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January 25, 2025 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 25 January 2025

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General Debate

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NeverMindTheBollocks

It’s not often I agree with Andrew Little, but recalling his plaintive “but where did all the money go” when confronted by nil improvement following the $1B+ spend on mental health, on this occasion I concur.

I’d like Audit NZ to treat this as a case study in waste. Follow the money, from its appropriation to its appearance in the Actuals. What was the flow from the Ministry’s cheque book? Who was the money spent on? What were the contracted outcomes? What was achieved? Who was tasked with assessing outcomes? And so on.

Such an exercise would be informative about Jacinda’s government.
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January 25, 2025 8:02am
- Taieri
  
  I’d like Audit NZ to treat this as a case study in waste. Follow the money, from its appropriation to its appearance in the Actuals
  ——————
  
  Such an audit should be conducted on all government expenditure. Continously…
  
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  January 25, 2025 10:57am
- Tom Hunter
  
  I think many of us sympathised with Little on that front.
  
  My sympathy was tempered by the thought that if Little didn’t know, as Minister of Health, then who the hell did, or could?
  
  Moreover, did he learn any lessons from this? Did the rest of the Left?
  
  Nope. Instead the answer was and remains to just pour in more money to create a bigger health care system.
  
  Oh, and “management systems” to help a future Minister of Health control things better. They can call the system GOSPLAN.
  
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  January 25, 2025 11:59am
- Damocles11
  
  Can we get Waipereira Trust and Whanau Ora audited as well?
  
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  January 25, 2025 12:41pm
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    Waipereira trust is being investigated
    
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    January 25, 2025 1:32pm
    - Paulus
      
      Waipereira still being investigated – Still ?
      
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      January 25, 2025 2:04pm
      - AitchW
        
        Yup. Report out toward the end of January. Maybe.
        
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        January 25, 2025 4:57pm
- Michael Sommerville
  
  My question is If he has these concerns now, why didn’t he do something about it when he was in government? That “something” means find out where the money went and take action against those who spent it without an improvement in outcomes.
  
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  January 25, 2025 1:20pm
- JackRabbit
  
  It’s not often I agree with Andrew Little, but recalling his plaintive “but where did all the money go” when confronted by nil improvement following the $1B+ spend on mental health, on this occasion I concur.
  
  Little’s other reply option would have been “I know where the money went, as I was part of it disappearing, but I cannot tell you.”
  
  That reply would be more accurate, but put him in the spotlight.
  
  If you are standing on the land you bought to build a house, and you ask where did the $1.5M I paid you to build my house go, you don’t agree with him.
  
  The $1B+ spend on mental health was never meant to achieve anything, it was just another hole in the ground down which to pour money.
  
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  January 25, 2025 1:38pm
  - Paulus
    
    I still think we need to see some detailed statistical analysis of where the money for support of the exponentially increasing Mental Health schedule went, and to whom, and in what quantity.
    Why are we not able to see this – where is it being hidden ?
    
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    January 25, 2025 2:07pm
    - JackRabbit
      
      Why are we not able to see this – where is it being hidden?
      
      Ask Little. Oh that’s right, they did and he feigned concern.
      
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      January 25, 2025 2:09pm
- AitchW
  
  Koha, hui, consultation.
  
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  January 25, 2025 4:32pm
Bridgenag

Friday Funnies: Promises Made –
Promises kept.

https://open.substack.com/pub/rwmalonemd/p/friday-funnies-promises-made?r=1aj1bv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
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January 25, 2025 8:04am
- Benedict Yu
  
  Robert Malone is far from funny.
  
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  January 25, 2025 9:28am
  - kevn
    
    BY… Doesn’t fit your stance I’m guessing.
    Malones collection of funnies are always good. The fauci one this week is very good.
    
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    January 25, 2025 9:42am
    - Benedict Yu
      
      Malone is a fraud and a public menace.
      
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      January 25, 2025 10:06am
      - Grunter
        
        Why?
        
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        January 25, 2025 10:34am
      - Mummy
        
        So is Fauci
        
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        January 25, 2025 10:35am
      - wsk12345
        
        Could say the same about people that push the “vaccine”. At least he has some scientific knowledge of mRNA which none of us here do.
        
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        January 25, 2025 10:47am
      - NK
        
        Fauci is the fraud and the public menace, not Dr Malone.
        
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        January 25, 2025 10:49am
      - hmmokrightitis
        
        Love to see the evidence you have for that ostensibly libelous comment BY.
        
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        January 25, 2025 11:01am
      - Observer of Life
        
        BY: You’ve missed the //
        
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        January 25, 2025 1:41pm
      - Paulus
        
        Never heard of him !
        
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        January 25, 2025 2:10pm
      - Keith White
        
        Malone has not needed a pardon.
        Malone has never claimed he is the sole source of any truth.
        Malone has never said we all need regular mRNA boosters to stay alive.
        Malone has not lied like a carpet / like the staff of the whole of Medsafe and the MOH and the NZMC did when they said the vaccine was safe, prevented severe illness and death, and prevented transmission.
        Etc.
        
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        January 25, 2025 4:59pm
      - Benedict Yu
        
        “MRNA” “boosters” those scary words that trigger every anti vaxxer.
        
        The vaccine is safe and effective. It does significantly reduce transmission for about four months. That is as good as the annual flu vaccine. Most of us have had at least 30 of those if we were adults in the mid 90s. It reduces severe illness and death for at least 12 months if you are unfortunate enough to have caught COVID although you were vaccinated. BTW if you had two shots in 2021 and that was it, that means you are now unvaccinated.
        
        If the vaccine was not safe and effective I would hardly have it injected every six months would I? 🤨
        
        Unless you have a risk factor for COVID, you don’t need the vaccine every six months. Every 12 months is fine. Just get it the same appointment you get your annual flu vaccine and stop worrying.
        
        There is no rational reason to not get the flu and COVID vaccine every autumn. Fear of that is about as rational as fear of comets or the sky mother. I don’t want to contract COVID. Ever. Not even with ‘mild’ symptoms. Why would anyone want that?
        
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        January 25, 2025 7:50pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        BY – I’m sure you know about hills and shit and rakes … AFAICT noone on the blog wants to believe you. I doubt (no evidence) that you have converted any antivaxxers.
        
        Why not just put it all to sleep at your end? Nod and shrug ….
        
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        January 26, 2025 9:22am
  - imalwaysright
    
    Dr Robert Malone invented the mRNA technology that was used by pfizer to produce the drug you say you rely on.
    
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    January 25, 2025 9:51am
    - Benedict Yu
      
      Oh for fucks sake. He promotes himself as having “invented” MRNA technology. He has been doing so since 2020.
      
      https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02483-w
      
      He is just another anti vaxxer fraud.
      
      No I do not “depend” on COVID vaccines. I do. I simply get vaccinated like millions of others.
      
      Yes I get you are scared of vaccines and you complain that you don’t like my kiwiblog alias. For reasons. None of your business.
      
      You don’t need to be vaccinated. Knock yourself out. But don’t stoop to believing the bullshit of grifters and frauds.
      
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      January 25, 2025 11:26am
      - Observer of Life
        
        BY: And on that little rant you posted I no longer have the respect I once had for you. That is quite incredible.
        
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        January 25, 2025 1:44pm
      - JackRabbit
        
        BY,
        
        You are right, Malone didn’t invent the Covid mRNA vaccine.
        
        But he was the project manager and lead researcher that created the mRNA process. A process that was flawed from day one, and had disastrous results when used as a ‘vaccine’ against Ebola, by Moderna, with Fauci and Gates as significant investors.
        
        As I keep saying to you BY, copying and pasting, or simply reading a summarised article put out by people that also copy and paste, IS NOT RESEARCH!!!
        
        mRNA did not work with Ebola. It didn’t work with Covid, and is dangerous, as it modifies human DNA.
        
        I think Robert Malone knows 10,000% more than you on the subject, and is able to produce the science and underlying principles and logic.
        
        Unlike you, who has only the occasional copy and paste of confirmational bias links, and Pavlov’s dog phrases such as “debunked”, “conspiracy theory”, “anti-vaxxers” to put forward your viewpoint.
        
        If you want to prove me wrong, how about you communicate what happened in the Congo from about 2015 onwards, in respect of Ebola and Moderna, and how that impacted the “proof” that mRNA “worked” and how the opened the door to using mRNA for Covid. Entertain us with your research and medical/scientific prowess.
        
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        January 25, 2025 1:52pm
      - Keith White
        
        BY – Is Dr Malone in the room with you right now?
        
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        January 25, 2025 5:00pm
      - rouppe
        
        Then there’s this…
        
        https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/covid-19-vaccines-doctors-role-in-identifying-astrazenecas-concerning-side-effects/CDYJ2HSZKFEU7PCUOR3DGOLPRQ/
        
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        January 25, 2025 11:41pm
    - Inandout
      
      ima, now that Fauci has been pardoned I guess we will never know. As for Pfizer, well they made a mint out of Covid.
      
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      January 25, 2025 12:33pm
      - Tom Hunter
        
        He can still be called to testify before Congress and cannot plead the 5th in answering any question directed at those times and actions for which he has been pardoned.
        
        Moreover, if he commits perjury in those answers that’s a new crime. Whether the typically spineless GOP Congress would be willing to follow that up with criminal charges is another question, although the Democrats gleefully doing so against Trump’s 1st term people may have made an impact when it comes to precedent.
        
        Same applies Liz Cheney and company
        
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        January 25, 2025 3:15pm
      - JackRabbit
        
        …now that Fauci has been pardoned I guess we will never know….
        
        [1] We already know.
        
        [2] Fauci is pardoned, but only for the things that are publicly confirmed he did wrong, any USA pardon does not extended to state convictions, and does not cover Fauci for a future impeachment as a govt official.
        
        Despite the breadth of the President’s authority under the Pardon Clause, the Constitution’s text provides for at least two limits on the power: first, clemency may only be granted for “Offenses against the United States,” meaning that state criminal offenses and federal or state civil claims are not covered. Second, the President’s clemency authority cannot be used “in Cases of impeachment.”
        
        https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/article-2/section-2/clause-1/overview-of-pardon-power
        
        Impeachment:
        “A charge of misconduct made against the holder of a public office.”
        
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        January 25, 2025 4:29pm
  - slijmbal
    
    @Benedict
    
    Suggest you’re reacting to your own beliefs. While I don’t find the majority of Malone’s stuff funny (he’s too busy hammering a point rather than being funny IMO) he does consistently puncture certain beliefs and is occasionally pithy and very funny.
    
    Mind you I could say that about the majority of sites that post ‘funnies’.
    
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    January 25, 2025 10:45am
Cassandra

Predictably Luxon used his Ratana speech to tell his audience that he won’t undo He Puapua – cogovernance will continue under a National Government led by him. Not in so many words but that’s the drift. Luxon’s idea of a debate on this issue is to say “I’ll kill the Bill”. No mention of the issues. Peters confirmed that on behalf of NZ First. So the battle lines are drawn: if you want apartheid in Aotearoa vote left ie Labour or National or vote stupid ie NZF. If you want equality of opportunity for all vote ACT. As a National Party member (for now) I am appalled by their weakness on this vital matter.
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January 25, 2025 8:05am
- wsk12345
  
  Is there a link to this? If correct it’s completely appalling. They promised to stop this shit.
  
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  January 25, 2025 8:15am
  - pdm
    
    You tube had it last night.
    
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    January 25, 2025 11:27am
- Philview
  
  I agree with your sentiment but I think the number one priority for National has to be the economy. If the economy is still broken next year then we could be looking at a one term Government. On RNZ this morning reporting last year as being an economic disaster for NZ but no mention of the Labour Party policies that caused it.
  
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  January 25, 2025 8:33am
  - Cassandra
    
    Of course the economy is the most important (after the nation’s security) but most people can rub their tummy and pat their head simultaneously. These are important constitutional issues and Luxon has backed himself into a corner. While he’s not stupid mostly , in this case he’s been a total idiot.
    
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    January 25, 2025 11:39am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      Then bye bye coalition, hellos Labour, Greens and TPM. Good luck, CGT and wealth tax is what the luvvies wish for, and Peters will not care a damn about that
      
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      January 25, 2025 1:22pm
      - Graeme Hall
        
        Is it not possible to replace Luxon now and still keep the coalition Govt running? Seems to me it is.
        
        The sooner the better gives his successor PM more time to take corrective action.
        
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        January 25, 2025 2:43pm
      - Ghost
        
        Why replace the pm? Is the government not doing what they agreed to do in the coalition agreement? Perhaps replace the leader of act who only managed to get the other two parties to agree to support his bill to the first reading.
        
        I tend to think some of the people on this blog are very disconnected from the reality outside of it. The panic hits the people here who claim to not be poll focused but are shitting themself over the poll
        
        Polls go down, polls go up.
        
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        January 25, 2025 3:13pm
  - kowtow
    
    If the racist constitutional arrangements are not fixed the economy will continue to be dragged into tribalist mire , firms won’t want to invest , foreign capital will stay away and labour continue to flee to Australia.
    
    And hard earned taxpayer money will continue to be pissed away too.Keeping govt tax take and interest payments higher than they should be .
    
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    January 25, 2025 12:47pm
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    We are looking at a one term government now, over this one issue which can be dealt with other ways. The centre is being scared left as we speak, they do not want a stronger Act, good luck, Peter’s will guarantee Labour if they finish ahead of Nats
    
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    January 25, 2025 1:24pm
    - JackRabbit
      
      Peter’s will guarantee Labour…
      
      No he won’t. His supporting Labour in 2017, was due to Ardern seducing Winston with sweet lies of promising to be different to Little, embracing capitalism, and the free market. And the moment the election was over, she revealed her true agenda.
      
      He was temporarily seduced by her lies, just as an entire nation was seduced by her “safe and effective” lies, when she had information that told her it was unsafe and ineffective.
      
      Plus, and this is a biggie, Winston has lost friends to the ravages of the “safe and effective” vaccine.
      
      There is no coming back from losing friends that shouldn’t have died.
      
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      January 25, 2025 2:33pm
      - Ghost
        
        If Winston stands next election, Winston will go with whoever gives him the better deal.
        
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        January 25, 2025 3:14pm
      - JackRabbit
        
        Circumstances and losses change people. As so being lied to and betrayed.
        
        Saying the Winston will go with whoever gives him the better deal is crazy. The chances of Winston coupling up with certifiable mad / woke / treasonous people, is about as likely as you having an affair with the hot blond single woman next door, after finding out she is a “bunny boiler”.
        
        Seriously Ghost, beware of projecting shallowness onto others.
        
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        January 25, 2025 3:36pm
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        Wrong as usual, he supported Lsbour after Nats thrashed Labour in the election, he can easily now say I won’t get that wrong again, Labour leads Nats he has no choice, stop talking rubbish, Peters was haunted for putting labour in , but look at the difference
        
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        January 25, 2025 4:14pm
      - Benedict Yu
        
        The COVID vaccine is safe. It is also effective. Not as Jacinda described it but what is new? Why would you believe anything she said? How is the COVID vaccine less effective than the Flu vaccine? We have all been having that every autumn for 30 years. Quit with the hysteria.
        
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        January 25, 2025 5:08pm
      - kiwimike
        
        I disagree, Winston is a Liar.
        not to be trusted again, with his mate Shane (I’m all for co-governance) Jones..
        
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        January 25, 2025 5:46pm
      - JackRabbit
        
        @Benedict
        
        [1] The COVID vaccine is safe.
        No, outside of all the stats, it is NOT safe.
        If I know dozens of people who have injuries, verified as vaccine injuries, and know of (by name or relative/friend of someone I know) that died very soon after the vaccine, then by extrapolation, the nationwide stats are jaw dropping. If you know 8 children that died after sucking a toy painted with lead, would you believe some idiot on a blog that says lead painted toys are “safe”?
        
        Besides Pfizers own data said it was not safe.
        OIA’s reveal both Medsafe and Bloomfield knew it was unsafe.
        
        [2] It is also effective.
        Again, see [1]
        
        [3] Not as Jacinda described it but what is new? Why would you believe anything she said?
        She said it was “safe and effective”. I don’t believe anything she says and yet you do?
        
        [4] How is the COVID vaccine less effective than the Flu vaccine? It is as useless as the flu vaccine.
        
        [5] We have all been having that every autumn for 30 years.
        Whose “we” Tonto?
        I never have.
        
        [6] Quit with the hysteria.
        I’m not hysterical, just point out the obvious facts and the obvious logic. As per [3] you have stated you do not believe anything Ardern said, yet you have.
        
        Ardern said it was “safe and effective” and here you are parroting that, yet you clearly state that you do not believe anything she says.
        
        Ardern had 20 million reasons to tell her lies. What are your reasons for repeating her lies? What is your payoff?
        
        And I’m still waiting on your analysis regarding the Congo / Ebola / Moderna.
        
        Do you actually have any specifics or do you make it up on the fly?
        
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        January 25, 2025 6:05pm
  - JackRabbit
    
    Economy is important, but so are the continuing vaccine deaths and injuries. Jacinda’s legacy continues to impact on the health of NZ.
    
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    January 25, 2025 1:54pm
- Damocles11
  
  I’m surprised you haven’t quit National. You admit to the dire circumstances the party has fallen into, with Luxon now demonstrably ignoring his base and instead pandering to elites and racial separatists. Luxon couldn’t take this stance alone, the Party backs him otherwise we’d be taking a different track to the one Luxon is cutting. My guess is that Potaka has said he will walk if Luxon does not follow the co-governance line. It may be a case of the entire country now being held hostage by one man, which is totally unacceptable in a democracy. Aside from that, Luxon appears to have gone full globalist, seemingly set to open the immigration floodgates and import a sizeable chunk of the population of India. He also thinks partnerships between the likes of Blackrock and Iwi to build and toll New Zealand roads would be a good thing for this country. The man is somewhere between strange and dangerous.
  
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  January 25, 2025 8:43am
  - rockape
    
    If you are anti Blackrock, I hope you don’t have a ASB KiwiSaver. It’s 100% Blackrock and buy the way is doing rather well for ASB customers.
    
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    January 25, 2025 11:08am
- Grunter
  
  I love free speech. It allows you to hear what people are thinking. When you scroll through the various Ratana speeches yesterday you can see it was a hotbed of Maori Separatists (apartheid) encouraged by Luxon, Peter’s and Jones.
  
  To say that any of this is ‘centre-right’ is just a joke. It’s a mixture of outright communism and centre-left nonsense that is rapidly moving further left.
  
  If the NZ majority keep voting in this rubbish then we will get what we deserve.
  
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  January 25, 2025 8:48am
- kowtow
  
  On the campaign trail Luxon was adamant , “One man ,one vote”.
  
  That was his short sound bite to assure concerned voters he’d deal with the Maorification of our constitutional arrangements.
  
  Something we can now see he didn’t really intend to do.
  
  If we want real change and a truly liberal democratic constitution then National /NZF voters must switch to Act.
  
  Otherwise the constitution is doomed .
  
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  January 25, 2025 8:50am
  - Paulus
    
    What Consitution, the Treaty One you and he mean ?
    
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    January 25, 2025 2:12pm
- G152
  
  That bill will be sitting like a hawk on shoulders watching for the time to reappear
  
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  January 25, 2025 8:52am
- Pope Punctilious II
  
  What exactly is “stupid” about NZF?
  
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  January 25, 2025 8:56am
  - Cassandra
    
    Not supporting the Principles Bill. Did you read the post and subsequent comments?
    
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    January 25, 2025 11:42am
    - Ghost
      
      They have there own way of doing it. Nz first and national have chosen to replace or repeal treaty principals from law. Just because you dont agree with their way doesn’t make it stupid.
      
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      January 25, 2025 11:53am
      - Ian Boag
        
        Not to mention that “this is stupid … ” gets put forward as “debate”. A KB feature 🙂
        
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        January 25, 2025 12:08pm
      - Mr T
        
        But they are not in fact doing that
        
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        January 25, 2025 12:51pm
      - Ghost
        
        Umm they have actually released the list of what they are working on
        
        https://www.scribd.com/document/778721331/Scope-of-Treaty-of-Waitangi-clause-review
        
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        January 25, 2025 1:14pm
      - Cassandra
        
        “Stupid” is a matter of opinion. Is NZF along with National going to remove mention of the Principles from the 1975 Act? No, I didn’t think so.
        
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        January 25, 2025 1:14pm
- Scott
  
  Luxon has to walk a fine line. Many many NZers have been influenced by the view that “NZ is a racist country full of institutional racism that is blatantly unfair to Maori”. I myself was indoctrinated in that view as far back as 1979 at a marae where we students were lambasted by Hone’s mother about our racism. Now I grew up, became a Christian and am now adamantly opposed to that view. However many many NZers of good will sincerely believe the racism trope.
  
  National has to walk a fine line with them. National has to command at least 30% support. Act on the other hand is a 10% party that doesn’t need the “NZ is a racist country” crowd.
  
  I thought Luxon was calm and measured and responded well to questions at Ratana. His Maori affairs spokesman was beside him and he is a credible voice for maoridom.
  
  Luxon is not continuing He Puapua. The ramparts of He Puapua were struck down when in the first 100 days the coalition got rid of the Maori health authority, 3 waters and made councils hold referendums on Maori wards.
  
  I agree with Winston Peters; there are no principles in the Treaty. It was an agreement between two peoples. Therefore all references to the Treaty will be taken out of legislation unless directly relevant.
  
  If National gets that done it will be a good thing. I believe Luxon is doing a fine job and the govt is way better than many of us expected. But the seeds of “NZ is a racist country” have been sown for decades and they will take a long time to uproot.
  
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  January 25, 2025 9:03am
  - Damocles11
    
    Luxon is a weak appeaser who fawns over the left wing MSM and Maori activists. He is a corporate robot walking the line set down by his corporate DEI handlers. The silent majority of New Zealanders will soon repudiate en masse Luxons weak approach to maori separatism and naorification.
    
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    January 25, 2025 10:38am
  - NK
    
    Luxon’s “bit by bit, piece by piece” approach cannot work in the medium to long term because it’s too easy for these changes to be reversed. That is why Act’s bill is so necessary. There needs to be constitutional reform that is overarching and provides the fundamentals. Without that, National’s tinkering around the edges is a waste of time and effort.
    
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    January 25, 2025 10:56am
  - Cassandra
    
    Scott: the 1975 Act says that the ToW has principles. Subsequent Acts and the common law have defined them. End of story unless you change the law. National is not walking a fine line. Luxon has rejected anything remotely resembling fine line.
    
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    January 25, 2025 11:45am
    - Scott
      
      Cassandra, that’s what the agreement between NZ First and National is all about. Taking any references to the Treaty of Waitangi out of the legislation, in other words out of the law. Unless such references are directly relevant.
      
      That’s changing the law. What National and NZ First are doing is not wrong but it’s different from the Act approach.
      
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      January 25, 2025 12:07pm
      - Damocles11
        
        And again, let me know when National and NZ First actually get around to doing what they purportedly said they would do. So far they haven’t done a thing.
        
        8 2
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        January 25, 2025 4:08pm
  - Mr T
    
    But will they also stop every govt department, university or school being” treaty led”.
    I very much doubt it
    
    12 0
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    January 25, 2025 12:53pm
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    There is only one thing, Nats at 30% and Labour at 32% then Peters goes left
    
    5 4
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    January 25, 2025 1:19pm
  - Michael Sommerville
    
    I Winston was true to his word, he would be fighting to repeal Geofrey Palmer’s Treaty Principles Act.
    
    13 0
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    January 25, 2025 1:42pm
- Paulus
  
  Tragically have been a similar vote point place in UK, but to National here for 50 years and could not anticipate that I will not vote in the next election despite likeing my local MP personally
  Seriously, I am ashamed to think this way,
  
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  January 25, 2025 9:03am
  - Damocles11
    
    If you don’t vote and thereby help the far Leftists take power then that’s on you. The choice is not between National and not voting, there are other choices.
    
    19 1
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    January 25, 2025 9:12am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      Weakening the Nats is not a protest vote either, it simply delivers Peters to the vulgar smug left
      
      6 7
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      January 25, 2025 1:16pm
- septic skeptic
  
  I wonder how many Maori have shifted their vote to National from LGTPM as a result of Luxon’s refusal to engage with the people that submitted in support of the bill? Even one would exceed my estimate. I just don’t know what Luxon stands for. “Too simplistic” is a very daft argument.
  
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  January 25, 2025 9:05am
- Jack5
  
  Bills that progress no further than first reading are going to be useful as long as NZ has coalition governments, and that’s as long as MMP continues.
  
  This one allows ACT supporters — and far more other New Zealanders, for and against — to air their views.
  
  It also allows the other coalition partners to differentiate themselves.
  
  ACT is making the best possible stand it can. Next step for ACT: widen its base to fight National harder in electorates up and down the country.
  
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  January 25, 2025 9:10am
- cmm
  
  I wonder how many National members are members (for now)?
  
  Most National voters are not party members and will feel far less compulsion to stick around.
  
  35 3
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  January 25, 2025 9:14am
  - pdm
    
    That’s me cmm – reconsidering my Electorate Vote already and like Paulus above I think my current National Electorate MP is good value.
    
    25 2
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    January 25, 2025 9:19am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      Hahaha, good for you helping elect a Labour mp yo replace your hood Nat no
      
      4 21
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      January 25, 2025 10:08am
      - pdm
        
        It is a protest vote G.
        
        The last time I used it was to vote for Margaret Martindale (Labour) against the late John Falloon in the year Lange won.
        
        It was anti Muldoon vote not an anti Falloon, who was a capable and decent man.
        
        BTW Falloon still won the electorate.
        
        13 2
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        January 25, 2025 10:37am
      - wsk12345
        
        Well maybe it will get the local MPs to actually stand up for their constituents, if they are likely to get voted out for NOT standing up.
        
        10 1
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        January 25, 2025 10:59am
      - NK
        
        And right on cue, here’s G the giant extolling the virtues of National just because it’s not Labour.
        
        People like pdm and I want and demand better. I couldn’t care less about Labour being in government provided their policy prescription is decent. Of course it won’t be, but I’m not voting National if there’s is bang average and weak too.
        
        22 3
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        January 25, 2025 11:00am
      - Cassandra
        
        G For Heaven’s sake proof your comments. You, assisted by autocorrect, write rubbish.
        
        19 3
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        January 25, 2025 11:49am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      How did the protest let’s vote NZF to teach Nats a lesson go in 2017? Don’t forget the Nats ended that election with 45% and Peters went left, he will do it again with the childish protest vote
      
      3 5
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      January 25, 2025 1:29pm
      - kiwimike
        
        got it in 1.
        How come others don’t ?
        
        1 0
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        January 25, 2025 6:03pm
    - Countrygirl
      
      The Tauranga MP seems good and appears to be representing his constituents. As far as my electorate, Bay of Plenty , is concerned. I just don’t know whether he just turns up or is actually doing anything.
      
      4 0
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      January 25, 2025 4:27pm
- Souvlaki
  
  I think its time we put heat on individual National MPs.
  Luxon has ” idée fix” imo….besotted with his jingoistic ‘buzzwords’, not a GENUINE thinker at all….
  
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  January 25, 2025 9:32am
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    You are an. Act voter, don’t try and suggest anything else
    
    4 28
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    January 25, 2025 10:09am
    - pdm
      
      G there is nothing to stop ACT voters putting pressure on National Electorate MP’s.
      
      I copy Catherine Wedd (to whom I gave my Electorate voted) in on any emails I send to any MP’s.
      
      Including one this morning to James Meager and others requesting details of submissions on the TBP be made publicly available.
      
      My email was based on this:
      https://nominister.wordpress.com/2025/01/25/hey-james-meager/
      
      With some obvious amendments because obviously I did not say – Hey James Meager.
      
      Copied in were Messrs Luxon, Seymour, Peters, Hipkins and Catherine Wedd.
      
      9 0
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      January 25, 2025 12:26pm
      - Ghost
        
        Ummm, you want the submissions? If so you can read them on the parliament website. It will take them a while to get them up
        
        https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/sc/submissions-and-advice/
        
        1 2
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        January 25, 2025 12:59pm
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        Catherine Weed is a very good hardworking MP, I hear a lot through work from people in that electorate praising her work before the election during the storms and the damage, well done helping deliver another useless Labour mp, such a f….n waste
        
        2 5
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        January 25, 2025 1:09pm
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        Put pressure on ya own MPs for delivering nothing apart from Brooke
        
        0 3
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        January 25, 2025 2:47pm
- Benedict Yu
  
  Can anyone explain why New Zealand politicians troop off every January to pay homage to the followers of an obscure religious denomination?
  
  On the substance of your comment yes I agree. My week never recovered from the revelation that MBIE paid 4 million dollars to fix unhealthy trees by playing whale noises.
  
  https://www.chrislynchmedia.com/news-items/4-million-spent-on-kauri-tree-research-using-whale-song-and-whale-oil-potions/
  
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  January 25, 2025 9:33am
  - Scott
    
    Ratana was an important revival leader in the early part of the 20th century bringing healing and revelation to the Maori people. The Labour Party has made an annual pilgrimage to Ratana for many decades. It’s important that major parties like National show up as well to be a part of the conversation.
    Watching the press conference I think Luxon handled himself well at Ratana.
    
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    January 25, 2025 10:00am
    - Damocles11
      
      Ratana was a faith healing religious leader in the early part of the 20th century so our Prime Minister must show up at Ratana Church every year to ‘be part of the conversation’. No, the Prime Minister and the National party must not be under any obligation to do any such thing. It’s time to start recognising the multi-cultural society that exists in New Zealand and stop this practice of fawning at the feet of all things Maori. Right now we are in the midst of ‘Maori Grievance Season’ and the worst and most divisive part of it is yet to come: Waitangi Day. The whole thing is a weeping sore perpetuated by a National Party which demonstrably does disastrous things such as getting into bed with the Maori Party and courting Tau Henare – a person who now spends most of his time slating the National Party. At some stage centre-right voters will utterly repudiate Nationals ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ approach to the Maori activists.
      
      15 1
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      January 25, 2025 10:34am
      - Scott
        
        First of all I respect Ratana and the healing and prophecy he bought to the Maori people. If National is not there then the field is clear for the opposition to speak out their message without reply. Seymour is going to Waitangi and I respect him for that.
        
        Secondly multicultural is OK but the bedrock of NZ and indeed western civilisation in general is Christian. Where Christianity has receded we have cultural Marxism, wokeness, Islam, paganism, radical environmentalism coming in to fill the gap.
        
        As I often said the people will have a religion. I strongly recommend that one hour a week in church.
        
        6 4
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        January 25, 2025 12:36pm
      - Paulus
        
        First thing we do is to change the name back from Waitangi Day, and whilst having a day of whatever, it should be back to New Zealand Anniversary Day.
        I will never call it Waitangi Day again.
        Just a day off with family and friends.
        Maori can do what they like for the day also, but leave me out of it !
        
        10 0
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        January 25, 2025 2:19pm
      - Countrygirl
        
        I thought National under John Key, bringing in the Maori party was a good move at the time. Of course that Maori party bore little resemblance to the current lot.
        
        2 0
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        January 25, 2025 4:31pm
      - PurplePen
        
        Ironically, Waitangi Day originally was a small private gathering. Then Kirk (PM) said let’s make it NZ Day and include something from all NZ cultures. Then Muldoon in courting Maori votes changed it to Waitangi Day, et voila! We have what we have today.
        
        1 0
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        January 25, 2025 6:08pm
    - imalwaysright
      
      “It’s important that major parties like National show up as well to be a part of the conversation.”
      
      What’s the conversation about?
      
      12 0
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      January 25, 2025 11:02am
    - kowtow
      
      Christian missionaries had a central role in all things treaty negotiations in 1840 .
      
      How about alll the pollies and maori “leaders” traipse along to the various denominations’ HQ’s , given how Christianity brings/brought revelation healing to all people.
      
      I wonder how te media paahti would take to all and sundry bending the knee to the papists , presbyterians , methodists and the Crown’s very own version of Tudor heresy the Anglicans……..
      
      17 1
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      January 25, 2025 11:11am
      - Jinky
        
        Just finished Ewen McQueen’s One Sun in the Sky. After reading it and seeing all the documentation provided I am astonished that anyone could say that Maori didn’t cede sovereignty! I was surprised to see what an influence that missionaries had over the Chiefs of the Tribes.
        
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        January 26, 2025 6:34am
  - mandk
    
    I’m bewildered by it, too.
    
    Apart from anything else, the tedium of these events must be difficult to bear.
    
    30 1
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    January 25, 2025 10:08am
    - sungsamning
      
      From memory, David Seymour did his State of The Nation speech instead. Well done him.
      
      19 1
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      January 25, 2025 10:33am
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        Then he trudges to Waitangi to have a dildo thrown at him and he abused
        
        4 6
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        January 25, 2025 1:05pm
  - Jethrod
    
    The Ratana/Te party Maori are the antithesis of each other.
    
    13 1
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    January 25, 2025 10:11am
  - Jack5
    
    … why New Zealand politicians troop off every January ..
    
    It’s Ratana’s brass bands. They lead the parade, Benedict.
    
    The denomination’s founder, Tahupōtiki Wiremu Ratana, established seven brass bands. Wikipedia says he took his lead from the Bible account of the priests playing horn-trumpets who brought down the walls of Jericho.
    
    The number of bands is relevant. There were seven trumpet players and the walls fell after their seventh circuit.
    
    New Zealand’s next national name will not be Aotearoa. It will be New Fairy
    Land.
    
    13 1
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    January 25, 2025 11:02am
    - Scott
      
      Umm Ratana was a Christian. I’m not sure that belief in fairies was part of his theology?
      
      4 4
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      January 25, 2025 12:20pm
      - Paulus
        
        But he must have followed the Taniwha like all Maori!
        
        4 1
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        January 25, 2025 2:22pm
      - Maggy Wassilieff
        
        I’m not sure that belief in fairies was part of his theology?
        
        No, it was his belief in the role of holy and faithful angels that placed his version outside mainstream Christianity.
        
        3 0
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        January 25, 2025 5:22pm
  - Jake Dee
    
    Ratana is not obscure in the New Zealand context and as T. W. Ratana was explicitly Christian and rejected the tohunga he is closer to a Western Christian tradition than an indigenous Polynesian one.
    I say more power to them.
    Western civilization is facing many problems right now but Christianity is NOT one of them. As I have mentioned before if you want to purge government of all mystic rituals and become totally secular/rational then a LOT of things will have to go.
    Performing mystic rituals at sacred stones at dawn on ANZAC day is just one of them.
    
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    January 25, 2025 10:27pm
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  National have lost me until Luxon is gone.
  They must be getting the message, many are leaving.
  
  29 7
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  January 25, 2025 10:08am
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    You have been waffling you are voting act do this means nothing
    
    4 25
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    January 25, 2025 10:10am
    - wsk12345
      
      It means alot. When ths Nats are on 25 and ACT are on 15 it means alot. And that’s where we are heading – towards more equal coalition partners.
      
      17 1
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      January 25, 2025 11:01am
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        And 40% will not get you into power, don’t. Looks say Peter’s will not go with Labour because he will go left as quick as having a piss, as long as Hipkins is gone then he will go with the highest party without fail, he will simply say I won’t go against the will of the people again
        
        2 7
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        January 25, 2025 1:03pm
  - imalwaysright
    
    Same S.O,
    I’m seeing the same gameplan Adern used:
    Get in power.
    Ignore, delay, distract.
    Pretend to be everyone’s best friend.
    Undermine democracy.
    Embed marxism.
    
    17 3
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    January 25, 2025 11:06am
    - Benedict Yu
      
      Ardern.
      
      Despite his shortcomings, it seems a little hysterical to call Chris Luxon a Marxist.
      
      8 4
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      January 25, 2025 4:15pm
      - kiwimike
        
        BY
        but when you enable them what does that say ?
        
        2 1
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        January 25, 2025 6:08pm
- Matt Long
  
  Trump is the most popular newly elected President since polls began. National would be at the lowest it’s been at this part of the election cycle for a long time.
  It’s almost as though wet woke supposedly centre right parties aren’t finding favour with voters.
  https://x.com/charliekirk11/status/1882569217649824160
  Trump’s day four actions include releasing pro life peaceful political prisoners.
  https://x.com/charliekirk11/status/1882864218870829057
  
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  January 25, 2025 10:10am
  - Scott
    
    Matt Long – NZ and the USA are completely different electorates. Although I support Trump I don’t think he would translate well to the NZ electorate. Many people I know, especially women, hate him with a vengeance.
    
    I think National is losing support because of the Treaty principles bill but not for the reason you think?
    
    The bill has stirred up controversy which many on the soft more liberal side of National do not like. In the same way the Maori party has been energised. Act is fine because their supporters are more to the right of the average National voter.
    
    I would also say this is MMP. I actually think it’s working out well and gives the many sides of the coalition the opportunity to have their say and get legislation into parliament.
    
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    January 25, 2025 12:15pm
    - Paulus
      
      However is it not, from Published polls, so that the women of New Zealand have a total dislike of the people in the current Elected Coalition.
      Just look at the so called media and their attitudes and language – eh Maiki ?
      Saw Jenna Lynch the other evening back from wherever she has been.
      Full of S…t again.
      Where is Tova ? – still on maternity leave probably, look forward to her vitriol again soon.
      And New Zealand has problems, here are some of them.
      
      7 1
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      January 25, 2025 2:31pm
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        No they don’t have a total dislike, yes they are more to the lefty, and once again as in suggesting women hate the Nats
        
        1 3
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        January 25, 2025 2:56pm
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      Agree mostly, yes Nats are losing support because of the TPB, and clearly the poll shows Nats losing the centre to labour, and look at ACT, they lost 15% of their support in one month, so no doubt about the liberal side, sadly Peter’s will go left, because Labour are going to lead Nats at the election, and that asshole Hipkins will be PM when Peters goes with the highest polling party, Labour may well get in on 30%
      
      4 3
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      January 25, 2025 2:55pm
  - waripori
    
    This is nonsense.
    
    Gallup have average approval ratings on inauguration for Post war presidents as
    Truman 87%
    Eisenhower 68%
    JFK 72%
    LBJ 78%
    Nixon 59%
    Ford 71%
    Carter 66%
    Reagan 51%
    Bush Snr 51%
    Clinton 51%
    Bush Jnr 57%
    Obama 67%
    Trump 1 45%
    Biden 57%
    
    RCP average for Trump 2 is 48.8%
    
    The only president less popular than Trump was Trump.
    
    USA is much more polarised now and the very high ratings wont be back any time soon but still Trump will have to hope Americans like what he is doing. Not sure they all will.
    
    4 3
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    January 25, 2025 12:19pm
    - Matt Long
      
      The Big Data Poll according to Mr Kirk was the most accurate in the forecast of 2024 election results.
      Averages are only really helpful in polls where they have predictive value.
      
      3 0
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      January 25, 2025 6:05pm
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    Go figure, but this will be replaced next election Tom by the weakest, domestic most useless government we will ever see
    
    2 3
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    January 25, 2025 2:50pm
- rockape
  
  It’s not often a single issue has made people leave a party but this is it. Most of my friends, mainly National supporters , have left and are supporting ACT.
  
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  January 25, 2025 10:12am
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    Go for you Rock-ape, but you know this is losing the centre, Labour , greens and TPM will be back all in cabinet, good luck mate you will need it, your assets will be taxed, and no way there will be another one term government, next time we will never ever get rid of the scourge
    
    5 9
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    January 25, 2025 1:01pm
    - rockape
      
      G, I don’t think this will be a one term Govt. However I think its makeup will change. ACT can look after the right, NZ First and National the center. I can see ACT overtaking National same as is happening in the UK. If ACT made 20% National 19% and NZ first 11% those three parties would still govern just a bit to the right and a bit less race based than now.
      
      12 0
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      January 25, 2025 2:17pm
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        Mate you have forgotten the centre who ware leaving the government and heading to Labour, Peters will be left no option but to go with Labour if Labour lead Nats which looks exactly what will happen.
        
        1 5
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        January 25, 2025 3:00pm
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        If you think Peter’s will go with that when Labour are over 30% then you are going to be very disappointed
        
        1 5
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        January 25, 2025 3:01pm
      - Ghost
        
        Act won’t over take national, that is just the usual delusion on this blog. Act will always be a minor party. I remember people on this blog having a good old time thinking act would get 18 to 20% last election. People in this echo chamber are disconnected from the reality outside of it.
        
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        January 25, 2025 3:08pm
    - Benedict Yu
      
      Your language about the “centre” is tedious. You make all this sound like a sports game.
      
      My concern is that the Government’s policies are insufficient to reverse the decline of New Zealand out of first world status. It is as simple as that.
      
      13 2
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      January 25, 2025 4:21pm
      - All_on_Red
        
        Well said
        I share that concern
        As you have pointed out before, a lot of the maori nonsense could be dispensed with from Govt Depts by amending the Public Service Act
        Yet they don’t do it.
        And the endless spamming of the comments thread by G is beyond tedious.
        
        9 1
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        January 25, 2025 5:25pm
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  He never bloody said that at all, everything He Puapua are gone. Peter’s will have made sure that He Puapua is gone completely after labour lying to him
  
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  January 25, 2025 1:26pm
Scooter

Good to see the police time going to good use.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/south-aucklands-sh20b-partially-blocked-as-armed-police-arrest-man/WHELJYBD3JBNDHWRJV3EFZ4HOI/
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January 25, 2025 8:07am
Yvette

Trump : DEI to DIE – and pushing “religion” in New Zealand schools
Following the broader move to eliminate D.E.I. from the federal government, the Education Department said in a statement that it had removed or archived “hundreds of guidance documents, reports, and training materials that include mentions of D.E.I.” from its public resources. Many of those materials were geared toward schools to set and maintain diversity standards. The Department also said it had put its employees tasked with diversity and equity initiatives on paid administrative leave. –NYT (subscription-access)

While Trump reviews US Education, will counterparts here archive anything relating to DEI – inciting children to decide their life’s gender worldview not long after they realise eating crayons is not a great idea, or the other more major religious worldview, that of te Ao o Máori exceptionalism?
Will they act to ensure no religious discrimination occurs by teaching the Aryan supremacy of any belief system above all others?
Or will “journalists” ask Christopher Luxon a lot of dopey questions about DEI in the Navy – again? Or about Generative AI v whakapapa? Or whether the “conversation” on Treaty principles is really a verbal version of “bull-rush”

Last Labour legacy: They are us, yes – but some others are more important than most of us
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January 25, 2025 8:08am
Simon

Why are National so lame?

National party types; Well oh well we need to win the centre

Labo overtakes National

National party types; Well oh well
23 4
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January 25, 2025 8:13am
- lifesgood
  
  Please descibe Labour Party “types”
  
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  January 25, 2025 12:14pm
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  They are losing the centre thanks to Seymour, and yelling at the top of his Boyce asset sales and privatisation will just scare the centre back to the left, oh well, I will be 64 at the next election, I will simply retire instead of my want to continue in my work that I retire, I refuse to pay more tax by the Marxist, well done supporting the bullshit that will never happen this term.
  
  And yes Luxon has not ruled out asset sale s at the next term, why scare the sheeple before the election, how about fix Labours mess first
  
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  January 25, 2025 12:58pm
  - kiwimike
    
    Labours mess is Nationals Maori Apartheid !!
    
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    January 25, 2025 6:14pm
rouppe

Looks like the first oral submitters to the TPB are largely skewed towards those opposed.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/360559192/heavy-hitters-named-first-day-oral-submissions-treaty-principles-bill
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January 25, 2025 8:14am
- Damocles11
  
  Handpicked for this exact purpose by the Left and Labour Lite.
  
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  January 25, 2025 10:42am
- wsk12345
  
  They choose the submissions that get heard I guess so likely they will be 80% against just like the select committee membership.
  
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  January 25, 2025 11:05am
- kowtow
  
  Oh the irony , but does $1uffed get it.
  
  ‘Heavy hitters’ of Maoridom indeed.
  
  ‘Black Power life member and founder of Tangata Tiriti Aotearoa Dennis O’Reilly’
  
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  January 25, 2025 12:58pm
Maggy Wassilieff

Why has taxpayers’ money funded a documentary on a sitting Green MP?

https://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2025/01/graham-adams-fraught-business-of-being.html
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January 25, 2025 8:15am
- peterwn
  
  Because those who hold the purse strings know what is good for them. Just like this guy who gets money to make a TV ‘documentary’ in the run-up to elections.
  
  41 1
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  January 25, 2025 8:19am
  - Damocles11
    
    Bryan Bruce isn’t it? Yes, it’s called ‘pimping the poor’ and it ramps up whenever an election is close and National are in power, a full court press to get the bleeding hearts to vote for the socialist parties.
    
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    January 25, 2025 8:27am
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    This project was decided and agreed to way back in the previous regime
    
    9 7
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    January 25, 2025 10:12am
    - Grunter
      
      And continued by this Govt. It’s pretty easy to stop the cheques!
      
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      January 25, 2025 10:54am
      - Ghost
        
        No it wasn’t continued by this government, their last invoice was paid February 2024.
        
        4 2
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        January 25, 2025 12:13pm
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        Straight out lies, it has not gone into Willis first budget, you go understand Robertson’s rein of terror finished June 30 last year
        
        1 6
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        January 25, 2025 12:54pm
    - Benedict Yu
      
      You do realise that your mantra of “the government has reversed all of Labour’s policies is a delusion? Sorry but that is the reality.
      
      For example the Government has just introduced the detail of the three waters replacement legislation. It is 100,000 words. How is it better than what it replaced? It is incomprehensible.
      
      I could go through hundreds of government regulations and spending programmes and find that they are being administered more efficiently, well mostly. But they are pretty much the same.
      
      There are exceptions of course.
      
      Roads. Simeon Brown is a good man. Now rewarded by losing his job that he had just started.
      
      Foreign Affairs.
      
      State housing to an extent but it is mostly the same just run much better.
      
      Health. Can’t be fixed.
      
      Welfare can’t be fixed.
      
      Education. Nope. Still the same nightmare.
      
      Environmental management. Nope just run a bit better.
      
      Defence. Nope. Still deficient. We even lost a ship.
      
      Regulation. Nope. Seymour has achieved nothing of any importance.
      
      …. G the Giant, with respect you are kidding yourself. 😀
      
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      January 25, 2025 4:32pm
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  That funding was given when the short term Labour opposition was in, never mind, you wont gave long to wait till they are back with separatism as the main platform
  
  7 10
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  January 25, 2025 10:11am
  - Benedict Yu
    
    You sound a bit like a preacher warning of hell and eternal flames for those who do not worship the National Party. 😀
    
    5 2
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    January 25, 2025 4:35pm
- sungsamning
  
  Reason # 958 to close RNZ, and TVNZ.
  
  9 1
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  January 25, 2025 10:34am
- mogg
  
  Now they are just taking the piss.
  
  7 0
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  January 25, 2025 10:40am
- NothingLeft
  
  Well clearly she’s the future of politics in NZ and everyone should watch this hagiography because she has a number of stand out qualities that mark her out as the natural choice for future leadership of NZ:
  1/ She’s a lesbian.
  2/ She’s has mental health issues.
  3/ She started a number of failed businesses.
  4/ She has no grasp of economics, or real world cause and effect in policy choices and incentives.
  
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  January 25, 2025 12:50pm
Yvette

Race Relations
Luxon said there was no doubt the Treaty Principles Bill had caused anxiety on both sides of the debate and blamed the former Labour government for the angst.
“We are where we are because of, I think, the previous government not making the case for the changes it was driving through that period of time, but that then creating that division.”
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/539881/treaty-referendum-ruled-out-under-luxon-s-watch

Race Relations Commissioner Melissa Derby has condemned the use of racially tiered ticket pricing at a Christchurch music event, stating, “I want to also say, unequivocally, that racism against any group in this country is something that will not be tolerated.”
https://centrist.nz/racism-against-any-group-will-not-be-tolerated-says-race-relations-commissioner/?

When the Prime Minister says that “the previous government not making the case for the changes it was driving through that period of time, but that then creating that division, [is why] we are where we are” as a summary for the existence of the the Treaty Principles Bill, should such a statement warrant the Race Relations Commissioner’s attention to confirm it requires fuller scrutiny, or is misinformation, considering –

1– At Rātana Pa today, Kiingitanga spokesperson Rahui Papa told Luxon “the state of the Māori nation is at the highest level of concern that it has been for a whole lot of years” and

2 – Luxon responded by reiterating a message he has repeated ad naseum during his time in the top job, that “National won’t support the bill, it will be voted down and it won’t become law”.
He was later asked what he would do if the ACT Party asked for a public referendum on the Treaty next term.

So will Race Relations Commissioner Melissa Derby intervene to attempt to solve division the Prime Minister says we have and to Maori is “he highest level of concern that it has been for a whole lot of years”

They are us, yes – but are some others more important than most of us?
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January 25, 2025 8:16am
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  He is saying the angst was created from separatist services and laws, can you tell me how that statement is wrong?
  
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  January 25, 2025 12:06pm
  - Yvette
    
    G, I believe the statement is not wrong –
    
    Luxon … blamed the former Labour government for the angst. “We are where we are because of, I think, the previous government not making the case for the changes it was driving through that period of time, but that then creating that division.”
    
    – that is a straight forward statement which, being made by the Prime Minister, the Race Relations Commissioner Melissa Derby is surely able to investigate, as a factor explaining the current disruption to relations, which Maori say is “the highest level of concern that it has been for a whole lot of years”
    
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    January 25, 2025 2:01pm
  - kiwikidsnz
    
    In fact he qualified his comment by saying that “the previous government not making the case for the changes it was driving through that period of time,…”
    
    Inferring that no problem with the changes, Labour should just have managed them better – which is total BS given the PIJF propaganda funds acceptance criteria & Broadcasting on Airs “guidelines” both required MSMs unquestioning support for Labours ToW policies.
    
    But hey, keep bleating about “losing the centre” while we’re losing the country.
    
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    January 25, 2025 2:52pm
Maggy Wassilieff

Are NZ science administrators gullible fools?

https://pointofordernz.wordpress.com/2025/01/24/kauri-dieback-whale-oil-and-4-million-of-wellbeing-spending-what-the-media-wont-tell-you/
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January 25, 2025 8:20am
- westernScientist
  
  yes, but im not sure that is the issue here – I think they new exactly what they were doing. The TPU has been doing some work on it – interview with Jordan Williams on the topic:
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCzFBPdUN9M&t=336s
  
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  January 25, 2025 8:34am
- Pope Punctilious II
  
  No, they’re just terrified of being called “racist”. Like most of our politicians. Like the msm journalists who ignored this story. Like most of us.
  
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  January 25, 2025 8:53am
- surfing
  
  No, this is socialism in action.
  
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  January 25, 2025 9:05am
- cmm
  
  We’re the gullible fools for voting for this.
  
  30 2
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  January 25, 2025 9:21am
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    You didnt vote for this , it was part of Robertson’s last budget. There you are again suggesting this was somehow Luxon fault,
    Or you voted Labour who sorted this shit
    
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    January 25, 2025 10:14am
    - Grunter
      
      Again, after 15 mths in Govt, they are still signing the cheques.
      
      12 1
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      January 25, 2025 11:04am
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        No they are not, it was in Robertson’s last budget, as Ghost says it has been dropped
        
        1 5
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        January 25, 2025 12:51pm
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      Down ticks even though what I say is correct, this government did not deliver this bullshit
      
      2 6
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      January 25, 2025 11:51am
      - kiwikidsnz
        
        And where is the Govt policy announcement across the MSM stating that…crickets
        
        3 0
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        January 25, 2025 2:56pm
      - imalwaysright
        
        Don’t let downticks bother you, replies are the only thing that carry any credibility.
        
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        January 25, 2025 3:51pm
- Swifty
  
  And I note that from those science academics and assorted lefties who tried to tear shreds off Collins for her Marsden Fund changes their silence over this is deafening.
  
  Let them defend this as a legitimate use of scarce taxpayer funds.
  
  They can’t and they won’t – they’re too cowardly to call this out for the charade that it is.
  
  They have completely compromised and debased themselves, their scientific institutions and their calling.
  
  I hold them in absolute contempt.
  
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  January 25, 2025 9:22am
- Toes on the nose
  
  How can you call them ‘science’ administrators. Absolute BS– I reckon ther’s some cuzzies doing a Billy T laugh and saying “faa these pakehas must be feeling really guilty to let us get away with this” I’m really curious as to whether one of the ‘wellbeing scientists’ has got a sidegig as a DJ.. I mean all the $4mil can’t have been spent on consultant hours…surely there’s some actual speakers somewhere??
  
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  January 25, 2025 9:44am
- peterwn
  
  Unfortunately there is regal precedent for this. The King (then Prince of Wales) admitted that he talked to plants on at least two occasions.
  
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  January 25, 2025 9:46am
  - pdm
    
    pw – I thought he was a regular talker to all of his veggies over many years – from a teenager even.
    
    Not sure my father didn’t do that too, particularly after Mum died. Boy he could grow vegetables.
    
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    January 25, 2025 10:41am
  - Taieri
    
    The King (then Prince of Wales) admitted that he talked to plants on at least two occasions
    —————–
    
    That’s not a problem. The question to ask is: were plants answering to him?
    
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    January 25, 2025 11:02am
    - Don Beckett
      
      Perhaps he would tell you “yes”. 😆
      
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      January 25, 2025 1:49pm
      - imalwaysright
        
        The plants are probably grateful for his CO2 laden breath.
        Ironic position for the regal climate change cardinal.
        
        2 1
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        January 25, 2025 3:55pm
- Benedict Yu
  
  And why is the responsible Minister not screaming the place down, telling MBIE that they need to cancel this crap. He should demand that the officials responsible be paraded in front of TV cameras to apologise and admit that they are fools. Then the Minister should resign.
  
  No I’m not kidding. The government is funding what is essentially witchcraft.
  
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  January 25, 2025 10:11am
  - Ghost
    
    It’s been stopped
    
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    January 25, 2025 10:15am
    - DimChappie
      
      Seymour explained it was stopped in the Budget last year (from the 1:30 mark in this Platform video):
      https://theplatform.kiwi/podcasts/episode/david-seymour-previews-state-of-the-nation-speech-talks-privatisation
      
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      January 25, 2025 10:26am
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      Yes, the “research” is complete.
      
      https://bioheritage.nz/research/oranga-wellbeing/
      
      But the folks that oversaw this “research” are probably still overseeing other funds allocated to Science research.
      
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      January 25, 2025 10:33am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      Thanks Ghost, that’s d I needed to kno, but usual suspects here will keep suggesting this government did this even though it’s off Robertson’s last budget
      
      1 7
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      January 25, 2025 12:10pm
    - Quail
      
      It is one thing to stop it.
      It is another very very important thing to hold those responsible ,and to seek a return of the wasted taxpayers dollars!
      If those responsible have not achieved their KPI ‘s
      funding returns should be mandatory.
      Included in those responsible are the bureaucrats who authorised this spend.and the politicians, if any involved.
      
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      January 25, 2025 1:21pm
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        They can not hold people responsible for what Labour foisted on them, grow up that’s communist
        
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        January 25, 2025 3:05pm
      - Maggy Wassilieff
        
        So G the giant… Do you think we shouldn’t enquire as to how a senior public servant was able to channel public money into her own company?
        
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        January 25, 2025 3:35pm
      - kiwimike
        
        [Mod – debate without abuse]
        
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        January 25, 2025 6:24pm
  - Yvette
    
    This is why the three rights ACT (National Coalition) has in its bill should have been in a Democracy Affirmation Bill with absolutely no reference to the Treaty, and to those affirmations – the Government has the right to govern, legal property will be protected, and all New Zealand citizens have equal rights and responsibilities – it should be added that Government is secular in all its agencies and services, to knock this crap on the head.
    
    Maybe when the bill is voted down, division will eventually require such clarifying Democracy Affirmation legislation, and secularity can be added to avert the supposed religious Aryan-exceptualism of any particular ethnicity – incinerate witchcraft
    
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    January 25, 2025 11:13am
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    Did the minister know this Labour Party bullshit as going on? My bet is this is once again lefties ignoring government expectations
    
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    January 25, 2025 12:03pm
  - Jake Dee
    
    “The government is funding what is essentially witchcraft.”
    
    All governments do that or something very similar.
    ANZAC day is ancestor worship, just one of many such examples.
    In their WWII victory parade in Moscow the Soviets threw down hundreds of captured Nazi battle flags in front of the tomb of Lenin, and those guys were hardcore atheists.
    But the ancient Romans would have recognized what that ceremonial ritual was all about, and the even more ancient Egyptians would have recognized exactly what that tomb was all about, as Lenin’s body is preserved inside it like a Pharaoh.
    
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    January 25, 2025 10:40pm
- Graeme Hall
  
  Most science administrators, I knew, were older scientists whose specialist scientific knowledge had largely been superseded and had gone into administration to prolong their careers. This was a far cry from the time when the Director of a DSIR Science organisation was part time & still worked on science. By the time I left, administration took almost half the funding won by practicing scientists.
  
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  January 25, 2025 11:14am
  - Paulus
    
    The present Director of Health Dr Diana Sarfati is actually a top Research Scientist.
    Believe she may still have finger in the Pie hopefully.
    Even Labour’s Ayesha Verrall is a top scientist but useless as an MP.
    
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    January 25, 2025 2:44pm
- John Loveridge
  
  I read all that and I still don’t get how you spend FOUR MILLION DOLLARS.
  
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  January 25, 2025 11:39am
- artemisia
  
  Well Maggy, I think you have jumped the gun here. If this woo woo is proven to work New Zealand can patentit and make a global killing from healing myrtle rust. Just need to translate ‘woo woo’ into the correct language first.
  
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  January 25, 2025 4:12pm
Damocles11

Mr Luxon styles himself as a modern leader with the ability to galvanise New Zealand into achieving the economic growth that will break the country out of it’s current low productivity, low growth malaise.
Yet if anything symbolises the hopeless mess we are in it is the sight of our Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, with full retinues in tow, trudging to the Ratana Church to pay obeisance to a religious movement representing just over 40,000, a movement which began in 1918, when Tahupōtiki Wiremu Ratana experienced visions, and began a mission of faith healing. It’s the New Zealand equivalent of the US President making an annual pilgrimage to the compound of a David Koresh, or a Jim Jones.
It’s bad enough that the political leadership of the country descends on a small fringe religious group to grovel and fawn (perhaps Gloriavale would also like an annual visit by all our political leaders?) but whilst at Ratana Church Mr Luxon continued with his whining and pleading with leftists, racial separatists, and the left wing MSM, beseeching them for the umpteenth time to consider that he wasn’t going to support David Seymours bill. And then he went one step further: he ruled out any prospect of a referendum on the Treaty if elected for a second term, in the process giving the middle finger to his erstwhile coalition partner – and also the wider NZ public. Such is Luxons desperation to curry favour with those who historically and contemporaneously loathe the National Party that one half expecting him to strip to the waist, bring out the knotted cords, and start flagellating himself until his back was bloody with welts. The spectacle of a New Zealand PM in the year 2025 grovelling before a fringe religious movement and assorted leftwing hangers on was pitiful to behold, a truly pathetic display broadcast by the news media across every platform. At times like this, the majority of the 5.5 million New Zealanders must truly despair for our country.
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January 25, 2025 8:24am
- thirteenstars
  
  “…equivalent of the US President making an annual pilgrimage to the compound of a David Koresh, or a Jim Jones.”
  
  Well said, and the metaphor becomes reality when we recall the way an Episcopalian pastor attempted to lecture Trump, Vance and their families at a post-inauguration church service.
  
  Except Trump didn’t go there knowing he’d be lectured and if he had a whiff of it he wouldn’t have gone. Luxon on the other hand knows exactly what Ratana is about.
  
  Luxon has outed himself as part of the militant opposition to the TPB and the wider feeling in the country that co-governance is a recipe for disaster.
  
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  January 25, 2025 11:03am
  - kiwimike
    
    no co-governance is both racist and undemocratic it is far worse than a recipe for a disaster.
    for all pushing it, enabling it or keeping silent are racists and do not have NZ best interests at heart.
    
    ALL NZ citizens are equal.
    If you can’t stand up for that, you don’t deserve the Passport.
    
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    January 25, 2025 6:28pm
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  Yes but you will be fine with Seymour trudging to Waitangi mean while Rubbish Luxon who told them on ya bike this time
  
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  January 25, 2025 12:13pm
  - thirteenstars
    
    Seymour is going briefly to Waitangi, he says only to watch the Navy parade and to attend the Prayer for the Nation, then he’s off to the opening of a new charter school in Auckland.
    
    In other words, he’s not sticking around to suffer endless speeches or be verbally abused. Smart.
    
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    January 25, 2025 2:10pm
    - imalwaysright
      
      I speculate that there may be serious security issues and they are reducing his exposure.
      He’s a brave man.
      
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      January 25, 2025 4:21pm
  - Damocles11
    
    So you are saying that the annual Ratana Church Jamboree is on a par with Waitangi Day? Righto. 🤦🏻‍♂️
    
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    January 25, 2025 4:17pm
- Paulus
  
  I, on more than one time, when I was younger, occasionally had visions, but the next morning had one hell of a headache.
  
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  January 25, 2025 2:46pm
  - kiwimike
    
    Yes mine often revolved around strumpy..
    
    nearly got a tat one time but the shop was closed.
    
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    January 25, 2025 6:29pm
- zubrick
  
  pandering to the cunning and vicious never ends well. i’ve sold up and followed our best and brightest to australia. at the very least my offspring will have a decent future here. hate to say it but new zealand’s future looks bleak with nobody in power willing to stand up and halt the encroaching disaster. aye oh terra roar will become another pacific nation reliant on the largesse of wealthier countries to function.
  
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  January 25, 2025 4:56pm
- Jake Dee
  
  David Koresh was a criminal and Jim Jones was a mass murderer. T. W. Ratana was neither of those things.
  As for U.S. presidents doing woo-woo rituals, MANY of them have held ceremonial rituals at the Lincoln memorial, which is based on the Athenian Parthenon temple with Lincoln enthroned as Zeus.
  As I have frequently mentioned, if you want to purge mystic symbolism from government you will have a LOT of work to do.
  
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  January 25, 2025 10:51pm
kevn

Trump serving it to the WEF…
https://notthebee.com/article/klaus-schwab-introduced-donald-trump-at-the-world-economic-forum-and-then-trump-went-full-trump-mode
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January 25, 2025 8:24am
- Gussy Fink-Nottle
  
  And Milei tore the WEF a new one. Right there, on stage, in front of them.
  An articulate and impassioned speech, well worth a watch.
  Didn’t get too much applause though.
  
  18 2
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  January 25, 2025 10:14am
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    Was Cindy there representing Labour again telling the world it is a borderless globe?
    
    4 2
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    January 25, 2025 12:14pm
  - kiwi_chileno
    
    Milei’s speech, translated https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9-gi6WVHUA
    
    Transcript https://www.weforum.org/stories/2025/01/davos-2025-special-address-javier-milei-president-argentina/
    
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    January 25, 2025 1:46pm
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  A revolution of common sense.
  Common sense all of a sudden is starting to get “common” again.
  
  12 1
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  January 25, 2025 10:17am
- rouppe
  
  Thankfully it finished yesterday.
  
  I have to drive back from Samnaun to Zurich today.
  
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  January 25, 2025 9:19pm
Maggy Wassilieff

The predatory hard left.

The hard left prey on young New Zealanders. They tell them that their problems are caused by others’ success. That they are held back by their identity, but if they embrace identity politics, they can take back what’s theirs. Their mechanism is a new tax on wealth.

https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA2501/S00068/david-seymour-the-state-of-the-nation-in-2025-dire-states.htm
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January 25, 2025 8:29am
- Ian Boag
  
  a new tax on wealth.
  
  Some of think a CGT is a new tax on income ….
  
  4 14
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  January 25, 2025 9:32am
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    Wealth tax apparently will be set as your wealth plus income and you pay tax above that, looks like the family home will be taxed in a wealth tax, and CGT will be paid on a family home s over $5 million, but several poor bastards with a house in the wrong place will be worth $5 million with no other assets and could well be struggling to pay rates and insurance.
    
    Good luck the left trying to sell that
    
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    January 25, 2025 12:18pm
    - kiwimike
      
      Hopkins will try.
      
      1 0
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      January 25, 2025 6:31pm
Steve Otto N Shore

Trump’s hair.
Has Helen Clark been in his ear?

https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/other/trump-worried-about-his-perfect-hair-wants-to-change-how-showers-flow/ar-AA1xMhhi?
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January 25, 2025 8:31am
- lastmanstanding
  
  More smarts from Trump. Rather than threatening Putin with a military war he is threatening economic war. While there arent many more scanctions Trump can apply he can and will drive down the price of oil. Russia is a one trick pony its income is from oil. The Saudias and others will increase production and with Trumps Drill baby drill the price will drop from its current $80bbl to $60bbl or even a bit less.
  This will also help US and other Western countries including NZ lower inflation and with it cost of living. There are lots of products that include oil.
  Watch Putin do a deal with Ukraine. Putins life literally depends on this.
  
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  January 25, 2025 9:16am
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    He has already told the Saudis that they must bring the price down.
    When America starts producing big time Saudi and Russia will comply.
    Also hasn’t Trump got a deal going where Europe must buy American oil or Trump will not protect them by withdrawing funding from NATO?
    This guy knows deals and business.
    
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    January 25, 2025 10:26am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      Saudi’s will just cut production, but if the states becomes self sufficient again it will not matter
      
      3 6
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      January 25, 2025 12:19pm
  - Jack5
    
    Or, or … Russia could continue to smuggle out oil on old tankers like those flying the flag of the Cook Islands, whose external relations are handled by New Zealand?
    
    More serious: Saudi Arabia needs oil at $US80.90 minimum to balance its budget and Trump has asked that country for a $US1 trillion ( a thousand billion) package of investment into the USA.
    
    https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/trump-calls-1-trillion-saudi-investment-lower-oil-prices-2025-01-23/
    
    Oil price Saudi Arabia needs to balance its budget:
    
    https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/IMF-Saudi-Arabia-Needs-Oil-Prices-At-8090-To-Balance-Budget.html
    
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    January 25, 2025 10:44am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      The saudis had offered to invest 900 billion, Trump is saying he will try and round that up
      
      3 2
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      January 25, 2025 12:21pm
      - Jack5
        
        The Reuters link quoted says Saudi Arabia offered $600 billion over four years.
        
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        January 25, 2025 1:31pm
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      Well I can only go with what Trump told Hannity the other day, no mention of 600 bill
      
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      January 25, 2025 3:08pm
  - Graeme Hall
    
    Russia has been described as a nuclear-armed petrol station.
    
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    January 25, 2025 11:17am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      The way their forces are failing in Ukraine, then I could just about suggest their nukes may well be worthless, will not be maintained, and possibly won’t work
      
      1 8
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      January 25, 2025 12:22pm
      - Jake Dee
        
        Here is just a little bit about how Russia is “failing” in Ukraine, directly from Kiev so it’s not a Moscow psyop (parenthesis mine)
        
        On January 24, Russia transferred 757 bodies to Ukraine; Ukraine transferred 49 bodies to Russia. (ratio of ~15.4 to 1 in Russia’s favor)
        On December 20, Russia transferred 504 to Ukraine; Ukraine transferred 42 bodies to Russia.
        (ratio, 12 to 1 in Russia’s favor)
        On November 29,Russia transferred 502 to Ukraine, and Ukraine transferred 52 bodies to Russia.
        (ratio, ~9.7 to 1 in Russia’s favor)
        On October 18, Russia transferred 501 bodies to Ukraine, and Ukraine transferred 89 bodies to Russia.
        (ratio, ~5.6 to 1 in Russia’s favor)
        https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-repatriates-757-bodies/
        Average total 10.7 to 1 in Russia’s favor. Given current western estimates of their respective populations (which I think are wildly biased in favor of Ukraine) of 38.5 million to Russia’s 144.4 million, we get a ratio of ~3.8 to 1 in Russia’s favor.
        Russia’s technological and military edge is giving them a 3X bonus in killing power.
        If your analysis is not susceptible to maths then it is in the realm of fantasy and imagination.
        One other thing that consistently amazes me about this blog, is the people on it (and I’m not saying you are one of them) who will scream, shout and jump up and down about how the MSM has been deceiving them for years about Trump, COVID, transgenderism etc. etc. whilst simultaneously also believing that everything the very same people tell them about Russia and China is perfectly true.
        
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        January 25, 2025 11:52pm
  - Eastlander
    
    I heard the same set of predictions in 2014-2015 and it didn’t work then either, in no small part because the federation was budgeting for around 40 USD per barrel.
    
    Incidentally, the Ukrainians have not given any sign of being interested in a settlement. The presidential decree forbidding negotiations has not been revoked and the government has initiated efforts to tap the 18-25 demographic for military recruitment. They quite clearly expect the war to continue through 2025 and beyond.
    
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    January 25, 2025 12:59pm
  - rouppe
    
    He can target oil tankers carrying Russian oil flying flags of convenience
    
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    January 25, 2025 9:21pm
Tom Barker

Very disappointing that in his dramatic refresh of Waitangi Tribunal members, minister Potaka did not think to appoint any immigrants from white South Africa. There are plenty of impressive candidates to choose from. White South Africa – 400 years of world-leading innovation in race relations!
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January 25, 2025 8:41am
SpencerArnold

Regarding the Treaty Submissions Bill: One thing I have noticed on other submissions on youtube; ‘conciseness’, ‘timekeeping’ and ‘mutual respect’ are “colonial constructs”, so expect a 7 minute waiata before a 13 minute submission inside a 10 minute allocated window (and pity those who come immediately after)
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January 25, 2025 8:52am
Steve Otto N Shore

Just in this morning from Julian Batchelor.
Why Wanganui Is In Big Trouble And Why Your City Could Be Next.
A good explanation of how Maori Wards were created and how they are used now – unelected candidates.

Video 36 minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pu4KsU8gDRk
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January 25, 2025 9:14am
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  16 minutes in Potaka will not answer the question about when did Maori cede sovereignty.
  He sidesteps and spouts word salad.
  
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  January 25, 2025 9:21am
  - Cassandra
    
    Which is the National party style these days. However Luxon has stated that the Crown is sovereign. But Willis has also said that “Of course it’s a partnership”. Sit on the fence. Avoid controversy.
    
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    January 25, 2025 9:35am
    - pdm
      
      Cass – Luxon has also stated that Treaty is a Partnership.
      
      These two positions are contradictory.
      
      I remember as a kid walking along the top rails in sheep yards as a kid – one slip and I could have been speaking in a high voice for ever,
      
      Luxon is a fence sitter.
      
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      January 25, 2025 9:41am
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        He means two races coming together as one being the partnership ffs, and you know it
        
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        January 25, 2025 12:38pm
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        He did not say it was a partnership a few days later, he said it to both fools you mentioned in the very same question time, more lies
        
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        January 25, 2025 12:50pm
      - kiwimike
        
        no Luxon is a Liar.
        either they did or they didn’t cede.
        
        they did because they then all became BRITISH citizens and Maori Slavery and Canabilism ended.
        
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        January 25, 2025 6:36pm
    - Steve Otto N Shore
      
      Luxon at one stage in the questioning DID admit Maori ceded sovereignty.
      He was on the spot flustered!
      
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      January 25, 2025 10:28am
      - pdm
        
        Yep and it was a few days later he came up with the Partnership Answer.
        
        Both in QT – first question by Chloe Swarbrick and the later one by Chris Hipkins. They were a week apart as I recall.
        
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        January 25, 2025 10:45am
      - NK
        
        They never ceded sovereignty. Thankfully it was taken from them by force.
        
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        January 25, 2025 11:06am
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        It at one stage, he has said so every time he is asked
        
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        January 25, 2025 12:44pm
    - Damocles11
      
      Sitting on the fence allows controversy and confusion to fester in the vacuum created by the lack of certainty and direction, perpetuating our malaise. Luxon and Willis are not leaders, they are simply corporate operatives.
      
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      January 25, 2025 10:45am
  - Benedict Yu
    
    I am happy to hear a view that Maori are sovereign. If it could be cogently explained. So far I have not heard that.
    
    If Chris Luxon is going to oppose the Treaty Principles Bill we deserve to hear his arguments. Those arguments should be logical and persuasive. Then we can have a debate. That is what the governments of developed countries used to do.
    
    In 1995 the Australian PM Paul Keating advocated for an Australian Republic. Of course he lost that argument at the subsequent referendum. However, the point is that he made a compelling case in this speech.
    
    http://www.paulkeating.net.au/shop/item/an-australian-republic-the-way-forward—7-june-1995
    
    My point is that you can respect a compelling argument for Australia to be a republic, even if you are more persuaded by the contrary arguments.
    
    In the case of Maori sovereignty and the Treaty partnership, which Luxon supports, he has not done anything but deliver gibberish. Tragically, the debate that we are having now in New Zealand is way more important than the Australian republic debate of the 1990s. At least Australia had a leader. They also got to have their say at a referendum. 🙁
    
    I’ll say it. Luxon is a failed leader. A failure as Prime Minister. The tragedy is that emerging from the Jacinda and Hipkins years, this is not a failure that New Zealand could afford.
    
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    January 25, 2025 10:01am
    - Steve Otto N Shore
      
      Luxon has not given reasons to oppose the Treaty Principles Bill.
      All he said was there was nothing he liked, and that was before the Bill was finally written. He is an activist, like it or not.
      Yes Luxon is a failed leader. Just Ardern in a dress.
      
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      January 25, 2025 10:32am
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        He doesn’t have to ffs. He made the parties reasoning quite clear before the election.
        
        I note yesterday when the whinging started that Peter’s snd Jones were the ones raving that the bill will be booted, Luxon was far more circumspect
        
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        January 25, 2025 12:37pm
    - pdm
      
      BY – if Maori did not cede Sovereignty then surely the NZ Government has been illegitimate since it started.
      
      That is not a runner. and I included it in my TPB submission.
      
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      January 25, 2025 10:49am
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        Signing the treaty was ceding sovereignty surely, but it did bring two peoples together as one which is as far as I can see is a partnership
        
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        January 25, 2025 12:43pm
      - imalwaysright
        
        G
        “but it did bring two peoples together as one which is as far as I can see is a partnership”
        
        If it brought together two peoples as one, then who is the other party to the “partnership”?
        
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        January 25, 2025 4:29pm
    - kowtow
      
      ‘Those arguments should be logical and persuasive.’
      
      That’s not his style .
      
      He’s really just an empty suit neo corporatist type who is into rapid fire bullet point presentations ( possibly heavily rehearsed) that gives an impression ( for that is all it is) of being on top of his brief .
      
      Details , important finer points etc , not so much.
      
      Constitutionally , we’re in deep shit with this left wing faction of the Nats in charge.
      
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      January 25, 2025 11:27am
      - Damocles11
        
        Yes, lots of exuberant positivity and enthusiasm that don’t amount to a hill of beans once analysed, ‘a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing’. You can’t magic up economic growth with hot air and a country tottering on increasingly unstable constitutional foundations.
        
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        January 25, 2025 12:53pm
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      No you don’t, he clearly stated the parties stance before the election, he does not need to be dictated to by Act boterst
      
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      January 25, 2025 12:48pm
      - Keith White
        
        Um, ‘boterst’? I can’t think of a word that should have gone there. Do tell us.
        
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        January 25, 2025 5:09pm
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    He won’t say they didn’t like your next PM Hipkins did and he has become the first and only PM to say so, the vulgar prick wouldn’t say it as pm. You can get your boots he will deliver everything in the hidden report that gave every sector of governance a separatist Māori only system, plus a government. And yes you will pay not Māori
    
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    January 25, 2025 12:42pm
  - kiwimike
    
    not to be trusted as national or maori ??
    
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    January 25, 2025 6:34pm
- surfing
  
  Tauranga was first.
  
  So what is Luxon the weak man doing about it?
  
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  January 25, 2025 9:22am
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    Luxon will do nothing. He is a fence sitter.
    
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    January 25, 2025 10:34am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      I thought they as greasy stopped the Māori wards right at the beginning, how could that have changed, it was one of the points of the coalition agreement is it not, ih that’s right, Luxon has simply back tracked on every issue of the coalition agreement
      
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      January 25, 2025 12:26pm
      - Steve Otto N Shore
        
        Not quite following your reply Mr G.
        It seems to be mixed up. Want to try again please?
        
        4 0
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        January 25, 2025 2:31pm
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      The Maori wards were dumped from the next election in the first 100 days
      
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      January 25, 2025 3:11pm
      - Steve Otto N Shore
        
        But it is different in WHanganui?
        
        5 1
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        January 25, 2025 3:42pm
  - Paulus
    
    Tauranga has gone round the Maori thing and
    appointed three Maori members, unvoted, to sit on important Committees – for pay of course.
    
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    January 25, 2025 2:50pm
- kowtow
  
  Unelected candidates are an affront to a basic principle of democracy , the rule of law.
  
  In a nutshell that principle is about accountability to us the voter .
  
  If there are unelected people in positions of power, rule and law making over us , then we don’t have the rule of law , don’t have democracy .
  
  It is shocking that so many in this once proudly egalitarian , democratic country just don’t get that.
  
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  January 25, 2025 9:30am
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    South Zimbabwe if we don’t wake up.
    
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    January 25, 2025 10:43am
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  Are those Māori wards not illegal at the next elections? Did they not get scrubbed?
  
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  January 25, 2025 12:23pm
surfing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCzFBPdUN9M

Jordan Williams talks to Plunket about the 4 million dollar research project to play whale noises to trees (because Maori believe Kauri trees and whales are brothers so of course it must cure tree disease).

This is a huge reason as to why young people are leaving NZ. Of course, you’re not allowed to say it though.

As Jordan points out, they have to target this maori nonsense because it is just everywhere — and legitimate research gets cancelled if they can’t weave a maori myth into it.

And Luxon , he’s a pathetic weak man. I don’t know who to vote for in the next election, Luxon certainly does not deserve another chance.
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January 25, 2025 9:17am
- Ghost
  
  This happened under labour
  
  Strangely the young people I know who have left nz only reason was better money in aussie.
  
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  January 25, 2025 10:30am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    This happened under labour
    
    And no NZ Scientist spoke out about what nonsense it was, until American biologist Jerry Coyne brought it to our attention.
    
    https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2024/09/03/more-scientific-mishigass-based-on-indigenous-ways-of-knowing-in-new-zealand/
    
    But still, the MSM in NZ won’t touch this story on how Science in NZ has gone off the rails by trying to integrate Maori myths into scientific studies.
    
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    January 25, 2025 10:43am
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  Right at the very start of the coalition I said Luxon may be a good manager but he is not a leader.
  He just delegates, makes it someone else’s problem.
  
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  January 25, 2025 10:47am
  - pdm
    
    `He just delegates, makes it someone else’s problem.’
    
    The he meddles and makes things worse.
    
    For example telling Mike Hosking he was HELPING (meddling in) Shane Reti with Health.
    
    Nek minute Reti is sacked from the Portfolio so who stuffed up – Reti or Luxon?
    
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    January 25, 2025 10:53am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      He never meddled in health, stop lying again, it has been clear stated he was only sitting in on meetings at Reti’s request
      
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      January 25, 2025 3:14pm
  - Jack5
    
    But over all, Chris Luxon is holding the Coalition together, and that’s his No. 1 task.
    
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    January 25, 2025 11:36am
    - Steve Otto N Shore
      
      Is Luxon doing that? Or relying on NZF and ACT to hold it together?
      Come on Jack5, Luxon is a fence sitter. If the Coalition falls apart it it not his fault! No way! It is those others (NZF and ACT)
      Jesus H Christ, talk about division – there it is for all to see ffs!
      
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      January 25, 2025 3:49pm
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    That’s what happens in cabinet when PMs give out portfolios, how bloody else does he do it
    
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    January 25, 2025 3:13pm
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  As Ghost says this shit has been stopped, stop blaming Luxon for Labours bullshit
  
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  January 25, 2025 12:28pm
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  Let’s not forget the population has moved from 3 million in late 90’s to 5.3 million now, everything is going to be a record when stats come out surely.young people will welcome this woke bullshit
  
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  January 25, 2025 12:35pm
Benedict Yu

I amused my myself for a few minutes by searching for “Diversity and inclusion policy” at random usa government departments. You find that the policies, the lists of staff running them, the whole show, is all deleted. For example….

https://science.osti.gov/Not-Found
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January 25, 2025 9:39am
- sungsamning
  
  That’s because the adults are in charge now. Trump won. Woke is dead.
  
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  January 25, 2025 10:41am
- Matt Long
  
  There are agencies trying to circumvent the regulations, but I understand there will be repercussions.
  https://www.foxnews.com/politics/atf-accused-circumventing-trump-order-place-dei-staff-paid-leave
  
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  January 25, 2025 11:36am
- cmm
  
  Yup, I noticed that a few days back.
  
  A few months back I looked at the websites of a few of my aerospace customers and they were all dripping in DEI (rainbow flags, DEI policies, lots of black people on the front page). Now it is all gone and you see fighter jets and American flags.
  
  For Collins Aerosapce shows quite a few DEI related images on Google image search, but they 404 if you try find them on the current website. The search term DEI returns nothing.
  
  Apparently Boeing ditched its DEI in November 2024.
  
  Lockheed Martin made an annoucement this week and purged their website
  
  I expect that puff pieces like these won’t age well: https://www.instagram.com/connectcommmedia/p/C9k7axIysNq/
  
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  January 25, 2025 1:50pm
peterwn

So the Tory Street Warehouse is shutting up shop after 30 years. I thought perhaps Mitre 10 purchased the property under them. But the explanation is simpler – the lease was coming to an end and the owner simply signed a new lease with the highest bidder.
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January 25, 2025 10:00am
- Benedict Yu
  
  The future of those stores is in “big box” greenfields sites with plenty of parking. Who wants to cope with Mitre 10 or the Warehouse in that part of Wellington? That land is much better used for housing.
  
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  January 25, 2025 10:05am
  - peterwn
    
    Bunnings in Tory Street seems to be doing OK and has tight but adequate parking. Similarly with the current Tory St Warehouse so there would be no special problem when it changes to Mitre 10. Anyway the market will decide whether the land is better utilised for bulk retail or housing, not some central or local government busybody.
    
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    January 25, 2025 10:43am
bennerg

Reviewing the events in the USA over the last few days, just makes you realise just how batshit bonkers New Zealand has become. (apologies to Katie Hopkins who coined the term for the UK – https://x.com/KTHopkins).

By (rapid) stealth we have become bereft of common sense and sensibility. From the PM down! And you don’t have to look too far back to identify the turning points.

I’m starting to believe the “conspiracy theorists” that it is a massive psyops.

Please convince me I’m wrong, and this is just a bad dream.
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January 25, 2025 10:03am
- mogg
  
  Farage is following in Trump’s footsteps, Reform are now three points clear topping opinion polls in the UK.
  All others have veered to the Left, leaving Farage to occupy the Right. Like Trump he should be calling for the release of all political prisoners.
  Luxon take note of how quickly this can happen.
  
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  January 25, 2025 10:54am
  - MCōs
    
    If Farage really is English why isn’t his name pronounced similar to garage?
    
    1 3
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    January 25, 2025 9:28pm
    - Jake Dee
      
      French/Norman influence on upper class English pronunciations. They rhyme in R.P.
      
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      January 25, 2025 11:56pm
- kiwimike
  
  no NZ is stuffed.
  National is Labour lite
  PM Luxon support Maori Apartheid
  Winstons NZF is waiting for the next election and ACT has been stymied by National and NZF.
  
  Maori party is dumping on the sidewalk
  and Labour Greens are on the downlow
  
  ordinary NZ citizens who should be equal, live under Maori Apartheid.
  
  So yes we are stuffed
  
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  January 25, 2025 6:50pm
sungsamning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1b2lmEcFcY
Trump Visits La La land, and NC.
Team coverage of the president’s first trip to visit disaster zones in North Carolina and Southern California as eight fires continue to burn in Los Angeles County and elsewhere.
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January 25, 2025 10:24am
sungsamning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9erI2rc434
How Turkey Just Changed Africa’s Power Game Forever: Ethiopia’s Triple Power Play.
In this explosive analysis, we break down how Turkey’s diplomatic masterstroke is transforming African geopolitics. From the Ethiopian Dam controversy to Trump’s return, discover how this new alliance changes everything.
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January 25, 2025 10:25am
Damocles11

The number of people on benefits in New Zealand is now at all-time high. December 2024 saw numbers exceed 409,000 – the highest absolute number ever. There has never been this many individuals on a main benefit in New Zealand before.

https://www.bassettbrashandhide.com/post/absolute-number-on-benefits-at-all-time-high
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January 25, 2025 10:52am
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  Let’s not forget the population has moved from 3 million in late 90’s to 5.3 million now, everything is going to be a record when stats come out surely.
  
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  January 25, 2025 12:33pm
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Of course, Lindsay Mitchell knows this…
    
    Of course, when population is accounted for, the picture changes. Nevertheless, 12.6 percent of the working-age population dependent on a benefit is higher than at any time since the Global Financial Crisis.
    
    That is why absolute number is used.
    
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    January 25, 2025 1:40pm
- NoFax
  
  This should be a national tragedy and get people moving but it won’t. The waste of lives here is what really frustrates me. Life is so much better than what the dole can provide. We need to tackle this, mostly for the sake of the people receiving benefits.
  I do wonder how many are citizens? How many are PR etc? Also, I have noticed with Boomers and that line of thinking they will rather spend billions of dollars than be called racist – hence the lack of action by so many governments. Don’t want to be called a racist now. My fear is that the younger, especially men, are not just becoming rightwing earlier than previously but also authoritarian. This is the stuff we need to avoid if we don’t slip into a nightmare situation.
  
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  January 25, 2025 1:12pm
Steve Otto N Shore

Heroic border czar Tom Homan issued one stern warning to left-wing media about Donald Trump’s agenda. He does not care how much the media hate him or Trump, just going to get the job done.
Good video by Homan. Trump will be sued every day numerous times

https://deplorabledaily.com/heroic-border-czar-tom-homan-issued-one-stern-warning-to-left-wing-media-about-donald-trumps-agenda/?
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January 25, 2025 11:03am
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  Hshahaha, they were at one of the Prez parties, the Fox journalist said there are some illegals here, human said without a smile, show me where, I’ll get rid of them.
  
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  January 25, 2025 12:31pm
  - MCōs
    
    I was what the Americans call an illegal alien for a year or so, as were any number of Kiwis working in Thailand about thirty years ago.
    We could get 90days without a visa and it was less hassle to go in and out of the country for a wee holiday every 90 days than get a work permit, and pay tax.
    Then one Friday when I happened to be back in NZ the office had a visit from Immigration. They rounded up all the ‘illegals’ and demanded a bribe or it was prison for the weekend until the lawyer could work something out.
    There’s another side to this. All these people that played fast and lose with the rules are just as quick to grizzle about other dodgy immigrants
    
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    January 25, 2025 6:46pm
Jack5

Education imbalance isn’t just in NZ.

Finland has signed a deal with the Philippines seeking “skilled professionals” for healthcare, technology, and industry (first link below).

Meanwhile Finland (total population 5.6 million) seems to have a glut of unemployed PhD’s. The 1400 of them are mainly humanities, arts, natural sciences, and engineering (second link below).

https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-news/domestic/25998-finland-partners-with-philippines-to-recruit-skilled-workers.html

AND

https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-news/domestic/25948-finland-s-phd-graduates-struggle-to-find-jobs.html
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January 25, 2025 11:26am
- cmm
  
  I wonder how many of the engineering PhDs are in bullshit “engineering” fields such as environmental engineering?
  
  That said, I’ve met some pretty stupid electrical engineering PhDs. One couldn’t understand why using a 50 metre RS232 cable wouldn’t work.
  
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  January 25, 2025 1:26pm
  - JackRabbit
    
    cmm,
    
    Many people wouldn’t know what RS232 is, let alone what is does, or the electrical configuration necessary. Nor will they know the maximum length under different circumstances.
    
    Engineering is being hijacked by the woke.
    
    Even simpler is Luxon saying he will install 10,000 public EV chargers, without an knowledge of what that will require, and the percentage increase drain on the infrastructure, and generating capacity.
    
    But he is also on record as having said that electricity consumption will be double today’s use by 2050. My own calculations put that at possible as high as 4x by 2050, as population increases, all ICE engines get outlawed and the entire country going electric.
    
    I must have been asleep when Luxon announced start of construction of 16 new major hydro projects, and giving approval to start on nuclear power stations.
    
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    January 25, 2025 2:23pm
    - cmm
      
      This was a PhD in electrical engineering in the 1980s.
      
      Luxon is becoming Baldcinda. He’s just spouting nice fuzzy soundbites.
      
      Let us assume the 10,000 chargers are modest 120kW chargers. That would require adding 1.2GW of peak load. That would he around 12% of our peak output power.
      
      If we were to move to 40% or more EVs in NZ we’d have to build a lot of generation, a lot of grid backbone and also beef up reticulation all the way to houses.
      
      One of the key hurdles to getting to this growth that Luxon talks about is by massively increasing both population and industry. At least a 50% increase by 2050.
      
      All that adds up to a vast increase in power stations and power systems. I would expect your 4x is about right.
      
      Nichola Willis has openly said she’s Blue-Green, so we can expect a lot of Green-like polices from this mob.
      
      5 1
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      January 25, 2025 6:14pm
      - Pope Punctilious II
        
        Willis is also a feminist and a progressive. Firms can look forward to mandatory reporting of so-called “gender pay gaps” if she gets to be PM.
        
        2 1
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        January 25, 2025 6:27pm
      - JackRabbit
        
        This was a PhD in electrical engineering in the 1980s.
        
        And cmm, it has only got worse.
        
        10,000 chargers in 4 years – by 2030.
        Most of the new charging stations are offering up to 300kw. Which is needed is they move to reduce ICE vehicles, and increase dependence on EVs.
        
        And in 4 years, many EVs will have charging to 80% in 15 mins. Can’t do that on 120kw.
        
        Chargenet offer up to 300kw for tanking up 400km in 15 minutes.
        
        https://charge.net.nz/knowledge-article/how-long-will-it-take-to-charge-my-ev/
        
        15 minute charging:
        300kw / 400km = 26km / minute.
        50kw / 66km = 4.4km / minute.
        25kw / 33km = 2.2km / minute.
        
        ICE 1 minute fill. (could be 90 seconds)
        600km (6 or 8) = 600km / minute
        800km (4 cyl = 800km / minute.
        
        It is only a matter of time before angry EV owners demand fast charging.
        
        While ICE petrol stations are going unmanned, there will be a surge EV charging stations with manned shops attached so that people can spend money, drink coffee, eat (and get fat).
        
        Who really wants to sit in the rain for 30 minutes, inside a giant Lithium Ion battery while it is charging?
        
        Any infrastructure generation has to be planned based on future demand, and tempered by infrastructure build time.
        
        If it takes 15 years to build a new dam, NZ electricity will collapse under the weigh of EV owners, especially business EV owners wanting to fill up in 15 minutes.
        
        I note that Chargenet charge 80-85c/kw, which is 7 times an off peak / weekend home, rate, plus $1 – $2 per minute idle fee. i.e. connected but not charging.
        
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        January 25, 2025 7:39pm
  - MCōs
    
    I have two nieces with PhDs. One of them reminded all of us that she was the first in the family.
    My brother said he would have got one years ago if he’d thought it would be any use.
    
    4 2
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    January 25, 2025 6:07pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  As Prof Gluckman has pointed out in his review of NZ’s science sector..
  There has been a surplus production of folks with PhDs in areas with few job prospects, and worse, the PhDs are oriented toward Academic careers, not industry or Public-good research.
  
  134. The training of research graduates needs to include entrepreneurship and exposure to the private sector. Only a minority of PhD graduates can anticipate a career in academia, yet their training
  is largely designed for academic careers. The expanded use of industrial PhD programmes is
  highly desirable.
  
  244. PhD training in New Zealand still assumes that the graduate is most likely to have an academic
  career. There is a need to look at alternate structures that will produce graduates who will
  enter the private sector or have other roles in the public sector. The industrial PhD is one such
  approach which should be further developed.
  
  https://www.mbie.govt.nz/assets/science-system-advisory-group-report.pdf
  
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  January 25, 2025 1:57pm
  - cmm
    
    I am not that sure that technical PhDs are really valuable.
    
    In engineering, you basically need to write up and defend a thesis describing a project you undertook. The real value is in the work you did – not whiting the papers.
    
    In the area I work, a PhD is rare in NZ and the people that get them are generally academics who want to stay in academia and are generally not plugged in to the real world.
    
    7 0
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    January 25, 2025 6:18pm
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      The Universities like to keep total control over the process.
      
      50 years ago I organised funding for my PhD through a government agency and had jacked up a couple of Government botanists to act as supervisors, but the Uni wouldn’t accept that and insisted both my supervisors had to be Uni staff.
      
      It would make a lot of sense these days to allow at least one of the supervisors to be an outsider if they have the relevant expertise.
      
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      January 25, 2025 7:10pm
    - jonno1
      
      My highly-competent engineer friend gets grumpy if addressed as Dr (so of course we do it for fun). But her reasoning is valid: the state-of-the-art PhD topic which was valid 30 years ago is of no relevance today.
      
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      January 25, 2025 7:41pm
Jack5

Waikato Hindu priest runs amok, but strangulation charge withdrawn.

Convicted of assault, but will the soft Immigration and Protection Tribunal let him stay in NZ?

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/waikato-hindu-priest-jainesh-prasad-risks-deportation-after-convicted-for-assaulting-woman/FYCXJG7LSBDTDHYENUEGM4NKVQ/
8 0
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January 25, 2025 11:34am
- kowtow
  
  What’s the fuss about .
  
  Our Elites tell us constantly we are a “multicultural” society . So why aren’t we “embracing” all this “diversity” , afterall they tell us it enriches us.
  
  Multiculturalism entails accepting the way people from other cultures behave and their worldview.
  
  Innit.
  
  7 1
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  January 25, 2025 2:13pm
  - imalwaysright
    
    Isn’t multiculturalism many cultures in the same country?
    Good luck with that!
    
    On the other hand, a multiracial country with a core culture is feasible and probably desirable.
    
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    January 25, 2025 4:42pm
- MCōs
  
  Catholic priests have had their offending concealed from the police by the church and sending them out of the country to the Pacific islands or to the Vatican.
  BTW
  If I know about this, who doesn’t?
  Sure this Hindu priest is an odious person, but there’s bigger fish to fry.
  
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  January 25, 2025 5:45pm
  - rouppe
    
    But since this particular fish has been caught, why not remove the pest from our shores instead of throwing it back in to continue polluting the environment?
    
    1 0
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    January 25, 2025 11:26pm
vand

“A French woman has won a ruling from Europe’s top human rights court, with a panel of seven judges unanimously saying she should not have been blamed in their divorce for not having sex with her husband.”
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world-news/360559534/sex-not-part-womans-marital-duties-french-court-rules-divorce-case

Muslim imams in France will be in a private uproar about this “kuffar ” breach of sharia law
7 1
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January 25, 2025 12:46pm
Mr T

But they are not in fact doing that
3 0
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January 25, 2025 1:00pm
Mr T

As the govt owns tvnz why don’t they simply say, no Maori language on One, there is a Maori channel for that, and then insist all country references to NZ are not allowed to use the Aotearoa word. Same edict to all govt departments. The fact that they haven’t implies they support the name change
17 2
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January 25, 2025 1:05pm
- Paulus
  
  There are two Maori Televison stations so why not just use them – perhaps it because so few Maori can speak their derived language !
  
  8 1
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  January 25, 2025 2:54pm
- Benedict Yu
  
  That will never happen. Unless you commit to supporting both te reo and te ao Maori you cannot get a job in the public service. Anywhere. So if the government thinks that is cool, they are hardly going to tackle te reo on the TV weather report are they?
  
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  January 25, 2025 7:17pm
cmm

There really are some stupid people out there.

In 1953, Wernher von Braun (of Nazi rocketry and later NASA fame) wrote a science fiction book called Project Mars: A Technical Tale”.

In it, and in other sci fi magazine articles, he talks of “The Elon” in control of a colony on Mars.

Look, the fans say, von Braun had some way to predict the future! How is that possible?

Of course reality is far more mundane. Elon Musk’s father is a sci-fi fan read von Brauns’s publications and chose the name for his son who was born 18 years after the book was written.
12 1
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January 25, 2025 1:57pm
KH

Scott from. above
“Luxon is not continuing He Puapua. The ramparts of He Puapua were struck down when in the first 100 days the coalition got rid of the Maori health authority, 3 waters and made councils hold referendums on Maori wards…”
2 4
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January 25, 2025 2:22pm
KH

Maori ceded sovereignty. There is no doubt.
https://www.bassettbrashandhide.com/post/dr-lawrie-knight-fact-checking-waitangi-tribunal-finding
12 2
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January 25, 2025 2:24pm
- JackRabbit
  
  There never has been doubt. The only doubt is created by the lies the Maori tribal Marxists keep repeating over and over again, aided and abetting by scheming leftards and a complicit lying media paid for by scheming leftards.
  
  9 1
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  January 25, 2025 3:48pm
- Handyman
  
  For those who appreciate pure hutzpah…
  Ngakuti, chief of a Thames area tribe, refused to sign the treaty. He declared he retained the right to resolve dispute by force as was his custom.
  
  Well, he lost by force to the British but now his descendants are claiming redress under the treaty for the loss.
  
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  January 25, 2025 5:20pm
G the giant from Dunedin

Away from politics for a minute.

I see Romantic Warrior and James McDonald won GR1 in Saudi Arabia.

MacDonald won 3 races on the card a GR2 and a GR3

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/15yV123MST/?mibextid=wwXIfr
4 1
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January 25, 2025 3:22pm
Keith White

This should cheer up some people (you know who they are)

2 years ago the CDC had a, uh, quite final solution for vaccine-refuseniks in The United States… “We’ll just get rid of all the white people who refuse vaccines”.

Dr. Carol Baker: “So I have the solution. Every study published in the last five years, when you look at vaccine refusers. I’m not talking about…hesitance, most of them we can talk into coming to terms. But refusers. We’ll just get rid of all the whites in the United States…”

Mmmkay, Doc. Watch out for a SMOD incoming your way from Hippocrates…

Link to video at the, uh, link —

https://www.tigerdroppings.com/rant/politics/cdc-chair-of-advisory-well-just-get-rid-of-all-whites-in-the-united-states/90026064/
6 2
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January 25, 2025 5:36pm
- imalwaysright
  
  Very interesting KW. Maybe next time we’ll have to dodge an actual bullet!
  
  2 1
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  January 25, 2025 8:46pm
Benedict Yu

I recommend this book on the covid vaccine and the pandemic. Paul Offit demolishes the misinformation.

https://www.amazon.com/Tell-When-Its-Over-Post-Pandemic/dp/1426223668#aw-udpv3-customer-reviews_feature_div

Interview with the author on YouTube.

https://youtu.be/mwayZVKWm3w?si=_QwN3XUiBm_49rVI
3 7
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January 25, 2025 7:14pm
- Benedict Yu
  
  Interesting quotes.
  
  The COVID vaccines saved 3 million lives in the USA alone. Also in the USA an estimated 230,000 people died needlessly because they were not vaccinated.
  
  4 10
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  January 25, 2025 7:26pm
- wsk12345
  
  Seriously you’re offering g Paul Offit!!!!!!? Omfg.
  
  4 0
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  January 25, 2025 9:16pm
DimChappie

I just saw the Israeli women soldier hostages smiling for the cameras just before their release. They looked in great condition despite their long captivity. I bet they have not been raped or beaten, despite all the Israeli propaganda. Still believe there were babies murdered and mass rapes, Kiwibloggers?
1 8
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January 25, 2025 10:15pm
- Individual Responsibility
  
  DimChappie – what a sad and pathetic comment. Does it reflect your wretched psyche similarly?
  
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  January 26, 2025 1:25pm

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