Oh, and more good news…
  
  There is a free press out there willing to question the insane rubbish dished up by our Government under the guise of ‘Education’.
  Unfortunately it is overseas.
  https://app.spectator.com.au/2023/03/diary-354/pugpig_index.html
  
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  March 4, 2023 8:48am
  - info@cruzpro.com
    
    Very enjoyable and educational short article. Thank you for the link.
    
    I had to laugh at the authors’ mention of the Air New Zealand safety briefing.
    
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    March 4, 2023 9:22am
- ClanMcleod
  
  No – Luxon needs to tell the truth. Pushing bs because “it seems to work for the other lot” isn’t effective government.
  Unless it’s a cunning plan to win the election then immediately throw all this shit in the bin where it belongs, but sadly I think Luxon actually believes this “zero carbon” insanity. If he doesn’t he’s playing the part very well.
  I’ll apologise when he retracts after the election.
  
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  March 4, 2023 9:41am
- Matt Long
  
  I was in a race, coming last by a country mile, the other racers crashed and burned but now I’m losing against someone who joined the race later.
  I’m a great racer.
  
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  March 4, 2023 11:00am
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Saliva roadside drug testing scrapped because ‘tech doesn’t exist in the world.
Associate Transport Minister Kiri Allan said Police advised they were unable to find the technology capable of providing saliva roadside testing.
Testing was meant to be rolled out next Saturday (samples taken) but there was no means of testing that sample. Labour strikes again. They had the Select Committees and passed the Legislation and gave the Officials a whole year to get it sorted.
Now, who were those Officials? Police? Waka Coathanger?
Yet another Labour Government FAILURE!! I would have thought Labour would have researched this, not do a half pie job and leave the rest to be blamed on others. Another silly idea that failed!
https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/other/absolute-failure-saliva-roadside-drug-testing-scrapped-because-tech-doesn-t-exist-in-the-world/ar-AA18annD
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March 4, 2023 8:48am
- Suze Wainwright
  
  I know this is on this morning’s other thread, but I’ve seen enough of Labour’s support base to realize that none of them actually regard the Party’s immense list of policy failures as actual failures.
  
  As long as the Party they support has MPs with hearts in the right places. That’s all that really matters, huh
  
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  March 4, 2023 9:04am
- blue collar
  
  Funny . Aussie has been doing it for years to drivers . My company has random swab tests . Piss tests post incident .
  Are we saying anyone sacked from a swab test can make a claim now ?
  
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  March 4, 2023 2:30pm
- Paulus
  
  Why is it that Australia does Roadside testing so well ?
  
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  March 4, 2023 4:05pm
I remember when

Climate of Fear: NIWA’s Missing Storm Data & Its Impact on Extreme Climate Claims: Ian Wishart@investigatemagazine.
An article that reveals there were numerous major storm events during the period 1860-90 that NIWA don’t have in their records.
To quote a believer, “There is still climate change deniers out there.
The overwhelming majority of scientists, something like 99%, that agree the science with climate change.”
Another: Ian Wishart and ‘actual facts’ is one of the great oxymorons.

Both, ignoring the fact that his article is basically just quoting from numerous newspapers and other historical records.
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March 4, 2023 9:21am
- Nothelen
  
  I did a similar exercise with the tsunami activity in Buller. Just checking the dates in Paper’s Past and seeing what the reporting at the time was saying revealed a completely different version of events. The ‘scientists’ had exaggerated and even fabricated events. Indeed I found little truth in the published NZ tsunami history. I wouldn’t trust any of it and these people know it is crap, they are all in it together, just repeating the lies.
  
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  March 4, 2023 4:00pm
Its only I

After watching the truants on the tv…

New Zealand really is becoming a brain dead, easily manipulated, fundamentally insecure tiny shyt hole and dumb at school is an achievement apparently.

The protesting truants tell us…

Teens today will be dead from climate change by 30… have I heard “dead by thirty” before, oh I know its from an echo of every single generation before!

Stop farming!.. producing food,? I thought third world countries were doing it tough now…

Fontera sux!…perhaps, but with farmers producing so much so efficiently they are, and will be, carrying your limited income potential for your entire life considering your so poorly educated, unemployable and suffering a crippling overly stimulated sense of entitlement…good luck with that though…teen “oarmones” aye?

Stop mining…for lithium, materials for your six month old mobile phone?

No more diesel trucks!..again no lithium, moving windfarm components, and food?

Why the protests, I thought Labour/Green were the climate parties, haven’t they been unfettered by coalition agreements for years, nearly half of the years these truants school life in fact should?

They voted for this, remember?

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/election/2017/08/jacinda-ardern-climate-change-is-my-generation-s-nuclear-free-moment.html

Oh I forgot Ardern ran away because “she” is more important then “we” and youth even less so looking at recent stats….and its all BS really.

Is the protest about the environment, really?

Some of us spent months on little boats around an atoll no that long ago, just saying.
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March 4, 2023 9:24am
- Southern Raider
  
  We know it’s all fundamentally a far left driven campaign by adults to collapse economies.
  
  These students are just useful idiots as too dumb to understand they are being played and the organisers know vast majority won’t criticise children, so they get a free pass.
  
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  March 4, 2023 10:04am
  - Its only I
    
    Its been allowed to happen by all of us.
    
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    March 4, 2023 10:37am
- kowtow
  
  Take heart .
  
  Relatively there were very very few of them .
  
  Despite what te media pardy want us to believe.
  
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  March 4, 2023 10:56am
Southern Raider

Forget crime in Hawkes Bay. Have a minor car accident in Auckland and a gang of thugs will beat you to death.
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March 4, 2023 9:25am
- I remember when
  
  Prime Minister mislead by the Police about gun violence in Hawke’s Bay.
  Apparently the information for the Prime Minister was delivered via his PR department.
  
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  March 4, 2023 10:13am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Stab to death?
  
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  March 4, 2023 1:11pm
Southern Raider

Anyone else read the article on Malachi yesterday in the Herald.

Meth head mum left him with the daughter of the people she had been dealing for.

The step father wanted to look after him and by all accounts they had a great and healthy relationship. Of course he’s a man so was never getting a chance.

Cousins and other direct family members put their hands up and tried multiple times with OT to get Malachi transferred to them.

But no OT and Family Court backed leaving Malachi in the hands of a 26 year old beneficiary, drug syndicate family member, never had any experience looking after kids and looks like just wanted the $700 per week extra payment from OT
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March 4, 2023 9:29am
NeverMindTheBollocks

Asian woman assaulted while out walking along the Waikato River path; told to go back to her own country.

No description of the assailant, other than that she was also female.

Fill in the gap yourself.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300821293/woman-concussed-after-alleged-hate-crime-on-hamilton-river-path
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March 4, 2023 9:33am
Maggie Pie

My partner was saying it’ll be interesting to see what ‘Earlybird Odds’ the TAB puts on it.

Stewie Nash is getting in the Ring with Mark Mitchell for the ‘Fight-for-Life’ next month.

He’s secured a corporate table again this year…

should be a REAL hoot 😀
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March 4, 2023 9:34am
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  Mitchell will be very well train in the art of defence, Nash better be careful
  
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  March 4, 2023 11:14am
  - Colville
    
    Mitchell looks like it’s been a good while since he has been near exercise. Nash is a gym bunny. I think Mitchell will need to careful indeed.
    It’s a boxing match not a street fight the fitter man will win.
    
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    March 4, 2023 1:26pm
    - Tony Stuart
      
      Mitchell has been doing BoxFit for a few months. Nash may be the Minister for Muscles, but boxing requires a high level of aerobic fitness. Full marks to both of them though, for giving it a go.
      
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      March 4, 2023 3:07pm
      - Colville
        
        Tony.
        Nash has been a gym bunny for years.
        Muscle memory will mean he can train a little and regain 90% of his conditioning whereas Mitchel is coming off a zero base. It s a high hill to climb at his age (he is a year younger than me)
        
        Oh and deltoids, the one that holds your arm out straight. One of the combatants has some.
        
        I hope Mark has a good mouth guard.
        
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        March 4, 2023 9:02pm
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        Minister for muscles?
        
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        March 4, 2023 9:03pm
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      Mitchell shows he is fitter than you think when playing in the parliament rugby side, Nash is one of those posers
      
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      March 4, 2023 9:02pm
Southern Raider

Why can’t National come out with a clear and articulate climate policy.

Surely the basics are
– the climate is changing, it doesn’t matter if you believe from a natural cycle or man made
– we need to invest in building resilient infrastructure and housing which will stand up to climate events
– planting trees and selling our county to foreign “carbon sink” funds is not the answer
– reducing emissions, and any form of pollution, just makes logical sense and we need to double down on science to drive these reductions
– change takes a phased pragmatic approach and we will not make knee jerk captains calls that jeopardise our economy, our food supply or our supply chain
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March 4, 2023 9:42am
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  The Nats have stated anything to do with carbon reduction should be achieved by science, I think they do have a policy if you care to look
  
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  March 4, 2023 11:15am
I remember when

The new rainfall measuring device:
I can remember when it used to be in inches, but that wasn’t scary enough.
So we moved to millimeters which was a real increase but still didn’t suffice.
Finally, we have moved to the much more scientific Olympic Swimming Pool.
We all understand what it would be like to stand under an Olympic Swimming Pool of water, that was released from several hundred feet above.
If we what to know how wet it is going to be, just check how many Olympic Swimming Pools the rain clouds contain.

Best counted with breathless anticipation.
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March 4, 2023 9:55am
- Colville
  
  Nz went metric 50? years ago… Time to move on! 🤣
  
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  March 4, 2023 1:28pm
G the giant from Dunedin

Heard that idiot Wood on with Collins yesterday, promising Bailey Bridges in 6 weeks time, Collins was right, Bailey bridges go in in 24 hours, not just a promise in 6 weeks time, Wood waffled on about not as simple as that, got to have abutments sorted t, level run ons and all that bullshit, but I thought that was the point of a Bailey bridge, it straddles what ever is on either side of rivers.

Anyone who wants to watch the show show go to Newshub, Judith destroyed that utter fool, he didn’t like it either
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March 4, 2023 9:55am
- Bob
  
  when that AM show segment was completed, woodbrain was just beginning to comprehend the opening sentence of the presentation.
  
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  March 4, 2023 10:56am
- MCōs
  
  Bailey Bridges can go up very quickly in theory.
  During WWII if a bridge span was blown up the engineers could look up there manual and quickly decide what was required while the rubble was removed and the piers prepared. One could be quickly installed with a wooden deck and the show would go on.
  The ones I’ve seen in NZ are more complicated than than that with a sealed deck for more robust long term use. Imagine if one of those collapsed with a couple of cars of families and they all drowned?
  
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  March 4, 2023 11:17am
  - Pineapple Lumps
    
    While your knowledge of Bailey bridges is impressive MCos, you divert from the thread which is saying Wood was useless and incompetent and Collins showed him up.
    
    If what you say is true and he was half competent he would have been briefed by civil and military engineers on how to restore roads impacted by all recent natural disasters. He would have then presented this information on the AM show giving impacted people some hope. But he didn’t. Your knowledge rather than diverting attention from this matter just highlights he is incompetent.
    
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    March 4, 2023 12:02pm
    - Hollyfield
      
      Considering Michael Wood has campaigned since 2016 (https://michaelwood.nz/blog/) on getting light rail down Dominion Road (in his own electorate and while he has been Transport Minister for a good chunk of that) and I think it was just last week (or maybe the week before) they started the project with some geotech testing, 6 weeks to put up a Bailey Bridge is faster than the speed of light in comparison.
      
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      March 4, 2023 4:09pm
  - Paulus
    
    Don’t Bailey Bridges have to have Council Consent and a Cultural Agreement first.
    
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    March 4, 2023 4:08pm
    - kowtow
      
      Given we are meant to be decolonising I’m astonished that anyone would have the temerity to propose using a British, Eurocentric , western engineered war inspired innovation .
      
      Oh well perhaps a large trigger warning could be posted prominently on the approaches to help smooth the passage for anyone using them………
      
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      March 4, 2023 5:24pm
    - blue collar
      
      Thus the 6 weeks 😅🥳
      
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      March 4, 2023 5:32pm
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      Not in a state of emergency surely the f…
      
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      March 4, 2023 9:09pm
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    Exactly, not 6 weeks of promises
    
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    March 4, 2023 9:07pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Stop Co-Governance. Julian Batchelor.

Northland Field Days. Teens brainwashed. “Elite Maori takeover of NZ” and they did not want to know. Dame Naida Glavish will be part of this I am sure. Will the media ask her? Thought not.
https://www.stopcogovernance.kiwi/blog/i-picked-up-hard-copies-of-my-book-from-the-printer-yesterday/

https://www.stopcogovernance.kiwi/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/The-RID-book-strategy.pdf
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March 4, 2023 9:56am
ClanMcleod

The “greenies” in this country would do well to read this and understand the reality of their ideological delusions.

German Greens to Ration Energy, Sanction Home-Owners from 2024 Onwards

Because of the planned ban on oil and gas heating, there will be up to ten million additional heat pumps, for example. These pumps run on electricity.

Economics Minister Habeck and his top energy manager Klaus Müller (50, head of the grid agency) already fear an overload of the grids. From January 2024, it should therefore be possible to ration electricity for heat pumps and electric cars. That’s what it says in a paper from the grid agency.

So will the state soon decide how much electricity I get?

‘Not the state, but the grid operators will decide which households will have their electricity rationed’, says Prof. Manuel Frondel (58) from the RWI Institute: ‘That’s a real planned economy.’

This is the liberal left dystopia that awaits all of us. Just add in a digital ID and CBDC and all of the nightmares of Agenda 2030 will be with us.
I don’t see anyone in NZ politics opposing this?
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March 4, 2023 10:03am
Maggie Pie

Wonder why I hate THUGBY?

See where Ardie Savea reverts to type 🙁

https://twitter.com/StanSportRugby/status/1631597322013659137

(@1m 30sec)
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March 4, 2023 10:11am
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  Not sure about that, I watched it live, two guys weee fighting, snd Sevea who is captain went in and pulled them apart, neither fighter was punished, but Sevea was sin binned, something happened when he was binned, because they he was arguing with one of the fighters, not sure what happened, but I am presuming he may have copped a racial slur, he did not go the throat cutting till the end, but it’s clearly not his usual behaviour, and I think something else will come out from this
  
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  March 4, 2023 11:20am
  - Prince
    
    The Canes were horribly ill-disciplined last night, nearly lost because of it.
    The yellow card fella in the second half (then upgraded to red) was a terrible piece of thuggery, showed no regard to the rest of his team. Just dumb.
    Leo Crowley took the Wgton Lions last year and took that rubbish out, adding some rugby sense on where to attack from (hint, it’s not your own goal line).
    Seems the lesson hasn’t lasted the summer for these lads.
    
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    March 4, 2023 12:23pm
- mogg
  
  Bring back John Ashworth!! The crowd love a bit of argy bargy, they are all good mates off-field.
  
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  March 4, 2023 1:37pm
ClanMcleod

Well, I can’t believe it. I just read an article in the Herald that was accurate and reads like a piece of real journalism!! It asks the question:

‘I could hear it coming after me:’ Are Auckland’s cliffs too risky for building homes?

Of course they are. They aren’t rock or granite. Erosion will get them, sooner rather than later.
The article is paywalled but here’s a taste.

“As soon as I got there I thought, ‘Oh, my God.’ I could see the whole earth moving behind the house and I just ran. I said: ‘Chris, you’ve got to get out of here.’”

MacKay dashed back down to her home to call emergency services.

“It [the earth] was literally coming down the cliff after me. As I was running down the stairs I could hear it.”

Moments later Grove’s house, with him still in it, came crashing down on top of Mackay’s property, trapping her neighbour inside his now-destroyed kitchen.

Mackay escaped uninjured but the Fire Service spent two hours cutting the injured Grove out of the debris using a chainsaw.

“They risked life and limb to save him because while they were cutting him out of the house, the earth and the whole house were still moving, coming down,” she said. “It was a very dangerous situation.”

The story of this chilling escape could easily be one from Auckland’s recent floods and Cyclone Gabrielle. Instead, it’s more than 25 years old, taken from a clipping from the Herald’s print files dated September 29, 1997.

The reason it sounds familiar is that the same Shore Rd cliff collapsed again this year, this time claiming a life of a man who lived just two doors along from Mackay’s property. Remuera resident David Lennard was killed when tonnes of cliff soil and debris cascaded down on to his Shore Rd home on a Friday night in late January after a torrential downpour.

And another.

Following two days of heavy rain in August 1965, hundreds of Aucklanders day-tripped out to Muriwai to gaze in wonder at an enormous slip that had roared down the hillside below Domain Crescent causing death and destruction below. Witnesses spoke of a “fantastic wave of mud” travelling at an estimated 60mph (96km/h) an hour. The slip travelled 200m, destroying homes and burying Isobel Crane and her 18-year-old daughter Margaret in its terrifying wake.

The records go back a hundred years to when they first had the ability to fly over Auckland and take photographs identifying the multiple risks. The recent events had NOTHING to do with human influences on climate change.

Worth paying to read the whole thing.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/aucklands-cliffs-are-slipping-away-so-should-we-ban-building-on-dangerous-sites/LAZULYKQUBGU7L5YOF24L4ZA2U/

It goes on to explain in a logical way, the reasons how this situation has arisen in great detail. One short paragraph.

They include Aucklanders’ obsession with property and sea views, greed, legislation that allows them to build pretty much anywhere, a desperate need for homes, infill housing, pressure from developers, and lack of accountability.

Nothing to do with “global warming” or anything else that humans can have any meaningful impact on.
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March 4, 2023 10:20am
- Maggie Pie
  
  And in case you missed Mayor Wayne Brown’s sage advice yesterday….
  
  “Cliffs grow backwards”
  
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  March 4, 2023 10:26am
  - ClanMcleod
    
    Mayor Wayne goes up in my estimation almost daily. Someone who doesn’t talk in riddles.
    
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    March 4, 2023 10:34am
I remember when

Prime Minister mislead by the Police about gun violence in Hawke’s Bay.
Apparently the information for the Prime Minister was delivered via his PR department.
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March 4, 2023 10:26am
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  He is throwing the police under the bus, it was clear as a bell that when HB people started ringing the radio there was crime, for him to not listen to people on the ground is is typical failure as a minister, utterly hopeless, he said the same after the apparent gang member getting his GF into isolation, it was all lies, well that girl had enough money to stay at 3 seperate 5 star hotels afterwards, even though she was a solo mother and only 21 years old
  
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  March 4, 2023 11:26am
Ghost

Oh come on Nash, say yes. If not Nash then Little. The health sector alone would get behind little getting beaten

One of National’s heaviest hitters is calling on “Minister of Muscles” Stuart Nash to meet him in the ring, to go head-to-head in a charity boxing match.

Mark Mitchell, a former cop with a background working for the military specialising in hostage rescue, has agreed to participate in the Fight For Life event on April 27.

Proceeds of the event will go towards mental health awareness and advocacy charity I Am Hope – Mitchell said participating is a “no-brainer”.

NZ Herald
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March 4, 2023 10:49am
- Maggie Pie
  
  When my partner read they call Nashie ‘Minister-of-Muscles’ he had to larf.
  
  He was saying back in the day when WOBH was a thang….Stew was known as ‘MANGROVE’
  
  😛
  
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  March 4, 2023 11:38am
  - I remember when
    
    Minister of Muscles was a misprint, should have been Minister of Fisheries, 2017-2020.
    
    Minister of Mussels.
    
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    March 4, 2023 4:54pm
MCōs

Best cartoon you’ll see in a long time
https://twitter.com/jackyninjakitty/status/1631759724520824837?s=61&t=yFkzCNMWRCaVt1p5eRxUog
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March 4, 2023 11:00am
- Maggie Pie
  
  You can be sooo HORRIBLE sometimes Cossie….but I do like you 😀
  
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  March 4, 2023 11:09am
  - MCōs
    
    See you at the Onehunga Festival
    
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    March 4, 2023 11:19am
    - Maggie Pie
      
      I said I liked you. Never said I ‘loved’ you.
      
      SHEESH!
      
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      March 4, 2023 11:22am
Diogenes

I can’t recall who said words along the line of the following, but it is even more relevant today:

“I uphold your right to speak freely. But I am not obliged to provide the platform.”

I am a member of the Free Speech Union, but I vehemently disagree with their stance regarding drag queens in kindergartens. A pre-school is the wrong place to provide these people with a platform, and should not be obliged to do so.
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March 4, 2023 11:04am
- Pineapple Lumps
  
  Spot on Diogenes- the empowerment of deviant lifestyles and enabling their promotion into our schools will accelerate the moral decline of our nation. Many on here believe this is a lefty woke thing, but it is more than that. It is a curse we bear because of our increasing Godlessness.
  
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  March 4, 2023 11:51am
Chuck Bird

FYI

Groundswell Radio – Episode 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuDtUW5RjbY&t=97s
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March 4, 2023 11:19am
Maggie Pie

There’s no doubt the housing-market is taking a pounding at the moment….but only for those who are forced to sell.

Still, you gotta’ feel a wee bit sorry for the Chinaman that paid nearly 25mill for JK’s pile in Parnell about five years ago. Just sold it for $16.3m. A loss of over 7 mill. 🙁

My partner knows who the new owner is – but his lips are sealed.
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March 4, 2023 11:19am
Pineapple Lumps

NARCISSIST OF THE YEAR AWARDS – calling for nominations.

The ever increasing push to recognise diversity results in more and more fragmentation of our society. Ultimately all people are unique and special. So the smallest unit of society is the individual. But to be successful there has to be a decision to put the greater good ahead of merely our own self interest. Identity politics leads to a divisive society where the narcissistic look-at-me personality type is provided jet fuel. Narcissism is unhealthy for the individual and for society. It enables abusers to claim they are victims. When we see it we must call it out for what it is.

So instead of the NZer of the year award, I propose the Narcissist of the year award. Nominees fellow kiwi bloggers?
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March 4, 2023 11:47am
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  Winston, obviously
  
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  March 4, 2023 1:36pm
- Pineapple Lumps
  
  Nominee: Jacinda Ardern
  
  Introduced a set of rules, then didn’t apply them using her own criteria, and used them to restrict freedoms and rights resulting in loss of freedom of association, loss of freedom of movement, coercion to undergo medical experimentation and medical procedures, discrimination against those choosing not to carry papers or refusing said medical treatments resulting in restrictions to engage in normal society, the workforce etc. Resulting in many losing jobs, income and being subjected to financial hardship. Lead a government that focussed on controlling immigration settings, implementing anti business legislation such as additional public holidays, increasing benefits and the minimum wage. Borrowed recklessly and excessively and lacked complete transparency of how this money was spent and without proper financial governance and accountability. Enabled and emboldened activists on race, religion, gender identity, and criminal gangs.
  
  Then when people say exercises the right to protest she completely dehumanised them, slandered them as violent filth and refused to engage and listen to them.
  
  Focussed more on separating the NZ health system to give power and control to Maori elite than actually gearing it up to fight the so called greatest health crises since 1918. Stuffed the Polytechnic tertiary system, revised the education system to indoctrinate children, emasculated the police force, made the average NZer and particularly Dairy owners less secure and safe, increased homelessness, vilified residential landlords, screwed farmers, virtue signalled in a non-democratic manner that NZ would no longer offer security for business investment particularly in oil and gas, then denied any responsibility for increased higher polluting imported fossil fuels and blamed loss of strategic Marsden refinery on spooked private business owners. Subsequently there is no carbon dioxide for brewing or fizzy drinks. Indebted future generations of NZers to pay for her scamdemic.
  
  Then she was the victim when people took a dislike to her.
  
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  March 4, 2023 3:41pm
nathie

A relative in the health industry points out …

Seems Labour’s new mega-hundred-million health authority Te Whatu Ora doesn’t have any $$$ left over to preserve a medical museum which is well respected.

Visiting London anaesthetist Aubrey Bristow was first to alert Stuff after visiting the museum while in the city recently.

Bristow said he was “utterly amazed” at the volume and quality of displays, and had never seen such an excellent display from a single hospital.

The collection of anaesthetic equipment from the past was almost as good as one held at the Association of Anaesthetists’ Heritage Museum in London, and better than others, he said.

He was shocked by the hospital management’s actions and could not believe there was no alternative to volunteers having to start throwing exhibits away.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/131394602/palmerston-north-hospital-tells-medical-museum-to-pack-up-and-find-new-home

So Labour’s Te Whatu Ora monstrosity can’t assist Mid-Central with any $$$?

Imagine the outcry if this was Māori history being stored or binned.

But it’s ok if it is European centric? If so how racist of Te Whatu Ora!
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March 4, 2023 11:52am
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  The Glaxo part of GlaxoSmithKline had its first factory in Bunnythorpe. I suspect an appeal to the right ear might secure some funding from the pharmaceutical multinational.
  
  https://manawatuheritage.pncc.govt.nz/item/e4fc4462-368f-4987-94d5-c4987030e279
  
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  March 4, 2023 1:40pm
Flossie

I know this is pretty selfish to bring up when there are so many other way more pressing issues, but…
I’d like to know what my pension is going to be in the new financial year. I know it goes up every April in line with something or other, so with less than a month to go MSD must surely know what the new rate will be. This knowledge would be very helpful to me because of a personal budget thing.
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March 4, 2023 12:04pm
- Ghost
  
  No idea, this is all i can find
  
  Extensions timed to link up with significant lifts on April 1 2023 to the Family Tax Credit, Superannuation, benefits, student allowances and increased childcare support.
  
  Press Release
  
  Also this but it lacks any detail
  
  This April New Zealand superannuation and main benefit rates will increase.
  We will continue our commitment to reducing hardship for New Zealanders, particularly those families who are working, through the next steps of the Working for Families review.
  
  Honourable members
  
  We can deliver timely and targeted support to under pressure businesses and families fast. Transport is the third biggest expense on households after housing and food and a significant component of increases to other costs.
  
  PM Statement
  
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  March 4, 2023 12:16pm
  - Flossie
    
    Thanks for trying Ghost. Not very forthcoming are they!
    
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    March 4, 2023 12:21pm
    - Ghost
      
      Considering it is a month away I would have thought it would at least be on winz website.
      
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      March 4, 2023 12:28pm
- Ra Henare
  
  According the legislation it goes up acording to CPI.
  
  So increase this year should be 7.2%
  
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  March 4, 2023 1:49pm
- MCōs
  
  According to this news item it’s set to rise 7.2% on 1-April 2023
  https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/money/2023/02/escalating-inflation-set-to-wipe-out-boosts-to-superannuation-experts-say.html
  
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  March 4, 2023 2:54pm
  - MCōs
    
    According to my figuring that’s about $50 each for my wife and I per fortnight.
    Whatever it is when you’ve lived in a country where the locals get naught you don’t complain.
    My wife belongs to an on line group of old school friends from her class.
    It started off with 18 members. The sixth one died the other day.
    She never complains about NZ Superannuation.
    
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    March 4, 2023 3:10pm
Jack5

Move over Einstein, Maori knowledge is coming to the physics of light.

Dunedin’s Dodd-Walls Centre for Photonic and Quantum Technologies has been given a Maori name, the NZ Herald and the Otago Daily Times report today. The name, Te Whai Ao, is from the Maori creation story, and specifically about first rays of light.

Katharina Ruckstahl, an associate director of the centre and a lecturer at Otago University, said in a naming ceremony at a marae:

“The Dodd-Walls Centre has adopted a name that represents one of the fundamentals of nature, light.

“The name Te Whai Ao resonates with Maori as it is part of a much older knowledge about how all things in the world came to be.”

At Otago University, Ruckstahl, who has a PhD in English and an education post-graduate qualification from Massey, leads the Vision Matauranga research team for Science for Technological Innovation. “Matauranga” is Maori knowledge.

The university says her research is related to understanding Maori values and knowledge and how these are shaping NZ policy, Maori business and society.

Ruckstahl also has senior roles in Ngai Tahu.
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March 4, 2023 12:19pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Te Whai Ao? Great for overseas tourists. They will not even know where to go to see The Dodd-Walls Centre for Photonic and Quantum Technologies.
  In my opinion this shit is going to kill tourism in New Zealand.
  
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  March 4, 2023 12:50pm
- Swifty
  
  Is there such a thing as a ‘Maori value’?
  
  Who decides what are Maori values?
  
  How is it decided whether certain values are ‘Maori values’ or ‘not Maori values’?
  
  Do Maori values change over time, how is this decided?
  
  Are ‘Maori values’ constant? If so, are Maori values of 250 years ago still held and valid? If not, why not and who decides?
  
  This whole thing sounds like a made up nonsense to me. A paper exercise. Highlighting ‘good’ values advantageous to Maori and silent on or eliminating ‘bad’ values. Making Maori out to be noble, perfect souls – in stark contrast to the rest of us sinners.
  
  If when polled 40% of Maori think keeping a wallet found on the street is perfectly fine will the learned Professor mark down on her ‘Maori Values List’ that thievery is valued by Maori?
  
  I bet you she won’t.
  
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  March 4, 2023 1:23pm
  - Swifty
    
    Are there ‘Pakeha values’?
    
    I wonder what the Professor might think? Would she think there are? If so, what would they be?
    
    Again, who decides? And are they ‘Pakeha values’ or merely ‘human values’? Or ‘western modern human values’?
    
    Do all ‘Pakeha’ hold all values to be the same? I wouldn’t think so. A thousand different people would hold a thousand different value sets, each with differing priorities.
    
    Wouldn’t Maori be the same?
    
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    March 4, 2023 1:30pm
    - Steve Otto(North Shore)
      
      Nga Pakeha have no values.
      If you think Nga Pakeha have values, then there is no answer – except “Racist”
      This is putting the heat on Moderators – but it has to be fair both ways, right?
      
      See what Willie Jackson says, and then diverts!
      
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      March 4, 2023 6:33pm
- Taieri
  
  The name Te Whai Ao resonates with Maori
  —————-
  
  Does it also resonate with other ethnicities?
  
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  March 4, 2023 2:23pm
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    Of course Te Whai Ao resonates with ethnicities!
    The Tour Group is told so.
    
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    March 4, 2023 6:36pm
  - Ehlana
    
    “The name Te Whai Ao resonates with Maori as it is part of a much older knowledge about how all things in the world came to be”
    
    No, it is part of a story about how all things came to be. It happens to be the story of Maori, but pretty much all other peoples on Earth have them too.
    
    Perhaps, in the name of this “partnership” we keep hearing about, our institutions of science should also be given names that reflect the heritage of the Crown half?
    
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    March 4, 2023 6:47pm
lifesgood

Reading General Debate is getting just too depressing. What’s with all the haters on Luxon on here? It seems to me that they are dead set on having another Labour Government and that prospect is too much to bear.
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March 4, 2023 12:46pm
- MCōs
  
  Personally I don’t think any of our politicians deserve to be ‘hated’.
  That’s about as extreme a word as we have in the English language and none of our leaders deserve that description.
  In my opinion .
  There’s plenty of others to pick from.
  Our people are a long way from the depths plumbed by the leaders of certain other countries. A very very long way.
  
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  March 4, 2023 2:31pm
thirteenstars

Sean Plunket’s weekly roundup at The Platform is a cracker this week.

He gives a very good review of RNZ’s doco about the parliamentary protests, which can be viewed here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnjmKMPF-Q4

He then reads the most magnificent column from Richard Dawkins about the shameful inclusion of Maori religion as part of the NZ science curriculum, which can be found here:

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-im-sticking-up-for-science/

Bookmark that and send it far and wide. It’s fucking sickening what’s happening to this country. I remember several comments from the last few days about the state of the USA. About it’s high level of gun-related violence, and about its supposed influence on the tenor of political debate in far-off NZ, but here’s a newsflash: there’s nothing–NOTHING–happening in the US that ranks up there with race-based voting rights, co-governance, and the state-mandated attack upon science in the public education system that is occurring here.

So let’s stop pointing fingers elsewhere and take a reality pill. Oh, but NZ’s still a great little country, right? No, it’s not. Not any longer. It’s about to become the South Pacific’s largest banana republic, and it happened on our watch.

Also discussed is Tusiata Avia’s racist call-to-violence in the form of a poem (funded to the tune of $110,000 by your taxes) celebrating the death of James Cook and urging young Pacific Islanders to emulate such killing of white men.

Sean Plunket, and The Platform in general, are doing fantastic work in bringing this madness to light as any real journalists should. At least subscribe to their YouTube channel to get their numbers up.

https://www.youtube.com/@theplatformnz/videos
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March 4, 2023 12:50pm
- thirteenstars
  
  Oops, Sean’s roundup video:
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1sfbefiXEY
  
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  March 4, 2023 1:00pm
- fredonas
  
  “On Thursday, the Financial and Expenditure Select Committee reported back to Parliament on the Government’s latest Taxation Bill. National’s minority report (opposing the Bill) highlights the proposal to change the rules for GST on digital services.
  
  At the moment, if a sole trader or business makes less than $60,000 a year, they do not have to register for and charge GST on their services. The bill proposes to remove this threshold and charge GST on any and all services provided on or though a digital platform. It’s not a new tax on the foreign-own corporations such as Uber or Airbnb – it’s a tax grab from the small business owners who occasionally rent out a spare bedroom through an online app, or those who drive part-time for a ride share service.
  
  So what does this mean for you? Well, your Uber driver, your takeaway delivery person or your Airbnb provider will now have charge 15 percent GST and this will push up the price you pay for all of these services.”
  – from the Taxpayers Union email newsletter 😟
  
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  March 4, 2023 1:06pm
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    Labour are not into supporting small business.
    
    Or, they prefer to tax all small business & then rebate grants to those that they like, but not to the others.
    
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    March 4, 2023 1:46pm
    - Pineapple Lumps
      
      Plus they introduce bureaucracy that only larger businesses have the capacity to implement- shutting out the small guys.
      
      Immigration settings mean no workforce for small business but bigger businesses can gain accreditation and source foreign workers.
      
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      March 4, 2023 4:37pm
Tom Hunter

After reading this GD the following article seems appropriate, No More Mr Nice Con:

“A thousand points of light.” “Kinder, gentler.” “Compassionate conservatism.” Ugh. This is the point of failure. How nice we are or how mean we are is not the issue. The issue is how effective we are. These spineless losers managed America’s decline for decades while retreating to the purported moral high ground of niceness.

It also points out that this “niceness” seems to be mainly applied to their opponents on the Left. When it comes to their own side…

And when it came to Trump, or those of us who supported Trump, their niceness fetish went out the window. They choose to be “nice” in order to avoid arguments within the establishment – being “nice” is a way to avoid uncomfortable conflict among the ruling class. There are genuinely nice but misguided people out there, like Tim Scott, but for folks like the establishment swells, “nice” is all a pose and a lie.

I’m sure Miss Pugh would recognise that last bit.
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March 4, 2023 1:03pm
- thirteenstars
  
  And on this very forum we regularly hear the lament that the tenor of political debate in the US has become very acrimonious and God forbid! we should emulate that here.
  
  As if you emulate it for the sake of it. No, the tenor in the US has become loud because the bloody neo-Marxist trash trying to destroy the world have finally started getting some pushback.
  
  And that’s what’s happened here. It’s not a US import, it’s a necessary response to the slow-motion train wreck that is happening to our country.
  
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  March 4, 2023 1:53pm
- Tom Hunter
  
  I also appreciated this article by Jeff Goldstein, reflecting both on Matt’s pushback and his own experience of this same-side bullshit back in 2009 in dealing with Obama, When will we learn?. It’s partly amusing and partly not, as when you read about McConnell bitching that such types would turn the GOP into a “regional party”. As I put it in this post, Empty Circuses and no bread:
  
  Back in 2010 a Republican Party that had been on the ropes for two years – after losing the House and Senate in 2006, then losing even more seats during the Obama wave of 2008 – miraculously found itself beating the snot out of the Democrats in the 2010 Mid-Terms.
  
  They grabbed an incredible 63 seats to win the House and came within a whisker of getting the Senate as well. For the Democrats it came as a hell of a shock after two years of taunting the GOP as “The Party of Old, White, Southern Men” who needed to get onboard and vote for all the fabulous Democrat policies or face extinction.
  
  The key piece of such legislation was “Obamacare” (otherwise known as the Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act), and the GOP continued on for another six years claiming that if only voters would give them the power of House, Senate and President they’d get ‘er done and repeal the damned thing. They demonstrated their commitment by passing meaningless one-page one-sentence repeal bills.
  
  And then, on January 20th, 2017, the GOP was stunned to find its wishes granted. Yet nothing happened until, nearly two years later, on the cusp of losing control of the House they finally concocted a watered down, pseudo-symbolic repeal – which McCain turned his thumbs down on anyway.
  
  Back to Goldstein’s article:
  
  To them, it is always about tone. It is always about appearances.
  
  Or so they claim. Me, I’ve come to believe that on the field of the culture wars, these types tacitly side with the credentialed elite, and they despise the kind of “God, Family, Country” conservatism that coalesced around America First populism. They are often, willingly or not, saboteurs to the cultural causes of modern conservatism — the kinds of self-styled Expert class who just happen to favor deregulation and lower taxes.
  
  Importantly, though, I’m sensing some change.
  
  Me too. At least in the USA. But not here. I have this terrible feeling that we’re going to have live through another get-along-to-go-along National-led government, plus a Labour-Green horror show before things start to change for the better. But that means anywhere from 12-15 more years before the following lesson is learned:
  
  This suggests to me that, in answer to the titular question of this piece, a lot of people have learned — and are learning more and more every day — that there is no peace to be had with the left.
  
  And that deferring to their contrived outrage in order to appease an always hypothetical “middle” predisposed to despise us, is a losing proposition, championed by those for whom losing more slowly is the sine qua non of their political selves.
  
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  March 4, 2023 2:42pm
  - thirteenstars
    
    The saviour of the US will be in its robust sense of localism born of federalism, and a very strong federalism at that.
    
    The US can fracture and it will survive. NZ has no such mechanism, and even if it did, it has no sense of itself.
    
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    March 4, 2023 3:08pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Does anyone remember the words “No more New Taxes” that turned out to be a blatant lie? You know who said it.
There are more:
https://www.taxpayers.org.nz/taxpayer_update_230304
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March 4, 2023 2:58pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  It is the Uber thing. I thought GST was already there?…..
  
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  March 4, 2023 3:01pm
  - Maggie Pie
    
    Nope. The drivers don’t need to be registered for GST cos they earn less than 60k pa.
    
    (And imagine having to use your own car to pick up a smelly chinese takeaway for someone…. and the sauce spills on the seats) 🙁
    
    https://twitter.com/raphousetv2/status/1631342764649754625
    
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    March 4, 2023 5:04pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

All of these RINOs are entering the race for the purpose of defeating Trump, but what they are really doing is handing him the nomination.
https://gopnewsfeed.com/donald-trump-gets-amazing-news/

I had no idea how many RINOs in the Republican Party.
Trump will destroy them. Number one has to be Liz Cheney.
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March 4, 2023 3:09pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Bear – rubber bullets.
They problem is the tourists. They think these are teddy bears.
Just leave a picinic basket for Yogi.
https://gopnewsfeed.com/video-bear-charges-yellowstone-park-ranger-after-mauling-hiker-5/
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March 4, 2023 3:17pm
- NZer In Exile
  
  If you go into bear territory (esp Grizzlys or Polars) without two big cans of bear spray and bear bangers at the very least (not to mention training and practice) , you are asking for a horrible ending.
  
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  March 4, 2023 3:58pm
- Maggie Pie
  
  I still get the collywobbles if my partner leaves a bowl of porridge on the table for me when he leaves early of a morning.
  
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  March 4, 2023 4:48pm
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    Best stay in bed. Yogi may visit.
    Hey hey hey, smarter than the average bear.
    
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    March 4, 2023 6:15pm
greybeard

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300821966/nothing-prepares-you-for-something-like-this-says-witness-to-fatal-assault
Find them and shoot them.
I don’t apologise for this view, there are some people who refuse to live by normal human rules and who simply don’t deserve normal human consideration.
If they are not stopped then they will do it again.
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March 4, 2023 4:43pm
- igm
  
  More of Ardern’s preferred people . . . why cover-up for these scum Stuff.
  Maybe it will have detrimental outcome on the taxpayer funding keeping you afloat if you just once did your job and reported full facts, ethnicities, and anything else that clarifies what we already surmise.
  
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  March 4, 2023 5:06pm
  - Ghost
    
    How are stuff covering up?
    
    From stuff Police haven’t released any official updates about the incident
    
    From nz herald Police have so far today not released any fresh details about the incident, but have located a black BMW sedan they last night said was involved in the crash.
    
    The media can only report what is released
    
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    March 4, 2023 5:13pm
    - Alan Wilkinson
      
      I have little doubt the witnesses told the reporters the culprits had all over tans and tatts but this strangely went unreported.
      
      3 3
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      March 4, 2023 7:54pm
      - Colville
        
        and gang hand signs.
        Red hats and shoes??
        
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        March 4, 2023 9:05pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Too close from home.
  
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  March 4, 2023 6:19pm
- greybeard
  
  https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300821966/two-youths-arrested-in-relation-to-fatal-auckland-assault
  Well done the police, a great response.
  Now we sit back and watch these scrotes get let off by some wet judge to go and do it again.
  
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  March 4, 2023 7:37pm
  - Ghost
    
    14 and 17 years old, sigh.
    
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    March 4, 2023 7:45pm
- Alan Wilkinson
  
  Two young scum who don’t deserve a life. Neither do those who made them what they are.
  
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  March 4, 2023 7:48pm
- Swifty
  
  If these offenders prove to be Maori (and I have no idea either way, I’m just talking hypothetically) then can we say that random street violence and murder is a Maori value?
  
  If not, why not?
  
  How many attacks like this must be endured before we CAN say that due to their frequency this sort of behaviour IS a Maori value, in action?
  
  Or are Maori values just what ivory tower academics say they are, what they want them to be, as opposed to values identified and recognised by observing actual human behaviour. By watching Maori and observing how they actually live their lives and demonstrating their values.
  
  Again, please don’t read this as Maori bashing. It isn’t. It is my attempt though at elite and academic bashing, because of the nonsense and bullshit they spout.
  
  I say again, we are being openly lied to.
  
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  March 4, 2023 9:27pm
Swifty

I note with great disappointment that the learned university professor supports her numerous assertions with not a shred of evidence.

I’m not saying that she doesn’t have any, but I dearly wish she’d put some up for us to mutually discuss and debate – instead of throwing all sorts of insults and aspersions.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/elon-musk-richard-dawkins-criticism-of-matauranga-maori-in-schools-faces-backlash-from-kiwi-researcher/QQWSKLTDF5DCTETX5F3P3RBC5Y/
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March 4, 2023 5:32pm
- surfing
  
  It’s funny, arguably two of the world’s great thinkers give a negative opinion of Māori science… the Māori response.. they’re just racists .
  
  Typical of poorly educated Māori who play the person and not the argument .
  
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  March 4, 2023 7:01pm
  - Alan Wilkinson
    
    To be accurate, they regard treating folklore as science to be ridiculous and harmful. The response is an assertion of Maori wonderfulness. Even more ridiculous.
    
    7 1
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    March 4, 2023 7:51pm
Jethrod

By this time tomorrow (Kings Birthday) New Zealand will know who gets awards from the Labour Government.
I’m sure there will be will be gongs to people who have done Sterling service to there communities. And I applaud them for their efforts; there is never too many cake stalls and bring and buys to raise money for your favorite group or party.
And then there is the other lot of “worthies” who will get their awards.
At the moment there is 3 or 4 positions available in the ONZ, our highest award and my picking is that at least one will go to a former speaker or former PM.
Being knighted maybe a bit too Tory for them.
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June 4, 2023 7:55pm

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