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January 21, 2025 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 21 January 2025

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General Debate

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lifesgood

What’s with this pre-emptive pardoning by Joe Biden? Doesn’t this prove those pardoned are guilty of something? Can they now do anything they like, say murder, or is it only for past crimes?
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January 21, 2025 8:04am
- Grunter
  
  “To get a pardon, you are supposed to plead guilty and show remorse. I am not sure a preemptive pardon is even legal. Now, what I would do is subpoena these people to testify. They cannot be prosecuted now, so they have NO FIFTH AMENDMENT privilege against self-incrimination. I would then ask them to explain their crime and name everyone else who assisted them who is not pardoned. Let’s expose the whole shit. To accept these pardons CONFIRMS that they are guilty of high crimes against the United States. They may not be sent to prison, but they can now be interrogated like any criminal getting a plea deal.”
  – Martin Armstrong –
  
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  January 21, 2025 9:46am
- sungsamning
  
  They can’t plead the 5th now.
  
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  January 21, 2025 10:06am
  - Colville
    
    The 5th is the ability to refuse to self incriminate. Nothing to do with being prosecuted.
    
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    January 21, 2025 2:12pm
    - Local Miller
      
      The 5th becomes null and void when you have a been pardoned for related crimes. This has been raised by several constitutional lawyers, and was a significant topic after the Hunter Biden “pardon”.
      
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      January 21, 2025 4:31pm
- JackRabbit
  
  Because everyone knows they are guilty, and will be found out, so he is preemptively pardoning them.
  I wonder if he tried to sneak in the entire Biden family to slide a pardon for himself in the process.
  
  Pardoning someone before they have been tried and found guilty, is a criminal act.
  
  Pardoning Fauci for crimes he hasn’t been found guilty of yet, but we know he committed, is a criminal act.
  
  Pardoning the Jan 6th prosecutors for the crimes they haven’t been found guilty of yet, buy we know they committed, is a criminal act.
  
  I’m surprised Biden hasn’t tried to pardon the devil.
  
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  January 21, 2025 10:17am
  - Local Miller
    
    I’m not sure that pardoning someone before they have been found guilty is a criminal act, but there are a lot of lawyers say it is un-constitutional and these pardons won’t stand a legal challenge.
    
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    January 21, 2025 4:33pm
    - sungsamning
      
      Yes, i guess one or two of those ‘pardoned’ will be reading the constitution very carefully. A one way business class fare to Brazil shouldn’t be beyond their means.
      
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      January 21, 2025 5:34pm
- Tricati
  
  As Lifesgood says, Biden on his way out has issued preemptive pardons to Gen. Mark Milley (Trump hater), Fauci, members & staff of the Jan. 6 Select Committee and Biden’s family members.
  If he, and the Democrats had nothing to hide, why issue the pardons – could be an interesting few years in American politics.
  
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  January 21, 2025 10:36am
  - JackRabbit
    
    A pardon is an acknowledgement that:
    
    [A] Someone has committed a crime.
    [B] That crime they have committed is very serious. It is not running a red light, ram raiding the local dairy.
    [C] It is significant enough to be the public eye.
    [D] That they have been tried and found guilty (or in this case will be) of serious crime i.e. murder, fraud, treason, etc.
    
    It is interesting for Biden to treat his own family, Fauci, and the Jan 6th prosecutors with pardons along with 37 death row convicts, guilty of heinous crimes.
    
    If Bidens family, Fauci, and the Jan 6th should take ‘a leaf out of the book’ of Shannon Agofsky and Len Davis, and refuse the pardons instead choosing to work at clearing their names.
    
    If Fauci, Hunter and co, have done nothing wrong, why don’t they also choose to clear their names, rather than be saddled with the insinuation that they have committed significant crimes?
    
    Unless of course they are guilty.
    
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    January 21, 2025 12:10pm
    - imalwaysright
      
      [E] There is sufficient evidence to convict them.
      
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      January 21, 2025 2:33pm
- nova
  
  And why did he pardon his siblings and their spouses, but not his own wife? Are his siblings in greater need? If the reason was they hadn’t done anything bad, but Trump/Republicans would be vindictive, then surely Jill Biden could do with some protection.
  
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  January 21, 2025 10:50am
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    Perhaps Joe’s wife forgot to pardon herself. Oops!
    
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    January 21, 2025 2:00pm
- NothingLeft
  
  Wonder how much money he is pocketing from handing out all these free-passes.
  
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  January 21, 2025 12:23pm
  - imalwaysright
    
    He doesn’t accept cash anymore, he only takes stem cells. The younger the donor, the bigger the favour.
    (BYO syringe)
    
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    January 21, 2025 2:39pm
- Jake Dee
  
  Gerald Ford pre-emptively pardoned Richard Nixon in 1974.
  Wikipedia says
  “After Ford left the White House in 1977, he privately justified his pardon of Nixon by carrying in his wallet a portion of the text of Burdick v. United States, a 1915 U.S. Supreme Court case where the dictum stated that a pardon carries an imputation of guilt and that its acceptance carries a confession of guilt”
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardon_of_Richard_Nixon
  
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  January 21, 2025 4:19pm
AndyW

Part of Trump’s inauguration speech: ““This week I will also end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life. We will forge a society that is colourblind and merit based.”
Sounds like a good plan – imagine if we had that in NZ??
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January 21, 2025 8:04am
- cmm
  
  Saying it is one thing. Achieving it is quite another.
  
  The DEI stuff is well entrenched in government and in government suppliers etc (including universities, arms companies etc).
  
  It is going to take decades to deconstruct, but, I suppose, you need to start somewhere…
  
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  January 21, 2025 9:33am
  - Yvette
    
    Cmm – It is going to take decades to deconstruct …
    does that mean the decolonisation of our colonisation of the original coloniser
    
    – but some event may equate to the recent Americanism: “an unscheduled rapid decontruction” – meaning: it bloody exploded
    
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    January 21, 2025 9:57am
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    As we found here, leftie fruitcakes are simply flicking the bird at government, the government is getting the blame for some of these issues, but when ignorance of the left is involved, then you have no hope in some areas
    
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    January 21, 2025 9:59am
    - leoj
      
      These leftie fruitcakes are very likely public servants so, why doesn’t Luxon simply have the staffing levels returned to 2015 levels.
      
      You know he won’t and you know why.
      
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      January 21, 2025 7:08pm
  - wsk12345
    
    Yup it will. But at least removing men from women’s prisons and sport will be a good start.
    
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    January 21, 2025 10:03am
  - Notsofast
    
    Anyone who saw Kamala Harris congratulating Dylan Mulvaney on a year as a “woman” will comprehend how disastrous the world would look if this near dead heat election had flipped the other way.
    
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    January 21, 2025 10:12am
  - In Vino Veritas
    
    Ope cmm, it can be done quickly. But requires political will, including legislation.
    
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    January 21, 2025 12:33pm
Morgan H

When will NZ get rid of the Maori seats? Both sides want this. The only difference is some on the Left say, “It’s for Maori to decide when”. They are no longer needed because of how far we have come as a country.
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January 21, 2025 8:04am
- cmm
  
  The Maori seats were no longer justified after 19 December 1879 with the introduction of universal male suffrage – 145 years ago.
  
  No government has had the balls to take this on. Looking for them in Luxon’s pants is likely a waste of time.
  
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  January 21, 2025 9:37am
  - Morgan H
    
    Exactly, there has been so many moments when this change could have been enacted.
    
    Arguments like Maori need a voice at the table don’t make sense. There’s so many other avenues giving Maori “a voice at the table”. Especially now that we have MMP. MMP guarantees diversity of opinion. Keeping them is just tradition for the sake of tradition.
    
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    January 21, 2025 11:55am
    - septic skeptic
      
      Tradition? More like racism excused by short term political convenience.
      
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      January 21, 2025 3:16pm
    - leoj
      
      John Key had an opportunity and blew it.
      
      Luxon won’t either. Too scared to be labelled racist when the seats themselves are the epitome of racist.
      
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      January 21, 2025 7:20pm
  - I remember when
    
    All it is going to take to highlight the extra problem MMP causes is for a left wing government to be elected by one seat, with Te Pati Maori winning all the Maori seats.
    
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    January 21, 2025 3:00pm
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  Peters had his chance to do that, but that was the very first thing he reneged on, it could have been done, it’s a bit hard to try and tell the people again that’s policy
  
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  January 21, 2025 10:00am
  - Morgan H
    
    When exactly? As the leader of a minor party there’s not much he can do without a massive number of seats in parliament. Negotiations favour National and Labour, and if they dropped their egos, they’d form a coalition just the two of them because of how close they are. Neither Labour nor National will get rid of the Maori seats without massive pressure.
    
    Winston Peters can’t get all his policies through because his party doesn’t get over 50% of the vote. The furtherer away his party from this number, the more he has to compromise. If NZ First got even 20% of the vote, then maybe we’d get some actual change.
    
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    January 21, 2025 12:02pm
    - Graeme Hall
      
      Winston Peters only needs to hold sufficient seats to maintain the Govt in power. He can & has swung both ways. Once he has that under MMP (& he does) then he can get almost anything he wants – like deputy PM, Foreign Minister, Minister of Racing, unlimited travel, unlimited whiskey, rail-enabled ferries(!), unlimited tax payers money to big-note around the Pacific.
      
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      January 21, 2025 3:10pm
      - Morgan H
        
        Yes, because Winston Peters can work with both sides, unlike Act and the Greens, he can get more than them when negotiating. That means when his party gets 10% of the vote, they have the same sway as a party with 15% of the vote would have. This doesn’t mean he can achieve 100% of his policies. He has to negotiate. Both National and Labour still say no to a lot of things during negotiations.
        
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        January 21, 2025 6:38pm
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      Don’t tss as ok crsp, he said it was a bottom line, as I said he can’t be trusted
      
      [Serious question G, do you have some sort of physical or intellectual disability? In spite of repeated requests to read your posts more carefully, this one, as in many others, makes no sense. If you do have a problem, then of course I will make allowances and try to clean it up to be readable. No one else posting here has this difficulty, or peppers their posts with constant and unwarranted obscenities. mod.]
      
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      January 21, 2025 5:45pm
      - Morgan H
        
        His opponents always claim certain things are his bottom line, but he doesn’t do that because he knows that would hurt his negotiations. Bill English and Jacinda Ardern both said they wouldn’t abolish the Maori seats in 2017.
        
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        January 21, 2025 6:45pm
  - Damocles11
    
    NZ First also tried to get rid if the ‘Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi’…..and National voted against the Bill.
    
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    January 21, 2025 12:20pm
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      Peters says there is not principles
      
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      January 21, 2025 5:46pm
Yvette

Treaty
Much is written about the spirit of the Treaty
But perhaps not so much that it is a TREATY – an agreement so two races (then) can live together (and a degree of inter-relationships shows the expectation of that)

So is one ‘side’ supposed to take the life force (somewhat their own words) from the other?

Recent history:
Claims Māori will own NZ’s water infrastructure dismissed  The Three Waters working group (that recent) has dismissed claims that Māori will own the country’s water infrastructure under the reforms.

 … “It’s absolute nonsense. We have always said, that we’re not interested in owning the water assets. What we’re interested in is the proprietor rights over water [1], and that is a discussion to be had with the Crown, not with councils.” – Tukoroirangi Morgan, a member of the working group and Waikato Tainui descendant [2]

 What is yet to be settled is ownership of water itself.
It is still probably coming.
But is that even in the spirit of the Treaty?
Isn’t water just what water is?

_____________
[1] Proprietary rights, also termed property rights, are the rights that accompany legal ownership of tangible or intangible property; rights over or in respect of property.
 [2] https://www.1news.co.nz/2022/03/09/claims-maori-will-own-nzs-water-infrastructure-dismissed/
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January 21, 2025 8:08am
- JackRabbit
  
  Even if there were proprietary rights over water, there are a dozen prior races that were here before the Maori.
  
  Has Maori even acknowledged the people that were here when they arrived?
  
  That small section of Maori that are claiming proprietary rights are fraudsters and should be dealt with accordingly. And in any case Maori ceded Sovereignty.
  
  In 1840, all New Zealanders became equal under the law.
  
  Colonists, Maori, and those who came before – Moriori, Waitaha, Easter Islanders, Peruvians, Celts, Egyptians, Chinese……
  
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  January 21, 2025 10:25am
  - PurplePen
    
    I don’t see the logic in how they might even claim ownership of water across all NZ. On the land that they still own sure. But beyond that. No.
    
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    January 21, 2025 12:55pm
    - I remember when
      
      All the land they ‘owned’ at the time of the Treaty.
      
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      January 21, 2025 3:16pm
      - rouppe
        
        But at that time it is not “them”, as in one people.
        
        Tainui never paid Te Arawa or Tu Wharetoa for “their” water that came from Lake Taupo.
        
        The notion that Maori have always been one voice is a nonsense
        
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        January 22, 2025 3:28am
    - G152
      
      So when there is a flood and a lot of damage will those ‘water owners’ be held responsible and have to pay property owners for the repairs required???????
      
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      January 22, 2025 8:32am
  - alphabeatrium
    
    Do you seriously believe that Celts were here first? Use better arguments, you make the rest of us on the right look dumb.
    
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    January 21, 2025 10:43pm
- imalwaysright
  
  “We have always said, that we’re not interested in owning the water assets. What we’re interested in is the proprietor rights over water ”
  
  Translation: You guys pay for and manage collection, treatment, distribution and billing, and we will do nothing except charge you a per litre royalty. (Ironically)
  
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  January 21, 2025 2:51pm
  - Quail
    
    There are no titles for water.
    Lands (river beds etc)on which water is present in some cases can have a titular private ownership.However a title to a river bed gives no water use rights.
    In the other cases these lands have been alienated to Crown ownership.
    Water allocation and use rights are generally managed by Regional Councils.
    Water users have to get consents and pay councils fo any larger allocation. Usually the district plans allocate smaller take ( say 3 to 4 cubes )amounts for country houses that do not have access to municipal supplies.
    Major irrigators have take and use consents with annual fees and finite time limits for renewal of consents. The volumes of the takes are legally limited to the environmental limits of the water source.and how much competition in that source.
    Fresh water mostly is well managed in NZ
    
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    January 21, 2025 8:33pm
NeverMindTheBollocks

Walking down the hill this morning, I saw that the road has been repaved since Christmas. Good stuff, thought I. Lovely and smooth, fresh road markings, all good. Then I saw that the road markings have been painted over the top of debris in the gutter that extends out into the road (it’s been windy in recent times, lots of tree litter).

What kind of a cretin does not sweep the gutters before painting?
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January 21, 2025 8:08am
Grunter

More waffle from Luxon this morning on ZB. No answers on the deficit, the debt and lack of growth. Just word-salad…….
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January 21, 2025 8:09am
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  What the hell is he supposed to say? Treasury says surplus will be gained in 28 as long as we don’t lurch back to Labour green and TPM, growth is predicted early this year, what is he supposed to say? Later this weak we will hear his state of the nation, how about we wait and see what he comes up with, the economy is what they are going to concentrate on. One thing everyone has forgotten. I am pretty sure Kwy dropped company tax to 25 cents, Labour put it back to 28 cents immediately, I think that is correct. But that right there would be a very good start for the year. Sadly the damage done to the economy by the marxists (as expected) has possibly limited that option
  
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  January 21, 2025 10:07am
  - Grunter
    
    He could start by saying…
    “I’m going to decrease the Public Service head count back to the same levels that Helen Clarke had. Unfortunately that means 30,000 public servants will need to find another job in the private sector. Since Helen left Government, the Public Service head count has more than doubled and we have seen no improvement in those services provided.”
    
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    January 21, 2025 2:41pm
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      The country has more than 1 million people living here these when Clark came on
      
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      January 21, 2025 5:47pm
  - Quail
    
    Not what he says GG ,it is what he does.
    So far little useful on that front.
    A couple of examples, one stolen from the US.
    First stop all new regulation in NZ and then review existing regulations to see which are necessary . Bin the useless regulation and allow NZ entrepreneurs to get producing.
    Two Recognise the huge cost of inflation as what it is — another tax.Stop deficit budgeting and rampant Government spending.
    Won’t go on , but there are a lot of options.
    
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    January 21, 2025 5:14pm
- imalwaysright
  
  Luxcinda?
  
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  January 21, 2025 10:21am
- PurplePen
  
  Yes. It was ‘the economy, infrastructure, development ‘ but no ‘how’. The interviewer could or should have pressed him on ‘how’.
  
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  January 21, 2025 12:58pm
Matt Long

Biden passing out preemptive pardons as though they were candy, or Constitutional Amendments, minutes before he leaves office.
Preemptive prdons for Fauci, General Milley, Liz Cheney and anyone who may have lied during the January 6th hearings.
The Supreme court may well have a look at the legality of pardoning all your political allies before investigations are even started.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-pardons-mark-milley-anthony-fauci-j6-committee-members
https://x.com/ericmetaxas/status/1881338122958782955
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January 21, 2025 8:12am
- All_on_Red
  
  And his family from Jan 1, 2014;
  https://www.justice.gov/pardon/media/1385756/dl?
  
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  January 21, 2025 8:18am
  - RoboRob
    
    Disgusting. Note the time period, from Jan 2014. Thats not Joes term thats from Hunters Unkraine backhanders.
    
    Look for the media to skim over this. Here we have the first president to preemptively pardon his whole family of Crimes during his term.
    
    What a terrible example to set. Imagine if Trumps family now goes on to commit illegal actions knowing that anything they do in the next four years will be pardoned. Every future president and their team are now exempt from the law as the president will pardon all at the end of the term. Crazy and a terrible precedent.
    
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    January 21, 2025 9:45am
  - I remember when
    
    For any nonviolent offence
    
    So you can embezzle millions as long as you don’t assault anyone.
    
    Sounds fair!!!
    
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    January 21, 2025 3:07pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  If ever you needed convincing that there was political agenda behind the Covid-19 cover-ups, the pre-emptive pardoning of Fauci fits the bill.
  
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  January 21, 2025 8:23am
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    Why is he pardoning his family back to 2014 when the Biden INC corruption was at its highest level, if like he said they did nothing wrong, then why would they pardon him
    
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    January 21, 2025 10:10am
  - I remember when
    
    Was it a ‘political’ crime or rather a ‘financial’ crime?
    
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    January 21, 2025 3:17pm
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      Financial crime for his family, political crime for him
      
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      January 21, 2025 5:48pm
- lastmanstanding
  
  A random question. Were the LA fires God punishing the Lefties for voting for Kamala.
  
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  January 21, 2025 8:39am
  - Matt Long
    
    You could call it God’s punishment, or simply that the leftists went against natural principles and created the conditions for the fires to get out of control.
    
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    January 21, 2025 9:06am
    - Don Beckett
      
      Yes Matt, that’s the more likely scenario.
      
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      January 21, 2025 11:11am
  - cmm
    
    People speak of the LA fires as if this was something out of the ordinary. They happen all the time.
    
    Just two weeks prior, a fire was stopped just 200 metres from Mel Gibson’s house.
    
    The only difference this time was that a very strong Santa Anna wind got behind them and they got out of control.
    
    This is why all the worrying about how they started is pointless. These fires start all the time.
    
    The only thing that can be controlled is preventing them getting out of control (ie. better fuel suppression and better firefighting resourcing).
    
    They should really have a 10 of those Super Scooper planes of their own rather than borrowing them from Canada.
    
    California has a population of around 40M people. $1 from each person would buy a fleet of 10. $1 per person per year would keep them operational.
    
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    January 21, 2025 9:48am
    - sungsamning
      
      That’s all very well; but who would be responsible for the DEI training? And would they be emission compliant. Concerned Dems demand answers.
      
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      January 21, 2025 10:10am
      - cmm
        
        I fear you are correct.
        It is unlikely that LA’s citizens will really learn anything from this.
        
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        January 21, 2025 11:02am
      - imalwaysright
        
        “who would be responsible for the DEI training?”
        
        Imagine ten ill trained, incompetent, grudge-holding, airborne dykes in Super Scoopers! Plus crew!
        Fuck.
        
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        January 21, 2025 3:00pm
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    No, it is simple nature at its best like in parts of Aussie because leftie governments do not do the fire protect work that taxes have been paid for
    
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    January 21, 2025 10:11am
- Greenheart
  
  It was done, of course, to thwart Trump reprisals.
  
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  January 21, 2025 8:51am
  - Local Miller
    
    Of course, but I doubt the preemptive pardons are going to pass the constitutional test.
    
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    January 21, 2025 9:16am
    - RoboRob
      
      Unfortunately they are totally constitutional. Abraham Lincon was one of the few (only?) presidents to issue preemptive pardons. He did this after the civil war to avoid mass charges for the defeated south and make peace.
      
      Bidens actions are disgusting. Using Trump as an excuse is pathetic as Trump has a record of not going after his political opponents (i.e. Hillary).
      
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      January 21, 2025 9:53am
      - sungsamning
        
        Those who Lincon pardoned had at least done something bad. Like pushing succession, or joining a seperatist army.
        
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        January 21, 2025 5:40pm
    - smttc
      
      It worked for Nixon.
      
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      January 21, 2025 9:57am
    - alwyn.a
      
      What is the “constitutional test” you have in mind?
      The US Supreme Court has ruled on this topic previously. “In the 1886 case Ex parte Garland, the Court referred to the President’s authority to pardon as unlimited except in cases of impeachment, extending to every offence known to the law and able to be exercised either before legal proceedings are taken, or during their pendency, or after conviction and judgment.”
      In fact therefore they have already ruled on the topic that concerns you.
      https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artII-S2-C1-3-1/ALDE_00013316/
      
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      January 21, 2025 10:26am
    - cmm
      
      Is there an admission of guilt in accepting a pardon?
      
      A couple of the people on death row rejected the pardons because they claim to be innocent.
      
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      January 21, 2025 11:11am
  - RoboRob
    
    Yeah thats the claim. But look at reality. Trump is called the un democratic one who seeks revenge against his opponents. So Biden, sets a terrible precedent and gives mass blanket pardons. Biden acts very anti democratic. Biden also launched multiple impeachments against Trump.
    
    Now look at Trump. He chanted ‘lock her up’ against Hillary but immediately abandonned that on taking power. He wen after no Dems.
    
    So Joe gives a blanket pardon to masses of people, some who might have actually done illegal things (im looking at Fauchi lying to congress on gain of function) to protect them from Trump who has a proven record of not going after political enemies. And Trump is the problem here?
    
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    January 21, 2025 9:50am
  - All_on_Red
    
    ‘reprisals’
    Cool parroting of the Talking Points Bro
    
    ‘Biden in Final Hours Pardons Relatives and Others to Thwart Trump Reprisals’
    https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/20/us/politics/biden-pardons-fauci-milley-cheney-jan-6.html
    
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    January 21, 2025 1:02pm
- judith8409121
  
  proof that the Biden family are the same as a mobster family.
  
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  January 21, 2025 9:01am
  - cmm
    
    The mobsters at least brought pizza and spaghetti.
    
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    January 21, 2025 11:05am
  - Paulus
    
    Surely the only connction with the mobster families is that they originated from Ireland and are Catholics.
    Could there be a connection ?
    
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    January 21, 2025 11:12am
- Inandout
  
  ML, perhaps the saying ‘follow the money’ shoud be changed to ‘follow the pardons’.
  
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  January 21, 2025 9:06am
  - JackRabbit
    
    Indeed.
    
    He has alerted thinking people to a list of criminals, that many would not know were criminals.
    
    Perhaps pardons are his way of dragging other guilty people into his nightmare.
    
    I wouldn’t be surprised if in the not too distant future he has a “heart attack”, or “succumbs to his dementia” as a way out of facing the music. I note he didn’t try and pardon himself.
    
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    January 21, 2025 10:31am
    - cmm
      
      He was already determined by the DoJ to be too old, frail and mentally impaired to face prosecution. That should really have disqualified him from further office too.
      
      18 1
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      January 21, 2025 11:07am
      - RoboRob
        
        This was also why he didn’t need to pardon himself. He (or his handlers) know that any charges are unlikely to stick becuase of his age.
        
        4 0
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        January 21, 2025 11:11am
      - JackRabbit
        
        And therefore too old, frail and mentally impaired to issue pardons.
        
        4 0
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        January 21, 2025 11:41am
- Local Miller
  
  There’s going to be a constitutional battle around these preemptive pardons. As ericmetaxas says, they are not constitutional, you can’t pardon someone for something they haven’t been found guilty of or actually claim not to have done. Fauci saying: “I’ve not done anything wrong, but thank you Joe for this pardon!” is madness. If anything it shows that he is guilty and not prepared to face his accuses.
  
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  January 21, 2025 9:14am
  - CrazyIvan
    
    Then how did President Ford pardon Richard Nixon if he hadn’t been found guilty yet? And was Nixon accepting the pardon an admission of guilt?
    
    As noted above, the Supreme Court has already ruled that pardons issued before a legal proceeding is constitutional.
    
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    January 21, 2025 2:15pm
- kglm
  
  Yes, Trump is bombastic, a narcissist, and a showman. But I prefer to judge him on his actions rather than his personality. Mostly his actions are those of a true conservative. Trump 1.0 made mistakes, like appointing people that ultimately undermined his agenda (Sessions, Wray etc). And he had to continually fight a Senate and House that were Democrat controlled. So Trumps 1.0’s achievements were limited. However, Trump 2.0 has learnt from his mistakes, and has a Republican controlled Senate and House. So I expect Trump 2.0 to achieve much more than Trump 1.0.
  
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  January 21, 2025 9:35am
  - AitchW
    
    Trump, just like our coalition government, will be hamstrung at every turn by a very hostile public service. The difference there being that he’s likely to sic Musk onto the first offenders and clear the decks of the worst offenders ‘pour encourager les autres’.
    
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    January 21, 2025 9:51am
Cassandra

A statement by the Minister for Veterans Affairs, Chris Penk, says that his department will partner with a Bay of Plenty Maori health provider to ensure veterans (presumably only Maori veterans) get what they’re due. Up until now veterans had to apply to VA for help, proving a service related disability. Indeed I’ve just had a discussion with a VA manager about the difficulty of this – printing forms, getting a medical report, filling forms in by hand, posting them to Wellington because VA won’t institute an online system. Many of us are really ill, disabled and ancient. No organisation to help Europeans, only Maoris. Under a National Minister!
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January 21, 2025 8:16am
- Matt Long
  
  The Maori health provider may in fact efficiently provide for all races, my mother had insulation done on her house by a government contracted Maori provider.
  
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  January 21, 2025 8:41am
  - Cassandra
    
    Indeed it might, but that’s not its purpose or the way it operates. It will contact its members – it won’t contact me.
    
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    January 21, 2025 8:54am
    - Quail
      
      There is no need to racially identify any health provider.Identifying such providers as a particular ethnicity creates barriers ,perceived or not.
      NZ health providers should assist all who need assistance.
      They are funded by all taxpayers!
      
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      January 21, 2025 9:05am
      - Paulus
        
        But some people are more equal than others, in such Health matters.
        
        7 1
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        January 21, 2025 11:14am
    - AitchW
      
      Then is it not encumbent upon you to contact them?
      God, after all, helps those who help themselves…
      
      4 1
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      January 21, 2025 9:53am
  - Ghost
    
    Yeah, the Māori health provider down here is for anyone, not just Māori.
    
    6 5
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    January 21, 2025 9:08am
    - Cassandra
      
      Then why is it a Maori health provider? But that’s not my point, as I’m sure you’re well aware. VA is partnering with the Maori organisation to contact Maori veterans, not the rest of us. There’s no similar campaign for Europeans. Just getting to the post office is a struggle, let alone all the forms and medical stuff. No help for me.
      
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      January 21, 2025 9:15am
      - pdm
        
        Cass – you will be lucky if you can find a Post Office, or even its mediocre equivalent, these days.
        
        11 0
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        January 21, 2025 9:19am
      - Ghost
        
        Why shouldn’t there be one? Should it just be clinics owned by old white doctors ready to retire? If someone wants to provide a health service to their community who gives a toss if it is iwi owned and run.
        
        Your point seems to be you’ve taken a press release that a Māori provider will be reaching out to veterans and decided that means only Māori. You’ve inserted that into this story, no one else. The press release said that they have a a relationship with the RSAs, and Mataatua Veterans Collective. That alone should tell anyone that this is not Māori only. Congrats on being the person that makes this about Māori only
        
        6 13
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        January 21, 2025 9:22am
      - Matt Long
        
        Advantages of using a Maori led provider include; that they exist, Government recently was only letting contracts to Maori adjacent organisations IIRC.
        Maori organisations are more likely to be able to get funding and push through bureaucratic barriers than non Maori because of institutionalised racism in NZ Government.
        
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        January 21, 2025 9:50am
      - wsk12345
        
        @ghost – by calling it a Maori organisation it’s pretty clear that it’s targeting. Maori. Otherwise it would just be an organisation.
        
        11 1
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        January 21, 2025 10:11am
      - Ghost
        
        Bullshit. They are there for all to use. If you won’t use something because it has a Māori name well, im sure they won’t care some stupid old racist idiot won’t use their services.
        
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        January 21, 2025 2:50pm
  - imalwaysright
    
    “The Maori health provider may in fact efficiently provide for all races,..”
    
    Yes, it may. But the name says Maori. Do white veterans just wait around on the offchance?
    
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    January 21, 2025 9:08am
    - Ghost
      
      It’s there for everyone to use. But hey if veterans are too racist to use a Māori service, well, their loss
      
      2 6
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      January 21, 2025 2:53pm
      - imalwaysright
        
        G,
        That’s a ridiculous thing to say.
        
        4 1
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        January 21, 2025 3:08pm
  - cmm
    
    ” my mother had insulation done on her house by a government contracted Maori provider.”
    
    No, it was done by the few net taxpayers in NZ.
    
    The “Maori provider” likely gets far more funding to do the same or less work than other similar providers.
    
    Yes, the Maori providers will take customers of all races because they get funded per customer.
    
    In the mid 2000s my teenage son and I did a small business course through a Maori provider in Chch. We were most welcome. Not surprising. More students = more gravy.
    
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    January 21, 2025 11:24am
- Grunter
  
  The obvious answer to get this assistance is to simply identify as a Maori. No one can prove that you’re not a Maori.
  
  If ‘They’ want to make up silly racist rules, just play their silly racist game back at them.
  
  This ploy actually overcomes most of the crap we still see in NZ. If we all identify at the chosen race (Maori) then we all get the same rights and privileges.
  
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  January 21, 2025 8:56am
  - pdm
    
    All of the General Electorate seats could then be changed to Maori Seats.
    
    Works for me.
    
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    January 21, 2025 9:20am
  - Burtland
    
    everyone born here is a pacific islander
    
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    January 21, 2025 9:21am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    simply identify as a Maori.
    just play their silly racist game back at them.
    
    No.
    
    Don’t indulge in racist behaviour in any form.
    
    Don’t support any form of state-sponsored ethnic or
    racial division.
    
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    January 21, 2025 11:05am
    - wsk12345
      
      Yup it’s like people that used vaccine passes to go to cafes or pubs
      
      3 0
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      January 21, 2025 2:00pm
  - Sparrow
    
    A Māori friend of mine said I could be taken as a Māori as I am swarthy and have darker skin than them. That’s until I talk !!! Hm ex Pom with celtic blood.
    
    3 0
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    January 21, 2025 2:09pm
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      Dark Celts…Black Irish…
      
      https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/early-irish-people-were-dark-skinned-with-blue-eyes-documentary-1.4541124
      
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      January 21, 2025 4:24pm
      - Don Beckett
        
        My maternal grandfather was a Cornishman. He had Scottish (McDonald) forebears who married into the Cornish. He was stocky, swarthy skin & had a flattish nose. He said that it was a throwback to his Phonoetian ancestores – the Phonoetian used to trade with the Cornish for tin about 3000 years ago, & no doubt some stayed & intemarried. He came to NZ in 1910, an worked at Te Kuiti, many of his workmates were Maori, & within a year he could speak Maori.
        In the summer he would tan up, and, having moved to Rotorua, many Maori thought he was a Maori. Imagine their surprise when he told them he was Cornish.
        
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        January 21, 2025 5:26pm
  - imalwaysright
    
    These people have the character to volunteer to engage in war.
    I dont think they are the type to lie to get what they are entitled to.
    
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    January 21, 2025 3:12pm
- Blog-aholic
  
  How many actual ‘veterans’ are even left…. Vietnam was the last real war and they were all volunteers and most would be in their 70+ -80’s……
  
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  January 21, 2025 8:59am
  - Cassandra
    
    There are quite a few who served elsewhere since Vietnam. Middle East, Timor, Afghanistan etc.
    
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    January 21, 2025 9:17am
    - Blog-aholic
      
      So really only a handful.
      
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      January 21, 2025 9:29am
      - Cassandra
        
        2,000 or so? Plus another 2,000 miscellaneous? And the Vietnam lot still 2-300?
        
        11 0
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        January 21, 2025 10:05am
- Ghost
  
  Here is the release, it says veterans, doesn’t single out maori
  
  https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/government-and-maori-led-health-provider-team-support-veterans
  
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  January 21, 2025 9:15am
  - Cassandra
    
    You are being disingenuous, Ghost. Government departments do not contract Maori providers to provide universal services. This deal is for Maori predominantly.
    
    16 2
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    January 21, 2025 9:38am
    - Anthony Melchett
      
      “You are being disingenuous, Ghost”
      
      Surely not… oh no wait, that’s pretty much every post ghost makes defending maoris.
      
      If it wasn’t a race based service it wouldn’t identify a race on its description or name.
      
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      January 21, 2025 9:49am
    - Cassandra
      
      This is the pan-iwi organisation in question. Is it for everyone, do you think? Te Puna Ora o Mataatua: we are dedicated to providing a range of health services in Mataatua, with a whānau ora approach to hauora. Interested in your answer, Ghost.
      
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      January 21, 2025 9:55am
      - Cassandra
        
        “Toi Ora Motuhake:, whānau, mana motuhake.
        A reflection of our commitment to our hapori.l
        This is their slogan.
        
        12 1
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        January 21, 2025 10:08am
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  You said presumably, how about finding out, and Penk is doing the full work on veterans, not just the Maori battalions
  
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  January 21, 2025 10:13am
  - Cassandra
    
    G: Is this addressed to me? Not too sure what it means.
    
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    January 21, 2025 1:23pm
pdm

Who else apart from Hobsons Pledge is on to this?
https://nominister.wordpress.com/2025/01/20/co-governance-is-like-rust-it-never-sleeps/

Coming to your town or city if Wanganui get away with it.

Feedback Survey closes on 2 February.

Prime Minister Luxon should `KILL and SPIKE’ this right now!!!

It will be a big test for newbie Local Government Minister Simon Watts.
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January 21, 2025 8:16am
- Yvette
  
  Hobsons Pledge say …
  a stealthy iwi takeover of Whanganui District Council is underway. Whanganui iwi and the Crown are currently negotiating a Treaty settlement and as part of it they want to embed several co-governance dynamics into the Whanganui District Council.This would mean that co-governance would be locked into the council via legislation …
  https://nominister.wordpress.com/2025/01/20/co-governance-is-like-rust-it-never-sleeps/
  
  The Government needs to establish that functions of local government are not settlement issues, or where does it end – aspects of Government itself, the Police or Health services, courts or water or Waitangi Tribunal, or economy?
  And is such incursion, into the area of sovereignty, a violation of the Treaty –
  although not if you have the Waitangi Tribunal in your settlement.
  
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  January 21, 2025 9:06am
- imalwaysright
  
  Its time to stop making excuses for Luxon’s behaviour, maybe its a case of what we see is what we’ve got.
  
  I see a male version of Adern developing.
  
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  January 21, 2025 9:18am
  - GJM
    
    Yup, heard him described as “baldcinda”.
    I had great hopes for this government. Elect3d with an overwhelming mandate after the worst and most incompetent government ever. They had the perfect opportunity to kill and spike Maori favouritism, DEI, axe the public service wholesale and get rid of entire departments and qangos. They should have done this on days and all of it in 6 months to get it settled in and take advantage of the public mood for change.
    Instead nothing happened and the term is half done and it will be to late to bed in changes.
    You have to give the lefties credit, when it comes to ideology, they can move fast and with determination.
    
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    January 21, 2025 9:50am
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    Never mind. Labour and greens and TPM all in cabinet in 26, yep it’s all Luxon fault
    
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    January 21, 2025 10:17am
    - RoboRob
      
      If that happens you are correct, it will all be Luxons fault. If you displease the voters you will be gone.
      
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      January 21, 2025 11:16am
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        Seymour is scaring the centre away, the dented will not tolerate a strong act vote I am telling you
        
        0 4
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        January 21, 2025 5:51pm
    - Damocles11
      
      Come on G, it’s not as binary as that. Stop making excuses for Luxons betrayals.
      
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      January 21, 2025 12:22pm
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        I can’t see anything else now than a Labour green TPM, the centre is deserting, and if Labour ends higher than National, then NZF will go left as quick as rat up a drain pipe
        
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        January 21, 2025 5:52pm
- Damocles11
  
  Imagine if Luxon came out and reassured worried centre-right people, you know – his erstwhile supporters and voting base – on this matter with a rousing “Don’t worry, we’ll kill it! We’ll spike it!” No chance I guess. Isn’t it remarkable that a National party leader would rather pander to the MSM, leftists, and racial separatists than right of centre voters.
  
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  January 21, 2025 9:18am
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  Just seen it in my emails this morning. It came in late afternoon yesterday.
  The cancer is spreading.
  
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  January 21, 2025 9:21am
Maggy Wassilieff

As the USA enters its “Golden Age” and reaffirms that “all men are created equal”, Lady Tureiti Moxon argues that that concept of equality is flawed.

Surely, in a liberal democracy, there are few words more chilling to read written in earnest than the “flawed concept of ‘equality’”. But there they were, in print, in an opinion piece by the National Urban Māori Authority’s Lady Tureiti Moxon published in the NZ Herald on Tuesday last week.

https://www.bassettbrashandhide.com/post/don-brash-equality-is-not-a-dirty-word
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January 21, 2025 8:18am
- MCōs
  
  The term “all men are created equal” was used in the American Declaration of Independence of 1776 at which time there were approximately 450,000 slaves.
  Many of the major Founding Fathers owned numerous slaves, such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. Others owned only a few slaves, such as Benjamin Franklin.
  Maybe some people don’t count
  
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  January 21, 2025 8:32am
  - pdm
    
    I think I have quoted this on GD before but it remains a goodie.
    
    Small wall plaque in toilet in a friends house when I was a teenager in the early/mid 60’s.
    
    `All men are created equal
    But it is what they are equal to that counts.’
    
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    January 21, 2025 8:49am
    - greybeard
      
      The only toilet wall plaque I can remember from my youth said
      “Welcome to our house: we aim to please. You aim too, please”.
      
      11 0
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      January 21, 2025 9:23am
      - Steve Otto N Shore
        
        A good trick at parties is a pingpong ball with stripes on it with a marker. Chuck it in the bowl. Sure does help with aim and does not flush.
        
        7 1
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        January 21, 2025 9:35am
      - Swifty
        
        Exiting the lavs in the House of Commons an MP observed Winston hadn’t performed his ablutions, he remarked “At Eton we were taught to wash our hands.”
        
        Winston replied “At Harrow we were taught not to piss on them.”
        
        13 0
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        January 21, 2025 10:34am
      - Sparrow
        
        The best toilet wall writing I have seen was at LAX many years ago. “Save the planet use both sides”
        
        5 0
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        January 21, 2025 2:17pm
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    And some Maori Tribes retained slaves well into the 1850s, although the Treaty of Waitangi had guaranteed all Maori the same rights as English citizens.
    
    https://www.theprow.org.nz/maori/slavery-in-colonial-times/#:~:text=The%20Treaty%20of%20Waitangi%2C%201840,were%20freed%20as%20a%20result.
    
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    January 21, 2025 8:52am
    - Swifty
      
      How barbaric.
      
      I think reparations are in order from the descendants of the perpetrators.
      
      I call for an immediate enquiry to be launched!
      
      //
      
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      January 21, 2025 9:11am
    - MCōs
      
      English citizens or British subjects?
      
      4 8
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      January 21, 2025 9:27am
      - Maggy Wassilieff
        
        Depends how you want to translate Ingarani in the 3rd Article of the ToW.
        
        https://teara.govt.nz/en/document/4216/the-three-articles-of-the-treaty-of-waitangi
        
        9 0
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        January 21, 2025 9:54am
      - Jake Dee
        
        British subjects.
        That was how the British referred to themselves and they were hardly going to give Maori a status under their law which wasn’t recognized by their law.
        The British weren’t citizens until the British Nationality Act of 1948.
        
        7 1
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        January 21, 2025 4:39pm
  - Grunter
    
    Most societies allowed slavery at some point in their history. Horrible then, even more horrible now.
    
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    January 21, 2025 9:01am
- mandk
  
  So, we have Māori redefining the concept of equality, and we had Willie Jackson trying to redefine the concept of democracy.
  
  Can we also look at redefining the concept of indigeneity in relation to Māori?
  
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  January 21, 2025 8:36am
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    Well Jsckdon will go a whole lot further in 26 with his beloved TPM in tow
    
    5 4
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    January 21, 2025 10:19am
    - Damocles11
      
      If that happens it will be because there was a lack of strong, principled leadership on the Right. Corporate style amoral behaviour and subterfuge is no substitute for courage and strong convictions.
      
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      January 21, 2025 12:26pm
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        No they will have lost the centre, nothing else, and alt right will guarantee it
        
        0 1
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        January 21, 2025 5:54pm
  - Allan
    
    It’s already been done. Maori aren’t indigenous. But the UNDRIP redefined the meaning of indigenous. Now maori can claim to be so.
    
    The UN did the same with genocide. They couldn’t get Israel on actual genocide so the redefined the word and now Isreal is guilty of genocide.
    
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    January 21, 2025 2:41pm
- Blog-aholic
  
  ‘Lady’ Moxon should cash in her damehood for that statement alone. Love a journalst to actually ask what her definition of equality is and how the concept is flawed…..then line it up with what it actually is so that we can see how flawed the woman’s thinking is.
  
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  January 21, 2025 9:02am
  - pdm
    
    Blog alky – I think she got it courtesy of her husband.
    So probably he would have to ditch his and that would automatically get rid of hers.
    
    Bet she would hate that.
    
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    January 21, 2025 9:24am
  - Mummy
    
    She hasn’t got a ladyhood in her own right. Unless she’s the daughter of an early, viscount or Duke. She’s just plain Lady Moxon because her husband is a sir.
    
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    January 21, 2025 9:45am
    - Don Beckett
      
      I wonder if her husband, or the Anglican Church would agree with her statement ? I don’t believe they would, but say so ? Can’t be racist. //
      
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      January 21, 2025 11:28am
  - Paulus
    
    No her title but that of her Clergyman Husband !
    She is just trying to milk it.
    
    7 0
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    January 21, 2025 11:20am
- Burtland
  
  ” maori are more equal than others” – Animal Farm GO
  
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  January 21, 2025 9:31am
- Swifty
  
  Lady Moxon and her family has done very well out of the equity push hasn’t she?
  
  What are the odds that it is the already privileged that end up with the Oxford scholarships? Sarc….
  
  “Māori Oxford graduate and Ngāti Kahungunu-Ngāi Tahu paediatrician Dr Te Aro Moxon has been awarded a scholarship to complete a PhD of science in global health and epidemiology, focusing on infectious and non-infectious diseases.
  
  Like his dad Sir David Moxon – former Archbishop of New Zealand and also an Oxford graduate – and his mum Lady Tureiti Moxon, Te Aro wants to dedicate his life helping whānau. The family is is heading back to the UK to receive Te Aro’s tohu on Saturday at Oxford.”
  
  https://www.nzherald.co.nz/kahu/oxford-graduate-te-aro-moxon-gains-scholarship-to-complete-masters-of-science-in-global-health-and-epidemiology/TIWXQ2YBARDLFPOP3QIA3BGWRM/
  
  Thomas Sowell has been writing about this since the 70s – that the prime beneficiaries of the move from equality to equity/affirmative action/positive discrimination are the elites of any disadvantaged group – not the vast bulk.
  
  It’s the elites and their descendants that end up with the blue-ribbon educations, the big government contracts, the media coverage and platforms, the board appointments and the honours – Hone and Kiri down at the works, the farm or factory not so much.
  
  We only have to look at the Tamihere’s, the Jackson’s, the Moxons, the Turias, the Mahutas etc etc etc to see it all playing out here, just as Sowell wrote 50 years ago.
  
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  January 21, 2025 10:08am
NeverMindTheBollocks

Shell Lane (The Terrace) bike rack report:

At 8.20am, one bike, a fancy orange job.

A spectacular morning in the Capital, ideal for cycling.
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January 21, 2025 8:23am
- Mummy
  
  Yes but they’re all working from home. Who wouldn’t in this glorious weather.
  
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  January 21, 2025 9:46am
  - PurplePen
    
    No. They’re all at Princess Bay, Scorching Bay and Oriental Bay.
    
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    January 21, 2025 1:14pm
- AitchW
  
  Keep up the good work. Perhaps some functionary from WCC might even read your reports!
  
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  January 21, 2025 10:06am
- Swifty
  
  I’ve kept track of the bike rack over the last two weeks, normally none, sometimes one, on one occasion two.
  
  I wonder what the patronage figures were forecast to be in the business case – assuming there was one?
  
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  January 21, 2025 10:12am
- Taieri
  
  If they are cycling they can’t at the same time be in the rack, can they?;)
  
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  January 21, 2025 11:13am
  - I remember when
    
    As Taieri says, lack of cycles in the Shell Lane bike rack shows how successful the cycling campaign has been.
    
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    January 21, 2025 4:07pm
Yvette

Treaty / religion
• My faith has been misrepresented, says new National leader – November 30, 2021
Christopher Luxon, whose evangelical Protestant Christian faith is widely known, says he is keeping his religion and his politics separate in his new role as National’s leader. …
The first-term MP said his role was to represent people of all faiths.
“It is not in itself a political agenda. I believe no religion should dictate to the state, and no politician should use the political platform they have to force their beliefs on others.”
https://www.1news.co.nz/2021/11/30/my-faith-has-been-misrepresented-says-new-national-leader/

• A mountain in New Zealand will now have the rights of a human being under legislation to be passed by parliament. [“The Crown agreed to give up ownership of the land two years ago”]
Taranaki Maunga and his (sic) companion peaks are to become a legal person to be called Te Kāhui Tupua when the Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill becomes law on January 30.
… the new law will mean that if a person harms or mistreats the mountain it will be the same legally as harming a tribe.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14299489/New-Zealand-Taranaki-Maunga-mountain-person.html.

“The reading will officially recognise the peaks as ancestral mountains which will grant the land human status”
Could one argue that denial of the First Commandment, the sin of having “other gods before Me,” could only be superseded by acting as God oneself, as in – Genesis 2:7: “Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being” – breathing human life into a mountain, and sinning on paper, so not even going to as much trouble as God apparently did?

Surely a Government which is secular would confirm Maori can observe whatever religious or mythical belief they wish to, but not inflict that on others against their will, nor upon public representatives, and Government is secular, without religious affiliations and so is necessarily neutral.
And this applies to all instances of te Ao o Maori, the Maori religious worldview, from human mountains to “mauri” of fresh water, just as Government services take on no view of Gloriavale or Sharia Law. Nor are these examples, to partner with Government legal matters – not the religious aspects of tikanga, as a further example.

And, last Census with Maori religious belief at about 1.3 percent of the population, while Maori were about 19 percent, does that not properly placed in importance – by Willie Jackson’s tyranny of the majority?
Amen
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January 21, 2025 8:33am
- Blog-aholic
  
  Indeed.
  
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  January 21, 2025 9:30am
  - Yvette
    
    in fact a footnote, to ‘kick’ it into touch …
    From Genesis 2:7 “… and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being” is surely a far greater achievement that taking a heap of rocks, on paper, and breathing human life force into it and creating a heap of rocks.
    see? – it might all be just a little bit silly
    
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    January 21, 2025 10:23am
- pdm
  
  Creep, creep, creep – they will not give up.
  
  By maunga are we talking MT Egmont or just some hills scattered throughout the Taranaki Province?
  
  The only hill (non mountain) in New Zealand remotely close to that status is the hill with the longest place name in the world, near Porangahau in Central Hawkes Bay. Namely
  Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu
  
  I can say it – how many Maori can?
  
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  January 21, 2025 9:31am
  - Yvette
    
    Thank God that doesn’t feature on TVNZ’s Weather – Dan would have to be replaced – whoosh
    
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    January 21, 2025 10:03am
- Dave
  
  The wording of the report, ‘rights of a human being’, is probably misleading, perhaps in part because Maori thought on ancestral relationships is more mythological than factual and this settlement blurs an important legal distinction.
  
  IANAL, but I believe there is a distinction between a ‘legal person’ and a ‘natural person’. The former is a legal entity, eg, a business entity, with a subset of the rights and obligations of the latter. Legal personhood might entitle the tribe to sue someone for damaging the mountain, but if the mountain erupts killing people and ruining farmland, good luck with suing the mountain and collecting damages from it.
  
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  January 21, 2025 10:16am
- Jake Dee
  
  I keep on mentioning this every time the legal status of tikanga comes up so I’ll mention it again.
  Secular government stripped of all mythical concepts is just not possible.
  Trying to achieve it would just mean a Soviet style purge where all YOUR pseudo religious woo-woo gets tossed because it’s just myth, but all MY pseudo religious woo-woo gets to stay because it’s pure science.
  British common law regards corporations and many other entities as legal people. That’s even more mythical than giving personhood to a mountain. At least a mountain is a real physical thing, a company is just a legal fiction, pure metaphysics.
  
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  January 21, 2025 4:59pm
Damocles11

So the ‘census data’ report was leaked to the red NZ Herald. The ‘reporter’ who was tasked with putting the necessary spin on the story was Joseph Los’e – former senior communications operative at Waipareira Trust.
Why is the red Herald desperate to spin on behalf of John Tamihere?
If you subscribe to the Herald, you are directly funding the erosion of democracy in this country.

https://x.com/Charteddaily/status/1881164989169643613
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January 21, 2025 9:00am
- Burtland
  
  corruption at all levels
  
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  January 21, 2025 9:36am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Thanks for that information.
  
  I was very suspicious about the NZ Herald piece yesterday when I couldn’t freely access the RDC report Los’e referred to.
  
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  January 21, 2025 9:58am
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  What was released yesterday is not the part about Tamihere is it? I thought they said the census agency was cleared, they did not say that the TPM and Tamahere part were cleared, I did not read it s but I don’t think that has anything to do with what has still to be announced
  
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  January 21, 2025 10:23am
  - Damocles11
    
    ‘Census data not misused’. That’s the part pertaining to Tamihere.
    
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    January 21, 2025 11:55am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      No, it says the staff at Sensus is clear, it did not say that the TPM at that marae are cleared
      
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      January 21, 2025 5:56pm
Chuck Bird

According to Trump, there are only two genders – male and female. I wonder what the leader of our political view is on this issue.
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January 21, 2025 9:03am
- Benedict Yu
  
  It will interesting to see how it plays out in practice.
  
  Even before Trump, I was getting the impression that USA had reached peak trans madness. IMO the priorities should be preventing irreversible treatment of minors and protecting women’s sports. I also object to being told that trans women are, quite literally, women.
  
  Trump can’t change language and he can’t stop trans surgery for adults. Not in the American health system.
  
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  January 21, 2025 9:12am
  - MCōs
    
    Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
    My brother has a child who is non binary. That is neither male nor female gender.
    They last thing they need is advice about categorization from people who don’t have a clue what they’re talking about
    
    3 35
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    January 21, 2025 9:50am
    - cmm
      
      Sure, there are true intersex people, but they are extremely rare, Around 0.018%,
      
      So let’s not redesign our whole world around these mythical people.
      
      26 1
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      January 21, 2025 9:59am
      - Benedict Yu
        
        Sure. But most intersex children do have XX or XY chromosomes.
        
        Someone who is quite clearly male or female just deciding that they are “non binary”, no I don’t accept that as anything other than a mental illness.
        
        35 3
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        January 21, 2025 10:12am
      - MCōs
        
        Here come the experts
        
        3 25
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        January 21, 2025 10:32am
    - Swifty
      
      They may not self-identify as either female nor male gender, but they will have a sex MCos, either male sex or female sex, other than the extremely small intersex group.
      
      But here’s a question for you. All around the world now we’ve got people swearing that they are now puppies or kittens, or horses, or when European sweat themselves Korean or African etc. I saw an interview with a clearly black lady the other day who swears she’s white.
      
      Please tell us MCos, how we should respond to these individuals? Should the European person now be eligible for black scholarships or qualify for black board positions? Should the animal-identifying people now be treated by vets? Should we be required to refer to them as Mr or Mrs Doggie? Mr Horsey?
      
      Your sage advice most appreciated.
      
      19 1
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      January 21, 2025 10:21am
      - Steve Otto N Shore
        
        Here on the Shore up at Albany there is a school that wanted to put litter trays in the toilets for girls who identified as kittens. Unbelievable.
        Don’t know if they did or not.
        
        11 1
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        January 21, 2025 11:03am
      - PurplePen
        
        Swifty, my theory is those people identifying as something are conflating it with ‘relating to’ something. I could say I identify as lump of concrete, or a woman. But that doesn’t actually make me a lump of concrete, nor a woman. What they really mean is they can relate to what it’s like being a lump of concrete.
        
        I’m a gay man. I don’t identify or need to relate to that type of human as I’m actually a gay man. If some other bloke said they identified as a gay man, but weren’t actually one, what the hell would that mean. It would mean they can relate or think they can relate to what being a gay man was like. If they said they identified as a gay man and actually practiced then the idiot is actually a gay man. To then say they identify as a gay man would be a tautology maybe, certainly a nonsense. Run through the above substituting ‘gay man’ with ‘woman’ or ‘cat’.
        
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        January 21, 2025 1:29pm
    - wsk12345
      
      My niece is dating a bloke who calls himself non binary and is “they”. I have no issue with him – he seems a nice guy. Apparently he’s not bi. So that must mean he is heterosexual??? So WTF is non binary? Does it mean you are male biologically and want to be special but still want to have sex with girls?
      
      I don’t get it and frankly I don’t care. I’m more than happy to have him around but I won’t be calling him anything other than male. That may be his “truth” but it ain’t mine.
      
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      January 21, 2025 10:22am
      - Don Beckett
        
        One day there is a rough chance that he will grow up.
        
        12 1
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        January 21, 2025 11:38am
      - PurplePen
        
        As Don B says, they’ll grow up. It’s currently fashionable and it has a degree of shock value that teenagers or late blooming teenagers always like.
        
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        January 21, 2025 1:31pm
    - Notsofast
      
      The problem here is that child will infect some others with this anti science and anti human lie.
      
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      January 21, 2025 10:36am
    - Rodney Hide
      
      Dear Mcos
      
      I am sorry to hear that. Out of interest, is the child XX or XY or something else?
      
      Rodney Hide
      
      17 1
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      January 21, 2025 10:37am
      - MCōs
        
        I don’t know
        When I say child I’m not alluding to their age, which in this case is currently around twenty.
        Furthermore
        As I understand the non binary condition is not caused by mental illness, but being non binary causes a welter of mental problems in their case
        
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        January 21, 2025 2:06pm
      - Dave
        
        Alternatively, a welter of mental problems can cause confusion as to sexual identity.
        
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        January 21, 2025 7:43pm
    - cmm
      
      MCos: I too have a trans family member.
      
      I respect their choice to wear what they want and identify how they want, but not to force it on others.
      
      To do so is no different to forcing something that someone feels passionately about on other people.
      
      I think trans people should wear what they want (just like anyone else). They should have open access to employment and all the same rights as others. But they should not demand special privileges.
      
      Almost all issues to do with trans-rights etc could be addressed by treating men and women equally and dispensing with special rights for women.
      
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      January 21, 2025 10:41am
    - Taieri
      
      My brother has a child who is non binary.
      —————
      
      Your brother has a child who is mentally ill. And I’m sorry to hear that as mental illness is not something to be taken lightly.
      
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      January 21, 2025 11:15am
    - In Vino Veritas
      
      The child is mentally ill MCos, and doesn’t get to make up shit about whether he or she is male or female. The child’s chromosomes determine that. And you really don’t have to be an expert to know that. Perhaps doing biology at secondary school would help?
      
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      January 21, 2025 12:41pm
    - RichardF
      
      Non binary and intersex are different. I know someone who is non binary. They’re 100% male but don’t ‘identify’ as male, or female, so they are ‘non binary’ and use they/them pronouns.
      
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      January 21, 2025 2:08pm
  - Anthony Melchett
    
    “IMO the priorities should be preventing irreversible treatment of minors and protecting women’s sports.”
    
    And women only spaces eg toilets and changing rooms. Just change the signs on the door – one has a picture of a phallus and says men. The other has a phallus in a circle with a line through it like the no smoking sign and says women. Sorted.
    
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    January 21, 2025 9:55am
- Scott
  
  According to Trump there are only two genders, America is getting out of the Paris climate accords, no more diversity hiring, so much winning!
  
  One can only hope that the changes in America will find their way to the South Pacific. 😎
  
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  January 21, 2025 9:56am
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    Too many anti-American fuckwits in NZ for that to happen.
    TDS is living rent free in their heads.
    
    16 2
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    January 21, 2025 11:08am
    - Paulus
      
      To many ex USA people in New Zealand already, and we hear the often full of crap, telling us what to believe, and are deeply Anti Trump in everything, so they came here with their white US qualifications to change our little country.
      
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      January 21, 2025 11:28am
    - coge
      
      Let’s give them a rude awakening.
      
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      January 21, 2025 11:58am
    - Jake Dee
      
      They are hardly anti-American if all their fashionable ideas came directly from America. That these ideas are very bad for the long term future of America (and every where else) is another matter entirely.
      
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      January 21, 2025 5:06pm
Michael Sommerville

With the world wide shift to the right in politics, it is going to be interesting to see how the different approaches work. In the USA, Trump is going to be a disrupter of the norm. This is what a significant number of the population have been asking for. You can guarantee that there will be no pussy footing around.

Meanwhile, here in NZ, we have Luxon who is probably the antithesis of Trump, doing his best to shift the country to the right by using a softly softly approach.

When you see the state we are in, I don’t see a soft approach working. Roger Douglas was a disrupter of the norm of the time. His changes made this country a better place, albeit that it hurt many.

I believe that this country needs a turning around with a lurch, not a smooth cruisy sway. The changes in Education and Health are great (I heard Helen Clark criticise Angry Andrew’s health reforms) but more is needed. Brian Roach has the right approach with the public service but they, in particular, need a serious disruptor. They hold up progress in this country more than most.

So, as I sit back and watch with interest, my money is on Trump to make the changes needed to bring his country onto the right prosperous track. I wish Luxon well but…
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January 21, 2025 9:04am
- Grunter
  
  I agree with most of what you’ve written above. But Trump’s tariff plans are going to blow up the global economy. And there will be counter-strikes back at the USA.
  
  At a time when sovereign debt is at a record high in Europe, UK, Japan, Aust & NZ – even traditional allies of the USA are going to go into a tail-spin.
  
  Just think of the pain Trump is about to inflict on China – NZ’s largest trading partner. The implications of that on NZ’s delicate economy will be huge. And it will happen this year.
  
  But don’t worry, Luxon is all over this. I heard him on ZB this morning…..//
  
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  January 21, 2025 9:33am
  - Benedict Yu
    
    New Zealand is certainly not going to benefit from high USA tariffs. Of course neither will Americans. For example, they will be paying high prices for terrible cars. That’s what tariffs have always done.
    
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    January 21, 2025 10:24am
    - Don Beckett
      
      Trump will be imposing NO tariffs on NZ.
      
      9 3
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      January 21, 2025 11:42am
      - CrazyIvan
        
        Well given that Trump has said publicly he will be imposing at least 10% tariffs on all imports regardless of country of origin we’ll have to wait and see.
        
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        January 21, 2025 2:55pm
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    Trumps tariff plans are only going to effect countries taking US factories snd work off shore and then import back to the states, why is it the anti Trumpers do not listen or read properly
    
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    January 21, 2025 10:26am
    - Grunter
      
      Countries like China…..? NZ’s largest trading partner.
      
      My point was, that has a flow on effect on NZ. (Why is it that some KBers don’t read properly…..?) 🙄
      
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      January 21, 2025 11:10am
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        No it does not, those factories and those businesses are not in NZ, we seek heaps to the US, I can tell you about our strong wool, it must be organic, but they are paying triple the price because they can sell product in the US factory made business and make huge money, a tariff will only cost the American business, because they have set in concrete contracts for an unlimited amount of wool, any tariff will come off the US business bottom line
        
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        January 21, 2025 6:01pm
- Blog-aholic
  
  Backbone and a sense of purpose in the belief that most reasoned people seek the same is what is needed. What we have is derived by what the MSM write.
  
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  January 21, 2025 9:33am
- Mark Hanley
  
  Good thoughts Michael. Luxon , like all good leaders has prioritized his objectives.
  
  The economy, health, and education are top of the list and are rightfully taking precedence. Bringing Inflation down without crashing the economy is a tricky balancing act between monetary and fiscal policy.
  
  Once Inflation is tamed, Luxon and team will broaden their goals to sensibly do the many things nz requires, like permanent constitutional change which is much more difficult for the next labour goernment to reverse….. seymours bill will be discarded with the flick of a pen, so it is being used by the wily luxon to open the debate.
  
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  January 21, 2025 9:36am
  - wsk12345
    
    You can’t get growth while simultaneously becoming an ethnostate. Who would invest here?
    
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    January 21, 2025 10:26am
    - Damocles11
      
      I can hear the corporate wokesters crying “but we’ve gone all in on DEI and Maorificatio – we can’t go back!”
      
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      January 21, 2025 12:05pm
    - Mark Hanley
      
      Pls give an example of a piece of racist legislation enacted by National under Luxon.
      
      Here are a few examples of Luxons government removing aderns race based bs….
      Removed Maori health authority, rewrote the curriculum and removed mātauranga Māori, removed 3 waters, removed cogovernance of public entities, reinstated the need for a referendum to continue race based local body representation, removed any reference of a partnership between races,
      
      Calls NZ…. NZ.
      
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      January 21, 2025 12:14pm
      - wsk12345
        
        Making a mountain a legal person. Giving veteran support work to a Maori organisation. To name just two items discussed on GD today.
        
        More important are the plethora of separate BS they have not removed.
        
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        January 21, 2025 2:12pm
      - Mark Hanley
        
        If you read it on kiwiblog it must be true…..
        
        Still waiting for a piece of racist legislation enacted by National under Luxon.
        
        4 1
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        January 21, 2025 2:19pm
      - Ghost
        
        Ah no. The Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bil was passed by labour in 2023. Surely if you are going to blame someone you’d at least get your facts straight
        
        Why shouldn’t an organisation that is connected with veterans be allowed to work with them?
        
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        January 21, 2025 2:41pm
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        Yes, and also taking the mention of the treaty out of all law
        
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        January 21, 2025 6:02pm
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    Yes, and it might be time to suggest inflation is back at 2.2% and that is 9 months quicker than predicted. Until interest rates which have started dropping 9 months earlier as well start working through the system, possibly second quarter this year. There are signs business snd people wanting to build houses are starting to prepare to up their work, beef dairy lamb and wool are 20% up and holding up against what was suggested, more tax will come in this year I am sure, and more business will start
    
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    January 21, 2025 10:31am
  - Damocles11
    
    If Health was at the top of his list then he’s made a right balls-up of it. I know the corporate fad is to blame underlings with the bloke at the top a well-paid teflon figurehead, but it doesn’t wash with me. The buck stops with Luxon. A poor workman blames his tools they say, and if Luxon has failed to get the best out of his Ministers then that’s on him. No excuses Mr Luxon. Leadership is about getting the best of those on your team, not throwing them under the bus due to your own failings.
    Secondly, inflation is demonstrably under control.
    Seems as though Luxon is trying to tell he’s ‘hitting the ground running’…..after over 1 year in office. So I don’t buy the confected story that after he sorts out things that either should have been sorted or have been sorted, he’ll start keeping promises around co-governance. This is disingenuous behaviour by Luxon and National, and as much as corporate & establishment wokesters want the public to buy the concocted narrative, my guess is they won’t.
    
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    January 21, 2025 12:03pm
    - Mark Hanley
      
      Dont let the facts get in the way of a senseless comment matt long /domacles / pope p / whoever you are….
      
      Luxon hasn’t blamed anything on anyone, he simply stated Brown has the skills required for the current health challenges……
      
      “Luxon said Reti had set good foundations in place in health, but Brown’s skills were better placed to take leadership of the health system.”
      
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      January 21, 2025 2:33pm
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      I had first and experience in heath this year, it has improved big time in three years when I was there last. No Māori, no benders, tidy looking staff, no stress, 8 hour shifts, brand new doctors and nurses doing their first shift the day I finished.
      
      Let’s also remember they had hired 3300 more nurses and a net lift of 3000 by December this year, several 100 new doctors, there was fresh people working in imaging, and the last thing is in December the wait times for elective surgery wait times had dropped 3%
      
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      January 21, 2025 6:09pm
- Burtland
  
  its pointless correcting the symptoms when the root cause is a diet of marxism at the universities
  
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  January 21, 2025 9:40am
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  One huge problem. Trump is a leader, Luxon is not.
  
  15 6
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  January 21, 2025 9:40am
  - Mark Hanley
    
    Steve, you’ve been repeating that false mantra for a long time now….. if Luxon isn’t a leader
    – how did he rise up the cut throat corporate ladder?
    – how did he turn the headless and clueless National party under Collins around to win the election?
    – how has he taken the very tough steps to tame Inflation without being decimated in the polls?
    – how did he find hitherto never heard of national mps and turn them into competent ministers?
    – how has he formed and maintained a 3 party coalition with Winston peters towing the line, noone else has achieved that before.
    
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    January 21, 2025 12:24pm
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      Oh as usual you won’t get a reply
      
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      January 21, 2025 6:10pm
    - Steve Otto N Shore
      
      He is a manager. He manages.
      
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      January 22, 2025 10:41am
- Yvette
  
  “You can guarantee that there will be no pussy footing around” – is that something Trump would advocate?
  
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  January 21, 2025 10:09am
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    Don’t forget Trump can change things with a flick of a pen a government can not
    
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    January 21, 2025 6:12pm
- wsk12345
  
  So you think he is trying to move NZ to the right? I’ve come to the conclusion that he’s using the votes of the right to move us to the left. I think the left is where he wants to be.
  
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  January 21, 2025 10:24am
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    He is Ardern without a dress.
    
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    January 21, 2025 11:13am
    - Mark Hanley
      
      Crikey Steve you’ve really outdone yourself with that baseless abuse.
      
      I often wonder why people come online to spill vitriol and hatred…. You could try facts based arguments instead, we can actually potentially learn something if you use that approach.
      
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      January 21, 2025 12:28pm
    - newview
      
      A bit harsh Steve. Arderns business acumen consisted of working in a fish n chip shop. And she wasn’t the owner.
      
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      January 21, 2025 1:19pm
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    He has to retain the centre, as yesterdays poll show they are losing the centre, it’s imperative to take the centre, you can see with yesterdays polls show that Labour greens s as bd TPM are a whisker away from ruining the country, snd once they get in we are done for good
    
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    January 21, 2025 6:15pm
- Paulus
  
  Brian Roche has a new Boss –
  Judith Collins
  -will make a good team,
  so upper echelons of the Public Service, beware you will have one hell of a fight on your hands, that you will not win, in the longer term.
  
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  January 21, 2025 11:31am
- thirteenstars
  
  “Roger Douglas was a disrupter of the norm of the time. His changes made this country a better place, albeit that it hurt many.”
  
  The fault for the pain lay squarely at the feet of those who created the conditions that required such a correction, mainly those in the Muldoon administration.
  
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  January 21, 2025 12:44pm
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    It went back a lot longer than Muldoon. Try the first Labour Government and every government thereafter.
    
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    January 21, 2025 6:40pm
- PurplePen
  
  Whether you like Trump or what he stands for or not, he’s a disruptor and the world or the western world needs disrupting. Throw everything up in the air and see where it’s lands if you must. We couldn’t keep going the way we were or the way the bad part of the left was taking us.
  
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  January 21, 2025 1:36pm
Grunter

Trump also announced that he will disband the Ministry of Education. All power will go to the local level (it will be interesting to see what that actually means).

NZ should do the same. Close down the NZ Ministry of Education. It has clearly failed. Give power to the parents.
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January 21, 2025 9:19am
- Cassandra
  
  No. In the USA education is a State matter. He’s closing the Federal department; there’ll still be 50 education departments.
  
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  January 21, 2025 9:58am
- Scott
  
  Grunter – there is no call in NZ to disband the ministry of education. Apart from you and Benedict.
  
  NZ is a much more centralised country, not the same as the USA or even Australia.
  
  What I would like to see is change at the ministry of education from their uber liberal approach but that will take time. Many in the education sector are very woke and entranced by Maori wonderfulness and trans gender awesomeness. So change will take time.
  
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  January 21, 2025 10:03am
  - NoFax
    
    I think we should shut down the Ministry of Education so I guess that makes 3.
    
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    January 21, 2025 1:16pm
- MCōs
  
  That’s crazy talk
  Can you explain how the parents are going to run the schools their kids attend for which they have no training or experience as well as hold down regular jobs?
  You’d be opening the doors to fundamentalists
  
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  January 21, 2025 10:05am
  - nigel2010
    
    the fundamentals are already running the ed dept here but they are not religious fundamentalists they are ideological fundamentalists , when the primary teachers cannot teach basic maths, science or english cause that is colonialism you know we are fu*king up the future generations just for their cause
    
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    January 21, 2025 10:19am
  - Grunter
    
    MCos
    Power to the Parents means that they have full control of their kid’s education. It doesn’t necessarily mean that they run ALL the schools. But some already do home-schooling now, which is great, if that’s what they choose.
    
    I mean getting the central Government out of providing education altogether. Leave it up to organisations that know what they are doing. Let the good ones thrive, and the bad ones fail (close down). Make it a free market (just like food, another life-essential).
    
    Yes, of course, there would be a messy transition to this new model (and it will never happen in State-controlled socialist NZ), but an open and freely operating education sector would provide more choice for less money and zero looney Govt interference.
    
    It would not be perfect – but it would sure as hell be better than the fustercluck we currently have.
    
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    January 21, 2025 11:23am
    - Mark Hanley
      
      I’m pretty sure that is what charter schools are doing, with vital government rules and oversight.
      
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      January 21, 2025 3:01pm
    - MCōs
      
      As at 1 July 2023, there were 10,777 homeschooled students. These students belong to 6,298 families and represent 1.3% of total school enrolments.
      You can forget about that as a viable option particularly as there would be no help from standardized pool of learning
      
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      January 21, 2025 4:21pm
      - thirteenstars
        
        You really don’t get it, do you?
        
        It’s the “standardized pool of learning” that’s corrupt. It’s the reason the public education system is a failure. It’s one size fits all and that one size has been captured by an ideology inimical to the proper development of young minds.
        
        Go standardise yourself and your own kids. Leave others alone to choose what’s best for them and their own.
        
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        January 21, 2025 6:19pm
  - thirteenstars
    
    Oh, get a grip. Let me rewrite your objection:
    
    “Can you explain how the consumers are going to run the farms their food comes from for which they have no training or experience as well as hold down regular jobs?”
    
    Food from farms is pretty damn important, actually more important proximately than education, yet I don’t see many folks starving for want of good, cheap healthy food, and it’s precisely because education is so important that the government should not be let anywhere near its provision.
    
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    January 21, 2025 12:55pm
  - NoFax
    
    That’s a very poor argument. If we fund per child then people and business will step up to educate children. I don’t know anything about flying a plane but there are people who do and I pay them to do that. This is true for everything else including making the phone I’m typing On. Where do you get the idea that if it’s not for the Ministry of Education, parents would man the schools? It makes no sense.
    
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    January 21, 2025 1:19pm
  - Nukuleka
    
    Typical anti- religious bigotry.
    
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    January 21, 2025 4:42pm
  - Jake Dee
    
    I’m not in favor of abolishing the ministry of education but doing so would hardly mean that schools have to be run by amateurs with no training. Schools have been run outside of a Ministry of Education for centuries.
    
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    January 21, 2025 5:19pm
  - NothingLeft
    
    home schooled kids generally academically outperform state educated kids already. The amateurs are clearly superior to the ‘experts’. the 6000 person headcount Ministry of Education is actively detrimental to NZ schooling academic standards. We would quite seriously be better off without them using foreign sourced curriculums and teaching materials.
    
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    January 21, 2025 7:02pm
- sungsamning
  
  Yes, shut down the Ministry of Education, and scrap the student loan scheme. Let students, banks, and institutions handle it.
  
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  January 21, 2025 10:23am
  - Paulus
    
    Student Loan scheme I believe is now cancelled up to passing of third year degree.
    
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    January 21, 2025 11:33am
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  Hang on, that means in the states the education will go back to each state, we do not have anything to hand it back to, do you want councils poking their noses in?
  
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  January 21, 2025 10:32am
  - Grunter
    
    Councils? Now that’s being silly. Why would anyone propose that?
    
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    January 21, 2025 11:24am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      Well, if Trump is handing it back to the states then it’s like handing it back to our councils, I know the difference, but how the he’ll could our government close down education here?
      
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      January 21, 2025 6:18pm
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  Wow, 6 downticks. There must be Unionist Teachers lurking on the blog today!
  
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  January 21, 2025 11:15am
Burtland

seems the electric economy brings the kiss of death …

Ubco bust – 85 staff and no market
Mantra5 bust – 25 staff
SolarZero bust – 90 staff

the electric economy is dead without subsidies

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/ubco-collapse-customers-anxious-about-parts-ex-staffer-speaks-out/BYD2EL5TGRCVPP3PXKSGW4XR5A/
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January 21, 2025 9:25am
- Ghost
  
  Ubco Seems badly run when you read the story. Shifted production to china, management heavy, warehouse full of faulty bikes.
  
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  January 21, 2025 9:33am
  - cmm
    
    Every industry that is based on subsidies is poorly run.
    
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    January 21, 2025 9:55am
    - cmm
      
      That includes every industry that relies on the government/taxpayer being coerced into participating (ie. every SOE).
      
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      January 21, 2025 10:30am
    - Matt Long
      
      I didn’t think Ubco had received subsidies,
      Could be a victim of the post covid liquidity bubble.
      KTM also has a year’s supply of bikes in warehouses due to ramping production due to a couple of high demand years.
      They’re also broke.
      
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      January 21, 2025 2:53pm
      - cmm
        
        I think they were hoping for subsidies and were hoping for the “green” mania to sweep through organisations they could sell to.
        
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        January 21, 2025 6:30pm
  - Burtland
    
    china production and warehouses of faulty product suggests crap quality systems
    – offshore manufacture requires good systems which startups do poorly
    
    good tech innovation skills and crap management is the rule in the NZ tech sector
    
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    January 21, 2025 10:00am
- coge
  
  Why can’t these businesses just go to the bank? Like everyone else.
  
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  January 21, 2025 12:04pm
- PurplePen
  
  A previous CE I think he was said they also didn’t want to sell to the military for ideological reasons. A classic example of go woke go broke.
  
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  January 21, 2025 1:40pm
Chuck Bird

For those who missed Trump’s Address, you can read the whole thing at the link below.

President Donald Trump: Inauguration Address

https://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2025/01/president-donald-trump-inauguration.html#more
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January 21, 2025 9:33am
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  The auto industry will boom is the bit that stands out the most for me.
  
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  January 21, 2025 9:47am
  - Greenheart
    
    This will be at the expense of the American consumer who will have available inferior cars at exhorbitant prices
    
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    January 21, 2025 10:05am
    - Steve Otto N Shore
      
      What make you think American made cars will be inferior and expensive?
      You think people will drive poorly made Dodge Rams?
      
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      January 21, 2025 11:18am
      - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
        
        Is that being sarcastic? All dodges are poorly made almost as unreliable as jeep!
        
        1 3
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        January 21, 2025 1:05pm
    - All_on_Red
      
      Most European and Japanese Car companies already have factories in the US
      Have done so for years
      Do try to keep up.
      
      6 2
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      January 21, 2025 12:49pm
      - Steve Otto N Shore
        
        I am caught up. American cars will be made in America, along with most parts. No more outsourcing. Not even Chinese chips.
        
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        January 21, 2025 1:50pm
      - All_on_Red
        
        I was talking to Greenheart Steve
        
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        January 21, 2025 2:03pm
RoboRob

Yesterdy G the Gaint said

‘Uni fees were always changing to last year of study, you do realise none of the fees will be paid from this year till at least the 4 th year, you understand no money will be paid in the mean time, and who says they will not dump that after the next election before any money is spent….’

1. Its the third year not the 4th.
2. Yes I knew that was the proposed policy. It is stupid policy. You asked what stupid Labour crap National hadn’t scrapped and I lised 5 things of which this was one.
3. By not removing Uni fees free they have locked them in. No future government will have the balls to remove them becuase its political poison. In the same way that National were too scared to scrap Working For Families benefits and now we have it forever. Key tried to defund it by stealth by not raising the thresholds but Labour immediately fixed them one return.

I will bet you $100 bucks that if National get back in next term, they do NOT scrap the free uni fees. Want to take the bet?
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January 21, 2025 9:35am
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  That’s fine, yes done studies are 3 years, many are not, and honers adds an extra year to many, my point is this is better, it means not a cent paid for at least three years, who said this will not be dumped after the next election.
  
  No this is not retained from Labour, it’s a complete change, one I wish was stopped altogether, but I haven’t ruled out it don’t be dumped, so is that all you can find that is left from Labour after just over a year in power? Do no they are not simply doing Labour better then are they?
  
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  January 21, 2025 10:38am
  - RoboRob
    
    As you know I had a list of five things yesterday. The google tax to fund MSM was another as a reminder 🙂 Your reply was ‘I dont care about the google tax’.
    
    Another was free school lunches, same Labour policy just improved by reducing the price. ACTs Seymour has also failed to scrap this (perhaps because Labour wouldn’t let him).
    
    3rd year free isn’t a complete change, you are kidding yourself to pretend it is. It is a tidying up of a left wing Labour policy. It is a stupid policy that we cant afford.
    
    Free School lunches and Uni year free are bad policy that National had the opportunity to remove but chose not to. These policies have been improved, school lunches are better run and cheaper. Do not doubt that future Labour governments will increase the quality (read price) of school lunches and probably add school snacks and dinners. 3rd year free will be expanded to 2nd and probably first three years free when a government is desperate for votes. All of this becuase National chose to keep them when they had the golden opportunity to remove them.
    
    Want to take my bet that if National get back in next term they wont scrap 3rd year free in the first year? (first year becuase I dont want to wait for 6 years to collect).
    
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    January 21, 2025 11:30am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      You won’t have to worry, it will be Labour Greens and TPM, Nats are fine, the whinging and whining is working, they are done, enjoy your last 2 years without huge taxes to take your wealth
      
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      January 21, 2025 6:22pm
cmm

I wonder whether LA is still going to host the 2028 Olympics or whether that will have to move?

There is also the SuperBowl in 2027, but that is probably simpler to move.
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January 21, 2025 9:53am
- Blog-aholic
  
  They have the spare land now so……….
  
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  January 21, 2025 10:02am
- MCōs
  
  I suppose it depends where the devastation occurred
  The Chch airport, for example, continued to operate even though the CBD was wrecked by earthquakes
  
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  January 21, 2025 10:11am
  - cmm
    
    Yeah, but Chch wasn’t trying to host the Olympics.
    
    One of the big factors is that there is massive competition for resources.
    
    The Olympics needs a whole lot of building resources (Olympic Village etc). Tens of thousands of houses need to be rebuilt using the same construction workers.
    
    The Olympics needs accommodation for tens of thousands of spectators etc. LA will still need that accommodation for their own people.
    
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    January 21, 2025 10:35am
- Manu-Rau
  
  The 1904 Olympics were originally meant to be hosted by Chicago, but were transferred to St Louis at President Roosevelt’s direction. So there is a precedent….
  
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  January 21, 2025 10:16am
- wsk12345
  
  Lots of empty land to build an Olympic village and all the stadia. Just a bit of rezoning needed, that shouldn’t be a problem.
  
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  January 21, 2025 10:28am
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  Trump is s as ready saying let’s fix this for the Olympics
  
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  January 21, 2025 10:38am
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    America does not build stuff at the pace NZ does.
    No messing about, they just do it.
    
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    January 21, 2025 11:24am
  - sungsamning
    
    Bugger.
    
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    January 21, 2025 5:59pm
Grunter

Add in “Free’ School lunches to the stupid crap list that carries on.

Borrowing money to provide $400m+ on school lunches FFS
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January 21, 2025 9:54am
- coge
  
  Big Nanny statism. Even ACT is in that one boots and all.
  
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  January 21, 2025 12:06pm
AitchW

Anyone know when the Manurewa marae report is due to be released? Not, one hopes, 4pm on Friday…
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January 21, 2025 9:55am
- JackRabbit
  
  4:59pm.
  
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  January 21, 2025 12:14pm
Steve Otto N Shore

This morning from Julian Batchelor.
“The Treaty Principles Bill Submissions Process Outcome. What Luxon Fears Most.”
More corruption is inevitable. The Treaty Principles select committee has announced that too many submitters have requested oral submissions. They can’t hear them all. MPs will pick who can and can’t make an oral submission, so the doors open for more corruption.
Why can’t the committee hear them? More like they don’t want to.
Video 20 minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNJszBhAoKo
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January 21, 2025 9:59am
- MCōs
  
  There’s eighty hours of oral submissions at best six an hour, but I would suspect somewhat less.
  That’s 480 tops out of hundreds of thousands of written submissions
  I would suggest by the time the committee has waded through that lot they’ll have covered every conceivable angle
  
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  January 21, 2025 10:30am
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    The Govt knew this would be big so Luxon has purposely Not allowed enough people for reading, and not made a decent timeline for it.
    Deceitful.
    
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    January 21, 2025 11:42am
- PurplePen
  
  Each party on the select committee gets to select an equal number of oral submissions. Standard practice is that not all oral submissions are heard, especially if they’re not contributing any new idea or information.
  
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  January 21, 2025 1:52pm
sungsamning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBpwbQvoVtY
America’s MOST Corrupt Mayor Is Getting Evicted.
Tiffany Henyard, the self-proclaimed “Super Mayor” of Dolton, Illinois, is back in the news with numerous lawsuits with her trustees and allegations that she’s being evicted for not paying rent.
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January 21, 2025 10:01am
sungsamning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6H4aXMciTq0
TikTok set to restore app in US after Trump reassurance.
Nearly 12 hours after TikTok went dark in the U.S., the platform is “in the process of restoring service,” the company announced on X.
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January 21, 2025 10:01am
- All_on_Red
  
  Only for awhile and to allow the Chinese time for an orderly sale of their Shareholding
  ‘Senators Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Pete Ricketts of Nebraska said in a joint statement. “For TikTok to come back online in the future, ByteDance must agree to a sale that satisfies the law’s qualified-divestiture requirements by severing all ties between TikTok and Communist China. Only then will Americans be protected from the grave threat posed to their privacy and security by a communist-controlled TikTok.”
  Probably go to a consortium. Given Musks plans for Twitter I doubt he will try to buy it.
  Be interesting how it gets priced. Its a money maker but they have to sell…
  
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  January 21, 2025 1:10pm
  - cmm
    
    ” Only then will Americans be protected from the grave threat posed to their privacy and security by a communist-controlled TikTok.”
    
    Oh please, Chinese companies are in league with the Party whether overtly or covertly. No real difference with USA companies.
    
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    January 21, 2025 2:04pm
    - All_on_Red
      
      Then there are all the US Entertainment companies which also own US media outlets who have been carrying water for China in order to protect their income from those entertainment outlets
      Huge hypocrisy but Tik tok is a good start
      
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      January 21, 2025 2:16pm
  - sungsamning
    
    I hope the sale goes through.
    
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    January 21, 2025 6:00pm
pdm

`MPs will pick who can and can’t make an oral submission, so the doors open for more corruption. Why can’t the committee hear them? More like they don’t want to.’

Why not by ballot then – much fairer.

BTW we were going to be told last Thursday the number of Submissions and I would have thought how they came out – for and against.

What is the hold up – are they weeding out the unacceptable – if so surely that would be done by now?
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January 21, 2025 10:17am
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  The corruption has been happening since the beginning of David Seymour’s writing of the Treaty Principles Bill. Govt even changed some of the wording before the first reading.
  
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  January 21, 2025 11:32am
- PurplePen
  
  Yes. The MP from each party selects an equal number of oral submissions. So it’s not a [as] if all submissions are selected by one party. Also, there’s no point in hearing an oral submission if it’s just duplicating what’s already been presented to the committee in writing or orally. An oral submission usually has to contribute new information or a new idea that the committee hasn’t yet read nor heard. This is standard practice across all select committees.
  
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  January 21, 2025 1:56pm
- cmm
  
  The Treaty clearly says that every submission that is a cut and paste off the TPM website must be individually read in full.
  
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  January 21, 2025 2:06pm
- rjay
  
  Read our host’s post from the other day. Oral submissions are to assist with more information, not to harrangue the lawmakers.
  
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  January 21, 2025 9:50pm
Yvette

Hobsons Pledge say …
Whanganui iwi and the Crown are currently negotiating a Treaty settlement and as part of it they want to embed several co-governance dynamics into the Whanganui District Council.This would mean that co-governance would be locked into the council via legislation …
https://nominister.wordpress.com/2025/01/20/co-governance-is-like-rust-it-never-sleeps/

Perhaps “Due to the disproportionate representation of Maori being arrested by Police in Northland our Settlement will intervene to adjust that matter.”

Or would that breach the Declaration of Human Rights and is that not written more into New Zealand law than the actual Treaty, since the late Maori King last January 20 advocated be done – the Treaty written into law,”so politicians could not mess with it”, so I assume he was correct.
Perhaps a Settlement will fix that.

Actually the last, final, end-of-it-all, exit-stage-left-Tribunal, tantamount Treaty settlement will be a real doozy if it is to mop up all this leftover crap.
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January 21, 2025 10:17am
Manu-Rau

In further evidence of cognitive decline amongst our local government leaders, Nelson Mayor Nick Smith has been struck down by TDS:

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/trump-inauguration-atom-claim-new-us-president-seemingly-rewrites-history-on-splitting-atom/P7GIUDDTSVG2FEDJUE5L3W5DBY/

Hey Nick, guess what? Trump never claimed that the US (or an American) was the first to split the atom. He simply said the US had.

Here’s a thought. Sort out Nelson’s rates and infrastructure problems before carrying out purile stunts like this.
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January 21, 2025 10:22am
- cmm
  
  Of course “splitting the atom” means different things to different people. Scientifically speaking it is a rather useless term.
  
  You split the atom every time you remove electrons from it. That occurs in almost every ionic chemical reaction, in batteries and when you create static electricity.
  
  Colloquially, splitting the atom really means splitting the nucleus which many people have done many times through historywithout realising it.
  
  Rutherford’s team were the first to do it as a controlled experiment.
  
  AFAIK he Americans were the first to do so on a useful (ie. industrial scale).
  
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  January 21, 2025 1:28pm
  - NothingLeft
    
    Humans have been splitting the atom since forever – a number of elements that make up our bodies include innately unstable/radioactive isotopes (Potassium 40 and Carbon 14 in particular)
    
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    January 21, 2025 6:56pm
Swifty

I just knew our media would run with this:

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/donald-trump-inauguration-elon-musk-performs-nazi-salute-draws-outraged-reaction/VY3GO2CPFVA2FN4OF4APXRNOBM/
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January 21, 2025 10:27am
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  That is not a Nazi salute. Notice the Herald item has no author?
  
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  January 21, 2025 11:38am
  - slightlyrighty
    
    Watching the video, it looked like one to me. Not once, but twice.
    
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    January 21, 2025 12:42pm
    - Steve Otto N Shore
      
      Media all over it like flies on shit. Lifting an arm sideways is a Nazi Salute? News to me.
      Heil Elon!//
      
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      January 21, 2025 2:00pm
    - Allan
      
      Really, he was talking about going to Mars.
      
      Watch the video with the sound on this time.
      
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      January 21, 2025 2:51pm
    - Swifty
      
      Are you seriously suggesting Musk meant it as a Nazi salute?
      
      If so, please provide your evidence.
      
      All I saw was a wave from a man clearly pumped and rather emotional.
      
      I’d add that I’ve seen all sorts of Dems, including presidents, wave like that over the decades while welcoming or acknowledging crowds, and not once have they ever been accused of being Nazis.
      
      This whole thing is deeply unsanitary and the NZ news media are soaking in it.
      
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      January 21, 2025 3:04pm
- Allan
  
  Yup, no need to put it in the actual context of what he was saying.
  
  And they wonder why trust in the media is crashing.
  
  It’s no wonder, they are full of distortions to fit their agenda.
  
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  January 21, 2025 11:44am
- All_on_Red
  
  Very bold of CNN (and others) to insinuate that the richest man in the world just made a Nazi salute just days after CNN lost a defamation suit which cost them Millions…
  
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  January 21, 2025 12:55pm
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    I think Elon gets a thrill out of suing the arse off the big time media.
    
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    January 21, 2025 2:05pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Notice how the NZ Herald doesn’t reference the slap to his heart at the start of the movement and his words…”my heart goes out to you”
  
  https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cpdxzjw9p47o
  
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  January 21, 2025 1:04pm
  - Swifty
    
    Indeed.
    
    And if you watch his whole speech he was pumped the whole time and throwing his hands out all over the place.
    
    The lefty media are the pits. They’ve fabricated this just like Posey Parker.
    
    The proposition that Elon Musk, who has never uttered a single racist word in his life to my knowledge, would suddenly use this opportunity to effectively announce a love of Hitler and his adherence to white supremacy is an absolute lie.
    
    Our news media who push this, or merely even hint at it, disgust me.
    
    What a totally vile, baseless slur.
    
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    January 21, 2025 1:29pm
    - goNZ1
      
      Elon was absolutely pumped after DJTs inauguration speech which included a reference to putting the USA flag on Mars…
      
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      January 21, 2025 4:07pm
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    Oh no, oh no, they left the slapping the heart bit out on the latest fake news!
    
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    January 21, 2025 2:03pm
  - All_on_Red
    
    ‘The media: We don’t know why we aren’t trusted anymore
    
    Also the media: Come spend the next 27 days with us pretending Elon did a Nazi salute’
    
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    January 21, 2025 2:17pm
- Swifty
  
  I see the Herald link (above) makes a factual claim “Musk performs Nazi salute”.
  
  https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/donald-trump-inauguration-elon-musk-performs-nazi-salute-
  
  I don’t know defamation or libel law in NZ but I hope he sues the fuck out of them, if he can.
  
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  January 21, 2025 1:33pm
  - PurplePen
    
    Link isn’t valid anymore.
    
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    January 21, 2025 3:52pm
    - Allan
      
      It was at that moment they realised they fucked up.
      
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      January 21, 2025 6:07pm
    - Swifty
      
      No I deliberately shortened it so people would read it rather than click on it.
      
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      January 21, 2025 6:10pm
  - NothingLeft
    
    Like the British womens right activist Posie Parker assaulted in Auckland Domain by the coalition of trans crazies who TV3 tried to pretend did a ‘secret white power hand signal’ (the ‘OK’ sign which coordinated 4-chan trolls convinced insane lefties was a white power signal for a laugh a few years back) during an interview when she grasping her zip between thumb and forefinger while adjusting it.
    
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    January 21, 2025 6:49pm
- cmm
  
  I am absolutely no Musk fan, but I hope he sues the pants off every single MSM outlet that ran with this whether they are in the USA, NZ or anywhere else.
  
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  January 21, 2025 2:08pm
wsk12345

If you’re interested in a rigorous analysis of the possible causes of autism, the latest dark horse podcast has an interview with a researcher who did this work. He went in wanting to confirm that the CDC had our best interests at heart and came out in a very different place.
All his research goes back to original sources and research so I’m sure it can all be traced back. I’ll be taking a good look as it was a fascinating interview.
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January 21, 2025 10:34am
Swifty

More jobs and junkets for the elites:

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/kahu/record-applications-expected-as-investment-fund-to-support-maori-language-revitalisation-opens/BNW3F46ZTJB6NH57D2CBSJFL4Q/

And look, not one mention of the taxpayers funding it all, merely talk about ‘partnerships with the Crown.’

https://www.tematawai.maori.nz/en/about-us/

That Maori can’t hang onto their language or even grow it without hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars annually thrown at it, tells us all we need to know about their desire to do so.

Their burning need…..
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January 21, 2025 10:47am
Chuck Bird

I see a Jewish child care centre was firebombed last night. If Dutton gets in these crimes will be reduced. Dutton is now polling even with Albo.
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January 21, 2025 11:36am
Sparrow

The Americans had a revolution to rid themselves of a foreign King who had limited powers. They replaced it with a system where an outgoing President can give pardons to all and sundry without any overseeing and the incoming President can issue hundreds of orders again without any oversight. Its seems they replaced one dictatorial system with another. That’s America
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January 21, 2025 12:33pm
- goNZ1
  
  well they must have got something right – they have been a super power ever since,unlike UK!
  
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  January 21, 2025 4:10pm
Jack5

New Zealand’s flag of convenience over flags of convenience …

Russia’s “dark fleet” of oil tankers sailing under various “flags of convenience” highlights registries in NZ-associated Cook Islands <i>and Niue.

Close to three-quarters of world shipping sails under “flags of convenience,” which attract ship owners with low or no taxes and labour rules that allow crews on Third World wages.

Since the Ukraine war, Russia has built a “dark fleet” of old tankers with flags typically of smaller and lesser known registries. With one – registered in the Cook Islands – accused by Finland, backed by NATO, of sabotaging cables, tensions are growing about the use of “convenience”-flagged vessels. For example, Taiwan, subject to unrelated cable sabotage, has announced it’s increasing security on them.

Driven by surging internet traffic, 1.3 million of kilometres of fibre-optic ocean cables have been laid. Flags of convenience are raising concern about sabotage risk from ships with unclear responsibility.

The Cook Islands-registered tanker Eagle S is held in Finland, accused of sabotaging Baltic power and internet cables.

Poster “Fightingtemeraire” noted on Kiwilog yesterday that the barge that grounded off Westport is registered in Niue.

Both registries date back to 2012 under the John Key Government. Head office of the foreign company that owns the Niue registry is in Singapore, with support offices in Shanghai, Dalian (China), Hong Kong, and Kuala Lumpur. The registry promotes advantages as central office being in Singapore; no restriction on: owners’
nationality and crew nationality; and “no income or capital gains tax”.

Niue and the Cook Islands have similar constitutional arrangements with New Zealand. For example, in NZ’s Niue Constitution Act 1974:

Section 6:

External affairs and defence

Nothing in this Act or in the Constitution shall affect the responsibilities of Her Majesty the Queen in right of New Zealand for the external affairs and defence of Niue.

NZ’s “responsibilities” with the islands should be alerting our politicians to potential problems from the island ship registries.

In both cases, far more of the islanders live in New Zealand than in their “home” islands. They have New Zealand citizenship, though the Cook Islands premier seems to be still pushing a plan for a “Cook Islands” passport, which New Zealand has rejected.

NZ rejects passport proposal:

https://nit.com.au/27-12-2024/15560/cook-islands-proposal-to-have-its-own-passport-overruled-after-refusing-to-break-association-with-new-zealand

Taiwan increases watch on flags of convenience:

https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/taiwan-moves-to-strengthen-communications-resilience-following-severed-undersea-cable

Risks from Russia’s growing “dark fleet”:

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/issue-brief/russias-growing-dark-fleet-risks-for-the-global-maritime-order/
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January 21, 2025 1:16pm
- fightingtemeraire
  
  Jack5
  
  When I went to sea in the mid 60’s the FoCs consisted of Liberia, Panama, Honduras. The majority of the fleets were from traditional maritime nations with well trained crews.
  
  The people that manned these vessels were employed by companies that in the main looked after them and “Management Companies” were unheard of.
  
  In the late 70’s the powers that be started bringing in regulations where all certificates were equal, and companies started “flagging out” and using el cheepo crews.
  
  This turned into a tidal wave and long standing companies disappeared because they could not compete. The manning went to the Asian Cheap Crews and management companies in HK, Philippines, Singapore etc etc.
  
  In the 1960’s the British Flag was the largest in the world. 3k ships. Now it is basically a FoC along with Malta, Marshall Islands etc etc etc.
  
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  January 21, 2025 2:27pm
NothingLeft

business idea:
Just been to the local dump. $365/tonne for general waste. That’s similar to the cost of freight from here to UK, Utterly insane and exploitative of a legislated monopoly created by weaseling green misanthropes that have wormed their way into positions of power withing local and central govt – with huge negative consequences on business, construction and household costs…

Anyway, collect waste and ship it on garbage scows to basically any other country on earth for burning and disposal of ash, international bulk shipping costs a few $10’s of dollars per tonne, and would be especially good for isolated Pacific islands like Nauru that would like to earn foreign revenue.
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January 21, 2025 1:19pm
- cmm
  
  Isn’t that effectively what we do with a lot of our “recycling”?
  
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  January 21, 2025 2:09pm
- GJM
  
  Explains the daily fly tipping around here. Much is obviously landscaping waste or someone having a clean out. I wonder if the person dumping got paid to dispose of it and pocketed the money instead. Common in the UK with pikeys
  
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  January 21, 2025 2:42pm
  - NothingLeft
    
    Maybe some NZ gangs could branch out. Offer a rubbish collection service at half the price, then just burn it on a rented property or better yet a facility on a Marae grounds – to produce heat, power and a few jobs in keeping with the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi.
    
    The racist wokie greens that infest our bureaucracies wouldn’t be able to bring themselves to touch them and the whole community would benefit from less extortionate rubbish fees
    
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    January 21, 2025 7:31pm
Bridgenag

Just a bit of fun

kitten corner: frozen assets
adventures in venture

https://open.substack.com/pub/boriquagato/p/kitten-corner-frozen-assets?r=1aj1bv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
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January 21, 2025 1:21pm
Bridgenag

unpardonable pardons
a new low and a truly dangerous precedent

https://open.substack.com/pub/boriquagato/p/pardon-me?r=1aj1bv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
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January 21, 2025 1:48pm
Bridgenag

Inauguration Day Random Mindwalk
Fear and loathing in the Imperial Capital. Frankly, I am stunned.

https://open.substack.com/pub/rwmalonemd/p/inauguration-day-random-mindwalk?r=1aj1bv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
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January 21, 2025 1:48pm
Jack5

Nick Smith, now Nelson’s Mayor, has challenged an inauguration claim by Donald Trump that Americans “split the atom”.

“That honour belongs to Nelson’s most famous and favourite son Sir Ernest Rutherford,” said the Mayor.

According to this account it was Ernest Walton and John Cockcroft, under the supervision of Rutherford:

https://ourplnt.com/splitting-the-atom/

Here’s the part of the Trump inauguration speech Nick Smith was referring to:

“Americans pushed thousands of miles through a rugged land of untamed wilderness. They crossed deserts, scaled mountains, braved untold dangers, won the Wild West, ended slavery, rescued millions from tyranny, lifted billions from poverty, harnessed electricity, split the atom, launched mankind into the heavens and put the universe of human knowledge into the palm of the human hand.”

Political blather.

Important parts of the speech included:

“I will immediately begin the overhaul of our trade system to protect American workers and families. Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries, we will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens. For this purpose, we are establishing the External Revenue Service to collect all tariffs, duties and revenues. It will be massive amounts of money pouring into our treasury coming from foreign sources.”

AND:

“… we will end the Green New Deal, and we will revoke the electric vehicle mandate, saving our auto industry and keeping my sacred pledge to our great American autoworkers. In other words, you’ll be able to buy the car of your choice.”

Nick Smith on Rutherford splitting the atom:

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/539505/nelson-mayor-responds-to-donald-trump-s-claim-america-split-the-atom-in-speech

The text of Trump’s inauguration speech:

https://abcnews.go.com/US/read-donald-trumps-inauguration-speech-transcript/story?id=117903564
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January 21, 2025 2:02pm
- David Garrett
  
  While Rutherford technically split the atom n 1917 – or at least detached a particle from it – I think Trump is probably claiming credit for nuclear fission, which was indeed achieved by the Americans – assisted by the Brits and physicists from many other nations – in the Manhattan project in 1945.
  
  I can’t remember the exact quote, but Rutherford is on record as saying the idea that endless energy could be released by “splitting the atom” is ” pure moonshine”, in other words he didn’t believe a nuclear bomb was even theoretically possible.
  
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  January 21, 2025 2:18pm
  - cmm
    
    DG: I know what you’re trying to say, but technically you would be incorrect that Rutherford was the first to detach particles from the atom.
    
    Electrons are particles too. They detach every time you form static electricity. That has been done for millennia and various discoveries/theories etc were established over the last 400 or so years.
    
    Rutherford’s team (Rutherford wasn’t the guy who actually did the experiment) were the first to propose and execute a controlled experiment to detach particles from the nucleus in a way that explained the properties of the nucleus.
    
    But even before then there were many nuclear experiments, but people had a far less clear model of what they were working with. For example, there was all the work done by Marie and Pierre Curie a decade or so before Rutherford’s team. Before them, many people had experimented with uranium etc and were “splitting the nucleus”without realising what they were doing.
    
    The history of this is a bit of an illustration of the different levels of science and understanding and there are many steps:
    * An observation of electric charge. (thousands of years ago with curiosity into static electricity)
    * Discovery of electron and associated experimentation (various)
    * Discovery of alpha particles (Rutherford, 1899)
    * Discovery of nucleus, but not splitting it (Rutherford, 1911).
    * Splitting the nucleus (Rutherford’s team)
    * Discovery of neutron (Chadwick, 1932 Great Britain).
    * Discovery of nuclear fission (Hahn et al1938 Germany)
    * Exploitation of nuclear fission (Manhattan project USA)
    
    All of these were important steps to get to nuclear power and bombs – especially the last two.
    
    As you say, Rutherford didn’t seem to have understood the potential energy implications at the time he made that statement, but that might have been because he made them before the “aha” moment when nuclear fission and E=mc2 were joined together to propose energy release.
    
    Rutherford died in 1937 – before some of the key discoveries were made.
    
    Rutherford certainly played a very important role in this sequence of discovery, but to say he played the most pivotal role would, IMHO, be incorrect. I would say that Hahn and the 1938 Germans did that (with a sprinkle of Einstein’s E=mc2).
    
    But we can’t go giving Jerry credit for the ultimate symbol of American power in WW2.
    
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    January 21, 2025 3:56pm
    - greybeard
      
      Oh come on, we all know that the maori discovered and developed all of this aeons ago…..
      
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      January 21, 2025 4:07pm
      - goNZ1
        
        apparently when Capt Cook hopped off his ship on arrival in NZ he tripped over a fiber optic cable the Iwi had not buried properly – later known as Te Broadband O Aotearoa
        
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        January 21, 2025 4:15pm
      - cmm
        
        Sorry GB, I forgot their monumental contribution.
        Pity they didn’t write it down.
        
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        January 21, 2025 6:34pm
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      The movie Opinheimmer suggested it wasn’t NZer or Rutherford either
      
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      January 21, 2025 6:26pm
- All_on_Red
  
  America did split the Atom (and built Bombs)
  Rutherfords team also split the atom
  Note Trump is not claiming the US did it first…
  Smith should calm down
  
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  January 21, 2025 2:22pm
  - David Garrett
    
    All on: Smith should also bone up on exactly what Rutherford did, and what he said about his achievement.
    
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    January 21, 2025 2:41pm
    - cmm
      
      Both Trump and Smith are playing the one-eyed Nationalism game here.
      
      Almost 100 years later it really doesn’t matter who invented what. What really matters is firing up a new nuke generators to make power that people need.
      
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      January 21, 2025 3:59pm
      - Quail
        
        Smith is good at dissension.
        Years in politics sharpened his skills
        
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        January 21, 2025 5:56pm
Chuck Bird

I just watched Trump sign a lot of Executive Orders while taking questions from the media on every possible subject. There is no doubt the guy is very smart and also funny.
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January 21, 2025 2:50pm
- PurplePen
  
  Link is here
  
  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=si19rPJi5NQ
  
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  January 21, 2025 3:59pm
- PurplePen
  
  In the signing a reporter asks ‘Isn’t it traditional for the previous president to leave a letter in the desk. Did Biden leave one?’ Trump says ‘I don’t know … shall we have a look. ‘ He pushes his chair back and opens the desk middle drawer and exclaims ‘Oooh .. what’s this’ and holds up an envelope saying ‘Looks like he did, I might not have seen that for months .. shall we read it now ‘. Quite the comic at times. Entertaining in a dry way at least.
  
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  January 21, 2025 4:06pm
Swifty

More looting of public amenities, this time a memorial to New Zealanders who perished in the Ballantyne fire.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/a-christchurch-memorial-for-ballantynes-fire-has-been-ransacked-by-thieves/4R3D42IU5RFKFOKVESJFHB6BUM/
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January 21, 2025 2:51pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  People have no knowledge of their history. That fire was absolutely devastating for New Zealand.
  
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  January 21, 2025 6:59pm
Paul Marsden

Trump’s stand on ‘climate change’ (and now that he has signed an Executive Order denoting withdraw from the Paris Accord), presents a real opportunity for either Act, or NZFirst to pick up on that, and challenge Luxon head-on with his views on this matter. In my opinion, his views are arrant nonsense and he is selling New Zealand taxpayers down the river, and for what economic gain the country should be asking?

Luxon finally lost my vote with his recent, arrogant response to the country regarding his position on the Treaty Bill, and I think New Zealander’s now needs to sheet home the message to National, that they haven got a show of winning the next election unless Luxon is either removed as leader and/or, he changes his position on addressing the growing, racial divide and the climate change issues, that have become a barrier to our economic prosperity.
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January 21, 2025 2:56pm
David Garrett

Taking back the Panama Canal is going to be interesting…another “special military operation” perhaps? This time on the other side of the Atlantic.
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January 21, 2025 2:58pm
- cmm
  
  I take this as taking back control of, or at least getting a favourable usage of, the Panama. That can be achieved in many ways. Military action is the least desirable way to do so.
  
  The best way to use a military is not to use it. It is just there on your side of the table.
  
  Currently Panama is under extensive Chinese influence and the Chinese are not using their military to accomplish this.
  
  Last I saw it can cost hundreds of thousands of $ to get one ship through the Panama Canal. Worse, there is a limited number of slots available.
  
  The USA really needs to pull its head out of its orifice and do away with the antiquated Jones Act. There was a reason for it in 1920 but that reason no longer exists.
  
  The Jones Act significantly interferes with the American ability to move goods around the country.
  
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  January 21, 2025 3:20pm
  - Jack5
    
    America’s admirals aren’t just worried about China’s influence in Panama.
    
    They’re concerned about the Chinese at the Straits of Magellan, according to the 2022 report linked to below.
    
    These passages are in Chile, but Javier Milei might get Argentina strong enough again to deter Chinese control. The price might just be US support for Argentina over the Falklands.
    
    US concern:
    
    https://news.usni.org/2022/03/24/chinese-investment-near-panama-canal-strait-of-magellan-major-concern-for-u-s-southern-command
    
    China eyeing Punta Arenas in far-south Chile:
    
    https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/why-the-u-s-and-china-suddenly-care-about-a-port-in-southern-chile/
    
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    January 21, 2025 4:32pm
  - MCōs
    
    Some information about the cost of using the Panama Canal
    https://www.argusmedia.com/en/news-and-insights/latest-market-news/2641684-trump-panama-tiff-highlights-rising-transit-cost
    
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    January 21, 2025 4:36pm
    - MCōs
      
      Some comments on China’s involvement in Panama
      https://theconversation.com/trumps-canal-canard-obscures-a-truth-panama-just-wants-to-run-its-shipping-passage-without-interference-from-china-or-the-us-246828
      
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      January 21, 2025 4:45pm
  - Ra Henare
    
    Think you will find that ACCESS to the Panama canal is the problem.
    
    With Chinese companies owning the ports at either end of the Canal.
    
    So they could theoretically deny port access to selected shipping.
    
    So its not the Canal actually but access that is the problem.
    
    So USA taking over the canal will NOT solve the problem.
    But its an easier soundbite to communicate
    
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    January 21, 2025 5:18pm
    - cmm
      
      I think when people talk of access to the Panama Canal they generally mean to the whole end-to-end package (ie. everything required to actually make the Panama Canal useful): water, ports and the canal itself.
      
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      January 21, 2025 6:32pm
      - Don Beckett
        
        I understand the treaty that the US had with Panama states that the US could claim it back if the operation of the canal became antithetical to US interests.
        I could be wrong.
        
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        January 21, 2025 7:44pm
goNZ1

in another one of his outstanding decisions Jimmy Carter kindly donated the Panama Canal to Panama, who waited a bit before selling it to China at 100% GP
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January 21, 2025 4:18pm
- [email protected]
  
  The wife and I transited the Panama canal 50 years ago on our 26 foot sailboat. We were required to have two pilots aboard for 8 hours each and were charged a whopping $US94.00 ( they charged by the ton and our sailboat was very little). What a deal back then!
  
  When we got back to the USA months later we had no idea about all the “peanut” jokes (Carter was a peanut farmer).
  
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  January 21, 2025 8:38pm
Steve Otto N Shore

Don’t get upset OK?
Trump is your President – the United Spot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q45IbMlnk_M
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January 21, 2025 4:23pm
Swifty

Not a sterling performance from the new team at the HRC over the racist Brown Town people:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KV1O_JHHN5M

Well done Chris Lynch.
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January 21, 2025 4:34pm
G the giant from Dunedin

Roy Morgan poll for December out, all coalition parties up, and and a combined gap of 64-56 seats, maybe all is not list
4 1
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January 21, 2025 6:28pm
- kiwikidsnz
  
  Roy Morgan poll update for December. Quite a different picture from last weeks Curia poll.
  
  “Roy Morgan’s New Zealand Poll for December 2024 shows the National-led Government (National, ACT & NZ First) on 51.5% (up 7.5% points) and clearly ahead of the Labour-Greens-Maori Party Parliamentary Opposition on 44% (down 6.5% points).
  
  For the National-led Government there were increases for all three coalition parties led by National, up 2.5% points to 31% and joined by ACT, up 4% points to 13% and NZ First, up 1% point to 7.5%. This is the highest level of support for ACT since the 2023 New Zealand Election.”
  
  https://www.roymorgan.com/findings/9813-nz-national-voting-intention-december-2024?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MRU%2021st%20Jan%202025&utm_content=MRU%2021st%20Jan%202025+CID_dae0f521d7ad1c01e49f3a2e840bc440&utm_source=Market%20Research%20Update&utm_term=Read%20Full%20Article
  
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  January 21, 2025 7:16pm
John Loveridge

The other day I read in passing that Duncan Garner is flouncing off to Australia, grizzling about the lack of opportunity in poor old New Zealand.

He may be right, but I wonder if in his case he hasn’t simply reached the end of the road in a dying industry. There must be a lot of competition for the slim pickings that still remain.
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January 21, 2025 6:31pm
greybeard

https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/360555227/opinion-paddy-gower-why-ferry-skipper-who-crashed-sailgp-should-get-promotion
I think that Paddy Gower has some deep and unresolved personal issues.
To me he appears to be a lonely person desperately searching for ,and needing , public approbation.
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January 21, 2025 7:35pm
Scooter

No messing about with Trump…

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-signs-executive-withdrawing-world-health-organization-2025-01-21/
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January 21, 2025 8:26pm

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