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October 15, 2024 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 15 October 2024

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General Debate

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Kiwiguy

Over the weekend I thought of another meaning for DEI:

Dunning-kruger
Effect
Installed.

Describes the lefties nicely.

For any lefties reading this, Dunning-Kruger is described as a cognitive bias in which people with limited competence in a particular domain overestimate their abilities.

Congratulations on finding your tribe Jacinda, Chippy, et al.
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October 15, 2024 8:04am
- Burtland
  
  humble used to be the Kiwi signature – its been replaced by Dunning Kruger
  – Cindy is our best example
  
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  October 15, 2024 10:30am
- Sacha
  
  Add in news readers/writers.
  
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  October 15, 2024 10:40am
- Phronesis
  
  There’s a related cognitive bias that is I suspect even more dangerous. Smart people also overestimate how intelligent most people are. This is how we got DEI. People in leadership said let’s employ people on the basis of something other than merit, after all how incompetent could they possibly be. Well the answer is, completely incompetent. Now that those DEI hires are in leadership positions there’s no going back.
  
  Everyone needs to acknowledge that some people are better able to do a job than other people. There are real differences in abilities.
  
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  October 15, 2024 11:15am
  - Burtland
    
    took a thousand years to construct a working system based on ability – all gone in a generation – thanks McKinsey & Company
    
    the problem is positive feedback – DEI employ DEI
    
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    October 15, 2024 2:29pm
kowtow

Judith Collins KC was very quick to condemn the “misogyny” around the social media comment on HMNZS Reefwrecker , amplified by te legacy meedia paahti .

Not so fast in relation to the racism and anti constitutionalism coming from the Solicitor General’s office .
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October 15, 2024 8:05am
- imalwaysright
  
  Is anyone else sick of seeing the environmental carnage inflicted by the six bubbles coming from the vent?
  
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  October 15, 2024 10:19am
- mogg
  
  ‘The lady doth protest too much’
  
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  October 15, 2024 10:54am
- Fender
  
  Isn’t she just disappointing, I was expecting big things when she got the top job and liked crusher but in reality she has folded to just another bureaucrat, her covid stance was the beginning of the end and maybe we dodged a bullet that she was axed so quickly
  
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  October 15, 2024 1:23pm
  - Burtland
    
    the bigger worry is Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology
    – not sure she brings anything to that role, law is not the right background
    
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    October 15, 2024 2:36pm
  - Pope Punctilious II
    
    If you’re disappointed, you haven’t paid much attention to her voting record.
    
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    October 15, 2024 3:10pm
Souvlaki

Luxon was frankly abysmal when queried by Hosking on issues raised in Davids post yesterday on Justice Department advice.
Can’t his colleagues pull him aside? All piss & wind imo!🤦‍♂️.

https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2024/10/new_prosecution_guidelines.html
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October 15, 2024 8:09am
- Chuck Bird
  
  Vote Act or NZF
  
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  October 15, 2024 8:11am
- Pope Punctilious II
  
  Which of his colleagues do you imagine is going to pull him aside?
  
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  October 15, 2024 8:26am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    None. They are all scared of losing their Warrants.
    
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    October 15, 2024 9:58am
  - kowtow
    
    The Anonymous Ones , the donors , the number crunchers , the tune callers ,focus groups managers , the Coup Plotters , in short the Real Power Behind the Throne.
    
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    October 15, 2024 10:03am
    - Burtland
      
      who sets luxons KPIs ? whos on the board?
      
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      October 15, 2024 10:35am
  - Jack5
    
    No Chris Luxon, no Coalition, no ACT in government, no NZ First in Government, no National in Government.
    
    Luxon knows how to mould and run a coalition.
    
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    October 15, 2024 10:18am
    - peterwn
      
      Precisely and that is what people forget – they expect him to be all things to all people.
      Chris Luxon did an amazing job to get the coalition up and running and to keep it going (especially with keeping mercurial Winston in the tent). It is like having to drive a Troika where the three horses want to go off in different directions.
      A belated attempt by Labour etc to get a left wing coalition going did not even get past first base partly because of Chris Hipkin’s major strategic blunder when he announced he would never go into coalition with Winston.
      
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      October 15, 2024 1:25pm
  - MCōs
    
    Do you think these people inhabit a soundproof bubble?
    I would suggest they’re bombarded with plenty of advice, but don’t necessarily have the political skills to navigate their way through
    
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    October 15, 2024 10:20am
- Gravelroad
  
  M. Hosking had a very good summary of the issue prior to the 7.30am “news”.
  He said he was going to ask the PM about it – no messing.
  I did not get to hear it due to other commitment, but family member who did hear the interview said it was waffle from Mr Luxon.
  Disappointing. We want leadership not appeasement.
  
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  October 15, 2024 8:30am
  - gravedodger
    
    He was dancing on a pin head Gravel relying on separation of Government and The Judiciary theory.
    He just needs to have the AG write to his top justice civil servant reiterating the current policy of equal treatment for all with no ancestry being involved in all administration of Justice. Should a small segment of the population consistently become involved it is the problem for that person alone regardless of ethnicity.
    
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    October 15, 2024 10:22am
    - fernglas
      
      “He just needs to have the AG write to his top justice civil servant reiterating the current policy of equal treatment for all with no ancestry being involved in all administration of Justice.”
      Um, what part of the separation of powers did you miss? That would be a gross interference with the role of the S-G. If the Government doesn’t like it, they can legislate against it. What they can’t do is seek to influence how the S-G does her job.
      
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      October 15, 2024 6:28pm
    - NZer In Exile
      
      “He was dancing on a pin head Gravel relying on separation of Government and The Judiciary theory.”
      
      And when the judiciary completely lose the plot and get totally out of sync with public expectations (as indicated by who the public elected to govern the country)? Time to form a huddle with the legal big brains and work out a how to oust those undermining the will of the people.
      
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      October 15, 2024 7:20pm
  - leoj
    
    As Mrs Slocum correctly observed:
    
    Weak! Weak as dishwater!
    
    But then so are the National Party at large.
    
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    October 15, 2024 10:50am
    - OTGO
      
      Or like my Dad used to say, “weak as a boarding house cup of tea”.
      
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      October 15, 2024 1:27pm
- Nigel Kearney
  
  I think some people are attributing principles to the National party, when their words and actions have consistently failed to suggest any such principles exist.
  
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  October 15, 2024 8:57am
  - Mike
    
    It’s a bit naive to expect our political leaders to have fixed principles beyond what they already largely agree upon.
    
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    October 15, 2024 9:17am
  - GJM
    
    Both sides are Marxists. Labour the Karl Marx kind. National the Groucho kind. “These are my principles, if you don’t like them, I have others”.
    
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    October 15, 2024 10:44am
- pdm
  
  Souv – I covered this over at No Minister late yesterday after pinching the piece from Lushington Brady at The Good Oil.
  
  Have a look – some of the (few) comments are interesting.
  https://nominister.wordpress.com/2024/10/14/is-luxon-a-pm-or-a-ceo/#comment-38388
  
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  October 15, 2024 9:32am
  - rouppe
    
    I heard Luxon on the radio this morning.
    
    He is correct that the OAG is independent, and if he went steaming on in there, there would be, probably rightfully, accusations of political interference in the Justice sector.
    
    However I think he’s using that as an excuse to do nothing. I don’t know what goes on in the prosecutors office, but I would be astonished if there was widespread “get the Maori, and excuse the honky” behavior there.
    Is there bias in the office? Probably. Everyone is biased. I am. You probably are (with all due respect).
    
    You may get your hackles up about that but my observations in the real world show it, generally speaking.
    
    So what should he do? Practically, how does he tell the AG and the prosecution office generally to remove race from the decisions they make (notwithstanding that should be a given).
    
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    October 15, 2024 10:37am
    - leoj
      
      He could start by passing the Treaty Principles bill which includes equal rights for all.
      
      However, being a maori activist and sympathiser, he won’t.
      
      National – a dead loss for the country.
      
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      October 15, 2024 10:54am
    - artemisia
      
      Telling the AG and prosecutors via Mike Hosking probably a bad idea. I’d say there are some closed door conversations happening.
      
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      October 15, 2024 11:34am
      - rouppe
        
        Hopefully so. Proof will be if any amendment comes out.
        
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        October 15, 2024 12:31pm
      - kowtow
        
        Behind closed doors , very undemocratic.
        
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        October 15, 2024 1:01pm
    - RoboRob
      
      Passing any bill, doesn’t have to be the treaty principals one, that explicitly outlaws discrimination by race would do it just fine. Perhaps a nice written constitution would help too.
      
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      October 15, 2024 11:52am
      - gravedodger
        
        Gravely doubt that Robo, who will design and write that constitution, Here is a clue, think Geoffrey Palmer, Sian Elias, Justice Glazebrook, Rt Hon Helen Winkelman , No chance Robo Rob or Gravedodger choices will make the cabal.
        
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        October 15, 2024 4:28pm
- bennerg
  
  Since alcoholics are over represented in vehicle accidents, maybe we should direct the judiciary to be extra lenient on anyone brought before them who is an alcoholic.
  
  Of course not!
  
  When there is a problem, you do not excuse the behaviour, you address the source issues, and learn from those who have not fallen into problems.
  
  At Alcoholics Anonymous, I understand the first thing they seek from each member before they can join is to acknowledge that they are an alcoholic.
  
  Maybe the same is required from “maoridom”, and then, and only then, can the root cause(s) be addressed.
  
  And I am not suggesting the it is “colonialism” or any of the other anti pakeha rantings. We know that over 200 years the maori peoples have had to come from what was in reality a stone age culture, no written language, music, industry or structured system of government, to where we are today. The Europeans had almost over 2 millenia to manage that process.
  
  But we know that the majority of people of maori descent are not criminals, and have been able to learn quickly and live successful lives, and become leaders in their fields. Maybe it is time to look at why those have been successful, and apply the lessons they learned to the ones still struggling.
  
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  October 15, 2024 9:33am
  - mandk
    
    It is true that the colonists made Māori become lawless.
    
    After all, as Sir Ngata Apirana pointed out, before colonisation, Māori had no law. Might was right.
    
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    October 15, 2024 9:54am
  - artemisia
    
    The majority of people with Maori heritage have more other heritage.
    
    Yes to root causes, that would need some unbiased data. Like is there misplaced entitlement to other people’s stuff at play.
    
    One Maori organisation I worked in for several years had, in less than 1 year, 4 instances of defalcation (money theft by a trusted person). One fairly minor, 3 not so much. One involved directly stealing from a client. In that case the thief was only found out when the client figured out something was way wrong.
    
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    October 15, 2024 10:33am
    - imalwaysright
      
      “Like, is there misplaced entitlement to other people’s stuff at play?”
      
      I think you’ve nailed it.
      
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      October 15, 2024 10:36am
    - gravedodger
      
      @ artesmisia,
      “The majority of people with Maori heritage have more other heritage”.
      Some have none at all but place a bit of Jade on a bootlace, have a bit of ink on their face, learn a few words of Te Lingo and lo and behold they become instant Maori.
      Just as with instant Noodles they are tasteless, useless and of no value.
      Google Bruce Pascoe the holder of a seat at a leading University in Australia and self appointed expert on Aboriginal history.
      
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      October 15, 2024 12:00pm
    - Media hater
      
      I worked at MSD in the ’90’s. About 15 people were dismissed during my time due to some kind of fraud. Every single one of them was a Pacific Islander (not maori), including the head cheque writer for emergency grants, who granted herself a DPB, lol.
      
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      October 15, 2024 3:10pm
  - NZer In Exile
    
    Bennerg: “We know that over 200 years the maori peoples have had to come from what was in reality a stone age culture, no written language, music, industry or structured system of government, to where we are today.”
    
    All Maori descendants of today were, like everyone else, born into the modern world. They are generally not morons by default, so CAN avail themselves of the great many opportunities this rich modern life provides.
    
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    October 15, 2024 7:26pm
- Simon
  
  Coalition partners holding NZ together. National are utter shit.
  
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  October 15, 2024 9:39am
  - Colville
    
    Yip shockingly shit…but 100 times better than the lefty alternative!
    
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    October 15, 2024 2:09pm
  - NZer In Exile
    
    I’d feel a lot more comfortable if National clearly disavowed itself from the likes of Chris Finlayson’s vision for NZ. Until they do, they are seen as severely compromised and untrustworthy by those with their political eyes open.
    
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    October 15, 2024 7:29pm
- Scott
  
  Souvlaki – respectfully disagree with you and here’s why.
  
  Luxon speaks softly, he does waffle and he doesn’t generally make strong statements. I would argue this is good because he faces an antagonistic left wing media and a woke electorate.
  
  But here’s the thing. This govt has been totally transformative and in less than a year 3 waters gone, He Puapua gone, Maori health authority gone.
  
  But yes there is a lot to do. Many people are very woke. This govt is not a dictatorship and can’t just change everything. There is a lot of resistance from the wokerati.
  
  But Luxon speaks softly and carries a big stick. We should support him. He’s doing great.
  
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  October 15, 2024 9:42am
  - pdm
    
    Scott I disagree with your last sentence – I would say:
    
    He is doing as expected BUT, he could do better!!!
    
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    October 15, 2024 9:58am
    - Scott
      
      pdm – sure he could do better. However I would argue if he spoke like many of the commenters here would like him to speak, he’d be in charge of a one term govt.
      
      The main job of a govt is to legislate and this govt has repealed almost the entire Labour agenda and is replacing it at a great rate of knots.
      
      They are not Labour lite. Luxon heads up a coalition that has repealed and is replacing almost the entire agenda of the last govt. And that’s a good thing. 😎
      
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      October 15, 2024 10:19am
      - gravedodger
        
        Err perhaps on the news this morning re Solicitor General to Police Prosecutors dated 9/01 the pushback from the Public servant needs a reminder who is the servant and who is the Boss?
        
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        October 15, 2024 12:48pm
  - imalwaysright
    
    “But Luxon speaks softly and carries a big stick”
    
    More of a pool noodle than a stick.
    
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    October 15, 2024 10:04am
  - kowtow
    
    ‘This govt has been totally transformative and in less than a year 3 waters gone, He Puapua gone, Maori health authority gone.’
    
    ‘Totally transformative’ they have not been.
    
    There are no shortages of hangovers left in those 3 examples.
    Papering over the cracks comes to mind, but transformative , not nearly.
    
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    October 15, 2024 10:08am
  - Philview
    
    The poll last night with NZ First on 5% indicates the fine margins this Government is operating in. He Puapua isn’t really gone as we have an Labour/Green/TPM biding their time sitting on an extreme agenda.
    
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    October 15, 2024 11:28am
- Inandout
  
  Sou, I think Mike commented on one text saying Luxon was a ‘gutless wonder’. Mike said he’ wouldn’t go that far’, well that was his public comment anyway. Politicians are masters of diversion so watch for Wellington CC being taken over by a Commissioner any day soon.
  
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  October 15, 2024 9:50am
  - Bobba Fret
    
    The sooner the better for one of NZ’s major cities. I know a lot of people say, they voted for it, so let them stew, but this is our second / third largest city? I want it to be successful and help NZ get out of the doo doo that the last government left us in.
    
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    October 15, 2024 12:11pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  I just received an email about this from Don Brash of Hobson’s Pledge.
  Started to post a comment, then remembered your post Souvlaki.
  National really is Labour lite and in bed with Maori. This division has to be nipped in the bud – like yesterday.
  
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  October 15, 2024 9:56am
  - mogg
    
    ‘Turning a country around is similar to turning an oil tanker’
    Have you stopped to think what the situation might be if Labour had not been booted out. Think back to the $11B health restructuring and what the end result was.
    
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    October 15, 2024 11:08am
    - Steve Otto(North Shore)
      
      Go back to Souvlaki’s link to the post two days ago.
      Ever worked with rust? I have. You can not weld it. You have to go back to the basic structure. Same applies here. Cut out all of the shit and start again.
      It is not about Health, it is about a broken, divisive system.
      
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      October 15, 2024 2:34pm
- Frank Hematuria
  
  I agree. A man without backbone. Jacinda Ardern in a businessman’s suit. The Solicitor-General reports to the Attorney-General. The Attorney-General is a Minister in Luxon’s Cabinet. Luxon’s Cabinet has a stated policy of revoking race-based policies and practices. Luxon’s approach should be to tell the Attorney-General that the Solicitor-General laying down guidelines that are diametrically opposed to the Government’s required direction is unacceptable. The Attorney-General should relay that message to the Solicitor-General together with the advice that if her unacceptable guidelines are not rescinded the Government will have lost all confidence in her and advise her to step down. If Luxon and Collins need guidance on this they should talk to Helen Clark about how she eased out a Commissioner of Police in whom she had lost confidence. It can be done, if somebody with balls is in charge.
  
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  October 15, 2024 9:58am
  - Clyde
    
    Spot on process which Judith Collins should follow. Luxon needs to instruct Collins to do as you suggest.
    
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    October 15, 2024 10:45am
  - pdm
    
    `It can be done, if somebody with balls is in charge.’
    
    Could be fortunate Judith Collins is front and center on this then.
    
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    October 15, 2024 12:30pm
    - Colville
      
      The utterly unelectable Judith?
      
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      October 15, 2024 7:21pm
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    Let’s give Chris Luxon a chance to do just this.
    
    Don’t forget, Peter Hughes has left the SSC head role early, while the Health NZ Board have been zapped. Some progress has been made.
    
    Let’s add Una to the list headed by Adrian Orr.
    
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    October 15, 2024 1:03pm
  - NZer In Exile
    
    If I’m not mistaken Luxon’s approach seems to be to slowly but surely take out the trash. See the slow but sure demise of the absolutely loony “disinformation project”. I hope I’m right and the steam roller will surely catch up with other toxic bludging loons.
    
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    October 15, 2024 7:33pm
- NoFax
  
  I am reminded of Tony Benn’s famous questions on power:
  What power have you got?
  Where did you get it from?
  In whose interests do you exercise it?
  To whom are you accountable?
  And how can we get rid of you?
  
  Apparently, in NZ we have a person i.e. the Solicitor-General with immense power without accountability and we, as citizens via our elected representatives, cannot get rid of him. Apparently, our elective representatives cannot even raise concerns over this person’s actions. The public service needs a massive overhaul and those elected must have final say if we are to have a democracy – the people will decide via the ballot box if those elected representatives are doing a good job or not.
  
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  October 15, 2024 3:17pm
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    Her, not him
    
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    October 15, 2024 6:57pm
Cassandra

A Scottish politician has been expelled by the SNP for saying that Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza. He deplored the war and argued for a ceasefire but stated that it wasn’t genocide, just as Hiroshima was not genocide. The SNP Scottish Asians for Peace division led the expulsion move. “I see the Clyde foaming with much blood”.
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October 15, 2024 8:13am
- kowtow
  
  “Scottish Asians” , therein the problem .
  
  Surely members of an extremist , racist , ethno nationalist party such as the SNP should just be “Scottish” without the sub race/religion groupings , otherwise they’re just Pythonesque Judean people’s liberation front types , comrade.
  
  Clearly the “Asians for Peace” is just code for something completely different.
  
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  October 15, 2024 8:22am
  - sirknz
    
    They had Hamza Yousif as their leader prior to the recent UK election…
    
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    October 15, 2024 10:48am
  - NZer In Exile
    
    In the UK “Asian” is often code for Indian, Pakistani or Bangladeshi. Not sure why as those three peoples usually are significantly different in appearance and culture to what Aus and NZ generally regard as “Asian”.
    
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    October 15, 2024 7:39pm
- PeeJay
  
  I saw the headline in the Guardian yesterday (SNP expels MSP over ‘utterly abhorrent’ comments on Israel-Hamas conflict). Clicked on the article expecting to read some horrific comments. He replied on X, to one former SNP MSP who wrote that Israel was committing genocide, that “If Israel wanted to commit genocide, they would have killed 10 times as many”.
  
  Despite reading the article twice, I was still struggling to find the ‘utterly abhorrent’ comments. As he seemed to also call for a ceasefire, negotiations and peace, balanced, factual and neutral seemed to be a more appropriate description of his comments.
  
  Seems to me, the guy was expelled for simply holding the wrong view and not going along with the usual genocide crap – that seems to be what was ‘utterly abhorrent’ to the left.
  
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  October 15, 2024 8:26am
  - NZer In Exile
    
    Hence the creation of the The Off-Guardian (after the original Guardian went woke-insane).
    
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    October 15, 2024 7:42pm
- David Garrett
  
  Cass: there is a huge amount of ignorant nonsense written about the atomic bombing of Japan
  
  Firstly, the yanks estimated they would suffer 1 million casualties if they had to invade the home islands – and the Japanese would suffer up to 5 miilion casualties, including the children being trained to attack soldiers with sharpened bamboo sticks and to roll under tanks before detonating suicide vests.
  
  Secondly, the fire bombings of Tokyo and other cities caused far more casualties than the atomic bombs did
  
  Thirdly, because of the atomic bombings of 1945 the world knows just how destructive atomic weapons can be – and the A bombs of 1945 were mere fire crackers compared to what has been developed since.
  
  The point of course is that the bombings of 1945 have acted as a powerful deterrent ever since. Had they not happened, it would have been much easier for a “first use” to have happened much later with far more powerful weapons
  
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  October 15, 2024 8:32am
  - Nigel Kearney
    
    We should not accept the idea that you can deliberately kill civilians just to discourage the enemy from continuing to fight, in the hope of preventing more deaths later. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were wrong.
    
    Gaza is not like that because the Hamas is hiding amongst the civilian population, which make them responsible for civilian deaths, not Israel.
    
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    October 15, 2024 9:02am
    - Chuck Bird
      
      I agree with your last paragraph.
      
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      October 15, 2024 9:06am
    - rockape
      
      Governments and countries go to war, soldiers are sent to war, why sacrifice only the soldiers?
      
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      October 15, 2024 9:19am
      - Mike
        
        For about 150 years, governments have attempted to define laws of armed conflict. This has had some effect in protecting civilian populations, and some countries have enforced sanctions against their own military personnel.
        
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        October 15, 2024 9:24am
      - NothingLeft
        
        But it only works when govts give a shit about their international reputation.
        
        Russia has taken to executing ukrainian prisoners on an almost daily basis (drone videos coming out all the time), on top of their previous torturing of most prisoners taken during conflict. Raping, torturing and murdering large numbers of civilians, indiscriminantly targetting civilians, un vehicles, emergency services, hospitals, with missile strikes and even fpv drones chasing down and murdering random civilians as ‘training’ in kherson. Using chemical weapons to clear bunkers etc.
        
        There are several hundred thousand individually documented war crimes to date. But nothing happens, and large sections of the world continue to trade with Russia. China, India, Hungary etc.
        
        And still the world sits by and refuses to supply Ukraine with missiles to hit inside Russia, and dribbles in other weapons keeping front line Ukrainian troops starved for materiel.
        
        Demonstrating that the world doesn’t really care much about enforcing the rules-based order of international relations when it cost them anything.
        
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        October 15, 2024 10:24am
      - NZer In Exile
        
        Nothing Left, you realise 6 billion people will die within the first couple of hours of a nuclear escalation? Once the first nuke goes off it’s all auto-mutually-assured-destruction from there. After that anyone surviving long term will likely eventually find themselves starting from scratch back in the stone age.
        
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        October 15, 2024 7:50pm
    - Mike
      
      Not really much different at all. The allied strategic bombing campaign maintained the pretense that it was striking military targets and that mass civilian deaths were an unavoidable consequence. The case in Gaza is very similar.
      
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      October 15, 2024 9:21am
      - mandk
        
        Would you care to remind us of what preceded the allied strategic bombing campaign? Surely, you haven’t forgotten about the Blitz?
        
        In your eagerness to highlight the consequences of the allies’ actions, you downplay the evils perpetrated by Germany.
        
        Similarly, while you point your finger at Israel, you are ignoring the role of Iran and its puppet militias.
        
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        October 15, 2024 10:05am
      - Mike
        
        I’m not ignoring anything. I’m describing, neutrally, how conflicts proceed despite the limited attempts to impose agreed international rules. Pretty much all states ignore international law when it suits them.
        
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        October 15, 2024 11:01am
    - Benedict Yu
      
      That is naive. You are making judgements free of an understanding of events at the time. The ONLY alternative to using those bombs was an invasion of Japan. I suggest that you read accounts of the invasion of Okinawa. An invasion of the main islands would have been Okinawa x100. Millions of Japanese civilians would have died in battle, or from disease and starvation.
      
      It was a terrible time. From your comment I wonder whether you fully understand that.
      
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      October 15, 2024 9:23am
      - David Garrett
        
        Bene: I am hoping Nigel is either a young man, or one who has not studied WW II history in any detail – hopefully he is both.
        
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        October 15, 2024 9:27am
      - Mike
        
        The full blockade may have compelled surrender over a much longer time, but at the cost of lives expelling the Japanese from their remaining Asian conquests and allowing the Soviets an even greater share of the spoils.
        
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        October 15, 2024 9:28am
      - Benedict Yu
        
        Nigel might want to Google “the rape of Nanking”. Japan set the tone in 1937 by killing 200,000 civilians in a few days.
        
        Harry Truman was determined that Japan would surrender or “face a rain of ruin from the air”.
        
        https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/august-6-1945-statement-president-announcing-use-bomb
        
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        October 15, 2024 9:43am
      - Stellaboxer
        
        So the fire bombing of Tokyo couldn’t be repeated? Or a announced demonstration of the coast of a city? Maybe they wanted to a, see what they actually did to a city and b, show the Russians what they could do to cities. I’m not saying these were the intent but to suggest there was no alternative is not in my opinion correct.
        
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        October 15, 2024 9:44am
      - David Garrett
        
        Stella: The destruction of Tokyo by fire bombing took place over several different raids, not just one. Other cities were also largely destroyed by fire – with no effect on the will of the Japanese government to quit. Indeed even after the Nagasaki bombing, a clique within the government still wished to continue, even trying to mount an armed coup d’etat.
        
        The “demonstration” idea was carefully considered and rejected, because a detonation over the ocean could not possibly show the level of destructive power the bomb had. For that, you had to have buildings and, sadly, people.
        
        As of course you know, the first bombing wasn’t enough – after the bomb was dropped the Japanese government were given an ultimatum: surrender or face utter destruction. As I have said, even after the second bomb was dropped elements in the government still wanted to carry on. IIRC there was even talk of deposing the Emperor, who had by that stage concluded – and told his people in his first ever radio broadcast – that surrender was the only alternative.
        
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        October 15, 2024 9:59am
      - kowtow
        
        ‘The Japanese refer to the attempted coup d’état on Aug. 14, 1945, the last night of the Second World War, as the “Kyujo Incident.” Ringleaders Kenji Hatanaka and Jiro Shiizaki, officers at the army ministry, led a battalion of rebels into the Imperial Palace. Lying brazenly, Hatanaka and Shiizaki told the commander of the Second Imperial Guard Regiment that the top brass had ordered the palace sealed off from the outside. The guards, believing that a broader revolt was afoot, agreed to comply with their instructions pending the arrival of the Eastern Army. But Lieutenant General Takeshi Mori, commander of the guards, smelled a rat. Refusing to join the plot, he was shot dead in cold blood. ‘
        
        https://time.com/5877433/wwii-japanese-surrender-coup/
        
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        October 15, 2024 10:19am
      - Jack5
        
        David Garrett in his 8.32 post: …. the Yanks estimated they would suffer 1 million casualties if they had to invade the home islands …
        
        Many thousands of New Zealand and Australian soldiers would also have been killed.
        
        Towards the end of WW2 but before Japan’s surrender, the US was so strong in the Pacific that NZ was able to withdraw most of its infantry from this theatre on the ground NZ needed manpower for farming for a hungry world.
        
        America even supplied NZ with hundreds of farm tractors under Lend Lease.
        
        However, a Japan invasion would have entailed soldier casualties on the scale of World War 1’s Western front.
        
        America would have rightly expected strong fighting support even from little New Zealand. We wouldn’t have got away with artillery units as in Korea or Vietnam, though we also maintained an infantry company or so in the latter.
        
        Nor would we have met expectations by just supplying planes or ships. America had a surplus of them.
        
        It would have wanted full ground-fighting support from Australia, NZ and the rest of the Commonwealth.
        
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        October 15, 2024 10:36am
      - Tom Hunter
        
        The ONLY alternative to using those bombs was an invasion of Japan.
        
        Actually there was a third option: total blockade, and by early 1945 the Americans had that power, having finally figured out how to get their subs into the Sea of Japan where they took a terrible toll on coastal shipping, plus bombing and strafing raids by P-51’s that shot up every little ship in every little harbour.
        
        Japan might have surrendered by 1948 under such a blockade but in the meantime it would almost certainly have starved millions of Japanese to death. In short, an even more terrible way of achieving victory than invasion and the atom bombs.
        
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        October 15, 2024 11:45am
      - Ra Henare
        
        The use of the Atomic bombs was not only to prevent estimated losses of life, but primarily to stop the Russian invasion of Japan.!!!!!!!!
        
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Japanese_War
        
        So the argument that the bombs were used to save Allied military lives can be discounted somewhat.
        
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        October 15, 2024 8:30pm
    - David Garrett
      
      Nigel: So in your view, 5,000,000 Japanese civilian casualties – not to mention 1 million American military – was preferable to the couple of hundred thousand directly and indirectly affected by the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings?
      
      That’s far too cruel for me mate… for me, the fewer deaths the better, and there is no question that the A bombs led to far fewer casualties than would otherwise have been the case – in WW II and since.
      
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      October 15, 2024 9:26am
      - Stellaboxer
        
        Curious why they used two different bombs on the two targets, why it’s almost as if they were wanting to see the most effective version. Im sure that whilst the shortening of the war and preservation of allied servicemen was a very serious concern when considering the bombs use it was not the only one or even the foremost one. Hey put it down to cynicism.
        
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        October 15, 2024 10:16am
      - David Garrett
        
        Stella: I’d stop now mate…you are just illustrating your ignorance about this issue.
        
        (And Yes, two different types of A bomb were used, and one of the reasons for that was undoubtedly trying to discover which one was the more effective. The other reason was plutonium was much more readily available than U-235. That doesn’t change the fact that the primary reason for using the bombs was to end the war quickly)
        
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        October 15, 2024 10:37am
      - Jack5
        
        Elaborating on David Garrett in his post at 9.59: … The destruction of Tokyo by fire bombing took place over several different raids, not just one…
        
        There was one devastating fire raid on Tokyo on the night of 9-10 March 1945.
        
        About 280 B-29 bombers rained cans of napalm on the city. The civilian death toll was 90,000 to 100,000 compared with about 80,000 in the Hiroshima atomic bomb blast, and about 40,000 at Nagasaki.
        
        The fire raid also left a million people homeless. The Wikipedia account:
        
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo_(10_March_1945)
        
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        October 15, 2024 10:55am
      - rouppe
        
        There were reasons
        
        Two types were needed because there was only enough uranium for one gun-type weapon, and the U.S. government knew it would need to make more than one weapon. The insurmountable challenges associated with a plutonium gun-type design prompted the shift to the implosion-style weapon.
        
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        October 15, 2024 10:56am
      - Mike
        
        IIRC there were only those two bombs ready to go in August 1945.
        
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        October 15, 2024 11:03am
      - Tom Hunter
        
        Curious why they used two different bombs on the two targets,
        
        @Stellaboxer
        Other replies have already partially answered that but it’s the result of the American’s twofold process for developing an atom bomb.
        
        They knew that the uranium weapon was almost certain to work because they could test the gun-type design with what was basically “watered-down” uranium (perhaps only 10-20% U-235 IIRC) in what became known as the “Dragon Experiment” where they’d drop a chunk of the metal from a small tower (maybe 30 feet high) through a donut shaped piece of the same metal, measuring the neutron bursts for each drop. It got its name from the famous physicist Richard Feynman, who said that it “was tickling the tail of the dragon”.
        
        It was sent to be dropped because until the Trinity test they didn’t know if they had a backup with the plutonium implosion weapon. The only thing they were really unsure about Little Boy was the size of the explosion, even after Trinity.
        
        The second was dropped to make it clear to the Japanese that the US had a production line of them and that it wasn’t a one-off.
        
        As others have pointed out the reason why there were no more U-235 bombs was that production of it was many times slower than plutonium because it required physical processes of separation rather than the chemical ones of plutonium. Groves and Oppenheimer figured that out as early as 1943, hence the pressure to design implosion, which was the only way the Pu weapons would work – and which was much less certain than the Little Boy bomb, hence the need to test the former first.
        
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        October 15, 2024 12:00pm
      - GJM
        
        The US were expecting so many casualties from Operation Olympic and Corenet that they made so many purple hearts that they were still using the stocks up after the Gulf War, despite Korea and Vietnam. At the end of WW2, the reserve of decorations was approximately 495,000.
        
        https://www.historynewsnetwork.org/article/75-years-later-purple-hearts-made-for-an-invasion-
        
        It puts the scale of expected losses in context.
        
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        October 15, 2024 4:08pm
    - Biscuit
      
      Nigel, moral arguments only really work if both parties in a conflict ARE moral.
      
      I’ve been to Hiroshima – and the memorial – well, one of them – details, quite objectively, why Hiroshima was chosen as the target and the reasons why the A-bomb had been used. It goes a little deeper than the ‘to shorten the war and save half a million US soldiers’ lives’ story you’re used to hearing and includes the politics between the US and the Soviet Union as well as justification for spending so much money on building the bomb.
      
      Vladimir Putin, as one example, carries on about ‘destroying’ London as his war implodes about him and it’s not hard to imagine that the Mullahs in Iran would (if they had the bomb) quite happily destroy every Israeli city. Similarly, the current Kim in North Korea is mouthing that all of Japan, all of South Korea and – now – even San Francisco are in danger at his fingers.
      
      I doubt your (well meaning) words that such deeds would be ‘wrong’ will make them rethink those notions.
      
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      October 15, 2024 9:31am
      - David Garrett
        
        It goes a little deeper than the ‘to shorten the war and save half a million US soldiers’ lives’ story you’re used to hearing
        
        Biscuit: I am extremely surprised to hear that the Hiroshima memorial accurately states the political situation of the time – especially since, as I understand it, Japanese school kids are still taught that WW II was all America’s fault, with no mention of Pearl Harbor, or at least not acknowledging that it was an unprovoked attack not preceded by a declaration of war.
        
        And when I studied WW II history at uni, the accepted estimated casualty figures were not half a million US, but 1 million, plus 5 million Japanese, both military and civilian.
        
        As BY has noted, a land invasion of the Home Islands would have been 100 times worse than Okinawa, where a large number of women killed themselves and their children rather than surrender. It would literally have been a bloodbath.
        
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        October 15, 2024 9:46am
      - Ra Henare
        
        Re Davids comment that Japanese kids are taught that America started the war.
        
        Maybe Davids Uni education maybe missed the reason the Japanese bombed pearl harbour.
        
        https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/why-did-japan-attack-pearl-harbor
        
        Maybe some similarities why Hamas attacked Israel a year ago.???
        
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        October 15, 2024 8:37pm
    - Mr Nobody NZ
      
      The Alternative of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a multitude of Operations like “Meeting House” which killed an estimate 110,000 and left over 1,000,000 homeless and descriptions of a city such as:
      
      “Tokyo burned for days after the MEETINGHOUSE raid. Human corpses littered the streets seemingly everywhere within the target area. Burnt charcoal-like piles on streets, corners, and inside homes were stark reminders that a human being had burned to death on that spot. Stacks of corpses that had melted together to form piles two meters high, or more, and were common sights throughout the area. The city’s river slowed to a trickle as stacks of dead bodies drifted down-stream, clustered together around bridges, and stopped the flow of the river like some hideous, grotesque beaver dam. It would be weeks before Tokyo officials could begin to dispose of the dead and clear the rubble.”
      https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/hellfire-earth-operation-meetinghouse
      
      The difference between Hiroshima and Nagasaki vs Operation Meeting House is that Hiroshima and Nagasaki was achieved with one plane:one bomb vs Meeting House which used over 270 B-29’s and dropped over 1,665 tons of incendiary bombs.
      
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      October 15, 2024 10:41am
    - JimBobJoe
      
      “We should not accept the idea that you can deliberately kill civilians just to discourage the enemy from continuing to fight, in the hope of preventing more deaths later. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were wrong.”
      
      Two responses.
      
      1/ Killing civilians is inevitable in warfare and if it stops conflict in a quicker timescale that is actually a net positive as further death is avoided. Wars that go on and on kill far more people. It is a moral imperative to end war as quickly as possible – and if that means area bombing then so be it….
      
      2/Bombing the two Japanese cities was just in terms of avoiding further destruction and death in the Japanese Archipelago . Okinawa demonstrated what fighting on the main Japanese Islands would be like. It would have taken millions and millions of lives. Truman deciding to use the A Bomb avoided millions and millions of Japanese civilians dying in a hopeless cause.
      
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      October 15, 2024 8:43pm
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    Hiroshima and Nagasaki unfortunately had to happen.
    My Mum’s brother was a career Army man, a cook. Did 7 tours I think. He went back to Tokyo where he was stationed (in the Korean War) and brought home a Japanese Bride. Aunty Moniko, lovely lady. Aunty was from Hiroshima. She saw it all. Lost her whole family. I tried a few times to talk to her but she just clammed up. Too painful. For some reason they had to be married in Japan, Mum sent her wedding dress to her.
    A new life in NZ for an orphan.
    
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    October 15, 2024 10:12am
    - Mike
      
      Japanese spouses were generally discouraged. I don’t think there would have been any assistance to bring a Japanese (or Korean) fiancée here, but once wedded probably easier.
      Possibly covered in the J force and Korean War official histories.
      
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      October 15, 2024 11:11am
      - Steve Otto(North Shore)
        
        Uncle was not liked at the RSA at first. Very frowned upon. In later years Uncle and Aunty were accepted and went to RSA functions regularly.
        You see Mike, Aunty did not ask to be born in Hiroshima. She did not ask for WW2. It all worked out for her in the end.
        
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        October 15, 2024 2:41pm
Matt Long

Ben Thomas is upset that the government is reviewing racial privilege in legislation. Apparently it will be worse than Act’s defining the Treaty Principles Bill.
Ohh dear, how sad, never mind.
https://x.com/BenThomasNZ/status/1845553979406884869
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October 15, 2024 8:13am
- kowtow
  
  Legislation ?
  They need to extend that review to “guidelines” too as per the Jagose outrage.
  
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  October 15, 2024 8:24am
Pope Punctilious II

Tragedy or comedy?

Paddy Gower is worried he’d let people down if he quit “journalism”

What better illustration of the bubble of delusion and self-importance that media luvvies live in?
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October 15, 2024 8:18am
- sirknz
  
  Who else was disappointed that he has continued?
  
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  October 15, 2024 11:08am
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  Perhaps the people he has in mind are his creditors
  
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  October 15, 2024 1:10pm
- Bobba Fret
  
  Please quit journalism Paddy. You wont be letting me down.
  
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  October 15, 2024 1:48pm
sirknz

OK, so stealing from your neighbour, no matter who they are, is despicable.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/auckland-burglar-neil-gascoigne-breaks-into-refugee-neighbours-unit-sells-almost-everything-in-it/FBEQCYHQPREA7EUHA6ZGLQE5ZI/

But the woman is a refugee from an unspecified country, she was out of NZ on holiday. Anybody care to take a guess as to the likelihood that she was holidaying in the country that she is apparently a refugee from?
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October 15, 2024 8:24am
- Bobba Fret
  
  At least the judge gave him jail time that will prevent him stealing for a while. But I do agree with your refugee comment although we don’t know for sure, very likely visiting ‘home’.
  
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  October 15, 2024 12:15pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Zuckerberg promised to stay out of future elections right? Future ones but not this one? Typical lying Democrat. It is so simple, just get others to do your dirty work.

https://thepatriotexpress.com/therightwingclub/the-alarming-role-of-zuckbucks-in-swing-state-elections/?
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October 15, 2024 8:28am
- Mike
  
  It’s lucky that [Mod – use correct names] is so openly biased, so that the most influential social network can spew nonstop Trumpista lies. Happy with the balance?
  
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  October 15, 2024 9:31am
  - imalwaysright
    
    Politics these days is trying to convince stupid people that you are the good guy.
    
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    October 15, 2024 10:26am
  - RightNow
    
    Grinning from ear to ear 🙂
    
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    October 15, 2024 1:14pm
- Lance
  
  As opposed to Musk?
  
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  October 15, 2024 1:01pm
  - Mike
    
    One is good; the other is evil, depending upon your particular preferences.
    
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    October 15, 2024 1:51pm
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    Uptick for the bait Lance. Try a stronger bait. Not making me bite.
    🙂
    
    3 3
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    October 15, 2024 2:47pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

“FEMA is not leading this show, we are leading this show here in the state of Florida ” – DeSantis.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/desantis-responds-to-claims-fema-can-keep-people-from-their-homes-5738614?
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October 15, 2024 8:35am
- Mike
  
  Florida police have been a bit too busy harassing pro-choice supporters to fully concentrate on disaster relief. Project 2025 will abolish FEMA anyway, along with all those other meddling federal agencies that provide actual services.
  
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  October 15, 2024 9:34am
  - RightNow
    
    Still laughing at “actual services”.
    
    6 2
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    October 15, 2024 1:15pm
    - Steve Otto(North Shore)
      
      “Services.” Like contraception on demand?
      That is all it is, and an Election issue.
      Somewhere out there is a Country to be run.
      
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      October 15, 2024 2:52pm
Yvette

Govt to change or remove Treaty of Waitangi provisions in 29 laws

The NZ First-National coalition agreement commits the Government to conducting a comprehensive review of all legislation (except when it is related to, or substantive to, existing full and final Treaty settlements) that includes ‘The Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi’.

Legislation in-scope of the review
21. Taumata Arowai – The Water Services Regulator Act 2020
https://newsroom.co.nz/2024/10/14/govt-to-change-or-remove-treaty-of-waitangi-provisions-in-28-laws/?

The $64,000 Question – or it might cost more
Will this remove the Maori Advisory Council to Taumata Arowai – The Water Services Regulator – or will if just remove any reference to it?

….

Does David Seymour have a Plan B?
Or, if the introduction of the ACT proposed legislation fails to pass after referral to the Committee stage, does it create the evidence that the same legislation, with its widely publicised three pillars of democracy but without reference to the Treaty of Waitangi, needs immediate re-introduction, in a form the dumbest voter can understand –

• that the Government has the right to govern,
• all legally held property rights are protected
• and all voter rights and responsibilities are equal?

Govt to change or remove Treaty of Waitangi provisions in 28 laws – Newsroom
They should have done that with ACTs Treaty Principles Bill too, so it became
the New Zealand Constitutional Rights Legislation.

Perhaps that will be Plan B, when we get to it.
After the crap hits ACTs Treaty Principles Bill, proving it necessary –
if that is not Plan A all along

[Mod – something strange has gone on, your first post seems to be correcting your second, I will combine both posts to one]
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October 15, 2024 8:38am
- Yvette
  
  Mod, thank you
  
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  October 15, 2024 1:23pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

How to destroy America, one Tax hike at a time. For someone to the left of Bernie Sanders that is all she knows – Tax and Spend.

https://rightsideoffers.com/thepoliticalmovement/kamalas-brilliant-plan-to-kill-investments-and-ruin-the-economy-one-tax-hike-at-a-time/?
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October 15, 2024 8:42am
Yvette

Timing?
• The Act-National coalition promise to remove Section 7AA led to push-back from officials, experts, iwi and the public. A select committee is due to report back on the repeal bill next month.

• Cabinet signed off on the policy, so that the Government’s legal drafters can write the wording of the ACT Treaty Principles Bill. It also outlined the timing of the bill, when it will be introduced to Parliament (November), then debated and sent to Select Committee for submissions and reported back for further debate (May).

• Govt to change or remove Treaty of Waitangi provisions in 28 laws. The Government is moving forward with its controversial review of legislation including Te Tiriti o Waitangi provisions

• Ngāi Tahu is next up to host a hui-ā-motu (national hui) and mobilise iwi and hapū Māori from across Aotearoa. South Island iwi Ngāi Tahu is preparing to to host this year’s third hui-ā-motu (national hui), Te Pūnuiotoka, at Tuahiwi Marae, not far from Christchurch, on October 22

Is the weed-whacker about to locate the fresh dog-doings in the long grass?
☂

Activist group Toitū te Tiriti is anticipating 50-thousand marchers will join its planned week-long protest hīkoi against the Treaty Principles Bill next month.
The planned hīkoi is the latest in a series of activations and hui in response to coalition government policies relating to Māori. As well as the Treaty Principles Bill, the coalition has disbanded Te Aka Whai Ora, the Māori Health Authority; repealed section 7AA which required Oranga Tamariki to keep children in care connected to their culture; and begun moves to strip Treaty of Waitangi provisions from 28 pieces of legislation. Community providers have had funding cut and government departments have been told to use their English names ahead of those in te reo.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/350451254/hui-treaty-activists-expect-50000-join-protest-hikoi

And perhaps Julian Batchelor will urge his 100,000 (last years figure intended for Auckland Domain) to hikoi off in the opposite direction (maybe meet the southbound Harawira Hikoi around about Taupo)

Meanwhile Brian Tamaki is still to decide what He wants God to do – although No Gods (including Indigenous Deities) Before Me should be a no-brainer – so Bishop Brian might just Make Straight the Way of the Lord in the Wilderness (somewhere on the Desert Road)

☂ November

[Mod – added for you]
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October 15, 2024 8:51am
Paulus

Congratulation Bryan Roche – you have accepted the Poison Challis.
You must be aware what has been said, that the Wellington Mafia did to the predecessor Peter Hughes, and his unanticipated early retirement as a result. It is said that they worked behind his back in many things.
Figures given the other day, if I remember correctly, show that of the 4890 top Public Service jobs 56% now are the best people for these top jobs.
Incidentally, they are all women, and it is said the target is 60% as soon as possible.
Hughes was a good Public Sevice man formerly with the Department of Education where he was much respected.
But he was male, as we now see, with that Department now being left wing feminist run.
Roche will be considered the wrong kind of person, being male, for the job, and the Mafia will oppose him from day one.
I knew Roche commercially many years ago, and he has moved up the ranks well.
But is he strong enough to change New Zealand’s tide of being the right persons for the jobs, started by Helen Clark and continued by Dame Jacinda Ardern.
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October 15, 2024 8:55am
- Benedict Yu
  
  I disagree. Peter Hughes was very much part of the Wellington mafia. He was responsible for turning the Ministry of Education into what it is today. His measure of success was keeping the Ministry out of the media. His executive team complied, knowing the consequences of failure.
  
  I saw no vision for education from Peter Hughes. It was all about implementing directions from the Minister and keeping the Minister out of the newspapers. At that time it was Hekia Parata, who had forced the previous CE from office. That was Lesley Longstone. In my experience, pleasant, intelligent, and prepared to give the Minister advice that she did not want to hear.
  
  https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/lesley-longstone-received-more-than-400k-in-severance-pay/EI7MCTGDTRXJLYK27J65EM7Q2E/
  
  Then came along Peter Hughes.
  
  As for him being “forced” into retirement, IIRC the guy was 65. Sure many folk work well beyond that age, and that is a great thing about New Zealand. However, I doubt very much that he was forced out. In any case, it is a damn good thing that he has gone.
  
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  October 15, 2024 10:27am
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    I couldn’t agree more. Peter Hughes has his pile of gold & has run away from the consequences of his decisions, like Grant and Jacinda before him.
    
    Paulus, possibly you’re unaware that Hughes is gay. That doesn’t matter a damn to me, but it’s key to undermining your point that he was on the outer. In fact, he was right in the midst of Lefty apparatchiks & their appointments to lead various govt agencies during the Six Years of Hell (TM).
    
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    October 15, 2024 1:17pm
- JimBobJoe
  
  Hopefully Roche’s first order of business is to force a number of CE’s and DCE’s to leave the Public service. They are the problem – they and their henchmen/women forcing woke crap through the system.
  
  The Public Service needs a thorough gutting and a complete reset to what it always should be – advisory on policy and running operations, not politicking and forcing left wing agendas everywhere, everyday
  
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  October 15, 2024 8:47pm
Master Mariner

Update on Manawanui, Starting at 16:45 .

What’s up with Shipping.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtuhkXIIncY
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October 15, 2024 9:08am
- Taieri
  
  Another view here:
  https://www.bairdmaritime.com/ausmarine/ausmarine-maritime-security/column-dei-a-flawed-policy-in-crewing-ships-an-innocent-australian
  
  So far we are talking in terms of generalities. I think the best is to wait for what comes out of the preliminary investigation, which is supposed to be made public in November. My main interest is in the technical side of what’s happened.
  
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  October 15, 2024 10:22am
  - imalwaysright
    
    Why can’t the person in charge of the ship go on the 6pm news and tell us what happened ?
    
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    October 15, 2024 10:47am
    - Taieri
      
      Primo: Person in charge of the ship is not authorized to make any statements at all.
      
      Secundo: Even if the person in charge was authorized to make statements it wouldn’t be in her interest to do so. Accident investigation can be a very scary business, especially for the person responsible for the ship, i.e. in this case the captain.
      
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      October 15, 2024 11:16am
      - imalwaysright
        
        Love the latin lesson Taieri, either that or you’ve been playing with the google translate.
        Point is, if there is no nefarious behaviour then why shouldn’t the person in charge give a press release?
        Everything that goes wrong in this country seems to get buried and the public are presented with either nothing or with a much sanitised helping of propaganda.
        
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        October 15, 2024 12:04pm
      - NeverMindTheBollocks
        
        I understand due process, but I also understand that HMNZS Manawanui was my ship (one tiny percentage thereof) I want to know why it ended up on the rocks, and I know damn well that I’m entitled to know that.
        
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        October 15, 2024 1:21pm
    - Benedict Yu
      
      I assume that is not a serious question.
      
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      October 15, 2024 11:19am
      - imalwaysright
        
        Most of your posts are assumptions, top marks for consistency.
        
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        October 15, 2024 11:52am
    - Taieri
      
      Point is, if there is no nefarious behaviour then why shouldn’t the person in charge give a press release?
      ————
      
      So that his/her words can’t be twisted and tangled by all and sundry. Every institution has a spokesperson, who is the only person authorized to make official statements.
      
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      October 15, 2024 1:08pm
  - Master Mariner
    
    Yep, Absolutely Taieri. My thoughts too.
    Regardless, A few questions need to be raised.
    
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    October 15, 2024 7:56pm
- Tauhei Notts
  
  Master Mariner, thank you for bringing that video to our attention.
  My concern is that a Naval Court of Enquiry will judge this matter. Courts of Enquiry are NOT open to the public and I fear a giant white wash taking place. Judith Collins has been critical of people like me making uninformed comments. After the secretive Court of Enquiry I will still be uninformed.
  
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  October 15, 2024 10:38am
  - Benedict Yu
    
    By “giant white wash” , do you mean that the evidence and findings will be fabricated? That seems unlikely. How would you stop someone spilling the beans? I see that they have seconded a senior officer from the Australian Navy to be on the Inquiry. If they were determined to white wash it, why would they do that?
    
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    October 15, 2024 11:07am
    - Taieri
      
      that the evidence and findings will be fabricated? That seems unlikely.
      ———–
      
      I agree, it’s unlikely. But it’s possible to give the investigation a certain slant if so desired. Is this likely to happen? I don’t know.
      
      6 1
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      October 15, 2024 11:19am
      - imalwaysright
        
        T,
        Not only is it likely, it is highly probable.
        Don’t forget that everyone involved is on the public tit.
        There are those amongst us who believe in due process, I hope they find some solace in their naivety, but the outcome for the naval staff could be that they may be asked to risk their lives, not in the face of the enemy, but under the orders of their commander.
        
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        October 15, 2024 12:18pm
      - Benedict Yu
        
        I’m not a ship guy but is there only two possibilities?
        
        1. Someone made a bad navigation error
        
        2. There was a catastrophic loss of power and / or steering which was unrecoverable.
        
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        October 15, 2024 12:42pm
      - Taieri
        
        I’m not a ship guy but is there only two possibilities?
        ———
        
        Hard to think of anything else. Whatever was the cause, a ship of nearly 6000 tonnes displacement and with 6.8 metres draught had simply no business operating on the top of the reef on the lee side of the coast with a strong tide and just 1 NM off the coastline and with an extensive uncharted waters on the other side. That’s what they invented small survey craft for.
        
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        October 15, 2024 1:06pm
      - imalwaysright
        
        “Someone made a bad navigation error”
        As opposed to a good navigational error.
        “There was a catastrophic loss of power and / or steering ..”
        As opposed to a beneficial loss of power…
        
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        October 15, 2024 1:07pm
      - David Garrett
        
        Bene: I am not a “ship guy” either – but I do have considerable experience power boating in tropical seas where reefs abound. In short, reefs are always treated with the utmost respect, and you go no closer to them than is absolutely necessary. And even with a good GPS, you don’t go near them at night unless there is no other choice.
        
        I guess in the fullness of time it will emerge why the captain thought being close to a reef on a lee shore at dusk – which very quickly turns into night in the tropics – was a good idea. Or perhaps the ship was in fact in a safe position, but then lost power which was unrecoverable, leading to an unavoidable grounding. We shall see.
        
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        October 15, 2024 1:30pm
      - Benedict Yu
        
        “Not only is it likely, it is highly probable.”
        
        You have no basis for such a statement.
        
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        October 15, 2024 1:33pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Trump Coachella rally. Crowd bused in from carpark 5 miles away, but no buses for the return journey.
This is of course Trump’s fault. He only cares about himself.//
Could it possibly have something to do with security after Vem Miller being detained over a suspected assassination attempt?
But no, the rabid left blame Trump. Trump did not organise the rally, he was the speaker. There must be more info to come.

https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/other/absolute-chaos-as-trump-supporters-left-stranded-after-coachella-rally-hit-by-assassination-scare/ar-AA1sepIM?
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October 15, 2024 9:19am
- Mike
  
  How is it Trump’s responsibility to take everyone home? If his campaign booked return busses, it would become just another item in the trail of unpaid bills left behinds after each rally.
  
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  October 15, 2024 9:38am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    Mike. Do you not know what // means?
    
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    October 15, 2024 10:15am
    - Biscuit
      
      In Mike’s defence, Steve, I didn’t know // meant that you were extracting the urine either!
      
      For a brief moment I actually believed what you had written before the addenda!
      
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      October 15, 2024 10:52am
    - Mike
      
      You can’t pretend it is ‘sarcasm’ when Trump obviously does only care about himself.
      
      6 15
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      October 15, 2024 11:14am
- JackRabbit
  
  Numpties rush to embrace AI, but don’t stop to think that AI is already controlling the news media.
  
  There is no way that when a story/article/piece of news needs to be deleted/edited/inverted/fact checked that there is an army of 90,000 people on minimum wage manning a bank of phones ringing all the reporters/editors/newsreaders in the world telling them what to write.
  
  It is all automated and all news spreads from a very small number of feeds, originating and/or monitored by a central core or linked cores. And those cores are controlled by AI.
  
  The AI is using the many-to-one-to-many principle. Many original sources of data to one termination point and then spewed out to many news targets.
  
  It was used during Ardern’s reign of terror, where NZ news articles were not entirely in her favour, e.g. the Labour party sexual assaults by someone in her office, and the story was inverted, and fed out to international media, with hundreds of international news outlets with the same altered “story”.
  
  And of course the Covid con/theatre. All news outlets singing to the same narrative. But it wasn’t hard to spot, even in NZ. Especially when fat chequers (fact checkers employed by the media) / fat checking websites were debunking “conspiracy theories” (truth), long before the “conspiracy theories” (truth) / articles ever hit the media.
  
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  October 15, 2024 10:01am
  - imalwaysright
    
    “Numpties rush to embrace AI”
    
    Moths to a flame.
    
    7 3
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    October 15, 2024 10:57am
    - mogg
      
      Do you mean the numpties who have embraced AI shares like Nvidia and TSMC who are experiencing record demand for their AI chips, and prices up again last night?
      
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      October 15, 2024 11:35am
      - imalwaysright
        
        Nice try mogg.
        Buying shares doesn’t indicate intelligence, artificial or otherwise. If it did, then rich people would be the most intelligent people.
        Good luck with that…
        
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        October 15, 2024 12:29pm
      - NeverMindTheBollocks
        
        Ah yes, so reminiscent of the dot com boom, and the NZSX in 1987, and – but, you get the picture.
        
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        October 15, 2024 1:25pm
      - mogg
        
        Ima, look past the shares if you want to. These companies are making chips which are being used in everyday products and in record demand. Their prices are based on earnings and current income which is proven, and about to overtake Apple as the biggest listed co. Financial Markets never move in straight lines but I don’t think luck has anything to do with it. If you have a newish phone, you have got AI on your pocket without even knowing it.
        
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        October 15, 2024 2:35pm
- MCōs
  
  I blame antifa for everything
  
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  October 15, 2024 10:01am
  - Mike
    
    Behind every atrocity since they deliberately introduced the black death to Europe in the 14th century?
    
    5 14
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    October 15, 2024 11:25am
  - JackRabbit
    
    MCōs, you triggered the Mike AI.
    
    10 3
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    October 15, 2024 12:21pm
    - imalwaysright
      
      Very good
      
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      October 15, 2024 1:10pm
DimChappie

I heard Luxon with Hosking about the racist Prosecutions Guidelines. He basically said it’s outside his control despite the conflict with the Coalition pledge to Equality under the Law. I have just sent this email to him and a few ministers, anyone is welcome to use any of it, perhaps send cc some of the media companies not covering this big story:

Here is the email I just sent to Luxon, Goldsmith, Collins etc, you might want to add media companies who apart from ZB, have mostly ignored this huge story:

https://www.crownlaw.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/Prosecution-Guidelines/Solicitor-Generals-Prosecution-Guidelines-20248168564.1.pdf

I am shocked by the content of Crown Law’s prosecution guidelines updated as at October 1 2024. The guidelines seek to address the disproportionate presence of Maori in the justice system by urging prosecutors to give them special consideration.

Solicitor-General Una Jagose KC writes: “The guidelines ask prosecutors to think carefully about particular decisions where a person (whether the victim or the defendant) is Māori, or a member of any other group that is disproportionately impacted by the criminal justice system. This does not promote different treatment based on ethnicity or membership of a particular group; it instead alerts prosecutors to situations and factors that may deliver inequitable outcomes for some people in those groups.’’

The guidelines do promote special treatment for Maori suspects, based on feedback from workshops and experts.

This advice is outrageous, race-based nonsense, and highly dangerous. Imagine, a group of offenders commit the same crime, say a burglary. All are prosecuted except one, who has a Maori ancestor. That would be goodbye, One Law for All.

It is hard to understand how an official could even suggest special treatment under the law for one race above others under this Government, but that is exactly the situation.

The advice is a gross breach of the Equal Citizenship clauses in the Coalition Agreement which include the following: “The Coalition Government will defend the principle that New Zealanders are equal before the law, with the same rights and obligations, and with the guarantee of the privileges and responsibilities of equal citizenship in New Zealand (and) will reverse measures taken in recent years which have eroded the principle of equal citizenship.’’

These guidelines are due to come into force on January 1, 2025. They must be withdrawn as they are an insult to all New Zealanders and represent a racist attitude – one race must be treated in a special way because so many of them are in prison. Equal treatment under the law is vital for a just society, so I believe this Government must react strongly on this issue.

[email protected], “Judith Collins” , “Christopher Luxon” [email protected], David Seymour
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October 15, 2024 9:28am
- Swifty
  
  Nice.
  
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  October 15, 2024 10:07am
- Clyde
  
  I have already written, but don’t expect to get a substantive response. Luxon’s performance on Hosking this morning was very worrying. We either have one rule of law for all, or we don’t. If its the latter, then we are all in deep doggie doo.
  
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  October 15, 2024 10:08am
  - DimChappie
    
    Seymour has replied: “I was surprised to hear about this, to say the least. It is against our values and appears to contradict the Need Not Race circular passed by Cabinet (as part of ACT’s Coalition Agreement).
    Judith Collins is the Attorney General, responsible for the Solicitor General who issued these guidelines. This morning my Chief of Staff has asked her advisors for an explanation of how this happened and what can be done about it.
    After their response, we’ll have more to say.
    
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    October 15, 2024 2:35pm
- Mike
  
  It’s an attempt to address longstanding biases where some people are much more likely to be prosecuted than others who have committed similar offences.
  Like all such attempts it’s decried as racist, mainly by people from groups generally favored by the existing biases.
  
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  October 15, 2024 11:22am
  - Pope Punctilious II
    
    Can you substantiate your statements Mike?
    
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    October 15, 2024 12:50pm
    - Mike
      
      I thought this stuff was pretty well known already
      https://www.corrections.govt.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0014/10715/Over-representation-of-Maori-in-the-criminal-justice-system.pdf
      
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      October 15, 2024 1:56pm
      - Pope Punctilious II
        
        Classic equivocation. Maori overrepresentation in the justice could possibly indicate they are treated more harshly by the justice system. Or it might just mean they break the law more often than other ethnicities.
        
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        October 15, 2024 3:20pm
      - Mike
        
        Except that the data in that report does not support your second sentence.
        
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        October 15, 2024 3:30pm
      - Local Miller
        
        Over representation doesn’t indicate bias. As someone else said further up this thread, Alcoholics are over represented in the drink driving statistics, does this mean there is a bias against alcoholics?
        
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        October 15, 2024 3:34pm
      - Pope Punctilious II
        
        “Except that the data in that report does not support your second sentence.”
        
        Which data in the report do not support the hypothesis that Maori break the law more often than other Kiwis, in proportion to their % of the population? The report indicates there may be biases against Maori in the justice system, but which data is your claim about crime rates based on?
        
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        October 15, 2024 6:47pm
  - Clyde
    
    [Please refrain from starting this kind of poster abuse. mod.]
    
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    October 15, 2024 1:30pm
  - Benedict Yu
    
    What offences?
    
    If I am caught dangerous driving, stealing a car, cooking meth, breaking and entering, you think that the police would not prosecute me?
    
    Chinese folk do those things on a scale drastically lower than Maori folk, but that is an entirely different matter.
    
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    October 15, 2024 1:41pm
    - NZer In Exile
      
      Using the logic of these stellar legal geniuses, men as a group are oppressed because they are more likely to end up in prison, so deserve leniency from prosecutors.
      
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      October 15, 2024 8:02pm
- Benedict Yu
  
  Honestly, my bullshit alarm goes off at maximum on this:
  
  “This does not promote different treatment based on ethnicity or membership of a particular group; it instead alerts prosecutors to situations and factors that may deliver inequitable outcomes for some people in those groups.’’
  
  Try decoding that statement. How can this guidance do anything other than “promote different treatment based on ethnicity or membership of a particular group”?
  
  If Ministers have no control over this, well it is nuts.
  
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  October 15, 2024 1:37pm
  - Burtland
    
    so a separate race based prosecutor system – he puapua again
    
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    October 15, 2024 3:48pm
Ghost

Sounds like it’s just a matter of time now

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says the Government will “make an intervention” at Wellington City Council if it has to.

“We’re pretty concerned about it,” Luxon told Newstalk ZB on Tuesday morning.

“It doesn’t look great.”

Article
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October 15, 2024 10:10am
- Handyman
  
  No! No! No!
  Any government involvement will ultimately result in a government handout. (Ihumatao anyone?)
  There is no upside. Once the government gets involved with their bottomless pit of money, imagine the list of new demands! The list will start with free parking, free public transport, free social housing and just go on from there. Start to panic when you hear “this will put Wellington on the map” or “Wellington will be world leading”. “Affected communities” (you know the ones) will demand rates relief.
  
  It will be the government refusing to spend money on pet projects and the government responsible for the increase in rates. PR disaster!
  
  The media is relatively soft on the current mess. Once their far left friends in the green party are replaced by that nasty government, the media can release full unrelenting fury on the government, similar to the current health campaign.
  If Wellington is not a utopian 15-minutes city with free parking and free public transport (Transport justice!) within a month, there will be howls of outrage and marches to Parliament.
  
  No! No! No! Let it be a role model of how not to run a city.
  
  However, the biggest reason is that it creates a huge moral hazard. Every city/ university will spend all current and future rates (by maxing out borrowing) on vanity projects, knowing that eventually the government will step in and pay for all the essentials anyway. Councilors get to be Santa Claus and blame the government at the same time.
  
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  October 15, 2024 1:02pm
  - Paulus
    
    Look at what the Mahuta appointment of Commissioners has done to Tauranga now a SNAFU City, and the huge rates increases, now that they have gone.
    
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    October 15, 2024 2:32pm
- Eastlander
  
  Under the LGA it is appropriate to appoint a commission when there is a significant problem impairing the good governance of the locality or one that is likely to endanger the health and safety of the residents, AND lesser options are unlikely to prevent these outcomes.
  
  WCC charges too much in rates, spends too much on the wrong things and cares so little about its core responsibilities that it will let the water pipes burst under our feet rather than give up on its golden mile white elephant. And it has refused to change course even in the face of threatened intervention from local government so it would certainly not cooperate with a crown review team, crown observer or crown manager.
  
  A commission it has to be. National can quite fairly claim to be saving the city from a despised and incompetent local government, and while there is no need to politicise the issue now it will be useful come election time to point to Wellington as an example of what the Hydra will do if it is ever allowed back into power.
  
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  October 15, 2024 4:17pm
  - Ghost
    
    An early election is a possibility too.
    
    https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/350451403/local-govt-minister-wont-rule-out-early-election-wellington-city-council
    
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    October 15, 2024 4:20pm
    - Eastlander
      
      It would certainly be good to dispose of Whanau, Matthews, O’Neil, Foon and Brown among others but the underlying problem with WCC is the combination of a back office that thinks it owns the city and a local government framework that means in practice they do. Disempowering WCC entirely for the foreseeable future is the main thing that is needed.
      
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      October 15, 2024 5:15pm
- GJM
  
  No! Wellington voted for it, let them live with it. I don’t see why taxpayers should rescue them form their incompetence and poor choices.
  
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  October 15, 2024 4:36pm
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    I agree, and I’m a Wellington ratepayer. I’d rather see the useless on this Council get completely reamed at the next election, with the new Mayor & Council pawing down the law to the Council CEO.
    
    Otherwise, those grifters will blame the coming mess on the Commissioner, and those with short memories will vote for the useless once more.
    
    The only way to purge the body politic of these leaches for a generation is to burn them off.
    
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    October 15, 2024 7:18pm
- Hugh Jarse
  
  Racist policies in prosecution decisions doesn’t look great either but Luxon doesn’t seem overly concerned with that occurring. Leave Wellington to it, sometimes shit just has to happen, be there to pick up the pieces then when Wellington voters may be more accepting of an intervention, not intervene before the final collapse. The Wellington voters may sort themselves at next years election. Otherwise who really cares about saving lefties from themselves.
  
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  October 15, 2024 7:49pm
Ghost

Cannot see the issue here. Apparently foreign nurses in the wards when under pressure are talking in their native language. Sorry, but patients should be able to understand what is being said

Waikato public hospital has told nurses not to speak to patients in any language other than English.

A memo sent to all nursing staff last Friday, obtained by RNZ, said concerns had been raised about other languages being used, and that exclusive use of English in all clinical settings was safer for treating people.

Article
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October 15, 2024 10:18am
- mandk
  
  I think I read a while ago on KB that a problem is that clinical staff sometimes revert to their first language when a crisis occurs.
  
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  October 15, 2024 10:23am
  - Sacha
    
    It can also happen that the patient, while having a basic knowledge of English, needs it to be explained in their native language.
    That’s where having a younger family member of a non-English speaker is very useful: to explain the intent/ reason for a particular procedure, and ask for explanations where needed.
    As for staff communicating in their own language, well, I guess I’d rather have that, than a misunderstanding about my treatment. There’s no harm in asking for a translation if you need it.
    
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    October 15, 2024 11:15am
    - mandk
      
      There’s not much scope for explanation or interpretation if the patient starts bleeding out or goes into arrest.
      
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      October 15, 2024 4:28pm
- kowtow
  
  Yes , it’s basic good manners and “inclusive” towards the patient , afterall the health service is all about inclusion these days , and if the health service is not first and foremost about the patients then it’s not fit for purpose.
  
  We’re seeing a constant stream of anti articles from te legacy media , this is just the latest bit of highly provocative propaganda.
  
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  October 15, 2024 10:24am
  - Sacha
    
    Nursing teaching has long followed the medical instruction to “Do No Harm”. Trust is important.
    Understanding is the key but it’s fair to say that many people can not register/understand what is being explained to them even if English is their first language.
    
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    October 15, 2024 11:20am
- Mike
  
  Easy to enforce too, seeing we have a huge pool of qualified nurses and are pretending there are no shortages of clinical staff.
  
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  October 15, 2024 11:18am
  - Ghost
    
    I know one nurse who was told to work in the meat works for a year to improve her English. Her English was fine. Another whose English was minimal was put in an English class to improve it before she was hired. Also had Phillipines and Indian nurses when at the ED, not once did they speak in any other language but English.
    
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    October 15, 2024 11:29am
    - Taieri
      
      Back in the 1980’s when Vietnamese boat people were being resettled in NZ, a number of them were nurses with the war experience. No credit was given to their skills acquired on the battlefield, they had to start their training from scratch if they wanted to work as nurses in NZ. As far as I know most of them eventually moved to Australia, where they were more than welcome.
      
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      October 15, 2024 11:54am
      - Inandout
        
        Tai, which is why there are many Viet eateries in Oz.
        
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        October 15, 2024 12:32pm
- Pope Punctilious II
  
  Kinda underlines the problem of NZ not training enough medical professionals of our own, doesn’t it.
  
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  October 15, 2024 12:52pm
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    Training? Or keeping?
    
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    October 15, 2024 1:27pm
  - Mike
    
    We train more than enough, but let them skip the country without repaying their loans.
    
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    October 15, 2024 2:03pm
    - Pope Punctilious II
      
      If that is true, we should be bonding them to work in the provinces for 3 years.
      
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      October 15, 2024 4:05pm
      - Mike
        
        Yes. Personally, I think people in debt to the country should be required to pay up before leaving, or work off the debt.
        
        3 2
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        October 15, 2024 4:32pm
- Paulus
  
  I think somewhere this is a load of bullshit and something more sinister in fact.
  Lets have examples of where and when – I have been in hospital a few times recently and I have no knowledge of it and I have found “all” staff, many from overseas, including Nurses, wonderful.
  I did not think there were any Maori there at all that I could detect.
  
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  October 15, 2024 2:37pm
  - Ghost
    
    And were you in the hospital mentioned?
    
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    October 15, 2024 2:48pm
NothingLeft

Kamala caught out plagiarizing in a book she wrote years back, the apple doesn’t fall far from the Biden tree. Really does seem to be standard operating procedure for the ethically bankrupt left:
https://christopherrufo.com/p/kamala-harriss-plagiarism-problem
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October 15, 2024 10:32am
- AitchW
  
  It makes no difference. American politics is so very tribal that they dismiss anything damaging to their side as ‘fake news’.
  America really is a basket case, and the increasing incidence of racially driven politics here is send us down the same road.
  Throw social media into the mix and we’re all stuffed!
  
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  October 15, 2024 12:15pm
Jack5

Gun control gets harder …

A trial in Britain of a 20-year-old neo-Nazi, Jack Robinson, highlights a challenge for firearms control.

Apart from Jack Robinson’s various military gear, memorabilila, weaons and explosives he had a partly built FGC-90, a 3D-printed semi-automatic rifle that can be built at home without what the Telegraph calls commercially manufactured or regulated parts.

On Monday, Robinson was jailed for six and a-half years.

The newspaper says:

With a 3D printer, everyday materials and tools, and some metalworking skills, anyone can now make the high-powered weapon in their living room or garage, like a deadly Airfix model.

FGC stands for “f— gun control”.

In Britain more than dozen charges have been brought against criminals and “terror offenders” on counts of either building an FGC9, or possessing its 110-page manual.

The weapon was designed by Jacob Duygu, a German of Kurdish origin. He was found dead in a car in Hannover two days after being arrested by police in 2021.

Possession of the FGC-9 manual is now a terror offence in Britain, and a Home Office spokesman told the Telegraph that laws would be introduced to further criminalise offering or supplying templates or manuals for 3D-printed firearms.

Poster’s footnote: I would seek links for reports about 3D gun cases, but I suspect any online searching for FGC9 information will put you on the files of cops and spooks in several countries.
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October 15, 2024 11:49am
- cmm
  
  I would hardly call a 9mm a “high-powered weapon”, but still it is nothing I’d want to stand in front of.
  
  3D printed plastic just does not have the strength to hold in the pressure of a high power round which is why the FGC-9 uses a steel barrel and the Liberator 3D pistol used .380 – the lowest pressure pistol round that is worth anything.
  
  This FGC-9 looks like the first viable 3D printed gun (though critical parts are not 3D printed). The Liberator was a toy of more danger to the operator than the target.
  
  Before this, people were making far more powerful, and safe to operate, firearms out of plumbing fittings etc using nothing more than pliers, hammer and hacksaw.
  
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  October 15, 2024 12:49pm
- GJM
  
  Before the FCG9, there was Philip Luty. Made out of hardware store parts, a file and hand drill. Some history of it at:
  https://armamentresearch.com/luty-sub-machine-guns-past-present-future/
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIhGCRIQnCA
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YE9J7qcj0c
  
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  October 15, 2024 5:20pm
greybeard

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/350451547/restaurant-owners-fined-60000-insidious-offending-against-migrant-workers
They just can’t help themselves, can they !
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October 15, 2024 12:40pm
- Fender
  
  It makes you think every time you go into a bottle store or 4 square doesn’t it, hard to comprehend the desperation or lack of confidence that these workers have to not fight back sooner when they obviously know they are being played.
  
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  October 15, 2024 12:47pm
- Swifty
  
  If you import people from fundamentally corrupt societies then this is what we must expect.
  
  I argued this with Stephieboy for years, he thought corrupt immigrants would instantly turn into paragons of virtue as soon as they stepped off the plane – leaving behind their habits of a lifetime.
  
  I argued that were he or I to emigrate to India, would we instantly adopt all the habits of the locals or would we still largely act the way we always had – never dropping litter, not taking a dump on the beach, not using riverways to dispose of garbage, refusing to take part in election rigging etc.
  
  He would just never admit it.
  
  (I am quick to add that under Modi things are changing for the better but they’ve still got a very long way to go. Decades and decades and decades.)
  
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  October 15, 2024 1:29pm
  - Mike
    
    Modi is leading the way in constructing a Hindu supremacist state, rapidly throwing out the vestiges of multifaith, multiethnic and multicultural society.
    
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    October 15, 2024 2:08pm
    - Swifty
      
      I couldn’t comment about that.
      
      I do know he’s massively ramped up basic infrastructure and that was the point of my comment.
      
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      October 15, 2024 2:55pm
      - Jack5
        
        India’s Christians, especially Christian Dalits, are getting a hard time under Modi.
        
        Sikhs, especially those living abroad, seem to be targets, too.
        
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        October 15, 2024 4:27pm
      - Mike
        
        A comment about Hitler and autobahns springs to mind. Modi comes from a political movement that believes all Muslims should have been expelled in the 1947 partition.
        
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        October 15, 2024 4:34pm
      - Swifty
        
        Well, India is a democracy Mike, if the Indian people don’t like what he’s doing they can vote him out.
        
        I presume you’d agree that the Indian people should determine their own affairs, wouldn’t you?
        
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        October 15, 2024 5:13pm
      - Mike
        
        So if a majority of Indian voters wanted to deport all Muslims, Sikhs and Christians that would just be democracy?
        
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        October 15, 2024 7:05pm
      - Swifty
        
        Yes it would actually.
        
        You may not agree with the action but you must concede it is democratic if it is the will of the majority and/or the action of a democratically elected government.
        
        And I’ve just had a half-hour yarn with my Indian flattie – been here 10 years and goes back a couple of times a year.
        
        He strongly disagrees with your assertions about Modi, he calls them overblown and hysterical. Modi certainly has had to take some strong action particularly with the Kalistani Movement and Islamic fanatics and extremists but to stretch that to ‘throwing out the vestiges etc’ he just laughs.
        
        Thought you’d like to know.
        
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        October 15, 2024 10:04pm
      - Mike
        
        Just one example of the growing official discrimination:
        https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/13/muslims-in-india-face-discrimination-after-restaurants-forced-to-display-workers-names
        But it’s imposed by democratically elected governments, so it’s just fine.
        
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        October 16, 2024 6:39am
- kowtow
  
  Years ago te meedia paahti exhorted us to embrace the diversity of what they called multiculturalism but actually mass migration was bringing to our hitherto ‘boring’ Anglo Saxon world of cuisine.
  
  There is a really dark and downside to all this “diversity”.
  
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  October 15, 2024 1:37pm
  - Swifty
    
    I confidently predict, thirty or fifty years hence and once decolonisation, duplicate systems, co-governance and DEI etc have had plenty of time to wreak their devastation, large proportions of New Zealanders will pine for the gold old days and wonder why and how the hell it got all fucked up.
    
    At the same time there will be a thin layer of Maori and others who have become obscenely rich strongly arguing that there must be no going back and that anyone that calls for it are filthy racists.
    
    Mark my words.
    
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    October 15, 2024 3:02pm
- MCōs
  
  Anyone that comes here on a working visa is susceptible to exploitation and they often are; probably just as much by kiwi born employers as fellow immigrants.
  Either way there’s a lot more of it occurring than you’ll ever hear about.
  
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  October 15, 2024 3:00pm
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    “probably just as much by kiwi born employers”
    
    I call bullshit on that. My evidence is the headlines that crop up from time to time.
    
    Offhand, the only case to the contrary that spring to mind invokes one Darleen Tana.
    
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    October 15, 2024 7:23pm
David Garrett

https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/350451701/darleen-tana-court-appeal-argue-her-place-parliament

Meanwhile, another one is fighting to keep her place in the trough.
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October 15, 2024 12:51pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Trump has promised that he will prosecute many if he wins the election.
No wonder they are trying to kill him! Never before has the Justice System treated an ex-President and Candidate so badly. There are 3 dudges and about 5 prosecutors who should be in the slammer.
Yet another hit piece by the Daily Digest – no author of course.

https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/other/trump-has-promised-that-he-will-prosecute-many-if-he-wins-the-election/ss-AA1qjRSJ?
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October 15, 2024 1:08pm
- MCōs
  
  It’s a three line summary of a promise Trump made if he wins the election.
  Doesn’t need an author’s byline. It’s not an opinion.
  
  Is he really going to imprison his political opponents?
  
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  October 15, 2024 2:10pm
  - Mike
    
    He threatened to last time he won office. Just because his leadership was crap and his subordinates incompetent then doesn’t mean it can’t happen.
    Trump’s not a notably thoughtful man, but his backers reject the notion of prosecutorial independence altogether and the rhetoric justifies future political prosecutions by pretending the current system has been politically ‘weaponized’ against the wrong brand of crooks.
    
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    October 15, 2024 2:16pm
Swifty

FFS.

“New Zealand’s favourite Everyman journalist.”

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/350450553/paddy-gower-crashes-couples-secret-dream-wedding

According to whom? Assessed how?

I remember Wendyl Nissen being constantly referred to as ‘New Zealand’s Green Goddess’ then I read it was a moniker she gave herself.

The sooner our mainstream media bankrupt themselves the better. Something better will emerge.
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October 15, 2024 1:09pm
- Biscuit
  
  But Swift, Paddy is an award-winning journalist!
  
  Oh, wait, those awards are handed out by OTHER award-winning journalists…
  
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  October 15, 2024 2:19pm
  - Swifty
    
    The couldn’t be more incestuous if they tried.
    
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    October 15, 2024 2:53pm
- graham
  
  At least they didn’t describe him as “Beloved New Zealand journalist” which is another favourite …
  
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  October 15, 2024 2:39pm
Swifty

“A spokesperson for Auckland Mayor Len Brown said he would not be commenting at this stage.”

Verbatim as at 1.20pm and before they inevitably change it.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/350451734/chris-hipkins-time-bring-americas-cup-back-auckland

Dear me.
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October 15, 2024 1:21pm
- Biscuit
  
  Good ol’ Chippie, eh?
  
  All sorts of things are wrong with the world – a fair few of them caused by HIS Government, too – and yet he opines that it’s time a bunch of overpaid sailors get given taxpayer money to do their overpaid sailing in our back door.
  
  Grant D et al need to get told ‘Sail your defences here or fund them yourself’…
  
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  October 15, 2024 2:17pm
  - Swifty
    
    Exactly.
    
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    October 15, 2024 2:52pm
  - kiwikidsnz
    
    Which is exactly what Dalts has done…
    
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    October 15, 2024 5:14pm
- MCōs
  
  Whatever Brown it is, and my iPad says Wayne, it doesn’t mean a bag of beans anymore
  Grant Dalton has put the Americas Cup up for grabs to the highest bidder and that ain’t the NZ taxpayers and Auckland ratepayers anymore.
  I looked at the BBC Sports app this morning for news of the current regatta and there was none.
  It’s not a hot topic in the big scheme of things anymore
  
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  October 15, 2024 2:30pm
  - Swifty
    
    I agree on your America’s Cup comments. I’m glad we aren’t forced to find it anymore.
    
    It was ‘Len Brown’ when I posted my comment.
    
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    October 15, 2024 2:51pm
    - Swifty
      
      *fund
      
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      October 15, 2024 3:17pm
  - mandk
    
    It’s not on the BBC Sports app because the Poms are not up 4-0.
    
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    October 15, 2024 3:11pm
    - kiwikidsnz
      
      Doesn’t need to be on the BBC, you can hear Ainslie & the rest of the Poms whining from Barcelona.
      
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      October 15, 2024 5:17pm
  - AitchW
    
    Don’t forget that when Dalton promoted defending the cup in Auckand we were suffering under a Labour government. That mob was excellent at pouring money into pointless exercises like a pedestrian bridge over the Waitemata, light rail to the airport, hip hop tours, and interminable ‘working groups’ it had no clue about the potential returns from an international event like the America’s Cup.
    Now that we have a government with some business acumen it may be open to giving Dalton more cash than the 5 million Labour was prepared to hand over. It would be a hard sell currently given the spending cuts already implemented, but IF Dalton can prepare a credible business case it might be doable.
    
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    October 15, 2024 3:31pm
    - MCōs
      
      From memory Team NZ were given a quarter of a billion dollars public money last time it was held here for precious little return.
      We heard one of the races was to be sailed on a course within viewing of Bastion Point so drove over there to have a look. In the half hour plus it took to get there the wind changed and the course was moved elsewhere over the horizon!
      We won that regatta anyway and Grant Dalton moved the cash cow to Barcelona because the government here wouldn’t cough up enough money for that which is captivating few people outside the yachting fraternity this time around.
      
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      October 15, 2024 4:57pm
      - Ghost
        
        Here’s a look at what was happening in 2021, there was no chance the Americas cup would make money then
        
        https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/437435/covid-19-what-happened-in-new-zealand-on-1-march-2021
        
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        October 15, 2024 5:29pm
  - rouppe
    
    https://www.bbc.com/sport/sailing/articles/cvgleg2xeveo
    
    Pretty sure the BBC sports app would source the same content
    
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    October 15, 2024 4:21pm
  - Ghost
    
    Well reported on their website
    
    https://www.bbc.com/sport/sailing
    
    Also they estimate 1.2 billion will watch this years races. When it was in nz in 2021 it was just under a billion global viewers.
    
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    October 15, 2024 5:26pm
- Bobba Fret
  
  “Len” Brown. Now there’s a name from the past. Good old ‘pants down Brown’ I’m just off for Chinese.
  
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  October 15, 2024 2:33pm
MCōs

I see Ali Williams and Anna Mowbray want to fly a helicopter in and out of their property in the flash waterfront Auckland suburb of Westmere and the neighbours are objecting.
We don’t get domestic helicopters taking off in this neighbourhood, but I should imagine they could be very noisy in which case I sympathize with the neighbours
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October 15, 2024 1:50pm
- Mike
  
  The Mowbrays are billionaires. Why should they care about any neighbors?
  
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  October 15, 2024 2:10pm
  - Swifty
    
    Let the hate flow through you Mike.
    
    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5j5vHYt2HDI&pp=ygUdbGV0IHRoZSBoYXRlIGZsb3cgdGhyb3VnaCB5b3U%3D
    
    3 4
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    October 15, 2024 3:17pm
    - Mike
      
      I don’t hate anyone. I’d probably be peeved if my neighbors installed a helicopter pad, but I doubt the efficacy of hate.
      Seems like you might have some hate issues. Beware of projecting those on people whose philosophy might vary from yours.
      
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      October 15, 2024 3:58pm
      - Swifty
        
        That’s odd. I could have sworn you admitted to hating certain figures in the past.
        
        Flipper was one. Garrett another. There are others.
        
        Maybe I’ve misremembered, eh Mike?
        
        Oh, and there are certainly people I hate. But I don’t lie about it.
        
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        October 15, 2024 5:04pm
      - Mike
        
        You are confusing hate with scorn.
        
        1 4
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        October 15, 2024 6:57pm
- David Garrett
  
  MCos: Having flown in helicopters large and small literally hundreds of times, I can confirm they are extremely noisy; much more so than a fixed wing light aircraft.
  
  It would seem Mr Williams invested his earnings well!
  
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  October 15, 2024 2:35pm
  - Blog-aholic
    
    His or hers???
    
    2 0
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    October 15, 2024 2:46pm
  - Swifty
    
    I think you would wise to look up Anna Mowbray and her background.
    
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    October 15, 2024 2:49pm
    - marcw
      
      Sorry, no. I’m not a Gynaecologist.
      
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      October 15, 2024 3:15pm
  - All_on_Red
    
    DG
    Some modern helicopters have what is called a Fenestron Shroud for a Tail Rotor and they are a lot more quiet.
    Around 100Db(A) iirc
    The Airbus H120 is an example
    Its the Tail Rotor which makes most of the noise.
    There are a few Helipads along that Westmere/Herne Bay frontage.
    Most helicopters are in and out in a few minutes.
    
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    October 15, 2024 3:49pm
  - rouppe
    
    A Cessna float plane used to take off in porirua harbour and fly to the Marlborough sounds.
    
    You could hear that thing screaming during take off for bloody miles.
    
    Don’t know what happened to that, actually…
    
    2 0
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    October 15, 2024 4:18pm
    - Mike
      
      Operated in 80s and 90s. Closed when the Lynx and the Paremata ferries started.
      Full story here:
      https://3rdlevelnz.blogspot.com/2020/09/the-flying-dolphin-float-air-picton.html
      
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      October 15, 2024 4:45pm
Conservatarian

https://www.realclearpolling.com/elections/president/2024/battleground-states

Trump now up in 6 of 7 battlegrounds, even within the biased polling paradigm.

Polymarket now only listing 4 battlegrounds (stating Trump has a clear lead in AZ, GA and NC).

https://polymarket.com/elections

After Walz’s bumbling attempts at loading his weapon on camera, Minnesota will soon be in play too. Dem voters (well, the ones whose pre-filled ballot is not already sitting in a warehouse somewhere ready to be deployed after the polls close) will be hoping that Harris will ride to the rescue of this cartoonish midwestern white guy, by pretending she is a gun owner.

I hear she’s struggling with black male voters.
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October 15, 2024 2:36pm
- MCōs
  
  ‘Walz’s bumbling attempts at loading his weapon’
  Reminds me of John Key bumbling attempt to hammer a nail or Trump holding someone’s screaming baby
  Why do these fools get trapped in these no win situations?
  
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  October 15, 2024 3:13pm
  - Mike
    
    Trump demonstrating (with an eagle!) how averse animals are to him.
    
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    October 15, 2024 4:00pm
  - rouppe
    
    Or Biden trying to ride a bicycle…
    
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    October 15, 2024 4:14pm
    - Pope Punctilious II
      
      Bicycle? He has enough trouble with stairs.
      
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      October 15, 2024 8:31pm
  - Inandout
    
    MC, or Key eating a hot dog, Don Brash trying to get into a vehicle, but you would find it difficult to see a pic of a Labour PM captured at the right moment. OK Chippie wearing a gay t-shirt is hilarious but not a true capture. Americans are far better at this.
    
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    October 15, 2024 5:34pm
- mandk
  
  The black male voters have realised that the Dems are only interested in keeping the n—–s on the plantation.
  
  To quote Biden: “If you don’t vote Democrat, you ain’t black.”
  
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  October 15, 2024 4:31pm
- NothingLeft
  
  Wisconsin will likely flip to Trump in next day or two as nearly month old outlier polls favoring Harris drop off realclear average. A couple of other battlegrounds will swing further to Trump for same reason meaning Trump is likely to have an average margin of nearly 1pt in battlegrounds in a few days.
  
  In contrast (electorally meaningless) national ‘popular vote’ polling is hardly moving. Harris up by 1.7 over trump. Though Dems generally need 3pt lead there to win due to extreme democrat support in populous east and west coast states.
  
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  October 15, 2024 5:31pm
Swifty

Boston Dynamics evolution 1983-2024

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/bp6caLQ2CqskT18y/?mibextid=WC7FNe
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October 15, 2024 3:14pm
Taieri

Strange things are happening…

I received a letter from a government department today. It addresses me in a very old fashioned way as Mr. …., and ends with “Kind regards”. No Kia ora, no Nga mihi, in fact no pidgin manglish at all.
There’s the name of the department displayed in Maori, which is fine, as it follows the English name. May be they somehow sensed that I’m an old dinosaur, alt-right whatever and made an allowance for that?
More likely, they are using old stationery, still, no Kia ora or Nga mihi, very strange indeed…
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October 15, 2024 4:27pm
rouppe

Oh for goodness sake. Wellington council focusing on the important things again.

Wellington City to Sea bridge, which connects the CBD with the waterfront, is set to be demolished.

Just maintain it at its current condition. Who cares if it falls down in an earthquake big enough to do such damage. Least of the city’s problems then…
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October 15, 2024 4:32pm
- Mike
  
  Unsafe structures should be demolished.
  
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  October 15, 2024 4:47pm
  - Eastlander
    
    Claims of this kind can safely be dismissed as WCC disinformation as they have not released the report relied on in making this decision, and anybody familiar with WCC knows that their staff are too stupid to understand engineering reports even if they could be trusted to report on them accurately which they can’t.
    
    I’m going to assume that as usual they’ve taken a preliminary report on possible structural and geotechnical issues and interpreted it as a final statement of the bridge’s capacity. The GNS report on liquefaction susceptibility in Wellington city is publicly available and the city to sea bridge isn’t even in the most susceptible part of the city. I’ve also read the machine borehole logs that were done to support construction and if the bridge piles were founded in the dense to very dense layers that exist at 17 meters depth and below (highly likely) then there is no real risk to the bridge foundations from liquefaction.
    
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    October 15, 2024 5:47pm
    - Mike
      
      Fair points. I love Civic Square and that bridge, so hopefully it’s not disposed of lightly.
      
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      October 15, 2024 7:00pm
  - rouppe
    
    Unsafe?
    
    Yes it’s got a low NBS earthquake score. More than one example of that being due to one element, not the whole structure.
    
    It has stood through all the earthquakes since it was built.
    
    Even structures 100% of NBS aren’t designed to not fail, just limit loss of life. It’s a tiny bridge. The risk of it is minimal.
    
    Compare that to the multi story Gordon Wilson flats. Also low earthquake score. Definitely unsafe. But protected because it’s butt-ugly – sorry, great example of brutalist architecture.
    
    Demolish that, and I’ll let you have the bridge
    
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    October 15, 2024 7:28pm
- kiwikidsnz
  
  Good to see that this ugly eyesore is going to be demolished however the usual egotistical nonsense from the Wellington council: “the bridge is a unique structure that many Wellingtonian’s care about and enjoy,” and “two options for the bridge’s future; either replacing it with a new pedestrian crossing, or a pedestrian crossing with a new, smaller bridge at two different points across Jervois Quay.” Someone also thought it a good idea “that $65 million was allocated to investigate options for the bridge and the former Capital E building and basement. This included both remedial strengthening work and demolition.”
  
  There’s ALREADY a perfectly useable pedestrian overpass in basic concrete AND a traffic light pedestrian crossing – both less than 100 meters away which have been been there for many years.
  
  Hopefully Central Govt finally step in & stop this vanity project nonsense.
  
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  October 15, 2024 5:11pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  Embarrassingly for the Left, the City to Sea bridge is decorated with sculptures by Para Matchitt (no iwi affiliations cited). Turns out he was a registered sex offender.
  
  Matchitt was jailed for two and a half years in 2001, convicted of sexually abusing a 16-year-old girl. In 2006 the High Court at Napier threw out charges against Matchitt of drugging and date-raping a 29-year-old woman, citing no evidence that the woman had either been drugged or raped.
  
  Source: Wikipedia
  
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  October 15, 2024 7:41pm
Albie

An interesting poll posted by David F on the changing of our countries name. It shows support for Aotearoa, or Aotearoa New Zealand is dropping, whereas support for New Zealand is on the rise.
This should come as a warning to companies both large and small who have bought into this trendy rebranding of our country in their advertising.
If they are targeting 25% of the population instead of 66% they may want to have a rethink.
You know what they say, go woke, go broke.
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October 15, 2024 5:06pm
- Inandout
  
  Albie, the pre school companies still push the Aotearoa and whanau big time.
  And this:
  https://www.tyrewise.co.nz/
  
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  October 15, 2024 5:58pm
Swifty

It’s just sickening to know that white supremacy, colonisation and poverty are now killing even innocent Indian people, right here in little old NZ!

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/naenae-fatal-hit-and-run-driver-harley-whaanga-jailed-for-anita-ranis-death/I3LW2PF5JNAWTPNBBPVUCBHHNQ/

Won’t somebody do something about this?

//
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October 15, 2024 5:39pm
Ghost

But are labour smart enough to know why? No.

Fifty-four per cent of voters think Chris Hipkins should remain as Labour leader, according to the latest 1News Verian poll.

The future of the former PM, who served in the top job for nine months, has been the subject of speculation as the opposition party looks to rebuild following its defeat at last year’s election.

Article
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October 15, 2024 6:40pm
- Swifty
  
  Hahahahah!
  
  Nice one Ghost.
  
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  October 15, 2024 7:07pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  Go, Hippy, go!
  
  (Take that any way you like)
  
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  October 15, 2024 7:43pm
Suze Wainwright

Listening to Checkpoint on the way home tonight for the first time in I don’t know how long.

Why are so many of their items prefaced with a “some people might find the details of the following story upsetting”…?

Unfortunately, the world is not always a nice place. Get over it listeners and HTFU. Now I know why social scientists prattle on about people being ‘scared’ by the most ridiculous things.
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October 15, 2024 8:21pm
Ghost

Interview with Seymour about the new prosecution guidelines. He informed heather that Judith is over this. So I guess stay tuned to see what comes next

https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/audio/david-seymour-act-party-leader-responds-to-the-solicitor-generals-updated-prosecution-guidelines/
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October 15, 2024 8:25pm
DimChappie

I can’t wait for Judith to return to NZ and summon Una Jagose for an explanation. Her guidelines update has breached the Coalition Agreements, the public service directive to prioritize needs over race and the Bill of Rights Act. If she resists and starts quoting radicals from Ināia Tonu Nei, it will not go well for her. Surely she must have known there would be a big reaction.
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October 15, 2024 9:16pm

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