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January 12, 2025 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 12 January 2025

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General Debate

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Chuck Bird

I posted this yesterday afternoon. Think you to all who signed it. It would be great if you can get your friends and family to do so also. I do not know Bruce Willis but now he has started this petition to Parliament let us all help get people to sign it.

Petition of Bruce Willis: Remove Māori electorates

https://petitions.parliament.nz/d61fab3d-3766-4343-c409-08dd17f0dfb0
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January 12, 2025 8:04am
- Bridgenag
  
  Done Get all the family to sign
  
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  January 12, 2025 8:14am
- Yvette
  
  Would the petition – That the House of Representatives urge the Government to remove Māori electorate seats as recommended under MMP by the 1986 Royal Commission on the Electoral System – automatically remove the Maori Electoral Roll, because there would be nothing to vote for?
  
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  January 12, 2025 8:14am
  - pdm
    
    That should be the logical outcome Yvette.
    
    But, would it really matter if it wasn’t because The Party Vote is what determines the Government and that and General Electorates would be all that was available to vote on/for.
    
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    January 12, 2025 9:43am
- RoboRob
  
  Done, surprised about the tiny # of existing signatures.
  
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  January 12, 2025 8:44am
  - pdm
    
    179 when I signed at about 9am.
    
    338 at 11.40am.
    
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    January 12, 2025 11:41am
    - Chuck Bird
      
      411 at 4:07 PM
      
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      January 12, 2025 4:06pm
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    It runs until Dec this year, so it will gather steam around Oct/Nov, I would say.
    I signed it.
    
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    January 12, 2025 11:43am
- pdm
  
  Petition signed.
  
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  January 12, 2025 9:03am
- NK
  
  Signed.
  
  I considered signing as Jack Nicholson. Lol. Imagine your name being Bruce Willis. Quite funny.
  
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  January 12, 2025 9:20am
  - pdm
    
    NK Some 15 or so years ago I managed a 48 person bowling tour to the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast. One of the participants on that tour was named Donald Duck (true dinks).
    
    When I checked he was born a year before the Disney Donald Duck appeared on the scene.
    
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    January 12, 2025 9:47am
    - PurplePen
      
      I had a holiday job with Social Welfare updating beneficiary history cards and came across one for a Michael Angelo and he was residing at the Rembrandt Hotel.
      
      BTW, in the whole office of about 50 there was only 1 computer terminal… it was brand new … which I broke or got it to freeze one day trying stuff out on it.
      
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      January 12, 2025 11:11am
    - Steve Otto N Shore
      
      Went to Sky City a while back. Just for my partner’s birthday.
      Anyway, went for a walk to get a pizza. Ordered and they asked my name.
      “Donald Trump I replied – and yes there is more than one Donald Trump in the World” When it was cooked the girl had to call out “Donald Trump!”
      Funny AF. Got a lot of attention.
      
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      January 12, 2025 11:48am
- Nobby2
  
  Done.
  
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  January 12, 2025 10:40am
- sungsamning
  
  Done.
  
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  January 12, 2025 11:05am
- PurplePen
  
  Some history is always useful. Maori seats were created in 1867, a temporary measure to enable Maori to vote and participate in the parliament. You could only vote if you were a man that owned property. Maori land wasn’t yet surveyed and registered. Once universal suffrage was introduced in 1893, everyone could vote including women. The seats had served their purpose.
  
  James Carroll, Minister of Native Affairs Liberal Party and first Maori inside cabinet, supported proposals in 1905 for the abolition of Māori electorates.
  
  Labour initiated the 1985 Royal Commission on the Electoral System which in 1986 recommended MMP as well as abolishing the Maori seats.
  
  There are 33 Maori MPs in parliament today or 27%. Exclude the Maori seats and there are 20% or 1/5th.
  
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  January 12, 2025 11:08am
  - pdm
    
    PP If/when the Maori Seats go there will be an increase in general seats.
    
    Not seven but probably between 3 and 5 to balance electorates population wise giving further opportunities to increase the number of Maori politicians.
    
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    January 12, 2025 11:45am
    - Steve Todd
      
      Correct, pdm.
      
      Currently, there are 72 electoral districts, made up of 16 South Island General Electorates, 49 North Island General Electorates, and seven Māori Electorates.
      
      On Friday, 8 August, when the Representation Commission releases the final electorate boundaries for the 2026 General Election (see https://vote.nz/boundary-review/about/boundary-review-2025/timetable/), the number of North Island General Electorates will have been set at 48, for a total of 64 General Electorates.
      
      Were the Māori seats to be abolished immediately, however, the number of North Island (General) electoral districts would increase by three, to 51, for a total of 67 electoral districts.
      
      The calculation is: SI population 1,185,690, divided by 16 = 74,106. NI population 3,808,233, divided by 74,106 = 51.39 = 51, for a total of 67.
      
      So, the Māori seats will not be abolished next year, that’s for sure. In fact, as I pointed out several times last year, they are unlikely to be abolished without the consent of Māori.
      
      In addition, while the Māori seats are not entrenched (under section 268(1) of the Electoral Act 1993; see paragraph (c), here, https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1993/0087/latest/DLM310495.html), meaning that, theoretically (I imagine), they could be abolished by this coalition government 68–55 in “seven minutes” at any time, they are effectively entrenched, because section 35 (see https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1993/0087/latest/DLM308195.html#DLM308195) and the definition of the term General electoral population in section 3(1) (see https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1993/0087/latest/DLM307525.html#DLM307525), relating to the division of New Zealand into electoral districts after each census, are entrenched.
      
      Therefore, in my view, a referendum or a 75% vote of MPs would be needed to abolish the Māori seats, neither of which is going to happen anytime soon.
      
      Consequently, in my view, this petition is going nowhere.
      
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      January 12, 2025 7:42pm
- yobi
  
  Done.
  Sent out to all my contacts as well.
  
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  January 12, 2025 1:42pm
- Janine
  
  Done.
  
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  January 13, 2025 8:03am
G the giant from Dunedin

I wonder what lies and bullshit the media will fill us with today
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January 12, 2025 8:06am
Bridgenag

Climate Change and The Corruption of Science
Doug Brodie schools his new MP on the political dogma of climate change.

“This email explains why the only rational interpretation of the Uniparty’s ruinously expensive, destructive and pointless Net Zero agenda is that it is a malign attempt to cripple the UK economy and impoverish the nation and its people.”

https://open.substack.com/pub/metatron/p/climate-change-and-the-corruption?
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January 12, 2025 8:13am
- Chuck Bird
  
  This supports your post.
  
  IPCC pressure tactics exposed: A Climategate Backgrounder
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_8xd0LCeRQ
  
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  January 12, 2025 8:19am
- Dave
  
  That looks like an interesting email for me to read (thanks) later today, but the chances of a busy MP (or even his assistant) reading it past the first two paragraphs are about zero.
  
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  January 12, 2025 8:59am
Morgan H

I’ve got a question for everyone. If you were able to get one policy passed through parliament, what would it be and why?
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January 12, 2025 8:21am
- Clyde
  
  All references to the Treaty of Waitangi are removed from all Acts of Parliament, all Universities, schools and other educational entities, all Local Government bodies and all public services such as health etc.
  
  Reason is blindingly obvious. New Zealand is either a nation trying to get ahead, or a bunch of pagan tribes.
  
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  January 12, 2025 9:44am
  - Paulus
    
    Would never happen – New Zealand is too much a Socialist Country currently of the worse kind.
    
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    January 12, 2025 10:53am
    - Scooter
      
      Agree Paulus, NZ is probably more woke than most woke countries because Maori are given so much priority over others (even though they are partly the “others”). No one in government would dare dismantle the Waitangi Tribunal or Maori seats, not in this term but maybe a 3rd if they make it to there. At best the Waipereira Trust and TPM corruption investigation might put a break on things if they can be shut down.
      
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      January 12, 2025 11:54am
- imalwaysright
  
  Reduce the government to 9 MPs and the public service to 300 people.
  Why?
  That’s all we need.
  
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  January 12, 2025 10:07am
  - OlderChas
    
    I always told anyone who would listen while I was working for committees that the ideal committee would consist of no more than 3 people, at least two of whom were absent.
    
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    January 12, 2025 11:16am
- Mark Hanley
  
  Tow principals bill. Stop the siphoning of our money to lawyers and kaumatua.
  
  Then, spend the time and money improving everyone’s lives….. including Maori.
  
  Next, reduce all c02 and methane reduction spending to the bare minimum required to stop our trading partners from using global warming as a trade weapon.
  
  The Anthropological climate disaste[r] fraud has already bankrupted Germany and England, it is doing the same to NZ.
  
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  January 12, 2025 10:10am
- Don Beckett
  
  Withdraw from all Climate change/Global warming agreements, treaties, organisations & contracts.
  
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  January 12, 2025 10:36am
  - pdm
    
    I am with you on that one DB.
    
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    January 12, 2025 10:56am
  - Benedict Yu
    
    New Zealand would be the only country in the world to do so. The country would face ruinous sanctions.
    
    Even when Trump becomes President, he will not withdraw from the UNFCCC. The USA will continue to send giant delegations to the COP meetings.
    
    So no it is a terrible idea.
    
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    January 12, 2025 11:02am
    - David Garrett
      
      Bene: Talking of giant delegations…I was reliably informed that Tonga sent 82 – yes, that’s eighty two delegates to the latest climate change pow wow.
      
      I should add that many Tongans’ main reason for working for the government at higher levels is the chance for free overseas travel on some bullshit excuse or other – together with generous per diems that they get over and above their accomodation and food costs.
      
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      January 12, 2025 11:28am
      - kiwikidsnz
        
        Guess who pays for that:
        https://www.canterbury.ac.nz/content/dam/uoc-main-site/documents/pdfs/reports/NZ%E2%80%99s-aid-policy.pdf
        
        + a few millions after the volcanic eruption
        
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        January 12, 2025 11:40am
      - Benedict Yu
        
        Well it has changed in the 20 years since I attended those events. The Tongan delegation was one or two. I recall that along with the other PI delegates, you could not get them to meetings on time if at all.
        
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        January 12, 2025 2:32pm
    - Don Beckett
      
      Benedict.
      The whole thing is now a scam industry. The country would arguably be better off without the financial costs of supporting such rubbish.
      And I reckon a number of countries are contemplating the same thing as the scam becomes more & more obvious.
      I would also consider withdrawing from the UN. It has devolved into an unelected socialist organistion which pads the wallets of its members, support terrorist organisations & promotes immoral practices which it attempts to foist on some countries that reject their promptings & threatens them with sanctions if they don’t comply – a totally corrupt international snow job.
      
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      January 12, 2025 12:01pm
    - NeverMindTheBollocks
      
      Someone has to be first, Benedict. Let’s be plucky little NZ leading the world, once again!
      
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      January 12, 2025 12:26pm
      - Benedict Yu
        
        The country would be bankrupted. There is no reason to withdraw from the UNFCCC. Focus on things that can be changed
        
        The UN has not forced upon New Zealand the “Zero Carbon Act”. That is entirely our doing.
        
        Focus on the things that matter.
        
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        January 12, 2025 2:38pm
      - sungsamning
        
        Trump will pull out of the WHO, and the Paris accord. That may give others cover to do so. Or, he might use tariffs as a weapon to make them do so.
        
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        January 12, 2025 6:12pm
NeverMindTheBollocks

Californian convicts (not violent ones) are able to volunteer to fight fires. They are trained and perform tasks such as scrub cutting to make fire breaks. In return they get time out of prison for training, credit against their sentence time and a very small payment.

Once upon a time we had Periodic Detention, which was a non custodial sentence but where the convict had to turn up on Saturdays to cut scrub. As far as I know, PD had been replaced by Home D.

It seems to me that some form of community service along the lines of California should be explored. Perhaps not firefighting, but removing noxious weeds such as wilding pines, Old Man’s Beard etc.

http://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3rwdjwglx2o
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January 12, 2025 8:30am
- Paulus
  
  Too many PD persons mainly of one ethnicity do not bother to turn up, with no consequences, as below them to do what was required.
  
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  January 12, 2025 10:56am
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    That’s an operational failure, not a policy failure.
    
    It would need to be made clear that failing to turn up would have consequences.
    
    Having said that, carrot as well as stick. If Maori want subsidiarity, perhaps PD could be arranged for them within their tribal area, with the Aunties setting the standard & holding them to account. Never underestimate the power of shame within one’s own community.
    
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    January 12, 2025 12:31pm
  - Countrygirl
    
    It was a good scheme I think, despite the persons cutting scrub at the back of our property killing and eating all the kiwi birds resident there. Yes, they were sighted doing it.
    
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    January 12, 2025 6:07pm
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  I did that. Young and stupid, caught DIC.
  Every Saturday for 6 months bus to St Helen’s old Hospital? in Pitt St, City. There by 8am. Then a Railways bus to Woodhill forest and slash gorse all day.
  These days the baddies clean windows etc.
  
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  January 12, 2025 12:20pm
  - marleybob
    
    I was 18 in 1974, had a weekend on the turps and weed. Done some real stupid shit that I can’t remember doing, ended up caught and sentenced to 4 months youth pd, in those days you turned up for detention by 7pm on a Friday and released midday Sunday. Can’t say I enjoyed not being able to do what I want. That type of pd where my freedom was taken away left a deep impression on me. Even though I hated being there I realized later that if I never went through that system I may have continued on that wrong track.
    
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    January 12, 2025 1:54pm
    - Steve Otto N Shore
      
      That is why I don’t drink and drive. Self enforced.
      If we forget milk at Woolies and we need it I will not drive even after half of a beer.
      That is just the way it is full stop. The speaker of the house knows this.
      
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      January 12, 2025 3:30pm
- CJames
  
  In Taupo, the PD ( now called Community Service) gangs maintain the vegetation along the Wairakei Drive and a few other sites of new natives plantings. May
  
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  January 12, 2025 1:52pm
vand

Victor Hansen calls the LA fires a systems breakdown- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNU3v-yRTOo
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January 12, 2025 8:38am
- Matt Long
  
  The main priority of LA’s water Czar?
  Equity. DEI kills.
  https://x.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/1878082556467483135
  
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  January 12, 2025 11:28am
Matt Long

Governor Newsome reduced fire control measures by some $100 million before the LA fires.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/gov-newsom-cut-fire-budget-100m-months-lethal-california-fires
This is reminiscent of how Ardern is alleged to have loosened Firearms License vetting prior to the Christchurch massacre by the Australian eco terrorist.
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January 12, 2025 8:41am
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  Lefties sure do have an issue with not thinking things through.
  When it all turns to shit they just walk away.
  
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  January 12, 2025 9:28am
  - imalwaysright
    
    They have thought it through, as far as they are able.
    Marxism can’t grow alongside capitalism therefore the marxists first job is to destroy capitalism and then “Build Back Better”.
    Still waiting for the BBB!
    
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    January 12, 2025 10:33am
    - Steve Otto N Shore
      
      “Let’s Do This!”
      
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      January 12, 2025 12:25pm
  - Don Beckett
    
    They don’t have the intelligence or foresight to take into account any unintended consequences – purely ideologically driven.
    
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    January 12, 2025 10:38am
- Scooter
  
  And just like Ardern, her being the head of the Intl Union of Socialist Youth 2008-2010, Mayor Bass was part of the Venceremos Brigade. Look carefully into candidates backgrounds, even Biden thought twice about her being VP.
  
  “But she’s also the only person on Biden’s list who spent part of the 1970s working construction in Fidel Castro’s Cuba with the Venceremos Brigade, a group that has organized annual trips to Cuba for young, leftist Americans for half a century.”
  
  https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/07/karen-bass-cuba-venceremos-brigade/614662/
  
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  January 12, 2025 12:17pm
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    I remember that speech in Hungary.
    I knew then she was trouble if she ever got any control. Shocking commie behaviour, and Labour just loved it!
    
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    January 12, 2025 3:46pm
Matt Long

Best unintentionally ironic fact-check of 2025.
“The claim that 60 fire trucks from Oregon were stopped in San Francisco for emissions testing is not supported by the available information. The relevant information indicates that Oregon sent a significant number of fire trucks and firefighters to assist with wildfires in Southern California, specifically the Los Angeles area. However, the stops for emissions or safety checks were reported in Sacramento, not San Francisco” – grok
https://x.com/_____USA___/status/1878132504374440181
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January 12, 2025 8:44am
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  So, will California have to add the forest fires to their 2025 carbon emissions payment?
  
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  January 12, 2025 9:13am
  - Benedict Yu
    
    No
    
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    January 12, 2025 11:03am
    - Matt Long
      
      It’s a natural event and only produces green approved, non warming pollution and CO².
      That the worst of the pollution may have been caused by stupid socialist policies isn’t relevant to carbon accounting.
      
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      January 12, 2025 11:25am
      - Benedict Yu
        
        I don’t follow. Are you saying that I am mistaken?
        
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        January 12, 2025 11:28am
      - Matt Long
        
        I’m agreeing BY, someone down ticked you, so I thought some background would be useful, sorry post lacked clarity.
        
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        January 12, 2025 11:31am
      - Steve Otto N Shore
        
        Best et Greta to measure the CO2, she can see it you know.
        
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        January 12, 2025 12:29pm
  - sungsamning
    
    Absolutely. California is no longer carbon neutral. Greta has already sent comisserations.
    
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    January 12, 2025 11:10am
- kowtow
  
  I wonder what the DEI crowd think of what’s powering the huge Canadian fire fighting ‘plane they sent .
  
  But it’s been grounded following a collision with a drone .
  Unauthorised drone folk are a menace . A potentially deadly menace.
  
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  January 12, 2025 9:15am
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    Drone rules are different over that and the US, even recreational. I had to register mine with the FAA to get a number to have on a sticker inside the battery compartment.
    My drone is a small MavicPro. Man there are a lot of satellites above Alaska. 70 to 80 something whereas in NZ I get about 23.
    
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    January 12, 2025 4:02pm
Maggy Wassilieff

Professor Elizabeth Rata considers NZ’s future:

New Zealand’s future may be that of a prosperous first-world democratic nation or a retribalised third-world state controlled by a rentier elite.

https://www.bassettbrashandhide.com/post/elizabeth-rata-ngai-tahu-ambitions-for-the-south-island
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January 12, 2025 8:48am
- Cassandra
  
  Rata has summed up the options accurately. The tribes, shrewdly, have momentum. They’ve captured the left; it’s now up to the Right to stop them. Is Luxon up to it? I fear Willis is on the left side. The rest of National is going to have to come to the party.
  
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  January 12, 2025 9:00am
  - Morgan H
    
    Luxon will follow whichever option he believes hurts his career the least.
    
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    January 12, 2025 9:04am
    - Dudley Quaffquaff
      
      Politicians are routinely forced to choose between (a) doing their jobs poorly in order to keep them, or (b) doing their jobs well and losing them as a result. No other profession faces such a perverted and illogical incentive structure.
      
      As their employers, it’s our fault and not theirs if they sometimes choose to protect their jobs and their income ratger than do what they think right. In fact, given the pressure that’s constantly on them to make poor decisions it’s actually a bloody miracle if any of them ever manages to make a good one.
      
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      January 12, 2025 10:27am
      - Morgan H
        
        The way things are going I wouldn’t be surprised if National lose some electorate seats to Act next election. Act’s Treaty bill is popular, but Luxon’s National party is going to kill it. Why vote in politicians who vote against what your values?
        
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        January 12, 2025 1:12pm
  - pdm
    
    Time for Chris Penk, Judith Collins, Suze Redmayne, Dana Kirkpatrick, Grant McCallum and others to step up to the plate and stand firm.
    
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    January 12, 2025 9:08am
  - NK
    
    “Is Luxon up to it”?
    
    Lol. Surely you know the answer to this question?
    
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    January 12, 2025 9:23am
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    As long as Luxon keeps saying we are all equal as NZers, and there will be no separatist services then surely that is fine, no matter what is decided, the luvvies still try their own agenda, as we have seen, some have been pulled into line
    
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    January 12, 2025 9:47am
    - Benedict Yu
      
      He can say whatever he likes but his actions lead New Zealand in a different direction.
      
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      January 12, 2025 11:05am
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    Luxon has all of National sitting on the fence. Time for MPs to think and vote for their constituents – the ones who gave them their job.
    
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    January 12, 2025 12:34pm
    - Pope Punctilious II
      
      No, the dominant liberal wing of the Nats has Luxon sitting on the fence.
      
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      January 12, 2025 2:56pm
      - Steve Otto N Shore
        
        It’s $1 each way!
        
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        January 12, 2025 4:03pm
- pdm
  
  I thought the following para re Ngai Tahu was telling!!
  
  `That contest may come if Ngai Tahu attempts to use its Treaty settlement to claim large swathes of the South Island. Acquiring ownership of public land, water, flora and fauna, minerals, and forests will turn the Ngai Tahu corporation from a productive to a rentier organisation. A rentier class gives little to a nation’s prosperity but takes much in rent from others’ investment and labour. It goes against New Zealanders’ interest to allow the emergence of such a class. Parliament will be forced to choose. Which will have priority — a rentier corporation or democratic citizenry?`’
  
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  January 12, 2025 9:06am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Waikato-Tainui- Auckland Urban Maori Authority nearly achieved their goal of owning water during Ardern’s reign.
    
    I doubt that they have shelved plans to be the premier rentier tribal conglomeration.
    
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    January 12, 2025 9:19am
  - Paulus
    
    Whilst all this is going on Immigrants from India will quietly do as they always do with their extended families, and run businesses, and stay out of trouble – and get rich, as many have done so already, and that can only increase – yes they work hard and long hours.
    Can only increase exponentially as families here grow.
    
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    January 12, 2025 11:00am
  - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
    
    So how much did Meridian pay them to continue generating electricity on the Waitaki scheme?
    
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    January 12, 2025 1:17pm
  - rouppe
    
    Surely that would put a nail into it’s charity status.
    
    It already accumulates wealth far in excess of that which an entity with charity status should
    
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    January 13, 2025 12:48am
- Yvette
  
  An ahistorical understanding gives a sacred quality to human events, imbuing them with a spirit of timeless authority beyond human intervention. The 1840 Treaty of Waitangi and the post-1986 partnership principles are given this spiritual authority. It is seen in such phrases as the Treaty speaks to us today and in the fruitless search for a definitive Treaty meaning.
  
  The historical understanding is completely different. Events are understood to be created by humans and are of their time and place. What people create can be retained, changed, or discarded. It is not the ancestors, the fates or the capricious gods which control us. Democracy brings that power down to earth, to be exercised on our behalf by elected representatives without appeal to a spiritual authority. – Elizabeth Rata
  
  Like the “spirituality” which still maintains the Māori electorate seats – introduced to enable Māori representation in Parliament when only male landowners were entitled to vote in the 19th Century – but universal suffrage should have long ago rendered Māori electorates null and void, as all people who met the age criteria can now vote.
  
  Where in the Treaty does it say it is a “nation’s founding document”, to last 200 years or more?
  Why does the Treaty of Waitangi not begin, “We the People of New Zealand, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence …”
  
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  January 12, 2025 9:31am
  - Michael Johnston
    
    And even if it were such a constitutional arrangement, in a democracy it would be subject to change by referendum. Typically, democratic countries with written constitutions require a supermajority to enact change. If the Treaty Principles Bill went to referendum, it may well reach such a threshold.
    
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    January 12, 2025 11:03am
- PurplePen
  
  Was in the ODT or a version of it yesterday or Friday. I was pleasantly surprised as it shows balance by ODT. Needed to re-read some parts carefully understand.
  
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  January 12, 2025 11:17am
NeverMindTheBollocks

If any more evidence of Joe Biden’s senility is required – he says he could have defeated Donald Trump in the recent election.

http://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2v2pz38g8o
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January 12, 2025 8:54am
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  He is actually a sad state, he has said in the passed that he could beat Trump I think because he beat him before, but I don’t think he knows anything else, he is reminding me if my mum who is in the home and and memory slips, but it slips on important things, but she remembers the things that don’t matter
  
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  January 12, 2025 9:50am
  - Happy1
    
    He beat Medicare
    
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    January 12, 2025 12:36pm
kevn

Slowly it’s happening…
https://notthebee.com/article/report-facebook-and-meta-to-end-all-dei-programs-immediately
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January 12, 2025 9:11am
- imalwaysright
  
  I listened to Rogan interviewing Zuckerberg yesterday. It was quite a strange chat and came across as more like an advertorial.
  Z made lots of excuses and Rogan rarely challenged him.
  Absolution from Rogan seemed to be the aim.
  
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  January 12, 2025 9:41am
- sungsamning
  
  That’s good news. Trump won, so woke is dead.
  
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  January 12, 2025 11:14am
Dr John

I didn’t see Kiwiblog yesterday – the garden called. But I going to add to the discussion on covid vaccines.
Last September, my wife and I were traveling from Brisbane to Sydney when we chanced upon a display in a park in a coastal town. There were about 100 metal stakes driven into the grass, each one supporting a sheet of paper. And each sheet detailed the name, address, and photo of an Australian with a description of their illness – either debilitating or fatal – no, not following covid – but after receiving a covid vaccination. The display, we learned, was one of many scattered around Australia and was called ‘Forest of the Fallen’;
https://theforestofthefallen.com/picture-gallery/
So to those commentators who still believe our corrupt government [read ‘Jacinda’], the WHO, the WEF, and Big Pharma [“no one I know has been sick”] – Benedict, Dudley, and Giant come to mind – open your eyes, please! This experimental gene therapy is neither safe nor effective and has led to many deaths around the world.
Take a look at some excellent sites on the internet:
Courageous Discourse.
FLCCC [the Front Line Covid Care Clinicians]
Dr John Campbell.
And if you have the courage to read some interesting books, try:
Canary in a Covid World
The Courage to Face covid-19
The War on Ivermectin
Moving Beyond the Covid-19 Lies.
I won’t be holding my breath!
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January 12, 2025 9:12am
- Observer of Life
  
  Well said Dr John. I know several people damaged. And if you’re not hearing stories, I believe it could be because you are firmly in the “denial camp” and those damaged (or know damaged people) won’t be telling you because of your stance. If there’s one international Dr that might possibly change your mind, it would be Dr Pierre Kory. Can I suggest you hunt him out and read/listen to him.
  
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  January 12, 2025 9:54am
  - Bridgenag
    
    Article this morning here
    
    https://open.substack.com/pub/lillyics/p/dr-pierre-kory?r=1aj1bv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
    
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    January 12, 2025 10:55am
  - Benedict Yu
    
    John Campbell is a puerile grifter. He is a liar. Simple as that.
    
    There are dozens of critiques. For example.
    
    “The Dishonest Rise of John Campbell”
    
    https://youtu.be/IhZf0of-gwE?si=O1HeTc9vZT1o6PFB
    
    The damage and death that he has caused through lies about vaccines will never be quantified, but it will be immense. To the extent that he influences the gullible, some will have died. He does that for money.
    
    Reading the never ending vaccine lies on this blog is analogous to turning up each day and finding commenters screaming that the earth is 4,000 years old. Or that the Apollo moon landings were fake. Or that the USA military demolished the world trade center in 2001.
    
    In the late 1800s, rudimentary Smallpox vaccines were developed from cow pox. Many folk spent their lives opposing these vaccines because they were against nature. Of course, they lost that argument. It will be the same with hysteria about COVID vaccines.
    
    For now, rational free thinkers will be vaccinated at least yearly and stay healthy. Those who are afraid will shun vaccines and some will die. Many more will be hospitalised, placing needless burdens on the health system.
    
    Sadly not much can be done. The aging socialist hippies from the 90s still believe that MMR vaccines caused autism. In the 2050s, aging right wing conspiracy theorists will wail about how COVID vaccines caused their cousin to have a heart attack.
    
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    January 12, 2025 11:27am
    - Pineapple Lumps
      
      Ben – reading your post reminded me of the latest Jordon Peterson podcast, where he observed that highly intelligent people often fall into the sin of worshipping their own mind.
      
      On the topic of vaccines you have become increasingly strident, use big data examples to ignore other possibilities and believe that because it is good for you it is good for all. Increasingly, you attack the person not their point. You have also advocated for medical totalitarianism, which seems at odds with the rationale libertarian values you proclaim.
      
      Always happy to read your posts but your position on the mRNA treatments has become damaging to your credibility.
      
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      January 12, 2025 11:56am
      - newview
        
        PL Even in your own comment to Ben you say Ben ignores other possibilities. Like myself I would say Ben gets tired of commenters quoting some of these possibilities as fact. You and others here are entitled to question the safety of some vaccines and so do I but if it’s going to be the battle of sources I’ll still stick with the official accepted ones. Ben is often the only one who calls out some of these unsubstantiated unofficial articles quoted here and for the most part I believe he’s right.
        
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        January 12, 2025 1:19pm
    - JackRabbit
      
      Reading the never ending vaccine lies on this blog is analogous to turning up each day and finding commenters screaming that the earth is 4,000 years old. Or that the Apollo moon landings were fake. Or that the USA military demolished the world trade center in 2001.
      
      Benedict, you have all the classic signs of drug addiction induced delusion, bringing together different ideas and grouping them together as if they are the same, or have something in common.
      
      Together with labeling people’s concern about being injected with mRNA was not safe, and not effective, as anti-vaxxers. The “not effective”, “not safe” was leaked by ex Pfizer executive Michael Yeadon, as well as many others. And now confirmed by Pfizer’s own data that was released under court order.
      
      Labeling someone an anti-vaxxxer because they have concerns about a specific vaccine, and that specific vaccine was untested and in any case does not meet the definition of a vaccine is media speak.
      
      If someone refuses to eat cabbage (one vegetable) we do not call that person anti-vegan.
      
      If you choose to not drink coffee, we do not call you an anti-beverage person.
      
      If while younger, you declined to date a specific women, it does not make you a women hater, a misogynist, or a homosexual.
      
      You are throwing all sorts of things together that do not belong together, and making them equal.
      
      Smearing a person or topic by connecting them / it with something else is right out of the Marxist media manipulation handbook.
      
      Benedict, we get enough of that horseshit on a daily basis from the media. “Person X is right wing, so he is a gun carrying Nazi.”
      
      [1] Are you employed by the media?
      [2] Are you a closet Marxist?
      
      And no, you are right, the earth is not 4000 years old. Evidence unearthed in NZ, puts humans in NZ 30,000+ years ago, and in Australia about 45,000 years ago.
      
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      January 12, 2025 12:19pm
    - Bridgenag
      
      whoops ……. upticked
      
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      January 12, 2025 12:33pm
      - Bridgenag
        
        BY that is. None so blind….. How can he back down now. Would take a courageous person to admit not bothering to look at the facts as posted.
        
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        January 12, 2025 12:38pm
      - kevn
        
        Bridge… The test is.
        How many folk has anyone met, who are thrilled to have been jabbed. By (basically forced) choice to keep a job or full on mandates?
        While the 11,000 MOH staff got jab exemptions.
        Doesn’t that tell you something?
        
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        January 12, 2025 1:10pm
    - Scooter
      
      I’d rather have a vaccine of Smallpox etc than RNA “vaccines” anyday.
      
      “RNA, in one form or another, touches nearly everything in a cell. RNA carries out a broad range of functions, from translating genetic information into the molecular machines and structures of the cell to regulating the activity of genes during development, cellular differentiation, and changing environments.
      https://www.umassmed.edu
      Roles of RNA in Biology – “
      
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      January 12, 2025 12:58pm
      - Countrygirl
        
        To my mind the biggest problem with the covid vaccine was the mandate. I suspect fewer people would have been suspicious of it’s efficacy. If it worked as Jacinda and co said, then those who didn’t have it were at risk of catching covid and dying. They could only infect the others who refused or were concerned about the jab. Those who had the vaccine were safe and the “baddies” would not affect them. When this proved to be not the case then people lost faith in the government.
        
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        January 12, 2025 7:37pm
- JackRabbit
  
  Thanks for posting.
  
  These metal stakes are like military cenotaphs, paying respect to those who have fallen in a war. But there are those that like to pretend it did not happen. Similar displays were at the Wellington protests, and VFF/NZDSOS conferences protests / roadside vigils.
  
  People in denial no doubt drive past those stakes and say “It’s a conspiracy theory”, without taking the time to stop and read.
  
  The people in the photos and stories were real people with real lives. But not real to those that wil not stop and confront the facts.
  
  What do these people do when they drive past a stake and photo or flowers, at the scene of a high profile car accident, where a child/children or youths lost their life? Do they drive past muttering “Its a conspiracy theory, its all bullshit” ? What if it was their child, and they heard someone saying that?
  
  Empathy is lacking with these people.
  
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  January 12, 2025 9:58am
- imalwaysright
  
  There was a very good reply from Jackrabbit yesterday on GD. This isn’t about posting links to convenient reports or to “fact checkers”, its about real people getting sick and in some cases dying.
  So far.
  
  “JackRabbit
  … Japan studies are frequently problematic.
  
  Specifics please. A generalised statement is not evidence….”
  
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  January 12, 2025 10:15am
  - Ghost
    
    Problem is sometimes people actually do get sick and die. There was a heart attack that happened in my town, instantly became a Covid vaccine death. Person was a patient of my doctor, wasn’t vaccine related despite the gossip
    
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    January 12, 2025 10:52am
    - pdm
      
      If my memory is correct someone who died in a mv accident was cited as a covid death.
      
      Jacinda and co pulled all of the strings to get their desired outcomes.
      
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      January 12, 2025 10:59am
      - Ghost
        
        Unfortunately some are doing the same with the vaccine, pulling the strings to get their desired outcomes of vaccine deaths. Some people on this blog seem to know personally everyone that died from a vaccine. There is a lot of fudging the figures on both sides of the debate.
        
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        January 12, 2025 12:05pm
      - JackRabbit
        
        @ghost
        
        Some people on this blog seem to know personally everyone that died from a vaccine.
        
        I’ll bite.
        
        You are slipping into Benedict’s syndrome by stretching the truth, and changing what people have said.
        
        I don’t think everyone knows personally everyone that died from a vaccine.
        
        I know personally several dozen people who have vaccine injuries, some permanent. And many of those as tenacious as me, pushed back and demanded answers from their specialists, and the specialists confirmed it was caused by the vaccine.
        
        In some cases it was “off the record”, because said specialist was already “under investigation” by the medical council.
        
        In some cases it was “officially reported” as that, but many still cannot get ACC, and in many cases the injury has not made it to the public lists. Drop dead in a vaccine clinic or within 6 hours of the vaccine and it does not make the public lists.
        
        And I know of, as in specific people, connected with other people I know personally, a far greater number, who have vaccine injuries, some permanent, and several dozen deaths.
        
        I personally know several people whose death was entirely unexpected shortly after taking the vaccine, but not proven as vaccine, so I don’t talk about those.
        
        I personally know people, whose families members, work colleagues, tenants, employees that dropped dead with hours of the vaccine, even ex vaccinators who shared with me healthy patients that got sick straight away and died within hours of the vaccine.
        
        That’s not surprising, seeing as there are so many deaths by vaccine. NZ is small. 2 degrees of separation.
        
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        January 12, 2025 12:55pm
      - Ghost
        
        No, I just don’t buy your bullshit of how many people you know who have died or got sick from it. You come off a fantasist on this topic and many other topics
        
        Speaking of my go’s practise of over 10,000 patients, not a single vaccine death there. But hey, you know police, doctors ambulance drivers, all over the country, bla bla bla
        
        You might believe your rubbish, and some gullible people on here who want to believe it will follow. But you never provide one ounce of evidence to back it up, and you never will.
        
        This is why the vaccine debate is not worth having on this blog. Carry on with your fantasy
        
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        January 12, 2025 4:24pm
    - imalwaysright
      
      “Person was a patient of my doctor, wasn’t vaccine related despite the gossip”
      
      Very good of your doctor to discuss one of his patients with you. Did he tell you why he decided the vaccine didn’t cause the heart attack?
      Can you give us Dr Gossip’s real name so that his other patients and their families are aware of his hidden talents and his proclivity for discussing their medical conditions with other patients?
      
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      January 12, 2025 11:26am
    - JackRabbit
      
      Problem is sometimes people actually do get sick and die.
      
      But that does not and should not imply that every death IS NOT a vaccine death or that they would have died anyway.
      
      Someone dropped dead 5 minutes after the jab in a vaccine clinic in Auckland. Others went into anaphylactic shock in the clinic and rushed away in ambulance. Scores of otherwise healthy people that I know about felt very ill after the jab, and dropped dead within 4, 8 ,12, 24 hours of the jab. Some were middle age, some were children.
      
      I’ve talked to ex police, GPs, vaccinators / ex vaccinators, people who nearly had an accidents after an ambulance left vaccine clinics at high speed with lights on, siren off. Massive increase in medical helicopter flights from rural medical centres to Chch hospital the day after the jabber wocky bus visited.
      
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      January 12, 2025 11:58am
      - newview
        
        JR “Scores of otherwise healthy people that I know about felt very ill after the jab, and dropped dead within 4, 8 ,12, 24 hours of the Jab. “
        Oh ok then. I’ll take that as fact on your say so.
        
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        January 12, 2025 1:28pm
      - Northshoredoc
        
        good grief..
        
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        January 12, 2025 4:17pm
    - GJM
      
      Like the guy shot in his driveway in New Lynn. Not a criminal deal gone bad, but a covid death. That was so blatantly obvious it woke a few people up to question the numbers and how anyone dying of anything within a few weeks of covid was a covid death. Covid via a 40 cycle PCR test that was not fit for purpose.
      When they wanted the numbers smaller, they changed the definitions.
      
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      January 12, 2025 9:17pm
NeverMindTheBollocks

Not all Maori think that someone else is to blame. This guy gets it. All power to his arm.

https://ngaitahu.iwi.nz/opportunities-and-resources/publications/te-karaka/maori-victims-of-crime-tk79/
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January 12, 2025 9:31am
Steve Otto N Shore

Trump to release JFK files.
Will they be heavily redacted? How much are the CIA/FBI hiding? Will only some be released?
Who is behind holding them back for 63 years?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcdeXtLB3CI
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January 12, 2025 9:46am
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  Might be a move to gut CIA or FBI
  
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  January 12, 2025 9:53am
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    Gut both, they are corrupted. And the SS.
    
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    January 12, 2025 12:42pm
- Biscuit
  
  At stool…
  
  Love that expression, MCōs.
  
  Love, too, that way back in the time of Henry VIII – and probably even earlier than that, I guess – there was a high-ranking position in the royal household that went under the name of Groom of the Stool.
  
  The job entailed attending to the master’s rear end after said master had had his latest dump.
  
  Apparently it was quite a coveted role – imagine the amount of time you got to spend with the King one-on-one…
  
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  January 12, 2025 10:41am
- sungsamning
  
  Last time, it was Mike Pompeo who convinced him to redact quite a lot of stuff. He is off the scene now. Lets hope we get the truth.
  
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  January 12, 2025 11:17am
Steve Otto N Shore

Amazing what you find when looking up something else on Youtube.
US Politician shuts down protester in the House 6 years ago. “I yield back!” Hilarious.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WolVEMFbUcs
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January 12, 2025 10:00am
Steve Otto N Shore

Trump on hostages held by Hamas.
He means business.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORCdseWgR7M
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January 12, 2025 10:20am
ecco

Just read that nzh article where the Tongan woman who stole $61k from her employer Briscoes, gets 6 months home detention and a curfew from 9pm-7am. And only has to pay $26k of the $61k she stole. All sorts of discounts for pleading guilty, she’s been on a financial management course etc etc. under the so called Open Justice system. Is this something that got brought in under Jacinda Ardern, or Helen Clark?

It’s truly disgusting there really isn’t much penalty for committing retail theft in nz. The article goes on to more or less say that Briscoes had a good year and were a big company and ‘could afford it’. This is everything that’s wrong with nz. This woman has effectively recieved a 57% discount for her stealing. So retail crime really does pay in nz. Does anyone know if this sort of leniency for crime happens anywhere else in the world? I’m guessing it does in the wokeafied countries of the US, Uk,Canada and Australia.

I note her lawyer tried to pull out the race card and say she was a poor brown woman. I wonder if a white person would have recieved the same light sentence. I know that this is just a p*as take by the NZH designed to wind me up on a Sunday morning and gather clicks. Of which they have sadly succeeded in doing😩

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/crime/briscoes-worker-mele-hala-wanted-a-dream-wedding-she-swindled-her-employer-to-pay-for-it/R2V6ST3YBFEZPDNXQKJZNN2DR4/
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January 12, 2025 10:56am
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  Three cases of fraud by a trusted person, all in Christchurch. Definitely a female thing.
  
  http://Www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/350291924/woman-stole-hundreds-thousands-dollars-employer
  
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  January 12, 2025 12:40pm
- Tauhei Notts
  
  Whenever I read a story like that I am reminded of that comment by my crusty old accountant mate.
  “Modern day accountants know more about the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi than they know about basic business internal controls.”
  It is the accountants that put inadequate internal controls in place that should be punished.
  
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  January 12, 2025 6:27pm
sungsamning

https://nypost.com/2025/01/03/opinion/no-canada-despite-trumps-trolling-51st-state-would-drag-the-us-down/
No, Canada! Despite Trump’s Trolling, 51st State Would Drag the US Down.
“54°40′ or Fight” was the slogan of supporters of James K. Polk in the 1844 presidential campaign, referring to their desire to take a substantial slice of what would eventually become Canadian territory.

For his part, Donald Trump isn’t bothering to set out any latitude lines when he discusses his ambitions on Canada — he wants the whole thing, or so he says in his trolling of our friendly neighbor to the north and its embattled progressive prime minister Justin Trudeau.

In recent weeks, Trump has mused about Canada becoming the 51st state, posted an artificially generated image of himself beside a Canadian flag atop a mountain staring heroically out into the distance, and referred to Trudeau, amusingly, as “governor.”
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January 12, 2025 11:04am
- ecco
  
  I’m pretty sure there’s quite a few Canadians who would be quite relieved if Canada became part of the US after what Trudeau has done to their country.
  
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  January 12, 2025 11:16am
  - Don Beckett
    
    I understand that Alberta, which has a common border with the US, would readily consider joining the USA – British Columbia not so much.
    Although there was talk 20 – 30 years ago that British Columbia, Washington & Oregon States Combine & breakaway to form what they were calling Arcadia – after the Arcadian mountains dominating much of that region.
    
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    January 12, 2025 12:08pm
    - cmm
      
      You forget about that blob of Canada that is New Bruswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. That has a larger, and more porous, border with USA than it does with the rest of Canada. They are functionally part of USA in many ways.
      
      I saw a statistic that when Trudeau took office, Canada had about the same per capita GDP as USA. Now the best state in Canada has the same GDP per capita as the worst state in USA.
      
      Yes, Canada fell that much even with Biden holding the steering wheel for the last few years.
      
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      January 12, 2025 1:01pm
  - sungsamning
    
    Having Canada join the USA would be like adding another California. Most sensible Canadians and Americans aren’t interested. ain’t going to happen.
    
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    January 12, 2025 6:21pm
  - Greenheart
    
    In a poll in December roughly 83% of Canadians indicated that they did not wish to join the USA. Clearly a vast majority of are against amalgamation.
    
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    January 12, 2025 7:10pm
sungsamning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1uhWJfOL58
Millions of Syrian Refugees PANIC As Germany Makes A U-TURN On Immigration Policies.
Millions of Syrian Refugees PANIC As Germany Makes A U-TURN On Immigration Policies.
In a shocking turn of events, Germany has announced a major reversal in its immigration policy, leaving millions of Syrian refugees stunned and wondering about their future. The country that was once a beacon of hope for those fleeing war and persecution has now changed its stance, and the implications are far-reaching. In this video, we’ll delve into the details of Germany’s shocking policy reversal and what it means for Syrian refugees. From the reasons behind the change to the potential consequences, we’ll explore it all. So, if you’re curious about this sudden shift in Germany’s immigration policy. [I don’t think this would be happening if the AfD wasn’t on the rise, with Elon Musk backing them.]
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January 12, 2025 11:05am
- kowtow
  
  It’s amazing what the prospect of losing an election can do to politicians , about to be kicked away from their trough.
  
  Proves theough that they do know what they should do in the first place in the interests of their country , they just refuse to.
  
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  January 12, 2025 11:57am
Steve Otto N Shore

Greenland leaders say they WILL enter negotiations with Trump.
This is what I have been saying, watch the negotiating table.

https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/other/greenland-leaders-say-they-will-enter-negotiations-with-trump/ar-BB1rib6y?
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January 12, 2025 11:20am
- imalwaysright
  
  Maybe they will get a royalty deal similar to the Alaskans.
  
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  January 12, 2025 11:54am
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    Alaska Permanent Fund. They love it. Even out Thai friend who is a Citizen gets it. So does their son – for the last 8 years. Last year they got US$1700 each.
    
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    January 12, 2025 12:47pm
- Benedict Yu
  
  Why wouldn’t they? Greenland joining the USA seems like a good deal.
  
  Think about this. If the USA said to New Zealand, “you can become a state of the USA. Your constitution, the Treaty, legal system. All on the bonfire and start from scratch as part of the USA..”
  
  Would that be a terrible fate?
  
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  January 12, 2025 1:32pm
  - Don Beckett
    
    Agree it would be great for both the USA & Greenland for them to join the USA – even if as a protectorate, like Puerto Rico.
    Even though I consider the USA a great country despite it’s mismanagement & the Democrats, I would rather that NZ joined Australia. Already close neighbors with very similar cultures, and NZ would be better off joining them than staying alone. Our economies are not competing for the most part but would be complimentary.
    
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    January 12, 2025 2:02pm
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    That would be great Benedict. It would completely fuck up the socialists/commies of the left.
    “You are not my President” they would scream. You know, the pink/green haired ones who have bits of MIG wire in the ears, eyebrows, and nose. Studs on the tongue and other places. The transistors!
    
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    January 12, 2025 4:14pm
  - Northshoredoc
    
    BY it would be a shambles. Can you envisage the NZ populace coming to terms with drastically reduced welfare and social services.
    
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    January 12, 2025 4:20pm
Swifty

A good Sydney Morning Herald article on the rise of sensible parties across the Western World:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/world-news/360545500/trudeau-biden-and-ardern-are-done-whats-eating-global-left
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January 12, 2025 11:57am
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  Many Countries now have to un-fuck themselves because of the dumbarse voters
  Next has to be Australia and the UK. Leftism is dying, and long may it continue.
  
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  January 12, 2025 4:19pm
- sungsamning
  
  Having Canada join the USA would be like adding another California. Most sensible Canadians and Americans aren’t interested. ain’t going to happen.
  
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  January 12, 2025 6:32pm
Benedict Yu

Just when you think anti vaxxer madness cannot get any worse…

They are not vaccinating their pets. Their dog 🐶 might get “dog autism”.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-19/pet-vaccine-concern-parvovirus-covid-pandemic/104657582

We are seeing the qualities in people that resulted in “witches” being burned tied to stakes in the 17th century.

It should come as no surprise. New Zealand is doubling down by teaching children mythology instead of science.
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January 12, 2025 1:28pm
- Don Beckett
  
  Yes, there are elements within our society that are completely whacko.
  Having said that, I am no anti-vaxxer – have had a couple of common ‘flu shots in the past 10 years etc., but I would take the Phizer mRna vax if I was paid a million bucks – but not otherwise. 🙂
  
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  January 12, 2025 2:07pm
  - Benedict Yu
    
    You just proved my point. Not being vaccinated against COVID is “completely whacko”. You are risking death or serious illness for no reason other than superstition.
    
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    January 12, 2025 2:34pm
    - Don Beckett
      
      Considering that several of my family had “vax injuries”, I believe I made the right decision not to have it. I had studied up most of the available info at the start of the Plandemic, & what convinced me was the creator of mRNA saying it should not be used as a “vaccine”.
      I caught covid twice – both times from my vaccinated wife who brought it home from work. 1st. -June 2023 – 2 days with chest cough, gone in 5 days.
      2nd. May 2024 – 2 days mild cold – gone in 3 days.
      My wife suffered much more, but that doesn’t mean much. I have always had a very good immune system – another part of my decision not to engage.
      
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      January 12, 2025 3:09pm
      - kevn
        
        Don… More stuff to avoid.
        https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/fda-mandates-nerve-damage-warnings-2-rsv-vaccines
        
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        January 12, 2025 4:26pm
    - Pineapple Lumps
      
      So Dr Yu, seeing as you are giving free health advice and psychiatric assessments perhaps you can answer my question.
      
      Are we whackos for not getting the children the mRNA Covid treatment?
      
      9 4
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      January 12, 2025 3:15pm
    - JackRabbit
      
      [1] How many people do you know that died from Covid in NZ?
      
      During 2020 – 2021, deaths remained static. Yet the govt accidentally lost all of the records of deaths from 2019 to 2022 from the flu. And all deaths by respiratory diseases/flu etc. So no-one can point to any record and say gee, this is how many died in 2020, 2021 from the flu and Covid.
      
      Its called cooking the books.
      
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      January 12, 2025 5:00pm
      - Benedict Yu
        
        Your comment is an example of the misinformation on COVID that emanates from many commenters on this blog. Why, is a bit of a mystery. I just know that “COVID”, “Vaccines” and “climate change” trigger the end to rational debate.
        
        While you are unlikely to take it on board, the government has reported daily COVID deaths every day since the start of the pandemic.
        
        https://www.tewhatuora.govt.nz/for-health-professionals/data-and-statistics/covid-19-data/covid-19-current-cases
        
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        January 12, 2025 7:08pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  It should come as no surprise. New Zealand is doubling down by teaching children mythology instead of science.
  
  OMG!!! Are you doubting the the wisdom of “different ways of knowing”?
  
  World science and Indigenous knowledge
  https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ado6679
  
  or the value of “Indigenous knowledge as a critical contributor to addressing complex environmental crises.”
  
  Leading with courage and integrity in the National Science Challenges
  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03036758.2024.2438138
  
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  January 12, 2025 2:51pm
  - kowtow
    
    I thought a majority had voted against this sort of thing and the coaltion were onto it.
    
    Seems not.
    
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    January 12, 2025 3:25pm
    - Benedict Yu
      
      I can assure you that this trend has intensified since the current government was emecged. The advocates for such teaching simply stared down the government and won. It is that simple. In the public service, in academia, in the wider state sector, in schools.
      
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      January 12, 2025 7:11pm
  - PurplePen
    
    There can’t possibly be different “ways of knowing” if everyone is human. It’s a nonsense. You can only know something via your senses and we all being human all have the same senses. It’s astounding that some of NZs brightest intellectuals can’t fathom that.
    
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    January 12, 2025 4:09pm
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    Rongoa is a crock of shit.
    
    4 1
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    January 12, 2025 4:23pm
- Inandout
  
  BY, I heard on ZB a ‘concerned’ woman pushing pet insurance and she ended by saying having a pet and not getting it unsured was ‘irresponsible’. I have never taken out pet insurance but I suspect, like private hospitals, the vets load their fees. Vets get a cut from the drugs they dispense plus any insurance they can push. The annual kennel cough jab is required before an animal can be kept in any dog or cattery so declining it seems a waste of time.
  
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  January 12, 2025 4:50pm
- JackRabbit
  
  We are seeing the qualities in people that resulted in “witches” being burned tied to stakes in the 17th century.
  
  Here you go, drawing a long bow by equating people you regard as “anti-vaxxers”, with witch burners, and Maori mumbo jumbo.
  
  You are equating people having concerns about vaccines, with witch burning. So someone, after having read that a vaccine contains mercury, formaldehyde, Aluminum etc, and after having read case studies off the NIH about the effects, is now a witch burner?
  
  It should come as no surprise. New Zealand is doubling down by teaching children mythology instead of science.
  
  And they came to this conclusion as a result if learning Maori science?
  
  I think you will find that most people choosing of their own free will to avoid certain vaccines for themselves, their children, and their pets, arrived at their decisions after careful research.
  
  And Benedict, you will find it is love, love for themselves, love for their children, and love for their pets, that did that. They were motivated by love.
  
  Love, real love, for another’s well being, can be a strong motivator to do what is right and also do the research.
  
  As opposed to those lacking in love and concern, that embraced Ardern’s mumbo jumbo, and forced their children to take the jab, motivated by a bucket of KFC. If something is safe and effective, you don’t need unhealthy junk food as a bribe to make you take it.
  
  Benedict, love, compassion, and empathy. Perhaps you should try them.
  
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  January 12, 2025 4:53pm
  - Benedict Yu
    
    “I think you will find that most people choosing of their own free will to avoid certain vaccines for themselves, their children, and their pets, arrived at their decisions after careful research.”
    
    That is utter rubbish. If they did “careful research” they would have their children vaccinated. Not vaccinating children should be a criminal offence. The state should, if necessary, take custody of such children and have them vaccinated.
    
    As for not vaccinating cats and dogs, it is madness. They think they know better than vets?
    
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    January 12, 2025 7:15pm
    - JackRabbit
      
      The decision to vaccinate should be based on specific vaccine knowledge. And it clearly highlights states on the NZ immunisation website that everyone should operate on “Informed Choice”, and that it is a parent’s choice whether or not to vaccinate a child.
      
      How can you disagree with that when that is the govt’s position?
      
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      January 12, 2025 8:57pm
Steve Otto N Shore

Jack Smith has now resigned – before Trump could fire him.
So far his report is not being release because Trump says it will be a fake report anyway, just like the fake charges.

https://www.msn.com/en-nz/politics/government/jack-smith-resigns-from-justice-department-after-completing-trump-reports/ar-BB1rihVk?
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January 12, 2025 2:51pm
cas

Here’s a question for Kiwibloggers please.

A friend was thinking of putting in a submission on the Treaty Principles Bill but is worried about his name and email address becoming public for fear of potential retaliation. ( Sad but true).

What is the situation about anonymity over such submissions. Parliament is not subject to the OIA as I understand it, but are submissions available to be read by the general public and therefore names etc open to view?
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January 12, 2025 3:06pm
- Blog-aholic
  
  Yes once the submissions are closed and they become available to be viewed if one wishes to dive into them.
  
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  January 12, 2025 3:34pm
  - cas
    
    Thanks for that. It’s as I thought.
    
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    January 12, 2025 4:03pm
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  Use an alternative email. I do it for certain reasons.
  You just know the left are throwing all sorts of names and emails to get their anti-principles submission numbers up.
  
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  January 12, 2025 5:02pm
- Philview
  
  A well known New Zealand blogger had armed police at his house after making a reasonable submission on gun control. I am also concerned that my own submission on the Treaty Bill could be weaponised against me in the future but there are a lot of us in this case.
  
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  January 12, 2025 6:36pm
Jack5

Sunday video diversion

Southland has vast resources of lignite, a brown coal. Germany does, too, and still gets 22 per cent of its electricity from burning lignite.

However, it has shut down scores of its old mines and turned them into lakes for recreation, and from this 21min 31sec video, they look attractive.

https://youtu.be/d-P6-ORFlPY?si=5eCSnauNV6Eyw-JG
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January 12, 2025 3:18pm
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  Can’t do that in NZ. It is massive, and NZ struggle to fill in road potholes.
  $263K to build some 4 lots of 8 steps down to Milford/Taka beach?
  Fill mines with water – who owns the water? And so the shit goes on.
  
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  January 12, 2025 5:54pm
Chuck Bird

The crap is not paywalled. I have emailed the doctor the Herald is quoting and letting her know that many more people die from extreme cold than extreme heat.

Climate change: How worsening heatwaves could hurt your heart in NZ</b?

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/climate-change-how-worsening-heatwaves-could-hurt-your-heart-in-nz/Y2TP3E4CRVH3LP3ISQ5ST3VU4M/
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January 12, 2025 4:00pm
- JackRabbit
  
  From the link:
  In New Zealand, where scientists project cities are likely to see a jump in heatwave days within decades, 180,000 people are already living with heart disease.
  
  [1] I suspect she is more motivated by the jump in Marsden Fund grants.
  
  [2] You should tell her that “Scientists” were predicting jumps in heatwaves nearly 50 years ago. But alas it has not happened.
  
  [3] If there is a link between heatwaves and heart disease, has she published a cause and effect chain?
  
  She is grasping at Marsden Fund grants.
  
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  January 12, 2025 5:13pm
  - Chris Nisbet
    
    Likely. Translated, this means “hasn’t”.
    
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    January 12, 2025 7:47pm
graham

Once again, TV One News at 6 pm demonstrates that they can’t be trusted to simply do their job and report the news FROM ALL ANGLES, with appropriate context.

An article tonight informed us that Meta is getting rid of fact checkers, and proceeded to roll out various people who told us how racial hatred would increase, trans people would be in danger, actual physical violence would result, misogyny would increase, and so on. What wasn’t mentioned was all the points made in DPF’s post a few days ago:

– the fact checkers were often swayed by their own biases
– this resulted in quite legitimate political speech and debate being fact checked and censored
– and vitally, Meta will begin moving to a Community Notes program

This last point was not mentioned. At all. The entire article made out that fact checking was being rolled back, and everything was going to be so much worse.

Why TV One News can’t report the news fully, with context, and without bias is quite beyond me.
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January 12, 2025 7:37pm
- Notsofast
  
  Trans people are in danger from their doctors who should check the oath again.
  There are no facts to check on meta, the facts are obvious.
  
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  January 12, 2025 8:15pm
- Benedict Yu
  
  Yes I am sure that watching the TVNZ “news” was hideous. Why do you watch it?
  
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  January 12, 2025 8:53pm
  - graham
    
    Largely out of habit these days, Benedict. My wife grew up in England in the sixties and seventies, when newspapers, radio, and television news ruled supreme, and read the newspapers avidly. When she moved to NZ she continued to read the papers for a while, and still watches the news every day.
    
    However, it is not the primary source of news for either of us, and TVNZ just don’t seem to get this. My wife reads far more news, opinions, research, and analysis online than TV One News can ever deliver, and when I commented on how the item had not mentioned the “Community Notes” program she knew all about it. She doesn’t even have a Facebook account!
    
    The vast majority of people in the developed world now access their news online. They know what’s happening and can very quickly fact-check stories like this. How it is that TVNZ don’t understand this and think they can get away with it baffles me.
    
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    January 13, 2025 7:51am
Hugh Jarse

If we pay less climate change tax will we get a summer in Christchurch ?
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January 12, 2025 7:58pm
- Benedict Yu
  
  You are conflating weather and climate.
  
  1 2
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  January 12, 2025 8:51pm

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