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January 26, 2025 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 26 January 2025

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General Debate

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Cassandra

ACT has committed to upgrade NZ’s defence by increasing expenditure from 0.9% to 2%, which is the Trump target (soon to be 5% but that part of the negotiation). Australia is aiming at 2.4%. This sensible policy from ACT. We have bludged for years and the time has come (it came long ago actually) for us to contribute a fair share. We don’t need to go overboard – a Navy of 3 frigates or equivalent will suffice. And we’ll need to pay skilled personnel the market rate. Currently Defence is about 30% behind. I wonder what National and NZF will do. I hope both will endorse the ACT position.
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January 26, 2025 8:01am
- kowtow
  
  Amazing , across the west govts ( and commentariat) have no problem spending up like Swivel Eyed Loons on any and every crazy net zero nonsense , against a non existent “threat” , while constantly balking at spending on defending their countries and free way of life.
  
  And the threats are real . China , Russia , Iran .( and all their proxies).
  
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  January 26, 2025 8:09am
  - kevn
    
    Trumps plan…
    https://www.malone.news/p/summary-of-trumps-wef-speech
    
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    January 26, 2025 1:13pm
- Jake Dee
  
  Don’t make the target a GDP%, make the target specific well thought out capabilities.
  If your target is a larger budget then you will just find ways to pad it. If your target is capabilities then you will find more innovate ways to gain them with a smaller budget.
  
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  January 26, 2025 8:09am
  - Cassandra
    
    That’s not how the wider world measures it. Of course that follows but getting voters and governments and journalists to understand a 500 page strategy review won’t work. The eye catcher, for all its faults, is % of GDP. We’re on 0.9%, ACT says 2%. Frigates v F16 to follow.
    
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    January 26, 2025 10:14am
    - BananaLlama
      
      Should focus more on long range aviation in all honesty, bomb ship rather than bomb truck.
      
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      January 26, 2025 11:04am
      - Cassandra
        
        No, ships first priority. We’ve got the P8s and the new C130s.
        
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        January 26, 2025 12:22pm
      - waikatosinger
        
        The world has changed. We need to master the new style of warfare which we have seen in Ukraine. Take this opportunity to buy – develop – build – our drone capability.
        
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        January 26, 2025 2:04pm
      - Jigsaw
        
        Our history clearly shows us that troops on the ground without air support is a hopeless proposition. We should invest in A10 warthogs which are designed to do just that. Ground support that could easily slot in with our allies.
        
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        January 26, 2025 2:40pm
    - kiwimike
      
      Drones and ballistic rockets for projection.
      Though I’ve thought a couple of Global Hawks would be good for surveillance.
      
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      January 26, 2025 3:54pm
    - Jake Dee
      
      That is how accountants measure it. In the real world things are measured by their effectiveness. A % of GDP no matter how large is still just a number on a spreadsheet.
      It should be a target of X number of ships with X amount of tonnage, X number of men, who can be deployed for X length of time in the field, X number of weapons systems that can deliver Y payload at Z distance and so on.
      Don’t start with a certain budget and then later work out how to fill it. When has trying to find ways to spend your budget ever produced excellent results for the taxpayer?
      
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      January 26, 2025 5:26pm
      - waikatosinger
        
        No because that way of doing it locks you into a mode of warfare that may soon be outdated. It is like the British prior to WW2 obsessing about the number of battleships they have. Or the French sinking all their money into defensive fortifications.
        
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        January 26, 2025 7:31pm
  - Quail
    
    Agree.
    There is far too much latitude in all GDP comment.
    
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    January 26, 2025 6:48pm
- fightingtemeraire
  
  First of all no DEI hire.
  
  Buy “off the peg” frigates from people like Damen, not expensive BaE or whoever gear that cost half a billion a pop.
  
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  January 26, 2025 8:10am
  - Cassandra
    
    I think part of the deal will be interoperability with the RAN. We might well have to participate in the Australian ship build. Expensive!
    
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    January 26, 2025 10:32am
  - AitchW
    
    Surely our allies would have second hand frigates to sell us? Just like the family budget, you don’t buy a brand new car when you can get a perfectly good used car for a lot less.
    
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    January 26, 2025 11:00am
    - Cassandra
      
      Second hand war ships are also secured nd rate. We need new ones, very expensive.
      
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      January 26, 2025 12:23pm
      - AitchW
        
        Why do we? Surely a recently upgraded 2nd hand frigates would suffice?
        A but like the Dunedin Hospital, we don’t need gold standard stuff, architectural design and all the trimmings.
        
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        January 26, 2025 12:32pm
      - Cassandra
        
        Second rate. Problem is they’re hard to find and expensive in the long run. Plus they wear out sooner and we go through the whole thing again.
        
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        January 26, 2025 1:35pm
      - All_on_Red
        
        How about the new US Constellation Class Frigate?
        I think they are opening another shipyard as they ramp up production.
        Norway is buying them too
        Around USD $1B each
        https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/constellation-class-frigates-us-navy-warship-does-it-all-211221/
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constellation-class_frigate
        Get four over an eight year period
        
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        January 26, 2025 2:43pm
      - Jake Dee
        
        That’s locked into old modes of thinking. A food chain where consultants, lobbyists, lawyers and their buddies have to get fed first.
        The priority is to develop the skills and get the gear needed to defend NZ, not to feed the Western military industrial complex.
        Don’t waste money on paying people to tell you how much more money you should be paying them, the answer is always the same “A Lot, and for a Long time”.
        Innovate.
        
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        January 26, 2025 5:35pm
  - Ra Henare
    
    What will RNZN do with 4 frigates???
    
    Has nobody been paying attention to what has happened in the Black Sea with Russian Navy and the effect the Yemeni rebels are having WITHOUT using warships.
    
    Naval warfare especially is changing dramatically since the days of The Gunboat (and aircraft carrier).
    
    A recently retired US Admiral, head of Pacific fleet was asked in congress how far off Taiwan would a US Aircraft carrier be safe if armed conflict starts with China.
    
    Answer 1,000 miles.
    
    Like the bollocks re the RNZAF needing F16s, which Helen Clarke correctly cancelled.
    
    The KB keyboard warriors seem to be fixated on historical approaches to foreign affairs and defence capabilities.
    
    I recommend the BBC SAS Rogue Heroes to see how abruptly military war responses changes are needed.
    
    Today’s world is about smart drones/missiles. Not some overexcited military commander sitting in a metal tube near the front lines (either ship or aircraft)
    
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    January 26, 2025 6:34pm
    - All_on_Red
      
      Shipboard anti missile/drone Lasers are pretty much here
      The concept of ships being ‘floating coffins’ is almost redundant.
      Israels Iron Beam is the first example being used on land.
      It must REALLY irritate you that the ‘Joos’ are ahead of the game- again
      
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      January 26, 2025 6:51pm
    - jon
      
      Beats me why the RNZAF havent ditched the F and inserted U. Given we no longer have any combat strike aircraft, the airforce should be styled the RNZAU. (U for UNIT)
      
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      January 26, 2025 9:09pm
- slightlyrighty
  
  A 4 Frigate Navy would be the minimum.
  
  At any one time at Least one will be in extended Maintenance or refit, one in a Supplementary maintenance period with 2 operational.
  
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  January 26, 2025 8:20am
  - Cassandra
    
    I agree that 4 frigates is best but be realistic. We have 2 now, increasing to 3 will send the right signals and that plus other necessaries – we need crews, therefore pay increases for skilled staff will have to rise 30% plus some additional aircraft and some Army kit eg artillery or similar – will take the budget to 2%. Above 2% is unrealistic for now.
    
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    January 26, 2025 9:30am
    - pdm
      
      Cass – crews could be the big problem. Especially trained competent crews.
      
      As I understand it the Navy barely has enough trained crew to put two frigates to sea at the same time at present.
      
      Even if both were ready to sail.
      
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      January 26, 2025 9:40am
      - Cassandra
        
        Pay them more then. About 30% more – my grandson, highly skilled RNZAF technician, is $75,000. He should be on $100,000 or more.
        
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        January 26, 2025 10:16am
      - Paulus
        
        Do they all have Sails, as if they would continue to breakdown, or hit reefs.
        
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        January 26, 2025 10:19am
      - Jake Dee
        
        Getting more personnel for the Navy and all branches of the military is more than just a financial question, it is a social problem that requires a whole of society approach.
        The modern sub-species of human known as “Homo Economicus” believes that there is no problem that can’t be solved if you can just throw enough money at it (naturally a certain % of which must flow through their hands and another certain % will end up in their own pockets).
        But they are wrong.
        There are certain problems that can only be solved with Time, Intelligence and Willpower. And those can’t be bought off the shelf at the supermarket.
        
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        January 26, 2025 5:48pm
      - jon
        
        pdm, i think it would be simpler if we just ditched our nonsense anti nuclear policy and outsourced our defence needs, to Australia.
        
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        January 26, 2025 9:15pm
    - coge
      
      Crew retention has been a problem for years. It won’t have been improved seeing last years events. Who would want their kid to serve in an unsafe Navy? There are much better employment options available to our young.
      
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      January 26, 2025 10:43am
      - Cassandra
        
        We can change that perception, with effort.
        
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        January 26, 2025 11:04am
  - imalwaysright
    
    Four frigates couldn’t defend themselves, never mind the country.
    Then there’s the ridiculous infrastructure cost to pretend they are a “navy”. I think they even have a brass band and an admiral!!
    Waste of money.
    The lady loving lady who sunk the boat did us a favour.
    
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    January 26, 2025 10:23am
    - Cassandra
      
      They’ll be part of a much bigger force. They’ll be part of a team, with RAN, USN and others eg Japan and South Korea.
      
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      January 26, 2025 11:06am
      - Colville
        
        The USA openly acknowledge that they have friends (like us and Canada) who should stick to strengths like special forces.
        Our value to USA is in things like Five Eyes.
        The USA is big on history, and they remember we fought along side them many times and fought well.
        
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        January 26, 2025 12:00pm
      - Jake Dee
        
        Thereby ensuring that we have bought into all of their problems and lose any capacity for independent action. If you build it from the ground up as just a cog in a larger machine then it can’t do anything else.
        That is not the defence force of a sovereign nation. That is a vassal state paying tribute in men and treasure to its overlords.
        
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        January 26, 2025 5:54pm
    - AitchW
      
      Her boat is still on the RNZN website as part of the fleet….
      
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      January 26, 2025 1:58pm
- Grunter
  
  Yes to having a ‘defence force’ of some sort. But who are our plausible enemies and why and how would they realistically attack NZ?
  
  IMO, the most likely would be some sort of inside job by a semi-organised terrorist cell or militant Maori separatist movement. Still very unlikely to ever happen.
  
  I often hear people say that “China will take us over one day”. Really? Why would they do that? And 3 frigates would be useless if this very unlikely scenario played out?
  
  So then it comes back to the “we must play our part” argument. The obvious question then is “play our part in what exactly?” The ongoing US global domination program? Put a US military/naval base in NZ?
  
  I just struggle with the what and why questions when it comes to the defence debate. Until that is clear, I say don’t spend a cent.
  
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  January 26, 2025 8:30am
  - Cassandra
    
    Indeed, Grunter, you are struggling. We’re not going to be repelling an invasion. We need to be able to work with Australia. Suggest you read a bit about the topic. It’s quite interesting and then you’ll be able to take part in a sensible discussion.
    
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    January 26, 2025 9:33am
    - Grunter
      
      Thx. That helps//
      
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      January 26, 2025 10:18am
    - Paulus
      
      Sadly within the Australian forces our Defence people are considered a laugh, on a personal basis.
      Like our cricketers !
      
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      January 26, 2025 10:21am
      - imalwaysright
        
        Correct. NZ “navy” is a joke. Took them a week to deliver some water to Hawkes Bay a couple of years ago.
        Expensive toys that won’t last 30s, and that’s if the enemy can stop laughing long enough to press fire.
        Same with the army. Most of them are unfit and would just get in the way.
        
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        January 26, 2025 10:32am
    - Grunter
      
      So if we aren’t repelling an invasion (which is what a defence force does), then what is it for exactly? Helping Aust do what? Helping the US do what?
      
      More Afghanistans?? If that’s the only answer then it is obviously a big “No” from me.
      
      No one’s comments yet explain much at all.
      
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      January 26, 2025 10:23am
      - Cassandra
        
        The main task is to keep the lines of communication open. Without that NZ will be unable to export or import anything. That means, among other things, stopping enemies from blocking or controlling them. NZ can play a part in that, with Australia and other like-minded countries. My earlier advice still stands.
        
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        January 26, 2025 11:10am
      - Grunter
        
        Cassandra – your Luxon response “go read a book” is as useful as…..well Luxon’s climate argument. You’ve made no decent argument at all. Just buy 3 frigates so we can trade. You make no sense at all with that one.
        
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        January 26, 2025 11:54am
  - MCōs
    
    NZ has supported the US in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan . . . . The UK in Malaya, Falklands . . . Timor Leste, Ukraine and so on.
    Added up it probably doesn’t come to much, after all they’re about forty countries in Afghanistan, but down the track it shows we’re friends when tariffs or trade is discussed . . . . maybe
    
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    January 26, 2025 9:41am
  - slightlyrighty
    
    Go to Google Earth, and look at the world with NZ in the centre of the globe.
    
    THAT”S why we need a Blue Water Navy.
    
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    January 26, 2025 10:40am
    - AitchW
      
      Why do we have 3 seperate services? Surely a defence force with planes, ships and ground forces makes more sense. The triplication of back room services must be eye wateringly expensive.
      All we need do is convince the various generals, admirals and air marshals to swallow their egos.
      The number of top brass could be slashed as a result too.
      
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      January 26, 2025 11:15am
      - Cantabrian
        
        There is only one defence force. It is headed by one chief. There are separate ‘departments ‘ for operating in marine, air and ground environments – which unsurprisingly need specialist equipment (ships, planes, rifles, etc) and are structured and organised to train with and fight with that equipment.
        The NZDF does not have duplicated ‘back office’ organizations. There is a common HR organization with common rules (except where the employment environment necessitates differences), one logistic support organization- again, with components established for ship, aircraft, and ground equipment maintenance. There is a common warehouse organization and some equipment and spares common to two or more services are held in one depot. Medical services are combined. Works and infrastructure is managed by a common agency. Initial training is conducted by a common school. This is just an illustration of how ‘joined up’ the services have become over the last 20 or so years.
        It is wrong and unfair to criticism the NZDF for being a large duplicated organization. It most certainly is not.
        
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        January 26, 2025 12:21pm
      - Cassandra
        
        Tried by Canada and it doesn’t really work. The only saving is in uniforms. There are three separate functions. Mostly the 3 services n NZ work pretty well together. One boss.
        
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        January 26, 2025 12:27pm
      - nathie
        
        Well said Cassandra. Merging the armed services would be as useful as merging Police, Fire and Ambulances/Doctors/Nurses etc. (Or AirNZ/KiwiRail/Ports & dockyards etc).
        
        Specialisation needs to be retained.
        
        But as you say, there are “joint” efforts where practical i.e. at NZDF HQ and operations planning, support and training etc.
        
        Best of both worlds. Like anywhere else in the world. It works and ain’t broken!
        
        (Yeah Canada tried it and it failed … then had to unwind it, at at opportunity cost/loss)! Let’s not be a “Canada”!
        
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        January 26, 2025 12:55pm
      - AitchW
        
        Sorry Cantabrian, I reported you in error.
        Thank you for your clarification. I guess the question now is why do we need to refer to the three arms as if they were standalone entities?
        That which we call a rose and all that, I get it, but are there not still seperate recruiting offices for the 3 arms?
        I’m not having a crack or trying to be a smart arse, simply trying to understand the rationale.
        
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        January 26, 2025 3:01pm
      - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
        
        Quite right. The clinging to the single service model is ludicrous for a tiny country with a tiny military. We have enough colonels and admirals for a 100,000 person armed forces, not the 15,000 we actually possess.
        
        Time for a unified Marines corps. It is the only sensible solution, and get rid of 3 training establishments, 3 lots of everything.
        
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        January 26, 2025 6:08pm
  - Michael Sommerville
    
    It is not about being invaded, it is about international relationships and our responsibilities.
    
    Yes we need a credible defence force so that we can ASSIST with the defence of our area of responsibility. We are responsible for a huge maritime area. We must patrol that area. We need ships and aircraft to do that. Foreign fishing fleets can rape and pillage our waters if they are not patrolled.
    
    Our traded goods travel by sea primarily and these routes must be safe, otherwise our trade is in jeopardy.
    
    The Australians refer to us as bludgers which sadly, is not wrong. If we want trade (raise our standard of living) we have to have those relationships and pulling our weight on the defence side, helps do that.
    
    We should have a strike wing that can operate with the defence of north Australia. Australia has a huge military presence in northern Oz. Any threat is likely to come from the Asian area and we need to be aware of that. Countries like Singapore and Malaysia understand military defence and are more likely to trade if they know we are serious about the stability of the area. They all are then justified in supporting NZ when the need arises.
    
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    January 26, 2025 11:09am
    - Cassandra
      
      I think we can get away with upgrading the Navy. A strike capability would be nice but realistically it’s $$$$$ and their absence. 2% will get us a navy and some pay increases.
      
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      January 26, 2025 12:29pm
      - nathie
        
        I think we can also justify a return of an Air Combat capability again nowadays (as well as 4 Frigates and an an agile/light land/maritime focused Army). So sure might be a slightly 2+% GDP thing.
        
        Apart for the need for an Air Combat Force for maritime strike and deterrence (to work with the P-8 Poseidon and Frigates) … we are now in an era of adversarial long-range UAV’s.
        
        A few of those launched over the South Pacific ccould be surveilling NZ/Pacific/Allied shipping or if armed, be destroying them or Pacific Island/NZ port/land infrastructure (energy production, storage etc).
        
        NZ needs to air capabilities again to shoot them down.
        
        So particularly in the “flanks” i.e. South Pacific, whilst allied (US, OZ, Japan, South Korea etc) capabilities prioritise their territories close to “hotspots”.
        
        After all they could be ship launched, from civilian looking ships, from anywhere close to us and our region (i.e. away from the expected hotspots where allies are concentrated).
        
        For defending our South Pacific “flanks” we don’t need expensive 5th generation F-35 type fighters (they are designed for front-line use against advanced adversarials i.e CCP).
        
        If we asked the US they would give us plenty (as in 2-3 squadrons worth for attrition and mass) of second-hand F-16 and F-15 type aircraft for a fraction of the cost.
        
        And that’s what we needed in WW2 to protect our coasts and out to sea. We need that again, now.
        
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        January 26, 2025 1:11pm
  - Jake Dee
    
    Well consider it like this,
    A conversation from The Simpsons in the 20th century,
    (Marge) “Homer we’ve got to find some ways to save money!”
    (Homer) “Well what about Maggie? We’re always buying her vaccinations for diseases she doesn’t even have!”
    Or like this, an analogy from Machiavelli in the 16th century,
    “A nation without an army is like a fine palace without a roof, sooner or later the rains will come and all of your beautiful things will be destroyed”
    
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    January 26, 2025 6:12pm
  - Ra Henare
    
    Grunter, stop using logic and reasoned thinking.!!
    
    Our members are locked in to ideology and knee-jerk emotional responses.
    
    Of course, China doesn’t need to invade with a military force. They have economic and technology forces which will be much more effective in a “”takeover””.
    
    Now remind me where is your phone/computer/tablet made?
    
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    January 26, 2025 6:38pm
    - All_on_Red
      
      Lol
      Grunter- a Citation Free Zone- is constantly wrong about everything.
      Both of you have no idea if you think China is going to stay as a dominant force.
      Time is against it and economically they are screwed. You are clearly ignorant of how little ability China has to make the high tech Super Conductors its defence industry needs
      Just ask Russia
      
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      January 26, 2025 6:54pm
- G152
  
  We could also do with a real Air Force
  
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  January 26, 2025 8:39am
  - Cassandra
    
    A strike force? I don’t think we can. Too expensive. All we’ve got to do is show that we’re playing our part and paying our share. The Navy is the way to do it. NB I’m Army.
    
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    January 26, 2025 9:36am
    - rockape
      
      Navy is a bit vulnerable without air cover. An air wing with air defence, attack helicopters and a small army well equiped is the way to go.
      
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      January 26, 2025 10:34am
      - Cassandra
        
        The air cover will come from allies. We just need to get to 2% first. Maybe more later but let’s start with a realistic target.
        
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        January 26, 2025 11:12am
  - rouppe
    
    We could have a real air force with offensive capability without fast jets.
    
    We have Orion. They are a seek and destroy weapon. We only use it for search and rescue.
    
    We have Hercules. There are gunship variants of these. We only use them as transport.
    
    So if we enhanced the capability of the hardware we have instead of buying completely different hardware like F18’s we could easily have more offensive capability.
    
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    January 26, 2025 9:55am
    - Michael Sommerville
      
      For Orion read P8 Poseidon.
      
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      January 26, 2025 11:12am
      - Handyman
        
        Regarding the new P8s….
        They are submarine locators in wartime (especially in cold wartime) and can pay for themselves in peacetime by finding illegal fishing fleets.
        Add an extra frigate or two and we can at least defend ourselves from fishing boats.
        
        In actual wartime, we would send a frigate or two as a symbolic gesture as part of an ANZAC or ANZUS fleet.
        
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        January 26, 2025 12:55pm
    - Grunter
      
      Who would they shoot? Seriously……
      
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      January 26, 2025 11:12am
      - Cassandra
        
        Chinese submarines, for starters.
        
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        January 26, 2025 12:30pm
      - kowtow
        
        Houthis currently blocking our trade routes , for starters.
        
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        January 26, 2025 12:41pm
      - Michael Sommerville
        
        Russian submarines. They have been seen in NZ waters.
        
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        January 26, 2025 12:43pm
      - nathie
        
        Sorry Michael, I hit report instead of reply (or was no reply only report. Doh me)!
        
        So to reply to your comment “Russian submarines. They have been seen in NZ waters”, for those that are interested, here is what ex- RNZAF Orion crew have said to confirm that adversary submarines have been operating in NZ waters. (And of course no-one will be talking about the current situation for secrecy reasons).
        
        Logically if one thinks about it, and looks at a globe, adversary subs need to transit the Tasman Sea or South Pacific to get around Australia and NZ to reach the Indian Ocean or Antarctic waters to either launch long-range missiles or to hide out for a period (as allied anti-submarine operations will be concentrated in “choke-points” such as the Malacca Strait by Singapore/Indonesia, Indonesia/Northern Australia, and Micronesia etc).
        
        https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/sub-hunters-say-pm-out-of-her-depth-over-claims/7KAYWMQLKWSYHSKZMZXK4B2Y4M/
        
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        January 26, 2025 1:28pm
      - Grunter
        
        Thanks – finally some specific enemy targets coughed up!
        
        So NZ would blow up Chinese and Russian subs, and somehow fix the Houthis problem in the Red Sea…….!
        🤣🤣🤣🤣
        
        Are you for real, or just pulling my leg?
        
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        January 26, 2025 2:06pm
      - rouppe
        
        Illegal fishing boats that refuse to comply with instructions to be boarded
        
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        January 26, 2025 11:25pm
    - kiwimike
      
      Same for the Navy
      We could buy container ships and use bolt-on munitions systems as others are looking at.
      They can sail with Frigates providing support and greater offensive capability for both air and sea defence.
      warontherocks had an article last year.
      
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      January 26, 2025 4:05pm
  - Ra Henare
    
    We have a real air force!!!!!
    (or do you want boys toys jets that can scream around the skies in combat mode for around 2 hours before needing a refuel, or can hardly make it across the ditch without a refuel.
    ( a visit to an F16 factory will open your eyes!!- I did, it did) so not suitable for NZ.
    
    Capabilities that are needed are logistical (C130, helicopters) and surveillance (Search and Rescue) P8s. Smugglers etc.
    
    Note. Did time as aircrew on P3 Orions. Main usage was anti smuggling, anti-illegal fishing. Search & Rescue. With occasional overseas jollies to play with other Naval air forces.
    
    Against submarines/surface warships of the time. P3/P8 Basically ineffectual due to anti-aircraft missile defences.
    
    Post operational debriefs from “”exercises” were eye-opening….
    Submarines back then could outrun and out manoeuvre other than the then very latest smart torpedoes.
    
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    January 26, 2025 6:49pm
- MCōs
  
  What I want to know is your strategic plan on the off chance we are physically attacked by some country?
  More to the point if we enter into defence agreements with the US in particular and they provoke a conflict with Panama or some other South American country or godforbid Denmark and require us to show some sort of token support
  What do we do?
  
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  January 26, 2025 8:58am
  - Simon
    
    Missiles and drones. Scrap army, airforce & navy. A missile & drone service. That’s it.
    
    Non aligned NZ with ability to kill war ships.
    
    Next is to get rid of NZs reliance / control by international capital.
    
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    January 26, 2025 9:09am
    - All_on_Red
      
      Providing Specialised Services is the niche we should fill
      Such as operating an anti ship missile system like this one Japan has just developed
      The Aussies would love something like that to call on- and other countries closer to China
      ‘Following five test launches in October and November 2024, the ground-based variant of the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) Upgraded Type-12 anti-ship missile, the first of Japan’s new range of indigenously developed stand-off missile capabilities, is slated to be deployed sometime in the upcoming fiscal year (FY25, April 2025–March 2026). The air- and ship-launched variants are planned to enter service later this decade.
      
      According to Japanese media reports, the range of the new missile exceeds 900 kilometres, a significant increase from the 200 km range of the original Type-12 introduced in 2012. In December 2024, Japan’s Ministry of Defense (MoD) published images of the missile and a two-canister, road-mobile transporter-erector launcher (TEL)’
      https://www.iiss.org/online-analysis/missile-dialogue-initiative/2025/01/japan-set-to-enhance-its-anti-ship-missile-inventory/
      
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      January 26, 2025 3:26pm
  - Scott
    
    MCos – yes I’m sure that Trump will invade Greenland and the Panama Canal and NZ troops will be forced to be involved after a strong arm phone call from Trump to Luxon. That’s a totally realistic scenario and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
    
    Also I hear Trump is also going to invade Canada and make it the 51st state. 😃
    
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    January 26, 2025 9:10am
    - AitchW
      
      Did you forget the sarc tag?
      There is no way we would get involved in an armed invasion of a sovereign country just to massage Trump’s ego. It’s silly even to suggest we would.
      
      10 1
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      January 26, 2025 11:18am
      - Scott
        
        Aitch – I was hoping there were enough signals there for intelligent people such as yourself to discern my mockery. 🙄
        
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        January 26, 2025 12:38pm
      - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
        
        You mean like last time? When we had to play nice to Bush, because Helen Clark couldn’t keep her mouth shut?
        
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        January 26, 2025 6:11pm
      - Jake Dee
        
        “There is no way we would get involved in an armed invasion of a sovereign country….”
        We’ve done it before, more than a few times in fact, first at the behest of the British, later at the behest of the Americans.
        There is a long history of New Zealand being roped into imperial wars. The first German territory taken in WWI was taken by New Zealanders in Samoa.
        Far too many people think that Washington defending New Zealand against China is axiomatic and discount any notion of Washington GETTING US INTO a war with China.
        Study history, the best indication of future behavior is past behavior.
        
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        January 26, 2025 6:25pm
    - AitchW
      
      Scott, I stand corrected. That’s the problem with reading kiwiblog before a second coffee, one can miss the obvious!
      
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      January 26, 2025 3:03pm
    - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
      
      Well that was the sole reason we went into Afghanistan. Our glorious leader had offended the President with her smart arse commentary, so Nek Minnit, we have troops on the ground supporting “freedom”.
      
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      January 26, 2025 6:10pm
  - Cassandra
    
    We don’t need to do any of the above, MCos. Straw man argument.
    
    17 2
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    January 26, 2025 9:37am
    - MCōs
      
      We have in the past
      
      4 12
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      January 26, 2025 9:42am
      - Cassandra
        
        Defend the coast? Yes, started with the Russian scare in 1905 or so and during WW2. Wouldn’t have worked and wasn’t needed but that’s what we did a hundred or two years ago. Now we do it as far away as possible, with allies.
        
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        January 26, 2025 10:19am
      - MCōs
        
        See my comment above
        We have never been threatened by anyone, but we have sent token forces in support of other countries when requested over the years, have we not?
        
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        January 26, 2025 10:27am
      - Michael Sommerville
        
        You say we haven’t been threatened. You obviously don’t have high level security clearance. If you had you might be aware of some of the threats that have been around this country that don’t hit the headlines.
        
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        January 26, 2025 11:15am
      - BananaLlama
        
        No need for high level security clearance to see the images of Submarines operating near our waters. They are a very real threat that can launch salvos of cruise missiles which will destroy all of our critical infrastructure.
        
        12 1
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        January 26, 2025 11:34am
      - Nobby2
        
        MCos. “We have never been threatened by anyone”. Suggest you do some history research on German Navy ships in NZ waters during WW1 and Japanese Navy submarines and planes in NZ waters and airspace during WW11, before making your comments.
        
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        January 26, 2025 12:16pm
- nygr
  
  Why don’t we just rent some DOC land to our allies so they can house a nuclear deterrent or two? I’m sure that would give us a good income to build an armed service.
  
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  January 26, 2025 1:01pm
Matt Long

Occupying the centre left, how’s that strategy working for the UK Conservatives?
https://x.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1882817995103453431
And a reminder that most of the Nats, and all Act voted to make it illegal for Parents to try to persuade their children out of the grip of trans groomers.
https://x.com/2ETEKA/status/1882697184937943473
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January 26, 2025 8:10am
- Philview
  
  Also the main opposition Speak Up For Women were denigrated by the NZ media and denied advertising. After reading that these women are extremists I had a look at their website and found a group of normal looking Kiwi women with valid concerns. I suspect New Zealand has the most extreme transgender agenda in the world. I don’t have an issue with transgender people but I do have an issue with our MPs and media shutting down debate and freedom of speech.
  
  38 2
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  January 26, 2025 8:41am
  - Paulus
    
    Speak Up for Women
    It is not what they look, like it is what is in their brains.
    
    12 0
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    January 26, 2025 10:23am
- Pope Punctilious II
  
  Yes, including Luxon and Seymour. A terrible indictment of the NZ “right”. Worse, since then then we’ve lost 3 of the 8 Nats MPs who had the courage and good sense to vote against that hideous “progressive” bill – Bridges, O’Connor, Woodhouse. And another of the 8 (Lee) seems out of favour with Luxon and might be considering her future in politics.
  
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  January 26, 2025 9:39am
  - kiwimike
    
    Luxon is woke as
    always has been.
    Look at Air NZ, he was so proud of their EV’s.
    
    7 0
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    January 26, 2025 4:10pm
Matt Long

AstraZenica covid shots were in fact clot shots.
But don’t worry, Pfizer are an honorable honest company, so you can totally trust their vaccine program.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/01/24/dr-sue-pavord-alarmed-results-astrazeneca-vaccine/
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January 26, 2025 8:13am
- Bridgenag
  
  Another one from Oz
  
  UK’s 4 Times Best Personal Trainer Makes a U-Turn on COVID Vaccines??
  AUSSIE17
  
  https://open.substack.com/pub/pharmafiles/p/uks-4-times-best-personal-trainer?r=1aj1bv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
  
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  January 26, 2025 8:24am
- MCōs
  
  Dr Sue Pavord is a haematologist with an interest in thrombosis. I’m seeing a haematologist in a couple of months. I’ll ask for their current opinion
  
  8 12
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  January 26, 2025 8:35am
  - wsk12345
    
    Well in NZ they are not allowed to say anything that is negative towards the covid vax or face censure from the medical board.
    
    So rather pointless asking your Dr.
    
    16 1
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    January 26, 2025 9:19am
    - MCōs
      
      Another thing Doctor, will you be brought before the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal for questioning Medical Council dogma confirming the absolute safety of all these covid vaccines as stated by wsk12345 on Kiwiblog?
      
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      January 26, 2025 12:36pm
  - kevn
    
    mcos… Their lips are paid shut by the Med Assn.
    
    7 0
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    January 26, 2025 11:15am
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  One way to avoid deep vein thrombosis and low platelets is not to take the shit, not even an alternative.
  I was lucky, so was my partner. We don’t even know what brand Ardern forced us to take. We would never take it again knowing what has happened to many.
  
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  January 26, 2025 8:55am
kevn

Matt… Yep, truckloads of jab info still oozing out.
https://dailysceptic.org/2025/01/25/chris-whitty-was-sceptical-about-vaccine-mandate-for-healthcare-workers-and-says-decision-was-100-political/
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January 26, 2025 8:17am
- sungsamning
  
  There could be quite a lot more to come if RFK is confirmed. I don’t think the boards at Pfizer and Astra Zenica include any of his close friends.
  
  18 1
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  January 26, 2025 8:50am
Steve Otto N Shore

No money for the fire service, no money for water, but plenty of money for free crack pipes. This is what happens when the incompetent left have power, and boy don’t we know that in NZ!!

https://deplorabledaily.com/a-los-angeles-democrat-dropped-the-hammer-on-the-city-for-this-sick-giveaway-to-criminals/?
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January 26, 2025 8:17am
- kowtow
  
  The California State budget allocates tens of billions to carbon nonsense .
  
  But when it comes to real life , everyday issues …….
  
  That’s what you get for voting for the “centre”.
  
  18 1
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  January 26, 2025 8:37am
- kevn
  
  SteveO.. yep, Trumps on the LA case now.
  https://www.zerohedge.com/political/watch-trump-destroys-la-mayor-her-face-during-wild-press-conference-spat
  
  11 1
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  January 26, 2025 11:17am
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    It was good to watch Trump tear a strip off her and expose how useless she is.
    18 months to get a permit to go into your lot.
    You’re fire Bass, FIRED!!
    
    10 1
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    January 26, 2025 1:01pm
gorse

A squadron of F16s would be useful. The USA would supply them cheap with all necessary training. Our Skyhawks should never been sold. We were among the best in the world at mountain flying in them. We were never going to be effective as a defence force with them, but could train many pilots quickly.

All gone.
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January 26, 2025 8:29am
- Cassandra
  
  Too late, gorse. Getting to 2% will be hard enough. First priority is an Australian compatible Navy.
  
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  January 26, 2025 9:39am
- igm
  
  Did Goff ever decorate the mahogany with the cheque we were supposed to receive for our Skyhawks?
  
  13 1
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  January 26, 2025 10:09am
- Benedict Yu
  
  Could New Zealand realistically rebuild the pilots and all the support personnel required to run such airplanes?
  
  14 0
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  January 26, 2025 10:13am
  - Cassandra
    
    Good point. No. It’d take mega bucks and we’d have to recruit the instructors. We’ve lost all that. Thanks Helen.
    
    18 1
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    January 26, 2025 10:35am
    - Don Beckett
      
      Just send them to the US for training. After all, when Helen disbanded the strike wing the UK, US & Australia welcomed our pilots & crews with open arms.
      
      13 1
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      January 26, 2025 10:52am
      - Cassandra
        
        Don: how would we get the command and control infrastructure with just a team of newly qualified pilots? Any way, it’s all far too expensive at this stage. First things first realistically.
        
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        January 26, 2025 11:15am
  - Michael Sommerville
    
    Yes. Operate within the RAAF until experienced gained.
    
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    January 26, 2025 11:21am
  - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
    
    Of course we could. But it would take 10 years in peacetime, and 2 years in war.
    
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    January 26, 2025 6:12pm
- nz_aj
  
  Drone force appears to be the way of the future
  
  12 0
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  January 26, 2025 11:34am
  - Jack5
    
    Drones are a feasible defence system given our wealth, or lack of wealth.
    
    They’re cheap to make, but more important, might be the basis of an NZ armaments industry.
    
    Lots of talent in young folk entranced by computers, gaming and even basic electronics.
    
    Drones – air, sea surface, and underwater – might lead to a missiles and new technology enterprises like NZ-founded Rocket Lab USA.
    
    Yemen has caused problems with conventional drones, sea drones, and under-sea drones ( or UUV’s – uncrewed underwater vehicles).
    
    Yemen (205th in the world in GDP per capita) is poorer than NZ (44th in the world in GP per capita).
    
    11 0
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    January 26, 2025 12:10pm
  - Michael Sommerville
    
    They are part of the solution but not THE solution.
    
    12 0
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    January 26, 2025 12:45pm
    - Quail
      
      Reply all.
      Take a look at the only country in Europe that has not been invaded. Switzerland
      Allegedly all late teens get trained in warfare and given a gun to take home and keep safe,
      Other country’s regard Switzerland as “ too hard to take over”so don’t bother.
      Here in NZ there is no training and the government is hell bent on removing guns from the populace.In years gone by school cadets and military training removed the mystique of firearms . Their rightful status is a tool ,you hope never to have to use.
      During the last war the NZ Home guard was armed in part by privately owned firearms taken from farmers and others.
      Roll on to 2025 ,many of those firearms have been trashed by the government so that option has pretty much gone.
      NZ would be struggling to last a week in a real war .
      
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      January 26, 2025 4:43pm
      - rouppe
        
        I’m in Switzerland.
        
        Was skiing with one such man. He has a pistol at home as he is an officer. But he has no ammunition. That is kept centrally.
        
        He has to do 3 weeks a year, which is largely a jolly.
        
        Switzerland hasn’t been invaded not because of CMS, but because of their neutrality.
        
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        January 26, 2025 9:34pm
- Mod88
  
  F-18 E/F (Naval Plane)would be best. Interoperability with the US Navy (cross-decking), we could run Fleet Defence (as we did with the Skyhawks another Navy plane) as we would deploy with Australia which would free up the Australian AF for Strike Missions. NZ is an Island Nation, land based fighters only are pointless. Sadly it will never happen.
  
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  January 26, 2025 11:42am
- Ra Henare
  
  You seem unaware of F16 limited capabilities.
  
  Good for NZ Airshows and thats about it.
  
  F16s can scarcely fly across the ditch.!!!! Without a refuel.
  
  Operational time limitations would mean defending the far north (an obvious first strike target) would require an F16 base around/near Kaitaia. The same would apply to East cape and the South of the South.
  
  I do wish some readers would expand their reading from boys own war comics and do some real world research.
  
  So how are the F16s defending Ukraine at the moment? More than a squadron’s worth in numbers already. Effect on halting the Russians……ummm Zero springs to mind.
  
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  January 26, 2025 6:59pm
slightlyrighty

Hegseth was confirmed by a whisker as SecDef.

This man may have led troops in combat, but as a company level officer, his career finished at way below the level that would qualify him for such a post.

It should be noted that Trump was unable to find a General or Admiral that would fill that role, and those who did during his first term (General Mattis) and the Chiefs of the various departments during that time remarked that Trump did not have a good understanding of the military.

There is a reason that Hegseth did not advance beyond the rank of Captain. He is massively underqualified outside of his fealty to Trump.
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January 26, 2025 8:32am
- the deity formerly known as nigel6888
  
  Even Wikipedia says he was a Major, and got a bronze star for service in special forces. so what other “facts” do you have to share.
  
  Muldoon was a corporal (as was Hitler of course).
  
  There is no magic connection between military rank and qualifications for government roles. In fact anyone who studies the military knows that once you get past half colonel, the machine values conformity and risk aversion far more than is healthy. Smart, effective officers tend to leave at Major and half colonel while they still have career prospects.
  
  The fact that Hegseth graduated from Princeton, and had a career in investment banking as well as being a national guard officer suggests fairly high levels of smarts.
  
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  January 26, 2025 9:32am
  - Michael Sommerville
    
    Add President Kennedy was a USN Lt patrol boat commander during WWII.
    
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    January 26, 2025 12:47pm
- thirteenstars
  
  NZ’s Minister of Defence is Judith Collins, a lawyer by trade and unless I’m mistaken a person with no history of military service let alone taking fire in combat.
  
  The last US president to have military experience was George Bush which didn’t involve any combat. You have to go way back to Bush’s father for the most recent president who actually saw combat. Yet this is the person with the power to exert enormous force anywhere on the globe.
  
  I’m comfortable with Hegseth as Sec-Def. It’s ridiculous to say a man with his experience is not suitably au fait with the military. Note that a large part of Hegseth’s job is to address the cultural malaise within the US military and to reinvigorate it and its mission–which is the defence of the United States, not that of World Policeman–and he certainly seems up to that task.
  
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  January 26, 2025 12:42pm
  - kowtow
    
    ‘You have to go way back to Bush’s father for the most recent president who actually saw combat.’
    
    Er , according to the left wing media ( is there any other kind) the incumbent led an “insurrection”.
    
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    January 26, 2025 2:21pm
    - Allan
      
      One mans insurrectionist is another mans freedom fighter.
      
      1 0
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      January 26, 2025 8:45pm
  - All_on_Red
    
    I would rather have someone like Hegseth than Ex Raytheon Board members…(Austin)
    
    7 1
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    January 26, 2025 2:53pm
- Ra Henare
  
  Keeping in mind that the Secretary of Defence is a policy position, not a combat leading mission.
  
  Understanding grunts on the ground, may, just may stop some other leadership decision stupidity. Think Afghanistan withdrawal, Iraq invasion. Bombing Libya.
  
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  January 26, 2025 7:02pm
Cassandra

Damien Grant: …. [ Mod – we don’t do cut/paste with no comment ]
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January 26, 2025 8:34am
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  Excuse me! That should be “failed, Sociology Majors”.
  
  I think you’ll find that, at Victoria, Sociology is a subject that’s impossible to fail.
  
  16 0
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  January 26, 2025 8:42am
  - Suze Wainwright
    
    If you take a free market, conservative perspective in your essays, you may receive course counseling
    
    10 0
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    January 26, 2025 9:40am
  - imalwaysright
    
    Never,
    Its very easy to fail. If you don’t nod your head fast enough or, God forbid, have a contrary opinion, you will be escorted from the premises!
    
    11 1
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    January 26, 2025 10:47am
  - AitchW
    
    Ahhhh so THAT is Victoria’s Secret……
    
    3 0
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    January 26, 2025 3:04pm
- sungsamning
  
  Even 10% of that energy would be great to see. He’s giving ‘centre right’ governments in smaller countries political cover to change things.
  
  11 1
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  January 26, 2025 8:52am
- hookerphil
  
  ” we don’t need his other “attributes”.
  
  Now what attributes are those ?
  
  Keeping his election promises ?
  Putting his Country First ?
  Lowering taxes?
  Getting rid of transgenderism?
  Knowing what a woman is?
  Stopping DEI appointments ?
  Stopping illegal immigrants ?
  Deporting foreign criminals?
  Sacking anti policy Government Employees?
  
  I would take any all of those plus his energy in the leadership of this Country.
  
  34 2
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  January 26, 2025 8:53am
  - Jules99
    
    It’s funny, I was with a kiwi friend whose brother in law was an NYPD cop and loves Trump. I asked his opinion and he said he’s too extreme, but he likes some of his policies. I didn’t have a chance to continue to the conversation, but I couldn’t figure out what he meant by ‘extreme’. I think we’ve been washed with so much PR speak over the years that we’ve forgotten what speaking truthfully sounds like.
    
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    January 26, 2025 9:42am
  - Cassandra
    
    Fair enough. I was hinting at some of the other things he says and does. I suspect Melanie might agree with me.
    
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    January 26, 2025 10:07am
    - Nukuleka
      
      Who’s Melanie?
      
      10 0
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      January 26, 2025 10:56am
      - Cassandra
        
        Trump’s wife according to autocorrect. I typed Melania!
        
        9 5
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        January 26, 2025 11:18am
      - All_on_Red
        
        Judging by the way they interact these days it looks like they have got past what might have happened (or supposed to have happened) previously.
        I think we all know that a lot of accusations made at Trump (E Jean Carroll!) just didnt occur.
        
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        January 26, 2025 2:56pm
  - kevn
    
    hooker… Even Trump cynic (initially) Malone seems positive.
    https://www.malone.news/p/summary-of-trumps-wef-speech
    
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    January 26, 2025 11:20am
- Tom Hunter
  
  But wouldn’t it be great if National displayed the energy that Trump does? Just the energy, we don’t need his other “attributes”.
  
  Funnily enough that’s what RW US voters were saying about the GOP Establishment for decades, and RW British voters about the post-Thatcher Tories for decades and…
  
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  January 26, 2025 8:55am
- pdm
  
  Damien Grant is far and away the best Opinion writer Stuff has.
  
  It is disappointing the rest of them do not want to strive to reach his standards.
  
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  January 26, 2025 9:01am
  - Ra Henare
    
    Maybe because Damien Grant is not a journalist but a business owner living in the real world?
    
    https://www.nbr.co.nz/raw-and-real/damien-grant-opens-up-about-his-time-in-prison/
    
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    January 26, 2025 7:11pm
- Damocles11
  
  Luxons corporate and establishment handlers don’t want models changed. You don’t change the establishment, if you did they wouldn’t be the establishment anymore. And if Luxons corporate handlers were to admit that drastic change is needed in some part of the firmament, they’d also have to own up to the dramatic failure of their own ‘go woke, go broke’ DEI and maorification policies. Instead of changing anything, expect obstinate doubling down on the status quo. None of the big cheeses who are running the show will ever admit that they are getting it all horribly wrong, they will stay the course through a mixture of ego and fear.
  
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  January 26, 2025 9:09am
- kiwikidsnz
  
  Damien Grant: National are squandering an opportunity to reshape our faltering economy
  
  https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360558458/damien-grant-national-are-squandering-opportunity-reshape-our-faltering-economy
  
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  January 26, 2025 9:19am
- Cassandra
  
  I was quoting him and added comments! Can you take another look?
  
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  January 26, 2025 9:40am
  - Cassandra
    
    To clarify: the bit in quotes is by Grant. The 60% thereafter is by me.
    
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    January 26, 2025 10:04am
    - Cassandra
      
      Here it is again. Damien Grant: “The fallacy Luxon is operating under is that better management will deliver results when he needs to change the model. Parents, and not the cadre of failed sociology majors that run the Wellington establishment, should decide where kids go to school and what they learn.”
      
      I see the PSA has asked National to rule out any sale of State assets or any privatisation. Predictably. That Governments have difficulty running things. – there are mega examples – has apparently escaped that gang of “failed sociology majors”. The exception seems to be Trump but even he has difficulty in reading the law – he’s just sacked 17 IGs with immediate effect, when the law says he’s got to give 30 days notice.
      
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      January 26, 2025 10:10am
      - Damocles11
        
        The MSM and PSA are seen by National Party grandees as part of the firmament, therefore they are sadly untouchable. Rather, they must be placated. No serious reform is intended by Luxon and his handlers, a bone was thrown with the scrapping of 3 Waters and the plebs were supposed to be beside themselves with gratitude and then accept that nothing much more would happen.
        
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        January 26, 2025 10:54am
      - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
        
        Precisely. Anything that the PSA wants, is almost by definition antithetical to NZ’s needs.
        
        Fleur Fitzsimons is a failed Labour candidate and former WCC council member.
        
        Notice how anything the government says is immediately refocused through the media by quoting Labour or Green opponents.
        
        I don’t hold a candle for Luxon, but recommend that you watch his State of the Union address unfiltered, its only 24 minutes. Pretty damn sensible I thought. Not that the media wants you to know that.
        
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        January 26, 2025 6:18pm
Morgan H

If I were the part of the Act Party, I would make one of my focuses to be the seat of Botany. Use this seat as a referendum on Luxon’s “centrism”. If Act deseats Luxon then it shows NZ wants actual change.
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January 26, 2025 8:42am
- Damocles11
  
  An excellent suggestion. Now an excellent candidate is needed.
  
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  January 26, 2025 9:30am
- the deity formerly known as nigel6888
  
  Can’t agree, then both sides will lose at the next election – the UK is a worked example. Reform gave Labour a landslide majority, which, Labour, being Labour is treating as a mandate for total social engineering whilst they can.
  
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  January 26, 2025 9:34am
  - Morgan H
    
    The UK uses FPP. NZ uses MMP.
    
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    January 26, 2025 10:50am
    - Cassandra
      
      Morgan: we use FPP in the electorates.
      
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      January 26, 2025 11:20am
      - Morgan H
        
        How will Act winning one electorate seat from National shift the balance of power from Right to Left?
        
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        January 26, 2025 11:55am
      - Cassandra
        
        Morgan: it won’t and attacking your coalition partner is a waste of energy. Bad idea. I was simply correcting your misapprehension about FPP.
        
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        January 26, 2025 12:35pm
  - Damocles11
    
    Reform are looking good to win the next election. If neutered establishment parties like the Conservatives in the UK and the National Party in New Zealand can’t do what is necessary the voters must look elsewhere and the likes of ACT and Reform must snatch the Crown away from those that no longer serve a useful purpose.
    
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    January 26, 2025 10:56am
    - kiwimike
      
      Problem is they need a Proportional representation system to make it work properly.
      
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      January 26, 2025 4:21pm
  - kowtow
    
    That “landslide” to Labour is what needed to happen to really wake the electorate up .
    
    The Tories needed the good kicking they got or else they’d have continued their useless , muddled “business as usual” down the road to perdition.
    
    As it is the Tories have been forced back to common sense and will have to take into account Reform , who it looks like are now the most popular party on the ballot , and a good thing too!
    
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    January 26, 2025 12:00pm
    - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
      
      5 years is ample time to turn the ratchet and destroy a lot of the british economy.
      
      Doesn’t really matter after that. The centre right has campaigned for years on having no policies, but implementing labour ones more efficiently. That is what Labour is counting on.
      
      Turn the ratchet, leave, come back and carry on in a few years, when the Nats/Conservatives do all the heavy lifting and get blamed for it.
      
      Timid conservatives are the problem.
      
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      January 26, 2025 6:21pm
- Souvlaki
  
  A genuinely good idea !
  
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  January 26, 2025 9:46am
- Ghost
  
  Act typically stand a candidate there. Last election the candidate got just under 2,000 votes. Act will never win that seat
  
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  January 26, 2025 9:54am
  - Morgan H
    
    Has Act tried to win it?
    
    They won one safe National electorate seat last election. What’s stopping them from achieving this again?
    
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    January 26, 2025 10:25am
    - Cassandra
      
      Tamaki wasn’t safe. O’Connor was not popular. Great guy but voters didn’t like his Catholic morals. More fool them but Brooke is much more Tamaki.
      
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      January 26, 2025 11:23am
      - Morgan H
        
        Here’s the National party vote of Tamaki vs whole country:
        
        2023:
        Tamaki – 52.41%
        NZ – 38.06%
        2020:
        Tamaki – 36.38%
        NZ – 25.58%
        2017:
        Tamaki – 61.53%
        NZ – 44.45%
        
        2020 National’s best electorate victory margins:
        Simeon Brown – 10,050
        Erica Stanford – 8,764
        Simon O’Connor – 8,068
        Those three were the only National MPs to beat all their opponents by over 8000 votes in 2020.
        Luxon only beat Naisi Chen (who?) by 3,999 votes that year…
        
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        January 26, 2025 11:54am
      - Cassandra
        
        I lived there and know both candidates and both parties. I opposed Brooke standing but as it has turned out she is a great asset for the party, the Coalition, the Government and the country.
        
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        January 26, 2025 12:38pm
      - MCōs
        
        Tamaki has varied between very safe National and ultra safe since 1949 except in the 1957 election.
        Simon O’Connor held it for twelve years.
        Interestingly Act were 4th behind the Greens in 2020.
        Van Velden is ex Green and they stood aside in 2023 otherwise O’Connor might have scrapped through, but his very socially conservative positions probably don’t gell with teal people in that area.
        
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        January 26, 2025 3:12pm
  - Damocles11
    
    You sound pretty arrogant when you state things like that. NZ PM’s can go from being seen as the bright new hope to deeply despised, it’s happened before. People are these days less tolerant of politicians who promise much but deliver little.
    
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    January 26, 2025 11:10am
    - Ghost
      
      There is nothing arrogant about it. Act won’t win the PM seat. Sad you can’t take that comment without getting butt hurt
      
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      January 26, 2025 11:41am
      - MCōs
        
        Botany has had a short and troubled history
        Their first MP was Pansy Wong in 2008 who lasted one term before resigning under a corruption cloud.
        Act put up their best fight in 2008 when then deputy leader Kenneth Wang stood with the slogan
        “Vote for Wang, get Wang and Wong”
        The hapless Jamie-Lee Ross won the next four elections and Act sank to a low of 330 in 2017.
        The last couple of elections they’ve almost got to two thousand.
        
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        January 26, 2025 3:41pm
    - Paulus
      
      Don’t Panic
      Auckland Anniversary Day tomorrow, so soon will be Matariki, and a few other days off, it will be onl 12 months to the next election.
      
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      January 26, 2025 2:19pm
  - Souvlaki
    
    At the last election, we were unaware that Luxon was firmly into Co-governance,we were lead to believe otherwise (duped in truth )…now we do, so clearly the ground has shifted.
    The Nats are headed for a UK style clean out like the Conservatives…. they just do NOT possess the insight to appreciate the depth of feeling, of their erstwhile ( & traitorously let down )supporters !! 🙂
    
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    January 26, 2025 12:23pm
    - Ghost
      
      At the last election we knew national did not support acts proposed treaties bill. Nothing has changed. What they have campaigned on and agreed to in the negotiations they have been doing. Pretty rare actually that a party campaigns on something and remains true to it following the election.
      
      What is happening is that those in the echo chamber that exists in kiwiblog are detached from the reality outside of the echo chamber. Treaty polls very low in important issues. People are more bothered by the economy and cost of living, health.
      
      Act won’t be more than a minor party except in the delusions on this blog. Whether you like it not and most on here will never admit it, this country is not a right leaning country. There is a very good chance that in the next election the left will win, while the right sides supporters fight and pull the coalition apart.
      
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      January 26, 2025 12:34pm
      - Scott
        
        Ghost – couldn’t agree with you more. Luxon has done everything he said he would. 3 waters gone, Maori health authority is gone, Maori wards have to be subject to the wishes of the voters.
        
        He’s delivered on those things. He’s kept the coalition on track and kept Seymour and Peters in the fold.
        
        To ask for a new leader is handing the next election to Labour. Amd when I think John Key, who many on this blog love, was instrumental in getting race relations to where they are now, with his sell out to the Maori party and treaty settlements, as well as being Labour lite on all social issues, I think Luxon is being treated very harshly.
        
        Now if Luxon would only direct the NZTA to restore open road speed limits in the Wairarapa my joy would be complete. 😊
        
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        January 26, 2025 12:52pm
- pdm
  
  Should Seymour move there from Epsom?
  
  Let them go Head to Head!!!
  
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  January 26, 2025 10:15am
  - Morgan H
    
    If that talk of the Epsom seat being removed due to boundary changes is true, then I’d take it as a sign he should. David Seymour would win easily.
    
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    January 26, 2025 10:27am
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    Why not? As long as Seymour stays number one on Act’s List.
    Might be a yuge surprise!
    
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    January 26, 2025 10:43am
    - Cassandra
      
      NO. Epsom is Seymour.
      
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      January 26, 2025 11:23am
- Michael Sommerville
  
  I understand where you are coming from but if you look at the results of the last election, the national party votes were very high and ACT came third. Therefore I disagree.
  https://www.electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_2023/electorate-details-04.html
  
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  January 26, 2025 11:39am
  - pdm
    
    MS you are probably right.
    
    But, Seymour throwing his hat into the Botany ring might just be the good swift kick that Luxon needs.
    
    No harm done as long as they don’t split the vote and let a Labour try hard in through the back door.
    
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    January 26, 2025 1:08pm
  - Paulus
    
    You are assuming Winston is still at the Party, as a result possibly not, they do not get 5%
    
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    January 26, 2025 2:21pm
Quail

It is appropriate to compare the new optimism political change appears to have made in USA with the deepening depression in this country.
I suspect the major reason is one political system is actually doing something about changing to a people / country orientated world.They are doing something.
The other politicians think they know best and are apparently ignoring the wishes of the populace.See the treaty debate. They are not doing anything obvious.
The two Political systems are very different giving electeds more opportunity to achieve their pre election manifestos, in the US .
This is something ,that in NZ that is rarely achieved given the in built excuse that political party’s have with MMP.
MMP ensures the tail wags the dog!
NZ needs to see more courage in individual MP’s to actually support their manifestos and voters.
And if there is doubt there is always the referendum mechanism.
It is time NZ politicians considered every persons welfare in this country,not just themselves.
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January 26, 2025 8:46am
- Benedict Yu
  
  I have been thinking about why the National led government is profoundly disappointing. It is simply because it is ignoring the required enduring changes. Governments in the 80s and 90s made such changes with Roger Douglas and Ruth Richardson as Finance Ministers.
  
  This government is making no such changes. None. Everything can and will be undone by the next ethno communist government.
  
  Now take a counter factual. Parliament passes the Treaty Principles Bill. The government then urgently, Trump style, removes from the Public Service and all state institutions, policies and laws based around race and belief systems. The “New Public Service Act” would be introduced the week after the referendum passed on the Treaty Principles Bill. Of course it would be approved at referendum comfortably. Luxon knows that.
  
  So all that happens. Then the effects start to show. New Zealand has flourishing science and evidence based institutions and a schooling system that teaches actual “science” equipping children for their lives. Children are no longer taught about white privilege and the evils of colonisation.
  
  I have picked one plausible “enduring change”. There are others that are waiting for action such as the schooling system. “Net Zero” is another. The social welfare system another still.
  
  Without such action, everything this government is doing will dissolve like tears in rain, perhaps sooner rather than later.
  
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  January 26, 2025 10:04am
  - Damocles11
    
    The argument that ‘the next government can undo it’ seems to only apply to National Party thinking. Labour have instituted big changes since in modern NZ through Douglas’s reforms, KiwiSaver, buying back the railways, WFF etc and what has been undone? Likewise National sold off stakes in the power companies and despite dark mutterings from the left and Peters, nothing was undone there either. National is 2025 is the party of weak capitulation and appeasement, a party scared of its own shadow, a party now such a ‘broad church’ that it has lost any sense of identity and has no idea what it stands for. All that is left is an instinctual desire to defend the status quo – which now includes co-governance, maorification, big government, and economic dead-ends such as the property ponzi scheme.
    
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    January 26, 2025 10:21am
    - Pope Punctilious II
      
      But is the 21st century National Party really a broad church? Ask Simon O’Connor. The 21st century Nats are a liberal party with a dwindling number of conservatives.
      
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      January 26, 2025 11:26am
      - MCōs
        
        You’re talking about social conservatives, not fiscal conservatives.
        There are plenty of pro life, anti same sex marriage, anti gay rights, etc MPs, on both sides of the aisle.
        It’s just that they’re a minority on the big issues.
        In that respect Act and Green are liberal. National and Labour are a mixture.
        However not matter what Simeon Brown and Christopher Luxon or the mp for Mangere might want things are pretty much settled.
        
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        January 26, 2025 4:02pm
  - Pope Punctilious II
    
    I love your fantasy, but who is NZ’s Trump?
    
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    January 26, 2025 10:21am
    - All_on_Red
      
      Seymour
      
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      January 26, 2025 11:10am
      - Pope Punctilious II
        
        Seymour’s voting record shows he is no Trump.
        
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        January 26, 2025 11:19am
      - kowtow
        
        PP II
        
        Perhaps not , but he’s all we’ve got .
        
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        January 26, 2025 11:56am
  - Quail
    
    BY You are absolutely right.
    This Government is creating depression and lowering morale throughout NZ largely by failing to address these “ plausible enduring changes’
    Your enduring solutions are just what is needed .
    This Government is running out of time, their term is almost half over.
    They need to act now!
    
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    January 26, 2025 10:25am
    - Paulus
      
      We must not forget that the so called media, to which we have become accustomed, are all out to get rid of Luxon and destabilise the Coalition.
      Eh Ladies – still continuing despite personal setbacks.
      They are coming back with a vengeance for the Lady voters.
      
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      January 26, 2025 2:24pm
      - kiwimike
        
        But Paulus, National and Luxon knew this too.
        but there is no recognition or urgency to bring the country forward as a non race based environment.
        
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        January 26, 2025 4:41pm
  - Cassandra
    
    Totally agree, BY. Energy needed. Luxon formed a government and then promptly they all went on holiday! I was struck by that message at the time – where was the sense of urgency? I bumped into Roger Douglas at cricket a couple of years ago. He immediately pulled a sheaf of paper from his blazer pocket with his thoughts on the health system. He was then 82 I think!
    
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    January 26, 2025 10:40am
    - Ghost
      
      They didn’t go on holiday promptly, they kept parliament open longer than it was meant to be. But I guess you don’t think all those people who work at parliament deserved a Christmas break. Parliament ended on 21 December 2023. A day after releasing their mini budget. Previous government ended for Xmas December 15th 2022
      
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      January 26, 2025 11:01am
      - Cassandra
        
        The Government – the Cabinet – went on holiday shortly after being formed. Who cares what Parliament does?
        
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        January 26, 2025 11:25am
  - Jack5
    
    Radical action such as Benedict Yu advocates are difficult under coalition government, and that’s what we overwhelmingly get under the MMP electoral system.
    
    The 2020 election result enabled Ardern’s madness. Labour won 65 of the 120 Parliamentary seats. Power!
    
    Such one-party governments will be rare under a proportional representation system like MMP.
    
    From one outlier result we got a decisive Leftist Government led by a Woke fanatic.
    
    Coalitions following an MMP majority aberration like this can’t act decisively enough to patch damage and set a new, progressive course.
    
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    January 26, 2025 11:12am
    - kiwimike
      
      Jack5
      it is not radical.
      but necessary for the country to fulfill it’s destiny and purpose for all it’s people.
      
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      January 26, 2025 4:43pm
    - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
      
      Indeed. This is how MMP was designed – to prevent Germany from ever again having a unified government. It has been a glorious success.
      
      It allows unelected bureaucrats to run the show, with a few minor changes of glove puppet every few years to keep the natives from getting too restless.
      
      It takes a major calamity to upset the natives, and now that the unelecteds decided the best way to manage them was to import a new underclass of serfs, this has gone swimmingly. This is the FA stage.
      
      Until it doesn’t and the natives realise that they have been invaded, their sacred institutions destroyed, their economies collapsed and that they will be punished, imprisoned and have their livelihoods destroyed if they make a fuss….
      
      Until they rebel.
      
      This is the FO stage. NZ is about 15 years off it, Australia about 10 Its starting in Europe and has kicked off in the US.
      
      Interesting times!
      
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      January 26, 2025 6:55pm
  - Pope Punctilious II
    
    As I said, I like the spirit of your fantasy. But I’m not thrilled with your use of Roger Douglas as a model. Douglas’s legacy is a mixed one, and the bums-on-seats university funding model was one of his poorer decisions. The old university funding model needed reform, not replacement by a new model with different defects.
    
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    January 26, 2025 11:24am
  - kiwimike
    
    Thank you BY
    That is one reason why I voted for Nicole Mckee & David Seymour. they have a vision for a race free NZ.
    
    The other is National don’t, they support racist and undemocratic Law and behaviour and their leader is woke as.
    
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    January 26, 2025 4:37pm
- pdm
  
  Quail it is not a Treaty debate.
  
  It is about setting proper Treaty Principles by Government so the overall intention of the Treaty of Waitangi remains unchanged – just clarified.
  
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  January 26, 2025 10:18am
  - Quail
    
    Thank you pdm
    I understand that
    
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    January 26, 2025 11:58am
- MCōs
  
  In the good old days we used to have FPP in NZ, which the politicians loved for the reason you spell out.
  Whoever was in power could do what the liked regardless that apart from once since WWII most people voted against them.
  If that system had carried on Act, Green & TPM who all hold seats today would still be in the opposition and powerless.
  
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  January 26, 2025 10:20am
  - Damocles11
    
    You’ve failed to acknowledge that what we call MMP is a bizarre hybrid system including 7 race-based electorates where only people with certain racial genetics can vote.
    
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    January 26, 2025 10:48am
  - rjay
    
    ACT was in Parliament prior to MMP. And it had power. It just was not called ACT and it was a faction inside Labour: Douglas, Prebble et al.
    
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    January 26, 2025 12:10pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  You say there’s a new spirit of optimism in the US, Quail. It depends who you speak with. I can assure you that great clouds of depression have settled over parts of the country
  
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  January 26, 2025 2:13pm
sungsamning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDmBcUudgpQ
Trump admin begins deportation flights for illegal migrants: ‘Strong and clear message’.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced Friday the Trump administration has begun flights to deport illegal migrants from the U.S.

Images shared by Leavitt via X show groups of migrants in chains being escorted onto a cargo plane. She wrote the scene sends a strong message to those who seek to take advantage of the country’s immigration system. [Give the deportees a parachute,and a static line, and the plane won’t even need to land.]
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January 26, 2025 8:46am
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  One flight was refused airspace over Mexico. Had to go a different route over the Gulf of Mexico (America!)
  A new item I read showed the path on Flight Radar 24. Can’t find it now.
  
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  January 26, 2025 11:23am
  - sungsamning
    
    Dumb move by them. A Trump Executive Order to close the border, and the air space would be open by lunch time.
    
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    January 26, 2025 4:17pm
sungsamning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijo04Q-cIXA
Romania’s Nationalist Uprising: Taking Back Our Country.
Romania’s Nationalist Uprising: Taking Back Our Country
Romania is taking a stand against the globalist agenda, and it’s about time! In this video, we’re going to explore the latest developments in Romania’s fight against globalism and what it means for the country’s future. From protests in the streets to government crackdowns, we’ll dive into the latest news and updates on Romania’s resistance against the New World Order. If you’re tired of the globalist elite controlling our lives and want to see a return to national sovereignty, then this video is for you. Stay tuned for the latest on Romania’s uprising against globalism!
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January 26, 2025 8:47am
- Pope Punctilious II
  
  Good to hear the spirit of Vlad Tepes is alive and well!
  
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  January 26, 2025 9:44am
  - sungsamning
    
    Yes, indeed. The peasants are revolting, and the elites are not amused.
    
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    January 26, 2025 4:18pm
Gravelroad

Scams
Someone I know fell for the pre-Christmas on-line (social media) shopping scams.
Items were marketed as being from NZ retail outlets and NZ family run small businesses – one of which was “very sadly” having to close down so everything out at reduced prices.
Both of these apparent “local” businesses were actually being run out of China but that was not immediately apparent or disclosed to the casual shopper. Customers thought their goods were coming from NZ shops.
The family run business (leather goods) has completely shut down. For many, no items received or money refunded.
Three people I know have also had money drained from their bank accounts ($27,000 and $18,000) by scammers claiming to be advisors from their banks.
The other one lost $10,000 in a gift card scam.
Nothing new to see here perhaps, but all three said the Police had told them to be sure to pass on their experiences to the wider community.
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January 26, 2025 8:50am
- Jules99
  
  They are pretty convincing too. I was interested, but scanned the comments and people were saying it’s a scam.
  
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  January 26, 2025 9:17am
- MCōs
  
  I’m very wary of buying stuff online. The other day I bought a remote for our garage door from Bunnings rather than get one ten dollars cheaper online.
  However
  One of the many advantages of living in the much maligned Auckland is that genuine on line stuff generally originates around here so go right there.
  If it’s a property with long grass and a couple of eight year old white Mercs on the footpath with purple cushions in the back window we probably know them.
  
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  January 26, 2025 9:26am
  - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
    
    I still buy online, but after a couple of entertaining issues with credit card deets being stolen, I will only buy using paypal (I am sure there are other cut-out guarantee options). That way I have a bit more safety.
    
    Ali-express is astonishingly fast, and really cheap postage, unlike Amazon or Ebay these days.
    
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    January 26, 2025 9:37am
    - Benedict Yu
      
      Yes I was about to say the same thing. Use PayPal unless it is a store you have used and trust.
      
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      January 26, 2025 10:57am
    - PurplePen
      
      Wise card is good too. You can create a digital card, buy with it then delete the card creating another for the next purchase. It’s pretty much how Google pay works.
      
      Also consider exchange rate. Wise is 1 NZD = 0.570850 USD. PayPal is 1 NZD = 0.543459 USD. Wise fee is also less.
      
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      January 26, 2025 11:32am
      - sungsamning
        
        Oh! I have a Wise account. Thanks for the tip about their cards.
        
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        January 26, 2025 4:20pm
      - rouppe
        
        I’ve been using wise this month in Europe.
        
        Pay for everything regardless of being in Euro, Swiss Franc, whatever. Just easy.
        
        1 0
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        January 27, 2025 12:01am
- sirknz
  
  If a price is too good to be true, it usually is, doubly so if it is an organisation you’ve never heard of, never done business with, and is claiming economic hardship. If you’re unable to pick up the goods or take possession straight away yourself from any business closing down, don’t buy them.
  
  The only time my bank has contacted me about shenanigans with my bank account was the time someone tried buying goods online at 2.5 times the credit limit. If someone from the bank contacts you out of the blue about an issue with your accounts, ask them for their name and say you will call them back from the number on the bank website.
  
  Simply put, if someone came up to you on the street claiming to be from your bank and they need you to give them your bank cards and pin, would you do it?
  
  Same deal with gift cards.
  The IRD doesn’t need you to pay your outstanding taxes with them and will contact you by snail mail. Same deal with debt collectors.
  
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  January 26, 2025 11:01am
Tom Hunter

Oh noes….

Adding to the uncertainty among researchers, the Trump administration also seems to have erased all materials relating to structural racism and diversity from the NIH website.
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January 26, 2025 8:54am
Souvlaki

If this article IS correct, ( and I accept he ma y be mis-reported), then it is honestly time for Nats, if they have either a concscience, or a functional cerebral cortex, to find a new leader who realises NZ is a democracy!

https://www.teaonews.co.nz/2025/01/25/luxon-pledges-to-refuse-treaty-referendum-after-election/
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January 26, 2025 9:01am
- kowtow
  
  It’s not down to the Nats .
  It’s up to Nat voters , they can put Act in charge to give the right a bit of spine and get a genuinely egalitarian constitution which is being trashed under the “moderate centrists” , both blue and red.
  
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  January 26, 2025 9:42am
lastmanstanding

Putin wants to talk to Trump about Ukraine. They will do a deal and Zelensky will be told. In these cases the little guy is a bit player.
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January 26, 2025 9:10am
- Chuck Bird
  
  I wonder if Zelensky has some useful info about when Hunter Biden was in Ukraine that he could give Trump.
  
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  January 26, 2025 9:24am
  - kowtow
    
    Xi will have all the info . He’s hacked everyone’s systems.
    
    12 1
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    January 26, 2025 9:45am
  - MCōs
    
    I would suggest now that Joe has gone there won’t be much interest in chasing after Hunter anymore.
    
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    January 26, 2025 9:50am
    - Conservatarian
      
      “Joe has gone”. That’s a very nondescript summary of the pre-emptive pardon Joe has issued his degenerate adult son for a very specific period (relating back to the day Hunter started applying his “wide array of skills” to the Ukrainian energy company Burisma).
      
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      January 26, 2025 10:49am
      - AitchW
        
        I do wonder, if an outgoing president can unilaterally issue a pre-emotive pardon then surely the incoming president can scrap that pardon. Especially when said pardon was granted purely for political reasons.
        What a mental system America has.
        
        9 1
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        January 26, 2025 11:40am
    - Steve Otto N Shore
      
      I don’t think Trump has given up on prosecuting the Biden Crim Family. He said he would.
      
      9 1
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      January 26, 2025 11:30am
      - Colville
        
        He would only chase the Bidens if its going badly for him and he needs a distraction.
        If its all going well he will want the spotlight on achievements and not the Bidens because they will get sympathy, as has worked for Trump.
        
        6 0
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        January 26, 2025 12:24pm
      - Steve Otto N Shore
        
        He said those who used prosecution against him politically would be prosecuted themselves. That means lawyers, Govt departments, the lot.
        
        9 1
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        January 26, 2025 1:04pm
  - JackRabbit
    
    Since most of the free world knows, Kennedy will definitely know and Zelensky won’t be saying anything.
    
    9 1
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    January 26, 2025 11:15am
  - coge
    
    He should just ask Elon. He has greater access to information than any other outfit you can name.
    
    8 1
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    January 26, 2025 11:26am
    - MCōs
      
      It’s all a bit of a hoot when supposedly secure databases can be accessed to the detriment of an unpopular public figure, isn’t it. G² for example.
      
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      January 26, 2025 1:13pm
- imalwaysright
  
  And netanyahu will be on notice that the US carrier fleet will be departing soon.
  He will be one nervous war criminal.
  
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  January 26, 2025 11:03am
  - AitchW
    
    What colour is your keffiyeh?
    
    16 1
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    January 26, 2025 11:42am
  - Allan
    
    Have another stab at it.
    
    Trump wants ALL the hostages released.
    
    Guess who should be worried?
    
    Hint; it’s the real war criminals.
    
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    January 26, 2025 8:59pm
- kevn
  
  lastman… zed has filled his moneybox so will roll over easily.
  
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  January 26, 2025 11:26am
- Eastlander
  
  Even dependant states have a say in things. The Ukrainians rejected a deal in April 2022 that would have largely restored the status quo ante. They chose to push for total victory instead, and the sacrifices made in pursuit of that end will have been for nothing if the result of their efforts is a compromise peace that leaves them worse off than they would have been if they hadn’t walked away from the April talks. Between taking the shitty compromise and holding on and hoping for a miracle, it’s still more likely they’ll opt for the latter – especially since Trump will try to raise the pressure on his end before making any sort of proposal.
  
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  January 26, 2025 12:04pm
Keith White

And now for something completely different – and completely weird…

“Strangio, a transgender rights activist and architect of gender ideology, had a meltdown over President Trump’s executive order reinstating biological reality in federal law. Strangio complained that Trump is ‘targeting trans people by focusing on retrenching this notion of a fixed gender binary at the time of conception.’

“In other words, acknowledging the scientific fact that men are men and women are women is somehow an attack on transgender individuals.

“But Strangio didn’t stop there. In an effort to further obliterate the concept of womanhood, Strangio referred to biological women as ‘non-transgender women.’ That’s right, ladies—you’re now just a modifier to satisfy the left’s ever-expanding gender lexicon.
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January 26, 2025 9:11am
- JackRabbit
  
  What’s in a name?
  
  Interesting – the Italian to English translation of “Strangio” comes back as “Massacre”.
  
  Strangio referred to biological women as ‘non-transgender women.’
  
  Perhaps the voices in his head told him that.
  
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  January 26, 2025 11:25am
  - kowtow
    
    Her head , surely ?
    
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    January 26, 2025 11:54am
- PurplePen
  
  “Strangio referred to biological women as ‘non-transgender women.’”.
  
  Well duh. Yes. They could just as easily have said biological women are not men and had been correct.
  
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  January 26, 2025 11:40am
Damocles11

Damien Grants new article is so right but for anything to change there would have to be a pool of people determined to turn things around. Perhaps only 5% of Kiwi’s see a need for drastic change in the right direction. The rest are either various shades of Leftist, apathetic ‘ignorance is bliss’ types, cogs in the corporate status quo, or vested interests making money out of the current economic set-up.
New Zealand has not experienced the absolute ‘in extremis’ point where the depredations of the Left have caused hyper-inflation and societal agony to point where a desperate population would elect a Milei to carry out the necessary root & branch changes. Most New Zealanders are still able to entertain socialist, woke, and green utopia fantasies without any discernible impact on their standard of living. The river of borrowed money flowing into the economy is still enabling us to maintain the facade that we can be complacent, happy-clappy, low productivity Kiwi’s with the only consequences being some grumbling about fuel prices and hospital waiting lists. We can continue to elect smiley milquetoast political ‘leaders’ because we think that the borrowing can always be maintained, our lifestyles can be subsidised, and with some lowering of interest rates the housing market will take off again and we can kid ourselves that we have a ‘rockstar economy’ again.
We may be closer to having time called on our delusions than we think. How long will the worlds lenders put up with a little nation at the bottom of the South Pacific bludging off borrowed funds? We may soon be in for a rude shock.
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January 26, 2025 9:28am
- Conservatarian
  
  Great message Damocles. An apt description of the normies perfectly happy to impose and accept ruinous progressive policies made possible under our ponzi scheme of an economy.
  
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  January 26, 2025 10:54am
  - coge
    
    Worldwide we are on the cusp of a political evolutionary fork. Meanwhile, here in NZ, we have chosen to remain living in the trees. Throwing scat at one another. There are much better ways, but currently nothing is being done.
    
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    January 26, 2025 11:31am
    - kiwimike
      
      No race based Laws, By-Laws, Rules or Quotas and especially no co-Governance or Maori only customary rights..
      
      Then all NZ Citizens can be treated equally before the Law and Govt policies.
      
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      January 26, 2025 4:53pm
- NK
  
  It is spot on but the main governing party, National, will not do anything about it for the very same reason they opposed and shouted and screamed at Sir Roger Douglas’s reforms: It destroyed the very privilege that the National Party seeks to protect for its members.
  
  It’s critically important to remember that Act was formed out of reformist Labour and National politicians. Sir Roger despises privilege and wants to demolish it, and rightly so. National relies on privilege being maintained because that’s a large chunk of their votes.
  
  It’s very simple actually. Basically, this is why National governments actually do very little and just manage things better.
  
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  January 26, 2025 11:05am
  - Damocles11
    
    I’m beginning to question whether they do manage things better. It’s like the person who acts as caretaker of your house and proceeds to do not much at all as the paint flakes off and the foundations crumble. Then you hand it over to a wrecker who rips the place apart, so you get in the first guy again – who again sits quietly while the place slowly deteriorates. This is the cycle we are in. This is why our house is in a mess.
    
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    January 26, 2025 11:15am
  - kiwimike
    
    “relies on privilege”
    
    who?
    Not for non-Maori Kiwis…..
    
    By keeping the Maori Apartheid in place, it just gets worse.
    
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    January 26, 2025 4:55pm
Yvette

Governance Charter
Te Pou Whakamana Kaimatū o Aotearoa – The Pharmacy Council of New Zealand
https://pharmacycouncil.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Pharmacy-Council-Charter-Document-2023-Website.pdf

The principles of Te Tiriti, as articulated by the Courts and the Waitangi Tribunal, provide the
framework for how we will meet our obligations under Te Tiriti in our day-to-day work. The
following principles were identified in the 2019 Hauora10 report and outline how the Council
will meet its Tiriti obligations: page 29, or –
https://forms.justice.govt.nz/search/Documents/WT/wt_DOC_195476216/Hauora%202023%20W.pdf.

If we know that Māori have disproportionately worse outcomes across a wide range
of health and social issues7 then the Council’s resourcing, activity, and priority of work
needs to reflect this.

• If a Pharmacy Chemist finds there is a prescription for someone who has obviously (by date, for one factor) not collected it, what should that Chemist do, under “He Whakapūtanga o te Rangatiratanga o Nū Tireni” – “The Declaration of Independence of the United Tribes of New Zealand” and Te Tiriti o Waitangi, in case the prescription recipient is of Maori descent?
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January 26, 2025 10:08am
- Cassandra
  
  Good God! What next? Was there a pharmacist at Waitangi in 1840? Did he sign the Treaty?
  
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  January 26, 2025 10:43am
- Damocles11
  
  If Maori have disproportionally worse health outcomes then perhaps it’s time they collectively addressed the changeable lifestyle factors that are causing their ill health.
  
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  January 26, 2025 11:00am
  - PurplePen
    
    I would say some Maori have disproportionately worse health outcomes. That old bugaboo life expectancy comes up in MSM and Maori elite but the 10 year gap only applies to Maori north of Wellington. The rest of NZ it’s the same. And you don’t hear anyone complaining about the gap between NZ Asians and non-Asians. That’s 10 years if you’re interested.
    
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    January 26, 2025 11:45am
  - AitchW
    
    Successive governments have tipped enough money into health initiative aimed at Maori over the years, maybe it’s time that after each campaign aimed at any special group a detailed study of its effectiveness is undertaken and published.
    The millions of dollars that were thrown at Maori Covid vaccinations springs to mind, how many extra were vaccinated as a result?
    
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    January 26, 2025 11:47am
    - cmm
      
      The purpose is not better health outcomes. The purpose is to build a trough for NGOs.
      
      When you have a bunch of “Maori Health Provider” NGOs getting fat off the existence of sick Maori, then what is being incentivised?
      
      Yes, more sick Maori (or at least stats reflecting that).
      
      What Maori Health NGO would want to solve the problem and make themselves obsolete?
      
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      January 26, 2025 2:37pm
      - AitchW
        
        Did someone say ‘Waiparera Trust’ or ‘Manurewa Marae’?
        Not long now….
        
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        January 26, 2025 3:08pm
- JackRabbit
  
  what should that Chemist do, under “He Whakapūtanga o te Rangatiratanga o Nū Tireni”
  
  Add it to the record on no shows by race / gender, and then use it to counter the bullshit that Maoris are disadvantaged.
  
  “Ah, the health system is so racist,”
  
  “Have you ever thought of turning up to your health appointments or collecting your prescriptions from the pharmacy?”
  
  “Nah, its all white man stuff. The best cure for sickness is a dozen of beer.”
  
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  January 26, 2025 11:31am
  - AitchW
    
    Or perhaps some sacred herb…
    
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    January 26, 2025 11:48am
- PurplePen
  
  You would think such things were easily resolved. Why hasn’t some workers from Health just gone and asked those that haven’t collected their prescription why. If they wanted they could categorise the responses by race. Then they’d have the answer. I suspect for all those that haven’t collected their prescription the answer and solution wouldn’t be raced based. The above is not rocket science, and it would cost much.
  
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  January 26, 2025 11:50am
- Handyman
  
  The Paharmacy Council was not a signatory to an agreement between two other unrelated parties nearly two centuries ago.
  On that basis, would the Pharmacy Council like to take responsibility for my mortgage to help pay it off?
  
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  January 26, 2025 12:43pm
Yvette

If, by the time of the next Election, many more join those like the previous Prime Minister and the Pharmacy Council of New Zealand, who have already insisted Maori did not cede sovereignty, and it seemed necessary to pass a law to clarify that the elected New Zealand has indeed the right to govern, would Luxon oppose that – legislation devoid of the Treaty, other than reference that the Treaty’s disputed content necessitates the legislation?
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January 26, 2025 10:33am
- pdm
  
  Yvette if Maori did not Cede Sovereignty then the NewZealand Parliament has been illegitimate since day one.
  
  That is clearly not the case so it is correct to say Sovereignty was ceded.
  
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  January 26, 2025 11:20am
  - JackRabbit
    
    And Maori have acted like they ceded sovereignty, indulging in all the benefits, quite literally, of sovereignty.
    
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    January 26, 2025 11:33am
    - AitchW
      
      Perhaps those Maori who accept social welfare are not the ‘right’ type of Maori…
      
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      January 26, 2025 1:13pm
    - Jinky
      
      Everyone accepted that Sovereignty was ceded fr0m 1840 till 1975. said so and wrote it into law, treaties, agreements etc. Acted as if that was true. Only in past few decades that any doubt has been raised. I have just finished One Sun in the Sky by Ewen McQueen where he lays it all out in detail. I recommend people read it.
      
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      January 26, 2025 1:25pm
Steve Otto N Shore

Trump is serious about Greenland. Denmark is not keen.
https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/other/trump-tells-danish-pm-he-s-serious-about-taking-over-greenland-in-fiery-call-that-has-danes-in-crisis-mode/ar-AA1xOShY?
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January 26, 2025 10:50am
- Dudley Quaffquaff
  
  To be clear – Do we think this is a good thing?
  
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  January 26, 2025 3:36pm
Keith White

(Quick warning – TL:DR as the younger generation puts it).

This post follows on from thoughts I had after reading another poster’s comments a few days back, I forget exactly when, about how inanimate objects are not the cause of peoples’ injuries and deaths — the people wielding those objects are. And yet we keep hearing about “knife violence”, “assault rifle killing”, and – with monumental stupidity – “a truck’s terror attack.”

Sigh.

Many, many years ago (so many years ago that where I worked was still called “Casualty” before morphing into A&E (Accident And Emergency, then ER, then changed to ED… and that last change is a silly story in itself but some other time) I would get regularly asked to turn up in court to testify about injuries in people I’d seen and treated – and very occasionally to testify about what I thought had caused the injury (not being a pathologist but being in the midst of these injuries on a literally daily basis). Usually because an arrested perpetrator was now in the dock and was denying that it could have happened and its legal beagle was offering all sorts of improbable and occasionally wildly weird theories as to how the injuries had been inflicted by Acts of God – or (in a legal manoeuvre I hated with a hate that’s difficult to overstate even now) by the actual victim of those injuries, just to get Mr Innocent (usually a Mr but not always) in trouble.

This all started in the days before computers and email and electronic databases, and faxes were still newtech.

I kept a paper file under lock and key, I called it the DID* file. Because I needed to have a tangible reminder of what I’d seen and written for cases that could come to court months and occasionally years later. And I did not want to take the original Casualty record out of circulation for all the obvious reasons. But I needed to be able to refer to contemporaneous notes before getting on the stand where at least one and possibly more qualified and not-so-qualified individuals would call me a liar for quite a while to get their client off the legal hook. I didn’t really want to do this testimony, it was time away from patients; on the other hand, some of these people who caused injuries to these other patients needed to be locked away from everybody else for years or decades. IMO. So I’d show up in testify on behalf of my patient (even if as sometimes happened, the patient had changed their mind about who assaulted them into a grievous state of injury).

*Deliberately Inflicted Damage.

If you’d been hit by a cricket bat while fielding in close, you wouldn’t be in that file. If you’d been hit by another racer during moto-cross or jet-boating, you wouldn’t be in that file. If you were hit by a spade that had been left on the roof after being used to clear the guttering and it fell off the roof an unknown time later, (true story) you still wouldn’t be in that file.

If you were a child and been hit by a cricket bat by your mother’s impregnator or current “boyfriend” for crying because you were hungry, you’d be in that file. If you were a young mother and you’d been shot in the chest because your paramour accused you of being unfaithful, you’d be in that file. If you were an elderly lady beaten nigh unto death because you’d interrupted a burglar looking for drug money, you’d be in that file.

Some people in the file were in and then out of Casualty quite quickly, and I never saw them again except possibly / briefly in the courtroom as witnesses for the prosecution, like me. Others went from Casualty to Intensive Care, later to a ward, and then into care for the rest of their days. Some – most – got better enough to ultimately go home with or without support. And there’s the ones who went from Casualty direct to the morgue.

When computers replaced paper files, I photocopied the DID files and anonymized them for obvious reasons. And I subsequently deleted them entirely when the medical equivalent of statute of limitations ran out.** But I did keep the injury profile behind such deliberately inflicted damage and that’s what I highlight here. Just my experience. I literally do not have any idea on how it extrapolates to others’ practice.

(I have not included sexual assault in this list. There were many of these, but the evidence in court is usually more forensic in nature, plus the injuries are not always readily visible – it’s sadly complicated).

Sample items used to hurt and kill others in % terms:

Assailant’s body parts (usually fists + hands, also feet, head(butting), elbows, knees, and using body weight = crushing): 46%
Assailant’s clothing (all varieities of shoes, also hiking / tramping boots, spiked rugby boots, work gloves): 22%
Kitchen & laundry supplies (scissors, cutlery = knife / fork – rarely a spoon), jug cord, caustic powders and solutions, boiling water, boiling oil / fat / stew): 18%
Hand tools (hammer incl. sledgehammer, mallet, machete, screwdriver, pliers, chisel, scraper, boxcutter, crowbar, spade, rake, shovel, tent-peg, stock-whip): 17%
Sports equipment (baseball bat, cricket bat, golf club, speargun, boxing gloves, bridle, horse-whip): (11%)
Other tools (coiled rope, coiled power cord, power drill, power sander, chainsaw): 3%
Firearm: (rifle, shotgun, handgun): 2%
Vehicle: (car, motorcycle, bicycle): 2%
Assailant’s animated accomplice (invariably a dog): <1%
Explosives (what we would now call IED – improvised explosive devices): <0.01%

Yes the total is well above 100%, because horrible people are not stuck in any rut on how they hurt others.

And yet; almost every time these days when reporting criminals acting-out — the news-focus is which 'unacceptable'-to-elite-society- tool was used. Usually, hoplophobia reigns supreme with the media and the courts.

Will NZ judges, media and politicos ever wake up to hold the law-breaking actual humanoid criminal perpetrators to more direct account?

Probably not. Not in my lifetime that's for sure.

**Health Act regulations require all health information held by providers to be retained for 10 years from the last encounter with the patient, unless transferred to another doctor or to the patient. The Public Records Act also requires retention by public sector agencies.
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January 26, 2025 11:00am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Have you submitted a paper to NZ Doctor with this interesting information?
  
  or even Kõtuitui: NZ Journal of Social Sciences
  
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  January 26, 2025 1:01pm
  - Keith White
    
    Thank you Maggy.
    
    No I have not, I am officially a contributor non-grata to NZ Doctor and the NZMJ. Due to being a mRNAjab-heretic (despite the fact that because of my medical work overseas I think I am up there with the most vaccinated Kiwi (ex)doctors ever – all the way from BCG to yellow fever, including the lovely ones (not) like Japanese B encephalitis and cholera.
    
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    January 26, 2025 1:32pm
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      I am officially a contributor non-grata to NZ Doctor and the NZMJ.
      
      Well, bugger them, then.
      
      On reflection, a more general readership would be interested in your observations.
      
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      January 26, 2025 7:28pm
  - greybeard
    
    Please explain how the maori word “Kotuitui” translates to the English Language “NZ Journal of Social Sciences”.
    Did maori ever have the concept of a “NZ” ?
    Did maori ever have any idea of a “journal” ?
    Did maori have any equivalent of “Social Sciences”?
    Of course not: we know it, they know it, they won’t admit it it.
    
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    January 26, 2025 6:10pm
- Quail
  
  Fascinating.
  I wonder what tools AI would ban?
  
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  January 26, 2025 1:19pm
- cmm
  
  Thank you, that was a very worthwhile read.
  Double bonus; I got to learn a new word: hoplophobia!
  
  Were these only cases where the criminal was the perpetrator of the violence and the patient was the victim, or does it also include cases of self defence?
  
  It does really underline that the hype around weapons is rather foolish. If some wants to do you harm they can use a fist or a boot. Taking defensive guns and weapons off innocent people just makes them more likely to be victims.
  
  As you say, these statistics were taken a while ago. I wonder whether the profile has changed much in recent years?
  
  One thing I did not see on that list was knives carried as weapons (ie. pocket knives etc) – or did that fall under kitchen knives?
  
  Thanks.
  
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  January 26, 2025 2:32pm
  - Keith White
    
    Hello cmm
    
    Only the cases where the crim was the perp.
    
    I did see lots of self-defence injuries in victims – most commonly on (a) forearms and (b) hands / victim trying to ward off a (usually descending) blow, or boots to face / chest etc.
    
    I did not ever list, nor do I recall from practice, a folded/pocketknife being used to harm someone. Stabbers-and-cutters appeared in those days to be usually attacking with fixed blades.
    
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    January 26, 2025 3:23pm
kevn

Keith… and ‘they’ walk amongst us.
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January 26, 2025 11:31am
- Keith White
  
  They do, kevn, they do.
  
  From my anecdotal experience, I’m completely aligned with “the math” almost everywhere the research is done, which is that about 12% of the population commit 86% of all crimes. Mostly, repetitively.
  
  For violent crimes it is actually worse; only 1% of the population commit two-thirds of all violent crimes.
  
  IMO: lock violent offenders up for 5 years minimum* the first time (*longer if the violence is sustained, egregious and / or against children), and lock them up for 20 years after any second violent offence.
  
  For that quarter of a century they are locked up they can’t offend again; also by the time they’re out in late 40s or early 50s if they get a third chance to hurt somebody – they’ll be older and easier to fight off if you’re a victim.
  
  Because the other change I would make instantly would be to remove all weightlifting and exercise and gymnastic equipment from all NZ prisons. They can do yoga or Pilates or exercise with their bodyweight – but we should not be funding with our taxes exercise equipment to enable them to work out to be more effectively-violent bullies on their release from prison.
  
  My apologies, I am now putting the soapbox back in the cupboard… 🙂
  
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  January 26, 2025 1:41pm
Steve Otto N Shore

Peter Allan Williams substack.
AUSTRALIA DAY – HOW TO CELEBRATE A GREAT COUNTRY.
NZ needs a day like this. Cancel that “other” day.

https://substack.com/home/post/p-155713669
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January 26, 2025 12:00pm
- PurplePen
  
  A potted history of Waitangi Day … Prior to 1934, NZs founding as a colony were held on 29 January, the date Hobson arrived in the Bay of Islands. From the British perspective the proclamation was the key legal document, what the treaty said was less important.
  
  The Treaty House and grounds were made a public reserve, and dedicated 6 February 1934, considered to be the first Waitangi Day. Annual commemorations of the treaty signing began 1947. The ceremony was brief and featured no Māori. 1948, a Māori speaker was added to the line-up, subsequent additions were then made to the ceremony nearly every year. From 1952, the governor-general attended, and from 1958 the prime minister also attended, though not every year.
  
  1974, Norman Kirk changed the name to NZ Day. 1976, Muldoon courting Maori votes changed it back to Waitangi Day.
  
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  January 26, 2025 3:53pm
  - kowtow
    
    A bit like how “full and final” grew into full sovereignty , after first being a partnership and co governance.
    
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    January 26, 2025 7:15pm
AitchW

Is there a mathematician in the house? I’m trying to work out how much rain we need to fill our water tanks.
Our roof area is 300 square metres. Our tank capacity is 60 000l.
By my reckoning we need 200mm of rain to fill the tanks which sounds awfully light.
Our average annual rainfall is 1250mm.
If I were out by a factor of 10 then we’d never fill the tanks! (Thank god for the metric system, imagine doing this with feet and gallons!)
I think I’m correct but then maths never was my strong point! Anyone who has experience in this stuff who can confirm my numbers?
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January 26, 2025 1:11pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Your maths is correct if you are assuming
  1 millimetre of rain over 1 square metre of roof equals 1 litre of water.
  
  https://rainharvesting.com.au/systems/calculating-your-roof-surface-area-for-rain-harvesting/#:~:text=Roughly%20speaking%2C%201%20millimetre%20of,metres)%20%3D%20Roof%20catchment%20capacity.
  
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  January 26, 2025 7:46pm
  - AitchW
    
    Thank you Maggy. That’s exactly what I am assuming.
    
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    January 26, 2025 11:02pm
- the deity formerly known as nigel6888
  
  A rule of thumb is to work out roughly how much water you get from 1mm of rain falling on 300sqm – probably about 300l.
  
  Given the slope of the roof, your actual surface will be a bit higher than the floor plan, not sure if you counted for that, but there will also be losses. 300 is a fair estimate.
  
  So yes, 200m should fill your tanks.
  
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  January 27, 2025 7:32am
Scooter

Chris Luxon says he wants to grow the economy, what is he going to do about criminals that steal from companies they work for, in this case a woman that stole and ends up only with 11 months home D. And she is still getting the job seeker benefit. FFS when hard working business owners are screwed like this and crims let off, how will anyone want to run a business?

“The couple had to halt construction on their dream home in Kerikeri, pay a forensic accountant more than $120,000 to decipher the books and put $300,000 of their life savings into the business, once valued at $1.5 million, only to sell it for the debts owed.
“The true financial cost of the stolen $465,000 was close to $1 million, they said.”

https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/crime/mum-crystal-sinclair-sentenced-for-465k-theft-from-small-whenuapai-auckland-business/
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January 26, 2025 1:12pm
- [email protected]
  
  I suspect that the criminals that steal large amounts from their employers are fewer than the large amount of employees that steal small amounts off their employers.
  
  The wife and I went to Whangarei Pak’nSave today to see two young men in green safety vests supposedly collecting shopping carts having a nice long conversation about something when they should have been doing what they were being paid to do. Pak’nSave customers could enjoy some savings if one of these boys were made redundant because the job obviously didn’t require both of them.
  
  Low productivity in the New Zealand workplace negatively affects all Kiwis.
  
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  January 26, 2025 8:45pm
Swifty

I’ve been buying whole smoked chooks (Tegel etc) for decades but right now I can’t find a single one in Wellie.

Looking around a few food forums it looks like they have been discontinued as a product but that smoke chook breasts can occasionally be found.

I’m just off the phone from Woolworths Johnsonville who confirm they’ve been discontinued as a product line, at least in the Wellington region, but weren’t able to say for exactly what reason.

I’ll try New World and PNS this arvo and see what they’ve got to say.

Anyone else with any comments or experiences? Summer is just not the same without some smoked chicken at a picnic.

It’s all quite odd.
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January 26, 2025 1:22pm
Swifty

Farewell and thanks to Garth ‘Honeyboy’ Hudson, the last surviving member of The Band.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FFqb1I-hiHE&pp=ygUIdGhlIGJhbmQ%3D

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jREUrbGGrgM&pp=ygUIVGplIGJhbmQ%3D

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BtfvpS0EyO8&pp=ygUMZ2FydGggaHVkc29u

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_KOEEQttjI8&pp=ygUIdGhlIGJhbmQ%3D

This one hurts.
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January 26, 2025 1:59pm
- Individual Responsibility
  
  Cheers Swifty. I knew of Garth and the rest of The Band only through seeing The Last Waltz back in the early ’80s. What a movie.
  
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  January 27, 2025 4:14pm
thirteenstars

At least some people are having fun with the outrageous suggestion that Elon Musk was making a Nazi salute on Inauguration Day:

Macron:

https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/1882608822273110301

Tim Walz:

https://x.com/CrazyVibes_1/status/1882609475087208818

And best of all, Ocasio-Cortez:

https://x.com/i/status/1881918548660084859

Oh, my, and look at the aggressiveness of her language.
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January 26, 2025 3:24pm
kevn

I think they call it grifting, read the words as well…
What a million a year buys us.
https://x.com/2ETEKA/status/1883304160671732190
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January 26, 2025 4:15pm
- Don Beckett
  
  Gawd – I watched about 20 seconds of that garbage and stopped before I covered my keyboard with ‘Barff”
  
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  January 26, 2025 4:38pm
kevn

Not reassuring for anyone jabbed… or still being jabbed.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/untested-and-uncontested-the-mass-produced-covid-vaccines-that-skipped-clinical-trials/
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January 26, 2025 4:25pm
- Benedict Yu
  
  I’ll worry when large data sets show higher all cause mortality for those who have up to date covid vaccines compared to those who do not. Of course they show the exact opposite. I have linked to these several times over the last two years.
  
  Interesting article in the Japan Times. It discusses how the pandemic turbocharged anti vaxxers.
  
  https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/01/20/world/society/vaccine-misinformation-covid-19/
  
  Folk who are not up to date with all their vaccinations, including influenza and COVID are not behaving rationally.
  
  Parents who do not urge teenage girls to receive the HPV vaccine are grossly irresponsible.
  
  https://info.health.nz/immunisations/vaccines-aotearoa/hpv-human-papillomavirus-vaccine
  
  IIRC about half, or a little less than half, of teenage girls are unvaccinated, exposing them to cervical cancer. About 95 percent of cervical cancer could be eliminated with this vaccine.
  
  Why are parents not vaccinating their teenage girls for HPV? Superstition or ignorance. Same as people who do not vaccinate their children for all the other childhood diseases.
  
  As I have stated repeatedly, adults can behave irrationally. Don’t get your flu and covid vaccines. Why do you make that decision? I don’t know but it is your choice. However as an adult you should not get to expose children to measles and whooping cough. You certainly should not be allowed to expose teenagers to cervical cancer. The government should act to protect such children by ensuring that they are vaccinated, despite any contrary wishes of their parents.
  
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  January 26, 2025 5:57pm
  - Keith White
    
    “The government should act to protect such children by ensuring that they are vaccinated, despite any contrary wishes of their parents.” – BY
    
    What is really worrying is that you are serious, that all our children are the property of our Government to do to them what they will when someone like Fauci or Bloomfield or Verall says it’s a Good & Medically Necessary Goal.
    
    How about when the Government wants to chop off your children’s genitals…
    
    https://cass.independent-review.uk/home/publications/final-report/
    
    …or forcibly take their organs to transplant into the ‘more deserving Party Members’?
    
    Link is self-explanatory
    
    https://www.scu.edu/ethics/healthcare-ethics-blog/forced-organ-harvesting-a-decades-long-injustice-in-need-of-international-accountability-and-action/
    
    It’s a slope.
    
    It is slippery.
    
    Just read up MAID in Europe and Canada, for just one example.
    
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    January 26, 2025 6:16pm
    - wsk12345
      
      And seriously – anyone talking up the HPV vaccine must be wilfully ignorant or not serious. So many studies show that it not only makes you more likely to get cervical cancer but also kills peoples.
      
      You can lead a horse to water but….
      
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      January 26, 2025 9:20pm
  - rouppe
    
    Not having the HPV vaccine is different to not trusting mRNA. They really aren’t the same thing.
    
    I’ve had the flu vaccine on and off, probably only 25 times in my life. I think I’ve had the flu once in my 62 years, so don’t see any correlation. I’m not against getting it again, I kinda just don’t see the point.
    
    I’ll get a COVID vaccination if they produce an inactivated virus version. I just don’t trust mRNA. We were lied to consistently about everything to do with COVID, so I don’t believe what they say about the mRNA.
    
    I view other, proven, vaccines differently to mRNA.
    
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    January 26, 2025 11:36pm
greybeard

https://www.stuff.co.nz/world-news/360559942/north-korea-says-it-tested-cruise-missile-system-and-vows-toughest-response-us

I know bugger-all about international relations but I bet that North Korea is China’s proxy for testing the political waters around the world.

Whatever Slim Kim says and does is simply what China wants to be saying or doing ( but not out loud ).

As far as I know North Korea produces nothing the world needs, so must get its income from somewhere: guess where !

As I said, I know bugger-all about international relations but I also bet that Kim will not make a move without the word from China.
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January 26, 2025 5:05pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  North Korea is one of the world’s leading cyber criminal states.
  
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  January 26, 2025 10:00pm
cmm

Luxon says we have a culture of saying no.

I think he is correct, and I think this is relatively new, learned behaviour.

When I came to NZ in 1992, people were still talking about No 8 wire and “Kiwi ingenuity”. Although all nationals talk themselves up, it was obvious that this was part of the NZ-self-image and was somewhat justified.

Soon after that we had the Cave Creek disaster. That seemed to herald in a new age of safety red tape and no-can-do attitude that we see a whole lot of liberties and activities being stifled. DoC shut down paths rather than let people use their common sense and personal responsibility.

Add to that Pike Peak where the victims were at least partially reposnsible for what happened and it is no surprise we have slowly become a country and culture where everyone is frightened to do anything or allow anything because they don’t want to run foul of regulations etc.

Individual responsibility and freedom has been replaced with red-tape regulation and society is not better for that.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/christopher-luxon-state-of-the-nation-speech-culture-of-saying-no-hurting-economic-growth/IDRX2K52JRCDVEWWSICHB2EVQQ/
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January 26, 2025 5:23pm
kevn

Been intimidated… by a shopping trolley. In Rotorua?
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/police-arrest-13-people-return-45-trolleys-to-rotorua-businesses-during-three-day-operation/3F2B7USD7VCK7DJ2LADRIMEK3Q/
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January 26, 2025 6:42pm

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