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December 18, 2024 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 18 December 2024

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Yvette

While his speech to more than 10,000 people at Tūrangawaewae Marae in Ngāruawāhia was largely optimistic, Kiingi Tūheitia criticised the Government’s Treaty Principles Bill, which aimed to redefine the Treaty principles, and called for Te Tiriti o Waitangi (the Treaty of Waitangi) to be written into legislation so politicians “can’t change nothing”
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/maori-king-calls-for-hope-over-protest-while-dismissing-govt-treaty-bill/M2EXZG3JLNHTPFKEEUFK7Z5QXY/

Can the Treaty of Waitangi, which so many name as the Founding Document of New Zealand, and some hold as ‘sacred’, be written into, or enshrined in New Zealand legislation as is the wish of the late Maori Kiingi Tūheitia, until a definitive translation of its actual meaning can made at the same time.

And, Kiingi Tūheitia: “There’s no principles, the Treaty is written. That’s it.”,

Before the Treaty is written into law, it should be defined whether it does in fact have ‘Principles’ and if so, what those actually are – “so politicians ‘can’t change nothing’ ”
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December 18, 2024 8:03am
- Matt Long
  
  For most of my life the treaty was fraud.
  Now that it’s a gravy train for some elites, it’s sacred.
  
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  December 18, 2024 9:03am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Indeed:
    
    https://teara.govt.nz/en/ephemera/36376/treaty-protest-posters-the-treaty-is-a-fraud
    
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    December 18, 2024 9:33am
- PurplePen
  
  Two excerpts below give an idea of the content in the link. I like Rata’s logic and easy read on the ToW topic and the ideology behind it today.
  
  https://www.bassettbrashandhide.com/post/professor-elizabeth-rata-in-defence-of-democracy
  
  “The separation of the economic from the political is absolutely essential for democracy. When economic interests and political ambitions are merged there is no accountability to the people – consider all those totalitarian leaders whose power gives wealth and whose wealth gives power – a merger broken only when (and if) the people revolt.
  
  When the combination of reactionary politics and wealth accumulation is justified by ‘myths of past perfection’, we have what I call the neotribal capitalist version of the wealth-power merger.”
  
  “Is it too late to save New Zealand’s democracy? Have we already passed the crossroads? A pessimist, realist perhaps, might say ‘yes’. As a reluctant optimist I would say there is still time if we do the following:
  
  1. Remove the treaty and its principles from all legislation. People (not a sacred deity) put these into legislation. People can remove them.
  
  2. Remove retribalism’s ideology from all public institutions, including the universities. …”
  
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  December 18, 2024 11:40am
  - NZer In Exile
    
    Amen!
    
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    December 18, 2024 7:24pm
Simon

“Death of Mongrel Mob boss Joseph Morrell after seizure of $2m of assets ruled as suicide”

They even have a picture of him wearing his gang costume.

Would be very surprised if he wasn’t rat out by another gang member.
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December 18, 2024 8:08am
- kowtow
  
  That huge portrait photo the NZME posted ,insignia and all , had to be deliberate . It could have been cropped , for decency’s sake , given how much damage the gangs do and how utterly distasteful the vast majority of NZers feel about this organised crime blight on our once relatively crime free and very peaceful society.
  I can imagine the editors having a laugh at how they’re sticking it to the coaltion, by displaying gang insignia .
  
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  December 18, 2024 11:27am
  - NZer In Exile
    
    Send the cops around to those journos to “check their thinking”? Have a right wing “anti-disinformation squad” investigate them?
    
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    December 18, 2024 7:27pm
Cassandra

Pita Tipene chairs the Waitangi National Trust. He’s said that Seymour and Peters are spreading angst through the country. How unaware can someone be? What Seymour, Peters, Brash, dare I say Cassandra, are doing is reacting to an attempted racist takeover of our country, run by Maoris and aided and abetted by Labour and the Green Party. And the media, academia and the judiciary. The Northern Club judge (soon to be neither a judge or a member of the Northern Club) and her drunken boyfriend are typical examples of what we are resisting.
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December 18, 2024 8:11am
- pdm
  
  I stand with you Cass and I urge everyone to have a look at Treaty Principles Bill Submission that Hobsons Pledge have made available as a guide to others.
  
  Have a look here:
  https://nominister.wordpress.com/2024/12/17/treaty-principles-submissions/
  
  Use this as a guide for supporting submissions but, do not cut and paste large tracts of it and remember:
  
  SUBMISSIONS CLOSE AT 11.59PM ON 7 JANUARY 2025.
  
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  December 18, 2024 8:22am
  - Cassandra
    
    See Gary Judd’s excellent submission too.
    
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    December 18, 2024 8:38am
    - pdm
      
      Thanks Cass – I have not seen that.
      
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      December 18, 2024 8:40am
- Colville
  
  Yeah its all Seymour and Peters fault. //
  
  Like yesterday reported that Nelson Council passed motion to not do business with certain companies who trade with Israel.
  Deputy Mayor (wet behind the ears Rohan Tomas Sean O’Neill-Stevens) accused people who had a problem with this antisemitic view of causing violence.
  So its not the fact that Nelson Council is happy to hoist a Nazi flag above its building its the people who want to tear it down are the problem?
  
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  December 18, 2024 8:24am
  - Blog-aholic
    
    I do hope none of them own a Sodastream.
    
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    December 18, 2024 8:56am
  - NZer In Exile
    
    Yet posers like that ignore all sorts of other conflicts with much higher civilian casualties. Presumably not on the fashionable causes radar so they don’t give a ship.
    
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    December 18, 2024 7:30pm
- cmm
  
  “aided and abetted by Labour and the Green Party” and tacitly approved by National.
  
  Political parties are not really a problem. We can vote them out.
  
  What are far more of a problem are the other non-elected actors that have infested various organisations over time:
  * justice system (police, corrections, judiciary)
  * various government departments that require singing songs at each meeting
  * banks and other large organisations
  * various service providers to government: lab services, …
  * Royal Society
  …
  
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  December 18, 2024 8:35am
  - Debsta
    
    And the one-eyed leftist msm that hoodwink the gullible into believing it’s all virtuous and done in their best interest.
    
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    December 18, 2024 9:46am
    - cmm
      
      MSM are dying fast. They are very close to irrelevant.
      What are problematic are the other organisations. National has done SFA to control them.
      
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      December 18, 2024 10:06am
      - Ronin
        
        I agree with you, but I think this was the point being made by Cassandra, that you were replying to.
        
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        December 18, 2024 11:24am
  - PurplePen
    
    The worst insidious group is teachers’ inculcation of children that everything Maori good, everything non-Maori bad.
    
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    December 18, 2024 11:46am
- cmm
  
  As an example of what I mean, consider my experience from a few minutes ago.
  
  I used to go to Canterbury SCL to get annual blood tests. This year I got a text to go to Awanui Labs instead. Bugger, where are they?
  Well it turns out they are the same outfit, same pace – just rebranded and Maorified.
  
  As it says on their website: “Same place, same service, same smile with a new name”.
  
  Well it isn’t just a new name, everything is Maorified. The sign saying blood tests is now replaced with:
  (Some babble I forget) toto <– large font
  Blood tests <– smaller font
  
  On the back of the take a number card is a long babble about serving people in the motu etc. I'm surprised they didn't say that Māui invented blood tests.
  
  And, of course: "Services are delivered in a way that incorporates the principles of Treaty of Waitangi and acknowledges cultural diversity".
  
  This isn't just a change of names. The whole rebranding must have cost at least a million in website changes, repainting with the new corporate colour, and new signage, new wraps for their vehicles, new uniforms, …
  
  Guess where that all comes from? Taxpayer pockets, and in a time when there is supposed to be prudence!
  
  So why all this? Does it improve services? Does the needle prick hurt less? Do the lab results get processed quicker? Is the service easier to access? Nope – none of those.
  
  The only thing that explains this is to make sure they fit in with the activists employed in Ministry Of Health that hand out contracts. If you don't say the right things you won't get the contracts.
  
  This is bullshit that needs to stop.
  
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  December 18, 2024 10:01am
  - Ghost
    
    Awanui Labs took over most the other labs so there is no competition for contracts . The names changes took place in the ardern/hipkins maori name change frenzy. I remember when it happened the nurse said do you want one of these fucken things that explains the name. $10 million to rebrand and we can’t get a decent pay rise.
    
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    December 18, 2024 10:17am
    - NZer In Exile
      
      Bogan nurse? 😛
      
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      December 18, 2024 7:35pm
  - Paulus
    
    It is too embedded in New Zealand that it cannot be stopped.
    
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    December 18, 2024 2:06pm
    - NZer In Exile
      
      You’ve bought your ticket out?
      
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      December 18, 2024 7:36pm
  - MCōs
    
    I have been to the same place for blood tests for years on a regular basis and didn’t notice any difference.
    I don’t know what you’re moaning about
    
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    December 18, 2024 8:33pm
cas

Danyl McLauchlan in the latest Listener says about the Marsden Fund realigning of priorities :
‘Most of the blame should go to the Royal Society’s funding panels, which eagerly sealed their own doom. When you’re spending $861,000 of the public’s money on research”linking the celestial spheres to end-of-life experiences”and the now-infamous $360,000 study on the Ohakune Carrot”bringing a critical gaze to the privileging of Pakeha-centred narratives”, the election of a right-wing government inevitably becomes an extinction-level event.’
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December 18, 2024 8:15am
- cmm
  
  “Most of the blame should go to the Royal Society’s funding panels”
  
  I disagree.
  
  Rather the blame should go into the oversight of these panels.
  
  Panels and such will always get infested with woke activists if you leave them to their own devices.
  
  The real problem is that nobody is overseeing them and correcting them when they go off the rails.
  
  Exactly the same applies in all government departments. For decades now you have not been able to get a job at NIWA unless you say the right thing.
  
  Activists control the purse strings of government and will only hand out contracts to people saying the right things.
  
  The only solution is to have people in charge that weed out this behaviour. National are not doing it (well not yet anyway).
  
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  December 18, 2024 10:16am
  - NothingLeft
    
    Workers in paper-shuffling bureaucracies of all stripes get bored with doing the same old thing, they are always looking for ways to inject more novelty and change into their roles, and give the feeling of being important/powerful/making change to the people in charge – hence mission creep and efforts to change the focus of what they do at every juncture.
    
    It’s an understandable behavior, but needs fierce pushback from governance to maintain organisational focus and cost -effectiveness.
    
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    December 18, 2024 11:17am
    - cmm
      
      Power and influence is what it is about.
      
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      December 18, 2024 12:58pm
- NZer In Exile
  
  Hopefully the next election will be a right wing extinction event for the gravy trains of woolly-thinking far left wackos.
  
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  December 18, 2024 7:38pm
Damocles11

A Taranaki farmer, who has been ordered to pay $180,000 over his objection to the Mt Messenger Bypass route on State Highway 3, says the decision will ruin him.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/535815/taranaki-farmer-ordered-to-pay-180k-wonders-how-he-ll-survive

‘The Pascoes they were offered $600,000 for the Mangapēpeke Valley land and a contribution toward building a new home on a block they owned nearby. The valuation of the entire 250ha was $1.4m, according to the Taranaki Regional Explorer website.
Ngāti Tama exchanged 20ha of Treaty settlement land required for the Mt Messenger bypass project for a 120ha coastal property, a cultural compensation payment of about $7.7m and an environmental programme including pest management in perpetuity on 3650ha of its rohe – costing $750,000 annually.’
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December 18, 2024 8:22am
- MCōs
  
  The Pascoes have taken NZTA to court many times over the last four years and they intend appealing this latest decision.
  No wonder they’re out of pocket — as is the taxpayer.
  Here is some more information on the Ngāti Tama land exchange arrangement
  https://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/news/121873852/the-long-awaited-mt-messenger-bypass-and-the-iwi-vote-it-hinges-on
  
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  December 18, 2024 9:23am
Matt Long

CNN helps free a victim of Assad’s notorious prison. X posters note how well groomed he is and cast doubt on CNN heroics.
Then the freed prisoner is identified as one of Assad’s chief torturers.
Fortunately everything else they put out is extremely one hundred percent super accurate.
https://x.com/nypost/status/1868656174729420897
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December 18, 2024 8:23am
- imalwaysright
  
  Matt
  Here’s an example of their past heroic deeds.
  Two idiots pretending to report from Baghdad during the first gulf war.
  (Its not a comedy skit, this was broadcast)
  
  https://youtu.be/rWtwjDhgN3Q?si=1kAcmBbIUwFHcXR4
  
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  December 18, 2024 8:45am
Frank the tank

Bye bye Justin? Another one of Klaus’ puppets heading for the dumpster?
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December 18, 2024 8:23am
Matt Long

George Stephanopoulos gets ABC on the hook for 15 million for lying about Trump.
https://x.com/dom_lucre/status/1868139776127512668
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December 18, 2024 8:28am
- Dudley Quaffquaff
  
  For the further information of Kiwibloggers: He said that Trump had been found “liable for rape” where in fact Trump had been found guilty of sexual misconduct.
  
  Straight up. Stipulate that both offences happened, since one of them has been admitted via the payment and one of them established in court. Do you find Stephanopoulos’ offence, or Trump’s, the more egregious?
  
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  December 18, 2024 9:15am
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    Some of the e we Oman on that channel are still saying there is a rape to sort out, they just don’t get it
    
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    December 18, 2024 10:19am
    - Don Beckett
      
      So what has a rape in Oman got to do with it ? 😆
      
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      December 18, 2024 11:34am
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        Predictive texting, should have said some of the women
        
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        December 18, 2024 12:08pm
  - All_on_Red
    
    Here is more accurate reporting than Dudleys TDS induced fantasy. Its also a Civil case with lower standards of evidence- in this case, there is no evidence at all. Just the nutter Carrolls word.
    ‘When the jury in the E. Jean Carroll civil case reached a verdict, it filled out a verdict form. The first question was, “Did Ms. Carroll prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that Mr. Trump raped Ms. Carroll?” The jury answered, “No.”
    Its pretty clear the assault never happened
    ‘Carroll, now 81, cannot remember when the alleged episode took place — she has said it might have been 1995 or might have been 1996. Carroll says she told two friends about it at the time, and those two friends confirmed that at the trial. But Carroll did not go to authorities or tell another soul until 2019. Five years passed, then 10, then 15, then 20, and then nearly 25, and Carroll never told anyone else about it.’
    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/daily-memo/3261490/donald-trump-abc-news-toxic-legacy-e-jean-carroll-case/
    
    This clip of an interview Carroll had with Anderson Cooper where she says “Rape is sexy!” is revealing. Even Anderson Cooper gets the creeps
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcvNGX00LJk&t=18s
    
    But hey its good fodder for TDS fools- lol
    
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    December 18, 2024 10:22am
  - cmm
    
    “since one of them has been admitted via the payment”
    
    Hush money payments are not an admission of guilt. They are quite often just a way to make a problem go away.
    
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    December 18, 2024 10:23am
    - All_on_Red
      
      Like ABC paying Trump $16m!
      Its being said they paid because they didnt want to go through Discovery and what else Trump might find out aka Actual Malice…
      
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      December 18, 2024 10:29am
      - cmm
        
        This sort of thing is common in law and elsewhere.
        
        Paying the fine/extortion/bribe is ofthen just the quicker and cheaper option than challenging it.
        
        A similar situation existed for Android phones (maybe still does). Microsoft claimed that the Android phones were violating some Microsoft IP and were charging Android phone somewhere around $5 in Microsoft IP licenses.
        
        If you didn’t pay Microsoft they threatened to use IP protection laws to prevent the sale of Android phones in USA (and elsewhere).
        
        Many of these claims were highly contentious and disputed, but people just paid the danegeld rather than have their products excluded from the market. They just ate the $5 (or whatever).
        
        Motorola (funded by Google) finally spat the dummy and challenged some of the claims in court. Half an hour before the hearing was to start, Microsoft withdrew some of their IP claims and charged reduced license fees. AFAIK they never paid anything back.
        
        This kind of nonsense is common in various industries.
        
        My personal beef here was that some of the software was what I had written. Microsft alleged I stole their IP. They never withdrew the allegation and never apologised. Microsoft made tens of millions by alleging this. I didn’t see a penny (though I did earn a few grand as an expert witness preparing material for Motorola’s case).
        Microsoft is not in high regard in my household.
        
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        December 18, 2024 12:42pm
  - Dudley Quaffquaff
    
    This is a man who has openly advised other men to grab women by the pussy, who has boasted about being able to walk into changing rooms where young women were undressing (behaviour which provokes screams of horror when trans women do it), who has commented how he would fancy his daughter if she wasn’t his daughter, who reckons he could have had the late Princess of Wales if he wanted, who has cheated on several wives.
    
    And we really think there’s doubt as to whether he’s guilty of sexual misconduct?
    
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    December 18, 2024 12:15pm
    - Handyman
      
      Don’t forget Biden used to shower with his 12 year old daughter. As recorded in her diary and confirmed by his daughter.
      
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      December 18, 2024 12:45pm
    - Ra Henare
      
      Dudley Dudley Dudly. Please give up on the misinformation.
      
      This is a man who has openly advised other men to grab women by the pussy
      
      Trump has never, read that again, never advised other men to grab them by the pussy.
      
      As reported.
      
      He added, “I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. … Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.
      
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_Access_Hollywood_tape
      
      I suggest you stop the libel before you find yourself on the receiving end of a Libel suit.
      
      Unless of course you have $15 mill in loose change you dont mind loosing.
      
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      December 18, 2024 4:47pm
  - NZer In Exile
    
    “one of them has been admitted via the payment”
    
    Or it was simply STFU and go away money to get a vexatious plant to piss off.
    
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    December 18, 2024 7:41pm
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  Then since then they have been talking about the rape in the stormy Daniel’s case, the judge stated clearly there was no rape, yet these left wing shit paper rags still spout the lies
  
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  December 18, 2024 10:17am
  - All_on_Red
    
    Daniels owes Trump about $130,000
    Carroll is going to end up owing Trump too.
    Silly woman. Apparently she loved the TV program Law and Order and ‘coincidently’ the incident Carroll describes was a Law and Order episode…
    
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    December 18, 2024 10:26am
    - Vory v zakone
      
      Yep Carroll will be exposed at the appeal. Counter suit incoming…
      #thebestisyettocome
      
      https://x.com/akafacehots/status/1868372594405388539?t=dILeA8rL57iaCmoH8QZG0A&s=19
      
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      December 18, 2024 1:23pm
  - MCōs
    
    I’ve never seen any allegations that Mr Trump raped Stormy Daniels.
    According to Daniels she was paid money by Mr Trump via Michael Cohen to shut up about a sexual encounter they’d had
    Mr Trump denied he’d had sex with that woman; joining a long line of blokes going back to Joseph and beyond who’d made similar statements
    
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    December 18, 2024 12:15pm
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      Then watch Fox, they replay these idiots’ crimes, they have clear proof, they also replayed the suggestion he has a simple rape matter to be sorted as well, this was after the 16 million paid to Trump
      
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      December 18, 2024 2:49pm
Damocles11

The befuddled and confused corporate and blueblood establishment – as exemplified by Luxon and Willis – appear to be committed to just rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic and hoping for a miracle. Of course the usual levers of low interest rates and immigration will be pulled as they have zero other ideas. It plainly isn’t working, the ship is taking in water and listing heavily. We urgently need to find leaders with conviction, moral courage, and integrity. Unfortunately these are the qualities the establishment fears most, nevertheless, commeth the hour, commeth the man and / or woman.
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December 18, 2024 8:28am
- RoboRob
  
  A major part of the issue here actually Adrian Orr. He has had NZ interest rates set at a ‘brake’ level all year while the economy was already in recession and the government was cutting spending. He should have had the economic sense to know that he needed to get the rates to neutral or even inflationary in Feb / March 2024. There was / is no need to put the brakes on the economy when (unlike Labour) the National government had ended inflationary borrowing and spending and is reducing spending.
  
  While I agree the National needs to do better, a lot of the issue is the RBNZ. They printed money and had crazy low interest rates at the same time the Labour government was in a huge borrow and spend mode. He should have raised rates / stopped printing money ~1.5 years earlier then he did. This caused inflation to be far worse then it needed to be. Then he was much to slow to understand that the inflation (he helped cause) was coming back in line quickly and kept the breaks on.
  
  As I understand it, even out current rate is considered deflationary (too high) and we know any rate changes take 1-2years to actually take full effect. At the moment we are still seeing the impact of Dec/Jans high interest rates.
  
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  December 18, 2024 9:20am
  - Paulus
    
    Orr did wht his bosses and employers, Arden and Robertson told him.
    His contract was extended for five years by Robertson just before the election.
    
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    December 18, 2024 2:15pm
- the deity formerly known as nigel6888
  
  Probably the most disappointing economic fiscal outlook in recent history. Compounded by:
  
  1. Really dodgy fiddling numbers to dick with OBEGAL – which itself was a Cullen dick around to with no integrity.
  
  2. claiming reducing the rate of new spending is somehow evidence of sound fiscal management
  
  3. allowing all of the stupid discretionary expenditure of the previous wastrel government to simply be baselined and shrugging about that
  
  4. Claiming that shafting consultants shows how tough and prudent they are, when it was only the consultants who knew how to make things happen
  
  5. Ignoring that they are being deliberately slow walked by the bureaucracy which is undermining them at every step.
  
  Seriously do they want to be the first one term national government? Because this is how you go about that.
  
  Incremental managerialism is not an economic strategy.
  
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  December 18, 2024 3:36pm
Yvette

• The standards place a strong emphasis on cultural competency, including the need for nurses to establish therapeutic relationships with individuals, whānau [Māori extended families], and communities. They must also recognise the importance of whanaungatanga (building relationships) and manaakitanga (hospitality and respect) in fostering collective wellbeing.
One of the more significant additions involves requiring nurses to “describe the impact of colonisation and social determinants on health and wellbeing.”
Additionally, nurses must advocate for individuals and whānau by incorporating cultural, spiritual, physical, and mental health into whakapapa-centred care (care focused on family and ancestral connections).
https://www.bassettbrashandhide.com/post/jerry-coyne-the-latest-from-the-asylum-new-zealand-nurses-directed-to-foster-accept-and-priori

• The prime minister not attending Waitangi Day would show he “has no balls and may be a drop-nuts*”, Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi says.
“When you’re doing something that’s controversial, that’s upset a lot of people, it’s more important than ever that you show up and talk about it,” Hipkins said.
Labour’s Willie Jackson agreed, but said he had also heard “off the grapevine that they’re very worried about the safety of some of the MPs“.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/536954/te-pati-maori-s-rawiri-waititi-says-luxon-may-be-drop-nuts-if-he-doesn-t-attend-waitangi-day

________
* drop nut – some one who gets scared and acts like a wuss or some one who drops something a person who chickens out of something and acts unmanly ie drops his nuts.
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December 18, 2024 8:29am
- wisteria
  
  So says someonr who wears pink suits, a cowboy hat and beach shirts in Parliament. We really should take note.
  
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  December 18, 2024 9:06am
  - imalwaysright
    
    Didn’t they host some North American Indians a few weeks ago in order to imbue their imagined victimhood with appropriated credibility?
    
    I wonder what the visitors thought of the cowboy hat?
    
    I also wonder what a truly subjugated race thought of the pampered maori bleating.
    
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    December 18, 2024 10:22am
    - AitchW
      
      Please, “Native Americans”.
      I do hope that TMP referred to them as “Indians”. The hypocrisy would be delicious…
      
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      December 18, 2024 11:19am
    - NZer In Exile
      
      Re the cowboy hat. Is their chief clown bald?
      
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      December 18, 2024 7:44pm
- PurplePen
  
  The prime minister not attending Waitangi Day would show he “has no balls and may be a drop-nuts*”, Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi says.
  
  Can you imagine the outrage if a white male MP said the same thing about Jacinda who was adept at walking away from the press when it was a bad story.
  
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  December 18, 2024 9:24am
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    I hope he comes out and says security have told me these scums are going to attack him at Waitangi, and do a Key, and English, and say stuff you, and glorify his day at some other event that will love the attention
    
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    December 18, 2024 2:51pm
- Paulus
  
  Both myself three times into hospital this year for a week or more, and my wife for over three months, cannot think we saw anybody who could be called a Maori certainly not in the medical care saide of things
  Only all the Hospital signs were in non understandable language though but no medical workers.
  All lovely, and almost all from overseas.
  
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  December 18, 2024 2:20pm
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    I had my pre-admission yesterday, I seen an induction nurse, not one word of Māori, not even Ki Ora, seen an orthopaedic doctor consulting, had an Ex-ray, came back to another nurse for papers, went down to the surgeons waiting area, spoke to receptionist, heard several other staff while waiting nearly an hour, then after i spoke to surgeon, I had to have bloods taken, not once did i hear a Māori word, so that word is getting in, we are not here to spout bullshit, some of the people i spoke to pre-admission in June did speak with a Māori greeting, that seems to have changed, because not once did I hear an utterance from any of the people I had to speak to, and I actually think signage was less Māori, I can’t really remember seeing any
    
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    December 18, 2024 2:59pm
    - NZer In Exile
      
      Think you’ll find it’s the administrators pulling all the stupid woke crap. Same deal in the universities apparently.
      
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      December 18, 2024 7:47pm
Maggy Wassilieff

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer back to childish name-calling in Parliament:

SPEAKER: Sit down!

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: You’re a tangiweto!

During Oral Question 6
https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/hansard-debates/rhr/combined/HansDeb_20241217_20241217_16

I had to look up the noun tangiweto

I think it means “crybaby”
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December 18, 2024 8:45am
- G152
  
  Should mean a month in the slammer
  
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  December 18, 2024 8:55am
- graham
  
  Ms Ngarewa-Packer is 58 years old, a mother of three, a grandmother, and a Member of Parliament.
  
  Is this really what somebody at that stage of life and in that position considers acceptable behaviour?
  
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  December 18, 2024 9:06am
  - JackRabbit
    
    She obviously does.
    
    We don’t.
    
    An 8 year old spoiled brat in a 58 year old body.
    
    Send her to the naughty corner.
    
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    December 18, 2024 10:31am
  - Jack5
    
    Debbie Ngarewa-Packer reckons NZ could raise $200 billion from a capital gains tax in just six years.
    
    As Thomas Coughlan points out in the Herald, this is an astonishing claim – the amount is about half the size of NZ’s economy.
    
    That is, it’s a rubbish claim. Ngarewa-Packer is as thick as a totara (Podocarpus totara, as in the eulogy cliché “mighty fallen totara”).
    
    There’s a reasonable argument for increasing NZ’s present modest capital gains tax, but one point is its effect on Maori.
    
    Maori land makes up close to 6 per cent of the country’s area. It’s communally owned, and unsaleable, so its questionable whether a relevant capital value can be established. Revaluing it annually would be an expensive, momentous job. Maori land would surely be exempt from a capital gains tax.
    
    Tribal businesses such as those of Ngai Tahu operate free of company tax because they have group registration as charities. There will be a push to keep charities free of any new capital gains tax.
    
    Ngarewa-Packer’s rant:
    
    https://shorturl.at/WlABt
    
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    December 18, 2024 10:45am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      They think the tax will be as plied on ever cent.
      
      Watched twice to see TPM suggest that Luxon should have paid tax because he sold his houses, Brownlie is getting quite angry in the house and he straight away rules these thugs questions out, this is getting worse for Hipkins, because at d sad one stage, he is going to have to rule these muppets out at the next election
      
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      December 18, 2024 12:14pm
  - Paulus
    
    Not only to her, but to now more people who consider themselves as a Maori – which of course they are not as there are non since about 1960.
    
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    December 18, 2024 2:21pm
  - NZer In Exile
    
    When you’re on the gravy train you follow gravy train rules.
    
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    December 18, 2024 7:49pm
- Burtland
  
  TPMs intention is to turn parliament into a clown show
  – take the money and take the piss
  and its working
  Gerry needs to get a grip
  
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  December 18, 2024 10:40am
  - AitchW
    
    Perhaps it’s time for Maori to have their own parliament.
    Can you imagine the endless powhiri, karakia and haka?
    Not to mention the endless squabbling between tribes….
    The kaikorero would need danger money…
    
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    December 18, 2024 11:22am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      Let them have it, but fund it their bloody selves, and one crime kill’s someone, then charge for pain to the community and the family
      
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      December 18, 2024 12:15pm
      - Don Beckett
        
        Yes, they could depend on the tax paid by all those on the Maori roll. That’d cut their salaries by megabucks.
        
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        December 18, 2024 4:06pm
    - imalwaysright
      
      It would be empty. They would all be at home couch surfing and putting their Temu purchases and Uber eats on the parliamentary card.
      
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      December 18, 2024 12:52pm
    - Paulus
      
      As long as they and not taxpayers, such as me, do not pay !
      
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      December 18, 2024 2:22pm
Hugh Jarse

Why is the coalition government being continually surprised by the economic numbers being worse than expected ?. A tactic or is it poor information being provided, kind of like the pre election PREFU ?
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December 18, 2024 8:47am
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  They were not surprised, they knew it would be bad, the surprise was the treasury forecasts that now say Labours recession has been going for 3 years, let’s not forget the last quarter GDP was actually.02 positive which actually took us out of recession, and todays figures will not constitute recession
  
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  December 18, 2024 10:22am
  - Paulus
    
    Since when have Treasury ever been right in recent years !
    
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    December 18, 2024 2:23pm
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      Thats right, but they are usually good at correcting their predictions which shows Labour had us in recession 3 years ago
      
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      December 18, 2024 3:01pm
Grunter

Amongst all the BS from our politicians of all colours over the past 18 hours (after yesterday’s financial update), one FACT popped up from Seymour that reminds us of how reality is now hitting hard.

“In the last 12 months, 30,000 additional retirees boosted super annuation payments”.

No solution to this known fact from Seymour of course, he was simply using it as an excuse for the train smash financial numbers.

Of course, he should have continued to say, …..
“And in the years 2025-2035 the number of additional retirees taking super will grow to 70,000 to 80,000 every year. And from 2035-50 it will level off at around 90,000 each year.”

None of our current politicians want to own up to this massive problem. None of them have an answer. Tresury forecasts show that Govt Debt will blow up massively. New Zealand has a sovereign debt problem that at some point will be defaulted on.

Of course, the same problem exists across the globe – USA, UK, EU, Japan, China, Aust, SEA,….. no Government can pay it back and it just gets bigger every year.

Reality will one day hit. I do not know when that day will come, but it will be well before 2040 and I expect it could be within the next few years.
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December 18, 2024 8:48am
- pdm
  
  If this Government was `on the job’ it would progressively lift the age of entitlement to NZ Super from 65 to 70 in 6 monthly increments starting from from 1 April 2025
  
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  December 18, 2024 9:09am
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  National have a policy of lifting the age in the future, the other parties are too gutless to go there, Willis asked for bi-partisan dialogue, Dhe was shunned by every other party, and in fact Act, Seymour now the expert when he refused to help just a couple of months ago
  
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  December 18, 2024 9:25am
  - Grunter
    
    “National have a policy….”
    
    At best your beloved Nats have ‘proposed to look at’ slowly lifting the retirement age to 67 starting in 2037. So, maybe around 2045 they would get their??
    
    But that was under Bill English, this lot would be way too scared to mention it. You’re dreaming if you think the Nats (or any other NZ Poli) will grow some nuts and fix this one properly.
    
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    December 18, 2024 10:27am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      For a start you can stop the brr we lived bullshit. I am here to keep Labour greens and TPM out, I do not care for vote Act that will help, no it will not, there will still be 2 major parties for years to come, Im voting against what I don’t want to see, so worry about your own party
      
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      December 18, 2024 12:18pm
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      I also challenge you to go and look what Nats went to the election on, and yes they did have a policy to lift the age from the 3030’s to say they did not is an utter lie.
      
      And Willis did reach out to all parties about this a couple of months ago
      
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      December 18, 2024 12:20pm
- PeeJay
  
  Some recent modelling in the UK indicates they will need to raise their state pension age to around 71 from 2040. Some experts think that due to the number of people being unable to work to that age, it may need to rise even further.
  
  I think all the western democracies are struggling with the same issue. Most rational folks acknowledge the pension / super age will need to rise – the economics are very clear on this. To do so requires a politician to be in power with determination and the vision to do something about this. However, to be in power they need to get elected first – and any politician promoting anything other than the ‘kicking the can down the road approach’ will simply never get anywhere close to the levers of power.
  
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  December 18, 2024 9:28am
  - NZer In Exile
    
    “Some experts think that due to the number of people being unable to work to that age, it may need to rise even further.”
    
    So if you are unable to work, and elderly, you get the unemployment benefit instead (being sent around in circles every week searching for jobs one will never land, and thus wasting welfare dept and employers’ time)?
    
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    December 18, 2024 7:53pm
- Burtland
  
  theres never any mention of the ‘Te Kaitiaki Tahua Penihana Kaumātua o Aotearoa’ * and how it is going to be spent – currently sitting at $72B
  
  has someone renamed it hoping we all become demented and forget about it?
  
  * Te Kaitiaki Tahua Penihana Kaumātua o Aotearoa – ‘Cullen’ Superannuation Fund
  
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  December 18, 2024 11:16am
- NothingLeft
  
  AI is going to have a far bigger impact on a far shorter time frame – will put most office workers out of work in next 5 years, and displacing most repetitive laboring jobs (through robots) not long after.
  
  Impacts on economies and govts is going to be apocalyptic with most human labor no longer worth anything. But seems most people and businesses are either ignorant of it, or are in deep denial – shuffling their way towards the cliff.
  
  Next to that imminent crisis all other social issues and political problems are as nothing.
  
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  December 18, 2024 11:28am
- Nobby2
  
  Grunter.
  Additional retirees get superannuation each year. A number of retirees getting superannuation die each year. Can someone please tell me what the nett annual figure of people getting superannuation for the last 10 years was and what the projected nett annual figure of people getting superannuation is for the next 10 years. I will hold my breath in anticipation and hope I don’t expire before I get an answer.
  
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  December 18, 2024 11:54am
  - NZer In Exile
    
    Nobby2, I asked Brave Browser’s “Leo” anonymised AI query and got the following:
    
    According to the Ministry of Social Development’s annual reports, here is a rough breakdown of the number of people receiving superannuation (also known as the NZ Super or the New Zealand Superannuation) in New Zealand over the last 10 years:
    
    2014: 556,600
    2015: 566,200
    2016: 576,500
    2017: 586,400
    2018: 596,300
    2019: 606,100
    2020: 616,100
    2021: 625,900
    2022: 635,600
    2023: 645,300
    Please note that these figures are subject to slight variations depending on the source and methodology used. The Ministry of Social Development’s annual reports provide the most up-to-date and accurate information on this topic.
    
    According to the Ministry of Social Development’s projections, based on the 2021 New Zealand Superannuation Fund data, here is a rough breakdown of the projected number of people receiving superannuation (also known as the NZ Super or the New Zealand Superannuation) in New Zealand over the next 10 years:
    
    2024: 651,300
    2025: 662,600
    2026: 674,100
    2027: 685,800
    2028: 697,600
    2029: 709,500
    2030: 721,500
    2031: 733,600
    2032: 745,800
    2033: 758,100
    Please note that these projections are subject to change and may be influenced by various factors, such as changes to the eligibility criteria, demographic trends, and economic conditions. The Ministry of Social Development regularly updates its projections based on the latest data and trends.
    
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    December 19, 2024 10:47pm
- Paulus
  
  For a start extend the age of entitlement over some years to a greater number as people, except Maori of course, live longer.
  Been looked at several time before but needs guts especially as Kiwisaver was put in as a substitute along side, and should be compulsory.
  But of course only the Kiwisaver managers win in real terms so their management fees should be fixed too.
  
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  December 18, 2024 2:27pm
vand

Judge Ema Aiken- I think she runs the alcohol treatment court. I trust she wasn’t drunk when interrupting at NZ First function (take your own medicine etc?).
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December 18, 2024 9:00am
- JackRabbit
  
  Maybe getting prospective judges hammered would be a good induction / employment test.
  
  If they can’t hold their tongue while under the influence, they are not impartial.
  
  There are judges whose stated values do not change after a few too many glasses.
  
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  December 18, 2024 10:37am
  - imalwaysright
    
    If we could keep them hammered we might get some decent sentences.
    
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    December 18, 2024 12:58pm
Ian Boag

Broken record here …

Super is a benefit – today’s taxpayers fund today’s pensioners. There is – and has never been – a “pensions fund” that people “paid into”. The “pensions” component of their taxes was paying for their parents.

The Cullen fund will sort of smooth things out for a while when things hit the fan, but running it down when the time comes will not solve the long term problem.

The most sensible start to partially dealing with this is to income test the pension. Means (asset) testing is a bit hard, but income is much easier to keep track of. Don’t pay it to people who don’t “need” it (whatever that means). We do it with every other benefit …..

Raising the age would probably help. That was done once before – went from 60 to 65 – in a few short years. The sky did not fall in.

But the fingers in ears “la la la we can afford it forever” does not work …..
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December 18, 2024 9:09am
Ian Boag

Broken record here …

Super is a benefit – today’s taxpayers fund today’s pensioners. There is – and has never been – a “pensions fund” that people “paid into”. The “pensions” component of their taxes was paying for their parents.

The Cullen fund will sort of smooth things out for a while when things hit the fan, but running it down when the time comes will not solve the long term problem.

The most sensible start to partially dealing with this is to income test the pension. Means (asset) testing would be useful, but it is a bit hard. Income is much easier to keep track of. Don’t pay the pension to people who don’t “need” it (whatever that means). We do it with every other benefit …..

Raising the age would help. That was done once before – went from 60 to 65 – in a few short years. The sky did not fall in.

But the fingers in ears “la la la we can afford it forever” does not work …..
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December 18, 2024 9:09am
- Grunter
  
  I agree Ian that we can not continue with the fingers in your ear solution.
  
  However, I disagree with your solution offered. Using tax to pay for low-income retirees based on some ‘means test’ will be gamed big time and would save very little. Enforcing the retirement age to 70 is also an unfair outcome when those elderly citizens have had their incomes slashed by 30% income tax all their lives (effectively de-powering their ability to save for their retirement in most cases).
  
  Rob McCulloch has done the numbers (supported by Sir Roger Douglas) and a savings-based sovereign fund similar to the Singapore system is the only realistic and fair system (IMO). It is a ‘tried and tested’ system that NZ should have started in the 1970s but Muldoon buried it, Lange refused to re-instate it, and successive Governments of all colours ignored the obvious.
  
  It’s a tragedy of our lifetimes.
  
  [Mod – fixed]
  
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  December 18, 2024 9:29am
  - Ian Boag
    
    What a great idea! Save for your own pension! Start putting money into a pension fund. Simple.
    
    Unfortunately – while you are doing that, you have to keep paying for the current cohort of unfunded old beneficiaries …. this is the other shoe dropping from what Muldoon did when he started paying a pension for free to the then 60-year olds. Pay-as-you-go pensions are basically a Ponzi scheme.
    
    So this brilliant idea will increase PAYE/GST taxes. Just what the doctor ordered. Current taxpayers will continue funding a universal pension for their olds – and putting money away for their own old age when said pension will not exist.
    
    Won’t affect me of course, so why should I care? The pension is a handy bit of spending money on top of my comfortable income. The fact that I pay tax on it does not change the fact that giving it to me is barmy. Raising the age won’t touch me either ….
    
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    December 18, 2024 10:40am
    - Grunter
      
      No Ian, you are completely on the wrong track and have misunderstood what Sir Roger & Co propose.
      
      Go Google how the Singapore system works as a starter for 10….
      
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      December 18, 2024 11:50am
      - Ian Boag
        
        I looked at the Singapore system which has been there since 1955. So all their oldies are in it. Trouble is if we started that tomorrow, there would be the compulsory 20% (or whatever) deduction for my old age PLUS I would still be paying for the current generation of oldies. Making up for the fact that they didn’t have compulsory contribution.
        
        It would highlight the fact that the current scheme cannot be easily turned off and amounts to Ponzi or inter-generational theft depending on your point of view.
        
        The transition would be real hard. Don’t hold your breath ….. we are stuck with pay-as-you-go forever.
        
        There is no simple answer. IMHO a fundamental issue is that something needs to happen to reduce the cost per pensioner over time.
        
        Upping the age is one thing. Targetting the pension would be another. Isn’t the targetting of welfare benefits deemed to be a good idea these days?
        
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        December 18, 2024 1:05pm
  - Quail
    
    Grunter
    Add in the fact that savers are rapidly losing their savings (and ability to look after themselves)with on going inflation and Governments tax on savings interest.
    To Governments inflation is just another surreptitious tax.
    They love it!
    
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    December 18, 2024 1:17pm
    - mogg
      
      Yes this is hardly ever commented on, over the six years of Labour mismanagement, inflation totaled 26%, so someone with $1m dollar retirement fund would now need $1260,000 just to stand still. Plus any tax bracket creep.
      
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      December 18, 2024 2:57pm
- MCōs
  
  Unfortunately when the Nats introduced the current system it replaced a fledgling user pays system
  We were scared by the dancing Cossacks ads into believing the state was going to take over the country or something
  The new system was also sold on its universality and extreme generosity, which the government couldn’t afford. People were consequently discouraged from saving for their retirement
  It’s been a hot potato ever since.
  
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  December 18, 2024 9:42am
  - Jack5
    
    Agree it was National’s Muldoon who disastrously threw away a sustainable national super scheme.
    
    The late Brian Gaynor described the Muldoon disaster thus:
    
    “A dreadful political decision, announced on December 15, 1975, transformed New Zealand from the potential Switzerland of the Southern Hemisphere into a low-ranking OECD economy.
    
    “Without this decision we would now be called ‘the Antipodean Tiger’ and be the envy of the rest of the world. We would have a current account surplus, one of the lowest interest-rate structures in the world and would probably rank as one of the top five OECD economies.”
    
    An excellent article:
    
    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/economy/ibrian-gaynori-how-muldoon-threw-away-nzs-wealth/SCLHC7PSJVDE4QCRJWCO4LDYNE/
    
    AND….
    
    Details of NZ’s disastrous super decision, from the State “NZ History” site:
    
    The Labour Government’s New Zealand Superannuation Act, passed in August 1974, required mandatory pension contributions by employees and employers for all workers over the age of 17. Contributions could only be withdrawn if people were leaving the country permanently and payments would begin upon retirement from the age of 60.
    
    The new scheme came into operation on 1 April 1975 but its life would be short. In that year’s election the National opposition proposed an alternative tax-funded National Superannuation scheme. This wooed many voters who were unhappy about their take-home pay being reduced to fund their retirement.
    
    The affordability of National Super, which replaced Labour’s scheme in February 1977, would be severely tested as the numbers eligible for it grew. The question of how to pay for our retirement has dogged successive governments.
    
    https://nzhistory.govt.nz/culture/the-1970s/1974
    
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    December 18, 2024 11:40am
    - marcw
      
      Perhaps you could comment or judge on what is happening to the UK National Insurance – funded by compulsory taxes on workers. I see what UK Labour are doing as justification for Muldoon’s foresight in scrapping the newly started existing scheme just in time.
      
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      December 18, 2024 12:03pm
      - Jack5
        
        Muldoon’s foresight?
        
        His move on national super was as wrong as his wage and price freeze to end inflation.
        
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        December 18, 2024 12:36pm
    - Vory v zakone
      
      Just like the Klarkenführer, Key, St Cindy and Robertson, Muldoon was only following orders. Their corrupt overlords didn’t want this little country at the bottom of the world to be an economic success.
      (Will this be exposed in future years🤔)
      
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      December 18, 2024 1:37pm
    - Paulus
      
      Until it became such a size that most Companies at the time were owned by the Fund, as Overseas Investments were not on at the time.
      Then when one New Zealand Investment to the fund goes bust, as happened at the time and later, who takes over the Company, Management and all – the Taxpayer has to sort all the losses, from the other funds over years with the Unions and Labour screaming.
      
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      December 18, 2024 2:33pm
- Dudley Quaffquaff
  
  Why do you think income testing is more sensible than raising the age of eligibility? Bearing in mind the perverse incentives inevitably caused by income testing, resulting in the diversion of funds towards lawyers and accountants to find loopholes and rearrange assets to avoid the means test, resulting in the need for more public service time and effort to keep the system straight?
  
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  December 18, 2024 9:49am
  - Ian Boag
    
    Most people don’t earn enough money to fund smart accountants and stuff. MSD and IRD are in each other’s pockets now because they have to manage benefit abatement for beneficiaries who do a bit of taxable paid work. So that bit is not hard.
    
    Somebody who has a professional job and continues working after 65 would not get the pension. Tough. They might choose not to work – their choice.
    
    Super is a benefit. We have always abated benefits. MSD/IRD know how to do it.
    
    I don’t oppose raising the age. It we changed it to 70 tomorrow there would be a 5-year period when the number of pensioners would not grow. It would drop off some because of deaths. But then we would be back on the same treadmill with numbers growing each year by the same projected amounts ….
    
    Ideally I would favour asset testing but I regard it as a bit too hard. All your accountant and lawyer and trust shit. Having said that, I note the Australians do it and we do it when looking at care of the elderly. There are rules that make it a bit hard to hide from unless you start very early.
    
    OTOH income testing in most cases is a breeze. No need for perfect to be the enemy of good ….. we need some sort of structural change that lowers the underlying cost of the pension. Raising the age is a “can down the road” thing.
    
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    December 18, 2024 11:18am
  - Paulus
    
    Do you mean Income or Assett Testing ?
    Both easy to manipulate as many Aussies do.
    
    3 0
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    December 18, 2024 2:34pm
    - Ian Boag
      
      Not sure I would agree about it being easy to avoid income testing. Perhaps you might indicate – specifically – how an ordinary bloke/ess who took a job after 65 might do it.
      
      1 1
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      December 18, 2024 3:40pm
      - artemisia
        
        Not quite an answer, but a while back Mary Holm kept being asked why super was paid to people working. IRD told her it would cost more to implement than it would save.
        
        That may also apply to income from other sources, interest for example, I don’t know. It is true though that universal keeps it simple.
        
        3 0
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        December 18, 2024 4:42pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        @artie
        
        And yet they can easily track beneficiary tax income to seamlessly organise benefit abatement. Nothing wrong with that, but it means the MSD/IRD computer systems must be reasonably well interlinked.
        
        IRD told her it would cost more to implement than it would save
        I think I saw that one. Wondered at the time who in IRD was able to express an opinion like that. Whoever “IRD” was ….
        
        1 1
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        December 18, 2024 5:02pm
      - artemisia
        
        Ian @ 5.02. Not sure about seamless. Some people only pay tax at the end of the FY, others have variable income week by week. Beneficiaries are allowed to earn a certain amount before abatement and have to notify their earnings, I think each week, for the calculation. Something similar would be needed for super I guess. Or it could be like WFF washup at the end of the tax year determining payment to or from IRD.
        
        I helped family members take a case to the Benefits Review Committee, after months of trying to work with WINZ to clarify payments owed, including face to face meetings. Much of the debt was accepted by the family, some not. Some days 2 letters from WINZ arrived in the letter box on the same day, different amounts. The BRC found in our favour, wrote off the balance of the debt and refunded payments against the debt already made. The amount of stress on a family with 2 preschoolers was considerable.
        
        2 0
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        December 18, 2024 5:49pm
Cassandra

Prof Robert MacCulloch explains that National under Willis is borrowing and spending MORE than Labour under Robertson; that the cuts to the public service are tiney and welfare for the rich continues. Birds of a feather. National is trying to stay in the centre but it’s only tinkering around the edges. Change is difficult but it’s got to be done.
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December 18, 2024 9:16am
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  Willis has stated yesterday exactly that, more deeper cuts will happen next budget round.
  
  8 6
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  December 18, 2024 9:33am
  - Cassandra
    
    We’ll see. The proof of the pudding is in the eating.
    
    11 0
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    December 18, 2024 9:56am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      She now has the excuse, clear now for everyone to see, then Hipkins comes out yesterday whinging about cuts
      
      7 3
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      December 18, 2024 10:29am
  - Grunter
    
    G from Dunners…
    Yes she did say that, but followed it up with more word-salad….”but we do not need drastic austerity, we do not need to cut entire Depts nor frontline services,……..”
    
    That just leaves…….. bugger all.
    
    Willis and Luxon are not up to this challenge. They are failing and failing big time. They will not take the action that is required.
    
    10 3
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    December 18, 2024 10:36am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      Well, she has stated there will be deep cuts, and no sector is getting extra next budget, and who said some services will not be morphed into one? Remember the outrage when they created MBIE? Nite never mentioned
      
      3 2
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      December 18, 2024 12:27pm
      - imalwaysright
        
        Just listened to Laws interviewing someone from the Tax Payers Union.
        To paraphrase, he suggests that this government’s policies boil down to managing our poverty rather than taking a short term hit and reducing tax rates and attracting investment to kickstart growth.
        
        This government are trying to keep all of the plates spinning to please everyone.
        That’s not possible, there are too many plates.
        
        6 1
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        December 18, 2024 1:09pm
    - mogg
      
      Both Treasury and Willis have underestimated the damage done by Robertson’s debt binge and wasteful spending. Start with the &billions lost on issuing Covid bonds at way under 1%, which are still being sold back into the market at a yield 4.69%.
      
      8 0
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      December 18, 2024 3:14pm
  - NZer In Exile
    
    The lefty media and fellow idiots will hark back to the good old days when truckloads of money was flushed down the toilet on unproductive virtue signalling.
    
    4 0
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    December 18, 2024 8:01pm
- Grunter
  
  National trying to stay in the centre…..??! Nah,
  
  They are clearly centre-left at best.
  
  With no tax bracket adjustments likely, we will soon have the highest income tax ever, coupled with the biggest govt debt, the longest period of deficits, stagnant or declining growth, negative balance of payments….. That is not a centre-right situation – that is clearly socialism failing in front of our eyes!
  
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  December 18, 2024 9:34am
  - Paulus
    
    New Zeald is Centre Left for years,
    Aotearoa is the only one on the right route to their prosperity from everybody else.
    
    4 1
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    December 18, 2024 2:37pm
- GazzaW
  
  Are we not paying $8 billion interest annually on the monies rashly borrowed by Robertson? Whilst that does not represent the entirety of the sorry mess that we are in it surely is a good example of the economic position bequeathed to Willis. Willis is doing a good job under extremely challenging circumstances.
  
  15 4
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  December 18, 2024 9:37am
  - Grunter
    
    The numbers do not lie. Yes, this is challenging times. But, No, Willis is not doing a good job. She is now part of the problem (as I expected).
    
    11 5
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    December 18, 2024 10:39am
  - JackRabbit
    
    Agreed.
    
    6 3
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    December 18, 2024 10:44am
    - JackRabbit
      
      My agreement was that under the current conditions she is doing a reasonable job.
      
      2 0
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      December 18, 2024 5:06pm
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    9 billion they said yesterday
    
    6 0
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    December 18, 2024 10:47am
- MCōs
  
  In my humble opinion a lot of our on going problems are due to the extraordinarily high cost of housing.
  
  6 0
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  December 18, 2024 9:49am
  - imalwaysright
    
    …and the high minimum wage.
    
    11 3
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    December 18, 2024 9:59am
    - NZer In Exile
      
      High min wage primarily reduces the availability of entry level jobs I believe.
      
      1 0
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      December 18, 2024 8:04pm
  - Paulus
    
    To long to expain, but ask Robertson what Labour did to increase the money supply, borrow, borrow, with no future payback like any loan, which is still around in many older parts of New Zealand in what people will pay for very expensive EV cars, Caravans, and the likes.
    
    6 0
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    December 18, 2024 2:41pm
  - NZer In Exile
    
    MCōs I agree the extraordinarily high cost of housing does cause a raft of social problems.
    
    3 0
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    December 18, 2024 8:07pm
- JackRabbit
  
  …National under Willis is borrowing and spending MORE than Labour…
  
  If your spouse left you after trashing the house and business, emptying the bank accounts, and running up eye watering debt, and making ludicrous payment promises to clowns with painted faces, you also might find yourself borrowing from the bank in the short term in order to restructure, and not default on interest payments to loan sharks who have a mortgage over every thing you own, courtesy of your ex.
  
  Going into more debt to raise productivity to get out of debt is not unusual.
  
  12 3
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  December 18, 2024 10:43am
  - Matt Long
    
    Governments “Going into more debt to raise productivity to get out of debt is not unusual.”
    What is almost universal is that Governments do not increase either productivity or output by increased debt, but create inflationary bubbles that result in economic corrections and further impoverish those at the bottom of the economic heap.
    
    4 1
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    December 18, 2024 1:12pm
    - JackRabbit
      
      I’m pretty sure if NZ simply defaulted on debts that Comrade Arden racked up, we would descend into Valenzuela overnight.
      
      5 0
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      December 18, 2024 2:45pm
- mogg
  
  Yes and multi $billions of that borrowing will go on paying interest accrued on Labours debt binge and economic vandalism. Treasury have stated that they are still finding out about the damage done by Labour’s mismanagement, you are commenting with the benefit of hindsight.
  
  4 0
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  December 18, 2024 3:33pm
- Damocles11
  
  McCulloch knows we are stuffed. And we are.
  
  3 0
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  December 18, 2024 3:42pm
PurplePen

I see around 3000 MBIE staff are taking partial strike action. That is, refusing unpaid or unessential work and synchronising meal and rest breaks.

How does that work when they’re all working from home and at the park or the beach. As I remember it anyone in the private sector in a factory or on a building site all take their breaks at the same time. Welcome to the real world.
16 2
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December 18, 2024 9:20am
- GazzaW
  
  A significant percentage will already be minding their kids over the six week school holiday break and be doing just enough work to show their online presence at the workplace. This strike has been perfectly timed by the PSA.
  
  11 0
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  December 18, 2024 10:31am
  - Burtland
    
    theyve probably all bought mouse jigglers
    
    8 0
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    December 18, 2024 11:26am
Maggy Wassilieff

Now that I’m no longer exposed to much play-ground speech, I often find myself wondering what some words and phrases mean.

Can anyone explain exactly what Rawiri Waititi means when he states: Luxon may be drop-nuts ?

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/536954/te-pati-maori-s-rawiri-waititi-says-luxon-may-be-drop-nuts-if-he-doesn-t-attend-waitangi-day
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December 18, 2024 9:31am
- Yvette
  
  Maggy, as in a comment earlier –
  drop nut – some one who gets scared and acts like a wuss or some one who drops something a person who chickens out of something and acts unmanly ie drops his nuts.
  
  In the context you mention it would appear Rawiri Waititi is suggesting Mr Luxon has lost his testicles.
  
  It also indicates Rawiri Waititi’s intelligence is about the same level as that of John Tamihere’s Party’s other co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer in her telling Parliament’s Speaker he is a tangiweto! – a crybaby.
  
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  December 18, 2024 9:56am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Cheers…..
    
    I don’t think your comment above had appeared when I wrote this….
    
    7 0
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    December 18, 2024 10:26am
  - AitchW
    
    More puerile ad hominen comments from the leader of TMP. What a disgrace, what an affront to democracy and decency.
    
    16 0
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    December 18, 2024 10:49am
  - rouppe
    
    You can always tell the intelligence of someone by the quality of their insults.
    
    3 0
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    December 18, 2024 9:39pm
- sirknz
  
  Check out http://www.urbandictionry.com for any words you are unsure of, and a few you are.
  
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  December 18, 2024 10:53am
G the giant from Dunedin

Went for my pre opp yesterday for my second hip. While waiting to see the surgeon a woman came in and sat beside me, she went to see her doctor in November about her knee, she was told she maybe lucky to get her knee fixed by Christmas next year. She was gobsmacking to get a date via text the very next day for surgery, she will be like me getting her knee done early January.

What we are hearing from corrupt media, and the screeching Verral is utter bullshit. My surgery will be on a Friday, from what I was led to believe is elective surgeries don’t get done on a Friday, things appear to have changed, and they also appear to be offering people to go to CHCH and Timaru if they wish to get done earlier, also they send some to private.

It’s amazing if that the left and corrupted media are slowed to continue their lies
13 2
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December 18, 2024 9:40am
Ghost

An error, or just too busy organizing protests and taking all the students to the protest?

Article

An error in a primary school’s Christmas present order meant 220 pupils were set to miss out on their end-of-year gift — but the community has come together in the ultimate display of the Christmas spirit.
6 0
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December 18, 2024 10:27am
- imalwaysright
  
  Why are schools giving pupils Christmas presents?
  Teach them to read and count so that they can buy their own.
  
  9 0
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  December 18, 2024 1:55pm
igm

Some good news: Petone remains Petone and iwi and their woke mates, especially the socialist mayor, are pissed off . . . good!
21 0
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December 18, 2024 12:08pm
Scooter

How much is this costing us in wasted time and energy? It seems like some are only changing names by a few letters FFS!!

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/537014/chris-penk-rejects-bid-to-change-petone-s-name-to-pito-one
9 1
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December 18, 2024 12:17pm
Ghost

Wouldn’t surprise me. But it wouldn’t explain the drones in other countries above us bases

NJ mayor says there’s radioactive material missing amid mysterious drone sightings
6 1
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December 18, 2024 12:19pm
- Fender
  
  I’ve seen youtube theories that from past experiences they used mass drones like these with radioactive sensors trying to find a missing nuke in the past,
  there’s “conspiracies” that when ukraine denuked back in the 90s a few went missing . It would make sense if they were actively trying to find some threat without wanting to actually acknowledge this is what they are doing on US soil.
  
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  December 18, 2024 2:37pm
- Fender
  
  https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/government/military-contractor-fears-new-jersey-drones-are-searching-for-nuclear-warhead/ar-AA1vXg9i
  
  one theory on drones and this guy has serious credentials, not something you would claim wildly if you valued your personal freedom I would have thought
  
  4 0
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  December 18, 2024 2:45pm
Jack5

Chris Penk, as Land Information Minister, looks to be a steadying hand on the NZ Geographic Board in changing place names?

His is the final say, and he’s just stopped Petone being renamed Pito One ( “one” as in Maori for beach, not the figure 1).

https://shorturl.at/vhQKb
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December 18, 2024 12:22pm
- MCōs
  
  This is about the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to Petone, which is more normally known for — nothing really
  
  5 3
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  December 18, 2024 2:52pm
  - wsk12345
    
    Do you have to be so negative about everything. Pet one might not be your cup of tea but it’s a nice place and actually does have a bit going for it.
    Cheer up and make life fun again.
    
    9 1
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    December 18, 2024 3:04pm
    - mogg
      
      Yes especially that Southerly blowing straight up Jackson street. If you stand on the esplanade on a clear day looking out through the heads you might catch a view of the penguins floating around on their icebergs.😆
      
      6 0
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      December 18, 2024 3:39pm
Tom Barker

“Petone” is a meaningless corruption of the original and only correct name. Penk’s decision is a shameful insult to the local Maori (which is probably why he’ll be applauded on this blog for making it.)
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December 18, 2024 1:46pm
- All_on_Red
  
  Hey Tom, how is Energiewende working out for Germany?
  Lol
  
  10 2
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  December 18, 2024 1:53pm
- igm
  
  May these sensible decisions on maorification of names continue, the majority of New Zealanders (taxpayers) don’t want change.
  
  12 1
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  December 18, 2024 2:00pm
- imalwaysright
  
  Tom,
  Most modern Maori words are meaningless corruptions of the original and only correct words.
  
  Meri Kirihimete Tame !
  
  12 1
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  December 18, 2024 2:02pm
  - greybeard
    
    But if you go to a “Kirihimete paati” and drink lots of “pia” and “weina” then don’t drive “te ka” up “te motowei” !
    
    9 0
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    December 18, 2024 5:04pm
    - rouppe
      
      Better to replace the “pia” and “weina” with “kapu ti”
      
      0 0
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      December 18, 2024 9:33pm
- Blog-aholic
  
  It is a stawmanistic statement calling it a ‘meaningless corruption of the original name’ given that spelling and structure of words was frankly an absolutely unknown concept to pre alphabet maori and all languages written from times past have evolved (or by your logic been corrupted) from differing languages from any percieved ‘original’.
  If you are going to take a stand take it from a strong position of truth and reality, it helps.
  
  9 1
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  December 18, 2024 2:07pm
- Jack5
  
  Tom, so next you would have “Otago” revert to “Ōtākou”?
  
  And “New York” to “Nieuw Amsterdam”?
  
  8 0
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  December 18, 2024 2:27pm
- newview
  
  I take it you have been pronouncing what most know as Petone, Pito One, since you were born Tom. You just keep doing that as nobody is stopping you. Many people including some Maori may wonder what you trying to say though. I used to live in Khandallah but I’m sure local Maori must have had a name for that area. Should we change that too.
  
  12 1
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  December 18, 2024 2:30pm
  - Burtland
    
    someday in the future a lot of this will get labeled fake
    
    Aotearoa is already heading that way – the recent National Iwi Chairs letter to the King called it Aotearoa/Te Waipounamu – so there really was no name for New Zealand
    
    pity the tribes dont call it out
    
    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/536380/maori-leaders-pen-open-letter-calling-on-king-charles-iii-to-stop-coalition-s-attack-on-te-tiriti-o-waitangi
    
    5 0
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    December 18, 2024 4:09pm
- mandk
  
  How did pre-colonial Māori spell it, Tom?
  
  12 0
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  December 18, 2024 2:31pm
Master Mariner

It is what i have been saying previously.
If we want energy security then guess what.
We will have to underwrite it whether successfull or not.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/on-the-inside/536902/nz-s-government-may-ask-the-public-to-underwrite-the-risk-of-fossil-fuel-exploration-this-could-be-unlawful
Economic sabotage from our dear esteemed annointed leader.//
The question is simple.
Do we need energy security or not ?
12 0
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December 18, 2024 2:11pm
- kevn
  
  MM…. Saving the untapped but well known resources for the Chinese sometime in the future.
  Let the huge new data centres take what they need. The plebs can just fight for the energy left. Price will sort them out.
  ///
  
  5 0
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  December 18, 2024 7:18pm
Chuck Bird

Sean Plunket

David Seymour Reflects On The Year In Government

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HBJ4bQD1lU
5 0
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December 18, 2024 3:18pm
Swifty

This is our future in New Zealand.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ2tmUToVtg

The UK Horizon scandal. Lives were lost, families were destroyed, careers ruined, people imprisoned and all for nothing.

And all the while the public service lied and lied and lied.

This is the inevitable result of the policies of Labour, The Green Party and TPM – a massive out of control state and which has its own interests to protect over those of the citizens it supposedly serves.
8 0
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December 18, 2024 7:05pm
- kowtow
  
  Didn’t most of it happen under Conservatives.
  
  Never mind the left , this is what you get from the oh so reasonable “centre”.
  
  We need disrupters.
  
  1 0
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  December 18, 2024 10:14pm
Swifty

Is the pendulum swinging at Disney?

https://www.stuff.co.nz/culture/360528123/disney-axes-transgender-storyline-upcoming-pixar-animation-series
5 0
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December 18, 2024 7:17pm
Quail

Warning to NZ from Te Pati Maori (and support from Hipkins ) to any investors making use of the fast track RMA legislation.
Apparently they are threatening to not only rescinding any agreement but also demanding financial compensation from any company, including those offshore, making use of this act to invest in NZ.
This amounts to treason, betraying the financial health of New Zealand.
6 0
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December 18, 2024 8:34pm

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