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January 31, 2025 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 31 January 2025

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NeverMindTheBollocks

Yiabeth Morales, a refugee advocate from Colombia who arrived in New Zealand over a decade ago, has criticised Winston Peters’ recent comments in Parliament. His eventual backpedalling, after the Mexican Embassy intervened, was seen by some as a political move rather than a genuine admission of wrongdoing, she said.

“I think he knows the weight of his actions now. His career could be going down from this …”

Yiabeth clearly doesn’t know her NZ history if she thinks Winston’s going down over the likes of this.

http://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/540457/members-of-nz-s-latin-american-community-shocked-offended-by-nz-first-mps-comments
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January 31, 2025 8:02am
- Paulus
  
  Shane has gone up again in my estimation about the Green Mexican and his so called Partner.
  And Winston in so called support.
  
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  January 31, 2025 10:42am
Bridgenag

puberty disruptors
trans ideology youth predation

“i’m not going to mince words. this is a social contagion in every sense of the word. it has become the new must have accessory for the desperate munchausen by mommy set of performance art parents. it has become a big businesses for mengle level doctors and rigged medical boards. it is deliberately preying upon children at what is inevitably a confusing time of their lives.”

https://open.substack.com/pub/boriquagato/p/puberty-disruptors?r=1aj1bv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
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January 31, 2025 8:05am
- Benedict Yu
  
  We can agree on some things. 😐
  
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  January 31, 2025 8:06am
- Tauhei Notts
  
  Bridgenag had one spelling mistake. It is “Mengele” level doctors. I have studied Mengele’s way of health care. It was unbelievably horrific.
  
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  January 31, 2025 8:18am
  - Local Miller
    
    The mistake was in the original article. Bridgenag’s only mistake was not noticing and then quoting it thus: “a big businesses for mengle (sic) level doctors”
    
    Few people would have picked up on the mistake given the original name was German.
    
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    January 31, 2025 9:07am
    - kevn
      
      Local… We all knew who was being discussed. Not a big deal.
      
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      January 31, 2025 9:21am
      - Biscuit
        
        Agreed, kevn!
        
        Hell, some people in Kiwiblog misspell commonplace words like K-e-v-i-n…
        
        (Not my face, not my pretty face!)
        
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        January 31, 2025 9:59am
      - pdm
        
        Biscuit leave Kevn alone.
        
        He is a regular at No Minister Blog as well as here and we never see Biscuit or any of your myriad of other pseudonyms that I know of appear there.
        
        A good person is Kevn.
        
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        January 31, 2025 10:51am
      - Biscuit
        
        pdm, I’m sure Kevn is a sainted soul – but also one who can take a bit of gentle nitpicking/ribbing from Moi!
        
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        January 31, 2025 11:06am
      - kowtow
        
        Biscuit .
        
        A sainted soul indeed.
        
        https://glendaloughhermitage.ie/glendalough/the-saints-kevin-laurence/
        
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        January 31, 2025 1:25pm
      - pdm
        
        Funny Biscuit I was trying to do the same.
        
        Note to self improve humour when trying to take the mickey.
        
        I got 2, yes 2, down ticks for my obviously feeble effort.
        
        Those downtickers must have thought I was castigating you. At least you know I would not do that.
        
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        January 31, 2025 1:29pm
      - Biscuit
        
        pdm, it truly is bizarre what floats some downtickers’ boats.
        
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        January 31, 2025 4:39pm
  - Keith White
    
    I read Shirer’s “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” at age 17 after acceptance into AKL medical school, with particular reference to Mengele and his enablers. Smug teen me thought “never again, never happen.” I have been wrong over decades, but woe this one.
    
    If anyone is interested – I recommend “The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide.”
    
    and
    
    “Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust.”
    
    Slopes always start on a small incline… and then rapidly steepen and get less friction…
    
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    February 1, 2025 2:36pm
- lastmanstanding
  
  I have two concerns around AI.
  1. It will be a battleground between the US and China with the victory having potentially immense control over the rest of the world for good or evil. We are already see this with Deepseek.
  
  2. The countries that will benefit from AI are those who have a population of high skilled citizens who can pivot away from the work AI will replace to new higher skilled jobs.
  Alas NZ is a low wage low skill economy so it will be impossible to raise the skill levels leading to large scale long term unemployment. Large numbers of school leavers will never enter the paid work force and be on tax payer supplied benefits for their lives leading to the usual social disruption.
  
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  January 31, 2025 9:15am
  - Fender
    
    Actually I think the opposite may happen, yes you can robotise picking fruit but there are a lot of manual labour jobs that you just can’t easily.
    I would say Ai will replace desk so called smart jobs, accountancy, banking, retail etc before someone clearing a blocked drain, fixing a broken water pipe, turning up to repair your broken heatpump, repairing your car etc.
    It will reduce labour numbers definitely but I think it will hurt office workers more and sooner as they are the low hanging fruit.
    
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    January 31, 2025 9:34am
    - imalwaysright
      
      There’s an ad on tv for the latest apple AI phone.
      The office half wit has to contact a normal person in the same office.
      He (yes, thick white man. Surprise) inputs some gibberish into his apple AI phone and it turns it into non gibberish and emails it to the smart black guy, who is taken aback by the stupid fat white guy’s non gibberish.
      
      Conclusion: you can be crap at your job, but, with the right software, it doesn’t really matter.
      I would say 95% of NZ public servants will have one within the week.
      
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      January 31, 2025 10:37am
    - Keith White
      
      I can’t see an AI replacement that would’ve left me in bed (not in NZ) last night that with a few keystrokes I could’ve gotten to receive and triage a car-v-pedestrian multitrauma case, and manage the airway-breathing-circulation, done the volume-resuscitation, catheterize, analgese, image, etc. and organize laparotomy for splenectomy and suturing of ruptured jejunum and talk to family after getting to xe to ICU postop. ChatGP and DeepFakeChinaSoftwareBS can kiss my weary axx.
      
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      February 1, 2025 2:45pm
  - NothingLeft
    
    It’ll only be a few years between first AI layoffs and 95% of everyone being replaceable. Smart dexterous and agile robots are going to be everywhere in 5 years. Ways of getting AI to reason have been figured out and progress from here on will be even more head-spinning as they add ‘wisdom’ to the already huge knowledge bases encoded in LLMs’.
    
    I don’t think voters will accept being made redundant en mass. They’ll demand AI be banned to protect their jobs, at least in democracies. A ‘Butlerian Jihad Lite’ (Samuel Butler made famous by Frank Herbert’s Dune was a 19th Century kiwi who wrote Erewhon – ‘nowhere’ backwards while working as a Shepard in Mid Canterbury high country – Eddoras in LOTR).
    
    That will buy a few years of relative normalcy, though with rapidly accelerating technology in health, home-care and transport. Superintelligence will continue being developed in lab for military, technology and health applications and over medium to longer term will almost certainly doom us (maybe there is a chance of survival via transhumanism).
    
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    January 31, 2025 10:41am
    - rangitoto
      
      I was first aware of Butler from reading his translations of the Iliad and Odyssey. I read Erewhon later. It’s interesting he was thinking about the issue of machine intelligence back then.
      
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      January 31, 2025 11:10am
  - Ra Henare
    
    In my recent experience in a couple of reasonably large projects ..AI is at the same stage as early computing. (I started coding in the early 70s)
    
    Meaning, if you can skilfully “”drive”” AI (same as coding early Computers.)
    You will get good results.
    
    If you are not a good driver of AI, you will get crap results.
    
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    January 31, 2025 1:16pm
    - imalwaysright
      
      Correct.
      You need to be smart enough to ask the right questions and smarter enough to know if its the right answer.
      Prepare for chaos.
      
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      January 31, 2025 4:31pm
    - Keith White
      
      Yep, GIGO.
      
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      February 1, 2025 2:46pm
- Notsofast
  
  We have a law in the extreme case requiring parents to allow their gay children to be chemically sterilised.
  Keir Starmer was planning the same law, but it is apparently now being linked to a trade deal with the US, and will be put on hold.
  
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  January 31, 2025 11:43am
Benedict Yu

Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
This is an excellent article that details the role of RFK in the Samoa measles outbreak.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rfk-jr-samoa-measles-outbreak/

The catastrophe began when two nurses killed two infants by mistakenly mixing a vaccine concentrate with muscle relaxant, instead of with the intended sterile water. That disaster then started a rumour that the vaccines were killing people.

Kennedy fueled that rumour by suggesting to the Samoa PM that the vaccines were defective. There is a link to his letter within the article.

The end result was a collapse in vaccination rates and the deaths of 83 children.

In December 2019, Samoa declared a state of emergency and compulsorily vaccinated all children. Cases of measles in the last five years… Zero.

Kennedy is a menace to all of us.
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January 31, 2025 8:05am
- G152
  
  So children were killed when they were inoculated but inoculations are safe.
  
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  January 31, 2025 8:10am
  - Don Beckett
    
    Benedict – I was in agreeance with you, until your final sentence. People have choices, which is to do research, & agree or disagree with Kennedy.
    From my perspective, the jury is still out because of the ‘screaming’ about him.
    
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    January 31, 2025 10:35am
    - bennerg
      
      As had been said elsewhere, Kennedy is not anti-vax, he is pro vax-safety.
      
      That is quite a difference, and all the howlers screaming against his appointment, appear to be shrills for an industry that is totally out of control.
      
      Kennedy is critical to Trump, and if his appointment is stalled, Trump has options and I’m sure he’ll act switftly to use them.
      
      As an aside, the current objectors to Kennedy, Gabbard etc, are simply identifying themselves. They will become targets in the next primaries, whether they be Republican or Democrat, and I’m sure will become an endangered species.
      
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      January 31, 2025 11:12am
      - Northshoredoc
        
        How is Kennedy critical to Trump ?
        
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        January 31, 2025 4:35pm
    - Ian Boag
      
      in agreeance – where are you DG? 🙂
      
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      January 31, 2025 5:18pm
  - Northshoredoc
    
    This is disingenuous nonsense. BY details what happened in Samoa that infants and toddlers were incorrectly given a muscle relaxant as the diluent with their MMR vaccine.
    
    RFK jnr has made a number of absurd statements about vaccines over the years mainly for political purposes to try and build a voting base.
    
    I do agree with his position on processed foods and the tendency of the pharmaceutical industry, especially in the USA, to have outlandish pricing of their products compared to the rest of the world and commercialise illnesses that are largely poor lifestyle choices.
    
    If he can do anything about those two issues, it’d be a win for the US public but I expect him to achieve very little apart from cause further mischief in relation to immunisation.
    
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    January 31, 2025 3:08pm
    - wsk12345
      
      I’d like to see a test showing the safety of Mercury and aluminium adjuvants. And it should involve more than 4 rabbits. Given it’s so safe I’m sure moms won’t mind it being tested on their kids. Weird that it’s never been done and certainly not too much to ask before they give your kids dozens of jabs. (Even the few vaccine safety tests that hve been done used adjuvant as the placebo).
      
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      January 31, 2025 4:09pm
      - Northshoredoc
        
        I’ve long given up debating the merits of vaccines with those who are opposed to them, it’s a fool’s errand.
        
        I recommend immunisation to patients and my family members, if they choose not to take my advice it’s their decision.
        
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        January 31, 2025 4:41pm
- Bridgenag
  
  pretty sure you have posted that before and it was dealt with by Jackrabbit and others…….
  
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  January 31, 2025 8:27am
- Philview
  
  There is poor vaccine uptake in NZ as well for certain illnesses and usually by people who have the appearance of being poor and also not very well educated. I doubt RFK had anything to do with Samoa. I bet if you canvassed the poorest suburbs in Auckland many people will not have even heard of measles. I was in Auckland and I was driving in South Auckland and a car came along side me at the lights and the lady driver was bottle feeding an unrestrained baby. There were men in the car. The sorty of crazy scene you wouldn’t see in more middle class parts of the country.
  
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  January 31, 2025 8:31am
- Nukuleka
  
  I enjoyed those posts you used to make, Ben, with tales of your red -headed girlfriend and her exploits with Kainga Ora tenants, your escapades at the New Brighton hot pools, and details of your clapped out jalopy- a Nissan was it? These days your focus seems to have narrowed and become somewhat more one- tracked and obsessive, with daily rants against Bobby Kennedy Junior. It’s becoming a bore. Such a pity.
  
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  January 31, 2025 8:33am
  - Benedict Yu
    
    You are clearly thinking of someone else.
    
    I own a Toyota Celica and it is not clapped out. I also live about 1,000 km from New Brighton.
    
    Sorry if you don’t like addressing serious issues.
    
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    January 31, 2025 9:19am
    - wsk12345
      
      Disingenuous. You did used to post about Christchurch and your celica and the hot pools and living in chch.
      
      He’s right.
      
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      January 31, 2025 4:11pm
- Burtland
  
  how do you de-conflate ‘RFK menace’ from ‘Nursing incompetence’ in the collapse in vaccination rates?
  
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  January 31, 2025 8:34am
  - Benedict Yu
    
    Did you read the article and the embedded letter from Kennedy to the Samoa PM?
    
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    January 31, 2025 9:21am
    - Lance
      
      I wouldn’t bother Benedict
      Trump supprts RFK so unless you think RFK is perfect in word and deed, you have TDS and are a far left pinko and are part of the deepstate etc etc etc.
      Sigh
      
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      January 31, 2025 10:06am
    - Jake Dee
      
      I have read them, From RFK Jr,
      “I was dismayed—but not surprised—to see media reports that linked the current measles
      outbreak to the so-called “anti-vaccine” movement. While we can expect pundits to engage in
      uninformed finger-pointing, Samoa’s public health officials must undertake the serious tasks of
      containing the infection and—equally importantly—to thoroughly understand its etiology. To
      safeguard public health during the current infection in and in the future, it is critical that the
      Samoan Health Ministry determine, scientifically, if the outbreak was caused by inadequate
      vaccine coverage or alternatively, by a defective vaccine.”
      All perfectly reasonable points to make.
      CBS writes,
      “His trip was coordinated by a local anti-vaccine advocate known for spreading medical misinformation online.”
      [snip]
      “Kennedy’s letter partly leans on an idea that appears to have originated from misinformation widely spread on social media during a 2014-2015 measles outbreak at Disneyland”
      Please note “coordinated by” “known for” “party leans on an idea” “appear to have”. What do any of those terms actually MEAN?
      They’re weasel words that subtly imply but never directly state because such things cannot be proved.
      This is information warfare not good faith reporting.
      
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      January 31, 2025 12:35pm
  - Dudley Quaffquaff
    
    The responsible response to the nursing incompetence would have been to explain clearly and repeatedly that the incident did /not/ mean that there was something wrong with the vaccines. Trumpeting it as proof that the vaccines kill people is the opposite of responsible.
    
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    January 31, 2025 10:42am
- Grunter
  
  Bene – even your biased article quotes the Samoan Health Officials;
  
  “In interviews, Samoan health officials told CBS News they believe Kennedy’s actions were unlikely to have directly influenced what occurred.”
  That doesn’t sound like “a menace”.
  
  Also, your article forgot to mention the FACT that, after RFK Jnr sent his letter to the Samoan PM, the Samoans ditched their vaccine made in India and purchased a Belgium vaccine. Deaths immediately stopped.
  
  Neighboring Pacific island countries, Tonga and Fiji, which had concurrent outbreaks of the virus — and had a different source of the measles vaccine — did not suffer the same dramatic mortality rates. This should have raised concerns, yet there hasn’t been an inquiry into why the Samoan government switched vaccine sourcing from India to Belgium midway through the crisis.
  
  A renewed effort to vaccinate with this alternate supply began in the first week of December 2019; it was hailed as the reason the outbreak subsided. Measles vaccines take at least 10 days before creating an immune response. There has been no explanation for the data confirming that the onset of cases dropped dramatically two weeks before this vaccination drive could have had any effect.
  
  Once again Bene – you are wrong.
  
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  January 31, 2025 9:11am
  - bennerg
    
    And that supports RFK’s stance – it’s all about vaccine-safety.
    
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    January 31, 2025 11:16am
  - JackRabbit
    
    …your article forgot to mention the FACT that, after RFK Jnr sent his letter to the Samoan PM, the Samoans ditched their vaccine made in India and purchased a Belgium vaccine. Deaths immediately stopped.
    
    Specifics often contradict vague generalities.
    
    It the IT world we have data storage devices that are referred as WORM drives. Write Once, Read Many times. They are archival storage.
    
    This is relevant because Vaccines and Cellular Memory are WORM techniques. Write Once, Read Many times.
    
    If you had measles at 20, body cellular memory still remembers the measles and is capable of defending against measles.
    
    Herd immunity also contains protection from measles and other diseases, from our mothers milk / colostrum. Measles vaccines did not exist when I was a child, but despite my class mates getting measles, I did not.
    
    I got my immunity from my mothers breast milk, who got her immunity from her brother, who got measles.
    
    A vaccine is ‘WORM’ technology.
    [1] If you have to be vaccinated every six months, the technology is fake. It is NOT a vaccine.
    
    [2] With a little research, and its not hard to find, we find that for the last few decades, Big Pharma has been including in vaccines, agents that target and destroy existing anti-bodies and cellular memory, so that the human immune system does not block these new vaccines. Blocking vaccines by the immune systems is called vaccine resistance and id similar to antibiotic resistance.
    
    You can find plenty of articles about this and long before ‘Covid19’. Over coming vaccine and antibiotic resistance has been the subject of research since the 1920’s.
    
    [3] The Spike protein is one of the latest artificial mechanisms that was conceived and developed to be able to do this. The Spike protein in ‘Covid19’ is an artificial construct.
    
    [4] The latest artificial mechanism which may be part of the Spike Protein, is the modification of natures ‘nanobots’ called Bacteriophages.
    
    Bacteriophages are inherent in the human body, and are designed to deliver and inject DNA into bacteria cells and contagions, and destroying the bacteria and contagions from the inside.
    
    [5] There are copious articles and research, and trials, about modifying Bacteriophages for delivering ‘cures’. i.e. Big Pharma playing god.
    
    [6] The other aspect of Bacteriophages is that like ‘nanobots’ they are capable of dynamic and continual replication.
    
    Modified Bacteriophages are being touted as a new method of delivering vaccines, including a new version of the Covid19 vaccines.
    
    What could possibly go wrong? ////
    
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    January 31, 2025 11:19am
    - kevn
      
      Jack… Facts and the downtickers still don’t like it.
      
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      January 31, 2025 4:21pm
      - JackRabbit
        
        Old habits die hard. Some people are just born that way. Or maybe to uptick they would have accept that some things are not as they think they are, and that they have been believing lies and untruths.
        
        Objective people, are not their ideas, and can easily change what they believe is true, based on getting more accurate information.
        
        Some people are so subjectively welded to their ideas, that they are prepared to die for them. We saw this during the vaccine Truman Show. And you see it with various cancers. People will do what they are told even if it kills them.
        
        Sometimes people are subjectively welded to their beliefs because that particular belief is like a foundation card in a house of cards, and if that card collapses, so does everything else.
        
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        January 31, 2025 5:09pm
    - Taieri
      
      I got my immunity from my mothers breast milk
      ————–
      
      My older brother had measles and I hadn’t. Yet, we were both sucking from the same pair of tits.
      
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      January 31, 2025 4:45pm
      - JackRabbit
        
        He was sucking at a different time period.
        
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        January 31, 2025 4:57pm
- Fender
  
  BY yes you covered this and it was so well refuted by others at the time, you obviously now are just posting and not even reading the replies which so comprehensively destroyed your last attempt at this very subject only a few days ago which smacks or either arrogance or trolling. it seems weird to me that you would destroy years of your thoughtful respected commentary and reputation here by this sudden obviously trolling which seems out of character. Has someone hacked your account ? I wonder.
  Stating medical advice as you have started recently doing with no more experience or qualifications than any of us is a little out the gate especially being that you are one of a very select few in the world who apparently have never had covid and don’t really fit any bell curve.
  Remind me again how much did that particular drug company get fined only a few years previous for lying and fudging info in the name of profiteering and you call it safe and effective with no hesitation.
  
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  January 31, 2025 9:45am
  - bennerg
    
    I asked Grok about Pfizers recent fines …
    
    Pfizer has been subject to several significant fines for various forms of wrongdoing. Here’s a summary based on available information:
    
    2009: Pfizer agreed to pay $2.3 billion to settle civil and criminal allegations related to the illegal promotion of four drugs: Bextra, Geodon, Zyvox, and Lyrica. This settlement included the largest criminal fine at the time, amounting to $1.195 billion for the criminal part, with an additional $105 million forfeited, and $1 billion in civil penalties. Pfizer pleaded guilty to a felony violation of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act for misbranding Bextra by promoting it for uses not approved by the FDA.
    
    2004: Pfizer paid a $430 million fine to resolve allegations of marketing the drug Neurontin (gabapentin) for unapproved uses. This was under the False Claims Act, where Pfizer was accused of promoting Neurontin for conditions like bipolar disorder and pain, despite scientific studies showing it was ineffective for those uses.
    
    Recent Fine: There’s mention of a $65 million fine for Medicaid fraud and kickbacks to physicians, but this seems to be from a more recent event not detailed in depth in the provided information.
    
    These fines illustrate a history of legal action against Pfizer for practices involving off-label marketing, kickbacks to healthcare providers, and other forms of fraudulent promotion of their pharmaceutical products. The fines are a reflection of regulatory efforts to enforce compliance with drug marketing laws and to protect public health from potentially harmful practices.
    
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    January 31, 2025 11:18am
    - JackRabbit
      
      And those files are a small subset of all the fines and criminal activity by Pfizer.
      
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      January 31, 2025 11:59am
  - imalwaysright
    
    Fender,
    Agreed.
    I was thinking it was trolling or even attention seeking. As some have said, it has been offensive to those who have suffered, or know people who have suffered from the jab.
    But that is the price for freedom of speech.
    We all pay the price for each other, as well as ourselves.
    
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    January 31, 2025 11:44am
- In Vino Veritas
  
  From the CBS article “Samoa’s Ministry of Health said in a statement. “However, there is no conclusive evidence that his visit directly contributed to the decline in vaccination rates or the subsequent measles outbreak”. Causation|correlation.
  
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  January 31, 2025 10:04am
- newview
  
  Yes Ben Kennedy also lied suggesting samples taken didn’t show measles. All medical officials from several countries there at the time confirmed it was definitely measles.
  
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  January 31, 2025 10:14am
  - Keith White
    
    “All medical officials from several countries…”
    
    Totally reliable experts.
    
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    February 1, 2025 3:13pm
- imalwaysright
  
  “an excellent article”
  If you consider that to be excellent, then it minimises the value of your opinion.
  Could you explain why you think it is excellent?
  
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  January 31, 2025 11:28am
- JackRabbit
  
  Kennedy is a menace to all of us.
  
  Kennedy is only a menace to those that want to stifle open debate on the science, and who would have us believe without question, whatever is pushed by Big Pharma and the medicare systems that are bullied, bribed, and blackmailed by Big Pharma.
  
  Some vaccines are good. Most aren’t. Campaigns that bully women into not breast feeding and instead rely on infant formulae, do a lot of damage by breaking the herd immunity chain.
  
  Women and breast milk is an important part of keeping the herd immunity process alive. Rates and/or duration of feeding have dropped, particularly among Māori and Pacific mothers. This no doubt contributes to poorer health outcomes later in life.
  
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  January 31, 2025 12:42pm
- Ra Henare
  
  Thanks Bene.
  
  I read.
  The cause of the outbreak was decreased vaccination rates among newborns, from 74% in 2017 to 31–34% in 2018. Nearby islands had rates near 99%.
  
  So BEFORE KENNEDYS visit?????
  (Kennedy visited in June 2019)
  
  Measles Emergency declared in December 2019.
  So in 6 months, Kennedys visit had caused the epidemic?
  Nothing about hysteria from child deaths from Vaccine error.
  On 6 July 2018 on the east coast of Savai’i, two 12-month-old children died after receiving MMR vaccinations
  
  Applying my logic.
  Its a Kennedy beatup by media/left and has suckered in those with limited critical thinking.
  
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  January 31, 2025 1:48pm
- judith8409121
  
  you care so little about a vaccine killing children that you use this event to attack someone you don’t like – i think thats vile
  
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  January 31, 2025 7:21pm
  - Benedict Yu
    
    I don’t know what the hell you are on about.
    
    The MMR vaccine has never caused the death of a healthy child.
    
    I don’t know how many children the COVID vaccine has killed. I do know that in New Zealand it is zero. The COVID vaccine has killed 3 adults out of more than 13 million shots.
    
    On the other hand, in the USA alone, COVID killed more than 1,600 children to June 2023, covering the height of the pandemic.
    
    https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-from-covid-by-age-us/
    
    It will be more by now.
    
    Your comment about ‘vaccines killing children’ is the modern equivalent of blaming witches and comets for every sad event.
    
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    January 31, 2025 8:41pm
    - Ra Henare
      
      This is getting out of control.
      Bene, you blamed RFK Junior for low vacine rate in Samoa leading to a number of deaths.
      
      As per my comment above.
      That is blatantly untrue.
      
      The cause of low vaccination rates in Samoa(Remember we are talking about Measles)
      was nothing to do with RFKs visit 6 montsh before the emergency.
      
      Most probably, it was a response to the deaths of 2 kids who received a contaminated MMR vaccine in 2018
      
      You are mixing all that information up in your attempt to justify your anti RFK rants.
      
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      February 1, 2025 3:15am
Tomtoddy

Yesterday I had to take my vehicle to get serviced. The service centre was 45 kms away involving driving through spaghetti junction, central Auckland. Google told me to allow and hour and 23 mins. So I gave myself an extra 10 mins just in case Google was being mischievous. It was 9:00am.

Google did get it wrong. It took one hour and 40 mins. A rate of 32 kph in what was, 90%, a 100kph zone.

I thought of all the plumbers, chippies, electricians, business people crawling along beside me. I thought of the car mechanics sitting on their hands because I was late unable to get another vehicle in to keep working. If Mr Luxon wants productivity gains he could start on our highway system, fire the anti-car, green cranks, get traffic moving and create a better road funding system. That is one way to get more output per hour or for wages paid.
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January 31, 2025 8:06am
- artemisia
  
  Meanwhile a huge number, and amount, of $150 fines payable to the Wellington CC for driving in the wrong lane in Newtown. One in my family, Newtown tradie resident for decades, drives that bit of road daily, got pinged. Say what? Who knew? (Obviously lots did not.)
  
  Wellington CC coffers are doing well with incoming nearly a quarter of a mill in the first 5 weeks. Thought arrows from drivers heading the Council’s way – not so much.
  
  Other family tradies are complaining about the local impact of dedicated lanes slowing travel down, sometimes a lot.
  
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  January 31, 2025 8:17am
  - Cassandra
    
    I had an appointment at Tauranga Hospital yesterday. We live in the suburbs, the equivalent of Meadowbank if we were still in Auckland. It took 7 minutes, parked car 20 metres from the clinic door. Guests in for a drink last night, very pleasant sitting on the deck. Captain Cook got it right when he named the Bay of Plenty.
    
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    January 31, 2025 8:37am
  - AitchW
    
    Artemisia, then they (the lanes) are performing as planned. A few years back LTSA admitted that it was deliberately causing congestion in order to force people to use public transport. I suspect that the same ideology is still firmly entrenched.
    
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    January 31, 2025 8:46am
- NoFax
  
  I agree to have a better road funding model. Privatise it and charge per km then people will pay whether it’s worth it or not.
  However, apart from that I’m not sure what else can be done. If you build more lanes at billions of dollars for urban motorway then it’s more tariff etc. The only way to ensure there is less traffic is alternatives i.e. public transport.
  If anyone can show me where a city doesn’t have congestion and also no public transport then I’m all ears.
  
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  January 31, 2025 8:37am
  - cmm
    
    Is the funding the problem?
    
    NZTA seems to always have spare cash to throw around for activism and advocacy.
    
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    January 31, 2025 9:20am
    - NoFax
      
      No funding isn’t it’s main issue, it’s a public body that doesn’t have to listen to it’s customers. Hence, the need to privatise it.
      
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      January 31, 2025 9:37am
    - Keith White
      
      NZTA is the Kiwi DMV equivalent.
      
      If you’ve never had to deal with a US DMV, good for you 🙂
      
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      February 1, 2025 3:28pm
  - Ehlana
    
    Also building more lanes requires demolishing the buildings that used to be there. Which then removes some of the destinations the road served anyway, and forces the business to relocate somewhere further away and we will need to build more roads to get to those new locations.
    
    We need good public transport, walking and yes, even cycling/scooter lanes to give commuters a feasible alternative and leave the lane space for that commercial traffic that doesn’t have a choice.
    
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    January 31, 2025 10:21am
  - Paulus
    
    Change ALL licensing to that now for EVs and Trucks – User Pays buy a kilometerage as required.
    Every vehicle is on the Computer already.
    
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    January 31, 2025 10:47am
    - pdm
      
      Paulus – I think that is going to be happening in this electoral cycle but, cannot recall details.
      
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      January 31, 2025 10:54am
      - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
        
        2027 I believe has been announced.
        
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        January 31, 2025 11:54am
      - nz_aj
        
        “As early as 2027”.
        I don’t understand why it needs to take so long. It was bought in for EVs already, and only took a few months. It’s an existing system. Like many things, the government needs to speed up action.
        https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/526491/petrol-cars-could-be-hit-with-road-user-charges-from-2027
        On a similar topic, they also plan to introduce congestion charging, which will fix commute times so long as the charges are high enough and applied to all.
        
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        January 31, 2025 9:22pm
- RoboRob
  
  I have had tradies working at my place for the last two weeks (and one more to go). Plaster has been in three times, chippy, plumber and electrician come and go. I am in CHCH and during the day its probably only a 10-15 drive between sites.
  
  Imagine the productivity costs and financial costs of the same tradies spend 40+ minutes between locations. I am sure in AKL the trades have different procedures to reduce travel but the additional costs must be significant.
  
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  January 31, 2025 8:38am
  - Ehlana
    
    I always used to wonder what law of physics it was that explained why a truck limited to 90 km/h overtook my car going 100 km/h.
    
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    January 31, 2025 1:28pm
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  The bit that beats me is the 90 kph restriction on heavy trucks with or without trailers and cars with a trailer. The trucks rarely comply. Even cars these days are very safe towing. Trip from the Shore to Waiuku the other day and my Prado was quite happy towing a trailer at 100 kph. 90 just messes with the traffic flow.
  Stupid antiquated laws we have in NZ.
  
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  January 31, 2025 9:16am
  - imalwaysright
    
    Good point S.O
    
    Following distance for all vehicles is far more important than speed.
    People are distracted by computer screens and phones and can’t refocus in time to avoid collisions.
    A longer following distance, properly adhered to, would be much safer.
    
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    January 31, 2025 9:51am
    - JackRabbit
      
      [1] As would people actually knowing what speed they are actually doing. The maximum variation between speedos that over read and those that under read is 18km/kr. You can get officious twerps sitting on 98km/hr (to avoid a fine), when in reality they are doing 89km/hr. And then they speed up on the passing lanes!!!
      
      [2] Pulling over to the left – even the left lane on a four lane motorway to allow faster vehicles to pass, is a very rare occurrence. Especially when cars in both lanes are doing the same speed.
      
      [3] Passing lanes are unofficially supposed to be given a wide berth by police. Most passing lanes are not long enough to allow one 5m sedan, at 100km/hr (not violating the speed limit), to pass another 5m sedan at 90km/kr while sticking to other road rules.
      
      That is before you consider one sedan passing at 100km/hr another sedan doing 95km/hr, or passing a truck or B train, or multiple cars passing on sedan etc.
      
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      January 31, 2025 11:56am
      - imalwaysright
        
        JR
        Correct about the short passing lanes.
        To pass a car doing 90kph at 100kph would need at least 750m of passing lane.
        To pass a car doing 95kph at 100kph would need at least 1500m of passing lane.
        I’m surprised lawyers don’t cite the maths for their clients.
        
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        January 31, 2025 12:32pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        Just for the hell of it, I have turned on a GPS to get speed over the ground in quite a number of cars. The (almost) uniform result is 100kph on the dial is 95 kph over the ground. The exception is my 1951 Citroen Light 15 where 63 mph on the dial = 100 kph on the GPS. Go figure.
        
        I find that when I am doing 100 kph (screen) in a free flowing traffic stream pretty much everyone goes at the same speed, so I figure they have the same over-read as me. On the likes of the 100 bit of the Kapiti Eway if I speed up to 105 on the dial I gradually pass a lot of the traffic.
        
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        January 31, 2025 1:00pm
      - JackRabbit
        
        imalwaysright
        
        It is actually 1250m @10km/hr differential and 2500m @5km/hr differential, if you are obeying the 2 second rule.
        
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        January 31, 2025 1:52pm
      - imalwaysright
        
        JackR
        I allowed starting from -36m, pass 5m car, then +36m to pull back in.
        No chance on most passing lanes.
        
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        January 31, 2025 4:13pm
      - JackRabbit
        
        @imalwaysright
        
        100km/hr = 28 (27.77) metres per second.
        2 seconds following rule is -56m and 2 seconds in front of the car you overtook so another 56m at the other end. No drivers like cars pulling in front of them as the passing lanes come to an end.
        
        Front of your car aligned with rear of their car to rear of your car to front of their is 2 x 5m.
        
        56+56+10 = 122m
        
        100km/hr – 90km/hr = 10km/hr differential = 2.8 m/s differential.
        
        122m @ 2.8m/s = 43.5 seconds
        
        43.5 seconds @ 100km/h (28m/s) = 1220m. Add in a few metres to give yourself a bit of room and viola 1250m.
        
        And that is assuming you are at 100km/hr from the outset.
        
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        January 31, 2025 5:31pm
      - imalwaysright
        
        Maybe we should merge…!
        
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        January 31, 2025 8:02pm
    - Steve Otto N Shore
      
      A long following distance also encourages little shitboxes to pas and push in.
      Amazing how cheeky those drivers are!
      
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      January 31, 2025 12:28pm
      - imalwaysright
        
        Presactly, we’ve all seen the wankers racing the passing lane only to pull in and drop the anchors because they can’t look further than the bumper in front of them.
        
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        January 31, 2025 12:38pm
  - newview
    
    Depends whats on the trailer Steve. It’s about weight and the ability to stop. Same with the trucks. I was towing a trailer with a side x side on it and got a big fright when I had to brake suddenly on a wet surface. I skidded about twenty metres and just avoided going onto an intersection with plenty of traffic. Was probably doing sixty K and was towing with a good sized modern SUV with demand 4wd. The momentum just took over. The 90 k for trucks is a real pain though I agree with that.
    
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    January 31, 2025 11:20am
    - imalwaysright
      
      “Depends whats on the trailer Steve”
      
      Depends on who’s driving.
      
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      January 31, 2025 12:06pm
    - Steve Otto N Shore
      
      The rules are being able to stop in 7 meters at 30 kph for a light trailer class.
      Over 2000kg GVM trailer brakes required. Can be hydraulic over ride, cable, or electric. Over 2500kg up to 3500kg vehicle controlled brakes required.
      Over 3500kg it becomes a heavy trailer class, subject to different rules.
      I worked for a trailer manufacturing company for 50 years. Even issued WOFs for them. So there won’t be much that anyone can tell me about this.
      Skidding should not happen if your SUV has ABS Brakes.
      Trucks, different story. I hold a Class 5 License.
      
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      January 31, 2025 12:17pm
      - newview
        
        2024 Kia sportage
        
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        January 31, 2025 3:53pm
- cmm
  
  AFAIK, the Google numbers are based on instantaneous traffic flow so things will change as the traffic builds up.
  
  But yes, better traffic flow would improve productivity no end.
  
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  January 31, 2025 9:18am
- Fender
  
  for all that I hate google for,you have to admit this map estimating is next level clever and helpful. to see the coloured lines on a map, and be offered alternatives is Ai done right. I saw some screen shots on Facebook where it was now even adding mobile traffic cameras which i suppose is to keep up with Waze.
  I can see a day where cameras will capture a car entering and leaving a highway and be able to fine you if you were too quick in timing vs distance.
  
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  January 31, 2025 9:54am
  - graham
    
    They already exist, and apparently were rolled out in 2023.
    
    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/auckland-speed-trial-new-point-to-point-speed-cameras-being-installed-on-six-auckland-roads/BZMDLMVWCVGNHPFNMNWUIC4PXI/
    
    I only say “apparently” because I regularly drive along one of the roads mentioned in the article (Kahikatea Flat Road) and don’t recall seeing any signs. Whoops, would hate to think I missed that!
    
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    January 31, 2025 11:48am
- sirknz
  
  Why are you crossing through Spaghetti Junction at that time of day? It was bad enough when I worked on the Shore and lived south ~12 years ago. I time my drop offs for the day before or from 10am if I need to go across it.
  
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  January 31, 2025 10:43am
kowtow

When the banks take looney steps to debank fossil fuel clients they’re actually only following the lead of the even more Swivel Eyed Loons in the govt who have “Net Zero” targets themselves .

The Nats better be careful what they wish for , signing up to globalist UN nonsense as the farmers are in the next round of attcks , what with methane etc

Grow a pair and bin the whole scam. The economy and freedom will thrive.
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January 31, 2025 8:08am
artemisia

Latest newsletter from the Ministry for (a lot less) Regulation shows progress and a decent level of interest from the public.

A couple of numbers –

Since we launched our online portal for reporting red tape issues in November 2024, we’ve had more than 500 issues reported. We’ve heard about a wide range of issues, including toys, aviation, bike racks, boats, service stations, hot water bores, engineering, electrical workers, health supplements and trailers…. We received around 23,000 submissions on the proposed contents of the Regulatory Standards Bill, which was open for feedback for eight weeks.

Newsletters are posted at the below link and can be subscribed to. Next newsletter due early March.

https://www.regulation.govt.nz/news/
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January 31, 2025 8:08am
Cassandra

Judge Harvey submitted to the Justice Committee on ACT’s Treaty Principles Bill. A thoughtful submission from a deep thinker. He was questioned by Labour and Maori Party MPs, none of whom had read his submission or listened to his presentation but proceeded to attack him personally. According to these bigots the only way to reduce disadvantage in NZ is to give special privileges to Maoris. It is illogical – am I surprised? – and racist. And morally reprehensible. There are many more disadvantaged people in NZ who are NOT Maoris, what about them? And what about the not small matter of personal responsibility?
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January 31, 2025 8:13am
- AitchW
  
  Cass, Cass, Cass. Your Caucasity is showing. Check you privilege. Personal responsibility is such a colonialist construct. Obviously you need to do more mahi to increase your taki so that oppressed whanau across the motu can collect more benefiti.
  Nga mihi.
  
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  January 31, 2025 8:25am
  - Cassandra
    
    Thanks H, I’ll take that on board. 🍷
    
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    January 31, 2025 9:27am
  - pdm
    
    aitch – will all of that affect his doo daki?
    
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    January 31, 2025 10:00am
- CJames
  
  The reason why he was subjected to personal attacks was they could not debate the substance of his argument. That is the meaning behind ad hominin. Just shows their moral bankruptcy there as committee members.
  
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  January 31, 2025 8:32am
pdm

It seems Co Governance is still underway under the guidance of Prime Minister Luxon.

From Hobsons Pledge facebook page and a link to my post on it as I could not get the facebook page to copy here.

https://nominister.wordpress.com/2025/01/31/from-hobsons-pledge-on-facebook/
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January 31, 2025 8:29am
- RoboRob
  
  Yesterday G the Giant posted that people here make ‘bullshit’ up about Luxon and co governance and that he has ‘has not said that or anything like it ffs’. I did a quick web search and the first hit was the following….. (sorry about the repost but I think its important)
  
  ‘He challenged Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to build her case for co-governance with voters but told Morning Report National remained opposed to the creation of a new level of bureaucracy for health.
  
  He said the government needed to set out clear guidelines on what was and was not included for constitutional issues such as co-governance.
  
  “If we don’t, it drives division. If you think about things like the Treaty settlement process, there’s been very good public buy-in to that over successive governments, different types of governments because the case was made and and people said, that’s right, we need to do some redress there.” ‘
  
  Opposed to multiple departments, not opposed to co governance.
  
  Later in the article….
  
  ‘National believed that co-governance of natural assets involving iwi working with central and local government in the context of Treaty settlements is long-standing and has been supported by his party.
  
  Victoria University political scientist Dr Jack Vowles believes that part of the reason political parties can waltz around the co-governance expression is because it isn’t easy to understand in the first place.
  
  He told Morning Report that co-governance had been occurring under both National and Labour governments for more than 10 years.‘
  
  https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/465962/luxon-warns-of-division-if-government-coy-on-co-governance-plans
  
  The implication of this is that Luxon accepts co governance as something that has happened and something that should continue. He believe co governance is part of the NZ constitution (that unwritten document). His issue was primarily around sepereate departments in this case.
  
  So we cannot expect National to take any significant actions against co governance except rolling back seperatist departments. That is what we have seen.
  
  This also explains the veto on the treaty principals bill. Luxon believes in co governance and a partnership with Maori. He believes in the status quo with Maori.
  
  Whether on not we agree with his beliefs, it is good to know that he does have some and it explains some otherwise strange actions.
  
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  January 31, 2025 8:45am
  - Grunter
    
    “National believed that co-governance of natural assets involving iwi working with central and local government in the context of Treaty settlements is long-standing and has been supported by his party.”
    
    So, Mr Luxon, that means that you do support dividing New Zealanders into different ethnic groups and giving one of those groups (Maori) special privileges?
    
    “Yip, Yip – that’s exactly what I mean!”
    
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    January 31, 2025 9:24am
  - Mark Hanley
    
    Just to clear up why G is right……. cogovernance of the public service has ended – as promised.
    
    covernance arrangements for TOW settlements remain = as promised.
    
    The way I see it…. cogoverance of TOW settlements allows the crown to continue to represent the interest of all NZers in the management of state resources. A shame these arrangements weren’t put in place for the Te Urewera settlement (by the Adern government), we might all still be able to use the resource we pay for!
    
    The daily Luxon bad, Seymour good narrative on KB and the personal attacks on posters who are not rabid ACT supporters, have most probably turned many contributors off KB – to the detriment of the quality, multiview conversations, which used to occur.
    
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    January 31, 2025 9:35am
    - RoboRob
      
      Hi Mark
      
      I dont make personal attacks on people who aren’t ACT supporters. I do post responses to G as he seems to believe that National can do nothing wrong and any criticism of National means Labour for eternity.
      
      Re your comments. Interesting perspective.
      
      ‘cogovernance of the public service has ended – as promised’
      
      So there are no more public services run by and managed by Maori, for Maori and funded by the government?
      
      What about democratic representation. I believe ECan (for example) still has unvoted, compulsory IWI appointments whose charter is only to support decisions IWI agree with. Many councils still have unelected, voting, paid, IWI representitives. Sure National has forced them to take it to a vote (eventually). They could have banned it as undemocratic.
      
      ‘cogoverance of TOW settlements allows the crown to continue to represent the interest of all NZers in the management of state resources
      
      Respectfully disagree. We have seen time and time again that these arangements do not represent all New Zealanders. We have seen Natural assets managed by IWI that implement charges on no Maori for access that benefits the IWI. We have seen tramping huts destroyed, without agreement from the other co governance partner, and not replaced. Tracks closed. We have seen Maori put blocks on access to features (ra huis?) to respect their religious sentiment, when the bulk of NZers (and Maori) could care less.
      
      I agree that we need to respect existing TOW settlements. We should avoid future ones like this, like the plague. Give them the land and let them fund it / run it or give them cash. The whole, we fund it and you (IWI) manage it is bull shit.
      
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      January 31, 2025 10:33am
      - Mark Hanley
        
        Robo. You’ve extended the conversation to local body race based appointments…. I know councils are defying the government message (eg. Mahe Drysdale, you would think the tauranga voters learned from their support of devoy that sports stars don’t necessarily make good governors) but give the coalition time.
        
        The coalitions task is an elephant which can only be eaten one bite a time.
        
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        January 31, 2025 11:16am
      - Mark Hanley
        
        Ps Robo. I typically enjoy reading your considered points of view….
        
        However, personal attacks are unnecessary and boring. If KBers disagree with G. Post why you disagree!
        
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        January 31, 2025 11:23am
      - ISeeRed
        
        Sorry, accidentally downticked.
        
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        January 31, 2025 12:43pm
      - RoboRob
        
        @Mark
        
        I agree the task is huge.
        
        However I posted a few days ago that successive governments have led us to believe they are relatively powerless. They are not. Look at what Trump is doing and he has LESS power then Luxon. If National wanted to resolve the local body issue they could simply change the local government body act to prevent any unelected council members. Easy and not really a huge task at all.
        
        Re councils ignoring laws, Trump is fireing people who ignore his proclamations. Luxon can do some of that but it could easily take tauranga council to court or simply cut funding until they start following the law. It really isn’t as hard as NZ governments lead us to believe.
        
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        January 31, 2025 1:10pm
      - Mark Hanley
        
        Rob. There are a few differences between Trump and Luxon.
        1. Trump can make laws with the stroke of a pen
        2. Trump has no election to face
        3. Trump selects his own team, voters select Luxons
        4. Luxon has to keep a coalition of 3 parties working together
        5. Trump leads the most powerful country in the world with the reserve currency.
        6. Americans are used to personal responsibility so Trump can hire and fire as he sees fit, Luxon has to keep Orr on for example because sacking him is too expensive.
        7. America’s economy is geared towards risk and reward. It is no councidence the big technology companies are predominantly born in America.
        
        So… be patient. Luxon has a huge task and limitef resources. Lucky for us Luxon is well versed In getting great results from limited resources.
        
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        January 31, 2025 2:48pm
      - RoboRob
        
        @Mark
        
        ‘Trump can make laws with the stroke of a pen’.
        Nope. He can do executive orders but laws come through congress only. His power with laws is much more limited then Luxon, Trump can veto but (theoretically) not intiate a new law.
        
        Executive orders are less powerful then laws and Presidents can and do cancel each others. Executive orders are also restricted to certain things.
        
        ‘Trump selects his own team, voters select Luxons.’
        
        Nope Luxon choses his cabinet, he might be restricted by coaltions but the personal are his. Voters dont select cabinet and ONLY select half of the MPs (give or take). Luxon can put people on boards to select CEOs who will remove the people he wants moved. Obviously much harder for him in this regard then Trump, who has direct control of some agencies.
        
        ‘Luxon has to keep Orr on for example because sacking him is too expensive.’
        
        Luxon could change the reserve bank act so that he can remove Orr. He chooses, (hopefully only) for politcal reasons at least, not to.
        
        Otherwise agree, esp with regards tp coalition and voters. Thats why I cut Seymour some slack on his failings too.
        
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        January 31, 2025 3:22pm
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        Listen to me, I will reply to [Mod – deleted] Act supporters who find something every single day to rubbish Luxon, I never once said they are never wrong, but the Act supporters say he is wrong on every single thing, I roll cd out their arrogant bullshit.
        
        And yes I have seen the Act produced texts to supporters how to attack Nat supporters over TPB, don’t say no, because I am still on their mailing list from when I use to vote for them
        
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        January 31, 2025 7:48pm
      - Mark Hanley
        
        Hi
        
        1. Trump can make laws = TRUE. “The ability to make such orders is also based on expressed or implied Acts of Congress that delegate to the president some degree of discretionary power (delegated legislation).”
        
        2. Trump has no election to face. TRUE
        
        3. Trump selects his own team, voters select Luxons. TRUE.
        Luxon is limited to MPs selected by voters (he has influence over list MPs) Trump can choose anyone he wants. Wouldn’t it be great to have an NZ Elon Musk equivalent running a NZ DOGE.
        
        4. Luxon has to keep a coalition of 3 parties working together
        TRUE. without Peter’s and Seymours continued support the government falls.
        
        5. Trump leads the most powerful country in the world with the reserve currency. TRUE
        
        6. Americans are used to personal responsibility so Trump can hire and fire as he sees fit, Luxon has to keep Orr on for example because sacking him is too expensive.
        TRUE. The outgoing Labour dickheads signed ORR up, not Luxon.
        7. America’s economy is geared towards risk and reward. It is no councidence the big technology companies are predominantly born in America.
        
        So… be patient. Luxon has a huge task and limitef resources. Lucky for us Luxon is well versed In getting great results from limited resources
        
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        January 31, 2025 8:21pm
    - pdm
      
      Mark how do you explain what Hobsons Pledge allege?
      
      `A Maori advisory Committee for the Gene Technology Bill’.
      
      Looks like a further step in that direction to me!!!
      
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      January 31, 2025 10:59am
      - Mark Hanley
        
        Pdm advisory roles are very different from governance roles!
        
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        January 31, 2025 11:17am
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        Look, the gene tech was part of a coalition agreement, how is that anything to do with Māori advisory? This was a simple vote in parliament, never seen or heard that Maori were involved ffs
        
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        January 31, 2025 7:53pm
  - Quail
    
    Correct.RR.
    Luxon is on record as suggesting that he supports RMA reform in the built environment but specifically not in the natural environment.
    Anyone who is conversant with this act or done a local body course in this subject will be well aware that Maori and their issues have special recognition in decision making by local body commissioners.
    Maori issues are about 1/3 of the course curriculum .They have special recognition embedded in this act.
    Respect for all New Zealanders ,no matter their ethnicity , private property rights is absent from this act.
    Luxon support of the present RMA natural environment chapters is appalling !
    
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    January 31, 2025 10:07am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      Wait a minute, this government want to change the RMA, it is one of their signed agreements of the coalition, also the SNA thing has also been ruled out when Gore council tried to make the whole agricultural land in the district an SNA it was halted so this could not happen
      
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      January 31, 2025 7:56pm
  - newview
    
    I agree with what you say about Luxon’s actions RR. The problem for me is that it leaves the door open for the sovereignty issue and also leaves it up to different governments to how seperate and how much autonomy the different departments would have. I believe National would keep the lid on it but Labour won’t. The same problem will re occur.
    
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    January 31, 2025 11:32am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      The government and the PM have clearly stated that Maori ceded sovereignty, but that’s fine, just smother attack and lie about Luxon
      
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      January 31, 2025 7:58pm
- Scott
  
  I think Luxon has a difficult path to walk as the National party has to capture the centre while keeping on board its supporters who lean to the centre right. So far this govt has got rid of 3 waters, the Maori health authority, compulsory Maori wards and the naming of every govt department in Maori.
  
  Now many would say, govt departments are still using their new Maori name, maybe the name appears second but it’s in bigger font. They would say National should push harder and demand govt departments strictly follow the new edicts.
  
  Here’s the question. How much can the govt dictate to its citizens on this issue? The fact we need to face is that this indoctrination in critical race theory, the idea that NZ is a racist country and that Maori are oppressed, has been going on for decades. As I’ve shared, I encountered it in 1979 when I was part of a group of students roundly lambasted by Titiwhai Hariwira for our racism!
  
  The local newspaper this week has its front page devoted to Treaty of Waitangi. I go to a church conference, they believe in cogovernance. My son goes to a Christian festival, they believe in cogovernance. My brother in law thinks that anyone who doesn’t pronounce Maori words “correctly” is probably a racist.
  So these attitudes are part of the culture. And it’s something of a religion. This is how I show I’m a good person. I pronounce Maori words like a Maori, I empathise with the racism Maori people supposedly face and I believe in honouring the Treaty. Now I don’t believe the above. But many many NZers do.
  
  So it’s about changing the culture and reasoned arguments. Luxon cannot change the culture in 12 months. He’s not the dictator of NZ. There is a lot of work to be done and it will take time. But we have to stay the course. And support National when they do good things. I would say this govt has done a lot of good in a little over a year. So I support them.
  
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  January 31, 2025 9:15am
  - Cassandra
    
    Luxon has got to try and so far he ain’t.
    
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    January 31, 2025 9:29am
    - Mark Hanley
      
      Really? The size of the coalition’s challenge to right the good ship NZ, after we crashed into a reef under the DEI hire Adern, is a huge task. The money is gone and the debt keeps growing.
      
      So perhaps we can all give Luxon time to achieve their priorities (you probably won’t be thinking about te whatu ora with a gang member standing in your living room) before we start whinging about Maori names.
      
      Ps. The KB deity Seymour includes the continuation of race based cogovernance of treaty settlements in his TOW principals bill.
      
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      January 31, 2025 10:25am
      - pdm
        
        `Ps. The KB deity Seymour includes the continuation of race based cogovernance of treaty settlements in his TOW principals bill.’
        
        No Mark – what David Seymour said was that Treaty Settlements would continue and be respected in his original clause 2.
        
        It got bastardised in Cabinet and when drafted – a consequence of Coalition Governments.
        
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        January 31, 2025 11:07am
      - RoboRob
        
        I agree we need to honour exisint TOW settlements. Thats actually european culture, contracts are binding.
        
        The deity Seymour has failed on removing school lunches and for some strange reason put a strangle hold on partnership schools to artificially restrict the numbers. He has failed to make significant changes at the MOE. I have commented on these failings many times. I have praised Labour for some things too, that doesn’t mean I am voting for Hipkins.
        
        No politician is a God and they all need to be praised when they do well, and criticised when they dont live up to expectations.
        
        National appears to have done well on crime and gangs. In my opinion they haven’t done nearly enough on reducing spending or race relations but as you said, you can’t please everyone.
        
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        January 31, 2025 11:20am
      - Mark Hanley
        
        Surely the wording of the bill trumps the process by which it came about..
        
        Principle 2: The Crown recognises the rights that hapū and iwi had when they signed the Treaty/te Tiriti. The Crown will respect and protect those rights. Those rights differ from the rights everyone has a reasonable expectation to enjoy only when they are specified in Treaty settlements.
        
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        January 31, 2025 11:34am
  - Chuck Bird
    
    Why support National instead of Act?
    
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    January 31, 2025 10:51am
    - Mark Hanley
      
      I don’t care which party you support! I certainly wouldn’t abuse you because of comments you post supporting either party!
      
      I’m on KB for Informed debate from all sides if the coin. I’m not here to read opinions about other KB posters.
      
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      January 31, 2025 11:31am
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        Yes, good I am not the only one that refuses to be lectured by these Act supporters
        
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        January 31, 2025 8:03pm
    - Mark Hanley
      
      Ps. I am supporting National because their management talent is so much greater than ACT. And my decision is bearing fruit in: crime, education, transport, economy (once the Labour hangover is sorted), infrastructure, and international trade.
      
      I like Seymours stealthy method for sorting out the education department. Charter schools will be so ingrained and successful in 8 years it will be impossible to reverse them.
      
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      January 31, 2025 12:43pm
      - Taieri
        
        I am supporting National because their management talent is so much greater than ACT.
        —————-
        
        Forgive me for saying that the presence of this talent is not immediately obvious…
        
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        January 31, 2025 4:51pm
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        Labour dumped charter schools with a stroke of the pen after 9 years. Why won’t they be able to dump them next time? Remembering of course 2 of their ministers had ownership of some of the schools
        
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        January 31, 2025 8:05pm
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      Why support Act? How about you [Mod – just debate without making it personal] Act supporters worry about your own bloody vote
      
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      January 31, 2025 8:02pm
  - kiwimike
    
    I say co-governnce is both racist and undemocratic scott.
    what don’t you understand about that brother ?
    
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    January 31, 2025 3:35pm
    - Scott
      
      I bow down to no-one in my opposition to cogovernance. My point is that Luxon has to tread carefully because for many many NZers cogovernance, biculturalism and stamping out “institutional racism” are their new holy trinity.
      
      So far he’s doing well and the axing of the Maori health authority, 3 waters and Maori wards were actions that I and many others fully support.
      
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      January 31, 2025 11:11pm
Maggy Wassilieff

Professor Chaudhuri made a very good presentation to the Treaty Bill’s Committee describing the situation in India where preference for education and jobs is based on religion and ethnicity.

He then asks the question of what is the role of NZers who aren’t Maori or Pakeha.

But if we accept this bicultural view of New Zealand citizenship; that the treaty indeed establishes a partnership between two out of many ethnic groups residing in the country, then what does this imply for the quarter of the population that is neither Maori nor Pakeha?

Are they destined to be second tier citizens governed by an uneasy alliance between the Pakeha and Maori?

If the basic argument is about equity, then why are these people being excluded?

https://www.bassettbrashandhide.com/post/ananish-chaudhuri-oral-submission-on-the-treaty-principles-bill
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January 31, 2025 8:33am
- NoFax
  
  New Zealand should be a bicultural country only. Maori get to determine their own culture – for better or worse. Then there is Western culture or civilization. Anyone coming to NZ should pick one. We don’t need the cultural practices of certain cultures for sure.
  
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  January 31, 2025 8:41am
  - Grunter
    
    Wow!
    So when someone doesn’t want to “pick one” what would you do with them? Deported? Jail? …..something else?
    
    And, what if “Western culture” was dramatically infiltrated by massive wokism and censorship and I wanted to regect that new version…….what would you do with me…..?
    
    Obviously not a good idea.
    
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    January 31, 2025 9:29am
  - Odakyu-sen
    
    How do people of Indian or Far East Asian origin fit into this “bicultural country” narrative?
    
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    January 31, 2025 9:30am
  - cmm
    
    What the hell is “culture” anyway?
    
    Is an Afrikaner from South Africa a Westerner?
    
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    January 31, 2025 10:38am
    - Grunter
      
      Exactly cmm – identity politics falls at the first hurdle.
      
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      January 31, 2025 10:51am
  - Paulus
    
    Agreed when they use only their taxes and not those of the 84%
    
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    January 31, 2025 10:59am
- Gravelroad
  
  People who say they are Maori, or who would like to be, will not give two hoots about what Professor Chaudhuri has to say.
  Nobody else matters.
  
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  January 31, 2025 8:47am
  - Scooter
    
    I think Ganesh Nana is one of those who would like to be Maori, at least from the large greenstone round his neck and his many Maori words in his speech. He also twice called this bill “thoroughly repulsive.
    Compare that to the measured and clear submission by Chaudhuri.
    
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    January 31, 2025 9:44am
- Scooter
  
  Those that aren’t Maori or Pakeha will be 3rd class citizens behind Pakeha 2nd class and Maori 1st class. After all dear leader Jacinda confirmed there would be 2 classes of people during COVID. This is what the Maori activists want, a system of classes. They don’t want equality for all.
  
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxian_class_theory#:~:text=Marxian%20class%20theory%20asserts%20that,is%20determined%20by%20class%20position.
  
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  January 31, 2025 9:12am
- Yvette
  
  Another point Professor Chaudhuri makes is that –
  … the debate on whether Maori ceded sovereignty to the British Crown is sublimated by a long list of subsequent acts (and laws) that hold New Zealand to be an independent sovereign state.
  Parliamentary sovereignty has long been considered a foundational constitutional rule.
  
  – which is why the current Bill is before the Committee for submissions
  … as far as that goes
  Of course, were it a true Constitutional Document, the Treaty might guarantee that, once accepted as a Government bill, this proposed legislation would face the normal process … but it doesn’t … because it concerns the Treaty.
  
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  January 31, 2025 9:19am
- cmm
  
  I thought that anyone who is not a Maori is Pakeha. ie. Paheka = “other”.
  
  Who are these mythical Pakeha? Am I a Pakeha? If so, why?
  
  It clearly is not an ethnicity issue. We have people who are 90% ethnically European calling themselves Maori.
  
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  January 31, 2025 10:33am
  - Handyman
    
    When people start talking about Maori and non-Maori (in real life) I use the expression “Pakeha and non-Pakeha” just to see their faces as the cogs turn in their heads.
    They are like robots which have not been programmed for a response. “But, but ..” they stammer.
    
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    January 31, 2025 10:57am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    No, Pakeha does not mean other.
    
    The term seems to have been used originally to describe pale-skinned people, essentially those of European Heritage.
    
    It seems fashionable these days in activist circles to refer to non-Maori citizens as Tangata Tiriti.
    (as distinct from Maori who are Tangata Whenua)
    
    https://treatypeople.org/about/
    
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    January 31, 2025 11:20am
    - Tom Hunter
      
      In my Maori language class in Form 3 and 4 I wanted to be called Patupaiarehe, given my… er … characteristics.
      
      But my classmates laughed, said it was too difficult to pronounce and instead nicknamed me Panewhero, which stuck, and still does when I run into them occasionally.
      
      I thought it was a great nickname. Hell of an improvement on what I’d dealt with up to that time. 🙂
      
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      January 31, 2025 11:49am
    - Burtland
      
      tangata whenua is not used it the treaty – its tangata maori
      
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      January 31, 2025 12:46pm
      - lifesgood
        
        This school lunch carry on is a whole load of crap. Why aren’t the useless parents not feeding their kids held to account. Bloody useless teachers whinging about the quality. Wtf? Beggars can’t be choosers. And as for the entitled bratty school kids complaining. Good grief. A loaf of budget bread is $1, get that and a jar of marmite and make your own lunch. My kids took sandwiches almost everyday of their school years. Teachers are saying these entitled kids are refusing to eat sandwiches, filled rolls or wraps. If they really were hungry they would. This is just like that emergency accommodation, offer it and suddenly you have thousands lining up.
        
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        January 31, 2025 6:21pm
    - cmm
      
      Hmmm…
      
      Pale skinned seems a poor classification.
      
      Many “Maori” are far more pale than Greeks, Portuguese etc and some “white” South Africans.
      
      Am I Pakeha then? My ancestors and I are relatively fresh off the boat. We have as much to do with historic Pakeha as do Indians etc who hopped off the boar in the last 35 years. I am an Irish-looking ginger so I’m likely to be put in the Pakeha box I suppose.
      
      Sure my family originates in European, but most of my ancestors first got off the boat in Africa in around 1820 and then first set foot here in 1992.
      
      A white Afrikaner has been in Africa since the late 1600s. Some have a dab of Khoi San ancestry going back 120,000 years in Africa.
      
      A South African Coloured (mixed race person) might have the same skin tone as a very light Maori and have been in South Africa for 120,000 years (if you trace their longest lineage). I wonder whether they would be Pakeha?
      
      The line between some “white” and “coloured” people in South Africa can be rather blurred so I wounder how it would play out for them in being declared Pakeha.
      
      The joys of using a very imprecise and unwritten language – you can change the meaning on the fly!
      
      It looks like a nightmare that makes apartheid look relatively sane.
      
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      January 31, 2025 2:50pm
    - wsk12345
      
      I’m not being called a pakeha thanks. When I was at school we were taught that it meant white pigs.
      
      But why should my identity be described in a language that is not mine? My pref would be to be called NZers and Maori NZers if we need to have a special class for special people.
      
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      January 31, 2025 4:41pm
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        O it doesn’t mean white pig, that is Honki
        
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        January 31, 2025 8:08pm
- Ehlana
  
  I understood the partnership was see as between “Maori” and “non-Maori”, and that Pakeha these days means not specifically European descended New Zealanders, but anyone who lives here but has no Maori ancestors.
  
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  January 31, 2025 11:59am
  - wsk12345
    
    So Pacifica people are pakeha?
    Sure does not seem like that as they are also “special”!
    
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    January 31, 2025 4:42pm
- cmm
  
  Bi-culturalism is a crock. It is a way for Maori to have elevated status.
  
  If we are truly going to celebrate the good fruits of diversity then we have to look ourselves as a multi-cultural society.
  
  Bi-cultural is a black and white absolute way of looking at the world. It is ideal for dividing people up. It is hopeless as a way of acknowledging cultural differences. You can basically choose Maori or non-Maori.
  
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  January 31, 2025 12:11pm
kowtow

The “news” has recently featured a number of seriously violent attacks on people here in New Zealand with hammers as the weapon of choice.

Would a register make us all safer ?
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January 31, 2025 8:43am
- pdm
  
  Kowtow – sort of like Trini Lopez?
  
  `If I had a Hammer’.
  
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  January 31, 2025 9:19am
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  I would be on a watch list. I have about 15 hammers all for different purposes from light to heavy engineering to panel beating to copper molding with a die.
  
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  January 31, 2025 9:49am
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    Then we have “Sledge Hammer” the detective guy.
    
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    January 31, 2025 6:46pm
- Raphael
  
  If we were the UK, the cops would be pushing for a complete ban on the sale of hammers.
  
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  January 31, 2025 10:53am
  - kowtow
    
    I see a black actor there has recently done a show on their knife crime problem .
    
    I saw a headline saying his solution is “only blunt knives should be sold”
    
    ‘Earlier this week, it was reported that Elba had called for kitchen knives to be blunted at the ends in order to protect potential knife crime victims.’
    
    https://www.gbnews.com/celebrity/idris-elba-overwhelmed-angry-uk-knife-crime-bbc-documentary
    
    This is not a joke. But the UK is /has turned into a joke , through wokery.
    
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    January 31, 2025 12:07pm
  - Chris Nisbet
    
    Or blaming shops that sell hammers.
    
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    January 31, 2025 12:32pm
- graham
  
  Countdown and Foodstuffs removed knives and scissors from the shelves back in 2021 when a man armed with a knife injured six shoppers before being shot dead by police. It was described as temporary, I can’t honestly say I’ve noticed whether they reinstated them or not.
  
  https://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/supermarkets-remove-knives-shelves
  
  The trouble is, if someone is intent on injuring people they’ll find a way, and I don’t know how you can stop that. I can think of multiple items in a supermarket that could potentially be turned into weapons, and as for hardware stores like Mitre 10 …
  
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  January 31, 2025 11:56am
  - kowtow
    
    The latest outrage in Germany was done by a BMW .
    
    I think car show rooms should no longer display cars , they are so dangerous and open to misuse .
    
    Ach zo !
    
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    January 31, 2025 12:09pm
- Jack5
  
  Kowtow nails it.
  
  Proverbs and sayings about hammers:
  
  “Dumb as a sack of hammers”.
  
  From Japan: “The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.”
  
  “Hammered” for “drunk”.
  
  Goes back a long way. This older saucy meaning demonstrated by
  John Fletcher, an English playwright of Shakespeare’s , from his play about the Roman emperor Valentinian III (I iii):
  
  Aecius: I am too course for Ladies; my embraces […] Would break their tender bodies.
  
  Emperor: Never feare it, They are stronger than ye think, they’le hold the hammer.
  
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  January 31, 2025 12:06pm
  - Jack5
    
    Edit:… an English playwright of Shakespeare’s era …
    
    Sorry!
    
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    January 31, 2025 12:31pm
Cassandra

Former Labour MP Peter Dunne’s solution to the division of NZ into warring camps is a Grand Coalition of National and Labour. Can you imagine that? Members of both parties have absolutely nothing in common. Luxon might well be woke (I don’t think so, I think he’s being influenced by Key) but others in his party would give him the heave ho very quickly if he tried that. In any case it’s a daft idea. What NZ needs is a National Party sticking to its principles. Now there’s a Bill for Seymour to introduce.
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January 31, 2025 8:43am
- RoboRob
  
  I take offense to you saying Key is more woke than Luxon 🙂
  
  In my opinion, Key was clearly less woke and much more traditionally right wing then Luxon. Key was a populist and afraid to make major changes that my impact his popularity.
  
  If Key has had any influence on Luxon it is that latter, Luxon seems to have taken it to the next level.
  
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  January 31, 2025 8:50am
  - Cassandra
    
    Offense? Crikey, I resent you taking offence. But disagree by all means.
    
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    January 31, 2025 9:32am
    - RoboRob
      
      I resent you taking offence to my offence 🙂
      
      FWIW I am a big fan of the Key government, which I consdier one of the best in my life. Key was not without issue but was generally true to his promises and had an excellent team.
      
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      January 31, 2025 11:32am
- Philview
  
  I read an article in the ODT the other day proposing similar. The author incorrectly and no doubt deliberately talked of He Puapua as being a Te Pati Maori policy. The author’s idea being that Labour and National are moderate Parties and TPM and ACT are fringe extremists with too much influence.
  
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  January 31, 2025 9:10am
  - Grunter
    
    Sounds like the ODT is getting worse. I’m surprised anyone still reads it. Growing murmurs around town that they won’t be around for too much longer.
    
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    January 31, 2025 9:34am
    - kowtow
      
      Climate and race hustlers , the ODT .
      
      I will always recall them , banner headline ; Je Suis . But having proclaimed that didn’t have the balls to show the cartoon in question .That was after the attack on the Charlie Hedbo office.
      
      And they sacked their cartoonist Tremaine over Samoa measles race outrage .
      
      Woke as f–k.
      
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      January 31, 2025 12:14pm
  - Cassandra
    
    Willie Jackson moderate? But I suppose there are still some moderate Labour MPs. One or two. They’ll be trying to work out how to get rid of them.
    
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    January 31, 2025 9:34am
    - pdm
      
      Cass – no names spring immediately to mind.
      
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      January 31, 2025 10:05am
- Matt Long
  
  The Minister for Climate Change, now also the Minister for Local Government has recently reinforced National’s leftist credentials.
  https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/setting-new-zealand%E2%80%99s-second-international-climate-target
  When I saw the link to this on X, it was adjacent to a post about a 70 year old woman with osteoarthritis having to wait 10 hours at A&E, eventually people may join the dots?
  
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  January 31, 2025 9:16am
  - Grunter
    
    Thx Matt – I missed this ‘announcement’ and it’s a biggie…
    
    “New Zealand will reduce emissions by 51 to 55 per cent compared to 2005 levels, by 2035.”
    
    That, in one sentence, cements NZ’s immediate future (the next 10 years). We are now officially doomed to failure. That may sound alarmist, but think about what it means…..
    
    1. Reduced methane from cows & sheep = less cows & sheep = less exports = less jobs = we go broke.
    
    2. Less burning of fossil fuels for industry and mining, oil & gas exploration. That means deindustrialization = less exports = less jobs = we go broke.
    
    3. Less international air travel = less tourists = less jobs = we go broke.
    
    National has just re-confirmed that this woke scam is our future and we will follow all the other failed European countries down the gurgler.
    
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    January 31, 2025 9:44am
    - RoboRob
      
      Guess we need to add climate change as another failure to the list. Although not an unexpected failure.
      
      I can see why National would do this, its in the ‘distant’ future, people generally believe governments need to do something. So why not make popular statements that you dont need to see through.
      
      Sadly thats the story with climate change world wide. Politicains saying what sounds good without worry for the impact.
      
      Interesting that Trump has gone the other way and doesn’t seem to have taking a hit. He seems to have a good ability to see the real pulse through the media smoke screen.
      
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      January 31, 2025 11:38am
- NoFax
  
  National are sticking to their principles and they are woke ideals mostly. Net Zero, co-governance of natural assets, special privileges for Maori, mass-immigration, high tax, no reform for education, health, nor social welfare etc etc. I would welcome National and Labour go into coalition as it’s honest. We saw that in Germany too. It might actually lead to the poor suckers realising that National merely works out a more efficient way of embedding Labour’s ideas.
  
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  January 31, 2025 9:44am
  - Quail
    
    No Fax,
    The cost and pain of MMP.
    ,Both parties use/ agree with the same overgrown bloated bureaucracy.
    The politicians who lose their seats just join the bureaucracy.
    So no worthwhile change in NZ!
    
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    January 31, 2025 12:25pm
    - NoFax
      
      This has nothing to do with MMP. National have always being like this. Robert Muldoon was the most socialist PM we ever had with the near total planning of the economy. Jim Bulger merely carried on the previous Labour government’s plans until it got a bit too scary for him. National, at least in my life time, don’t have principles beyond getting in power and doing a slightly better job than Labour aka embedding Labour’s policies so they work better. I’m not a fan of Matt Hooten, but he was right when he said that if Labour promised full communism then National would promise to manage it better. Pathetic really.
      
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      January 31, 2025 3:08pm
      - Quail
        
        NF
        MMP just makes it so easy for bureaucrats to run the country, and pay themselves their own inflated view of their own importance.
        Production is crowded out by those with no “ skin in the game”
        
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        January 31, 2025 9:01pm
- cmm
  
  C’mon Luxon is woke as anything. Just look at how he performed at Aotearoaflot before becoming a politician.
  You can’t really blame that on JK’s influence.
  
  They are really hard to compare though because they are surrounded by different people and different circumstances.
  
  John Key was the bloke on stage doing all the dancing while Bill English (and to a lesser extent others) were really doing the important stuff behind the curtains.
  
  It is not clear that Luxon has his Bill English, Steve Joyce and such doing the work behind the curtain.
  
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  January 31, 2025 10:30am
  - kowtow
    
    One only needs to recall his ‘Big Boy’ stance over the west coast MP and climate .
    
    He nailed his colours to the mast there.
    
    Woke as f–k.
    
    5 1
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    January 31, 2025 12:17pm
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      He ruled the grand coalition out well before the election, and rubbish Labour when he castigated the vulgar media for even asking
      
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      January 31, 2025 8:15pm
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  Dunne is do full of shit as he ages, Luxon was asked before the election if he has thought about is coalition between Nats and Labour, he laughed and ruled it out immediately, and went on to say this country has been damaged terribly, if you think we will have anything to do with labour you have to be joking, but you have just suggested he might be woke enough to try, no other party member to tell him no, ffs he ruled it out when asked by vulgar media
  
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  January 31, 2025 8:13pm
Suze Wainwright

Judging from Ryan Judge’s interview with Ricardo Menéndez March yesterday afternoon, it is clear that leftist MPs are simply underprepared (at best) for any counter questioning in the msm.

Despite being legitimately questioned on whether March thought provocative racism from Te Pāti Māori MPs towards Māori ministers and others was okay, all the Mexican maricón could do was repeatedly deflect that Luxon’s the one in charge here and he’s the one that should be getting slaughtered. (Until reluctantly acknowledging that he did stand with Te Pāti Māori—thereby confirming Green Party of Aotearoa/New Zealand kaupapa).
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January 31, 2025 8:47am
- pdm
  
  Suze I didn’t hear the interview but from what you say the conclusion was thus.
  
  A vote for The Greens is a vote for The Maori Party.
  A vote for The Maori Party is a vote for The Greens.
  
  Here we go loopy loop.
  
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  January 31, 2025 9:24am
- nathie
  
  Interview here:
  
  https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/audio/ricardo-men%C3%A9ndez-march-green-mp-says-prime-minister-luxon-needs-to-hold-shane-jones-winston-peters-to-account-over-recent-comments/
  
  If Ricardo Menéndez March is genuine about MP’s behaving badly then I look forward to him condemning his fellow comrade Julie Anne Genter for her inappropriate physical behavior towards National’s Matt Doocey in Parliament last year?
  
  Or his condemnation against Maori Party MP Debbie Ngarewa-Packer for gesturing she was shooting ACT MP’s in Parliament last year?
  
  Oh wait …. are those smokescreens of hypocrisy engulfing Ricardo Menéndez March?
  
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  January 31, 2025 9:51am
  - pdm
    
    Nathie and as seen elsewhere this morning – possibly earlier on GD.
    
    `Marama Davidson and Cis White males.’
    
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    January 31, 2025 11:14am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      Speaking of her, Davidson is taking an awful long time to return to her job, pretty sure Nikki Kaye was only away for a few months, has she not been absent for most of last year?
      
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      January 31, 2025 8:20pm
- kowtow
  
  Bridge , but yes , I heard it.
  
  What struck me was how he whined about rhetoric leading to attacks on migrants .
  
  Er , how about your river to sea chanting and wearing terror towels .
  
  The self awareness of these lowlife scum is absent .
  
  ps As far as I can see much of the assaults on migrants seem to come from their own side , cough cough.
  
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  January 31, 2025 12:21pm
- Jules99
  
  A softball media just turns leftie politicians into flabby dullards unable to cope with serious questions when they arise. I note that lefties in parliament only have the intellect to yell ‘Trump, Trump, Trump’ when anyone on the other side speaks.
  
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  January 31, 2025 1:42pm
sungsamning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkdzJhYX3aA
Border Crossings DROP 93 PERCENT as Mass Deportations Surge.
Tom Homan stated that any illegal that happens to be caught with a targeted violent crime illegal will also be taken into custody as a collateral matter.
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January 31, 2025 8:49am
sungsamning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7EahaKZtBc
Germany’s Fast Escalating Switch Stuns Europe.
The Conservatives might form a government with the AfD. Lets hope so.
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January 31, 2025 8:50am
- Grunter
  
  German Parliament are actually having a vote to ban the AfD. The extreme left (which is most of the other parties) attempting to wreck democracy in Germany. A move that will no doubt backfire and increase public support for AfD – let’s hope so!
  
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  January 31, 2025 9:48am
  - thirteenstars
    
    For those interested, here’s the AdF’s very detailed manifesto in English:
    
    https://www.afd.de/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/2017-04-12_afd-grundsatzprogramm-englisch_web.pdf
    
    A few things in there I disagree with, but most of it seems pretty reasonable.
    
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    January 31, 2025 11:10am
    - Grunter
      
      Exactly! And this gets tagged as ‘far-right’ by most people.
      
      A short time ago, in my early lifetime, this portfolio of policies would be called “common sense”.
      
      On what logical basis would you try and ban the AfD from the German Parliament.
      
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      January 31, 2025 11:59am
    - cmm
      
      Straight off the bat I like their idea for Referenda on the Swiss model.
      
      I think we should have that too.
      
      6 1
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      January 31, 2025 12:14pm
    - nz_aj
      
      “Enabling basic income” rang UBI alarm bells but it’s not. Just reducing the unemployment benefit in proportion to income to a limit where somebody becomes a net taxpayer.
      I particularly like 11.3 Split tax for families. A similar arrangement exists in France.
      I haven’t read it thoroughly but what I’ve seen looks just like what Germany needs. I’d like to see NZ impliment many of these policy ideas. I don’t see anything “far” right about them, compared with the far left status quo.
      
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      January 31, 2025 10:02pm
  - sungsamning
    
    Yes, events move rather quickly. I hope a ban doesn’t stick.
    
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    January 31, 2025 4:22pm
- thirteenstars
  
  Musk’s imagined Nazi salute and his video appearance at the AfD conference has put those with TDS (and now MDS) into overdrive.
  
  I spoke to one such just yesterday and asked them what Musk had said or done that identified him as a Nazi. Blank out. So I asked them did they know what the Nazis did to homosexuals. Yes, they said, the Nazis put them in camps and murdered them. So I asked, did they know the leader of the AdF was a lesbian who lived with another lesbian and they had two adopted children.
  
  Consternation. Mumble, mumble. Oh, but that salute!
  
  The world is getting stupider. AI won’t help. Send the asteroid. Now.
  
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  January 31, 2025 11:07am
  - Ghost
    
    It’s obvious from this video what Elon was doing
    
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L82lVcmIMSk
    
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    January 31, 2025 11:22am
    - thirteenstars
      
      Well, done. It’s called the Bellamy Salute:
      
      The Bellamy salute is a palm-out salute created by James B. Upham as the gesture that was to accompany the Pledge of Allegiance of the United States of America, whose text had been written by Francis Bellamy. It was also known as the “flag salute” during the period when it was used with the Pledge of Allegiance. Bellamy promoted the salute and it came to be associated with his name. Both the Pledge and its salute originated in 1892. Later, during the 1920s and 1930s, Italian fascists and Nazi Germans adopted a salute which was very similar, attributed to the so-called Roman salute, a gesture that is wrongly attributed to having been used in ancient Rome. This resulted in controversy over the use of the Bellamy salute in the United States. It was officially replaced by the hand-over-heart salute when Congress amended the Flag Code on December 22, 1942.
      
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellamy_salute
      
      So, yes, in a way Musk was making a pledge of sorts, and the words he spoke at the same time as making that gesture, “My heart goes out to you”, is evocative of a love of country and gratitude.
      
      Though that’s mere coincidence since I doubt the original purpose of the Bellamy Salute was on his mind.
      
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      January 31, 2025 11:35am
Tomtoddy

Me phoning Super Clinic in Manuwera.

“Morena. You are speaking with Ritika.” Bright and breezy and clearly Indian.

“What? I am English. What are you saying?”

“Sorry, hello, I am the receptionist.”

“How did you guess I was a foreigner and didn’t speak English?”

“I apologise. Its the way we answer the phone. How can I help?”

“By just using a language we all understand and not passing judgement on my ethnicity.”

“Sir, I do apologise. It is what we are trained to say. I have to answer like that.”
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January 31, 2025 8:58am
NeverMindTheBollocks

Shell Lane (The Terrace) bike rack report:

At 9.00 four bikes. Twenty slots vacant.

A dry, windless morning in the Capital, excellent for cycling.
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January 31, 2025 9:00am
- pdm
  
  Four is getting up towards record numbers Bollocks.
  
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  January 31, 2025 9:25am
  - nathie
    
    Yep a 33% increase on top of the previous 300% increase that Mr NMTB reported on earlier in the week!
    
    Wonder if Tory will make an appearance trumpeting this statistical success story and justify fleecing more rate-payer funding to build more of them?
    
    (After all stats “don’t lie” … ahem they can be “adjusted” … eg how about a 333% increase! Or how about a 400% increase (if referencing the original reference point?))!!
    
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    January 31, 2025 9:55am
    - Don Beckett
      
      Wow – break out the champagne – Tory will be there quicksmart. 🙂
      
      6 1
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      January 31, 2025 10:59am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    I think we should all start mentally preparing ourselves for 5.
    
    I know this sounds crazy talk at the moment, but after careful analysis of Bollock’s data, I detect an attribution signal.
    
    (Build it and they will come)
    
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    January 31, 2025 10:03am
    - Tom Hunter
      
      Have always laughed at how many American baseball fans hate that movie!
      
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      January 31, 2025 11:54am
- Swifty
  
  I confirm four bikes at 9.35am – equaling the all time record!
  
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  January 31, 2025 9:43am
Hugh Jarse

Why are we not following America, China, Russia, India in not funding the climate change tax, instead we will take more money from New Zealanders mouths and gives it away to dictators and corrupt rulers. According to the PM we have to mine etc to create more income for NZ ?, what for, to give it away ?, this is one case we should be saying no, not yes. I hope Winston First and ACT take an opposite approach to National on this subject at the next election.
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January 31, 2025 9:01am
- pdm
  
  `I hope Winston First and ACT take an opposite approach to National on this subject at the next election.’
  
  Or sooner – tomorrow would be good.
  
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  January 31, 2025 9:27am
  - sungsamning
    
    Trump pulling out is giving political cover for smaller countries to do so. I wonder if the Liberals in Oz will do so if they win next year?
    
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    January 31, 2025 4:26pm
Maggy Wassilieff

It’s a hard life when you’re in charge of Tāne Mahuta
(woops….Te Pūtea Matua….oh hell, RBNZ)

https://www.taxpayers.org.nz/taxpayers_32k_orr_deal_as_rbnz_governor_jets_off_in_luxury
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January 31, 2025 9:04am
- pdm
  
  Maggy – Orr is such an `over achiever’ you could not possibly expect him to sit down at the back of the plane or stay in `el cheapo’ accommodation.
  
  Or wash his own undies!!!!
  
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  January 31, 2025 9:31am
  - Paulus
    
    Remember Robertson renewed Orr’s 5 year appointment shortly before the Election.
    
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    January 31, 2025 11:07am
wisteria

I note that Mt Egmont will no longer be. He, It, has gone away where? How can a mountain be a person. It will be still known as Mount Egmont to those who value our history.
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January 31, 2025 9:09am
- pdm
  
  Or a river for that matter.
  
  Will both be opening bank accounts, at Kiwibank, to receive their benefit payments?
  
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  January 31, 2025 9:32am
  - Cassandra
    
    And paying tax?
    
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    January 31, 2025 9:36am
    - rouppe
      
      Oh come now…
      
      Maori entities created from Treaty redress don’t have to pay tax.
      
      They’re people, but only when it comes to rights, not responsibilities.
      
      12 0
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      January 31, 2025 10:10am
    - Steve Otto N Shore
      
      The new name is the name of the Charity – for Tax Exemption.
      
      7 1
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      January 31, 2025 10:26am
- Paul Marsden
  
  “How can a mountain be a person”
  
  Perhaps you should ask the erudite, Chris Finlayson?
  
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  January 31, 2025 10:35am
- MCōs
  
  Mt Egmont seems to have been just one of several names and certainly wasn’t the first and hasn’t been the official name since 1986.
  It was named Egmont by James Cook who seemed to owe a lot of favours to various bureaucrats back home. In this case a former First Lord of the Admiralty
  
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  January 31, 2025 11:06am
- keepcalmcarryon
  
  Mt Egmont to Mr Egmont?
  I hope he’s paying taxes.
  
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  January 31, 2025 11:49am
  - kowtow
    
    That’ll be another one not filling out his census forms.
    
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    January 31, 2025 12:23pm
nathie

Apparently Green MP Ricardo Menéndez March is a NZ citizen (according to Liam Hehir) but he also a dual citizen (Mexican).

https://x.com/PronouncedHare/status/1884837521663951285

Speaking generally first, should dual citizens be allowed to be a NZ Parliamentarian? What other western democratic countries allow this? And where would their loyalties lie, especially if there is a foreign policy difference with the other country?

Personally I think the policy is wrong as it is. I would have thought the sensible solution for a dual citizen to become a NZ Parliamentarian is to renounce their home country citizenship. Suspect the Left are happy with the status quo but imagine the outrage from the Left if the Right had a dual citizen Israeli-NZ Parliamentarian!

So my second point is, if a dual citizen MP adopts NZ citizenship then why is Mr Menendez March running off to the Mexican Embassy and asking them to stop “nasty” NZ First from making comments about him? (For better or worse, all sides do this, especially the Left).

Talk about Foreign Interference!!!

And if Mr Menendez March didn’t run off whining to the Mexican Embassy then why isn’t he speaking up to say he is a NZ (dual) citizen and doesn’t need them to speak up for him?
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January 31, 2025 9:27am
- cmm
  
  We allow dual citizens as MPs in NZ. Australia does not.
  
  There is a bit of a problem renouncing citizenship for some people as not all countries allow you to do this (eg, AFAIK, Switzerland does not – to prevent people dodging national service).
  My understanding is that nobody born as a Mexican citizen can revoke their Mexican citizenship (though people who are naturalised Mexicans can).
  
  However, they could refrain from using their Mexican citizenship as a tool (eg. not use Mexican consular services).
  
  Certainly, any MP should ideally only have one country that they have loyalty to and that is NZ.
  If they do have other citizenships then for their time in parliament these should be arms-length citizenships.
  
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  January 31, 2025 10:22am
  - MCōs
    
    I understand it’s not easy for Americans to renounce their citizenship because the buggers want you to file annual tax returns.
    Julie Ann Genter holds dual citizenship
    My mother was English and that automatically means I’m a UK citizen, I found out the other day, but to be any use I need a UK passport and obtained one is not easy.
    An Australian MP was caught because his father was Kiwi, Barnaby-Joyce, and he was going to be tossed out of parliament or something. Getting someone not his wife pregnant wasn’t an issue nor was being photographed drunk in a gutter!
    
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    January 31, 2025 10:52am
    - Libertarians are right
      
      Worth noting that Chris Hipkins as an MP used his power to get citizenship info on Barnaby Joyce to give to Aus Labor. The media got it first but that doesn’t matter.
      Where is Chris Hipkins’ loyalty? To New Zealand or to his Socialist ideology?
      
      Surely MPs that misuse their status as representatives of the people of NZ to interfere in foreign politics should be ineligible to be MPs?
      
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      January 31, 2025 11:28am
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        In Aussie you have to be born in Aussie to b an MP, time it was brought in here, and as for the vulgar Hipkins, he should have been sacked from Berliner that, but with the vulgar left, he is promoted to PM for his deceit
        
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        January 31, 2025 8:29pm
    - JackRabbit
      
      Julie Ann Genter holds dual citizenship.
      
      Anyone who holds dual USA and NZ citizenship, is legally obliged to pay both NZ tax, and US tax on the NZ income.
      
      I know people that got stung, and the only way out was either uses Trusts to hide income, and “have no personal NZ income” or renounce US citizenship, or have very deep pockets to pay a lawyer.
      
      I wonder how Genter gets around the US law?
      
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      January 31, 2025 12:10pm
      - Jules99
        
        Boris Johnstone in the UK got stung for thousands and paid it. I think he then renounced his citizenship, which was a result of being born there.
        
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        January 31, 2025 1:47pm
      - Jules99
        
        I doubt she does – she’ll have to do a return to the IRS. I’m not sure what our tax treaty is with them, because I can’t be bothered looking it up, but she may not have to pay double tax.
        
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        January 31, 2025 1:48pm
      - Taieri
        
        I wonder how Genter gets around the US law
        ————
        
        NZ has a double tax agreement with the US. It has been in force for over 40 years.
        
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        January 31, 2025 5:00pm
  - nathie
    
    Cheers CMM for your clarification, much appreciated!
    
    So I wonder, could one solution be to ban dual citizens from becoming a NZ MP if their home country does not allow them to revoke their citizenship?
    
    Like Mexicans, for example! I mean, fair is fair, surely.
    
    And another thought, does this mean that the likes of Mexico does not allow “foreign” citizens, to become dual citizens and therefore cannot be a Mexican Parliamentarian?
    
    If so, then surely it is “ok” to ban Mexican citizens from becoming a NZ Parliamentarian! I mean, “Ok” as in “equality” and all that! 🙂
    
    Added edit: Ah the case of Labour MP Harry Duynhoven, whom Labour (Helen Clark) retroactively amended the law to allow him to remain as a MP (hmm she had form doing this – Pledgecard anyone) and created this mess. Must be time to re-look at this?
    
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Duynhoven
    
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    January 31, 2025 11:21am
    - cmm
      
      I don’t know what Mexico allows or whether Australia provides a loop-hole for naturalised citizens from countries that will not allow people to revoke.
      
      It does seem to me that preventing people from becoming MPs if they are dual citizens is problematic.
      
      However it needs to be clear to any MP that they are putting NZ’s interests first and have no allegiance to their previous country. Playing both sides is clearly not acceptable.
      
      Of course Greens and socialists do not put NZ’s interests first so that’s rather a moot matter anyway.
      
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      January 31, 2025 12:22pm
  - kiwimike
    
    no.
    Helen Clark changed the Law for Harry Dunhoven who got his Dutch citizenship to double dip both Dutch and NZ Pensions.
    She retrospectively changed the law to avoid a by election.
    
    It’s just another reason I won’t vote NZ Labour.
    
    Personally, as a Dual citizen I do not agree with anyone being in Parliament with more than NZ citizenship.
    
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    January 31, 2025 3:55pm
- pdm
  
  I think there was a National MP too in say the last 15/20 years.
  
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  January 31, 2025 11:27am
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    Pablo Garcia
    
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    January 31, 2025 8:31pm
- keepcalmcarryon
  
  Maori and gay Mexicans are over represented proportionally in New Zealand’s partiament we need some DEI policies to address this inequity in outcome.
  
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  January 31, 2025 11:52am
- Jules99
  
  I think we should allow dual citizens to be MPs, but they MUST be voted by an electorate. It’s up to the people to evaluate whether they trust the person to represent them fairly. Foreigners as list MPs should be disallowed.
  
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  January 31, 2025 1:51pm
Matt Long

Charities, it just so hard to separate funds raised for charitable purposes from multi million salaries for the people running them.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/captain-tom-moore-charity-name-daughter-foundation-b2688317.html
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January 31, 2025 9:37am
- Bridgenag
  
  We have experts at that trick here……
  
  5 1
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  January 31, 2025 10:36am
- hookerphil
  
  I looked at the photo of Captain Sir Tom Moore’s daughter Hannah Ingram-Moore.
  She doesn’t look at all Maori.
  
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  January 31, 2025 1:20pm
  - CJames
    
    You forgot the sarc tag. Makes it hard to understand without it.
    
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    January 31, 2025 3:54pm
rouppe

BNZ doubling down on debanking.

A coal mining firm was told by BNZ that it would slowly have banking services withdrawn, culminating in the cancellation of credit cards and the closure of “all bank accounts” by 2030, forcing it to look for another bank.

One might be tempted to ask bnz how it guarantees that none of the energy it uses comes from coal, and how many petrol or diesel powered vehicles it has in its rural banking fleet.

In fact I don’t know why the fuel companies don’t cancel all bnz fleet cards.
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January 31, 2025 10:04am
- Raphael
  
  BNZ will soon find itself with no customers.
  
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  January 31, 2025 10:57am
- Jack5
  
  The National Australia Bank’s Bank of New Zealand debanking NZ miner?
  
  Will we expect more of this nonsense from the Australia-owned trading banks that dominate NZ business?
  
  More when Australia inevitably reverses from Wokeness and Aussie bank boards see New Zealand as a place to park Woke executives?
  
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  January 31, 2025 11:08am
- kowtow
  
  From the article;
  
  ‘and exiting metallurgical coal by 2030. Metallurgical coal, known as coking coal, is used to produce steel.’
  
  As if coal for staying warm or power generation is bad , how nuts is it to be anti steel.
  
  These idiots have thought nothing through.
  
  It is literally irrational.
  
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  January 31, 2025 12:56pm
Rusty

Mick Jaggers ex-Missus Marianne Faithful has died. Never a big fan of her music.
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January 31, 2025 10:11am
- JimBobJoe
  
  Say it in Broken English Rusty
  
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  January 31, 2025 7:11pm
imalwaysright

This government term seems to be
One year of unified
coalition.

One year of each party trying to regain their identity through political division.

And one year of each party trying to convince the electorate that it would have worked better if only they were the majority party.
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January 31, 2025 10:17am
Jack5

Anchor dragging …

Baltic nations are considering taxing ships to help control sabotage of undersea cables.

Meanwhile, NATO is deploying frigates and aircraft to help monitor se traffic.

At least 11 Baltic cables have been damaged over 15 months.

Reuters reports a “transit fee” might be imposed on Baltic shipping to fund protection of under sea cables.

It reports Estonia’s, Defence Minister, Hanno Pevkur, saying Baltic countries are also weighing other measures, including sensors to detect anchors dragged across the sea floor, or constructing casings or walls around the cables.

The Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission says that normally about 2,000 ships are on the Baltic at any one time. The sea is bordered by eight NATO countries and Russia.

Sal Mercogliano, former captain and now academic, has a new Youtube episode out on the Baltics incidents that include the seizure of the Eagle S, a Cook Islands-flagged tanker from Russia’s “grey” or “dark” or “shadow” fleet that transports embargoed oil.

Mercogliano seems still to lean towards the possibility of rogue crew members causing cable sabotage.

Latest episode:

https://youtu.be/0WOWpMAQAGs?si=-OVH1GbHa3oO0BEt

Baltic nations consider special tax on shipping:

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/baltic-sea-shipping-tax-could-pay-undersea-cable-protection-says-estonian-2025-01-29/
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January 31, 2025 10:39am
- cmm
  
  Good luck trying to control that.
  
  The cables lie on the surface and are vulnerable to all sorts of attacks including cable dragging, explosives etc using ROVs, divers or just off the back of ships.
  
  The Baltic has an average depth of 60 metres and is extremely easy diving conditions due to being a protected sea with few currents.
  
  Close off one attack and there are countless more.
  
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  January 31, 2025 11:38am
- keepcalmcarryon
  
  Just impose an automatic seizure on any vessel dragging an anchor near a cable, forfeiture of the asset +\- scuttle them.
  
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  January 31, 2025 11:55am
DimChappie

Here are some of the standout submissions so far on the Treaty Principles Bill. To save you digging through the Parliament videos, they are on youtube:

Retired District Court Judge David Harvey:
https://youtu.be/R71DaCe12Jk

Former National MP and Thames-Coromandel mayor Sandra Goudie
https://youtu.be/BPh3Zv6ncUk
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January 31, 2025 10:43am
- Swifty
  
  Excellent – I’ve really wanted to see the Harvey submission.
  
  Many thanks.
  
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  January 31, 2025 11:51am
- Blog-aholic
  
  Having listened to both, it show exactly where the party that says it speaks for maori stands. They are clearly supremists in their own right.
  Furthermore I’d ask Tamantha Paul what right she has to speak for ‘her’ people? What exactly are her people? All maori, her Iwi, hapu? She assumes because she identifies as a maori she has that right which I am sure she does not actually have in reality.
  Supremists they really are…
  
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  January 31, 2025 12:33pm
cmm

This talk of culture harks back to a discussion I was having with someone a few days ago.

Does New Zealand actually have a distinct cultural or National identity that all New Zelanders can use as a unifying identity?

From what I can see we do not. When we want to be seen as New Zealanders we pull out Maori stuff like hakas and such. We use Maori culture as a stand in.

That’s fine, except that Maori say that is their culture and we can’t “steal” it. We end up with an identity that only a small % of the population actually feel represents them.
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January 31, 2025 10:45am
- Paulus
  
  I remain one of the 86% who are not in any percentage Maori.
  Frankly, I like them and have know good ones, many now passed on, but now am tired of the crapp enanating from within the political and media circles.
  
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  January 31, 2025 11:15am
- nathie
  
  I think the other question is, can one claim to be Maori only, when they are of dual-heritage?
  
  If so, then why are they suppressing (“genociding”?) their other heritage?
  
  I can accept the likes of Hone Harawira or Rawiri Waititi saying they are Maori (as they largely are, over many generations), but the likes of whiter-than-white Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and every other honkie claiming they are Maori (because of a one-time ancestor many decades ago) can go take a jump as far as I’m concerned because they don’t speak for Te Ao Maori …
  
  They are part-Maori and represent mixed heritage, which is actually something to celebrate and be proud of (that they are blessed with both worlds, but cut out the one-sided racist supremacy please)!
  
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  January 31, 2025 11:38am
  - kiwimike
    
    They are coloured then, mixed Euro mixed Maori ?
    
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    January 31, 2025 4:03pm
I remember when

Another not really News.

“Police kill Trump-pardoned Capitol rioter during traffic stop: AFP.
“Huttle was sentenced to six months in prison and was released in July, local news outlet Fox59 said.”
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January 31, 2025 10:49am
- Jake Dee
  
  I’m thinking that there are certain important pieces are missing from that headline.
  “killed by Police during a traffic stop” has certain implications that, for example “Died during a gun fight with police” doesn’t have.
  Always look for what they are NOT saying.
  
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  January 31, 2025 12:57pm
- kowtow
  
  Very little in our about the couple in Vermont , I think, one a German , who killed a Federal agent.
  
  ‘A man who planned to marry the suspect in the killing of a U.S. Border Patrol agent has himself been arrested and accused of murdering a California resident just three days before the agent was fatally shot, court records show.’
  
  https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/boyfriend-suspect-border-agent-killing-accused-murdering-california-ma-rcna189648
  
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  January 31, 2025 1:01pm
Grunter

Today Shane Jones announced a $3 billion 2035 export target for minerals with gold & coal mining to be ramped up along with other stuff.

He should have checked his emails first because just yesterday one of his National mates announced a 50% decrease in emissions by 2035.

The obvious question in basic maths and science……….HOW?
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January 31, 2025 11:02am
- Handyman
  
  Mining is not a huge source of emissions.
  
  Mining is independently evil, (except of course mining cobalt by child labour for electric vehicles) because it supports modern industrial civilization. There is also a suspicion that capitalists are making money out of mining (not counting the workers in Australia earning $200-$300 pa or billions of royalites to the Australian government each year).
  Mining disrupts the romantic hippie dream lifecycle. Remote forests should only be desecrated by access roads to build windmills but otherwise reserved to grow cannabis.
  
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  January 31, 2025 12:53pm
- NothingLeft
  
  That would be about 10% of our worst-in-world approx $30Billion a year structural current account deficit. Barely a rounding error.
  
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  January 31, 2025 5:54pm
imalwaysright

Co-governance, or just governance by iwi and enforcement by the taxpayer funded police.

Iwi decide to lower speed limit on a public road (a beach), and the cops agree to enforce it.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/auckland-beach-speed-crackdown-vehicles-impounded-fines-issued-at-karioitahi/5EMTLFSCSZHTZJ3GSAWNKU3MV4/
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January 31, 2025 11:03am
Chuck Bird

Jew hatred has gone to a new level in Oz. They found a caravan loaded with mining explosives that was meant to be used on a major Synagogue.
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January 31, 2025 11:10am
Conservatarian

Teachers’ unions and journalists have teamed up to do a hit job on the trials for Seymour’s school lunch programme:

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/540418/david-seymour-defends-new-school-lunches-that-some-compare-to-prison-food

Classic vague attribution here from RNZ to the schoolkid interviewed (Otahuhu College student Heremoko):

“I’ve asked other students around the school, they have been describing it as bland, they’ve been describing the looks as like prison food…Yeah, they haven’t been enjoying it very much and we’re hoping that they can improve this for all our students…”

Heremoko also apparently said it was a step down from last year’s meals under the old programme.

RNZ then has an associated article from Dec 2024 that cites a report claiming to have “found” that the old lunch programme was amazing for Maori students, with the lunches somehow being linked boosting tikanga maori.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/535375/free-school-lunches-making-a-difference-for-maori-report
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January 31, 2025 11:24am
- Sparrow
  
  Would suggest you look up the British company Compass who is the contractor for the school lunches. Their record is patchy and that’s being generous. Minister Seymour says a Due Diligence was carried out on Compass, was it ?
  
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  January 31, 2025 12:03pm
  - Conservatarian
    
    How would teenagers know what is or isn’t “like prison food”? It sounds like typical teenage exaggeration that the headline has pounced on like its fact.
    
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    January 31, 2025 12:48pm
- kowtow
  
  This school lunch thing is a te media paahti , post holidays , beatup , to attack Act.
  
  Front page news , on the day we learn our banks want to crash the economy for a weather scam!
  
  Back to lunches. I see the photos in the papers show older female pupils holding lunch boxes . Heck these guys are old enough to make their own lunches .
  
  I’m a bit surprised at how chubby and healthy they all looked given the mass starvation that must have occured across the country while all these pupils were on starvation rations during the long school holiday , really who the heck fed them then.
  
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  January 31, 2025 1:21pm
- Ehlana
  
  How do the students know what prison food looks like?
  
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  January 31, 2025 1:25pm
- Ghost
  
  The photos in the media yesterday looked awful. Might make some kids ask their parents to make them a sandwhich
  
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  January 31, 2025 1:29pm
Sparrow

This is intriguing. Google has a world map indicating what language people in that country would like to learn. Not surprisingly English is the choice in many countries. The choices are based on the number of nternet searches in that country to learn a particular language. New Zealands choice is Spanish !. Maybe its a prerequisite to join the Greens. I wonder if Shane has searched ?
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January 31, 2025 11:31am
- Conservatarian
  
  Yes, but it is also failing to correctly refer to the Gulf of America, which stretches from East Texas to Western Florida and then to the south…
  
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  January 31, 2025 12:04pm
- nathie
  
  Hmm Spanish colonialists were rather brutal and slaughtered their way into indigenous lands and continents … I think “genocide” is the popular leftie-go-to-word nowadays for anything and everything.
  
  So do Green supporters have no shame?!
  
  (Yes, some of their own MP’s even)!
  
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  January 31, 2025 12:08pm
- fightingtemeraire
  
  After English, Chinese in all its dialects is the most common language spoken but exceedingly hard to master.
  
  After that Spanish is the most common being spoken in S and Central America, Philippines, large areas of the USA. Being a Romance Language speakers can make themselves understood in Fr and Italian also Portuguese.
  
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  January 31, 2025 12:36pm
  - cmm
    
    Portuguese is the most common language spoken in the Southern Hemisphere (around 34% of people speak it as a first language).
    
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    January 31, 2025 12:56pm
    - mandk
      
      Nonsense.
      
      It is the most common language in South America, but only just.
      
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      January 31, 2025 1:58pm
      - Ghost
        
        It’s the most spoken language in the southern hempishere
        
        1 0
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        January 31, 2025 2:10pm
    - NeverMindTheBollocks
      
      A large chunk of Brazil, albeit a lesser populated chunk, is north of the Equator.
      
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      January 31, 2025 9:46pm
  - kowtow
    
    Very little Sp in the Pines these days .
    
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    January 31, 2025 1:23pm
  - kiwi_chileno
    
    Speaking Chilean Spanish is not the same thing as speaking Spanish. Chilean Spanish diverges the most from ‘standard’ Spanish of all Spanish varieties. Other Spanish speakers have more difficulty understanding Chilean Spanish than Spanish spoken elsewhere.
    
    Chileans speak very fast; use lots of idioms; conjugate verbs differently; drop the final consonant, especially the s or d; drop the d in words (eg, salao instead of salado – salty); and use loan words from English (eg, ¿cachái? – get it? / do you understand? – from ‘catch’), German, and Mapudungun (Mapuche) and Quechua (indigenous languages). In Santiago and Valparaíso, Chilean includes Argentinian slang, introduced by Argentinian shopping tourists, who come to Chile for better, cheaper shopping – you can infer the state of Argentina’s economy by how many Argies there are (they identify themselves – generally flashy, loud, obnoxious).
    
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    January 31, 2025 7:08pm
    - Ian Boag
      
      True, but I think most Chilenos would understand Castellano (“BBC Spanish”) even it’s not how they talk …
      
      FWIW … the Chinese “dialects” are pretty much all different mutually untelligible languages. A Cantonese speaker cannot have any kind of conversation with a Mandarin speaker. The funny bit is that they share the writing. It’s a bit like that with Arabic too – a Moroccan pretty much can’t understand someone from Iraq.
      
      Almost as bad as us Kiwis trying to talk to a Scotsman … 🙂
      
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      January 31, 2025 8:13pm
      - NeverMindTheBollocks
        
        Try a Geordie
        
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        January 31, 2025 9:47pm
- Jules99
  
  I’m learning Spanish because it’s supposed to be the easiest language for an English speaker to learn.
  
  I’m following a Russia vlogger called ‘Eli from Russia’ on YT and she is travelling around some of the former Soviet Union countries such as Kazakhstan. The older people speak Russian as their second language because they learnt it in school, but many of the younger ones are preferring English. Mind you, many also move to Moscow to work (better jobs and pay), so I guess Russian is still on the table.
  
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  January 31, 2025 1:56pm
Swifty

Top work Jan, really top work.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/jan-tinetti-removes-social-post-criticising-school-lunch-made-when-labour-in-power/K5HNXVC2BFAOZCHNXNDPYBZAZM/

Really, this is the best Labour has got?

You are the weakest link Jan, goodbye!
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January 31, 2025 11:47am
- nathie
  
  Labour’s (and the MSM’s) so-called top-notch MP’s like Tinetti, Verrall and Andersen (oh and leader Hipkins too) are a disgrace.
  
  They constantly lie/exaggerate, with a straight-face, taking the public and media for fools (admittedly they probably know that of the latter hence why they do so).
  
  Granted, many well known (former) Labour MP’s of the past were notorious for this … but this lot are really bad and are rather insincere giving the game away. So the question then is, why do they continue to do this, get caught out (and issue a weak non-apology deflction) but then continue to do so again and again and again?
  
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  January 31, 2025 12:03pm
  - Mod88
    
    It is called “Gaslighting”. The habit of accusing others of your own behaviour. They were all trainees under the master, one Jacinda Ardern. Hipkins has become so good at it that he now stands up in public and tells us the Mandates never existed, Covid Vaccination was not Compulsory and People made their Own Choices even as they were losing jobs, homes, denied entry to dying loved ones because of their Own Choices. “Gaslighting” spelt L-A-B-O-U-R P-A-R-T-Y. Never Ever Forget, Never Ever Forgive.
    
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    January 31, 2025 12:21pm
    - kiwimike
      
      mod x100
      thanks
      
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      January 31, 2025 4:07pm
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    Not the first time Tinetti has delivered an own goal
    
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    January 31, 2025 8:35pm
- surfing
  
  She is a dimwit.
  
  If you’re going to criticise, you had better make your your criticism is 100% correct
  
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  January 31, 2025 12:37pm
Tom Barker

Shane Jones is evidently a Trump-like buffoon, and his recent outburst in the House will cost this country trade and tourism income from Spanish-speaking countries.
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January 31, 2025 12:43pm
- Swifty
  
  Hey Tom, is there anything you want to say to us after Tinetti’s latest unforced gaffe?
  
  https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/jan-tinetti-removes-social-post-criticising-school-lunch-made-when-labour-in-power/K5HNXVC2BFAOZCHNXNDPYBZAZM/
  
  Just why is she so dim? And what does this say about the team around her, that not one of them noticed this before posting?
  
  The whole post was fake. A fraud. God, she must be squirming today over it. She looks like a total clown over this. 🤡
  
  And, something I’d really like to know, how many more gaffes will she be allowed before Hipkins takes decisive action and gets rid of her?
  
  So many questions….
  
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  January 31, 2025 1:16pm
  - Conservatarian
    
    Classic Labour blunder. Probably organised in conjunction with the principals’ union as they deflect from the state of our childrens’ education.
    
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    January 31, 2025 1:31pm
    - Swifty
      
      Yep they had this hit piece lined up and ready to go as soon as the school year got started. They’ve probably been planning it for weeks.
      
      The fly in the ointment was that the young intern in the Labour social media team didn’t check the provenance of the pic they grabbed off the internet after googling “bad school lunch pic”.
      
      This is a total manufactured, fabricated hit job on National – which has fallen flat on its face.
      
      They’ve in effect lied to the nation. They’ve said this is what National has served up to kids – and it isn’t. It’s what Labour served up to our kids.
      
      Tinetti has flat out lied to us all.
      
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      January 31, 2025 4:47pm
  - mandk
    
    Tinetti is extraordinarily dim-witted.
    
    It’s astonishing to think that she became a school principal and Minister for Education.
    
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    January 31, 2025 1:46pm
    - Blog-aholic
      
      Indeed once upon a time School Principals had principles…..
      
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      January 31, 2025 2:22pm
    - kevn
      
      mandk… Dunning-Kruger syndrome maybe?
      
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      January 31, 2025 4:24pm
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      She was Principal of Tauranga girls high school, I think it is a very large school, what could possibly go wrong
      
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      January 31, 2025 8:38pm
- Conservatarian
  
  When you say “Trump-like buffoon” you mean “He is extremely funny”, “He lampoons the woke” and wants to “drill baby drill” to make us more prosperous?
  
  Hey, I already party-voted for his party, you don’t have to sell him to me.
  
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  January 31, 2025 1:24pm
- RightNow
  
  If you’re worried about loss of income from other countries you must really oppose everything the greens say and do.
  
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  January 31, 2025 2:35pm
- kiwimike
  
  tom /sarc
  there fixed it for you…
  13 downticks !!
  Who hoo
  
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  January 31, 2025 4:08pm
- JimBobJoe
  
  Si Senor, Ay Caramba!!!
  Estoy muy ofendido … Shane Jones es un abusador despreciable …
  
  And then again maybe not ; )
  
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  January 31, 2025 7:04pm
bennerg

NZ Herald reports:

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/crime/ram-raid-police-brutality-case-auckland-officers-matthew-james-andrew-gwilliam-avoid-convictions-for-assaulting-teens/YR755KWPORHILK63A4LLY2IC6U/

Two police officers who roughed up a young group of alleged ram-raiders following a pursuit through Auckland have been granted discharges without conviction, increasing their odds of being allowed to return to the force.
..
Just days earlier, police had been assaulted during another ram raid that ended in the same area, the judge noted, explaining “there was a background and a context to the police action”.
..
“Two of the young people didn’t take kindly to be removed from the vehicle and a struggle ensued” to get cuffs on them, Ryan said.
..
Judge Ryan described Gwilliams’ actions as fleeting and almost “technical” but an assault nonetheless because it was an unnecessary use of force.
..
Simmonds also asked for any possible reparation to the victims to be kept to a “very modest level”.

There’s far more details in the article, but a couple of comments:

1. After a ram raid, in a historical context of violence, vehicle driving after spoked, teenagers responding violently …. this is not playground stuff, and if you are a girl associating with such types, to expect easy treatment?

2. The Judge trying to cast this as an assault worthy of punishment? He needs to be put on teh front line patrol and try and deal with these types. They know nothing else, and will push the limits. Personally if you are being arrested and respond violently, then it’s yur decision as to what happens next.

3. Reparations? On what planet????
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January 31, 2025 1:21pm
- kowtow
  
  I don’t understand .
  
  The police were arresting them , putting handcuffs on ; as long as the arrest was lawful how the hell can that be even a technical assault . They were doing their duty .
  
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  January 31, 2025 3:45pm
DimChappie

Police seek tattooed man after bus crash

“Five people are reportedly hurt and about 50 homes lost power after the Wellington Metlink bus ran across a roundabout before hitting partially knocking down a pole in Wainuiomata, a suburb of Lower Hutt.”
“(Witness Hazel) Campbell said a man with facial tattoos had jumped off the bus after the crash and run away, and police officers were asking questions trying to find him.”
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/540508/five-people-reported-injured-in-wainuiomata-bus-crash
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January 31, 2025 2:43pm
Jack5

Full ahead and damn the Green torpedoes …

A 10-year mining goal for NZ: double mineral exports to $3 billion by 2035.

The new mining strategy for New Zealand was announced today by Resources Minister Shane Jones today.

Gold and coal will remain the backbone of the industry, Jones said.

His speech at OceanaGold’s Waihi mine was delayed about half an hour by anti-mining protesters.

https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/major-milestone-reached-launch-minerals-strategy-and-critical-minerals-list
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January 31, 2025 2:46pm
Swifty

In their six years in charge and tens and tens of billions splashed around annually, why couldn’t Labour have done this?

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/540527/a-fix-within-24-hours-for-98-percent-of-potholes-on-state-highways-exceeds-govt-target

Answers on the back of a postcard please.
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January 31, 2025 4:31pm
- Keith White
  
  I know the q was rhetorical but the reason Labour could not do this is because
  
  They think talking equals doing
  They think promising equals achieving
  They think press releases are realities
  They never had a job ever in any of their pathetic woke pseudo-lives where they had to deliver or go hungry
  They are at some level aware they are failures and so screech all the louder
  They are a waste of the communal oxygen: even a vegetable can suck in carbon dioxide and return oxygen, all Labour apparatchiks can do is the exact reverse
  They are tax-thieving grifters without any clue about how to be moral, ethical, productive and honest.
  
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  February 1, 2025 3:06pm
Ghost

Former ACT party president Timothy Jago can now be named as the political figure who plied two teenaged boys with alcohol before sexually abusing them.

Article
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January 31, 2025 6:03pm
- JimBobJoe
  
  The most unsurprising reveal of recent history. Why he fought for name suppression for so long was beyond me.
  
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  January 31, 2025 6:54pm
  - Ghost
    
    Complete waste of court time and money. Those who didn’t know who it was knew after the stunt Rawiri pulled in the house
    
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    January 31, 2025 7:33pm
    - 70andstilllearning
      
      I’ll get the dt’s for this but you’ve been harping on for a year about this particular case. Personal perhaps …. who knows? Can we move on now?
      Guess if you’re ex beltway or Act centric perhaps it’s ‘obvious’ what “Rawiri pulled in the house” but for everyone else …???
      Bottom line, he’s deviant – end of story – let it go!
      
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      January 31, 2025 8:05pm
      - Ghost
        
        Bit of a stupid post but hey I’ll give it a reply. I don’t believe any convicted sex offender should have name suppression when the survivors request that it is removed. This is nothing to do with politics and everything to do with our name suppression laws. Especially when there is the possibility that when named more survivors of the abuser could come forward
        
        And yes, many people worked out who Rawiri was talking about and plastered it over social media.
        
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        January 31, 2025 8:13pm
      - 70andstilllearning
        
        Ghost
        “This is nothing to do with politics and everything to do with our name suppression laws.”
        
        So your motive for comments on this topic (generally) whether the individual was convicted or otherwise was simply about “inadequate suppression laws”.
        Makes sense perhaps, except that you were happy to call other commenters morons ( @around 12:?? a.m. in the morning) when there was discussion some months back concerning alleged historical case(s) of a high profile political individual. Of course, you never commented on this specific case before there was a conviction ……
        If, from my “stupid post”, I’ve elicited that your real concern is about inadequate suppression laws, then that’s actually great, as it puts a perspective on comments that that you’ve made historically that could be construed quite differently – perhaps in the future could you argue that point rather than attack the individuals.
        
        PS : I wasn’t the individual attacked, although I was in the thread 🙂
        
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        January 31, 2025 10:05pm
      - Ghost
        
        You are the one trying to make this into something political, not me, I didn’t post a comment with this article because it is serious. I’ve posted about this case ever since it broke. You then come on with a stupid comment end of story let it go. Have you read this blog, ever? The constant posts on the green or labour mp’s that have committed crimes.
        
        Now perhaps you can take the seriousness of this crime and stop trying to push your little fantasy of why I have posted it.
        
        And btw, I have posted a lot of articles here about rape in NZ, the pathetic sentences that the rapists have got. I don’t actually care who the abuser is, and I won’t play into your demand to hush it up
        
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        January 31, 2025 10:25pm
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  This is the worst kept secret in politics last year
  
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  January 31, 2025 8:41pm
  - 70andstilllearning
    
    Gee G – I’m obviously not in the political “know” these days, but have to admit I’ve been out of the Welly scene for around 2 decades 🙂
    
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    January 31, 2025 10:11pm
AndyW

Auckland Girls’ Grammar are complaining about the free school lunches….how the feck are they qualifying for free lunches???!!!
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January 31, 2025 11:01pm
- Keith White
  
  Probably because they know TANSTAAFL*…
  
  …someone always pays
  
  *Robert A Heinlein.
  
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  February 1, 2025 3:57pm

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