About
Contact
Advertise

Facebook
Twitter

January 7, 2025 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 07 January 2025

Like this:

Like Loading…

Email
Facebook
Twitter
Comment195

Uncategorized
General Debate

Comments (195)

Login to comment or vote

peterwn

So BusinessDesk is looking for stocking fillers to keep their paying subscribers (perhaps they should close up for shop for a month in December and January. Anyway their contributor Cameron Bargie (an economist who has worked for banks, Treasury etc) is the latest one to beat the drum about the need for means testing and raising the eligibility age. The Jan 6 article is for subscribers only.
In reality there will not be any changes to super until Winston’s coffin is firmly nailed down, six feet under and he is pushing daisies. Then the debate can start.
Perhaps a good start is to approach the situation from the other direction – aggressively develop NZ resources so there is cash flow to help cover superannuation from royalties.
A problem to overcome is the sense of entitlement that those receiving superannuation have – they argue they have been paying taxes and are entitled to something to show for their money. Perhaps a start could be to stop superannuation to the 5% most wealthy recipients and work down from there. ‘Alienated’ money (eg that settled into trusts etc) would be included as currently done for rest home subsidies.
13 21
Log in to Reply
Report
January 7, 2025 8:02am
- kowtow
  
  ‘Perhaps a start could be to stop superannuation to the 5% most wealthy recipients and work down from there.’
  
  Looked at from another angle ;
  
  Perhaps a start would be to stop the pension ( it’s nor super) to the 5% least deserving recpients , based on school attendance , criminal offending and net tax contributions , and work up from there.
  
  15 2
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 8:08am
- artemisia
  
  Completely agree to growing the pie. New Zealand is resource rich, including in our massive EEZ, but also with our educated and connected population. Maybe we should ask the eco NIMBYs to forgo their superannuation.
  
  Mary Holm a few years back consulted IRD about the impact of over 65s still working and receiving super. She was told by IRD that setting this up would cost more than the savings. Assume that tax paid was included in the IRD calculation. I don’t recall if passive income like interest, dividends and rents were included in IRDs response, but if not that’s an additional complication. And of course most of those attract tax anyway.
  
  5% wealthiest? would that include assets as well as income? That would be a whole different ballgame.
  
  20 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 8:13am
  - peterwn
    
    Your last sentence – that would most definitely include assets and as I said this would include assets previously alienated to trusts etc. as for when rest home subsidies are considered (An older person was able to put her home into a trust so the value did not count when considering rest home subsidies, but nowadays the value would count – there are various rules on ‘alienation’).
    
    8 5
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    January 7, 2025 8:28am
    - Ian Boag
      
      Alienation has to have been done a long time ago.
      
      7 7
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      January 7, 2025 9:53am
    - Steve Otto N Shore
      
      My home has been in a Trust for many years since I was freehold.
      It is there for a reason.
      
      8 1
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      January 7, 2025 10:20am
      - peterwn
        
        May be OK. There are various arcane rules on this and the rules do ‘reserve’ some discretion to the agency. Also when there used to be gift duty, trusts had to be set up to sidestep this usually by the settlors ‘lending’ the trust the value of the house which the settlors ‘forgave’ $27,000 each of the loan each year (requiring a deed a copy of which went to IRD). It is the timing of the payments of $27,000 which count for accommodation supplement purposes, not when the house was vested in the trust.
        I agree with Ian Boag that such things need to be fixed up as early as possible but at the time most thought would have been on Death Duties which because of greatly rising house values were causing the estates of some ordinary people to have to pay death duties whereas it was originally intended to catch the super rich. The estate of an uncle-in-law was hit very hard as he had a shoreline house in Devonport with a fantastic view and the value of the property had skyrocketed.
        
        4 1
        Report
        January 7, 2025 10:58am
      - Steve Otto N Shore
        
        Peter, I let the lawyers take care of it. Nothing much has happened with the Trust, even with IRD. It is a non profit Trust, so no returns filed.
        
        3 0
        Report
        January 7, 2025 3:16pm
  - Ian Boag
    
    Mary Holm is repeatedly quoted as having “spoken to the IRD about income testing” – whatever that means.
    
    MSD do it routinely for beneficiaries in part time work. Asset testing seems to be doable for assessing age care entitlement.
    
    Go figure
    
    4 13
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    January 7, 2025 9:52am
  - imalwaysright
    
    The problem with growing the pie is that we have too many pie eaters and not enough pie makers.
    
    22 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    January 7, 2025 10:09am
- pdm
  
  pw. Cameron Bagrie
  
  I agree with him re Super and my thoughts for some time have been that the age should increase in 6 monthly increments from say 1 April 2025 to age 70.
  
  13 3
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 8:17am
  - Ian Boag
    
    That’s how the 60-65 transition was done. It worked.
    
    11 4
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    January 7, 2025 8:30am
    - artemisia
      
      Was there a lot of push back on the 60 to 65 change? That would have been in the days of pretty much the daily newspaper, so far fewer ways for an opposing groundswell. But have to guess there were lots of unhappy households.
      
      13 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      January 7, 2025 8:39am
      - MCōs
        
        National Superannuation, as it was called then, was a blatant, unaffordable election bribe by the Nats and kicked in at 60 when the life expectancy was ten years less than today.
        The payout was also higher and tax free. Income tax was raised a few years later to pay for it with a top marginal rate rate in excess of 60%.
        It was inevitable the age would increase, but a lot of older people certainly had their noses out of joint when the carpet was whipped out from under them
        
        8 16
        Report
        January 7, 2025 9:11am
      - Flossie
        
        I know my mother retired at 60 and she was not happy. The firm she worked for shoveled her out the door after 20 years and her income was greatly reduced. She was fit and active, and everything a good employee should be but “company policy…”
        I do not know if there was any way she could have fought it at that time
        
        16 0
        Report
        January 7, 2025 9:21am
      - Ian Boag
        
        Was there a lot of push back on the 60 to 65 change?
        
        No.
        
        7 8
        Report
        January 7, 2025 9:43am
      - MCōs
        
        The dancing Cossacks ad introducing National Superannuation
        https://youtu.be/jNLTJRSmpT8?si=nRgFSRo6YVlQ3AJP
        
        “some people will ask can we afford it?”
        A question he doesn’t answer
        
        5 5
        Report
        January 7, 2025 9:45am
      - peterwn
        
        MCōs – there is more to it than that. Norm Kirk’s government in 1973 or so introduced a compulsory state superannuation scheme. The intentions were quite noble but the implementation was terrible. For example there was no policy about investment, etc – it was going to be all things to all people. There were promises that the money would be invested to best advantage but this was contradicted by the idea that the fund would provide cheap mortgages. Also the Government would have insisted that some of the funds were invested in government or local body stock (at unrealistically low interest rates – less than the inflation rate) as banks, insurance companies and other financial institutions were obliged to do. It may have made more sense if the Government gave it a virtual equity interest in a few hydro power stations, a chunk of the telecommunications network etc.
        So Rob Muldon capitalised on this disquiet and promised the super scheme as we know it if returned to power in 1975. That came to pass and Rob Muldoon soon after made the edict that contributions could cease pending legislation. This upset the Left leading to the Fitzgerald (figurehead for public sector unions) v Muldoon case in which the Chief Justice ruled that Rob’s edict was unlawful but to avoid chaos did allow contributions to continue to cease for six months to allow legislation to be passed.
        The big mistake at the time was that people on ‘defined benefit’ superannuation schemes were able to ‘double dip’. Such schemes were only available to public sector, local body, bank and insurance company employees. They were unavailable to the ‘great unwashed’ ie private sector employees. Indeed public sector employment rules disadvantaged those who had dirtied their hands working for the private sector (this was blown away by Rogernomics).
        
        8 2
        Report
        January 7, 2025 9:57am
      - kiwikidsnz
        
        peterwn
        ” people on ‘defined benefit’ superannuation schemes were able to ‘double dip’. Such schemes were only available to public sector, local body, bank and insurance company employees. They were unavailable to the ‘great unwashed’ ie private sector employees. ”
        
        Incorrect. While the State certainly looked after themselves well wrt Super (this was back in the day when public sector jobs were for life & generally at lower pay rates than private sector, unlike today) many medium & large NZ employers offered private DB schemes & these continued to provide significant employer benefits for many years: I personally benefited from one in 2016 & continue to work in legacy restricted schemes as a trustee/director.
        
        And it wasn’t double dipping; private DB scheme contributions were on top of any Govt / taxpayer Super.
        
        2 0
        Report
        January 7, 2025 11:03am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      As my father was born December 31 he made the cut for pension at 60 by 20 days.
      
      From Jan 1 I think it went directly to 62, then every 6 months it went up 3 months, my fathers mate he worked with had to wait till he was nearly 63 as no he was 7 months younger
      
      11 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      January 7, 2025 9:21am
  - peterwn
    
    I have sympathy with Andrew Little on this aspect. Andrew was concerned that a manual worker has worked hard over the years and so should not have his retirement pushed up to 70, Trying to implement this could be tricky. Perhaps those on benefits should have to wait until 70 before receiving the higher superannuation amounts. These sorts of things are a tricky administrative minefield.
    
    15 3
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    January 7, 2025 8:33am
    - pdm
      
      pw I started a manual (physical) job at age 66 working 3 13 hour and one 7 hour shift (46 hours usually but some weeks up to 60 hours a week) despite having had open heart surgery at age 56.
      
      I continued that job for about 5 and a half years when a `redo’ of my heart surgery was required at age 72.
      
      17 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      January 7, 2025 8:41am
      - Steve Otto N Shore
        
        If retirement is pushed out to 70 then there should be less Tax paid while working to compensate. Otherwise what is the Govt going to do with YOUR money that you can’t claim on Super from 65 to 70?
        
        12 3
        Report
        January 7, 2025 9:11am
      - rouppe
        
        Because you had to, or because you wanted to?
        
        I’ve stopped work at 62 because I’ve just had enough (among other things) and I’ve calculated that I can make it financially until 65.
        
        It’s dangerous to make an assertion like “change it to 70” simply because that fits in with how life worked out for you.
        
        9 0
        Report
        January 7, 2025 9:14am
      - Maggy Wassilieff
        
        I’ve stopped work at 62 because I’ve just had enough (among other things) and I’ve calculated that I can make it financially until 65.
        
        We made a similar decision and have had 8-9 good years to enjoy our retirement before Hubby’s health became dodgy. Even now, we think how much easier it is to be treated by the health system here in Gisborne than dealing with the transport /parking problems at Wellington or Hutt Hospitals.
        
        Had we both continued working in Wellington until we were 65, we might have been better off financially, but we would have been stuck in a cold, miserable climate for much of the year, and would be going nuts trying to cope with the traffic madness there.
        
        15 0
        Report
        January 7, 2025 11:26am
      - Steve Otto N Shore
        
        I too worked until 72 because I just loved what I did for 50 years.
        Was down to 4 days a week just because I liked 3 day weekends. Company closed because landlord wanted to split the factory into warehouses. All production stopped, remaining stock assembled and sold, assets into storage. Company since sold and all assets sold. Man we had some great machinery. Pressbrake, guillotine, large lathe, specialised welders, plasma cutters, gas bottle equipment. Large range of DeWalt tools, air tools.
        I bought some. I must say I enjoyed the 50 years.
        
        7 1
        Report
        January 7, 2025 3:26pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        @Steve
        
        Company closed because ….
        
        It was easier to buy boat trailers from China?
        
        1 9
        Report
        January 7, 2025 3:48pm
      - rouppe
        
        @Maggie
        
        I get chest pains when I walk. Oddly, not when I go to the gym, although that is more resistance exercise.
        
        It took me some 18 months of constant nagging to get a scan, and 6 months after that to get the follow up.
        
        All they could come up with was your cholesterol was too high (LDL 3.6) and needs to be below 1.8. Put on statins (to many cries of horror from aquaintences) and 5 weeks later it’s 1.4.
        
        Do I feel any different? Not a jot. Are they trying to find the reason? Not at all.
        
        20 years ago, injured my knee, was having an mri within a month.
        
        I swear, here in Wellington, it feels like if you’re a white male over 60 they actively find ways to not treat you.
        
        1 0
        Report
        January 7, 2025 5:27pm
      - pdm
        
        rouppe. – a bit of both.
        
        Almost 2 years in London eroded our savings and as I was fit enough I worked on catching that up.
        
        If I had not taken that job I would have worked somewhere to keep the mind and body active.
        
        5 0
        Report
        January 7, 2025 8:55pm
      - Steve Otto N Shore
        
        Ian Boag at 3.48,
        
        Chinese trailers are shit. The recycled steel does not have much new steel added. What you get is steel that is very hard and brittle. Absolute rubbish to weld.
        Had many Chinese trailers come in for crack repairs, just said no, take is back to where you bought it – Bunnings. Bunnings recalled all trailers and refunded the owners as far as I know.
        Even Chinese boat trailers came in for crack repairs. We just refused to touch them.
        All new steel we purchase was not Chinese. If it was the steel suppliers took it back at their cost.
        
        1 1
        Report
        January 8, 2025 11:29am
    - graham
      
      Peter Dunne proposed just such a model, called Flexi-Super.
      
      https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/217940/dunne-says-govt-open-to-his-superannuation-plan
      
      4 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      January 7, 2025 8:42am
    - cmm
      
      Why just manual workers?
      
      Us brain workers are negatively impacted too – perhaps even more so. I am only 63 but I know I don’t have the mental stamina I had when I was in my 30s and 40s – or even 50s.
      
      The hard manual graft that wears out bodies has largely been replaced with machinery. Most “manual workers” are overweight.
      
      18 2
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      January 7, 2025 9:42am
      - Taieri
        
        Most “manual workers” are overweight
        ———–
        
        Does it make them any less worn out?
        
        7 2
        Report
        January 7, 2025 9:51am
      - kowtow
        
        or hairdressers .
        
        From google;
        
        ‘In Greece, hairdressers are considered to be in a hazardous profession, which allows them to retire with a full state pension at age 50. This is earlier than the normal retirement age of 57 for self-employed people.’
        
        6 1
        Report
        January 7, 2025 10:11am
      - cmm
        
        Based on the “manual workers” often seen around roadworks, I would think the biggest hazard is RSI from fiddling with their phones.
        
        I don’t know how Greece can function with people retiring at age 57. But then, I suppose, it really doesn’t.
        
        14 1
        Report
        January 7, 2025 1:11pm
      - Steve Otto N Shore
        
        This manual worker is not overweight. I can still lay on the ground and weld overhead with a 4mm electrode!
        
        4 1
        Report
        January 7, 2025 3:29pm
    - Cassandra
      
      The manual worker has effectively had a free ride forever, in that he’s paid no nett income tax. It’s a conundrum. A contributory pension scheme far and away better. Muldoon has a lot to answer for.
      
      9 2
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      January 7, 2025 10:02am
      - Taieri
        
        The manual worker has effectively had a free ride forever
        ————
        
        This manual worker was in the top income tax bracket for most of his working life.
        
        11 0
        Report
        January 7, 2025 1:10pm
      - Steve Otto N Shore
        
        This manual worker paid a shitload of Net Tax in his 56 years of work.
        That is why I always disliked secondary Tax. At one time a had a 45 hour main job and two part time jobs. That is how you get your deposit for a house!
        Try tell the young ones that.
        
        7 1
        Report
        January 7, 2025 3:33pm
      - Don Beckett
        
        Likewise this 82 y/o retired builder. I’m the same weight I was when I was in my early 20’s – playing rugby, swimming, hunting back then – 72 kgs.
        I worked as a builder till 68y/o. Replaced my tiled roof with American shingles when I was 71 y/o.
        But now, the knees & back etc. are worn out- arthritis is having a ball – but still do my own maintenance, spend hours gardening, making my own compost, helping out my 89 y/o mate etc. etc.
        Life’s a blast. 🙂
        
        11 0
        Report
        January 7, 2025 4:07pm
  - imalwaysright
    
    The UK had/has? a pension system where you can delay your pension for a year, or as many years as you want, in return for increasingly greater weekly payments.
    Not a bad punt for the healthier oldies.
    
    13 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    January 7, 2025 9:04am
    - rockape
      
      You also have to be paying into NI for at least 10 years. Also it’s pro rata, dependant on the number of years you have paid your National Insurance.
      
      4 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      January 7, 2025 2:09pm
      - rouppe
        
        Maybe national super here should be pro rata for everyone, not just the ones who want to live overseas.
        
        1 0
        Report
        January 7, 2025 5:32pm
- the deity formerly known as nigel6888
  
  Indeed, no country has ever achieved economic growth through austerity.
  
  Time to drill baby, drill and introduce R+D tax credits for firms investing in productivity enhancing IP (yes some will cheat a bit, but so what, its the dynamic impact, not the static that counts)
  
  Might also be time to restart the DFC. Business grants have failed utterly at anything except enabling owners to cash out faster, so lets try and set up some Chaebols in New Zealand, and build firms with good governance and a long-term commitment to basing themselves here.
  
  7 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 8:21am
- Pavel
  
  I get sick of hearing the line “I’ve paid taxes all my life so deserve something back”. I’m 43 and by the time I’m 65 almost 25% of kiwis will be senior citizens. Even with zero unemployment the pension system of today will not work in 25 years time as it will cost too much. For me to expect a pension I’m expected to put at least 8% of my wages into kiwisaver. So to the older people claiming they paid into the system, let’s say the average person paid 20% tax on average then 8% of gross income is about 40% of the 20% of taxes you paid. Does anyone believe that pre kiwisaver governments put 40% of our taxes aside for retirement? I sure don’t expect the government to be paying super in 25 years time like they do today and am making provisions for that. So to the older generation I say this; yes you did pay taxes but you got to live in a first world country with free health, education, infrastructure, rule of law etc that 95% of the world could only dream of. You had massive opportunities and ended up one of the wealthiest generations in human history. I know a couple of retirees with well over 10 million in the bank getting their $426 a week. I think it is absolutely insane to be paying such wealthy people this money. Can they not be grateful that they lived a life that gave them such wealth. Society owes them nothing, if anything they should be putting something back in. Super should be means tested and only given to those that need it, as it was originally introduced for.
  
  5 16
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 8:28am
  - mogg
    
    Your retirees white over $10 M in the bank are out on their own in terms of their finances. A second point, nobody with that sort of money would keep it in the bank. They will be invested in bonds, equities, only short term cash in their bank.
    
    7 2
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    January 7, 2025 1:24pm
  - cmm
    
    No it isn’t a case of: ““I’ve paid taxes all my life so deserve something back”.
    
    It is more a case of it being the other way around: “Pay into this government scheme and you will get some of it back in your later years. Trust us, we’re the government.”. In other words, the high taxes were justified by this.
    
    Given an opportunity to do so, many would have opted out 30+ years ago.
    
    Is it sustainable? No, but the any change over will need to be done gradually (eg. 2 years per decade). It would be unfair to just switch it over immediately.
    
    The suggestion was made during John Key’s time in office but he balked. If we had started a gradual programme then we could be at a retirement age of 68 or 69 now.
    
    Instead I think we will get more of the same. Luxon sure won’t make any bold moves.
    
    Are people worth $10M really getting $426 per week? I doubt it.
    
    The super is partially means tested in that you get less if you are in a higher tax bracket.
    
    If you have $10M of assets (say $8M in a fixed deposit earning 5% = $400k a year) then as I see it you would be in the 39% tax bracket and only be getting $340/week
    
    13 2
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    January 7, 2025 1:26pm
    - Pavel
      
      I know a couple of retired farmers with that sort of money in the bank and yes they do get a full pension paid to them like everyone else.
      Also what government scheme were they paying into? Until kiwisaver came along there was no compulsory super. You also say they paid high taxes. Taxes are a lot higher today than in the 70s and 80s, there was no gst for a start.
      Anyway my argument is that a government pension should be like the dole, if you don’t need it then you shouldn’t receive it. If you feel like you should receive one then you should save for yourself.
      
      3 2
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      January 7, 2025 3:21pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        yes they do get a full pension paid to them like everyone else
        
        Tax is usually not a large item in the farming business. Pretty much all capital gain driven. ROI on the typical sheep/beef/dairy farm is sub 5% before costs.
        
        1 4
        Report
        January 7, 2025 3:32pm
      - pdm
        
        Pavel I had two bachelor farming brothers who did not apply for the pension until they were nearly 70.
        
        In fact I doubt they would have then if I had not advised them to do so.
        
        2 0
        Report
        January 7, 2025 9:07pm
  - Surely Knott
    
    On the plus side your generation is to be the generation that receives the biggest inheritance of unearned wealth transfer in history.
    
    Your argument is also simplistic and doesn’t factor in the massive impact of globalism, immigration, emigration and birth rate. It is no longer such a closed system where people are born, educated by the state, work pay taxes, get old hospitalised, retire in the same country. Often people get educated by the state and then leave to a capitalist country and then come back when they need hospitalisation.
    
    In your example of someone with $10million in the bank they must have had quite a successful business in NZ. They undoubtedly paid huge taxes and the $400 is a tiny fraction of what they will pay. Finally who will the $10million go to when they retire in the next decade. Probably kids that are your age. Or maybe if they are childless they will leave it to the state or a charity.
    
    7 3
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    January 7, 2025 2:10pm
    - Pavel
      
      Not the ones I know. They were farmers who wrote everything off on the business and paid bugger all taxes. I even know a couple who still collect the wff payments yet sit on a 6 million dollar farm, any money they make goes back into the farm, they do it on purpose. Then they retire and there is no capital gains on the sale. During their lives they have taken far more from the system than they ever paid into it. The same can be said of property owners who negatively gear everything, pay very little tax and retire with millions. The only rich people who pay heaps of tax are those on wages.
      
      3 9
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      January 7, 2025 3:33pm
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    Have another look at what pre kiwisaver Govts did with the Taxes.
    Shit like sister Countries and sister cities. Junkets all over the World with climate bullshit. Then Laws of regulation regulation regulation regulation!
    Get the idea? Governments set themselves up to waste other people’s money – they always have.
    Putting some aside for retirement is just unaffordable for some who just struggle to pay the power bill.
    
    7 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    January 7, 2025 3:43pm
  - rouppe
    
    My whole life I’ve been told “you’ll get the pension at 65 but it’s only basic, you need to save extra for a more comfortable retirement”.
    
    So I did. And now you want to pull the rug out from under me.
    
    I think you’re wise to be saving as though the pension won’t be there. Let me know what you think when the Greens come along and say you need to pay a wealth tax because you’ve done so well.
    
    1 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    January 7, 2025 5:38pm
- Hugh Jarse
  
  Yes Peterwn and in my view we should be looking at the beneficiary system as well. Most people on supper annunciation have loved a productive life of 40 – 50 years of paid employment and tax contributions. The same cannot be said for a large number of beneficiaries, a number of whom move off one benefit at 65 onto NZ super after a life time of non contribution. It’s time to take a hard look at to group along with developing NZ resources. And yes I know there are some very genuine cases who need to be looked after, that’s what the social welfare system was set up for in the first place. Not the wide net it now is.
  
  13 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 8:34am
  - imalwaysright
    
    Hugh
    
    “Most people on supper annunciation have loved a productive life..”
    
    Mate, you are sounding like the French policeman from ‘Allo ‘Allo !
    (Spellchecker?)
    
    4 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    January 7, 2025 1:14pm
    - Hugh Jarse
      
      Yep they are a couple of shockers 😄
      
      1 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      January 7, 2025 10:01pm
  - MCōs
    
    My mother never paid a dollar of income tax in NZ.
    She was of a generation when looking after a big family was basically a full time, unpaid job
    
    4 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    January 7, 2025 1:44pm
    - Hugh Jarse
      
      So that was the norm then, this is now
      
      1 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      January 7, 2025 10:02pm
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    We have 3 generations or more who know nothing else than welfare.
    
    10 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    January 7, 2025 3:45pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  The richest have paid the most tax, generally speaking. Now you’re recommending that they be deprived of a return. I think that’s unreasonable.
  
  Anyone is able to decline to apply for Super. Perhaps this option should be better publicised, and made as easy as possible.
  
  I’d also recommend tightening up eligibility to receive Super, in particular in respect of foreigners moving here later in life and who do not bring some sort of reciprocal contribution from their home country.
  
  All of the forgoing notwithstanding, we’d be better able to afford Super if we walked away from the Net Zero nonsense.
  
  13 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 8:36am
- Grunter
  
  IMO – there is only one mathematical solution to retirement – you save for it, or you don’t. If you choose not to save for it then you are in for a very difficult time.
  
  In a collective (socialist) society such as NZ, the majority have voted for a universal ‘tax and spend’ regime. Mathematically at some point (soon), it runs out of other people’s money and fails. Treasury numbers even confirm that is the case. The country goes bankrupt unless we tax more or spend less.
  
  People like me, who are nearing retirement age, have been taxed throughout their earning years at a rate like no other society throughout history. Effectively robbing us of the opportunity to save enough as it has been stolen by the central government.
  
  Now the ponzi scheme that the majority voted for is nearing the stage of failing (as all ponzi schemes do).
  
  Sir Roger Douglas has the solution. He put it in place in the 1970’s, Muldoon scrapped it, Lange refused to reinstate it. Singapore has a similar scheme with millions $ set aside for each retiree in their own named account.
  
  The solution is to save more and tax less.
  
  17 2
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 8:57am
  - cmm
    
    Sure, that is the solution. It is obvious.
    
    But the question is how do you get there?
    
    Cutting people off immediately is not going to work. The only viable approach is to push the retirement age up slowly (eg. 2 months per year) to give people time to save.
    
    National should have done this a long time ago (eg. 2008 under Key).
    
    If that had been done in 2008 we would now have a retirement age of almost 68.
    
    9 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    January 7, 2025 1:31pm
    - Ian Boag
      
      Cutting people off immediately is not going to work.
      
      I suppose, but I guess it is worth noting that there was nothing gradual about introduction of the scheme ..
      
      push the retirement age up slowly
      
      Last time (60 -> 65) it was 6 months/year. Worked OK.
      
      4 2
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      January 7, 2025 1:39pm
      - cmm
        
        Yup certainly the biggest problem was introducing it in the first place. But there is no time machine available to fix that, just as we can’t fix the fact that John Key and his mob chickened out of their responsibility.
        
        6 months/year seems a bit fast, but something has to happen some time.
        
        4 0
        Report
        January 7, 2025 2:01pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        6 months/year worked last time …..
        
        2 1
        Report
        January 7, 2025 2:33pm
    - Grunter
      
      The only way is to ‘grand father out’ the existing scheme over time and introduce the Singapore-type model for most workers (eg, say 50 and under).
      
      Sir Roger and economist Rob McCulloch have done the numbers and shown how it can be transited using the $50 Billion odd that is in the NZ Super fund already. The longer we wait, the harder the transition of course.
      
      I’ve got zero confidence that we have a current politician who can sell this new way to the electorate. So, it will only happen when NZ hits the economic brickwall of reality.
      
      5 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      January 7, 2025 2:10pm
- slijmbal
  
  Interestingly, NZ is quite a low spender on public pension spending as measured as a percentage of GDP. Well below the US even. Ditto most EU countries – close to 1/2 the spend. As Bill English stated we don’t have the affordability problem that others have (I paraphrase).
  
  Most forms of means testing lead to new accounting\tax constructions and have historically been circumvented relatively easily for the richer who wish to. This leads to a tax arms race that makes the process much more complex and expensive for the government to collect and leads to much less of a reduction in pension spend than has been predicted. This has played out multiple times in many countries.
  
  While some might argue that not means testing is ‘unfair’ the current pragmatic and simple approach is simple and cost effective. I question whether means testing would lead to significant net reduction in costs. It is also worth noting that the majority of well off will probably continue to pay more tax than the pension they receive.
  
  Having said that, increasing the age of eligibility in a staged fashion seems a simple no brainer.
  
  6 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 9:20am
  - Ian Boag
    
    increasing the age of eligibility in a staged fashion seems a simple no brainer
    
    So is income testing. IRD pretty much know everyone’s taxable income from all sources …
    
    Asset testing is a bit harder, but we manage it for aged care stuff and noone has suggested that it is particularly unfair or hard.
    
    3 5
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    January 7, 2025 1:50pm
    - slijmbal
      
      @Ian
      
      “So is income testing. IRD pretty much know everyone’s taxable income from all sources …”
      
      Based on your prior postings I think you deliberately ignore my point that richer people can construct their income when the incentive is large enough and thus reduce income. Ditto for assets. I know of several cases where assets have been shuffled around (legitimately) to ensure that they get government assistance. Catching such circumstances IS actually quite hard.
      
      4 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      January 7, 2025 4:36pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        richer people can construct their income when the incentive is large enough
        
        Good on them. The incentive would be about $12k/year (the net super for a rich person with a 39% marginal rate). Not really worth specially paying much money to a financial advisor to make it happen.
        
        Most people earning after 65 would not be able to do this, so their pension would be abated. The good thing about income testing the pension (I agree that asset testing could be a bit hard) is that it is easy to introduce, would generate instant cash and noone could really complain that they are hard-up on account of it. Low hanging fruit.
        
        As for the levels – remember super looks awfully like a benefit where today’s taxpayers cough out for today’s recipients. All the other benefits disappear when you earn more than about $300/week (?). We could probably be a bit more generous to oldies …..
        
        2 3
        Report
        January 7, 2025 5:24pm
    - Taieri
      
      So is income testing
      ———
      
      It is income tested now.
      
      2 1
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      January 7, 2025 5:34pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        Wot? Like Jobseeker is income tested?
        
        Not really.
        
        1 2
        Report
        January 7, 2025 7:08pm
  - cmm
    
    There is partial means testing. The amount you get depends on your tax rate.
    
    On M tax rate you’re getting $400/week. On SA tax rate you’re only getting $280 a week.
    
    There is a problem though with “income”. If you’re earning 5% on a term deposit, then you’re taxed on that. In reality you’re only earning 2% due to inflation.
    
    5 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    January 7, 2025 2:06pm
    - Ian Boag
      
      The effect of inflation is the same on all forms of income …. so there is no real case for “inflation-proofing” just one category. Alas.
      
      2 4
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      January 7, 2025 2:35pm
- rockape
  
  Aybe start cutting for those who have spent a life on benefit as opposed to taxpayers.
  
  13 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 9:47am
  - Flossie
    
    That’s a tricky one. My B.i.L. theoretically was not on a benefit. He did however produce half a dozen offspring who were born, educated and medically treated (including several hospitalisations) in the past 50 odd years. Also received whatever family allowances pertained to the day starting with Family Benefit.
    I therefore suggest he was not in fact a net Tax Payer.
    
    5 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    January 7, 2025 10:36am
- Skippytony
  
  Declaring up front im a 66 year old Boomer. Still working full time (sigh) and fully expecting to be a self funded retiree, having lived and worked in other countries.
  
  I hear two related arguments. First is that the cost of provision for retirees is unaffordable.
  
  Second, depending on who you ask, either the tax base needs to be broadened or us revolting boomers need to tip more into funding our luxurious declining years.
  
  These are probably all true statements.
  
  As the great Kerry Packer once said, only an idiot pays 1c more in taxes than they have to.
  
  It’s probably too late to start persuading boomers to buy health insurance. However, the rest of the country really needs to get on that bus, as, inevitably, decades of deferred decisions means that health is inevitably going to be a choke point. Those of us with insurance and or reserves already jump the queue and go private.
  
  Say you need hips done. Your options are wait literally years or pony up. If you can, you will. Right or wrong, those (of any age) who are dependent on public health are going to see service levels deteriorate rapidly.
  
  No government of any persuasion has shown the smallest interest in shrinking government services. Provision of those services already requires annual increases to the national debt. So, regardless of fairness or the screams of outrage, the only, only way of broadening the crown’s revenue base is to go after people who have money or assets.
  
  So get ready folks, if you’ve got cash, they’re coming for you. The least awful approach is to set the bar high(ish) and let inflation do its work, broadening the net quietly every year. Punter, meet means testing…..
  
  If you’ve got a Bach, investment properties, a share portfolio, within five years those long suffering “top five percent” will be getting hit with some form of CGT, and inflation will be left to broaden the base over time.
  
  These grabs will be sold as targeting to top 5% and we will all vote for fucking them over (again) and I don’t think many will be packing their bags and fleeing as they will quickly find (if they don’t know already) that actually, relative to say Aus or the UK the deal here is pretty generous.
  
  We appear to be approaching the point where kicking the can down the road is unsustainable- arguably that time arrived about ten years ago.
  
  What can’t go on forever…..
  
  If you have not been preparing for this day to arrive you’ve got no one to blame but yourself, sorry.
  
  7 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 9:54am
  - artemisia
    
    How about drill, baby, drill to broaden that revenue base.
    
    9 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    January 7, 2025 11:26am
    - Skippytony
      
      Yeah, right.
      
      I sincerely wish that was an option. No one in their right mind is going to invest capital in resource development when you have the likes of TPM threatening retrospective legislation.
      
      10 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      January 7, 2025 1:12pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        Drill baby drill might produce some onshore benefits inside 15 years if it started tomorrow 🙁
        
        1 0
        Report
        January 7, 2025 8:20pm
  - Colville
    
    Correct.
    
    I had lunch with a couple of smart money chaps a few months ago. They were firmly of the opinion that National are better off front footing the CGT so at least it works and they get to exclude a few asset classes rather than Labour doing it and it’s a huge pain in the balls without collecting any money.
    
    7 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    January 7, 2025 11:29am
    - All_on_Red
      
      Fortunately we dont need a CGT as we pay enough Tax already. Far too much actually.
      One thing missing from this whole thread (and gosh theres is a lot of BS on this thread) is how we could actually afford the pittance that the Super is, if we stopped wasting money elsewhere.
      We waste BILLIONS on lots of unnecessary crap.
      That said we do need to transition away from it as its inefficient and not the right way to do it. I agree the age should be gradually raised.
      70 seems a bit high (though I will be working at that age+ as I will continue to be a Director guiding Companies and letting them pick my brain and experience- which I will be happy about as I think thats good for you)
      Mine it and Drill it for a Sovereign Fund.
      Use Tax incentives for subsidised Super contributions via Companies together with personal contributions.
      The Aussie system works well.
      Our whole economic structure is askew. We are very cost plus here.
      And our public service is way too big for the size of our country. Its shocking. No wonder productivity is so low.
      
      8 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      January 7, 2025 5:23pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        we could actually afford the pittance that the Super is, if we stopped wasting money elsewhere
        
        $20b/year and growing. $50m/day. A pittance …
        
        2 2
        Report
        January 7, 2025 8:26pm
      - All_on_Red
        
        The Govt’s Revenue for this year is Forecast at $143 Billion
        Is it your contention that all of that is vital expenditure?
        As I say, we do need to transition to a better system but the idea that we cant afford it is wrong.
        
        1 0
        Report
        January 8, 2025 8:11am
- Taieri
  
  Perhaps a start could be to stop superannuation
  ———–
  
  Perhaps a start could be made in redesigning the whole concept of a “national” superannuation?
  By departing from funding it from the general taxation and changing to individual retirement accounts. Make KiwiSaver compulsory, but with tax concessions applying to contributions and increased contribution rates, both for the employees and the employers.
  Australia has done it very effectively and very successfully. I contributed to an Australian super scheme for many years – 5.5% after tax from me and 14.5% from my employer. The latter was taxed at 15%. The total, after 17 years, came up to a very tidy sum.
  
  9 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 9:59am
  - Ian Boag
    
    What you are saying is that the current generation of taxpayers should basically save for their own retirement. Tax breaks and all that, but basically little or no direct taxpayer funded pension.
    
    Sounds like a good idea.
    
    The transition is a bit hard though. While saving they have to keep paying for the (unfunded) pension for current retirees – a pension they won’t be getting of course.
    
    Some might call that “inter-generational theft” …..
    
    Go figure
    
    4 3
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    January 7, 2025 1:45pm
    - cmm
      
      The super was intergenerational theft when it was started.
      It is also intergenerational theft every time the government takes on more debt or makes university “free” or whatever.
      
      All of these are caused by the biggest lie in socialism: the government can care for your finances better than you can.
      
      We’re in this mess. The question is how to get out of it. The other question is whether we can learn from this and never get into this mess again.
      
      Yes there will be some pain, but there is a basic need to do so in a gradual fashion so that people have enough up-front warning to have at least 20 years to modify their savings.
      
      If you make the solution too tough, then people won’t vote for it (assuming you aren’t also proposing removing older people from voting).
      
      An example might be to do all of:
      a) Slowly increase retirement age from 65 to 70 over the next 20 years (say).
      b) From 2030 (say) start to reduced the super pay out by 5% per year and do away with it entirely by 2060.
      c) Further reductions based on partial means testing (eg. by 2040, anyone with $5M in assets is only getting $100 a week instead of the $280 they are getting now).
      
      That gives a gradual weening that can be survived with a relatively small amount of belt tightening.
      
      What about the people with no income? Just keep giving them the dole and stop playing the fiction that when they hit 65 they “retire” and move from the dole to super.
      
      9 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      January 7, 2025 2:23pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        super was intergenerational theft when it was started …. also intergenerational theft every time the … makes university “free”
        
        University was “free” when I went there. Was it the same in SA?
        
        There was no transition period when real fees/loans were introduced in the 80’s. There were documented cases of siblings being 30-40k financially different coming just before and just after the change. No “gradual introduction” or “10 years to get sorted” ….
        
        Anyway – the cost of free first year is chickenfeed compared to super. Just about anything other than health, welfare or education is like that.
        
        I am 78. I have a moderately successful business that pays me more than the incomes of many taxpayers who fund my super. Make sense of that … and don’t bother suggesting I decline it. The money is mine at present and what I do with it is my business.
        
        3 5
        Report
        January 7, 2025 3:20pm
      - All_on_Red
        
        You have an independant income but take Super?
        But you have the nerve to tell Steve O to sell his assets to pay for his shoulder operation rather than have the Public Health system pay for it.
        Wow
        
        6 1
        Report
        January 7, 2025 5:12pm
      - rouppe
        
        @Ian
        
        University was never free. Heavily subsidised but not free.
        1. I remember paying some fees when I registered at the start of the year (1980-1984)
        2. The universal student allowance was $30 a week.
        3. But you still had to have ready funds to buy books, pay for living expenses such as food and electricity, clothes, booze. If you didn’t have that, you couldn’t afford to go.
        
        So I worked every term break and every Christmas break. Started the year with a little over $1000 and had nothing at the end, do it over again.
        
        That was what student loans was supposed to fix. Take the “rich parents” out of the equation. Someone the other day complained that Nicola Willis’ children get $50,000 per annum each from the government in tertiary education subsidies. That’s quite a bit of “free” money. So it’s not as black and white as “boomers got a free education and gen x didn’t”
        
        4 0
        Report
        January 7, 2025 6:04pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        @Red
        You have an independant income but take Super?
        
        That doesn’t make me unusual … lots of KBers figure it’s their God-given right because they “have paid taxes into the system” for yonks.
        
        Not that it’s anyone’s business … last year I paid $10k for hernia surgery. I had previously decided that the $1200/mo we were paying for SC was a bit steep. My wife has $10k of cataract work coming up in April. I/we can afford it so that’s how it goes. When you get near 80 it sort of doesn’t matter – why suffer through the relatively small number of years you have left … ? Steve is a bit different because he knows he is good for 95+ 🙂
        
        2 2
        Report
        January 7, 2025 7:16pm
  - Master Mariner
    
    Now if you have less than 500k in Oz super you can salary sacrifice any amount and get taxed at 15%.
    Now there is an incentive to save if you are below < 500k.
    What's there not too like ?
    In your OWN account, Away from thieving failed Government hands.
    
    1 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    January 7, 2025 6:37pm
- NothingLeft
  
  It bears repeating that AGI is arriving this year or next (debatably already here with OpenAI’s ‘O3’, just very expensive, but costs will rapidly drop).
  
  All industries but particularly any semi-repetitive white collar work are going to see huge numbers of layoffs (if AI not banned, but even then some jurisdictions will use it driving down salaries and wages) meaning skyrocketing unemployment, collapsing tax revenues and asset values, and depression-level economic cataclysms wracking the world, Big Tech is planning on spending Trillions on data centers to enable this knowing they’ll be taking money currently spent on a huge number of salaries.
  
  Believing that fragile economic and political status quos – like comfy superannuation payments – are going to continue as the entire economic basis for our world (humans being paid for useful labor) is upended is just laughable. Govt’s won’t have money for such luxuries.
  
  1 3
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 10:32am
  - rouppe
    
    Much repetitive white collar work could be managed with good old fashioned coding.
    
    AI isn’t a magic wand. It will only take a couple of monumental screw ups from AI declining someone’s insurance or similar, because some marketing idiot doesn’t know what they’re doing, and AI will be solidly strapped down.
    
    1 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    January 7, 2025 6:11pm
- Stellaboxer
  
  Maybe the 5% you mention shouldn’t be able to use the roads or health system, we could have an app that turns the street lights off as they drive past. They could carry on paying tax though but just not receive what everyone else does because we’ll they’re rich eh.
  
  0 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 8, 2025 12:28pm
Chuck Bird

I posted this late yesterday.
Great post by Don. Always a gentleman.

DON BRASH: DAME TARIANA TURIA – MAY SHE REST IN PEACE

https://www.bassettbrashandhide.com/post/don-brash-dame-tariana-turia-may-she-rest-in-peace
11 1
Log in to Reply
Report
January 7, 2025 8:07am
Tempist

Irony of meteorologists blaming climate change for their inability to predict… the climate

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360540937/head-scratcher-chilly-southerlies-blow-away-expert-predictions-summer-heat
9 1
Log in to Reply
Report
January 7, 2025 8:09am
- Pope Punctilious II
  
  No. Meteorologists are blaming climate change for their inability to predict the weather.
  
  1 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 9:29pm
  - Stellaboxer
    
    Yeah well it’s a lot of peoples excuse for a lot of things isn’t it.
    
    0 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    January 8, 2025 12:30pm
Matt Long

Labour MP says he was told to cover up the ethnicity of Pakistani Islamic Rape gangs or he would face deselection.
Which is worse, monsters whose culture and religion teaches them that it’s not only permissable but righteous to sexually abuse young boys and girls who do not follow their religion, or the people who enable them, like Starmer?
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/politics/elections/grooming-gangs-ex-labour-mp-claims-former-party-chairman-told-him-not-to-raise-ethnicity-aspect-to-keep-votes/ar-AA1wS7Mo
https://news.sky.com/story/sir-keir-starmer-comments-on-elon-musk-grooming-gang-accusations-for-first-time-13284467
38 0
Log in to Reply
Report
January 7, 2025 8:12am
- Matt Long
  
  Iranian refugee in Canada says he’s beginning to get scared, He says that Islamist revolutions always start with an alliance between the left and the Islamists.
  https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1875801405682020577
  
  27 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 8:24am
- kowtow
  
  Another article if people are interested is the Daily Telegraph
  
  “How the grooming gangs scandal was covered up”
  
  8 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 8:36am
- Suze Wainwright
  
  Looks like some of Musk’s pressure is starting to get to Starmer. Don’t they say that having to explain is losing…?
  
  10 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 8:45am
- Matt Long
  
  “I know Rangers who were totally unbothered by combat, but have PTSD from accidentally walking into rooms where Afghan men were raping young boys. x.com/daveatherton20…”
  https://x.com/stillgray/status/1876204137010114997
  
  18 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 9:07am
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    Told to ignore it. Quite sick really. Disgusting behaviour.
    
    14 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    January 7, 2025 9:17am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  According to Starmer, you must be “far-right” if you care about young raped white trash .
  
  Starmer is applying Labour smear tactics from 20 years ago and thinks they will work today. He is a man of the past with no answers for today’s problems, let alone tomorrow’s.
  
  That such a huge scandal could occur should prompt soul-searching not ranting that those of us who care about it are “the far-right”.
  
  https://x.com/KemiBadenoch/status/1876278494105153682?
  
  https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2025/jan/06/uk-politics-keir-starmer-nhs-reforms-grooming-gangs-live-updates
  
  34 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 9:17am
  - cmm
    
    You know the lefties have lost it when working class people (traditionally Labour voters) are being dropped and are forced “right” to find people that speak to their concerns.
    
    21 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    January 7, 2025 9:47am
    - Suze Wainwright
      
      I guess when so many MPs of the left/green come from comfortable, ‘educated’, middle class backgrounds that really have no meaningful understanding of what they think they’re standing for…
      
      14 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      January 7, 2025 9:54am
    - Colville
      
      Cmm
      That is how Trump got the clean sweep.
      Rust belters deserted the Dems in droves.
      
      6 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      January 7, 2025 11:33am
    - Stellaboxer
      
      Those white girls are the children of Labours traditional supporters. The Labour Party now represent the urban chattering classes and Muslims. They are the UKs Māori in the eyes of those clowns.
      
      0 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      January 8, 2025 12:34pm
  - Chris Nisbet
    
    Starmer should take some lessons from Chris Luxon on how to read a room.
    Hang on, no, cancel that.
    
    15 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    January 7, 2025 10:53am
- imalwaysright
  
  If it were just a matter of being labelled racist then any politician would have launched an offensive against these scum.
  The upside of saving kids from rape gangs is far greater than being called a racist against the same rape gangs. No brainer.
  The reluctance of the politicians and the police to act can only mean that they themselves are also involved in the rapes and paedophilia.
  
  9 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 9:41am
- mogg
  
  That is the very essence of Identity Politics, certain groups of people regardless of their crimes can do no wrong, they are above the law. In this case the elites long ago decided that respect for the Muslim religion was far more important than the safety of white children from working class backgrounds. At the height of this rape scandal all govt agencies police, social services, education and many others were calling 11 year old girls “prostitutes”, telling their parents the girls had chosen their own way of life so they had better get used to it. Some parents were threatened with arrest if they did not stop speaking out.
  
  10 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 11:14am
Bridgenag

Are vaccines life-saving miracle medicines or is there more to the story?
An Open Letter To a Family Member – Part 1

A poster…..“I had not thought much about vaccines until the covid-19 era and realised early on that the pandemic was really an illusion of inappropriate testing. Even if some people were becoming ill they were denied effective treatments (like hydroxychoroquine with zinc or ivermectin) and given damaging treatment (like sedated intubation and remdesivir). “

“You are entitled to your beliefs. But, and at the very least, those beliefs should be informed by more than the sound bites we heard growing up. They should be informed by more than the one-sided propaganda that we currently teach doctors, nurses and teachers about vaccines at university. And they should be informed by more than the anti-science claims of people on TV in white coats like Anthony Fauci.”

https://open.substack.com/pub/lawhealthandtech/p/are-vaccines-life-saving-miracle?r=1aj1bv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
22 3
Log in to Reply
Report
January 7, 2025 8:18am
- JackRabbit
  
  Vaccines, like any other commodity, should be evaluated on a case by case basis, and ensuring that it meets long term testing, efficacy and safety protocols. As well as a healthy dose of the “precautionary principle”.
  
  It is blind ignorance to say that all products/food/people in a group or category are 100% good/safe or 100% bad/unsafe.
  
  Before they were mandated to be vaccinated by the mRNA shot, 60% of nurses and nurse aids I spoke with, had planned to not get the mRNA shot. Basic training told them that any vaccine developed and rushed to production in a few weeks, was way outside the normal standard of 12-17 years to research and get approval.
  
  20% were sitting on the fence, and 20% would do whatever they were told. You can’t train people to be professionals with standards, and then expect them to ignore standards and boundaries of their training.
  
  And they had not seen any actual Covid cases in the hospital.
  
  The tetanus shot used to be a safe vaccine, but that has all changed, as it now has all sorts of other things in it. The non-mainstream media news has been reporting long before “Covid”, of massive adverse side effects in Kenya from Tetanus, among young girls, which left many sterilised. And by many, we are talking thousands.
  
  Kenya was being used as a “proving ground” for the new unsanctioned Tetanus shot used there. Much like the Congo was used as an unofficial and illegal “proving ground” for the Moderna mRNA vaccine for Ebola. which spectacularly failed.
  
  Some critics would say that was a conspiracy theory, however I am aware of specific people, who in the last few years have had damaging side effects from the tetanus shot, myself included.
  
  Which I regret as I have been vaccine free for a long time, and never had a flu vaccine. Over the years I have seen people get sick from the flu vaccines, particularly the 2019 flu vaccine which caused lasting illness and side effects in many people.
  
  8 2
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 9:00am
  - newview
    
    Jack any side effects you had from The Tetanus shot will be chickenshit compared to contracting Tetanus. Your choice your gamble to whether you have another booster at some point in the future.
    
    3 6
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    January 7, 2025 2:11pm
    - cmm
      
      Not a really good comparison.
      
      Tetanus shots were developed in 1924. That is long before most of us were born. The risks of getting tetanus are huge.
      
      The risk profile is very different for unproven vaccines (esp mRNA) when the risk of getting Covid was very low.
      
      8 1
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      January 7, 2025 2:31pm
    - JackRabbit
      
      That was my reasoning as well.
      
      However vaccines only work in advance of an infection. I had the injection weeks after said injury / infection.
      
      But you miss the key point: That what were once safe vaccines have been modified to include things not consistent with “doing no harm”.
      
      4 1
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      January 7, 2025 2:34pm
- Benedict Yu
  
  To answer your first question, vaccines, along with antibiotics, were the greatest medical achievement of the 20th century. You just need to look at infant mortality.
  
  https://closer.ac.uk/data/infant-mortality/
  
  What is depressing is that there is anyone beyond the Jehovas Witnesses and fringe hippies who are even questioning this.
  
  Of course advances in vaccines continued into the 21st century. The HPV vaccine will drastically reduce cervical cancer rates. Well it would do so if all parents had their children vaccinated.
  
  Also the COVID vaccine is just the beginning of MRNA vaccines.
  
  13 21
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 9:20am
  - Anthony Melchett
    
    “Also the COVID vaccine is just the beginning of MRNA vaccines.”
    
    A vaccine so effective you need 7 doses of it.
    
    That ain’t a vaccine Benedict, no matter how much you want it to be.
    
    17 3
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    January 7, 2025 10:08am
    - imalwaysright
      
      MRNA.
      Does the A stand for Addict?!
      
      3 4
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      January 7, 2025 11:24am
    - Matt Long
      
      Pre mRNA vaccines that need annual boosters in livestock and pets include Leptospirosis, Parvovirus, Distemper.
      For people it was the flu shots.
      There are approximately exactly zero people on planet earth who know whether the risks from covid shots exceeds the risk from covid, some people will “know” according to their trust or mistrust of various institutions, or anecdotal evidence.
      
      6 5
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      January 7, 2025 1:25pm
      - imalwaysright
        
        “There are approximately exactly zero people on planet earth who know whether the risks from covid shots exceeds the risk from covid”
        
        That’s right.
        And there are also approximately exactly zero people on planet earth who know whether the risks from covid exceeds the risk from covid shots.
        Logic.
        
        8 2
        Report
        January 7, 2025 1:35pm
      - JackRabbit
        
        Any vaccine that needs an annual booster is:
        
        (A) Not a vaccine, and does not fit within the definition of what a vaccine is:
        
        (B) The annual flu shots are also not vaccines with the definition of what a vaccine is, nor does it fit within the development lifecycle of a vaccine. How do you get to market in a manner of months, a vaccine that has a 12-17 year development cycle?
        
        10 3
        Report
        January 7, 2025 1:38pm
      - JackRabbit
        
        “There are approximately exactly zero people on planet earth who know whether the risks from covid shots exceeds the risk from covid”
        
        Not true. Right from day one, data about the IFR / EFR was known to be that of the flu, but sidelined with fear narratives:
        
        [1] That suggested that Covid was sneaky and cunning.
        
        [2] 80,000 people would die in NZ. At the IFR of the flu, it would calculate NZ as having a population of 320 million.
        
        [3] At even the highest IFR – never before seen contagion level, it would still require NZ to have a population of 80million for 80,000 to die.
        
        [4] 65-85% of flue like respiratory disease infections are asymptomatic. At 80,000 deaths, it would imply a symptomatic infection rate of 80 million, and asymptomatic infection of 320million.
        
        [5] They over egged the “infections”, by testing, which in itself was over egged by PCR testing.
        
        The over egged stats were no different to what happens every year with the flu. i.e. Most of the population will encounter the flu and test positive. Just short of 1M will have symptoms and 500-800 will die. And that does not include other respiratory diseases such as pneumonia.
        
        [6] Awareness of the spectacular failure of the illegal Ebola mRNA trials show that mRNA was a dead dog. However based on the mRNA promises, in ~2016, the market cap of Moderna, was at 8.2Bn, which market analysts put at 3x its actual value even if it work. Gates and Fauci were investors in Moderna. I’m sure you can plot the motivations, fudge factor, and conflict of interest.
        
        10 1
        Report
        January 7, 2025 2:53pm
    - JackRabbit
      
      That ain’t a vaccine Benedict, no matter how much you want it to be.
      
      Correct. Gene editing, insertion, or modification is not a vaccine, and does not have authorisation for use in NZ.
      
      7 2
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      January 7, 2025 1:34pm
      - newview
        
        Bollocks. A vaccine is a medical treatment that helps your body’s immune system recognize and fight disease. Or
        a substance used to stimulate immunity to a particular infectious disease or pathogen, typically prepared from an inactivated or weakened form of the causative agent or from its constituents or products.
        “every year the flu vaccine is modified to deal with new strains of the virus”
        
        2 4
        Report
        January 7, 2025 2:44pm
      - Master Mariner
        
        Exactly, However after changing the Definition of Vaccine by the WHO, They are now considered a “Vaccine”.
        
        1 0
        Report
        January 7, 2025 6:47pm
  - JackRabbit
    
    The beginning of the of the mRNA was the Ebola vaccine in the Congo, several years before the Covid mRNA. That mRNA vaccine rollout was done WITHOUT FDA approval, no proper controls or testing.
    
    It failed spectacularly, and new Ebola outbreak was handled by standard pharmaceuticals from Merck.
    
    As I have reminded you before, research consists of research, raw data, understanding the principles of the science, and not just copying and pasting reports from sources you “believe” wouldn’t lie.
    
    7 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    January 7, 2025 10:27am
    - Master Mariner
      
      Yep, The “Jury” is still out surrounding the lack of information about how EBOLA came about.
      There now appears to be strong links it was caused by “vaccines”.? Whether true or not, There is sure a mystery surrounding the Ebola out break that needs answered.
      
      1 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      January 7, 2025 6:50pm
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    In principle I agree, except that MRNA vaccines are different to those that have gone before. What I’m sure of is that they need a lot more testing & peer review than what the Covid vax received.
    
    8 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    January 7, 2025 10:48am
  - Pineapple Lumps
    
    Ben, my personal view is that the provision of separation of sewerage and clean flowing drinking water in homes had the greatest contribution to public health in the past 500 years.
    
    With your faith in the covid vaccine would you answer some other questions for me please Ben?
    
    1. If the Pfizer mRNA treatment, aka Cominarty, was “safe and effective” then why Medsafe state they could not sign it off due to insufficient safety data and in fact never signed it off for use in NZ?
    
    2. If Pfizer know their product to be “safe and effective” then why did they request that all the documentation supporting its FDA application remain off limits to the public for 70 years?
    
    3. Why if Pfizer are confident in their product did they require countries to sign terms to provide them with legal immunity?
    
    4. When I enquired of the KB community for feedback from anyone who had read the book The Pfizer Papers, did you feel this warranted an attack on the co-author – Naomi Wolf – even though you haven’t read this book?
    
    11 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    January 7, 2025 3:21pm
    - Keith White
      
      PL: Well said, thank you,
      
      1 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      January 7, 2025 8:47pm
  - kevn
    
    Some one has to point it out…
    https://vigilantfox.news/p/covid-19-vaccines-linked-to-devastating
    
    5 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    January 7, 2025 5:22pm
- kevn
  
  More info on that theme…
  https://vigilantfox.news/p/covid-19-vaccines-linked-to-devastatingtitle&isFreemail=true&r=15bbs6&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
  Some people have had a lucky escape. At this stage.
  
  6 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 4:24pm
kowtow

In the midst of all the Turia hagiography ;

‘Three prime ministers, including Christopher Luxon, were unable to speak at Whangaehu Marae.’

So much for inclusivity and ‘honouring’ the treaty.
9 0
Log in to Reply
Report
January 7, 2025 8:22am
Rusty

Numpty Canadian PM Justin Trudeau has done a Jacinda Ardern and resigned.

Has Canada had a worse PM than him?
12 0
Log in to Reply
Report
January 7, 2025 8:46am
- Cassandra
  
  None come to mind.
  
  9 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 1:16pm
- All_on_Red
  
  Unfortunately Canada has to deal with the large voting block those (fake) French ***** in Quebec use to push everyone around.
  
  3 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 5:28pm
Yvette

Treaty
David Seymour says of the Coalition Government’s Treaty Principles Bill “This Bill addresses the question that has been avoided for too long: are we a country with two classes of people who each have different rights, or one where all people have equal rights regardless of their ancestry?”

Asking for a friend –

• Given that the Bill is a measure against racism and inequality, will it be an offence against New Zealand’s acceptance and support of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, after the Parliament Committee considers the Bill, for Parliament to vote it out of existence?

• Does the UNDHR freedom of rights in religion also entitle one to freedom from religion? Therefore meaning Government cannot promote Maori religious beliefs in any department or service of Government, which does not directly relate to such beliefs, or to the exclusion of any other religious beliefs.
Is Maori religion a taonga over which Maori have entire stewardship under Article 2, or a matter in which the Crown should ensure ‘protection’ but not ‘promotion’ (to maintain neutrality).
(AI overview – The 2023 New Zealand census reported the following religious beliefs: Māori religion: 1.3 percent of the population)

• Can Party political statements legitimately predetermine the findings of a Parliamentary Committee, or has the referral of this particular bill carried a coveat that Committee findings cannot relate to further progress of the bill after they have considered it?
7 0
Log in to Reply
Report
January 7, 2025 8:57am
NeverMindTheBollocks

Kamala Harris is going to have to visit her dentist. I did rather enjoy listening to her confirmation of Donald Trump’s election, but her gritting of teeth was palpable.
7 1
Log in to Reply
Report
January 7, 2025 9:05am
artemisia

RNZ reprints CNN J6 article – “… a day of chaos and blood”

According to CNN it was one of the darkest days in US history.

Voters decided. Decisively. To quote Mrs Clinton – What Happened? Because something happened.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/538305/four-years-after-his-supporters-invaded-the-us-capitol-trump-is-more-powerful-than-ever
15 1
Log in to Reply
Report
January 7, 2025 9:06am
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  What the left have been ignoring for four years is what was a Trump Rally was infiltrated by the extreme right, the CIA, and the FBI. People like Ray Eps shouting orders, groups like Antifa, Proud Boys etc.
  Trump asked his supporters to go home peacefully after things got out of hand.
  Look at all of the videos. Trump Rally supporters do nor dress like that or behave like that. The guy with the horns, what a freak!
  Then you have Pelosi twice refusing to engage the National Guard. Her daughter was even filming it!
  RNZ just repeating shit from other so called news sites.
  
  21 6
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 9:41am
Matt Long

Pope Francis continues his war against Christianity and Conservatives by appointing liberal in Washington.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/pope-selects-liberal-california-cardinal-new-dc-catholic-leader-ahead-trump-inauguration
10 2
Log in to Reply
Report
January 7, 2025 9:15am
- Inandout
  
  ML, not at all surprised with that appointment as Popes have never been far from politics.
  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/researchers-find-evidence-pope-pius-xii-ignored-reports-holocaust-180974795/
  
  6 2
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 9:57am
  - Don Beckett
    
    Actually John Cornwell is wrong. Surely he knew about the encyclical letter sent out by Pope Pius XI entitled Mit Brennender Sorge, which had to be read from every Catholic pulpit in Germany in 1937 (I think). That letter was read in all Catholic churches – it’s subject was a condemnation of Nazism. After that, the Nazis decided to teach the Church a lesson, and rounded up hundreds of priests & bishops & sent them to prison. Most later died when the Concentration camps were established.
    That letter was composed by Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pope Pius XII. He knew about the reaction of the Nazis when hw became pope, so his silence was actually to protect all German citizens from persecution – which was happening anyway. He was responsible for saving up to 1 million Jews in Italy. He arranged for them to be called Christian in many cases and hid them in convents & even in the Vatican & arranged to smuggle them out of Italy.
    That report is untrue & a huge disservice to Pius XII – one of the best popes during the 20 th. century.
    
    3 2
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    January 7, 2025 1:47pm
- peterwn
  
  Not his choice. He would have have given the appointment much careful thought and would have been guided by ‘on high’. I would say it was a thoughtful and sound appointment as he appointed someone familiar with USA politics rather than some obscure Vatican official.
  
  2 3
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 10:14am
  - Don Beckett
    
    McElroy is liberal & IMO a poor choice of cardinal , but he is arguably less liberal than Wilton Gregory who he is replacing. Many traditional Catholics in the USA are not particularly happy with many of their liberal bishops, and the pope does not like the USA anyway, having been raised in Argentina during the Peronist years, and IMO is not a good leader of the Catholic Church. You just need to check some conservative Catholic blogs in the USA to see their opinion of ‘Francis the Humble’.
    
    5 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    January 7, 2025 10:49am
    - Don Beckett
      
      Hereis a link to a USA blog that I visit most days, The American Catholic that will explain the attitude of many American Catholics toward the pope.
      
      https://the-american-catholic.com/2025/01/06/popewatch-mcelroy-to-dc/
      
      5 1
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      January 7, 2025 10:54am
sirknz

Forecasters can’t figure out why their weather predictions for summer are so out of whack.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360540937/head-scratcher-chilly-southerlies-blow-away-expert-predictions-summer-heat

I’ve got a couple of ideas as to why this might have happened.

1. The forecasters are tied into the climate change cult and want so desperately for it to be true that they are forecasting as if the extreme end of the IPCC predictions are true.

2. They are using incomplete data sets to suit their personal biases

3. They just aren’t very good at what they do.
15 1
Log in to Reply
Report
January 7, 2025 9:26am
- Chris Nisbet
  
  It’s pretty simple really – predicting the weather beyond a few days out is tricky.
  Generally speaking, winter isn’t as warm as summer, but beyond that, all bets are off.
  Oh, for NZ, you can also be pretty sure that it’s raining somewhere, unless it’s not.
  
  12 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 1:21pm
  - JackRabbit
    
    And for major weather trends you need to factor in lunar and planetary cycles etc, which Ken Ring is often right on. That knowledge was also understood by the ancient ‘Maori’ who also fished using nets, and knew when to avoid going to sea to fish.
    
    Unfortunately much of the knowledge was lost when the current Maori arrived around 1200 AD and killed the existing races that had the knowledge.
    
    3 4
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    January 7, 2025 1:45pm
    - All_on_Red
      
      *facepalm*
      
      4 1
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      January 7, 2025 5:30pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  Mark Twain had it right.
  
  Everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it.
  
  8 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 1:46pm
Maggy Wassilieff

Playing politics on the Marae…

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/kahu/shane-jones-criticises-tikanga-at-dame-tariana-turias-tangi-after-non-maori-speakers-barred/2Z33ABUAYNFBHAC6IELIBCK72A/

Tariana Turia was not a fluent speaker of Te Reo…and knew that that didn’t disqualify her from speaking up on matters she thought were important.

https://waateanews.com/2016/05/09/being-maori-more-than-words/
28 1
Log in to Reply
Report
January 7, 2025 9:28am
- pdm
  
  I may be wrong on this but, my understanding is that Sir Bill English is fluent in Maori.
  
  Did not he do a speech in Maori at Waitangi?
  
  14 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 9:44am
  - Toes on the nose
    
    He’s more fluent than a lot of the people who were at the tangi.. which shows it was more about being staunch (hate that word) anti-English (person eg whitey) rather than anti English (language/reo).
    
    11 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    January 7, 2025 9:57am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Yes, he did a fluent 3 min speech at Waitangi.
    
    https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2018/09/we_have_had_a_pm_that_could_speak_maori_-_the_last_one.html
    
    I think Bill English describes himself as semi-fluent in Te Reo
    
    18 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    January 7, 2025 10:04am
  - Anthony Melchett
    
    Imagine being in bills safe hands for the last 6 years…
    
    We wouldn’t have an extra 100 billion of debt that’s for sure
    
    17 2
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    January 7, 2025 10:05am
    - imalwaysright
      
      The 100 billion is a fraction of the cost of the damage done by the adern regime.
      We are still in recession. We are becoming poorer by the day. Our life expectancy is dropping. We have no plan except emmigration.
      Try a trillion dollars of damage. More realistic.
      
      1 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      January 7, 2025 5:14pm
- rouppe
  
  Yes, when I first read this I thought “just another example of Maori elites being disrespectful”.
  
  Thinking on it for an hour or so I’ve come to the following conclusion:
  Someone ought to be proud that current and former prime ministers want to show their respects at a funeral.
  Someone ought to be proud that current and former prime ministers want to speak at that event.
  However the attitude among Maori seems to be current and former prime ministers must be insulted and demeaned at events.
  
  I keep hearing that “not all Maori think this” but I never actually see it demonstrated, notwithstanding Shane Jones’ speech.
  
  And once again I ask myself why do political leaders allow themselves to be demeaned? I’m glad Luxon isn’t going to Waitangi this year. And when the inevitable cries of horror are heard, he should point directly to this event and say “respect goes both ways”.
  
  15 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 9:51am
- Blog-aholic
  
  Politics at a funeral….is that tikanga safe?
  
  8 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 9:52am
- Yvette
  
  Further playing politics on the Marae?
  Labour should apologise to Dame Tariana Turia’s whānau – Willie Jackson at tangi
  During his speech on the marae, leader of the Labour Māori Caucus Willie Jackson apologised to Dame Tariana for her treatment during the Foreshore and Seabed controversy. “My own personal view is that I think Labour should consider an apology in the future to her whānau and iwi because I think what happened to her was tragic in many ways,” he told RNZ
  The wider party should consider a formal apology to Dame Tariana and her iwi, he said.
  https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/538304/labour-should-apologise-to-dame-tariana-turia-s-whanau-willie-jackson-at-tangi
  
  Ex-Prime Minister and Labour leader at the time, Helen Clark is still alive, so does Willie Jackson think Helen Clark should apologise, even although he has already done it, seemingly without asking her?
  And what of the “optics” – someone who apologises because another has said they should? Never seems right.
  
  On 30 April 2004, after a considerable period of confusion about Turia’s intentions, she announced in a speech at Rātana Pā that she would resign from the Labour Party and from parliament on 17 May. Clark removed her from her ministerial roles the same day. … Helen Clark said that Turia showed “an astonishing lack of perspective”.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariana_Turia.
  
  I think what happened to her was tragic in many ways,” [Jackson] told RNZ
  Dame Tariana co-founded the Maori Party and it has turned into what it is today –
  haka performers Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke · Debbie Ngarewa-Packer · Rawiri Waititi,
  John Tamihere as President, with Willie Jackson as Member outside the Party
  – that is what is tragic
  
  10 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 9:52am
  - Cassandra
    
    The hagiographic eulogies for Mrs Turia ignore her greatest contribution to NZ, the establishment of a race-based, divisive, extreme political party. I’m sure she had attributes (someone else loved his dogs) but we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that her legacy is this awful vehicle for violent display, contributing nothing of benefit to the country.
    
    16 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    January 7, 2025 1:11pm
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  Shane Jones likes to speak his mind and doesn’t pull any punches’
  
  16 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 10:17am
- Chris Nisbet
  
  Somebody shake that man’s hand.
  
  9 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 10:55am
- OlderChas
  
  Well done Mr Jones!
  
  6 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 11:31am
Grunter

“It is implied that CO2 emissions create a greenhouse effect, which in turn leads to global warming. It is concluded that if CO2 emissions are limited, there will be no increase in temperature or it will not happen as quickly. At the same time, we as professionals must take into account that not all scientists adhere to such assessments.

There is also a ‘school of thought’ whose representatives, using specific facts and very convincingly, show that climate change is a cyclical process, and, therefore, the significance of the anthropogenic factor in the calculations of supporters of the ‘fight against climate change’, to put it mildly, is greatly exaggerated.”

This seems like a very rational position to take. The quote was recently made by Sergey Lavrov, that evil Ruskie that is part of Putins gang (in fact his Foreign Minister) to takeover Europe.
6 2
Log in to Reply
Report
January 7, 2025 9:40am
- imalwaysright
  
  If the climate didn’t change there would be no life on the planet.
  Biology, physics and chemistry all rely upon differentials in temperature and pressure.
  
  8 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 1:54pm
- rouppe
  
  I read the other day that three significant eruptions around the world in the 1700’s-1800’s had cooled the labret by about 1-1.5 degrees.
  
  As the effects of that dissipated, one would imagine that a subsequent 1-1.5 degree temperature rise would just be a rebalancing.
  
  According to a previous post here, global temperatures have risen about 2 degrees since 1910.
  https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2024/12/another_record_hot_year.html
  
  But if the starting point should have been 1-1.5 degrees higher if not for this eruptions…
  https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/03/science/mystery-volcano-1831-eruption-simushir/index.html
  
  6 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 1:56pm
  - All_on_Red
    
    A science paper published during December by Nature that found no increase in the destructive power of cyclones – the generic term for typhoons and hurricanes – in any ocean basin over the last 30 years.
    Heres a link to the Peer Reviewed Paper.
    Data and Graphs there too.
    https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01683-2
    
    7 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    January 7, 2025 5:33pm
Chris2

I always find it curious that increasing the age of superannuation eligibility is always rolled out as means to reduce the tax-payer burden.

How about looking at it from the othe end – birth and the number of children being born into welfare-dependant households?

I was gobsmacked to learn from Tariana Tueria’s obituary yesterday that she has 50 grand-children and great grand-children, it was reported as if it was something to proud of. Whereas my feeling it is utterly selfish and irresponsible and an an intolerable burden on the taxpayer for society to have to fund the upbringing and education of so may children arising from just two people, their own four children, and their children.
13 0
Log in to Reply
Report
January 7, 2025 9:49am
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  80, not 50.
  
  Not very green.
  
  10 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 1:49pm
Steve Otto N Shore

Participation Medal.

https://babylonbee.com/news/biden-honors-kamala-harris-with-presidential-medal-of-participation?

Hillary got a medal as well.
13 1
Log in to Reply
Report
January 7, 2025 10:03am
- Biscuit
  
  Steve, I giggled at the link a story or two further on that site:
  
  Trudeau To Be Humanely Euthanized
  
  10 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 10:55am
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    I thought he already was.//
    
    8 2
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    January 7, 2025 11:31am
Steve Otto N Shore

Batman buys a Cybertruck.

https://babylonbee.com/news/batman-trades-in-batmobile-for-cybertruck?
8 2
Log in to Reply
Report
January 7, 2025 10:07am
sungsamning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G53bRSVAVuU
Elon & Trump’s Government Is Going To Destroy The Left.
Elon Musk has publically announced he will pay for any MAGA candidate to run against any Democrat and Republican that opposes Trump’s cabinet approvals and critical policies.
8 1
Log in to Reply
Report
January 7, 2025 10:49am
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  The comments show just how the Dems are in panic mode.
  Let the games begin – popcorn, get a cleansack full.
  
  6 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 4:08pm
sungsamning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iac2OwJjJ3U
Trudeau Chaos. Here’s What Happens Next.
Political columnist Michael Higgins joins Terry New man to talk about Trudeau’s resignation, plunging Canadian politics into chaos.
Today’s announcement by Trudeau that he will resign is good news BUT this won’t happen until a new Liberal leader is determined. Trudeau has prorogued Parliament until March 24th to allow the Liberals time to sort out their internal mess, which they should have done a long time ago.
5 0
Log in to Reply
Report
January 7, 2025 10:49am
Steve Otto N Shore

2024 Election votes.

https://rumble.com/v66j3b1-priceless-gop-applause-interrupts-harris-after-she-calls-2024-electoral-vot.html?

312, that was my guestimate.
7 3
Log in to Reply
Report
January 7, 2025 10:59am
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  First woman to certify her own Election loss.
  
  9 2
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 11:04am
- Biscuit
  
  Good guesstimating, Steve. I was a state (Nevada) out…
  
  While I’ve got you, what are your thoughts on the half-mast flag hoisting for Jimmy Carter that looks set to carry on onto Trump’s re-inauguration?
  
  Moi, I’d have thought a bit of bridge-building between the Dems and the incoming Reps might have found a compromise where the flags were full-masted just for that day.
  
  You?
  
  5 2
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  January 7, 2025 11:08am
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    I think it is just the Dems being Dems. Nasty bastards.
    Sure fly flags at half mast, but why drag it out until the inauguration?
    Flags at half mast then has a double meaning – Democracy is dead with Trump as POTUS. As I said, nasty bastards.
    
    13 4
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    January 7, 2025 11:34am
    - Allan
      
      That is why Trump is set for sentencing on Friday.
      
      Until sentence is passed he is NOT a convicted felon, despite what the ignorant comentators on here claim.
      
      Specifically in New York (and elsewhere) you cannot be referred to as convicted until the sentence is pronounced.
      
      Then, and only then, can he be called a convicted felon.
      
      The date for sentencing is a vile act by an odious democrat running dog. It is to allow Trump to forever be referred to as the first convicted felon to be sworn in. Something that having the case rightly overturned on appeal will not erase.
      
      Evil people indeed.
      
      11 5
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      January 7, 2025 1:56pm
      - Steve Otto N Shore
        
        The show is not over yet. Merchan will suffer in the end.
        
        5 1
        Report
        January 7, 2025 5:59pm
    - CrazyIvan
      
      It’s not the Dems for this one occassion. It’s the standard timeframe set out in the US Flag Code, which has been in practice for decades:
      
      “The flag shall be flown at half-staff 30 days from the death of the President or a former President; 10 days from the day of death of the Vice President, the Chief Justice or a retired Chief Justice of the United States, or the Speaker of the House of Representatives; ”
      
      Presidents can alter this timeframe – Richard Nixon did on the death of LBJ apparently, but the 30 days was the timeframe when Reagan and GHW Bush died.
      
      6 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      January 7, 2025 2:00pm
      - Allan
        
        It is customary. It is NOT mandatory.
        
        Biden has every power to alter it if he so wanted.
        
        Again, it is an evil, peurile display by the corrupt democrat cabal.
        
        10 4
        Report
        January 7, 2025 3:19pm
      - CrazyIvan
        
        And here I was thinking us conservatives believed in tradition
        
        How inconsiderate of it was for Carter to die within 30 days of Trump’s big day //
        
        1 0
        Report
        January 7, 2025 3:50pm
      - MCōs
        
        Except he doesn’t know what day of the week it is, remember
        
        4 1
        Report
        January 7, 2025 5:11pm
      - Steve Otto N Shore
        
        MCos, you do know who is behind all of this shit right?
        It is not Joe, it is Obama getting one of his last stabbings at Trump.
        Nasty Democrat bastards.
        
        7 1
        Report
        January 7, 2025 6:04pm
Chuck Bird

This is what we are up against.

The SECRET History of ISLAM in 10 Minutes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woUt76IM3IE
4 1
Log in to Reply
Report
January 7, 2025 11:13am
Pope Punctilious II

UK Labour wants to “decolonize” science teaching, and all too many UK scientists are applauding: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14238989/School-science-lessons-Westernised-highlight-discoveries-cultures-woke-Labour-overhaul-curriculum.html
5 0
Log in to Reply
Report
January 7, 2025 1:10pm
Jack5

More concern about Australia’s vulnerability in fuel stocks, after closing of all but two of its refineries. With no refinery, NZ is surely in a worse position.

Australia has just 22 days of diesel in reserve, says a retired Air Force leader. Under International Energy Agency obligations, Australia is supposed to hold 90 days’ worth of oil stock.

The ABC reports Australia has 48 days’ worth of net imports (total imports minus exports), including 22 for diesel, 17 for jet fuel, and 29 for petrol consumption.

However, Australia’s Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, a Federal Government department, says total stocks held by Australian industry in the September quarter of 2024–25 included 33 days for diesel, 33 days for kerosene, and 42 days for petrol.

The Australian Government put up $A2 billion in 2021 for subsidies to keep remaining two oil refineries open. NZ lets its refinery at Marsden Point close.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-07/australia-fuel-security-falling-short-foi-war-game-report/104745210
2 0
Log in to Reply
Report
January 7, 2025 5:05pm

Add a Comment Cancel reply

Login to comment or vote

« Ruth Richardson on the Treaty Principles Bill

The Biden coverup »

Donations

You can now donate to Kiwiblog

Exclusive content from DPF on Patreon

Become a Patron!

Never miss a post

Email Address

Join 13K other subscribers

Highlights

Target achieved II
Good progress on attendance
Health Target 5 – elective treatments
Health Target 4 – Specialist appointments

Links

Blair Destroys Net Zero Policy
Utopia
"For 40 years, NZers have been told that fewer councils mean better government. For 40 years, the evidence has refused to oblige."
Not PC
They all do it…
The Standard
My Final Word: Jools Topp & the New Zealand We’ve Lost
The Daily Blog
The beat up about so called NZ freeloading
Point of Order
Word of the day
Hompaddock
Saturday’s Quick Hits
No Minister
Parliament fails to defend transparency
No Right Turn
Playing with numbers.
Kiwipolitico
Another non-tariff barrier
Offsetting Behaviour
Rugby Premiership Predictions for Round 18
Stats Chat
Budget 2026
NZCPR
UK Conversion Therapy Ban, Digital ID, Rallies, Elections
Bob McCoskrie's McBlog
A central banker’s fiction
Croaking Cassandra
THE WORKING FROM HOME RACKET BY PUBLIC SERVANTS
No Punches Pulled (Bob Jones)
Tory Whanau may have to sell Wellington mayoralty to make ends meet
The Civilian
The Accidental Engagement
Imperator Fish
Legal Beagle: Election '23: The Special Votes
Public Address
Get Vaccinated Tomorrow Or Shut Your Pie Hole
Cactus Kate
Making this movie might have been a mistake
Liam Hehir
Why I am retiring from political blogging
Kiwi FireWalker

[email protected]

PO Box 12270, Thorndon, Wellington 6144

Facebook
Twitter
FourSquare
Instagram
LinkedIn
Google+

Archives
Disclosure Statement
Editorial Policy
Privacy Policy
Complaints Policy
Comments Policy

Design by cre8d

%d

Share this:

Like this: