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September 4, 2023 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 04 September 2023

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General Debate

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Biscuit

Another day, another Stuff cartoon putting shoeleather into National.

Apparently, the resident cartoonist thinks Nicola Willis can’t count.

Not a murmur, mind, about ‘her’ brilliant Finance Minister who has so mismanaged an economy that his own voodoo economics can promise us nowt more than a GST-deducted banana sometime next year and freebie dental care for the youngsters a year after that.
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September 4, 2023 8:01am
- Matt Long
  
  Lindsay Perrigo doesn’t hold back on Stuff’s corruption here;
  https://realitycheck.radio/perigos-perspective-pravda-bribed-biased-and-beehived/
  
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  September 4, 2023 8:05am
  - ClanMcleod
    
    RCR is rapidly becoming the best media outlet in NZ for actually open debate and rational comment. Can’t recommend it highly enough.
    
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    September 4, 2023 8:36am
    - Jack5
      
      The cartoon is humourless and vicious.
      
      It’s also ignorant, and at a stretch even racist, by implying the abacus is a primitive toy.
      
      Before the electronic calculator, the abacus provided quick, accurate results from sometimes complicated input. It also was great training in mental calculation, and schools in some Asian countries still teach arithmetic with abacuses.
      
      Great cartoonists have seldom been savage in their portrayal of people. However, thousands of would-be’s lapse into nastiness.
      
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      September 4, 2023 10:18am
      - Overworked
        
        Emma Cook is an Englishwoman who has been in New Zealand less than 10 years. She has no concept of New Zealand political history apart from any formal teaching she may have had. I don’t quite understand how anyone lucid could hire her as a political cartoonist.
        
        The upside is that her uncontrolled nastiness will just put New Zealanders off her views. Come here, fine, but don’t bring the worst aspects of your culture with you.
        
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        September 4, 2023 1:49pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        schools in some Asian countries still teach arithmetic with abacuses.
        
        Which Asian countries?
        
        Did you ever learn how to work one? Do you know anyone who uses one?
        
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        September 4, 2023 5:51pm
      - Jack5
        
        To Ian Boag’s question to me in his 5.51 post …
        
        A: The abacus is still being used to teach arithmetic in Japanese schools and Japanese adults use it, too (see links below).
        
        B: Yes, I have an abacus, but don’t use it much these days. It’s quicker to click on the Windows 11 calculator in my task bar than to get the abacus from the shelf.
        
        https://www.vice.com/en/article/9keyvv/thousands-of-japanese-kids-are-still-learning-math-on-the-abacus
        
        AND
        
        https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/society/general-news/20230124-86032/#:~:text=Learning%20to%20use%20an%20abacus,arithmetic%20classes%20at%20elementary%20schools.
        
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        September 4, 2023 9:14pm
      - Jack5
        
        Ian excuse me please for doubling up in my reply, but Kiwiblog limits cross-links to two in a message …
        
        The first site below, of the Pamaglobal Abacus and Mental Arithmetic Association, claims the abacus is being used in education in 100 countries.
        
        It includes New Zealand in the list of countries.
        
        The second site listed, UCMAS, seems to offer school maths training in NZ with the abacus. You have to provide personal details when going to the site, so I didn’t persevere to see how substantial the outfit might be.
        
        https://www.pamaglobal.org/post/29-sthe-state-of-abacus-education-around-the-world
        
        NZ teaching using abacus:
        
        https://ucmas.co.nz/
        
        And a question for you, Ian Boag? As a mature engineer, are you still quick with a slide rule? Or Vernier calipers?
        
        Do you think young students should be familiar with traditional tools like these?
        
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        September 4, 2023 9:30pm
  - Grunter
    
    That is a ‘must read’ article IMO.
    
    If anyone thinks reading/watching MSM is NOT poison for your thinking brain by now then you are asleep at the wheel.
    
    These evil clowns think govt bribes are OK. They openly admit to being paid to run specified content.
    
    In communist Soviet Union the population quickly learnt that the govt funded media was corrupt and a propaganda machine for the Stalins etc. Western media, and especially NZ MSM is pretty much is that same situation or not far from it. They either stop this BS or they will collapse.
    
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    September 4, 2023 8:56am
    - Bloody Dago
      
      Don’t you just love the smell of desperation from MSM? They can see the light in the tunnel and it’s getting bigger and brighter by the day😂🤣😂🤣
      
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      September 4, 2023 11:33am
      - Paulus
        
        But it will become even more vicious when Luxon becomes Prime Minister shortly.
        There are many so called Political Editors or such like, nearly all women, who will not stop until their employers go bust and/or they are made redundant.
        
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        September 4, 2023 1:58pm
      - Overworked
        
        Paulus, apologies. Pressed “report” in error.
        
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        September 4, 2023 3:22pm
    - kowloon
      
      They will probably collapse regardless of stopping, or continuing.
      
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      September 4, 2023 12:15pm
  - Tricati
    
    Haven’t seen Stuff, or any other MSM cover the current state of our deficit – That’s right, doesn’t suit their masters agenda.
    https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2023/08/arent_we_doing_well.html
    
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    September 4, 2023 1:42pm
- Vinicius
  
  The Stuff cartoons don’t tickle my funny bone in the slightest. Garrick Tremain is miles better and funnier at poking the borax at politics in NZ.
  
  Also on Stuff, Tova has been pushing the anti-National and pro-Labour talking points again.
  
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  September 4, 2023 8:09am
  - Prince
    
    Cartoon are always better when they ‘Speak Truth to Power’, rather than ‘Protect those in Power’, as Stuff does.
    
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    September 4, 2023 9:27am
  - Tricati
    
    I see O’Brian is getting a Political Podcast and she will be fearless and frank – Shouldn’t that be biased & nasty
    
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    September 4, 2023 9:32am
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    And now she has a podcast that she will hold the powerful yo account, Behahahahaha
    
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    September 4, 2023 10:10am
- Gravelroad
  
  Yes, $tuff not even bothering to balance its institutionalised bias now.
  Must be dead scared that a National government will turn off the money tap.
  
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  September 4, 2023 8:44am
  - Grunter
    
    That’s exactly what they are scared of. Same goes for ODT, TVNZ, RNZ
    
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    September 4, 2023 8:57am
    - septic skeptic
      
      Odd that though – I’m scared that they won’t have the gonads to do that!
      
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      September 4, 2023 12:52pm
- SmokerGuy
  
  To be fair, National have made a dog’s breakfast of this policy and look thoroughly unprepared for the questions the media are asking (and we’re always bound to ask). It’s extremely frustrating!
  
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  September 4, 2023 9:00am
  - Brian McDonald
    
    Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
    Exactly right. National despite knowing the perils of having gotten tax policy wrong before have acted like amateurs behind the scenes once again. Nicola reassures the public that she can sort it after it’s already seen as a preventable mistake is of no moment, The Nats have again displayed that when Bill English left the scene there was no one competent to replace him. Pledge cards on a trust basis are not a replacement for policy. Last week I thought they may have turned a corner, especially in getting the policy right and the funding for it. “Sorting” out something with China is beyond her capacity now. They should have laid the groundwork but it would appear they’re such amateurs on financial treaties they don’t know what exists or the extent of it. No use going back to the old reliability of blaming the media as some above immediately have done.
    
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    September 4, 2023 10:32am
    - Gravelroad
      
      As someone who has trained for and worked in various forms of journalism all my working life, make no mistake, this is media bias.
      Predicated on the need to maintain unprecedented government funding sources perhaps – almost as much as political preference.
      
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      September 4, 2023 11:10am
    - Benedict Yu
      
      What are “financial treaties”?
      
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      September 4, 2023 12:22pm
    - RightNow
      
      I guess you’ll be voting ACT then
      
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      September 4, 2023 12:31pm
    - Cassandra
      
      I agree with you, Brian, and I normally don’t. There’s a bit of media vendetta going on here but National should have been better prepared.
      
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      September 4, 2023 12:59pm
      - Warren
        
        Haha Cassandra runs with hares and hunts with hounds, what are you trying to give your tounge a rest from fawning all over David Seymour.
        
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        September 4, 2023 1:55pm
    - In Vino Veritas
      
      Laughably, Labour are the only ones who believe that all foreign buyers of houses in NZ are Chinese.
      
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      September 4, 2023 3:07pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  I’d rather trust someone using an abacus than Grant Robertson’s attempts to balance a Budget.
  
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  September 4, 2023 9:03am
  - In Vino Veritas
    
    A cardboard cut out of someone’s pet dog would do a better job Maggy.
    
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    September 4, 2023 3:09pm
- kowtow
  
  The front 2 pages of the Herald , in the pressreader version , are a very serious attck on Luxon , with a carefully chosen photo and black background , by the NZCTU .
  
  I don’t know if the print version is the same.
  
  Interesting that NZME would carry such a negative political attack ad.
  
  Given how they refuse to print stories from highly esteemed historians and former politicians whose opinions they claim are at odds with their self described values.
  
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  September 4, 2023 9:45am
  - Ghost
    
    That’s alright, last week articles about crime, one about rape at the top of the article under the byline was a video of Luxon. Appeared in no other articles.
    
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    September 4, 2023 9:52am
- herb1
  
  I subscribed to the Stuff Masthead “ The Press “
  For many decades. Bias and opinion pieces from ill informed reporters caused me to cancel, although it was long after I’d had enough of the problems. When I cancelled I received constant calls asking my reasons for cancelling and great offers to resubscribe.
  Eventually I’d had enough of being polite and told them why I cancelled.
  I’d figured out I didn’t need the Press to start my fire as it was now cheaper to use firestarters from the Supermarket. They never called back again
  
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  September 4, 2023 12:22pm
  - Squeek
    
    Herb, I did the same – sick of the drivel they call news so I wrote and cancelled it, they kept emailing asking why I had cancelled etc. But the funny thing is that they are still delivering the paper – guess they don’t have the ability to turn off a life long subscriber!
    
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    September 4, 2023 1:11pm
- Biscuit
  
  I know I shouldn’t encourage them, heh, but I am somewhat alarmed to note that – as of 2.58 pm – my downtickers haven’t yet arrived to mar my 73-and-0 standing re the above comment.
  
  Come on, you pro-Lefties, I – and your Party – expect better (or is that worse?) from you!
  
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  September 4, 2023 2:58pm
Warren

PWhile the Government, Labour and Journalists AmeliaWade ,Jessica Mutch McKay, Tova O’Brien, Jenna Lynch, Lloyd Burr, Glenn McConnell fawn over Labours Free Dental appointments that won’t take place until late 2025/26, just like many other policy’s they have announced these out of there used by date Journalists ignore Labour and the Trade Unions trash Politics and untruthful hordings.
Whilst crime escalated in the Waikato last night with four businesses targeted by Arson in Huntly the Police were no where to be seen.
This crime escalation is because the Government and the Police are not doing there job and like the media are more interested in trying to help Labour win the upcoming election on October 14th.
This rotten corrupt Government in more interested in themselves than what New Zealander’s want and will lie, smear and cover up the facts to achieve it, a vote for Labour is a vote for corruption and mismanaged of our Country and only the voter can change the direction that Labour have set.
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September 4, 2023 8:02am
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  I think the voters have worked out the smearing is bullshittery, they ignore snd dig toes in
  
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  September 4, 2023 10:19am
Kiwiguy

Does anyone have a login for Change.org?
If so, feel free to report this fundraiser for promoting illegal activity and violence. The more people do this, the better.
I can’t actually believe it’s still up – this is how desensitised NZ society is becoming to gangs.
Visit the link below, then “Read More” then scroll down the bottom to “Report a Policy Violation”

https://www.change.org/p/denounce-proposed-gang-intervention-laws-in-aotearoa-while-upholding-te-tiriti-o-waitangi?source_location=search
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September 4, 2023 8:05am
- Bridgenag
  
  tricky getting in. password not working etc
  
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  September 4, 2023 10:10am
- Over40SingleMan
  
  I say good on ‘em for spending the time and outlining their muddled views for critique. While it’s astonishing and somewhat confronting that some will pile-in with blind support, it’s important that the sane majority are familiar with their enemy. All views should be exposed to sunlight, even those that are infantile & divisive.
  
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  September 4, 2023 1:46pm
Tauhei Notts

Five weeks ago the Charities Commission, or whatever it was called that week, made lots of noise about the apparent naughtiness at the Waipareira Trust, and that Trust’s huge interest free loan to a political candidate.
I have not heard anything further. Has anybody on Kiwiblog heard anything on this matter.
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September 4, 2023 8:05am
- kowtow
  
  I wondered if the Charities Commission might have said something about a “charity” disrupting a sitting parliament.
  
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  September 4, 2023 9:12am
- kowloon
  
  Late night and of sitting Parliament passed legislation retrospectively making the loans legal; just like the RED Commitment Card situation two decades ago
  
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  September 4, 2023 12:19pm
Ipanema69

Anyone else get the feeling that Labour is just going through the motions.

When you have to roll out Helen for your campaign launch its getting pretty desperate.
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September 4, 2023 8:06am
- Flossie
  
  You do have to wonder why they haven’t trotted out JA. It’s almost like they’re trying to pretend she never happened.
  
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  September 4, 2023 9:24am
  - Kiwiguy
    
    JA is apparently ‘out of the country’ for the duration of the election campaign. How very convenient, and cowardly, of her.
    
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    September 4, 2023 9:33am
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    Hahaha, she has been sent to the western front, too toxic and divisive
    
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    September 4, 2023 10:24am
- I remember when
  
  Helen who?
  
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  September 4, 2023 9:52am
Matt Long

It’s a joke, Labour’s spruikers are fantasizing about a National Government being bad for the poor, haven’t they seen how Labour has pulled the mat from under them?
https://i.stuff.co.nz/business/money/300962553/even-paknsave-makes-me-anxious-food-price-survey-shows-biggest-jump-ever
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September 4, 2023 8:08am
- cmm
  
  Three words to end poverty: energy, education, agency.
  
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  September 4, 2023 8:13am
  - pdm
    
    cmm – how about commitment to replace agency?
    
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    September 4, 2023 8:18am
    - Ehlana
      
      I suspect by agency cmm means making their own choices. So instead of GST off fruit and vegetables and free dental care, you let people keep more of what they earn, and they spend it on their priorities – perhaps the car, so they can get to a better job.
      
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      September 4, 2023 8:33am
    - cmm
      
      I mean personal agency:
      Taking responsibility for your own life, making use of opportunities to improve, making choices to reflect that and not depending on the government to bail you out all the time.
      
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      September 4, 2023 8:50am
      - sirknz
        
        That’s just colonialist concept bro, and that’s raycis…
        
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        September 4, 2023 10:03am
  - Pavel
    
    How about “a work ethic”.
    
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    September 4, 2023 8:31am
- sirknz
  
  There’s this one too:
  
  https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/132708723/lack-of-emergency-housing-pushed-family-to-brink-of-homelessness
  
  Reading between the lines though, the kids sound like they might be little scrotes who aren’t being disciplined by the mother.
  
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  September 4, 2023 10:02am
  - wsk12345
    
    Can’t possibly be as she says she has learned about parenting etc. //
    
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    September 4, 2023 10:36am
  - rouppe
    
    That is exactly what I saw.
    
    Evicted because of poor behaviour (by her children). I bet those children are being told that they have to leave the property because of the nasty landlord.
    
    Fix the children’s behaviour, fix the problem.
    
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    September 4, 2023 12:27pm
- Piniwi
  
  Sadly Matt Long many are having to concentrate and work harder to survive than worry about politics. Many are totally oblivious to what is going on thanks to the bribed MSM only carrying the current Labour narrative while the real news, events and mounting problems are no go for the media.
  
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  September 4, 2023 1:36pm
Prince

Can someone please explain how Labour intend to fund their ‘free’ dental proposal ?
Or doesn’t it matter how Labour funds things.
I guess it’s just more borrowing then. But why is the media obsessed with how National will fund a tax cut (as if allowing us to keep a small amount of our earnings is ‘Govt funded’ !).
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September 4, 2023 8:09am
- Guy Preston
  
  ^^ This.
  Why is it the same scrutiny is never applied to Labour, The Greens or The Maori Party policies?
  
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  September 4, 2023 9:50am
- In Vino Veritas
  
  It’s free Prince. It doesn’t need funding you daft bugger……
  
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  September 4, 2023 3:10pm
- Nickc2
  
  IMO, they have no intention of funding it.
  They know full well they will not be in power in 2026 hence this is just a Headline Grab assisted by their paid-for mates in the MSM.
  
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  September 4, 2023 3:31pm
- sirknz
  
  The dentists are offering their time and services for no money apparently…
  
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  September 4, 2023 4:24pm
Zoro

Does anyone smell a rat with all this immigration shenanigans?
Has Labour done a Biden and opened the doors to all and sundry?
Interesting article in Stuff the other day and the Herald this morning.
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September 4, 2023 8:09am
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  You can bet ya boots, but they have made it easier for people with money to piss off to Aussie
  
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  September 4, 2023 10:45am
Burg

Sky Poaka would be an appropriate term we could introduce to to our pigeonised language.
We have a dental sky poaka appear in the sky over the weekend.
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September 4, 2023 8:10am
cmm

The carbon stupidity, as perpetuated by National, sees us doing really illogical things like holding back our industrial development and potential wellbeing while importing coal.

Germany. meanwhile, is demolishing a wind farm to get at the coal underneath. They have run out of talk and are now doing.

We have enough coal just in Southland to run Huntley flat out for over 1500 years. It dwarfs Maui gas. But, somehow, it makes sense to the current muppets to burn extra fuel to import coal from Indonesia.

Energy is the prime thing that moves people out of poverty and builds a solid economy. The choice is clear: stone age or energy age.
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September 4, 2023 8:12am
- Benedict Yu
  
  I have always puzzled about this Indonesian coal thing. I assume that it is less costly to use imported Indonesian thermal coal than to purchase suitable New Zealand coal and to transport it to Huntly? That seems surprising but what other explanation is there?
  
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  September 4, 2023 8:51am
  - Blog-aholic
    
    New Zealand coal is a quality to good for just burning it is used in Steel production…to burn it for electricity is stupid….but then again imprting dirty coal for the same thing is also pretty dumb.
    
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    September 4, 2023 9:01am
    - cmm
      
      Partially true.
      
      NZ has a wide variety of coal types. Some are high quality steel-making coal (eg. the stuff we see being exported from Lyttleton).
      
      Southland has mainly bitumous coal which is the stuff for power
      
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      September 4, 2023 9:16am
    - Jack5
      
      Blog-aholic’s … New Zealand coal is a quality to[o] good for just burning …
      
      That view is wrong, and has been corrected often on Kiwiblog.
      
      A tiny proportion of NZ coal is exported from the West Coast via Lyttelton for blending in iron and steel plants because of “its high fluidity and swelling characteristics with low ash contents …”
      
      But read about it here:
      
      https://www.nzpam.govt.nz/nz-industry/nz-minerals/minerals-statistics/coal/regional-coal-resources/
      
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      September 4, 2023 11:30am
    - rouppe
      
      Huntly power plant was built there because it was on top of coal reserves used for energy generation.
      
      When I was growing up in Rotorua every winter a bunch of families got together and bought a train bunker full of coal from Huntly and divided it up among the families.
      
      Coal is still there in Huntly…
      
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      September 4, 2023 12:32pm
  - cmm
    
    The main thing to understand about coal is that coal is not all the same.
    
    Higher quality coal fetches a higher price and is suited to steel making etc. It is a waste to use that on power stations (in fact many power stations would struggle to burn it).
    
    Lower quality coal fetches a lower price and is more suited to power station use. It cannot be used for steel making etc and fetches a lower price.
    
    Most of our coal is in Southland and is generally untapped. The best way to exploit that would be to build coal burning power stations right in the coal fields. That way they don’t need shipping – the coal can be transported by conveyor belts or by rail/trucks.
    
    I can’t see NZ building new stations because there isn’t the political will. We’re far too interested in looking good to our UNxxx “friends”.
    
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    September 4, 2023 9:02am
    - Steve Otto(North Shore)
      
      I always figured Huntly Power Station was built were it is because it is on top of the coal. There is a lot of coal there.
      
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      September 4, 2023 9:11am
      - cmm
        
        There is a lot of coal there, but it is tiny relative to what is in Southland. Southland has literally 10 to 20 times the easily recoverable coal that the Huntly region does.
        
        The main reason for building it there was to put a power station close to Auckland. Power grad stability is better when the generation is spread around, but there are other ways to achieve that.
        
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        September 4, 2023 9:19am
      - Jack5
        
        Re CMM’s point on Southland lignite ..
        
        Solid Energy, the State company liquidated in 2018, had bought Southland lignite sites and was well ahead with research when it collapsed after world coal prices dived.
        
        Solid Energy was assessing whether technology could be developed to make power generation from lignite more economic, or lignite more economic as a source for chemicals and liquid fuels.
        
        Victoria, under Green pressure, is winding down its power generation from lignite, but Germany is reopening some lignite-burning plants, as poster CMM points out.
        
        Germany’s early lead in world chemicals was based on coal and lignite as fuels, and in World War 2, desperate for fuel, Germans made petrol from lignite.
        
        Poster CMM might tell us whether the same happened in trade-embargoed South Africa.
        
        Solid Energy was also advanced in work on coal-seam gas in the coalfields virtually under the Huntly power station. This would have been an ideal fuel for peak-power demands.
        
        Solid Energy did seem gung ho, or must have to John Key, who whipped the financial rug from under the company’s feet. A world coal price dive, which proved later to be temporary had made Solid Energy’s financial position shaky if not dicey.
        
        Key, with all his good points, as a former internationally successful currency trader, must be prone to errors of super-speed decision making.
        
        Key would have been influenced by the opinions of light-weights in Government departments and the news media, and by the Green Tide of hate rising against thermal fuels like coal and oil.
        
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        September 4, 2023 12:00pm
      - cmm
        
        Jack: Sasol (the main sponsor of the Springbok rugby team) is the SA company that makes liquid petroleum products from coal (petrol, diesel etc).
        They still do this.
        This uses the German process, though of course tweaked somewhat over the last 70 years.
        
        This process can be rather polluting and is a bit wasteful of energy. It would probably be better for NZ to just burn the coal as coal and use it as chemical feedstock for other purposes.
        
        That said, times change and perhaps making liquid petroleam products might make sense again in 50 or 100 years.
        
        We have enough there to cover ALL our energy needs (including replacing oil) for well over 200 years so there’s not much point in skimping and saving it.
        
        No doubt in the next 200 years we will REALLY get some energy breakthroughs that make a difference. No point in living like cavemen while waiting though.
        
        Key was BFFs with Obama etc. He started the slide. I think he was a climate crusader as is Luxon.
        
        Seymour is the only one talking about turning on the gas – but he has engineering training so probably understands a bit better than the accountants.
        
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        September 4, 2023 2:30pm
    - Master Mariner
      
      Yep, My understanding too.
      Why use C02 emmissions from your country where you can buy Coal with no emmissions from a developing country.
      This is why it will never work. Just creative accounting.
      https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/24/carbon-credit-speculators-could-lose-billions-as-offsets-deemed-worthless-aoe
      And closer to home, Air NZ carbon credits are a sham as well.
      
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      September 4, 2023 9:17am
      - Benedict Yu
        
        It does not work like that. The power station needs to pay for the emissions by buying New Zealand Units in the ETS. It makes no difference where the coal comes from.
        
        I don’t know why they burn Indonesian coal. But it has nothing to do with dodging any emissions obligations in New Zealand.
        
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        September 4, 2023 9:54am
      - Jack5
        
        Re Benedict Yu at 9.54 on Indonesian carbon credits …
        
        I’m not sure I would trust Indonesian accounting standards on carbon credits. So it mightn’t be a bad place to shop for coal.
        
        But for other posters discussing pricing of Indonesian coal for Huntly: the reference price set by the Indonesian Government for August was $US179.90 (about $NZ303) a tonne. That would be a free-on-board price so add shipping cost to the bill to NZ.
        
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        September 4, 2023 12:25pm
      - Benedict Yu
        
        What “Indonesian accounting standards on carbon credits”?
        
        Indonesia just loads the coal on the ships. Any emissions obligations are down to the owners of the Huntly plant, and they are unaffected by where the coal is sourced from.
        
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        September 4, 2023 1:58pm
      - Jack5
        
        Benedict’s 1.58 post …
        
        Indonesian accounting …
        
        Presumably you match your carbon credits to the amount of coal you use, and you get a bill for that from your Indonesian supplier.
        
        I should have said business standards rather than accounting standards. Any country can have stringent and official accounting standards.
        
        Applying them is the test.
        
        My view is biased by memories of queues in an Asian country outside Indonesia. Memories are of middle-age to older women just arrived from Indonesia with bags of US dollars to deposit.
        
        Also biased by memories of the Bre-X scandal. That entailed discovery in Indonesian Borneo of the alleged biggest gold deposit in the world, with Indonesian generals involved and a leading figure “accidentally” stepping out of a helicopter into the jungle far, far below.
        
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        September 4, 2023 2:55pm
      - Benedict Yu
        
        “Presumably you match your carbon credits to the amount of coal you use, and you get a bill for that from your Indonesian supplier.”
        
        Oh my god. No that is not how it works.😭
        
        Google New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme.
        
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        September 4, 2023 7:43pm
    - Taieri
      
      Most of our coal is in Southland and is generally untapped.
      ————-
      
      But most of it is lignite, not a bituminous coal and would have to be mined in the open cast mines. This method of mining is very destructive to the environment as anyone who’s ever seen an open cast coal mine will verify. And not just in the aesthetical sense, but also in the disruption to the water table and other negative consequences.
      
      “Lignite deposits in Otago and Southland contain more than 9 billion tonnes in 10 major deposits. This is a very large, nationally significant resource which has the potential to be used a feedstock for a petrochemical industry, using gasification technology to convert lignite to fertiliser, transport fuels or other high value energy products.
      
      If extracted at a rate of 20 million tonnes per year, the lignite resource could provide energy and feedstock for most of New Zealand’s transport fuel and petrochemical requirements for over 300 years. Mining studies in the 1980s estimated total energy content of mineable lignite at about 75,000 PJ. This is equivalent to about 20 times the energy content of the Maui gas field.”
      
      https://www.nzpam.govt.nz/nz-industry/nz-minerals/minerals-statistics/coal/regional-coal-resources/
      
      Now, if there’s a way of not just extracting this resource but also processing it with as little environmental destruction as possible…but there isn’t and not just from the technical point of view.
      
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      September 4, 2023 9:26am
      - All_on_Red
        
        Its common to restore the land after use.
        They are getting quite good at it.
        
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        September 4, 2023 12:33pm
    - cmm
      
      A downticker thinks one of:
      * All coal is the same.
      * There is no coal in Southland.
      * There is political will to build more coal power stations in Southland.
      
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      September 4, 2023 12:08pm
    - RdM
      
      I remember viewing a great short Australian B&W doco on mining and transporting coking quality coal, maybe on another PC, I can’t find it right now.
      
      In looking, I did find this:
      What is coking coal, and where is it used ?
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYc6RK4YFt8
      
      My search was this:
      https://duckduckgo.com/?q=old+australian+film+about+coking+coal
      
      But I’ll keep looking – great for young people to see.
      If it could be put in front of them.
      
      You know, student radio has that nice Mr Shaw and other Green advocates giving their views…
      
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      September 4, 2023 8:28pm
  - Matt Long
    
    The trees on farms presenter I saw a fortnight ago said it cost one third as much to import Indonesian coal as to dig it up in New Zealand.
    
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    September 4, 2023 9:04am
    - ClanMcleod
      
      But isn’t it crap quality coal, and doesn’t transporting it here cause even more harm to the ‘climate’ that they’re apparently trying to protect?
      Are these environmental saviours putting $$$ in front of protecting ‘Gaia’?
      
      Say it ain’t so!
      
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      September 4, 2023 9:14am
  - Master Mariner
    
    I have posted previously about Indonesia banning Coal exports for there own Energy security, Abeit temporary.
    Indonesia is the 2nd biggest Coal exporter, And most of the coal is only good for energy generation. Coal on the West Coast is a premium product and demands far too high a value for energy transformation. Mainly coking coal for making Steel etc.
    Lignite coal should be dug in NZ for power generation unfortunately the time lines from Mine too Consumption will take time.
    
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    September 4, 2023 9:11am
    - kevn
      
      MM… Saving our premium coal for the Chinese.
      
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      September 4, 2023 11:04am
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    It’s the same as that idiot Shaw saying he can fly around the world when ever because he is carbon neutral, planting trees and continuing to fly defeats the purpose I roils have thought
    
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    September 4, 2023 10:47am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  I think too many people have been brainwashed. Their thinking is muddled, and we know who did this.
  One day NZ may get back to normal. We will go NUCLEAR.
  There it is, that word again that triggers the nutbars – NUCLEAR!!!
  
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  September 4, 2023 8:59am
  - alloytoo
    
    Agreed.
    
    Nuclear offers the opportunity to minimize energy poverty in the same way Fibre internet has to data.
    
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    September 4, 2023 9:19am
    - Steve Otto(North Shore)
      
      See all of the Greens and their supporters writhing on the floor having anxiety attacks?!
      
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      September 4, 2023 10:10am
  - imalwaysright
    
    S.O
    
    Nuclear is clearly the solution.
    
    Does anyone know why they don’t build the reactors underground?
    Safer?
    Too expensive ?
    
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    September 4, 2023 10:15am
    - cmm
      
      What do you think are the benefits of building a nuke underground?
      
      Sounds to me like massive problems. Lots of extra expense. Problems with the water table. In NZ, dealing with EQs…. etc etc.
      
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      September 4, 2023 10:53am
    - Jack5
      
      With a nuclear reactor, you could build the generation plant right beside, or even in, the power consumption area.
      
      That would mean Auckland first.
      
      Okay, but on a volcanic field with more than 50 potential volcanoes?
      
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      September 4, 2023 12:31pm
      - Jack5
        
        Edit for 12.31 post: “… you could build the generation plant right beside, or even in, the power consumption ~~error~~ area.
        
        Sorry!
        
        [Mod – fixed]
        
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        September 4, 2023 1:26pm
      - cmm
        
        There is little benefit in building a generator right where the power consumption is and lots of downsides.
        
        It you’re using power lines over 66kV (110kV and 220kV are mostly used in NZ), then line losses are low up to a few hundred km.
        
        I would think that the best place would be somewhere away from volcanic and EQ activity. Maybe Northland somewhere would be the best bet.
        
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        September 4, 2023 3:05pm
    - Steve Otto(North Shore)
      
      Small Modular Reactors.
      There is one where the spent reactor is taken away for refining and a new one installed at the plant. The water and generator stay there, in the ground. I did read that for Auckland’s population about 12 would be needed.
      It has to come. Cleanest Energy these days. There is no emission. The so called emissions coming out of those large concrete chimneys is just steam (but try and convince a Green.)
      
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      September 4, 2023 12:50pm
      - cmm
        
        SMRs are still rather unproven. Interesting though. They are worth watching and could be viable in 10 to 20 years maybe.
        
        SMRs are up to 70MW or so. Very small.
        
        You’d need at least a dozen to replace Huntly (which is a pretty small coal station).
        
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        September 4, 2023 3:09pm
      - Wayne Mapp
        
        I happen to agree on SMR’s, though on my reading, the planned size is more like 150 to 300 Mw.
        
        But the timeframe is going to be quite long. The first of them (NuScale) is only just being built in the US. It will be another decade or two before they are in common use in the US and Europe. New Zealand won’t be an early adopter. Realistically there won’t be any SMR’s in New Zealand till 2050 to 2060.
        
        I suspect we may need a new co gen gas fuelled station for the period, 2030 to 2050.
        
        When Labour gets in again in the 2030’s they will probably build the Lake Onslow storage system.
        
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        September 4, 2023 3:51pm
    - waikatosinger
      
      Should build them underwater:
      
      1. Protected from earthquakes/tsunami/crashing planes
      2. Failsafe. If there are problems flood it.
      
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      September 4, 2023 1:38pm
      - cmm
        
        Keep singing. Please never become an engineer.
        
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        September 4, 2023 3:10pm
- Tomtoddy
  
  There is suitable coal that is recoverable at moderate cost within seeing distance of Huntly, literally. It could be transported by aerial ropeway. It is the right grade. The problem is getting consent. Which only proves how absolutely absurd and corrupt our systems and management has become.
  
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  September 4, 2023 9:10am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    Worked for Meremere. Coal from around the area transpoted in buckets from a wire.
    
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    September 4, 2023 9:19am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    Consent – from Tainui? There are taniwhas everywhere around that area, and they are greedy.
    
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    September 4, 2023 12:53pm
- Wayne Mapp
  
  You might be right about NZ coal over Indonesian coal. But the reality is that Huntly has got less than ten years life left. By 2030 it will be 45 years old.
  
  There is zero prospect of any new coal power stations being built, no matter who is the government. National will not cave into Act in that respect. Look at Luxon’s eighth pledge.
  
  A new gas power station for peak demand? Maybe, but National’s energy commitments are primarily around renewables (wind, solar and maybe some limited hydro). I also suspect there will greater incentives for home generation (solar) and for home battery storage.
  
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  September 4, 2023 9:18am
  - alloytoo
    
    And this is why National’s energy policy is dogshit.
    
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    September 4, 2023 9:20am
  - Ghost
    
    Hopefully they will also invest in a very long extension cord to Australia for when the wind isn’t blowing and in winter when the skies are overcast, raining, etc.
    
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    September 4, 2023 9:27am
    - mawm
      
      They can barely meet their own demand since going ape-**** with wind and solar, and their energy prices have sky-rocketed.
      
      https://joannenova.com.au/2023/09/panic-now-the-australian-national-grid-manager-admits-blackouts-are-coming/
      
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      September 4, 2023 10:51am
      - wsk12345
        
        Dispatchable capacity – the term she doesn’t know the meaning of in the article? It’s not really capacity at all – it’s how many MW can be “dispatched off” on request. Think some pulp and paper load, or ripple controlled hot water, but unfortunately these existing sources are already counted, so it’s beyond this. Oh dear. Hopefully this will be a timely lesson to NZ when it eventuates.
        
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        September 4, 2023 11:34am
      - mawm
        
        wsk – The full quote from her article – “The AEMO brightly says that it can be managed, see Figure 2, if we just build 10,000 kilometers of high transmission lines through farmland and forests, and then finish all the wind farms and solar magic panels, along with lots more voluntary blackouts, “consumer investments” (home batteries) and dispatchable capacity (whatever could that be?)” – the AEMO being the managers of the grid.
        
        So “she” questions what dispatchable capacity might be, probably knows more than the AEMO and your description really makes no sense.
        
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        September 4, 2023 1:06pm
      - wsk12345
        
        Mawn. She clearly doesn’t know what dispatchable capacity is. I was adding in that information. It’s simply contracted demand reductions. Don’t see what your issue is.
        
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        September 4, 2023 2:59pm
      - CJames
        
        wsk12345
        I see you are a living exponent of Muphry’s law.
        Dispatchable capacity is not what you say it is. It is electricity that can be GENERATED as and when the grid requires it with a high degree of reliability. Like what hydro, coal and gas fired power stations can do. Geothermal isn’t mentioned as that is baseload.
        What you appear to be writing about is interruptible load. That is something Tiwai does short-term to cover when Manapouri units trip. Since the Kawerau mill closed, nothing else in NZ is big enough to provide meaningful cover.
        
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        September 4, 2023 6:22pm
      - NZer In Exile
        
        Lots of very expensive patch ups in the pipeline. It will all collapse in on itself and the f-wit politicians and renewables grifters pushing all this idiocy will do a runner once the shit really hits the fan for the people.
        
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        September 4, 2023 8:43pm
  - cmm
    
    “By 2030 it will be 45 years old.”. So only 40 years old now. So what? There are perfectly good thermal power stations that are 70+ years old and still going strong. Like any machinery, what matters most is good maintenance and occasional refurbishment.
    
    National are a bunch of sooks who know SFA about electricity generation.
    
    What people want (and a thriving economy needs) is dispatchable power. That means the you can phone up the plant any time of day or night and tell them to turn the generator on.
    
    You can do that with thermal. You can do it with hydro. You can’t do that with solar/wind etc.
    
    Home battery storage is not a reality (as real practical wide range solution) for a long time yet. ie. we need at least two or three generations of significant breakthroughs in battery storage technology.
    
    But most politicians think they are clever and go with all the “smart grid” scams etc – which have produced nothing of value in at least 20 years of hype.
    
    At some stage we’ll probably do what Germany has done – realise that that we can’t live the lie any longer and start digging again. Or maybe all the useful people have left NZ by then and it can just go back to the stone age.
    
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    September 4, 2023 9:35am
    - rouppe
      
      You could put small scale nuclear on the Huntly site.
      
      Expect Tuku Morgan would want $ for water being taken for cooling
      
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      September 4, 2023 12:41pm
      - Steve Otto(North Shore)
        
        There is also a Taniwha there.
        
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        September 4, 2023 1:03pm
    - Steve Otto(North Shore)
      
      Batteries needed to be treated properly. A relative has solar with batteries, sometimes even feeding the Grid. I took one look and told them to get the installers back. The battery bank was sitting on concrete!
      Any mechanic worth his salt will tell you batteries need to be insulated at the base. In a car/truck they are on a rubber mat or tray. Even when charging the battery it needs to sit on say wood. Not concrete or a steel bench. They discharge with cold.
      
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      September 4, 2023 1:09pm
  - Matt Long
    
    Wayne based on that I’m pleased I have the diesel generation capacity to cover our emergency needs, formerly to cover for natural disasters, but now for governmental disasters.
    
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    September 4, 2023 9:37am
    - Taieri
      
      I’m pleased I have the diesel generation capacity to cover our emergency needs
      ———-
      
      No worries, they will ban diesel generators soon…
      
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      September 4, 2023 11:03am
      - Benedict Yu
        
        Already happening in California. All portable generators banned from 2028.
        
        https://www.mortonsonthemove.com/california-generator-ban/
        
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        September 4, 2023 12:25pm
      - Steve Otto(North Shore)
        
        That means no more camping Benedict.
        I have a 2KW petrol one to run electrics on the caravan.
        
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        September 4, 2023 1:12pm
  - Benedict Yu
    
    Wayne, I checked at 0730 this morning. Coal and gas was producing three times the energy as wind. Even now at 10 am coal is going flat out. There were mornings last week when wind was producing virtually nothing and coal and gas were flat out.
    
    https://www.transpower.co.nz/system-operator/live-system-and-market-data/consolidated-live-data
    
    You think all that is about to change and the lights and EV chargers will stay on?
    
    “Incentives for home solar” are just as stupid and regressive as EV subsidies, probably worse.
    
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    September 4, 2023 10:03am
    - Tom Hunter
      
      Standard stuff for wind and solar, Hot and Powerless in Texas:
      
      When you take a look at these generation vs. capacity figures for each type of power it’s obvious that Texas wind/solar will not have to be increased by 50% to match the capacity of the other power sources but by 800% to match the actual generated amount from those other sources.
      …
      Batteries? We’re talking trillions, and they have to be replaced every few years as they hit their natural recharge cycle limit (as every laptop, pad and phone user knows). What that cycle will be for industrial-scale lithium-ion batteries or other re-chargeable technology, is anyone’s guess at the moment. And of course the wind/solar farms themselves have to be replaced every twenty five years or so. How successful would hydro power be if the dams and powerhouses had to be re-built from scratch every quarter century?
      
      Amazing how wooden-headed we’re being about this.
      
      The good news is that the closer all these fanatics get to closing more thermal and nuclear power stations the more they’re seeing the abyss: hence California doing a u-turn on their last nuke at Diablo Canyon and the Germans digging up coal faster than ever before.
      
      The bad news is that Western societies are going to have to suffer a fair amount of immiseration before the tide turns – and even then some will never do so (see Wayne Mapp above).
      
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      September 4, 2023 11:22am
    - Steve Otto(North Shore)
      
      Something needs to be done pronto. EVs charging will mean domestic power cuts.
      Can’t keep on bringing in electric cars and find there is just not enough power.
      The forward thinking department is failing.
      
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      September 4, 2023 1:15pm
      - tf78
        
        EV’s will soon start causing house fires and will be banned or uninsurable.
        
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        September 4, 2023 7:30pm
  - NothingLeft
    
    It’s cheap to repair and upgrade thermal power stations, and the plant is cheap – given 1000’s a year being replaced or installed worldwide. Siting issues are what eat up the money
    
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    September 4, 2023 10:25am
  - Local Miller
    
    So what if the current generators have an expected EOL in 2030. In my previous job I did some IT support for Genesis, and we did an induction tour of the Huntly plan. One thing pointed out to us was that they always have one of the Coal/Gas generators cold for extended maintenance. There’s no reason to not use the extended maintenance periods to upgrade the current capacity. They can replace what are essentially obsolete generators with the latest and greatest, but also to increase the capacity. The new generators also have a zero or near zero CO2 output.
    A planned/phased upgrade like this would use the existing infrastructure which is sound, not disrupt energy supply and be cheaper than building a new power station.
    In the long run renewables are not going to work in NZ, any more than they have worked in Germany and the UK, or any other country that’s gone woke.
    
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    September 4, 2023 10:58am
    - Taieri
      
      The new generators also have a zero or near zero CO2 output.
      ———–
      
      Gas and coal generation will never have “a zero or near zero” CO2 output. Basic chemistry doesn’t allow it.
      They can have a zero or near zero particulate emissions though.
      
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      September 4, 2023 11:06am
- NothingLeft
  
  The only way NZ still has gas in 10 years is if we build an LNG terminal, or new govt pays for a big push on exploration and development ASAP. Which may or may not find useful resources, but is certainly subject to a lot of political risk of cancellation by the next silly little PM.
  
  Given our dire balance of payments NZ really needs to get self sufficient for fuels – currently costing us ~$4-5billion a year to import. A coal-to-liquid plant (as South African SASOL has used for decades) using southland coal could provide all of NZ’s fuel needs for future at ~USD$50/barrel (lower than $80/barrel current internationally traded oil costs).
  
  https://www.mbie.govt.nz/assets/8fb7b2c240/liquid-fuels-from-lignite.pdf
  
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  September 4, 2023 10:42am
  - Taieri
    
    A coal-to-liquid plant (as South African SASOL has used for decades) using southland coal could provide all of NZ’s
    ————-
    
    But it won’t. For the reasons listed in the document you linked. Specifically:
    
    “The potential barriers to the uptake of CTL in NZ include:
    • Few commercial-scale CTL plants have been built so far worldwide and none include
    the advanced CTL processes, with the co-production of liquid fuels and electricity.
    • CTL plants have high capital and operational costs. As they can only be economic on a
    large scale, the associated high investment risks may deter investment.
    • There are uncertainties about the future of world oil production and the price of crude
    oil that can affect the economic viability of CTL plant.
    • Carbon dioxide emissions over the full lifecycle of the fuel are more than double those
    for the crude oil equivalents if no carbon capture and storage (CCS) is used during
    production (the burning of the fuel in vehicle engines releases the same amount of
    carbon dioxide to the atmosphere as conventional fuels would have done).
    • Even with efficient (and as yet unproven) CCS technology, carbon dioxide emissions
    over the full life-cycle of the fuel would still be at least 5% higher than for crude oil
    based products.
    • A large increase in coal mining and production may be unacceptable to the public. ”
    
    Another factor is open cast mining that would be required. This results in a great environmental damage, just look at its effects in Germany and Poland – loss of ground and surface water to the point where whole lakes disappear, landscape alteration beyond recovery and so on. While I have no problem with extractive mining in principle, I wouldn’t like to see moon-like landscape in NZ.
    
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    September 4, 2023 11:15am
    - Jack5
      
      Restoration of opencast mines could create lakes and wet lands (see German example in the link below).
      
      Or, for really innovative people, they might allow local micro-power generation plants, rather than the real Moonscape of Labour’s Lake Onslow water-reserve plan.
      
      Lakes that were once opencast mines any worse for the landscape than rows of wind turbines?
      
      https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2014-08-26/german-mine-rehabilitation/5696944
      
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      September 4, 2023 1:00pm
      - Steve Otto(North Shore)
        
        Lake Onslow pumping water uphill during off peak is just a silly idea thought up in a high school science room.
        If we need more hydro then build the dam things. Forget what the Green flakes and save the trees and dicky bird brigades say. Just do it!
        
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        September 4, 2023 1:23pm
      - NothingLeft
        
        We lack good options for big new Hydro outside of the West Coast where there are a few possibilities, Grey, Buller, Haast, but big problems with geological stability (expecting ~8 earthquake from Alpine Fault in next century), and a huge amount of rock and silt rolling down their rivers that reduces dam life.
        
        Realistically no new dams will every be built in NZ. Expect development of many-GW scale PV in next 10 years, likely with complementary battery storage. It’s cheap enough particularly when operated with limited hydro storage in a complementary way (use PV preferentially, and hydro as storage where possible)
        
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        September 4, 2023 4:40pm
    - NothingLeft
      
      Coal-to-liquid plants can also run off wood at competitive prices, and using NZ forestry wood waste could produce something like 1/3rd of NZ’s fuel needs. Which might actually work really well over long term even if bulk of national fleet ends up on battery power. We will still need hydrocarbon fuels for those hard-to-reach places off road network (mining, farms, earth-moving, boats and aviation)
      
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      September 4, 2023 3:31pm
    - Taieri
      
      Anything can be restored/rehabilitated. The problem is the cost of restoration. If this is included in the cost of production the total becomes prohibitive. Occasionally, the liable party prefers to claim insolvency to avoid cost of restoration. This happened recently in NZ, when FPSO Umuroa was decommissioned. Its owner Tamarind went into liquidation leaving NZ taxpayer with significant bill. The very same thing happened in Australia with FPSO Northern Endavour, where Oz taxpayer had to pick up $400 million tab, because her owner decide to go bankrupt.
      As for the Onslow project…a very interesting engineering concept indeed. But practical and viable? I don’t think so.
      
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      September 4, 2023 4:37pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  Meanwhile, Shell has bailed out of the carbon credit market. Turns out that 90% of the credits certified by Verra (the world’s largest certifier of such things) did not provide the expected guarantee. The investigation was led by The Guardian, no less.
  
  Markets have to provide price certainty, otherwise they are worthless. Commentators here plug the ETS, but frankly, the whole business is rubbish.
  
  https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Investigation-Into-Carbon-Offsets-Forces-Shell-To-Rethink-Strategy.html
  
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  September 4, 2023 12:33pm
  - Jack5
    
    The carbon credits markets are going to peak then crash in a bigger disaster than the great American sub-prime mortgage collapse of 2009.
    
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    September 4, 2023 1:05pm
  - Master Mariner
    
    Exactly, As all Oil Majors are waiting to see who blinks first.
    Great Strategic thinkers when “publicly ” Known.
    
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    September 4, 2023 1:07pm
Matt Long

A thoughtful piece from Peter Williams putting the boot into the green party/greenpeace fundraiser at the close of parliament.
Pleasing to see some of the activists were trespassed, but why not Sage, who was apparently their photog?
Look out Christchurch, Sage is coming back to destroy your councils again.
https://thebfd.co.nz/2023/09/03/what-is-the-point-with-methane/
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September 4, 2023 8:14am
Matt Long

The Sound of Freedom is now playing in New Zealand, l haven’t had the chance to see it but can tell you the RNZ soy boys hate it.
Apparently, shock, horror, Trump thinks it’s a good movie.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/atthemovies/audio/2018904752/review-sound-of-freedom
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September 4, 2023 8:18am
- Benedict Yu
  
  I’ve seen it. Quite good.
  
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  September 4, 2023 8:57am
Matt Long

What do the people want? Car parks and good traffic flow, access to shops.
What do the clowncils supply? Empty cycle lanes, congestion, no parking and bankrupt shops.
It’s a climate emergency, don’t you know.
https://www.waikatotimes.co.nz/a/nz-news/350063017/not-my-street-cycle-lane-not-wanted-killarney-road
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September 4, 2023 8:26am
- NZer In Exile
  
  Council elections really need a ton of scrutiny. Too many wacko activists get in because people don’t really know who they are voting for. In Victoria (AU) in my council election I found it almost impossible to find out what most of the various candidates believed and stood for. The winners eventually turned out to be the usual far left council wackos who waste other people’s money on grandiose and silly woke wankfests.
  
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  September 4, 2023 8:50pm
cmm

I recently watched a very interesting video by Thomas Sowell on the rationality of criminals.

We’ve all heard that crime does not pay, so why do criminals commit crime? Surely that is irrational?

Nope, he argues. Criminals look at the pros and cons and make the perfectly rational calculation that, for them, crime does pay.

For the non-criminal, crime is extremely irrational because the rewards are few (if any) and the down sides are huge. Few of us would gain satisfaction from something we stole, so the reward of a stolen watch or whatever are low (if not negative). Down sides include guilt and the fear of prison and social status etc.

We have better options through work (which is more satisfying and rewarding) and building social status etc.

Putting that all in a metaphorical spreadsheet, for us crime does not pay.

For criminals it is almost the reverse: the up sides of a stolen watch are huge. Zero, or little guilt. Otherwise unaffordable bling to flash around. If they end up being found out: so what. Prison is not hardship as much as a badge of honour and they get discounts for cultural reports etc.

Meanwhile the criminal probably has less education and less earning options too.

Crunch the numbers using that spreadsheet and crime does pay. Perfectly rational.

Clearly the only way to reduce crime is to change the equation so that criminals find the price at which crime no longer pays so they stop.

3 strikes is one of the mechanisms to achieve that, removal of cultural report discounts too. But here are potentially others that need exploring.
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September 4, 2023 8:27am
- Gravelroad
  
  You know what? No disrespect CMM, but I am past caring about why people, especially young people, commit crime and what they get out of it.
  I don’t care about their grievances, race, home life etc.
  I want to see realistic and workable laws aimed at protecting the rights of the law abiding.
  A Police force (sorry, “ service”) that has a clear and primary focus on arresting law breakers, and getting them prosecuted.
  A judiciary which has a determination to make the law work, not constantly find excuses and wrap around support for defendants at the expense of the victims and society in general.
  The pendulum of justice has swung too far in one direction.
  Time for the reality of crime to be addressed , rather than letting the now emboldened criminals have the first, and last, laugh at our expense.
  
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  September 4, 2023 9:14am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    What is missing is respect. The younger generation from Fatherless homes don’t give a shit. No respect.
    
    20 2
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    September 4, 2023 9:31am
    - Gravelroad
      
      “My rights” trump your respect these days Steve.
      This is going to sound very old fashioned but…
      I grew up in a smallish, conservative town where reputation was a key factor to success.
      It wasn’t so much that you were poor, or wealthy or came from a posh background, or were a wharfie instead of a lawyer.
      If you and your family had a good reputation for being law abiding and honest, then lots of opportunities opened up for you.
      You got that job you wanted because you came from a “good family”.
      However, if your family didn’t have a positive image, for whatever reason, it stuck with you.
      Not these days, of course.
      No one cares if you have a good rep or not.
      
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      September 4, 2023 10:07am
      - Steve Otto(North Shore)
        
        Yes, they have rights and get ‘offended.’
        
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceS_jkKjIgo
        
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        September 4, 2023 1:34pm
    - Burtland
      
      The lack of respect is endemic, fatherless or not. The 20 year olds coming from functional homes are typically spoilt manipulative brats. Working with them is a PITA.
      
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      September 4, 2023 11:00am
      - Steve Otto(North Shore)
        
        Yep, they are also the problem. As Gravelroad says “they have rights”
        That PITA arse has never been kicked with a size 11 regulation working boot.
        
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        September 4, 2023 1:29pm
  - cmm
    
    Gravel, me too.
    When I see some sob story about 5 young car thieves wrapping themselves around a telephone pole I shed no tears.
    
    Sure, it’s a bit sad that lives were lost/wasted but the world is a better place without their criminality.
    
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    September 4, 2023 9:45am
    - Fuzzysnuggleduck
      
      My feelings too.
      A real shame though for the person who won’t be getting their car back. The real victim 😉
      
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      September 4, 2023 11:51am
- mawm
  
  cmm – as an additional means to reduce crime punish those who receive stolen goods. They are a different type of person – one who would suffer by going to prison and will be shamed by having a prison record. Take away the market and crime becomes less profitable.
  
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  September 4, 2023 1:14pm
Paulus

From the Labour Party Dental performance is it just me, but one person who appears not to have been named – at least publically, is the Architect of Labour’s total collapse and long term demise.
Dame Jacinda Ardern.
Understand she overseas for the whole performance and am not sure that she would be welcomed back into Labour anyway as she must take the bulk of responsibility in their current long term destruction.
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September 4, 2023 8:28am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  It is not just Labour destroyed, Arden screwed the whole Country with her Tyranny.
  
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  September 4, 2023 9:33am
SmokerGuy

I’m planning to vote National at this stage but I have to say, they are in a bit of peril over their tax policy. If they think these questions won’t intensify they are in for a big shock. I’m extremely disappointed that they don’t seem to have been fully prepared on this and there is a real chance it may cost them in October. How could they not see these questions coming???? So many economists saying the numbers don’t stack up and they have no answer. Absolute rookie stuff from a party that proclaims to be the most competent economically. They’ve handed Labour a gift and they will keep bashing them with it until election day.
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September 4, 2023 8:38am
- Tricati
  
  Couldn’t agree more – Always felt this is an election for National to lose and they are doing their best with their lack of detail over their tax policy. They must have known any economic policy they intended to present would come under intense scrutiny form the MSM, CTU, Labour, Greens and all the woke economists that rely on government income.
  They need to quickly get their act together and present the details/models, as that is the only thing that will shut the scrutiny down.
  
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  September 4, 2023 9:41am
  - Mark Hanley
    
    Anyone who gives any credence to the Labour Party’s and the despicable NZ media’s shallow critique of National’s tax policy hasn’t been watching the 6 year long clown show.
    
    Chris Hipkins and Grant Robertson failed to deliver anything and their financial management of NZ inc has been a disaster. Aided and abetted by the despicable NZ media.
    
    What gives the Labour Party and the despicable NZ media any authority to comment on financial forecasts?
    
    The vacant Heather du Plessis Alan “reckons” the Nats foreign Buyer scheme won’t meet targets. Like the Labour Party, Heather doesn’t explain what analysis she has done, nor does she publish her figures for us to critique.
    
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    September 4, 2023 12:33pm
- Tom Hunter
  
  Despite regularly slamming National on this forum I’d have to disagree.
  
  Not because I think you’re wrong; in all honesty I’ve not looked into the claims and counter-claims because I take little or no notice of election “promises” by any party.
  
  No, the reason I think you’re wrong is that elections don’t ride on stuff like this but very simple things that boil down to even smaller points than those listed on National’s Pledge Card.
  
  And the simple stuff is that people have had a gutsful of this useless, incompetent shower of shit and want to move – to what they don’t really know or care.
  
  It’s an emotive thing, and Chippy just added to that today with his bullshit about how nobody was forced to take the Chinese Lung Rot Vaccine. I know a number who did and they absolutely did not choose it: way to go with pissing off even those who fall into the 90%+ compliance area.
  
  Oh, as an aside about promises, specifically National Party tax promises, here’s Not PC on the last set in 2008:
  
  MAY 2008
  
  On the back of six years of promoting tax cuts, John Key reaffirms after the delivery of Michael Cullen’s budget that “We believe in tax cuts. We believe in the power of tax cuts. And we will deliver them.”
  
  SEPTEMBER 2008
  
  Will all this blood on the floor, on September 30 Bill English promises voters “a credible economic package to take account of the changing economic climate.” “Our tax cut programme will not require any additional borrowing,” he said, comparing Michael Cullen’s record with his own promise to deliver “an ongoing programme of personal tax cuts.”
  
  DECEMBER 2008
  
  Bill English stands up in Parliament and says, “National will not be going back on any of these promises, as we fully costed and funded them.”
  
  MAY 2009:
  
  Bill English stands up in Parliament and reneges on their promised tax cut package (which in the first tranche in 2010 would have cost just $100 million dollars). At the same time he announces up to a billion dollars of extra spending on preparations for an emissions trading scheme and subsidised home insulation (which was not even a National Party policy, but a Green Party policy); and nearly six billion dollars of extra spending on the health, education and welfare sectors.
  
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  September 4, 2023 12:51pm
Observant Octagenarian

Proponents of renewable electricity should bookmark this site – it shows the percentage of electricity by source – and you can see our dependency on hydro, gas and geothermal and also how minimal is wind and solar.
https://app.em6.co.nz/
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September 4, 2023 8:38am
oldpark

Seems the old adage ” every doggie has their day dosn’t always deliver .”
Case in point NZ Herald incorporated with Newstalk ZB biased anti National news outlet owned by NZME. Have joined forces with the NZ Trade Union Movement. Yes that lot who has a levy on your wages deduction has used your money to put the boot into National Party and attempt to Kneecap their Leader Chris Luxon .
In a combined move fake news NZ Herald who have finally run out of Ardern/Hipkins $55,000,000 Mainstream bribe money have found a new source of income. NZ Trade Union helping them to keep the corrupt Labour Party in power . The mentioned two low renters have their own agenda . Check out front page todays blurb in the so called news outlet .

Trade unions to keep the boot on the throat of small business and keep same status quo for NZ present Regime to stay in power .
NZ Herald prepared to sell out the well being of NZ and its Citizens fake News or whatever for shareholder profits.
What a bloody indictment or even worse a blatant type of greed .
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September 4, 2023 8:39am
I remember when

Just watched Newshub discussion with Aaron Slight on the next big tourism attraction for the Wairarapa.
With Waka Kotahi having brought the speed limit down from 100 kph to 80 in January, they are continuing to carry out their great work.
Aaron thought that two roundabouts would have solved the problems, between Masterton and Featherston, at a suggested cost of perhaps $3m.
However, the completed works, completed being the locals desire for many months, are expected to cost about $25 million.
So SH2 Masterton to Featherston will have, 21 raised pedestrian crossings, 40 changes of speed limit (9 at present) once fully implemented.

Waka Kotahi, coming to a road near you.
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September 4, 2023 8:39am
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  What a cluster
  
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  September 4, 2023 8:40pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

The Trump got mugged shot. First outlaw President.

https://teapartypolls.com/redrebelnews/majority-of-joe-biden-voters-think-trumps-arrests-are-2024-election-interference/
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September 4, 2023 8:39am
- Matt Long
  
  A little time in front of your mirror practicing for your mugshot, then 7 million in merchandise sale on the first weekend. Trump knows how to leverage his opportunities.
  
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  September 4, 2023 9:26am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    $4.18M on the first day. I like that mugshot.
    
    8 1
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    September 4, 2023 9:42am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    I have a lot of Trump stuff Matt. He knows how to market himself. Many others now on the bandwagon.
    I have MAGA hats, Trump flags, USA flags, gold coins with Trump 2020 on them. Coins with Don on one side and Melania on the other. Fake $20 and 1Million dollar notes with 2024 on them. $200 notes with a gold finish. A lot of this was free, just pay shipping. Trump tees and shorts!
    The stuff is in such demand that no overseas shipping now. Sad because I want some 2024 stuff.
    
    6 3
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    September 4, 2023 1:44pm
Inandout

‘New Zealand PM is now blaming NZ citizens for taking the mandatory vaccines to keep their jobs and feed their families’.
Well sort of.
https://twitter.com/therealrukshan/status/1698249077061009496/video/1
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September 4, 2023 8:43am
- ClanMcleod
  
  He’s even more despicable than Ardern, I didn’t think that was possible.
  
  Now, waiting to see Mr Luxon or Mr Seymour calling him out for this disgusting distortion of reality……..
  
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  September 4, 2023 9:24am
  - imalwaysright
    
    Clan,
    Don’t hold your breath.
    
    They serve only themselves .
    
    Our role is to tick a box and shut up for another three years.
    
    15 1
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    September 4, 2023 10:25am
- Master Mariner
  
  Wow, I wonder if they now realise how guilable they really were ?
  Or the reality of the Legal implications of forcing / Co-ercing the Vaccines.
  The wheels are slowly turning.
  
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  September 4, 2023 9:25am
- WaynelSexton
  
  You guys literally pretended that “Mandatory” meant New Zealand didn’t have employment laws anymore.
  
  And you guys think the people still wearing masks are crazy.
  
  8 1
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  September 4, 2023 9:35am
  - rouppe
    
    Lol saw a person over the weekend, in their car, alone, driving down the motorway with a mask on
    
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    September 4, 2023 12:48pm
    - Master Mariner
      
      Yep, Take away the Laws of Darwins natural selection and see the results.
      Instead of dying out they Vote.!
      
      6 1
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      September 4, 2023 1:09pm
      - Steve Otto(North Shore)
        
        And breed!!
        
        5 1
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        September 4, 2023 1:46pm
Warren

I would say if Chris Hipkins our Prime Minister loses this election it will be the end of his political career and even his mother will not be able to save him.
People don’t forget the lies and deciet that people tell when you are down in the polls but need to bend the truth to give yourself a chance , they also don’t like character assassinations or blatant lies to smear people for your own benefit so for Chris Hipkins he has to win to survive which is easier said than done.
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September 4, 2023 8:43am
- cmm
  
  He’ll fall with his arse in butter like Cindy did.
  
  Well maybe not as well as Cindy has, but he will be taken care of.
  
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  September 4, 2023 11:24am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  He will go to the Council.
  
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  September 4, 2023 1:47pm
Maggie Pie

WATCH

“There was no compulsory vaccination….
people made their OWN choices”

– Fibbing little ginga.

https://twitter.com/Resist_05/status/1698306879129280875
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September 4, 2023 8:44am
- Benedict Yu
  
  Of course folk were forced. The take up of the first two shots was 95 percent.
  
  Now let’s look at the recent booster which became available to over 30s on 1 April. Take up is 22 percent. In this case people “did make their own choices” as eloquently put by the PM.
  
  That pesky data again 🤡
  
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  September 4, 2023 9:02am
  - Matt Long
    
    That wasn’t forced, they just lost their jobs, the ability to shop where they wanted or to go to concerts, hair dressers or to eat out.
    That’s not “forcing”, it’s nudging.
    Yep, yep, that’s what it is and Labour aren’t scum.
    
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    September 4, 2023 9:10am
  - John Loveridge
    
    I was forced. Chippy may call it choice, but my choice was the jab, or lose all my clients, being unable to enter their premises, and therefore my livelihood. I will never forgive the bastards for that “choice”.
    
    I greatly admire the pluck of those, and I personally know a few, who refused to buckle to the regime, and paid a heavy price. I don’t have the sort of guts they do.
    
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    September 4, 2023 9:19am
    - wsk12345
      
      I lost my job for saying no. I work from home always too, so there was no chance of seeing anyone from work.
      
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      September 4, 2023 11:57am
    - NZer In Exile
      
      Blackmailed a better term?
      
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      September 4, 2023 8:54pm
- Local Miller
  
  It amazes me that he can say that with a straight face given all the video footage and Jacinda being on record: Yup, Yup, that’s what it is!
  Two classes of citizens, the Jaxed and the unJaxed.
  How can he in one sentence say “yes there were mandates” and “but people ultimately made their own choices”. Their mandates meant a lot of people didn’t have a choice. I suppose if you were prepared to lose your job, or you were among the lucky few (like me) who’s jobs were flexible enough that we could refuse and just work from home, then you had a choice, but most people felt they didn’t have a choice.
  Worse that the press didn’t hold him to account.
  
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  September 4, 2023 9:07am
  - Matt Long
    
    The press were pushing the mandates and jabs, they need to be held to account.
    
    27 0
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    September 4, 2023 9:12am
    - Gravelroad
      
      The media made a lot of coin out of the Government via vaccination advertising, which they were never going too question for that reason.
      We live rural and thought long and hard about getting vaccinated – or not.
      In the end, we believed the blackmail hype about hospitals not being able to cope with thousands and thousands of patients clogging up beds and dying in car parks.
      And also, if someone in our family happened to die, we wanted to be allowed to go to their funeral…………..
      
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      September 4, 2023 10:19am
      - wsk12345
        
        Which raises the other question. You weren’t mandated but you only did it because of the fearmongering from government – when they knew at the time of the vax drive that it did SFA.
        
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        September 4, 2023 11:59am
  - ClanMcleod
    
    We know why they press aren’t holding him to account, the bigger question has to be will Seymour or Luxon? If not, why not?
    
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    September 4, 2023 9:33am
    - cmm
      
      They were balls deep in it too.
      
      11 3
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      September 4, 2023 11:20am
- ClanMcleod
  
  Lying pos.
  
  People were compelled, bribed, threatened, bullied and in every way, coerced into taking part in this experiment.
  
  Another lying politician. No surprises there.
  
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  September 4, 2023 9:08am
  - NZer In Exile
    
    Many frightened and brainwashed sheeple also turned non-conforming family members into outcasts.
    
    1 0
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    September 4, 2023 8:56pm
- emmess
  
  Own choices?
  Yeah, just like a shop keeper would pay the mafia, protection money to stop their store ‘accidentally’ getting burnt down.
  
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  September 4, 2023 9:15am
- Grunter
  
  He will go down as our 2nd worst PM ever (after the [Mod – use correct names])
  
  21 2
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  September 4, 2023 9:19am
  - Grunter
    
    I thought that was an acceptable aka on KB? It’s bin used before…..
    
    10 2
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    September 4, 2023 9:45am
- Tony Stuart
  
  As Minister of Education and Minister for Covid Response Hipkins almost brought about the end of the Home Based ECE sector. In order to retain their licences, services could only use Home Based Educators who were vaccinated, but in addition, the Ministry required all persons over the age of 12 years living in homes where care was taking place to be vaccinated.
  
  For many Home Based services it was the last straw; others clung on, but only after losing anywhere from 30 to 60% of their Educators quite literally overnight, and with them, a comparable amount of their revenue.
  
  For Hipkins now to say that no one had to get vaccinated, and that it was a matter of personal choice is utter bullshit. Educators faced a stark choice; either have them and their families vaccinated, or lose their right to provide childcare and education. I hope this lie spreads far and wide, and that Labour suffers the consequences at the polls in 40 days time.
  
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  September 4, 2023 9:29am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Lying ginger prick is a better term. How does he lie with such a straight face?
  
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  September 4, 2023 1:49pm
  - Gravelroad
    
    Have just been watching the US Tennis Open with Novax Djokovic dispatching some poor sod on the way to (possibly) another grand slam title.
    Wasn’t good enough for the Australians though.
    Banned from their tournament coz of no vaccination.
    
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    September 4, 2023 2:23pm
Rusty

The front page of the herald this morning has an add from the NZCTU attacking Nationals policies and a picture of Chris Luxon looking like an evil dictator.

The NZCTU are Labours useful fools.
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September 4, 2023 8:45am
- kowtow
  
  The imagery and choice of dark colours in the photo , includng the shot of Luxon has been constructed to make him look like a ’30’s authoritarian.
  
  This is extremely negative and I have a feeling if the shoe was on the other foot te media pahti would not run it and the Kommentariate would be up in arms.
  
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  September 4, 2023 12:43pm
- bjools
  
  Since the Labour party grew out of the union movement, I would suggest you have it backwards.
  
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  September 4, 2023 3:49pm
I remember when

Why, whenever anyone mentions reducing Public Service employee numbers, does everyone on the staff at present suddenly become essential?

Why, with their current numbers, is there never anyone available to answer your telephone enquiry?
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September 4, 2023 8:45am
John Loveridge

Where ever Meng Foon goes, trouble soon follows:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300961511/how-200k-of-taxpayer-cash-went-down-the-drain-for-a-project-linked-to-former-race-relations-commissioner-meng-foon
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September 4, 2023 8:51am
- Maggie Pie
  
  The Chinese should never be trusted, John. Any country with a population of over a BILLION people that claims Ping Pong is their fave indoor sport has GOT to lie about other things.
  
  Just saying.
  
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  September 4, 2023 9:32am
  - John Loveridge
    
    Of course, Maggie. But you’d never know, because they’re completely inscrutable.
    
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    September 4, 2023 10:05am
    - greybeard
      
      If their population is over a billion I would say that a hell of a lot of them have already been scruted. Some of them more than once.
      
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      September 4, 2023 11:27am
  - Benedict Yu
    
    So you are literally saying that no person of Chinese ethnicity is trustworthy? If you had a rental property, you would not rent it to a Chinese family?
    
    My observation would be that New Zealanders rush to do business with Chinese people because, disproportionately, they are trustworthy and obey the law.
    
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    September 4, 2023 10:14am
    - Swifty
      
      The Chinese have been an unparalleled success story over the past 150 years of immigration into this country.
      
      Hard-working, thrifty, independent, resourceful, law-abiding and community-minded and whose descendants became business owners, doctors, engineers and lawyers in great numbers.
      
      Easily one of our finest immigrant groups.
      
      It’s unfortunate that a number of the post-90s immigrants are not made of the same stuff.
      
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      September 4, 2023 12:23pm
    - NZer In Exile
      
      Like any group, a mixed bag. Generally not violent neanderthals though, which is nice.
      
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      September 4, 2023 8:59pm
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    My neighbours are Chinese born. Lovely people. They don’t like China, they like being Kiwis. Both are NZ Citizens.
    
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    September 4, 2023 1:53pm
kevn

Maggie… That will haunt him on the trail. You know what I’m thinking.
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September 4, 2023 8:52am
Southern Raider

Labour attack dogs are out

CTU has a full colour two page attack on Luxon across front two pages of todays Herald

Is Labour counting this as an election expense?
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September 4, 2023 8:57am
- Jade Warrior
  
  … and just what does the NZ Herald think it’s doing, allowing itself to be used in this way? Are they really that short of money?
  
  So much for journalistic integrity!
  
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  September 4, 2023 9:24am
- Tony Stuart
  
  No, the CTU will have registered as a third party promoter. There are limited to what they can spend ($391,000 between 14 July and 13 October 2023) and it does not affect Labour’s spending.
  
  https://elections.nz/guidance-and-rules/for-third-party-promoters/
  
  It’s interesting however that they attack Luxon’s trust and credibility today, less than 24 hours after Hipkins told the biggest lie of the campaign to date, that no one was forced into having a Covid vaccination.
  
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  September 4, 2023 9:33am
  - RoboRob
    
    Hi Tony
    
    I checked into this and what you say is true BUT after registering you only need to report if you spend over 100k. In the 2017 election (im ignoring the 2020 COVID election) the CTU and 8 other unions all registered (allowing a total union spend of ~3.5m). Only one of the unions actually reported (~40k). The reporting is voluntary and as such the untions can actually spend whatever they want, no one is coming to check.
    
    As I pointed out the other day, one Union reported 40k and Don Brashes group reported $225,000 spending (from memory). Does anyone really think that the unions spent less then him?
    
    So yeah. The law says one thing but reality is a bit different. When the unions call each union member to tell them to vote labour do they count the staff time and phone costs? Nope.
    
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    September 4, 2023 10:48am
  - wsk12345
    
    So you know that was a massive lie Tony. Aren’t you involved in the Nat Party? Can you tell us why Luzon isn’t calling the Liar out? Just disgusting.
    
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    September 4, 2023 12:02pm
BeaB

Radio NZ is obsessed with the minutiae of National tax policy. Totally ignoring the debacle of Labour’s budgeting and borrowing.
Now we have two full pages of propaganda from the CTU.
Is there a whiff of the Left running scared?
The tap being turned off for the media and the trade unions.
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September 4, 2023 8:59am
- Vinicius
  
  I think Labour will be worried about Tuesday 12th September which is I understand when the PREFU is released.
  
  So, they’ll be trying to get out as much of their propaganda before then.
  
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  September 4, 2023 9:19am
  - Gravelroad
    
    Not to worry, Vini, Mr Robertson and his socialist economist enablers, sorted the PREFU last week.
    It will illustrate a triumph of careful budgeting and responsible expenditure………
    
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    September 4, 2023 10:27am
    - Prince
      
      After the PREFU, the Media will be lining up to attack Luxon and Willis.
      “How can you afford your tax cuts now ?”
      
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      September 4, 2023 5:18pm
  - Paulus
    
    We must assume that Robertson will have Createdly Accounted the PREFU, as Cullen did before with omitting the ACC deficit.
    No convinced that Treasury figures are always up to date, and not just politically correct.
    
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    September 4, 2023 10:29am
- RoboRob
  
  Seems crazy to me that the left are all over National over the possibility of ~175m of funding not being available (out of a 8b? package). Yet labour annouces free dental but zero funding.
  
  So when Labour says, National will need to cut services because of is ~175m shortfall, what pre tell will Labour have to do?
  
  Also the ‘cost’ of Labours plan is laughably low. There is no way in hell it will only be ~500m. Once it is ‘free’ demand will be through the roof.
  
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  September 4, 2023 10:53am
- Prince
  
  Who needs to raise money through donations when you have Unions backed by fees forcibly removed from workers doing your dirty work for you ?
  
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  September 4, 2023 12:05pm
  - SoloView
    
    @ Prince
    Thanks to the National government of the 90’s union membership is not compulsory.
    So how do unions forcibly remove fees from people?
    
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    September 4, 2023 1:53pm
    - Prince
      
      You’re not forced to join the Union, just as Hipkins said ‘You’re not forced to get the jab’.
      But if you don’t there are repercussions in the workplace. With Covid, you were sacked. With the Union, you are isolated and abused.
      
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      September 4, 2023 5:23pm
Tempist

My lefties friends on Twitter/X have been reposting tweets(“X’s”?) at an increasingly panicked rate of knots about what will be lost if National forms the next Government.

Included prominently is the loss of Fair Pay Agreement. FPAs are a good proxy for the Labour Government’s record:
* promised as a priority in 2017
* lots of bureaucratic time spend making an unworkable policy slightly less unworkable (so at least one employment effect)
* the FPA act passed late into it’s second term
* not a single FPA negotiated or imposed by the Courts

I’m not clear what’s at risk of being lost (apart from policy jobs in Wellington)
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September 4, 2023 9:09am
- Tony Stuart
  
  First Union (formerly Unite) is pushing for a FPA agreement at the moment, but it is highly unlikely to be completed before the election. To the best of my knowledge, there are no other FPA’s on the table at the moment.
  
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  September 4, 2023 9:36am
  - Warren
    
    I think the horse has bolted Tony and the public made their choice known in the last couple of polls.
    How could anyone believe Labour after the GST fiasco on fruit and vegetables, then also free dental appointments, when they will take place in late 2025/26,
    Chris Hipkins has no credibility with his lies and wishful thinking that the Country believes him.
    The next poll will punish his stupidity.
    
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    September 4, 2023 10:17am
  - Spam
    
    I was told that Unite had one on the go. I was told that the “Fair” pay agreement was apparently going to result in all staff in hospitality being paid penal rates if they work after 6:00pm. If so, that is going to help with the “cost of living crisis” and further kill the entire hospitality industry.
    
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    September 4, 2023 12:49pm
- RoboRob
  
  FPAs are a disaster for small businesses. If you are a small provider and the staff at a big company want somthing you are forced to follow suit. Thats great for the big players, they can push rules and requirements that the small players cant afford or implement.
  
  It would be great to scrap the FPAs before they ever happen 🙂
  
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  September 4, 2023 11:05am
- alloytoo
  
  Problem is, for them, is when they say for example:
  
  “so many jobs will be lost in Wellington.”
  
  most of us go:
  
  “Good”
  
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  September 4, 2023 1:38pm
Ghost

Rang the GP this morning to get an appointment

When ever there is a problem with the phone system always get the same message. Call can not be placed due to climate issues.

It just feels like the phone companies are using faults with their network to claim it is caused by the climate.
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September 4, 2023 9:20am
- Inandout
  
  Ghost, ‘climate’ has several meanings, one such is ‘a prevailing condition or set of attitudes in human affairs’.
  
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  September 4, 2023 9:51am
- NZer In Exile
  
  Climate issues = it’s raining = the dog ate my homework.
  
  Someone probably screwed up somewhere.
  
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  September 4, 2023 9:00pm
Prince

Serious Question.
Is there anything Hipkins would not do, say or promise to get back into office ?
Apparently there are a couple more ‘big ticket items’ to be promised if necessary, and plenty of slurs, barbs and lies to be promoted.
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September 4, 2023 9:33am
- Ghost
  
  Yeah, unlike ardern he won’t use his kids to get votes, oh wait, he did.
  
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  September 4, 2023 9:46am
- Gravelroad
  
  In answer to your “serious question”:
  No.
  
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  September 4, 2023 10:29am
RoboRob

AM show had a slot where they interviewed a Labour and National candidate.

This really highlighted the issue with politics in NZ. With more than 50% of the population almost entirely disengaged prior to elections, voters rely on what they see and hear in the election campaign period. This morning I heard a National party guy honestly answering questions and the Labour party guy answering the way people wanted.

Q : What are you going to do about the local hospital / roads

Labour; We are going to massively upgrade the hopital. It is too small. The roads are bad I am going to have them fixed.

National: I will wait for the hospital review to complete and we will see what we can do.

An uninformed voter I would choose Labour every time. They are promising to spend the money.
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September 4, 2023 9:34am
- slightlyrighty
  
  Labour is great at spending money, it’s just that the result from that spending is pitiful.
  
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  September 4, 2023 10:18am
I remember when

Why has the media not asked Labour how many extra dentists will they have to employ.
And, where are they going to come from?
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September 4, 2023 9:46am
- RoboRob
  
  Only Nationals policies have to be costed. Labour is allowed, actually expected to, overspend.
  
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  September 4, 2023 11:06am
- Burtland
  
  “Our government will work collaboratively with health agencies, regulatory and professional bodies to make sure we have the oral health therapists, dental hygienists and dentists we need.”
  
  “We will increase the number of places in Bachelor of Dental Surgery course by 50 per cent”
  
  Ayesha Verrall
  
  https://www.labour.org.nz/news-labour_commits_extend_free_dental_care
  
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  September 4, 2023 5:11pm
The Veteran

re Labour’s free dentistry for all promise and putting aside the stupidity of a non targeted benefit (if this policy was in place today MP Chloe Swarbrick would be entitled) a simple question … how many of you think you can just rock up to a dentist and expect an appointment any time soon? Answer … you can’t. We don’t have enough dentists and it takes 5 years of study to become one. So Labour is proposing to implement their policy with the current workforce … won’t work.

Old saying … those who don’t learn from the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them. In the UK access to the dentist was made ‘free’ under the NHS. Problem was/is that many dentists in private practice refuse to take NHS patients. There are a variety of reasons for that. The system couldn’t cope then and can’t cope now.

In 1952 in an attempt to make the system work part charges were introduced … currently they come in three bands …
#1 examination/diagnosis/scale and polish – NZD48 #2 fillings/extraction/root canal work – NZD132 #3 crowns/dentures – NZD571.
Even with that and in 2019 it was reported that in England alone 1.45m people had tried and failed to get a NHS appointment.

Labour is desperate … reduced to making policy on the hoof … and its showing. A policy predicated on a sound-bite and doomed to fail.
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September 4, 2023 10:00am
- Ghost
  
  Depends where you live. We have Aucklanders fly down to our dentist because it is cheaper to fly down for a day or two, see the dentist and then fly home. 2 weeks to get into my dentist unless an emergency.
  
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  September 4, 2023 10:07am
  - kevn
    
    Do share the knowledge…
    
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    September 4, 2023 10:12am
- geoff3012
  
  Not “houses for all” again……..God help us.
  
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  September 4, 2023 12:21pm
- Jack5
  
  Regardless of who pays, you or a Labour Government, NZ doesn’t have enough dentists to meet demand.
  
  Same as the rest of the health industry – doctors, nurses, radiologists, dental technicians.
  
  A grand national failure of supply management through tertiary and technical education, and demand management through matching population growth.
  
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  September 4, 2023 1:17pm
sirknz

Carbon credits are just modern day indulgences of the sort the Catholic Church used to sell.

Change my mind.
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September 4, 2023 10:07am
- cmm
  
  You would be far from the first person to make the accurate observation.
  
  That’s how Jimmy Shaw can rack up more First Class miles than 99.99% of New Zealanders and still feel smug.
  
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  September 4, 2023 12:05pm
- Benedict Yu
  
  I can’t change your mind unless you can explain to me what underpins your view. Is it because you think that (a) reducing emissions is a waste of money, or (b) because they don’t reduce emissions? If it is (a), I can’t change your mind. If it is (b), IMO you are (mostly) wrong and I could possibly change your mind 🙂
  
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  September 4, 2023 2:10pm
  - All_on_Red
    
    Instead of self flagellation or a Bonfire of Vanities for their Carbon sins, the modern day Savonarola’s buy Carbon Credits to assuage their conscience (and social credit points)
    
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    September 4, 2023 2:43pm
Chuck Bird

Net Zero Nonsense

https://www.nzcpr.com/net-zero-nonsense/
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September 4, 2023 10:21am
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Stop Co-Governance. Julian Batchelor.
The Tribal Elite are frightened of Julian’s meetings. Why? Well if they lose the 1975 Waitangi rogue Treaty the Gravy Train will stop. Forestry and Fisheries will no longer be ‘special.’

Good comment from a 14 year old kid. I think he is going places.

https://stopcogovernance.kiwi/blog/co-governance-the-death-of-free-speech/
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September 4, 2023 10:26am
BeaB

Really all we need to say about Labour’s promises is they will never get round to actually doing them. That’s their track record.
I do hope National has some big guns with big targets in their sights.
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September 4, 2023 10:27am
Maggie Pie

Got a bit bored watching the US Open yesterday, so suggested to my partner we head out Mt Roskill way to see how many of those silly council ‘Food Scrap Bins’ were left laying around the streets. Sure enuff, they were all over the place. God knows the vermin they must be attracting 🙁

And then heading home, we passed thru Mt Albert. You can tell just by looking at the state of some of the houses there, that eventhough it’s been a Labor stronghold for more than 70 years, the Member-for-Tijuana may well have a chance of picking it up this time.
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September 4, 2023 10:55am
Right of way is Way of Right

Can someone please explain to me what the difference is between what the Exclusive Brethren did for National a few elections ago, and what the CTU did in the NZ Herald this morning?

I’m curious to know if anyone else is painfully aware of yet another double standard being applied.
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September 4, 2023 11:30am
- slightlyrighty
  
  The difference is that the Exclusive Brethren were never formally aligned with the National Party in the way that the Union Movement IS formally aligned with Labour.
  
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  September 4, 2023 1:12pm
- SoloView
  
  @ Right of way
  The difference is the CTU unlike the EB were upfront about promoting a political party.
  
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  September 4, 2023 2:09pm
ClanMcleod

A couple of people have posted the video of Hipkins deliberately and maliciously twisting the English language to claim the experimental jabs were a choice. Nauseating.

This Twitter channel is very, very good at editing short videos that quickly show the reality and expose these fraudsters and con artists as the despicable liars they are. This one re Hipkins has many reminders of the actual truth of how they bullied people into compliance. Watch and never forget.

https://twitter.com/c_plushie/status/1698340363482882398?t=GhXnyT_YH6qEdWzHZYqorg&s=01
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September 4, 2023 11:35am
- miltonF
  
  Pure evil. I don’t really have a better way to describe Hipkins’ actions and words.
  
  You don’t get to rewrite history now son. You need to own your words and actions and take responsibility for them. You committed some fairly heinous crimes Chippy and you gloated about them at the time. Now you want to deny it all? Nah…if you ask my opinion, you can think long and hard about your actions from inside a jail cell.
  
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  September 4, 2023 3:38pm
kevn

The sleeping dog…
https://pointofordernz.wordpress.com/2023/09/04/graham-adams-government-quietly-changes-advice-on-three-waters/#more-24102
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September 4, 2023 11:39am
ClanMcleod

HT Reality Check Radio.

DR ASEEM MALHOTRA: On ’The Greatest Miscarriage Of Medical Science In History’

British cardiologist and public health campaigner Dr Aseem Malhotra joins the show to speak about “the greatest miscarriage of medical science in history” during the Covid pandemic.

Listen to the full replay here:

https://realitycheck.radio/dr-aseem-malhotra-on-the-greatest-miscarriage-of-medical-science-in-history/

Dr Malhotra is coming to New Zealand for a speaking tour titled ‘Lessons from the Pandemic — Medicine at a Crossroads’, from the 19th to the 25th of September. You can find more information and book your seats here.

https://nzmps.unions.co.nz/malhotra-nz-tour

Plenty of venues throughout the country. Worth going along to listen to what they have to say.
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September 4, 2023 11:40am
- mawm
  
  He’s very good but shockingly naive. Scientists doing gain of function just because they wanted to? etc.
  
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  September 4, 2023 1:49pm
ClanMcleod

Barry Brill currently being interviewed on Reality Check Radio by former Federated Farmers chief Don Nicholson and farmer Jaspreet Boporai.

https://realitycheck.radio/
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September 4, 2023 11:49am
Maggie Pie

“But if Labor were re-elected, it will be the Maori elites who’ll be running the country. What are we going to do?”

https://twitter.com/winstonpeters/status/1698230814163812428

“What do you mean ‘WE’, white man?”

😎 😎 😎
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September 4, 2023 11:49am
Suze Wainwright

We’re almost back to the fun times of 2008, when people like Wayne Ruscoe accused John Key of being the anti-Obama in Palmerston North before the election
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September 4, 2023 12:22pm
Gravelroad

Have seen the bitter tirade against Luxon surrounding the Herald.
Scum on the pond here looking more attractive than the Labour Party.
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September 4, 2023 12:23pm
bjools

So….”be kind” is no long the mantra/deception of the Labour party.
Using their proxy (CTU) to use union members fees to take a full page add out in the Herald’ (how does that correlate to the parties election spending and the law?)
All sorts of spurious claims, without proof or even explanation.
Was the picture of Luxon, photo shopped?
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September 4, 2023 12:27pm
- slightlyrighty
  
  It would explain why Jacinda is in no way part of the current campaign….
  
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  September 4, 2023 1:08pm
Jack5

Any posters following the “crumbly concrete” scare in Britain?

Reports of buildings at hospitals and schools in danger because of flaky concrete.

What’s up? How can the Age of Space Flight have flaky concrete when Roman concrete, as in the Pantheon, is still standing after nearly 2,000 years?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12476399/Crumbly-concrete-scandal-West-Suffolk-hospital-warned-main-building-likely-COLLAPSE-emergency-workers-poisoned-asbestos-comb-rubble.html
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September 4, 2023 12:47pm
- mawm
  
  I still rate the Pantheon as one of the most awe inspiring buildings I’ve seen. If you go to Rome I can wholeheartedly recommend a visit to it.
  
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  September 4, 2023 1:54pm
- greybeard
  
  Because “flakey concrete” these days is just another key to extracting lots and lots of money from someone.
  
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  September 4, 2023 6:03pm
  - Jack5
    
    These scientists think the modern concrete problem is caused by something in the cement …
    
    https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/05/210513142409.htm
    
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    September 4, 2023 9:02pm
cmm

No, of course, not her fault!

She was misdiagnosed and given the wrong drugs!

“Allan was one of Labour’s most promising and well known politicians. ” Yes, the puddle really is that shallow!

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300963729/former-labour-mp-kiritapu-allan-opens-up-on-her-exit-from-parliament
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September 4, 2023 12:48pm
- Ghost
  
  She hasn’t said it wasn’t her fault, what she has said is that she was diagnosed for depression and anxiety and being treated for that, but has found out she has ADHD, PTSD and dysregulated emotions.
  
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  September 4, 2023 12:57pm
  - David Garrett
    
    Ghost: Off topic, I am sick to death about hearing about so-called PTSD sufferers, usually because one somewhat traumatic thing has happened to them – it can be as minor as witnessing or being in a car crash, or as bad being badly beaten – or worse.
    
    I have posted a lot here about the the Bomber Boys of WW II – those guys often suffered horrific events – like having a crew mate’s head blown off or watching the remains of the tail gunner being hosed out of his turret – and they kept on fucking going!
    
    There was no counselling, and often little or no time to mourn. I have heard numerous interviews with former aircrew and they often say “If the weather was bad so we couldn’t fly the next night we might raise a glass to poor old Charlie, but if an op [mission] was on we didn’t have time for any of that”
    
    When they came back – one third of them didn’t – their only therapy was the RSA, where they could talk about what they had gone through. They certainly couldn’t talk to their wives or girlfriends about the night Charlie “bought it”, and they had to fly back from Berlin with his brains all over the navigator’s table.
    
    They couldn’t even swear in front of women – as late as the mid 70’s I was sternly told “Ladies present!” after saying “shit” in a public bar.
    
    I’m sick of fucking hearing about some snowflake suffering some mild inconvenience and then claiming they’ve “been diagnosed with PTSD”.
    
    What exactly is supposed to have caused this awful condition in Allen? Because her lezzie lover booted her out and then found a replacement two weeks later?
    Harden up woman!
    
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    September 4, 2023 1:09pm
    - David Garrett
      
      …and just what exactly are “dysregulated emotions”?? I very much doubt that’s in DSM V, the “bible” of (American) medical disorders.
      
      Ironically only 40 odd years ago Allen would have been diagnosed as “suffering” from lesbianism! Homosexuality wasn’t deleted from DSM IV until 1974 or thereabouts.
      
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      September 4, 2023 1:12pm
      - Ghost
        
        According to Mr Google
        
        It may also be referred to as marked fluctuation of mood, mood swings, or labile mood. When someone is experiencing emotional dysregulation, they may have angry outbursts, anxiety, depression, substance abuse, suicidal thoughts, self-harm, and other self-damaging behaviors.
        
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        September 4, 2023 1:16pm
      - cmm
        
        Ghost, “marked fluctuation of mood, mood swings,” so basically a vague bunch of hoohaa from ADHD to PMT.
        
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        September 4, 2023 2:33pm
    - Guy Preston
      
      DG,
      Respectfully, I get your point about the unimaginable scale of trauma that the men (and often boys) went through during the wars of the last century, I really do, but are you seriously suggesting that theirs is the only experience that produces “real” or “valid” PTSD, and that the way it was delt with (or not) is the way we should deal with it now?
      
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      September 4, 2023 1:45pm
      - cmm
        
        Call it stress.
        Call it a breakdown.
        Call it a broken heart.
        Call it whatever.
        
        But Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is already a label in use.
        
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        September 4, 2023 2:47pm
      - Ghost
        
        It’s common for cancer survivors to also experience mental health issues, including ptsd
        
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        September 4, 2023 3:01pm
      - David Garrett
        
        Guy: this thread is probably “dead” so you won’t see this response, but I will make it anyway.
        
        No, I am not saying that the experiences of the Bomber Boys or other servicemen in wars is the only “valid” form of PTSD. What I am unashamedly saying is that possibly 90% of “modern” PTSD would probably have been dismissed as “hey, that was bloody awful mate” 50 or even 30 years ago.
        
        And NO, I am certainly not saying that the way it was dealt with back in the day is in any way preferable; I literally shed tears for those poor bastards every ANZAC Day…and I include in the category of “poor bastards” the ones who simply couldn’t take it, and refused to fly any more (they were all volunteers) were treated abomidably i.e. stripped of all rank and made to clean toilets and carry out the garbage, so that everyone knew they were “LMF” – i.e. lacking in moral fibre.
        
        There is no telling how many aircrew simply “carried on” because the shame of being LMF was worse than the prospect of death in the air.
        
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        September 5, 2023 8:44am
    - Ghost
      
      We all have our breaking points David. But unfortunately the government has screwed mental health so badly many struggle to get the help they need.
      
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      September 4, 2023 2:28pm
    - cmm
      
      DG: I 100% agree. Calling a bit of stress PTSD is kinda cultural appropriation from people who really suffered true PTSD.
      
      It’s as nasty as that “he raped me with his eyes” nonsense that discounts what true rape victims encountered.
      
      If you’ve lived only in a civilised and peaceful country like NZ then unless you’re 60 or so you’ve probably never met one of the men who left friends, body parts and mental health on the battlefield.
      
      For those of us for whom this is a bit more recent (eg. those from South Africa), talk of PTSD is a bit of an eye-roller at minimum.
      
      Regardless, if you’re not up to the job then don’t take it. Being an MP (or any job) takes certain character traits. If you don’t have them then don’t play the game.
      
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      September 4, 2023 2:45pm
  - Benedict Yu
    
    I had to look it up…
    
    “When someone is experiencing emotional dysregulation, they may have angry outbursts….”
    
    https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/what-is-emotional-dysregulation#:~:text=It%20may%20also%20be%20referred,and%20other%20self%2Ddamaging%20behaviors.
    
    It all makes sense now 🙁
    
    “There have never been any formal allegations put to me ….”
    
    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/492831/kiri-allan-rejects-claims-she-treated-staff-badly
    
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    September 4, 2023 1:11pm
    - David Garrett
      
      Bene: Well bugger me, who knew? I have experienced “angry outbursts” in any number of situations for 50 odd years – up here in Tonga most often when some dickhead drives straight through a stop sign without looking, or someone tells me a barefaced lie. I must have “dysregulated emotions”!
      
      Where do I get treatment I wonder? Probably not available up here in the Kingdom.
      
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      September 4, 2023 1:30pm
      - Benedict Yu
        
        I’m guessing folk with dysregulated emotions in Tonga don’t get much love.
        
        6 0
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        September 4, 2023 1:46pm
    - cmm
      
      Whew.
      People have been calling me a dickhead for 60 years.
      They’re clearly wrong.
      
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      September 4, 2023 2:49pm
  - Maggie Pie
    
    Perhaps she found it out reading thru the ‘Cultural Report’?
    
    7 1
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    September 4, 2023 1:40pm
  - NZer In Exile
    
    Almost any one of us can get a bunch of mental illness diagnoses should we fall afoul of the law. Quite handy.
    
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    September 4, 2023 9:12pm
- Maggie Pie
  
  Anyone heard how Tamati’s faring in ‘The EC’?
  
  Wonder if Meng-the-Merciless has provided him with office space?
  
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  September 4, 2023 1:35pm
Maggie Pie

O.M.G. Have you ever heard such a pair of spiteful woke lefties as that Andrew Dickinson and political editor Arran Dahmer on NewstalkZB?

Didn’t have ONE good word to say about National’s campaign launch, or the presentation by leader Chris Luxon. They exuded commie nastiness from every pore in their bodies.

Roll on October 15th……
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September 4, 2023 12:48pm
- Benedict Yu
  
  I have never heard of either of them.
  
  14 2
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  September 4, 2023 1:09pm
  - Gravelroad
    
    Andrew Dickinson is kind of snide and condescending in a very civilised fashion , of course.
    His lectures go on for quite some time…..
    Arran who sounds as though he hails from the USA or Canada, is very enthusiastic in a puppyish way, but at least he seems to try to be even-handed in his comments.
    Of the two, Arran easier to listen to.
    
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    September 4, 2023 2:56pm
    - NZer In Exile
      
      Haven’t listened to ZB for well over a year. The excessive ads on there drive me mental anyway. Dickinson seemed kind of sensible on a number of fronts from what I remember of him.
      
      Surely he’s not a cheerleader for the clown show???
      
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      September 4, 2023 9:15pm
- Bloody Dago
  
  The remote dumped both of them off the airwaves in our house.
  
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  September 4, 2023 1:51pm
- Nickc2
  
  I take it you mean Andrew Dickens (the biggest manipulator of other people’s opinions I have ever heard).
  I heard him going on about Labour’s Attack Dog act on National’s Chris Luxon this morning disguised as Commercial Advertising.
  He may be right about the rules for paid advertising but you can bet your bottom dollar that if I or anyone else said Chris Hipkins was a front for: liars, thieves, racists, corruption specialists, and community dividers, my opinion/paid for advert/comment would never see the light of day in the Herald.
  Such is the power of manipulating public opinion using the MSM.
  Remember Katie Bradford stating after a previous election “no matter what we did, we couldn’t ………..” She was talking about influencing an election outcome by herself and her mates in the MSM.
  
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  September 4, 2023 2:27pm
Swifty

Get in on the latest fashion accessory!

West Belfast head rest covers:

https://www.facebook.com/reel/981557559739512?fs=e&s=TIeQ9V&mibextid=0NULKw
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September 4, 2023 1:04pm
Benedict Yu

There was some discussion in GD yesterday about James Shaw. A journalist has accused James Shaw about falsifying his bio on the LinkedIn site which states that he has a BA from Victoria University.

I came across this 2015 profile of James Shaw in the New Zealand Herald.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/twelve-questions-james-shaw/CNO4YVOGO4VMJ5RBTRGWYD6ARI/

James Shaw is quoted as saying “I didn’t finish my BA. I’m more of a practical learner.”

So I guess that settles the matter. His profile, authorised by the Green Party, states he is a graduate of VUW when he is not. The only explanation would be that between 2015 and 2023 he completed his degree at VUW and graduated.

BTW he is also asked who he liked in the then National caucus. Answer – Todd Muller and Chris Finlayson. Too funny 🙂
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September 4, 2023 1:07pm
- Maggie Pie
  
  The last King of Scotland Idi Amin awarded himself a VC, DSO, MC & Lord of all the Beasts on Earth and Fishes in the Sea.
  
  James is a just liteweight by comparison 😀
  
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  September 4, 2023 1:25pm
- NothingLeft
  
  “I didn’t finish my BA. I’m ~~more of a practical learner.”~~ lazy, and realised that my BA was pointless bullshit.
  
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  September 4, 2023 2:13pm
- cmm
  
  Wasn’t it political science and comparative religion or some such useless guff?
  
  I doubt Jimmy has a practical bone in his body. Can he use a screwdriver?
  
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  September 4, 2023 2:52pm
slightlyrighty

https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/2023/08/going-for-broke-with-woke.html

Worth a read from Chris Trotter…..

from the article

” From the man who issued a “Captain’s Call” ruling-out a Wealth Tax, these lines have a disturbingly Orwellian quality to them. It wasn’t Labour’s opponents who commissioned the He Puapua Report, and then kept its recommendations hidden from both NZ First and the voting public in the months leading up to the 2020 General Election. Nor was it National, Act or NZ First that whipped-up opposition to the visit of “Posie Parker”, and then downplayed the violence unleashed upon those who came to hear women exercise their right to free speech. No, when it comes to importing culture wars, Labour is well out in front of its rivals.”
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September 4, 2023 1:18pm
surfing

Maybe already mentioned, but how many CTU members don’t like labour?

Perhaps the CTU should represent all of their members political views.
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September 4, 2023 1:49pm
- Benedict Yu
  
  Doesn’t really work like that. If you join a union you do so in the knowledge that some of your subs will end up with the Labour Party.
  
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  September 4, 2023 2:03pm
  - Biscuit
    
    Benedict, when I was a nipper – first job out of school, 1970 – you had NO CHOICE but to join a Union.
    
    Couldn’t wait to get out the ratbag movement once Compulsory Unionism was legislated against.
    
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    September 4, 2023 4:49pm
  - Taieri
    
    If you join a union you do so in the knowledge that some of your subs will end up with the Labour Party
    —————
    
    I’m a member of two unions, one in NZ and one in Australia. Neither of them supports any political party, let alone dictates to the membership who to vote for. I’d resign immediately if that was to happen.
    
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    September 4, 2023 6:16pm
Swifty

Let’s hope Tamihere and the Maori Party are next in the dock:

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/conspiracy-theorist-and-former-advance-new-zealand-candidate-billy-te-kahika-on-trial-for-electoral-fraud-charges/LKDDMC34TZGEBPDFJLSYCWZ6LQ/
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September 4, 2023 2:08pm
Maggie Pie

Things that make you go….. Hmmm 🙁

“Chris Hipkins needs to prove he is a
queer ally through action, not acting”

– Shaneel Lal

https://twitter.com/Shane58637790/status/1698474377153528288
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September 4, 2023 2:53pm
- kevn
  
  Maggie… 70% of labour MPs are I was told.
  
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  September 4, 2023 3:15pm
kglm

The Green’s universal free dental care policy (and to a lesser extent Labour’s free up to aged 30 policy) amount to a nationalisation of the dentistry sector. Presumably the state would mandate a schedule of payments to dentists for various procedures. In effect, all dentists would be employed by the state. Their incomes would plummet. It will no longer be viable to be a dentist in NZ. Most will choose to live and work in other countries. The side effect of nationalised dentistry will be very few dentists working in NZ, and so dental care being virtual unobtainable in NZ.

Do politicians never consider what unintended consequences their polices might have?
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September 4, 2023 2:55pm
- Ghost
  
  The dental association supports the labor plan, they have some concerns
  
  New Zealand Dental Association president Amanda Johnston said she was delighted with the pledge to make dental care accessible to more people though there would be workforce challenges
  
  Article
  
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  September 4, 2023 3:24pm
  - Taieri
    
    Another take on that:
    
    https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/dentist-concerned-about-cavities-labour’s-dental-policy
    
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    September 4, 2023 6:17pm
    - Ghost
      
      Yeah the president brought some of those concerns up in the above article
      
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      September 4, 2023 6:35pm
- MCōs
  
  I would imagine elective dental work will not be covered by the state
  Furthermore
  I’m picking dentists will be subsidizing a fixed amount and the patient may need to make the difference
  My dentist, for example, charges $380/filling. The MOH may decide that’s too much and only reimburse him $300.
  
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  September 4, 2023 4:34pm
  - fernglas
    
    At the moment, for kids from year 8 to age 18, the government contracts dentists to do the work. Less than 50% of dentists do contract work. I know from others that finding a contracted dentist and getting an appointment is very difficult, so dumping another 200,000 or so patients on a system that is already overburdened will only lead to massive blowouts in waiting times and accessibility for all those eligible. I have waited to see some journalist have a close look at this, but alas, they all seem too preoccupied with whether Chinese will need to pay tax on expensive houses.
    
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    September 4, 2023 5:16pm
Warren

National need to do a attack ad in one of our Main Media like this.
“Labour the Government cycled $3.8 Billion from the Covid-19 Pandemic fund
to the Housing Excellaration Fund so they could build or buy houses to back up the promise on housing, so after promising this would not happen the Labour Cabinet containing our latest Prime Minister Chris Hipkins, Finance Minister Grant Robertson, Former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, David Parker, Campaign Manager and Housing Minister Megan Woods, Andrew Little and others made a choice to use money from this fund to pay for policy that they had promised”.
So how can you trust anyone in Labour to make sure this does not happen again.
How can you trust this Government again when really it’s called misappropriation of funds that’s purpose was to help those affected with Covid-19.
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September 4, 2023 3:49pm
Paul Marsden

Wrong. National need to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative. There is nothing worse than a business that knocks their competitors. New Zealander’s just don’t like it at all.
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September 4, 2023 5:13pm
- Warren
  
  I agree but the point I am making is what I have said is fact not misinformation no lies and what Labour did.
  
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  September 4, 2023 5:48pm
- Jack5
  
  Paul Marsden’s …need to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative.
  
  That sounds like an agenda to bore voters into apathy. Some people complain that National’s a bland Labour Lite.
  
  What about some fiery, inspiring speeches?
  
  There’s plenty to fire people up with: diving economy, health systems in crisis, Immigration Department chaos, news media corrupted by State subsidies ….
  
  Light the bloody fuse or pass the matches!
  
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  September 4, 2023 8:57pm
Warren

The Spinoff and Toby Manhire have this dead right.
There is only one way to explain this personal attack campaign : as a classic execution of the dead cat strategy.
https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/04-09-2023/is-the-ctu-doing-psyops-for-the-national-party
Hipkins is out of his tree if he thinks New Zealander’s will condone this type of gutter politics.
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September 4, 2023 5:43pm
- James Stephenson
  
  I thought the CTU were promoting the fact that Chris Luxton was warning that the Labour party were out of touch and too much risk to keep in power?
  
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  September 4, 2023 8:05pm
greybeard

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300962788/tova-obriens-new-stuff-political-podcast-will-be-fearless-and-frank
Should read ….”readerless and rank”.
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September 4, 2023 5:57pm
Ghost

Sometimes an article brings such an intelligent person forward to the world

Who knew that august in the USA was also august in New Zealand and Australia….

“For me, I think of June-July-August as summer months,” she said, “so I’m just confused because do you, first of all, still call it August and, second of all, is August – if you do call it that – a winter month for you?”
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September 4, 2023 6:28pm
Maggie Pie

Surprised to see on the news that convicted indecent-sexual-assault offender Sir James Wallace was up before the Parole Board today….. after only 2 MONTHS into his two & a half year sentence.

OK, the Board did the right thing and denied his application, but told Sir James they’d see him in another two months….to which he was reported to have responded “You may not see me, I could be dead”

Butt hang about – since when did 2&1/2 years mean two months anyway??

Asking for someone who lives close to his Epsom pile.
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September 4, 2023 6:51pm
- Ghost
  
  Well at least he has served 2 months, still more than the kiddies on Xbox detention get for rape
  
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  September 4, 2023 6:56pm
Ghost

Sigh, can anyone spot the problem with this story

A gender reveal party in Mexico has taken a turn for the worst, after an overhead jet plane crashed and killed the pilot.

Article
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September 4, 2023 8:48pm

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