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March 3, 2025 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 03 March 2025

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General Debate

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NoCash

After the White House blow up, there are discussions on the Internet about Australia needing nukes now. People fail to consider you need more than the bombs. You also need delivery systems that can’t be intercepted by the enemy, and enough quantity to survive a first strike. That’s pretty much impossible against the big 3, Russia, USA, China. With that in mind, Australia having nukes would only create regional instability and risks.

On top of that, the nukes and delivery systems need to be developed and manufactured domestically, otherwise they could be disabled by the foreign suppliers. Does Australia have the capability to do all that? I doubt.
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March 3, 2025 8:03am
- Terry Dalee
  
  Australia has 200 Tomahawk cruise missiles.
  
  The Tomahawk is nuclear capable.
  
  It also had the F35 Joint Strike Fighter.
  
  The Aussies have the means to deliver.
  
  The world has changed. The USA can’t no longer be relied upon for security. As the US pulls back, what’s stopping the other declared nuclear powers from being more aggressive?
  
  Australia going nuclear isn’t a stupid idea. New Zealand can free load of the security guarantees that would bring
  
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  March 3, 2025 9:39am
  - Suze Wainwright
    
    And it’s exactly for reasons such as these that our nation needs Teanau Tuiono controlling all our defense matters.
    
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    March 3, 2025 9:58am
    - Michael Sommerville
      
      You missed the Sarc… annotation at the end of your post … I hope, otherwise, its a huge downtick from me.
      
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      March 3, 2025 11:50am
      - Suze Wainwright
        
        So, you’re saying that a person with the extensive experience of being the former Activist in Residence at Massey University wouldn’t be good enough for you then?
        
        You might want to think about the permutations of future ministerial positions in a Lab/Green/TPM govt though…
        
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        March 3, 2025 12:26pm
      - Suze Wainwright
        
        //
        
        but serious about what some possible future ministerial roles might look like…
        
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        March 3, 2025 1:29pm
      - NeverMindTheBollocks
        
        It’s Suze … the sarc is implied.
        
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        March 3, 2025 4:08pm
    - Paulus
      
      What is a Teanau Tuiono please.
      
      [Could you at least try Google. It’s (Google) been around for years. mod.]
      
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      March 3, 2025 2:03pm
      - Suze Wainwright
        
        Ah, Teanau Tuiono is the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand’s spokesperson on Foreign Affairs and Defense…
        
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        March 3, 2025 3:18pm
  - NoCash
    
    The capability you listed is enough against regional players, namely Indonesia, but not the big 3. If Australia becomes nuclear armed, that would force Indonesia to follow suit, or even Malaysia. That would simply destabilise the region.
    
    Also, if you can’t trust the US to protect Australia, how could you be sure the F35s and Tomahawks won’t be disabled by the US?
    
    Considering Australia likely doesn’t have the resources and capability to develop, manufacture, and maintain the assets domestically; the talk of having nukes is wishful thinking. That said, I bet it won’t stop some politicians in Australia trying recklessly, I’m looking at Peter Dutton…
    
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    March 3, 2025 10:24am
    - Jake Dee
      
      It’s a good point about the F-35s et al. Logistics supply chains have now become so incredibly complex that there is no way they could be used for anything that Washington doesn’t agree with.
      
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      March 3, 2025 11:58am
  - Don Beckett
    
    Again, being nuclear armed would make Australia a nuclear target – not a good idea.
    
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    March 3, 2025 11:38am
    - kowtow
      
      In a nuclear exchange we’ll all be targets.
      
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      March 3, 2025 12:09pm
      - cmm
        
        Rubbish. Statements like that show incredible ignorance of military strategy.
        
        Nuclear warheads and launch vehicles are expensive and precious. You don’t expend them willy-nilly. Russia and USA have maybe 1000 warheads each at their disposal – less that are capable of being used immediately (ie. most will need to be prepped, be mounted on rockets etc etc). Nobody is going to fire everything they have because they want reserves.
        
        I have not done the calculations, but it is unlikely that they even have enough nukes to hit all each other’s cities.
        
        Thus, they way up the pros/cons cost/benefit of each target to be able to do the most useful damage with what limited resources they have.
        
        This is nothing special to nukes. It is always the case. There is always a shortage of resources be those nuke or, as is currently the case in Ukraine, howitzer shells or similar.
        
        So why in the world would anyone want to waste ammo on a strategically useless target like NZ?
        
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        March 3, 2025 3:46pm
      - kowtow
        
        cmm
        
        Rubbish to you with brass knobs on .
        
        Once the exchange starts , then everyone loses .
        
        There’s nothing rational or calculated about it.
        
        All gone.
        
        FFS!
        
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        March 3, 2025 6:34pm
  - PurplePen
    
    That’s an overreaction. Russia hasn’t even been able to successfully take over one of its immediate neighbours after 3 years. China has never been into empire expansion. So what are you trying to deter, and what are you thinking you need to defend yourself against.
    
    An idea is to create a NATO-like agreement between UK, USA (post-Trump), Canada, Oz, NZ, Japan and other nations with the same or similar values.
    
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    March 3, 2025 12:37pm
    - Sir Henry Morgan
      
      How did China end up with a great big empire and given it has “never been into empire expansion”?
      
      If China has “never been into empire expansion” how come it is trying to seize control of the entire South China Sea? How about it’s claim on the Senkakus, and by extension Okinawa? Why did it seize Tibet? Why does it keep threatening to seize Taiwan?
      
      How did most of China’s fifty or so officially recognized ethnic minorities end up inside China if not through the expansion of the Chinese empire? It’s a wonder some of these ethnic minorities still exist at all given China’s history of genocide – e.g. the mass-castrations of the Miao people.
      
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      March 3, 2025 2:17pm
      - NoCash
        
        I’ve read during the Chinese civil war, the Miao people played an important role, helping Mao Zedong to escape the KMT in the Long March. There’re some 9.5 million Miao people living in China (2010 figure).
        
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        March 3, 2025 3:53pm
      - NeverMindTheBollocks
        
        Correct. China is one of the world’s two remaining empires, along with Russia (I’m giving India a pass on the grounds that’s it’s more or less a democracy).
        
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        March 3, 2025 4:10pm
      - NoCash
        
        The mass castrations of Miao boys took place during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644).
        
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        March 3, 2025 4:20pm
    - cmm
      
      Why take something over in 3 years if you can grind them down with attrition?
      
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      March 3, 2025 3:47pm
      - MCōs
        
        Neither was Russia’s initial intention, which was a lightning strike on Kiev; followed by a regime change
        Putin misjudged the resolve of the Ukrainian people and here we are.
        
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        March 3, 2025 4:46pm
  - slightlyrighty
    
    https://youtu.be/rFqvErYqFRs?si=ZylDRO_GpB7wlQkK
    
    The above is a speech given to the US Senate regarding the need to give security guarantees to Ukraine as part of a wider goal to stop nuclear proliferation. It was given by Marco Rubio at a time when the US had a far better idea of the measures they had signed up to and why.
    
    Given Rubio’s performance in the Oval Office 2 days ago, I can only ask what has changed.
    
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    March 3, 2025 2:20pm
    - Don Beckett
      
      Zelensky wanted immediate guarantees – Trump said that guarantees were the second stage, with the third stage being the final agreement with Putin.
      We now know that Zelensky was primed up by the Democrats – foolish man.
      
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      March 3, 2025 3:15pm
      - MCōs
        
        We don’t know that at all.
        
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        March 3, 2025 4:51pm
      - Don Beckett
        
        Yes we do !
        
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        March 3, 2025 5:09pm
      - MCōs
        
        You’re making the allegation
        You need to back it up before it becomes anything other than a rumour
        
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        March 3, 2025 8:02pm
- Simon
  
  Arms race with China moo moo moo
  
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  March 3, 2025 10:30am
- Ross Bayer
  
  Nocash
  The idea that missiles and planes are needed for defence comes from a bygone era.
  China could bankrupt both NZ and Aus by turning off the stuff we export, milk powder, logs and for Aus coal and iron ore.
  The Trump administration is talking about a 50% cut in military spending.
  Countries need to get expenditure under control.
  All this rhetoric about Europe increasing military expenditure is a road to fiscal disaster and the citizen want to have good relations with neighbours
  RUSSIA is not the bad guy the MSM has been telling you for 40 years this is same people who were telling you Biden was as sharp as a tack 6 months ago
  
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  March 3, 2025 10:48am
  - rangitoto
    
    Xi has already said no to any reduction in military spending.
    
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    March 3, 2025 12:26pm
  - slightlyrighty
    
    In Case anyone was wondering who the Aggressor was.
    
    Here’s the Timeline.
    July 16, 1990: Ukraine’s Declaration of Sovereignty
    
    July 31, 1991: The United States and the Soviet Union sign START
    
    Dec. 26, 1991: The Soviet Union officially dissolves, delaying entry into force of START
    
    Dec. 30, 1991: Minsk Agreement on Strategic Forces. The Commonwealth of Independent States agrees that strategic forces would be under the joint command of the former Soviet Union states
    
    May 23, 1992: Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and the United States sign the Lisbon Protocol. The protocol calls for the return of nuclear weapons in three formerly Soviet states to Russia and for all states to be added to the START treaty and join the Non Proliferation Treaty. (NPT)
    
    Jan. 14, 1994: Ukraine, Russia, and the United States sign the Trilateral Statement Ukraine commits to full disarmament, including strategic offensive weapons, in exchange for economic support and security assurances from the United States and Russia
    
    Sept. 4, 1993: Massandra Accords Failed summit between Russian and Ukrainian governments
    
    Dec. 5, 1994: Russia, Ukraine, United States, and the United Kingdom sign the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances Includes security assurances against the threat or use of force against Ukraine’s territory or political independence
    
    Dec. 5, 1994: Ukraine submits its instrument of accession to the NPT as a non-nuclear weapon state. The five START parties exchange instruments of ratification for START, which enters into force
    
    June 1, 1996: Ukraine transfers its last nuclear warhead to Russia.
    
    October 30, 2001: Ukraine eliminates its last strategic nuclear weapon delivery vehicle
    
    Dec. 4, 2009: Joint Statement by Russia and the United States.
    The two countries confirm the security guarantees made in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum
    
    March 18, 2014: Russia annexes Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and provides supports an ongoing insurrection by separatist forces in the eastern Luhansk and Donetsk provinces of Ukraine.
    
    Late 2021 to early 2022: Russia engages in “military exercises” with a force estimated to exceed 150,000 military personnel involving land-, sea-, and air-based weaponry on the northern, eastern, and southern borders of Ukraine raising fears of an invasion by Russia.
    
    February 24, 2022: Russia began a large-scale military attack and invasion of Ukraine, with planes and missile launcher attacks on Ukrainian cities, airports, and military infrastructure across much of the country.
    
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    March 3, 2025 2:24pm
  - MCōs
    
    China doesn’t import our stuff out of the goodness of their heart.
    They import it because they need it, I would have thought
    
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    March 3, 2025 5:00pm
    - Dougal10
      
      They import our stuff because it is the cheapest food and logs they can get , its even cheaper than using their home grown stuff when you add in a food safety factor.
      
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      March 3, 2025 5:12pm
- Jake Dee
  
  Not really.
  The defender doesn’t have to match the aggressor pound for pound, they just have to make an attack look unacceptably expensive.
  That what France used to deter the Soviets and what North Korea is using to deter the USA.
  
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  March 3, 2025 11:56am
  - NoCash
    
    I’m arguing specifically wrt Australia, not in general.
    
    France is a major advanced arms manufacturing nation, so it has the capacity to mount a realistic deterrence.
    
    NK’s deterrence is based on its ability to strike SK and Japan, not the US.
    
    Only the big 3 have global level deterrence against each other.
    
    For Australia to be nuclear armed is simply reckless yet provides no deterrence against the big 3. Destabilising the region would be the only outcome.
    
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    March 3, 2025 1:49pm
    - Paulus
      
      Doesn’t France still supply Russia with arms still ?
      
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      March 3, 2025 2:05pm
    - Jake Dee
      
      The logic still holds and N-Korea does have the capacity to hit continental USA.
      And an atomic warhead has smaller scale applications than intercontinental. They can destroy a carrier fleet or an invasion beach head on your own territory.
      
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      March 3, 2025 8:07pm
- NothingLeft
  
  Guidance tech is no longer difficult – it can mostly all be built with off-the-shelf stuff, and ICBMs aren’t hard to build any more given modern tech base and spread of all relevant info. Computational Fluid Dynamics has made it orders of magnitude cheaper to develop rockets and missiles without lots of expensive wind-tunnel and other physical testing. We can see the truth of this in the tens of small sat launching start ups around the world.
  
  What I am most worried about is space based nukes as launch costs decline rapidly. If put in high orbit they could be targeted for 1st strike, at enormous speeds, and similar to a meteorite you would only have about 5-10s of warning between start of re-entry 60km up and bomb detonation in a city. Not enough time to detect and intercept with even the most advanced missile defense systems.
  
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  March 3, 2025 1:14pm
Morgan H

How many people here agree with the post from yesterday that all churches should lose their charitable status?

Me personally I agree with the idea.
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March 3, 2025 8:04am
- SometimesRight
  
  Yes, and, how about religions that run businesses, donate all profit to their church and so avoid company tax, then claim the 1/3 donation rebate from taxpayers, then recycle the business profits + subsidy back to their people as “charity”!!
  
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  March 3, 2025 8:54am
  - PurplePen
    
    That’s fine. Donations whether from individuals or entities should be tax free. But not any profit from revenue generated by any religion or any entity.
    
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    March 3, 2025 12:40pm
- Tomtoddy
  
  You need to be able to differentiate between organisations that carry out genuine charitable work which relieves the state of having to fund it at a much higher transactional cost and those who are indulging in political activity.
  
  Just pulling the pin on all churches with charitable status is too blunt an instrument.
  
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  March 3, 2025 9:06am
  - Flossie
    
    While I am certainly not a religious person I have utmost respect for the Salvation Army. They do great things and are (as far as I can see) a genuine charity that provides practical help to those is need.
    
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    March 3, 2025 9:22am
    - NeverMindTheBollocks
      
      You can add Catholic Social Services and Presbyterian Support to the list, and I’m sure there are others.
      
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      March 3, 2025 9:32am
    - Jack5
      
      Morgan H’s ….the post from yesterday that all churches should lose their charitable status …
      
      If it was my post. I suggested that all charities lose their tax-free status.
      
      I agree Sallies do a good job helping people having a rough time, but why does the Salvation Army make a profit?
      
      Shouldn’t its bookkeeping show its aid as expense and shouldn’t the expense be greater than donations in?
      
      If the work includes sub- enterprises such as providing work for handicapped people, shouldn’t these enterprises have separate, taxable accounts that would probably also be permanently in the red?
      
      The points were that the Seventh Day Adventist Church has its Sanitarium Products tax free as a charity, and that Ngai Tahu has tens of businesses in a group registration as charities. They are able to compete free of company tax. Other tribes are beginning to follow Ngai Tahu in this.
      
      There is a well-established method of imputation credits by which ordinary companies give credits to shareholders for tax paid. This avoids double-taxation of first, say, the tribal business, then, second, of the tribe member receiving a share of a tribal company’s profit.
      
      Some international charities operate tax-free in NZ when their activity seems to have drifted far from the original goals. Should these be tax free?
      
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      March 3, 2025 9:55am
      - alwyn.a
        
        ” of the tribe member receiving a share of a tribal company’s profit.”
        Does any member of Ngai Tahu, outside the very few who control it, ever get any share of the profits?
        
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        March 3, 2025 11:20am
      - Miritu
        
        “I suggested that all charities lose their tax-free status” – Yes!
        “Charity” is a subjective term and the last people who should be deciding what it means are state employees or politicians. Reduce all tax on business as much as possible and apply tax to everybody. Stop all taxpayer funding of charities too. Let individuals decide what causes they’d like to support.
        
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        March 3, 2025 1:49pm
- rouppe
  
  I think iwi should lose charitable status before churches.
  
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  March 3, 2025 9:22am
  - pdm
    
    Especially Tainui, Ngai Tahu and all others running commercial business ventures.
    
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    March 3, 2025 10:05am
    - kowtow
      
      Yep , te meedia paahti are constantly shoving down our throats they’re such great important businesses .
      
      Great , pay tax like the rest of business.
      
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      March 3, 2025 10:09am
      - igm
        
        While about it, time maoris started paying rates as well.
        
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        March 3, 2025 1:11pm
      - MCōs
        
        FYI
        A list of non rate-able land
        Not as simple as you seem to suggest
        https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2002/0006/latest/DLM133512.html
        
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        March 3, 2025 5:12pm
    - rouppe
      
      I’ve just submitted to IRD about tax changes for charities.
      
      https://www.taxpolicy.ird.govt.nz/consultation/2025/taxation-and-the-not-for-profit-sector
      
      They’re dancing about on the head of a pin about whether a business activity is related or unrelated to their charitable purpose, not whether they are behaving like a charity.
      
      I don’t know what the figure is but they don’t distribute the bulk of their income, they accumulate wealth.
      
      They don’t behave like a charity, they behave like a family Trust. Tax them like one
      
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      March 3, 2025 10:14am
- Simon
  
  Is there any activity that the Wellington Show School won’t tax?
  
  How about ask yourself why during the 2000s govt was able to run massive surpluses but can’t now? It isn’t about welfare spending which per GDP is the same.
  
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  March 3, 2025 10:32am
- Scott
  
  Why should the churches lose their charitable status?
  Once again the very concept of charity comes from the Christian faith and the Christian Church.
  
  I also agree with other organisations, that are non profit, getting charitable status.
  
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  March 3, 2025 11:10am
  - Jake Dee
    
    Once again there were charities before Christianity and those with no connection to Christianity.
    
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    March 3, 2025 12:02pm
    - Scott
      
      No there weren’t. The exception would be the Jewish faith in the Old Testament.
      But the idea of helping others to whom you are not related is a Christian one. Prior to Christianity in this land there was no expectation that you would help others that were not part of your family.
      
      You take charity for granted. Because Christianity is part of the air we breathe in NZ. Jesus said, blessed are the poor. Blessed are the meek.
      
      Not so in other religions and other countries. For example in the hindu religion, a person’s fate is due to bad karma. An untouchable is in that position because of karma.
      
      In atheism why should you help anyone?
      
      Christian charity is in the air we breathe, in our mental framework, acknowledged or not.
      
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      March 3, 2025 12:39pm
      - Dave
        
        In atheism why should you help anyone?
        
        Because we are social beings with empathy for others. Social animals, eg, lions, wolves, Cape Buffalo, mongeese, will at least help their genetic relatives. Perhaps humans can extend their empathy further.
        
        Because we are rational beings who know that reciprocity and cooperation lubricate society – if I let a stranger into the traffic queue today, a stranger is encouraged to let me in the queue tomorrow.
        
        Because we are imaginative beings who can see that there but for fortune, it could have been me who is disabled or impoverished.
        
        Not so in other religions and other countries.
        One of the five pillars of Islam is almsgiving.
        
        Charity is that rational and constant affection which makes us sacrifice ourselves to the human race, as if we were united with it, so as to form one individual, partaking equally in its adversity and prosperity. (Confucius, 500 years before Christ.)
        
        It’s entirely possible that Christian charity is more generous and altruistic than other forms, thanks to the Good Samaritan parable and commands to love your neighbour – perhaps Muslim almsgiving is only for fellow Muslims – I have no idea. So your principal point could be mostly true.
        
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        March 3, 2025 7:00pm
Gravelroad

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360596361/ruff-justice-or-fur-enough-curious-case-murphy-patrol-puppy
Oh my gosh! How awful for the Police in Dunedin having to cope with all the health and safety issues with this dog in their midst – trip hazards, fur allergies, litter box phobia, bite risks,no proper ID etc.
Makes you wonder how they manage to deal personally with all the drugged up and drunk crims on the street and in the cells. Some of whom may even be dirty and have infections and virus’s, and go to the toilet on the floor.
Come on, this is health and safety gone over the top.
We have working sheep dog puppies here at present.
I will need to go now and tog up in all my hazard gear to deliver their breakfast of pellets in milk.
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March 3, 2025 8:08am
- kowtow
  
  There’s a murder trial on in Daft Dunners at this very moment .
  It happened just outside their front door in broad daylight.
  Young people . This country’s gone to the dogs.
  
  https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/crime/fatal-stabbing-shown-bus-hub-trial
  
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  March 3, 2025 8:22am
  - Ghost
    
    No it didn’t. It happened down the road from them.
    
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    March 3, 2025 8:40am
    - Grunter
      
      OK, 50m down the road, it doesn’t change Gravels/kowtow’s argument.
      
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      March 3, 2025 8:42am
      - Ghost
        
        No, further. And it is kowtow That has decided to bring it up. Doesn’t matter where the stabbing happened. Police weren’t responsible.
        
        And I say that as someone who had an uncle who was a bus inspector, stabbed when I was a kid, saved by the police who were near by
        
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        March 3, 2025 8:51am
      - cmm
        
        “Police weren’t responsible.”
        
        It depends…
        
        Certainly the police didn’t pull out a knife and stick it in someone’s belly.
        
        But police are letting the situation get out of hand where ferals act with impunity and are brazen enough to commit all sorts of crimes – knowing they have very little chance of facing any meaningful consequences.
        
        Is this all the police’ fault? No. But they are part of the problem.
        
        A few days back there was an appeal from the top cop for people to get more involved “we can’t police effectively without you”. I really don’t believe that for two reasons:
        1) When we do get involved (eg report crimes) police often do nothing.
        2) If we do get involved (eg. citizen’s arrest) we end up seeing ferals released and getting threatened for detaining a criminal.
        
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        March 3, 2025 9:12am
      - imalwaysright
        
        “And I say that as someone who had an uncle who was a bus inspector, stabbed when I was a kid, saved by the police who were near by.”
        
        That’s sad, but what bearing does it have on the discussion?
        
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        March 3, 2025 10:45am
      - JackRabbit
        
        @cmm
        
        The public have lost faith in the police to be neutral and act in accordance with lawful principles. Even police have lost faith in the police system.
        
        The last few years have seen many lawful citizens treated as criminals, and criminals treated as victims.
        
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        March 3, 2025 10:47am
      - kowtow
        
        ‘Police weren’t responsible.’
        
        There he goes again, making shit up . I never ever said or even implied that .
        
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        March 3, 2025 12:15pm
    - Taieri
      
      It happened right across the road from the Central Dunedin Police Station.
      
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      March 3, 2025 8:59am
    - kowtow
      
      Now you’re just making shit up.
      
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      March 3, 2025 10:11am
    - sirknz
      
      On a cosmological timescale, the dinosaurs were the dominant life form on Earth not that long ago.
      
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      March 3, 2025 10:27am
- Ghost
  
  The complaint came from the health and safety/return to work advisor, not the police officers,
  
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  March 3, 2025 8:43am
  - pdm
    
    `The complaint came from the health and safety/return to work advisor’
    
    Nuff said Ghostie.
    
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    March 3, 2025 8:54am
    - OlderChas
      
      And out of the extensive list of possible ‘hazards’ listed by that complainer – how many of them actually happened – or were even likely to happen – except the complainant himself tripped over the dog. So who’s a clumsy tanglefoot then? (Oh and claimed that the trip involved an unstated injury. Injured pride methinks?)
      
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      March 3, 2025 10:50am
  - zulumonster
    
    I hope the Police Station has a Safe Space for Mr Greig.
    
    4 0
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    March 3, 2025 1:10pm
Grunter

Those that are ‘supporting Ukraine’ have once again failed to come up with a plausible plan to bring peace.

By simply continuing to fight, and needlessly kill more thousands of young lives, the ‘support Ukraine’ mob are merely fuelling the Russians’ distrust and hatred of European leaders.

The REALITY on the battlefield is that Russia is not leaving the eastern regions of old Ukraine.

So, the options have not changed over the past 3 years;
1. Negotiate peace – ie, that now means surrender and capitulate.
2. Continue with the current battle plan, that just means eventual annihilation by the Russians.
3. Escalate into WW3 by inserting European troops on the ground.

Downtick all you like if you disagree, but at least attempt to reply with a plausible alternative.
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March 3, 2025 8:09am
- Gravelroad
  
  Yesterday I had three or four “friends” on social media post large photos of the Ukrainian flag along with the words “We stand with Ukraine.”
  Ok, fair enough.
  But they didn’t say why they stand so firmly with Ukraine.
  I think it is because they don’t like Mr Putin – whether justified or not, and support Mr Zelenski as the brave underdog fighting against Russia.
  And now, of course, it is another downtick against their real adversary, that being Mr Trump.
  
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  March 3, 2025 9:06am
  - cmm
    
    Most likely because they want to virtue signal to their friends.
    
    Standing for something with a few pixels is cheap. C’mon if you really stand for something then send them $5000 or fly over there and join them in the trenches.
    
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    March 3, 2025 9:15am
    - imalwaysright
      
      I know a couple of guys who were discussing heading over there just after it started.
      I asked them what they knew of the language, did they want to join the Ukrainian army, did they just want to grab a weapon and start killing Russians who were conveniently exposed and unable to shoot back, did they have access to knowledge of their local area and where the enemy was, food, ammo, medical help, transport, could they tell the difference between a Russian soldier and a Ukrainian soldier, etc ?
      They got irritated and changed the subject.
      
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      March 3, 2025 10:04am
      - cmm
        
        Too many warriors brought up on computer games that think they can just respawn if they get shot.
        
        I expect they would have conveniently failed at the first hurdle:
        
        Yup, I really, really wanted to go, but I didn’t have a passport.
        
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        March 3, 2025 12:16pm
  - Flossie
    
    I also had SM friends post that. I just ignored them as the situation is far more complex than I can understand.
    One friend in particular has a real hatred of Trump and that would be their motivation for the post.
    
    22 5
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    March 3, 2025 9:53am
    - herb1
      
      Is supporting a country that’s been invaded and had schools and hospitals bombed and women and children murdered ,too complex for you to understand
      
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      March 3, 2025 10:45am
      - Gussy Fink-Nottle
        
        There’s a few countries that could fit that bill. Some get more attention than others.
        Assuming you mean Ukraine, does ‘supporting’ it mean more death, or less?
        
        9 4
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        March 3, 2025 11:57am
      - Jake Dee
        
        ANY country that’s been invaded and had schools and hospitals bombed and women and children murdered?
        because that list is rather long.
        Sure you can quibble about the “murder” part because that is unlawful homicide and that will vary by jurisdiction.
        Call it “carried out kinetic operations that resulted in opposition collateral casualties’ and those women and children are still dead.
        
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        March 3, 2025 12:09pm
      - JeffW
        
        Russia should take back Alaska and a colony they formerly had on the continental US, who shouldn’t fight back because that would cost lives.
        
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        March 3, 2025 2:41pm
  - PurplePen
    
    Some and especially MSM have forgotten their history. 1989 USA got Gorbachev to agree to unifying east and west Germany. Gorbachev’s condition was that was fine as long as NATO didn’t move any further west. USA agreed and promised this. 1994 Clinton allowed NATO to move west! Unbelievable. Three subsequent promises were made between the USA and Russia and each time broken by both sides. Neither has a history that they can be trusted.
    
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    March 3, 2025 12:50pm
    - Don Beckett
      
      I think you mean “move EAST – not west.
      
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      March 3, 2025 3:23pm
- emmess
  
  Well, it would be nice if the Trump slogan ‘peace through strength’ was put into action.
  As opposed to ‘surrender through capitulation’
  
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  March 3, 2025 9:19am
  - Burtland
    
    USA ~~leaders of the free world~~ putins puppet
    
    bet most americans didnt think that was part of MAGA
    
    9 22
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    March 3, 2025 10:06am
    - Grunter
      
      “….Putins puppet…..”
      I knew that reply would pop up at some stage. Is that all you’ve got, Burtland? Come on, what’s your realistic plan to bring this mess to an end??
      
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      March 3, 2025 11:40am
    - Jake Dee
      
      Putin the magician, with Trump at the end of his puppeteering strings is just a fantasy.
      Seriously, how would it actually work?
      
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      March 3, 2025 12:11pm
      - Jake Dee
        
        Yep, as I expected a bunch of downticks and nobody can actually explain how it would actually work.
        Just some evil Kremlin magic or ex-soviet mind control laser beam.
        
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        March 3, 2025 8:10pm
    - cmm
      
      It is consistent with what Trump/MAGA have been saying all along. It isn’t America’s war and they should keep out.
      
      Rather focus on America for Americans.
      
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      March 3, 2025 12:18pm
- Northshoredoc
  
  Those options could have been uplifted from RT.
  
  If as many pundits here and at The Standard keep saying that Russia cannot be pushed to the table to negotiate, why have the following occurred?
  
  1. North Korean troops deployed to Ukraine
  2. Ukrainian forces have still not been kicked out of the Kursk region.
  
  I’d love to see a ceasefire and negotiated end to this conflict, but not one that walks away from Ukraine to leave it up for grabs from Putin or the next Tsar wannabee who replaces him in a few year’s time as that would be largely pointless.
  
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  March 3, 2025 9:51am
  - kowtow
    
    Trump was not ‘walking away” from Ukraine he was proposing getting involved bigly in mining, “digging”, as he personally put it.And that was going to be for the benfit of both America and Ukraine.
    
    That was the American assurance .
    
    Not ‘walking away’.
    
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    March 3, 2025 12:21pm
  - Grunter
    
    Northshoredoc – so you agree with #2 then….? Or maybe straight to #3?
    
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    March 3, 2025 1:15pm
- JackRabbit
  
  hose that are ‘supporting Ukraine’ have once again failed to come up with a plausible plan to bring peace.
  
  They are useful idiots who are programmed to keep the war going.
  
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  March 3, 2025 10:01am
- Burtland
  
  lets just capitulate 40M ukrainians to a growing mafia state – europe will enjoy their sweet neighborly kisses
  
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  March 3, 2025 10:05am
  - Ra Henare
    
    I love this ideology.
    You do remember that before the Russian invasion
    Ukraine was the most corrupt country in Europe.
    Zelenskyy closed down all opposition Media
    Banned the use of Russian Language
    Shelled schools in the Donbass
    
    Yep definitely NOT a mafia state.//
    
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    March 3, 2025 2:32pm
    - Bevan
      
      Damn, you are sucking down the RT propaganda like a sycophantic groupie.
      
      Do you have pictures of Putin on your wall? Salivate over pictures of Putin on horseback?
      
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      March 3, 2025 4:53pm
      - Ra Henare
        
        No Bevan. Just quoting some FACTS as reported by International Press.
        
        What is it that you hate Putin and Trump so much that it has removed your ability for rational thought.
        
        Are you on your 11th Covid shot yet?
        
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        March 3, 2025 6:28pm
      - Bevan
        
        Is everything about covid for you losers?
        
        BTW, you spelt Russia Today wrong.
        
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        March 3, 2025 10:25pm
  - kowtow
    
    ‘lets just capitulate 40M ukrainians to a growing mafia state’
    
    Who’s suggesting that .
    
    And don’t say Trump , cos he’s not .
    
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    March 3, 2025 2:49pm
- nygr
  
  MSM keeps saying that Europe (as in all) supports Ukraine but so far I’ve only heard from that fascist lefty Starmer. What do Norway, Italy, Turkey, Hungry, among others. have to say? Me thinks the MSM are keeping well away from politicians who support the USA position. It’s almost like the MSM are wanting to fuel the fires of war.
  And as an aside I thought the UK pulled away from Europe yet when it suits the media refer to them as Europe.
  
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  March 3, 2025 11:17am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Looks like Norway is on the verge of giving more Billions to Ukraine.
    
    https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/norway-rethinks-e1-7-trillion-sovereign-fund-to-boost-support-for-ukraine/
    
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    March 3, 2025 11:46am
    - cmm
      
      Quite often the way these countries claim their aid numbers is like how Bill Clinton claimed his charitable donations.
      
      Bill used to send off his used, and presumably worn out, underpants to Goodwill and claim them as a tax write off at the price of replacing them with new.
      
      The same happens here: countries will send off their obsolete and surplus munitions and count those at full retail price (which is often way higher than they actually paid).
      
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      March 3, 2025 12:22pm
      - Northshoredoc
        
        I was thinking it was a bit like how Trump made up his numbers.
        
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        March 3, 2025 1:05pm
    - goNZ1
      
      ironically from their vast fossil fuel resources!
      
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      March 3, 2025 2:00pm
  - kowtow
    
    All good , excepty Turkey is not ‘Europe”.
    
    I reckon Starmer the Farmer /Granny harmer will use this to re integrate Britain by hook or by crook back into Europe.
    
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    March 3, 2025 12:23pm
- Grunter
  
  This from just moments ago…
  “The UK are prepared to back this with boots on the ground and planes in the air,” Starmer said. He also announced a £1.6bn missile deal for Ukraine, saying this “support for Ukraine is unwavering.”
  
  WW3, I guess, it what we will have.
  
  I wonder if Luxon realises that his “we support Ukraine” will ultimately mean conscription of young Kiwis?
  
  Gold and capital flows out of Europe and UK are already heading to the USA. The last time this was seen at such a level was 1939….
  
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  March 3, 2025 11:30am
  - Don Beckett
    
    Yep – follow the money.
    
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    March 3, 2025 11:44am
  - Jake Dee
    
    The UK doesn’t have the power to alter the strategic balance and hasn’t had it for at least 2 generations.
    Any government who in this day and age would even seriously attempt to mobilize the nation for another war in Europe would collapse.
    That goes for UK and double for NZ
    
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    March 3, 2025 12:19pm
  - cmm
    
    Boots on which ground?
    
    UK, NZ and others have been supplying boots on the ground in the supply chain for well over a year.
    
    The supply chain has always been a legitimate military target. If a Russian missile was to smash into NZ parliament it would be fully justified.
    
    Unlikely, but justified.
    
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    March 3, 2025 12:25pm
  - Handyman
    
    To get a sense of proportion…
    Russia has lost 10,000 tanks, 20,000 armoured vehicles and 300 helicopters. It is not bothered and continues to win the war. It has lost 600,000 troops but has not even started mass mobilisation yet.
    
    UK has 200 tanks and 300 aircraft in total.
    
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    March 3, 2025 1:03pm
    - goNZ1
      
      Russia had 26 million of their citizens killed in ww2 stopping Hitler , so they have a different appetite for conflict than most of us understand, slavs have a different culture…
      
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      March 3, 2025 2:05pm
      - kowtow
        
        Only they weren’t civilians . They were serfs and treated as such by Stalin and his henchmen .
        
        That’s one reason their casualties were so horrendous . Not to mention how many of their own “unreliables” they murdered.
        
        Recall they were an ally of Hitler’s when they too invaded Poland.
        
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        March 3, 2025 2:53pm
      - NeverMindTheBollocks
        
        Serfdom in Russia was abolished in 1861.
        
        You must be thinking of heroic workers.
        
        3 0
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        March 3, 2025 4:19pm
    - Ra Henare
      
      and more Admirals than ships.
      
      3 1
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      March 3, 2025 2:34pm
- leoj
  
  When the EU and their military are able to match the sway of the US, then they might have some credibility.
  
  In the meantime, US taxpayers have had a gutsful of continual paying while those same EU countres have failed to live up to their responsibilities.
  
  The Don is all about America first. The war is half a world away but the EU have acted with apathy, all the while relying on the US for stability.
  
  November 5th, 2024, everything changed. It is not business as usual. There is a new sheriff in town and he won’t be pushed around by countries that have done stuff all.
  
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  March 3, 2025 11:59am
  - herb1
    
    America have spent around $180 US billion on Ukraine . That’s valuing their old military equipment at the value of new replacements. Can you tell me how much money the US have made selling their military equipment to European countries and the Uk. I suspect not but I’m sure it’s in the trillions. America would have been bankrupt long ago if Europe had made their own military equipment , which is happening more and more now. Perhaps the US can open up new markets with Russia , China , North Korea and Iran. Trump would certainly pat himself on the back Billy for that
    
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    March 3, 2025 2:02pm
    - Jake Dee
      
      That would be a MINIMUM of $180B I don’t think anyone can really know but I suspect that the $350 mentioned by trump (who does get the insider briefings) is closer to the mark.
      there is a major difficulty is valuing weapons and military equipment as they are not traded on the open market.
      How much has gone through the black budget?
      How much is the satellite intelligence and comms worth?
      
      3 1
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      March 3, 2025 4:14pm
      - Don Beckett
        
        Trump gets his $350 billion from other reports of Ukraine sucking up $700 billion in aid etc., and the US provides approximately half of that.
        
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        March 3, 2025 5:14pm
- Graeme Hall
  
  OK, Plan A: Tell Putin unless he withdraws, Nato will do to Russia what Clinton did to Serbia. Mean it. Don’t invade an inch of Russian territory & say so, but cripple Russia’s capability to invade. Start by wiping out supply depots, roads, bridges, airfields, oil refineries, and power utilities buffering Ukraine. Putin knows if he uses nuclear he will die in a likewise fashion, along with his Soviet dream & his people.
  
  At the moment there will never be a better opportunity when Russia is so weak & Putin shows it by barking threats so loudly. The combined GDP of the Nato nations overwhelms that of Russia so in a conventional war it will lose. In addition, history shows time & time again that placating an aggressor never ends well.
  
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dane-geld_(poem)
  
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  March 3, 2025 12:27pm
  - Grunter
    
    OK Graeme – you’re saying head into WW3 – that’s what you’ve literally described above….”Start by wiping out supply depots, roads, bridges, airfields, oil refineries, and power utilities…..”
    
    So when Russia retaliates to those attacks, then what happens?
    
    The balance of power is immune to morality. A Europe v Russia war would be a human disaster. Why would you want that?
    
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    March 3, 2025 1:20pm
  - Ra Henare
    
    You assume that the Russian defence forces will stand by and let this happen?
    You do understand that Russia is a huge Country.
    Seems you perceive Russia as the area around Moscow.
    
    Dream on.
    
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    March 3, 2025 2:37pm
  - Jake Dee
    
    “Nato will do to Russia what Clinton did to Serbia. ”
    What do you mean precisely ? I’m not going to be so sarcastic to suggest that NATO threatens that unless Russia (Not Putin, it’s Russia) withdraws it will once again attack Serbia, but are you suggesting that NATO launches an all out air assault on Russia?
    That is WWIII and even IF the combined nations of western Europe and the rest of NATO could get their act together and do what Hitler and Napoleon failed to do and knock out Russia (I don’t believe they can) the damage to them would be gigantic even without nuclear weapons.
    Moscow is willing and able to do things that Brussels just isn’t.
    Pay heed to the old gambler’s proverb “Never gamble with what you aren’t willing to lose”.
    
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    March 3, 2025 4:23pm
- NothingLeft
  
  “young lives” Average soldier on both sides is 40’s-50’s, particularly for Russia that is using war to remove long-term expensive no-hoper men from population, alcoholics, drug addicts, psychiatric cases, prisoners and chronic health issue sufferers being rounded up and forced to become meat-wave cannon fodder. Here’s video of a Russian amputee forced into the field and literally having to crawl:
  https://youtu.be/I6WhVPx2C-8
  more criples being forced into action:
  https://youtu.be/2CQcftiP3jQ
  Really screams ‘strong capable Russian army’ doesn’t it?
  
  Ukraine has specifically excluded under 25’s from conscription.
  
  Russia is severely depleted (nearly out of it’s poor-performing conventional weapons from soviet era that have been used up at 10-20x rate of production), badly overmatched in dominant drone-tech, unable to raise as many infantry as in the past (signing bonuses keep rising, and now are equivalent to 5-10x yearly wages) and currently losing ground in Toretsk and Potrovsk – they are on cusp of culminating (term for when an army runs out of offensive steam).
  
  Ukraine continues to increase it’s stand-off weapons production, short and long range drones, meaning they are inflicting losses on Russia with with few losses of their own, something like a 5-10x casualty differential.
  
  Every day that passes, Ukraine gets relatively stronger, Russia relatively weaker, so time is on Ukraine’s side, and their ability to hold on and endure is greater than Russia’s – that is being increasingly crippled economically by Ukraine’s rapidly growing attacks on their infrastructure. Ukraine has now figured out how to jam heavy Russian glide bombs that had been their main tactical advantage – now negated.
  
  So every day that passes now makes Ukraine likely to get a more favorable outcome in eventual negotiations. If Europe were to significantly assist with long range drone manufacture (a few $billion would 10x their low-cost production using eg idle German car factories) then Russia’s economy would be screwed and they would be compelled to negotiate armistice favorable to Ukraine within 6-12 months.
  
  US pulling support will suck for several reasons – lack of missile defense for cities will increase civilian deaths, lack of satellite imaging and other US intelligence support will make Ukraine’s deep strike targeting less effective. But this is not to US advantage – they are paying for capability either way, and losing out on contribution to their economy from sales and being seen now as an unreliable ally.
  
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  March 3, 2025 1:43pm
  - Ra Henare
    
    There you go. Believing all the Propaganda from the West again.
    
    Ukraine getting stronger, Russia getting weaker putting Ukraine in a better bargaining position.
    
    Forget the tens of thousands of future workers despatched while this fantasy continues.
    
    9 3
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    March 3, 2025 2:40pm
    - JackRabbit
      
      And Ukraine has no real weapons production save for what other countries have been supplying.
      
      If Ukraine has more military powerful why is Zelenskyy pleading for more aid?
      
      6 2
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      March 3, 2025 4:08pm
      - NothingLeft
        
        Absolute rubbish, majority of Ukrainian weapons are now indigenously produced, almost all drones (85% of kills) and a lot of heavy vehicles, artillery etc. They are now one of largest weapon manufacturers in the world.
        
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        March 3, 2025 5:10pm
      - JackRabbit
        
        @NothingLeft
        
        Zelenskyy does not agree with you on percentages.
        
        40% is not a majority.
        
        US provides 30% of Ukraine’s weapons, domestic production covers 40%, Zelensky says
        
        https://kyivindependent.com/zelensky-says-ukraine-produces-40-of-its-battlefield-weapons-us-provides-30/
        
        We cannot survive’ without foreign weapons, say Ukrainian soldiers fearing looming Trump cuts
        
        https://kyivindependent.com/we-cannot-survive-without-us-weapons-ukrainian-soldiers-cast-doubt-on-local-arms-industry/
        
        Ukraine secures £2.26 billion UK loan for weapons production after failed Trump talks
        
        https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/ukraine-secures-2-26-billion-uk-loan-for-weapons-production-after-failed-trump-talks/articleshow/118657629.cms?from=mdr
        
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        March 3, 2025 6:58pm
  - Grunter
    
    Even Zelenskyy doesn’t believe this rubbish.
    
    Ukraine getting stronger…?? Where do you get that from? They are loosing ground people and equipment everyday. They are broke and growing debt everyday. Over the weekend they just insulted their weapons provider and gravy train.
    
    How are they getting stronger?
    
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    March 3, 2025 3:33pm
    - JackRabbit
      
      They are broke and growing debt everyday.
      
      Their debt to Blackrock and J P Morgan must be eye-watering. Without that and the money from Biden and UK, etc they wouldn’t have any military production.
      
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      March 3, 2025 7:01pm
  - Jake Dee
    
    What do you really believe you are watching in those videos?
    a man with one foot crawling on snowy ground, men walking through the forest with crutches.
    None with any unit patches or recognizable identification. Nothing explaining who took the footage, when, where or how the channel showing it obtained it.
    If they had that info then why not share it?
    Self defense against propaganda is an important skill that everyone must learn.
    
    5 2
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    March 3, 2025 4:33pm
    - NothingLeft
      
      There are ukrainian drone videos of Russians soldiers on crutches every day for months now, but this and most of the damning videos of appalling treatment of Russian soldiers are actually coming from Russian sources as these poor guys plead for someone, anyone to save them from the officers torturing, extorting and executing them if they don’t throw themselves at the Ukrainian defenders .
      
      You guys really clearly have no idea of what’s going on in Ukraine and just how broken, depleted (with outright evil leadership at every level) the Russian military is.
      
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      March 3, 2025 5:22pm
      - Jake Dee
        
        There is drone footage from Ukrainian sources that claims these events, find some that can be pinned to a specific time and place with identifying features of people or equipment.
        And the others that were shoot on the ground? What is the plausible reason to explain how they got that footage? If it was captured from the bodies of dead Russians then why not say then when and where? If it was from their secret agents then why release it? That would blow their cover, if and only if it was legitimate.
        
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        March 3, 2025 8:17pm
Bridgenag

Sunday Strip: Nut Jobs
It ain’t over till it’s over

Includes article on The NSA’s Secret Sex Chats, video of Zelensky’s previous job, crucial history lesson from Jeffrey Sachs and video of RFK talking about who really profits from the Ukraine war [Blackrock]

https://open.substack.com/pub/rwmalonemd/p/sunday-strip-nut-jobs?r=1aj1bv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
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March 3, 2025 8:15am
- JackRabbit
  
  Yep. War is about money. Blackrock.
  
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  March 3, 2025 9:58am
Bridgenag

History, not Corporate Media, defines Fascism

https://open.substack.com/pub/rwmalonemd/p/history-not-corporate-media-defines?r=1aj1bv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
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March 3, 2025 8:15am
igm

Is this sentence for real?
https://www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/360595883/gang-member-evades-police-stolen-car-unrestrained-baby
When is the Coalition going to do something about these pathetic judges?
Surely this is not the sentence New Zealand taxpayers want.
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March 3, 2025 8:18am
- Gravelroad
  
  It is fairly clear that the lives and welfare of women, and in particular children, are of little consequence to offenders or the judiciary.
  Judges seem to get sucked by the sob stories of meth addicts who say it is their childhoods that are to blame for their current self indulgent lifestyles.
  If that was true, you might be forgiven for thinking that this particular criminal could have left the girlfriend and baby at home before he took off to terrorise them and other road users.
  No?
  
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  March 3, 2025 9:25am
  - imalwaysright
    
    It used to be that the judiciary were sickened by the scumbags on trial and the appeal court would try to moderate their harsh sentences.
    
    Now we seem to have a judiciary that are enamoured of the scumbags and try their best to soften the blow of sentencing, if in fact they get convicted.
    
    Its almost like when women are attracted to the “bad boy”.
    I wonder what Freud would say about our judges?
    
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    March 3, 2025 10:57am
    - NothingLeft
      
      Women in particularly (men to a lesser extent) suffer from pathological empathy – a hang over from our evolutionary past where it made great sense in small tribes, but doesn’t scale well (in game-theoretic way) to economics in countries of millions of people where there is no concomitant demand for good contributing behavior as there is in the family or tribal context.
      
      But women are now the dominant agenda-setting peer group in the judiciary, academia, public service and ballot box – all places where this pathologized empathy has the greatest change of doing severe damage to the very people they imagine they are helping – even though every stat demonstrates their superficial ‘kindness’ makes things worse via enabling and effectively encouraging destructive behavior. It’s infantilized and immiserated generations through the creeping growth of welfare state and soft-on-crime judiciary.
      
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      March 3, 2025 1:55pm
- Chuck Bird
  
  It did not say what percentage the discounts were. National is going limit discounts if the have not done so yet.
  
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  March 3, 2025 9:28am
- Bobba Fret
  
  Not a very good judge as he was unable to discount below two years, and therefore couldn’t get home detention for the bloke//
  
  Notice how it is nearly always a Holden Commodore with these people!
  
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  March 3, 2025 2:02pm
Simon

National should be voted out but the opposition reeks. It is so dire politically. It’s all part and parcel of NZ steady and relentless decline.
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March 3, 2025 8:23am
- ISeeRed
  
  Yep. The future is blight, not bright, for New Zealand.
  
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  March 3, 2025 2:19pm
EssenX

I feel like a tech illiterate this morning: I am receiving emails from Kiwiblog on each new post since last week. However, when I open my profile there’s no way to unsubscribe and change my notification preferences. Can someone save me?
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March 3, 2025 8:24am
- cmm
  
  When you post a reply there are two check boxes just above the “post comment” button.
  “Notify me of follow-up comments by email”
  “Notify me of new posts by email”
  
  If those are checked you will get emails.
  
  So post a reply to this and uncheck those boxes.
  
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  March 3, 2025 9:19am
kowtow

As it seems OK to be tin foil hat conspiracy theorist about Trump being a Putin puppet , how about Zelensky being a Deep State Democrat puppet .

Fair’s fair .

‘Before meeting Trump, Zelensky met with anti-Trump Democrats who advised him to reject the terms of the mineral deal the president was offering, according to Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.).’

https://nypost.com/2025/03/01/opinion/dems-lead-zelensky-ukraine-off-a-cliff-with-pressure-to-reject-mineral-deal/
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March 3, 2025 8:25am
- Matt Long
  
  There’s rumours that a bunch of the ex state department people who installed Zelensky told him to reject the deal and try and stir Trump into acting foolishly.
  On a personal note Zelenksy campaigned against Trump in the latest US elections, and was involved in the cover up of the Bidens’ corruption which led to the 2019 phone call where Trump required Zelensky to investigate the corruption to receive US military aid.
  This in turn led to Trump’s first impeachment. I imagine Trump doesn’t admire Zelensky much at all.
  
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  March 3, 2025 9:08am
  - kowtow
    
    And other commentary states very clearly the sensible folk wanted it signed in Kiev or Munchen ( see what I did there) knowing the personalities involved , but Zel insisted on the visit .
    
    Who “ambushed” who.
    
    And yes Zelensky was happy to campaign for Biden as late as Sept 2024 in Scranton , swing state Pennsylvannia , Creepy Joe’s home town.
    
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    March 3, 2025 10:17am
    - Taieri
      
      the sensible folk wanted it signed in Kiev or Munchen ( see what I did there) knowing the personalities involved , but Zel insisted on the visit
      ———–
      
      “the sensible folks” who wanted it signed have their own interests at stake. I’m not a great fan of Zelensky and think that he’s fucked up big way the other day, but he is the president of Ukraine and has to act in the Ukraine’s interest. What’s more, whatever he signs has to be ratified by the Ukrainian parliament, otherwise it’s no binding. Now, we can argue until the horses come home whether Ukraine has any chance to win this war -and I don’t think it does – but the fact is that for the last three years the Ukrainians were encouraged in the illusion that they can win, by just about every country of the so called West, including the US. President Trump wants to be seen as a peacemaker. Good for him, but what does he offer to Ukraine? So far not much, apart from the real possibility of loosing 20% of its territory currently occupied by Russia, in exchange for giving in perpetuity to the US 50% of the Ukrainian mineral resources.
      So what’s the solution?
      I don’t know, but I’m just a simple anonymous commentator.
      The bigger problem is that all self appointed statesmen also don’t seem to know…
      
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      March 3, 2025 2:47pm
      - kowtow
        
        Agreed .
        
        But from what I can see the first step was to be a ceasefire.
        
        Surely we can all agree that that’s progress .
        
        Then work out the details.
        
        How many countries ever come away from these things with everything they want . In the end is it really about a country , or the lives of the people in the country , and at the moment for all the ordinary folk of Russia and Ukraine , it’s shit .
        
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        March 3, 2025 3:04pm
      - Taieri
        
        But from what I can see the first step was to be a ceasefire
        ————-
        
        Yes, but the way I read it, it’s up to Ukraine to start talking directly to Putin. Which will put it in a very inferior position. Of course nobody knows what would satisfy him. And that includes president Trump. But if the Ukrainians think that Trump can get them a better deal, they are, I think, very much mistaken. Unfortunately, if they talk to the Russians directly, they will lose a great chunk of their country (which they’ve already lost), but at least they will keep whatever resources they still have and will stop further human losses. The alternative is to fight to the last Ukrainian and to lose everything…
        
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        March 3, 2025 3:36pm
- Grunter
  
  This was openly discussed in various channels before the White House meeting. It seems many knew that Zelenskyy was doing this. Trump & Vance also knew this, and they had their own plan to expose Zelenskyy, which obviously worked in front of the global Press.
  
  How does Zelenskyy now restore any level of trust? IMO he can’t.
  
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  March 3, 2025 9:11am
  - imalwaysright
    
    It was going well for the first 30 mins, until Z thought he was dealing with a couple of mugs and decided to chance his arm.
    Unfortunately for him, said arm was immediately verbally twisted up his back and he was encouraged to leave the premises.
    
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    March 3, 2025 11:04am
- cmm
  
  Bottom line is that Trump is getting the results he wanted: * Zelensky is shopping around and less of a burden on USA.
  * When Zelensky comes back he will be a bit less entitled.
  
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  March 3, 2025 9:22am
  - herb1
    
    Yes he’s getting the results he wanted , if that’s a stronger more Bolshie Russia.
    
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    March 3, 2025 10:48am
- JackRabbit
  
  “Our puppet’s better than your puppet.”
  
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  March 3, 2025 10:02am
surfing

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/calls-to-scrap-ncea-tests-as-failure-rates-soar-in-low-income-schools/EYONPUDDP5EPRFFMP2FOI5KIVQ/

High school principals want to scrap tests because students cannot pass them.

These tests are not hard. Basic literacy and numeracy .

What were these kids learning at primary school?

Where are the maori elite, who should be encouraging education? But Maori elite say only maori education works. Therefore young maori are rejecting an education system that lead to computers and rockets and tripled the life expectancy of humans.
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March 3, 2025 8:27am
- Taieri
  
  What were these kids learning at primary school?
  ————–
  
  What are the principals and teachers at these schools being paid for?
  
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  March 3, 2025 9:10am
  - Phronesis
    
    They are being paid for their knowledge of Te Ao and Te Reo. Just have a look at state sector job adverts.
    
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    March 3, 2025 10:13am
  - kowtow
    
    Uh , uh , I know that one , please me sir .
    
    Teachers go to school to eat the pupil’s taxpayer funded lunches.
    
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    March 3, 2025 10:19am
- AndyW
  
  Makoura College’s principal, ““Our NCEA results are really good but that’s not due to the CAAs, that’s due to the alternative pathway, which I believe is just as a robust as a CAA.”….all that proves is that internal ‘assessment’ is absolute bollocks.
  
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  March 3, 2025 9:18am
- cmm
  
  Socialists depend on a weak population that needs them. Ideally everyone would be on welfare (part of the reason we have WFF and Super).
  
  Maori elite are the same. If Maori can stand on their own two legs then they don’t need the Maori elite.
  
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  March 3, 2025 9:24am
- John Loveridge
  
  Teachers have just one job. They can’t even do that, it seems.
  
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  March 3, 2025 10:05am
  - NothingLeft
    
    Because they are prevented from being effective educators by decades of delusional ‘academic’ advances in pedagogical practice and stripping out of any demands for or focus on achievement.
    
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    March 3, 2025 2:00pm
    - Pope Punctilious II
      
      Agreed, on this site there’s too much bashing of teachers, and nowhere near enough bashing of the Ministry of Education.
      
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      March 3, 2025 7:35pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  What were these kids learning at primary school?
  
  Exactly.
  
  I don’t believe for one minute that all/most children from the most economically deprived schools are inherently incapable of passing the basic literacy and numeracy tests.
  
  I believe they have been exposed to an inferior education at primary school where there has been little emphasis on checking that each child is making solid progress with their reading, comprehension, writing and maths skills.
  
  This cohort of pupils about to take the Basic NCEA tests have been further penalised by the 2 years of Educational neglect during covid lockdowns and requested isolation periods.
  
  Somehow the pupils were expected to engage in Zoom, online lessons…and numerous devices were sent to low-income families we were told…. but now we have Principals of secondary schools telling us that their pupils can’t do online tests.
  
  https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-coronavirus-education-tv-channels-and-free-computers-to-boost-home-learning/HDIEBGYPCFJO25SGVZITYMD47M/
  
  I really wonder how many primary teachers and pupils engaged in any teaching & learning during the 2020-2022 period.
  
  https://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/schooling2/digital-technology/evaluation-of-provision-of-connectivity-and-devices-a-covid-19-response
  
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  March 3, 2025 10:11am
  - cmm
    
    “I believe they have been exposed to an inferior education”
    
    I believe that all kids are exposed to an inferior education.
    
    The difference is that some parents top up that education by participating (checking homework, reading to their kids, encouraging good marks,…).
    
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    March 3, 2025 12:30pm
- Notsofast
  
  When the chiefs saw what written language and technology achieved for the British they said we need to speak this language, and hence the move against kids speaking Maori later on.
  English and maths are still in vogue for most and still available for these hapless part Maori kids whose lives are being wrecked by adults who should know better.
  
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  March 3, 2025 11:45am
- Paulus
  
  Primary School taught them to do the Haka and bang their feet !
  
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  March 3, 2025 2:15pm
artemisia

Most health care workers think cuts are damaging services – survey

As someone once said – Well they would say that, wouldn’t they.

There’s the management mantra – There’s 30% waste in every process.

How many unhappy, overworked staffers identify and report waste in their processes? And how many bosses listen and act?

And how many are busily solving the wrong problem because they have not identified the root cause? Busily? More like busy work.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/543517/most-health-care-workers-think-cuts-are-damaging-services-survey
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March 3, 2025 8:34am
- peterwn
  
  It all depends if the wrong jobs are being eliminated or the long people let go. It could come down to lower level decision makers making employment decisions that may be ‘self serving’. A new manager (from outside the organisation) was charged with downsizing staff. He naturally discussed options with his immediate subordinates and worked out a list of redundancies. Others in the wider organisation know that some some of the ‘wrong’ people were being let go. Some time later the new manager admitted that he let some of the wrong people go and should have consulted more widely. In particular he should have made more of his immediate reports redundant and give their tasks to the remaining ones.
  I suspect similar things are happening in the health service.
  One of the issues is the reduction of receptionists is placing more burden on doctors and nurses. Management needs to address this concern by considering alternatives. For example your GP orders blood tests. In the past you turn up at the test place and saw a receptionist who took your paperwork and told you to take a seat. Nowadays a you ‘take a number’ and scan it. The computer system tells that number to the next available blood-taker who calls you in. Similarly patients attending outpatient clinics should be able to scan their appointment letters (like scanning your boarding pass at the airport) and the next available and suitable doctor or nurse is notified that the patient has ‘checked in’.
  Possibly there is too much inertia to try and enhance systems so a larger burden is placed on doctors and nurses.
  
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  March 3, 2025 9:00am
  - rouppe
    
    My understanding is that the vast majority of staff reductions come from voluntary redundancy, not from targeted redundancy.
    
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    March 3, 2025 9:27am
    - artemisia
      
      And vacancies cancelled. End of the day, managers make the decisions and are supposed to understand their job.
      
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      March 3, 2025 11:08am
    - peterwn
      
      That is a problem in itself. Voluntary redundancies are OK for those near retirement but are effectively a cash bonus for skilled and highly employable employees. It is OK to ask people if they are OK with being made redundant before the event to aid selection but skilled staff should not be let go, indeed they should perhaps be offered a retention bonus.
      Redundancies are likely to be a drain on an organisation because skilled and employable people are in a similar position to Brer Rabbit when Brer Fox was considering throwing him into the briar patch.
      
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      March 3, 2025 2:08pm
      - Paulus
        
        Our Council redundies a few years ago was taken up and in a short time an outside new contractor was employed to do the jobs, because of their experience previously with the Council.
        
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        March 3, 2025 2:19pm
    - Pope Punctilious II
      
      Dumb policy. Voluntary redundancies rarely shift the people who need to be booted out.
      
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      March 3, 2025 7:36pm
  - cmm
    
    This was happening last time I was admitted to hospital (2022).
    
    Nobody wants to get rid of nurses, but they got rid of nurse aids instead. The result of that was that now nurses were running around making beds and doing other things that nurse aids did.
    
    That means they more skilled and higher paid nurses are wasting their time doing lower skilled and less well paid work. Very inefficient.
    
    I see that in corporates too. They cut the people doing shipping or booking flights because the engineers can do that themselves. That just means that a job that would have taken the shipping clerk 5 minutes now takes an engineer 30 minutes.
    
    It might look like they’ve saved a shipping clerk’s salary but instead they are losing 6x engineer’s salaries instead.
    
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    March 3, 2025 9:30am
    - JackRabbit
      
      cmm,
      
      I know of one case where a very senior heart specialist had been forced to do shifts in ED, as general medical care.
      
      I know of another case where a young doctor already working long hours over 6 days, was forced to come into work on her only day off, because a ward was “short-staffed”, and was promised triple time.
      
      When she arrived, she was told there was no money in the budget to her pay her for her extra hours, let alone at triple rates. They told her to “suck it up buttercup”. She ensured there was a minimum compliment of doctors on the ward and went home. Like other colleagues, she transferred out of medical into research to get away from the bullying.
      
      I’ve had other conversations over the last 4 years, about the intense bullying.
      
      When I was in hospital in 2021, and on subsequent followup visits, I observed stupid rules that prevented the staff from working efficiently, and putting patients lives at risk. The systems were like Fawlty Towers on steroids. The staff were wonderful, but whoever controlled management was a sick unit.
      
      And Andrew Little’s re-organisation of the health system threw it back 100 years in terms of efficiency, and ironically as a former union man, trampled all over the workers.
      
      Any wonder we have lost so many good health professionals.
      
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      March 3, 2025 10:16am
      - peterwn
        
        But the interests of the unions do not often align with the interests of their members.
        When Tony Ryall became Minister of Health in 2008 he reviewed the changes that Helen Clark and Annette King had previously made. He considered that the best way forward was to accept the system as it was then just tweak and build on things. If Andrew Little had any sense he would have adopted the same approach since most of what was in place had been put there by a previous Labour government!
        
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        March 3, 2025 12:13pm
      - cmm
        
        Last time I was admitted (less than 24 hours in 2022) I was in the cardiology ward. This is quite specialized nursing and requires a lot of knowledge about the equipment.
        
        For example, they have 3 or 4 different pulse oxymeters in the ward and only one type works on atrial fibrillation patients. The skilled staff know this. The core skilled staff have been there for an average of over 10 years. The less experienced nurses need those experienced people.
        
        In 2022 they were losing those skilled staff. Many were going overseas. Some were retiring. One nurse I spoke with (over 30 years experience – 12 in cardiology) was considering taking a factory shift packing vegetables.
        
        The main complaint was overwork/stress, followed by salaries.
        
        Adding nurse aids would alleviate most of the overwork/stress. A 5% pay increase would have addressed most of those grumblings too.
        
        Andrew Little was a supreme fuckwit. While it seems the bleeding has stopped, the biggest question is whether the situation can be reversed.
        
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        March 3, 2025 12:40pm
    - Sacha
      
      “That means the more skilled and higher paid nurses are wasting their time doing lower skilled and less well paid work. Very inefficient.”
      They are not maintaining machinery!
      “Running around making beds” can give a nurse a lot of information about their patients. It means that they are out in the wards, available, not sitting in an office. It means that a patient can ask for attention (?care) without ringing a bell.
      Nurse Aids are a great help in a busy ward, but they are NOT Registered Nurses.
      
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      March 3, 2025 10:36am
      - cmm
        
        Of course Nurse Aids are not full-on nurses, but running around making beds takes the nurses away from their core function.
        
        Similarly fixing printer jams because there are reductions in IT support people to do that, ordering supplies, and all those other little functions that keep a ward ticking over.
        
        Yes, I do agree though that nurses need to be spending time with patents rather than just sitting in the offices. It does seem that technology has disconnected staff from the patients – not to the benefit of the patients or even the staff.
        
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        March 3, 2025 12:46pm
- JackRabbit
  
  @artemisia
  
  The cuts should start at the top, starting with those in management that took the blanket “vaccine exemption” while blackmailing those below them in to “get it or lose your job”.
  
  I do know of a number of contractors who refused the vaccine, were granted the exemptions, but did not force their staff to get vaccinated. They can keep their jobs, and they proved they have principles.
  
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  March 3, 2025 10:24am
- Ra Henare
  
  On a more positive note.
  
  Recently I self identified a small cancer on my head. No problem. Went to the clinic of a top Dermatologist same afternoon, no appointment required. (Trained in Germany Professor at local Medical School.)
  
  Seen within 15 minutes. He confirmed my self diagnosis and advised surgery was required. 2 days later, surgery done, including 7 followup daily visits to check and redress the wound. Including medication and biopsy lab report. Total less than $450.
  
  2 days ago decide I needed an indepth eye check.
  Same day, went to a clinic. Japanese MD Phd Ophthalmologist. Walk in wait 15 minutes. Eyes checked with state-of-the-art equipment, in-depth discussion with the Doctor. All good. The cost $27.
  
  Of course, this wasn’t first world NZ.
  But supposedly 3rd world Cambodia!!!!
  Where most medical services are Privately owned.
  
  Note: No social welfare here or income tax on locals on basic income.
  
  Note: Some time ago, I visited Cambodia’s largest “”public”” hospital for a hernia check. Cost $50 USD mainly because I was a foreigner….
  
  Looking forward to coming home this week and seeing for myself all the doom and gloom spreading around on KB.
  
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  March 3, 2025 3:00pm
  - rouppe
    
    In Siam Reap or did you have to go to Phnom Penh?
    
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    March 3, 2025 5:31pm
    - Ra Henare
      
      Cancer was in Phnom Penh at the time having lunch with my Russian Doctor friend(No we dont talk politics) Ophthalmologist Siem Reap
      
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      March 3, 2025 6:32pm
Yvette

The rise of Treaty ideology in NZ’s professional sectors
https://centrist.nz/the-rise-of-treaty-ideology-in-nzs-professional-sectors/?
From midwifery to internet governance, pharmacy regulations, and others, many industry bodies are embedding partisan ideological commitments to Te Tiriti o Waitangi into their rules.
Critics argue that this is often at the expense of professional competence and neutrality.

The article links to Bassett, Brash, and Hide

What none of this mentions, is where did all this “ideology” arise and why?
Did the Maori Caucus threaten to breakaway from Labour under Ardern?
To understand why it has happened may play a part in stopping it from happening.
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March 3, 2025 8:44am
- Blog-aholic
  
  Psychology Council at it too:
  THE TIRITI CHECKLIST FOR PSYCHOLOGISTS
  I understand Te Tiriti o Waitangi and its principles of Tino Rangatiratanga and partnership in all psychological practices.
  I’m prepared to cede power to Māori in the design, delivery, and evaluation of all psychological services.
  I actively promote equity for Māori in all aspects of mental health care, regardless of the patient’s background.
  I actively engage in and implement Māori mātauranga Māori in my work.
  I challenge colonization, systemic racism, and any form of inequality in all aspects of my professional practice.
  I ensure Māori are not only included but lead in psychological service delivery.
  I actively and publicly support the political agenda of Māori activists to the fullest extent possible.
  I recognize that the mana of Māori supersedes all other cultural norms in my practice.
  
  Are we ‘done’ yet New Zealand?
  
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  March 3, 2025 9:51am
  - Don Beckett
    
    God help us !!!
    Where did all this lunacy come from?
    Why isn’t the Govt. acting to stamp this crap out?
    More & more of the people we need is this country are moving, or thinking of moving overseas.
    My son is one of them – a sought after & high end builder. He is currently booked up till the end of 2027 and employs 6 carpenters directly, and many sub-contractors.
    I spoke to him last week – he is even considering moving to Oz next year & cancelling any contracts he has not dtarted.
    
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    March 3, 2025 11:23am
    - Southtop2
      
      I was wondering this morning about how many police, nurses and teachers left NZ partially because they could not put up with the views and values of one ethnicity being forced down their throats.
      Sure salaries and ‘grass is always greener’ is there but not being forced to adopt a particular view wouldn’t help, especially if your mates/friends/relatives were giving you a hard time about it.
      
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      March 3, 2025 11:36am
      - cmm
        
        Carrot AND stick.
        
        Few people will move for a single reason, but put together a raft of reasons and they will certainly do so.
        
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        March 3, 2025 12:48pm
      - Toko
        
        I have a young kiwi relative in the health sector looking at settling down after travelling. Said the Health Ministry recruitment ads were a turn off to returning to NZ, as the emphasis was on the treaty and all things Maori. She was surprised at the rate of change in two years, and is likely to settle in Aussie. God knows what foreign professionals make of it all. We are rapidly turning into a very strange little insular country. The treaty industry is out of control.
        
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        March 3, 2025 1:14pm
    - Paulus
      
      Too late the horses have bolted – starting in earnest some 30 years ago and under Helen Clark and her feminist cohorts.
      Since then the alternative Government called the Waitangi Tribunal ruled, the Judges, in whatever they want, and get away with it under some false languages.
      New Zealand is irreparably damaged, so that is why, for example, our Education results are ratshit and will continue.
      
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      March 3, 2025 2:26pm
    - Pope Punctilious II
      
      “Why isn’t the Govt. acting to stamp this crap out?”
      
      Because most of the Nats either support it, or else are too afraid to oppose it. Say what you like about Seymour’s TP bill, but my understanding is that it’s intended to shut this crap down.
      
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      March 3, 2025 7:41pm
  - kowtow
    
    Blog
    
    Please tell me you left out the sarc thingies .
    
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    March 3, 2025 12:38pm
    - Blog-aholic
      
      …..if only it was satire…..
      
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      March 3, 2025 1:13pm
      - kowtow
        
        That being the case I will make a further comment. In all seriousness ( and Anglicans and Catholics will get this)
        What struck me when reading that was it literally comes across like the Nicene Creed!
        
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        March 3, 2025 3:18pm
  - goNZ1
    
    was that signed by Rosenberg or Mengele?
    
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    March 3, 2025 2:21pm
- pdm
  
  `Did the Maori Caucus threaten to breakaway from Labour under Ardern?’
  
  Even if they did not threaten to breakaway and I think they probably did, they sure as hell had `the whip hand’.
  
  People like Mahuta and Jackson controlled the narrative and had Ardern by the `short and curlies’ as the saying goes.
  
  To the detriment of all New Zealanders.
  
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  March 3, 2025 10:10am
- Phronesis
  
  It’s got very little to do with Maori. The same thing is happening throughout the western world’s bureaucracies. It’s essentially a hostile takeover by the mediocre. They can’t compete in the traditional sense of a battle of wits or competence. So they move the goalposts so that you win by having the right beliefs.
  Identity has replaced skill and competence to such a degree that there is no going back in many ministries.
  
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  March 3, 2025 10:25am
  - Observant Octagenarian
    
    I think it is the UNDIP the United Nations Declaration of Indigenous Peoples.
    You will see these rebellions in Canada, Australia, the US, the UK and here.
    
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    March 3, 2025 11:54am
    - Phronesis
      
      But the Celts aren’t benefitting in the UK which goes to show that the indigenous peoples thing is a red herring. Interestingly if you look up who was actually employed in the massive DEI bureaucracy in the US it was mostly white women.
      
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      March 3, 2025 12:54pm
      - kowtow
        
        That was in the DEI industry as those wimmin had degrees . Soon enough they’d have been replaced with “Trans” .
        And the civil service in the US and many western countries are being used not as servants of the people but as serving social policy goals by hiring folk who may not normally have got such good employment in the private sector .
        
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        March 3, 2025 4:01pm
      - Pope Punctilious II
        
        UNDRIP isn’t meant for people like the Irish, Highland Scots or Bretons. “Indigenous” in this context invariably means people who’ve only recently been dragged out of a subsistence existence by colonization.
        
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        March 3, 2025 7:44pm
    - Toko
      
      The agreement that John Key said was ‘symbolic only’ and a ‘nice gesture’, but which is now a manual for Co-Governance. It is rapidly being implemented throughout the public service as every ministry tries to be ‘treaty led’. Now it has crept into professional bodies as the bureaucratic treaty unproductive blob expands. We can’t afford it.
      
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      March 3, 2025 1:22pm
      - Miritu
        
        Yes. Plenty of frustration at this hostile takeover, but not much curiosity about where it started or who is behind it. That needs more exposure.
        
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        March 3, 2025 2:19pm
      - NeverMindTheBollocks
        
        Ask John Key to come back and fix up his mess
        
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        March 3, 2025 4:32pm
      - Pope Punctilious II
        
        Key. Bolger. Shipley. Finlayson. The Nats are co-responsible for the mess we now find are ourselves in. It ain’t just Labour’s doing.
        
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        March 3, 2025 8:38pm
SmokerGuy

As much as I thought JD Vance and Trump were very disrespectful and lacking any empathy in last week’s press conference, you have to give credit to them for actually getting things moving in a different direction in Ukraine. This war would have gone on for years with Biden’s approach but now there’s much scrambling by Europe to try and put an end to this. Who knows how it will end but there needed to be a circuit breaker and Trump has provided that. I don’t like the guy but to be fair he’s not willing to just let things tick along, maybe the world needs something like that right now.
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March 3, 2025 8:48am
- Burtland
  
  “who knows how it will end” encouraging a mafia state has never ended well
  
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  March 3, 2025 10:19am
  - Local Miller
    
    When I read this: “As much as I thought JD Vance and Trump were very disrespectful and lacking any empathy in last week’s press conference”, my immediate question is: “Did you watch the whole interview, and in particular over the portion where things went south?”
    
    If you watch it all, it’s quite clear that Zelensky went seriously off script, and it was actually Zelensky’s belligerence caused the change in demeanor of the whole meeting.
    
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    March 3, 2025 11:59am
    - SmokerGuy
      
      I did actually. Regardless of what he said, the guys country was invaded and many of his people have been slaughtered. Did he deserve the public berating he got? I don’t think he said anything particularly bad. Saying he never expressed gratitude is absolute bullocks because he has done that before for sure. Do you trust Putin? You’d have to be nuts to trust that guy. He was just pointing that out and who could blame him for that.
      
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      March 3, 2025 12:08pm
      - cmm
        
        ” Regardless of what he said, the guys country was invaded and many of his people have been slaughtered.”
        
        That is an astounding oversimplification.
        
        Ukraine has been having a bloody civil war for well over a decade before the Russians got involved. Ethnic Russians who are citizens of Ukraine have been persecuted and bombed etc by their own government.
        
        “… his people slaughtered…” civilian casualties are not much higher than at other times and the majority of those seem to be far away from where “his people” are. Kiev, the centre of “his people” (ie. the centre of Zelensky’s popularity) saw just 89 civilians killed during the Battlee of Kiev, so not very many of “his people” are being killed.
        
        Trying to paint Zelensky as some under-dog hero is ridiculous. There are no good guys in the situation.
        
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        March 3, 2025 12:59pm
      - Bridgenag
        
        please look at the video on my post today
        
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        March 3, 2025 1:35pm
      - NothingLeft
        
        Putin created the civil war – he was pumping in money, weapons and soldiers to foment it after his puppet govt were voted out in 2014 (remember how his troops shot down the Dutch airliner using missiles he supplied from within Ukraine as a false flag?) and he kept the conflict going to give him a cassis belli for his 2022 invasion.
        
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        March 3, 2025 2:05pm
      - Steve Otto N Shore
        
        Zelensky did deserve it. He needed to be told to put his hands in his pockets and not continuously asking for handouts. He can get his handouts from Europe.
        Why should the American Taxpayer give him billions? Sure, some money went to the US arms manufacturing, but why?
        
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        March 3, 2025 3:38pm
- Philview
  
  I read in the US media that heated discussions were going on before the press conference. We don’t know how Zelensky presented himself in the prior discussions.
  
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  March 3, 2025 11:32am
  - Local Miller
    
    All the pre-meeting negotiations went well. This was supposed to be a final signing with minimal interaction, but Zenensky went off and derailed the process. From what I saw, this was all on him. The MSM of course won’t admit this.
    
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    March 3, 2025 12:01pm
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    Before the press conference – with the warmongering Democrats.
    
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    March 3, 2025 3:40pm
- sirknz
  
  I see that the European governments have decided to work together to negotiate a 1 month ceasefire, no mention of talking to the Russians yet, and they freely admit that they will need the US to implement anything that the are pushing for.
  
  So a big fancy headline that makes it look like they have achieved something that the US couldn’t, but in the article it is revealed that all they have agreed to do is send their young men (none of whom will be any of the recent muslim ‘migrants’) into the meat grinder and give more money to Zelensky’s retirement fund so that his wife can buy another Bugatti.
  
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  March 3, 2025 11:35am
  - Northshoredoc
    
    Why do you feel the need to enhance your comment with lies?
    
    “A Bugatti car, a first lady and the fake stories aimed at Americans’
    
    https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c72ver6172do
    
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    March 3, 2025 11:53am
    - cmm
      
      Yup, it was only a Ferrari and pearls, not a Bugatti and diamonds. People shouldn’t make shit up.
      
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      March 3, 2025 1:01pm
      - Northshoredoc
        
        If that’s so I’m sure you’ll be able to supply a citation for that claim.
        
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        March 3, 2025 1:10pm
  - SmokerGuy
    
    That may be true but at least something is happening, previously it’s just continue to give money without anything being tried to stop this war. Trump has forced Europe to actually try and do something, whether it will result in anything meaningful who knows. But Trump deserves some credit for that (and I am by no means a Trump supporter).
    
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    March 3, 2025 12:02pm
- Taieri
  
  Who knows how it will end
  ————
  
  It will end in the formal partition of Ukraine. Putin will get what he’s set out to get. At the cost of hundreds of thousand lives and destroyed infrastructure and economy. But the armaments dealers will be rubbing their hands. And the poor bastards at the receiving end will be even poorer than they were before it all started. There’ll just be many less of them…
  
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  March 3, 2025 12:16pm
  - NothingLeft
    
    Russia will fall apart into warlordism in next 1-2 decades. Their economy and army are so depleted, and demographic collapse and brain drain so dire that they won’t be able to hold break-away regions in check for much longer.
    
    But all this will be swept aside by the Singularity as it unfolds around us over next decade, making all these and other socio political problems irrelevant (we’ll have bigger problems +existential risk to deal with).
    
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    March 3, 2025 2:11pm
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      Russia will fall apart into warlordism in next 1-2 decades.
      
      That’s possible..
      
      It’s basically what happened to Ukraine
      
      https://www.researchgate.net/publication/377442969_Clans_of_Ukraine_Analyzing_Links_Between_Key_Groups_of_the_Ukrainian_Oligarchy_and_European_and_US_Families_and_Institutions
      
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      March 3, 2025 7:13pm
imalwaysright

The Maorification of New Zealand seems to be happening at the expense of our individual human rights.

Does the Human Rights Commissioner think it’s OK for individuals to be coerced into a belief system they don’t agree with.
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March 3, 2025 8:57am
- RoboRob
  
  ‘Human Rights Commissioner’, another meaningless government department sucking up funds and providing no actual benefit to New Zealanders.
  
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  March 3, 2025 10:52am
  - cmm
    
    HRC is another one of those “beard” organisations like IPCA. They give the appearance of oversight and control but are toothless and achieve nothing.
    
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    March 3, 2025 1:03pm
    - imalwaysright
      
      HRC.
      They are selective of whose human rights they decide to protect.
      That’s not what it says on the tin…
      
      Maybe SHRC would be a more appropriate initialism.
      Some Human’s Rights Commission
      
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      March 3, 2025 1:38pm
- Yvette
  
  The corollary of religious freedom is surely to be free of it.
  The State should be secular, not raising one SECTion of society beliefs above all others.
  It would be easy to see Sharia Law as being a little inappropriate to foist on the general population – so why the difficulty with those aspects of tikanga which are “religious” in origin and use? – why raise Maori religious belief in Aryan exceptualism above all other similar thought?
  
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  March 3, 2025 11:00am
I remember when

Dr Olsen-Reeder:
“Once the pakeha government was established here, from there the desire grew to exterminate the Maori people.”

The percentage of non-Maori blood in the Maori population suggests the approach was to love them to death.
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March 3, 2025 9:14am
- Taieri
  
  “Once the pakeha government was established here, from there the desire grew to exterminate the Maori people.
  ————-
  
  And this extermination was mainly effected by giving the Maori people European surnames. Such as for example Olsen-Reeder.
  
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  March 3, 2025 10:12am
  - Phronesis
    
    Don’t forget the title “Dr”. I’m concerned that this “academic” has internalised the imperial genocide of their people by adopting such a blatantly colonial title.
    We should help them out by stripping it immediately.
    
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    March 3, 2025 1:02pm
    - Steve Otto N Shore
      
      Doctor of Philosophy – PhD Māori Studies.
      There ya go.
      
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      March 3, 2025 3:48pm
      - Taieri
        
        Ieni’s doctoral research investigated the effectiveness of bilingualism as a theoretical approach to revitalisation, and the ways in which a bilingualism approach could remove some of the anxieties surrounding Māori language use among Māori speakers. It is the University’s first thesis to be written and defended in te reo Māori.
        
        https://wellingtonuni-professional.nz/presenter-bio-vincent-ieni-olsen-reeder/
        
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        March 3, 2025 4:33pm
- imalwaysright
  
  People who are 95% white complaining they are oppressed by people who are 99% white.
  
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  March 3, 2025 10:21am
- JackRabbit
  
  The Maori elite are brainwashing the public into believing that Pakeha are like Daleks to the Maori. “Exterminate, Exterminate, Exterminate.”
  
  How can Colonists be accused of exterminating anyone, when the colonist medicine and technology has increased Maori life expectancy to over 250% of what it was, and in many cases dying of old age instead of being eaten alive in battle with another tribe.
  
  Live a long life in comfort or be eaten alive by zombies? The choice is not difficult.
  
  Perhaps all those zombie movies weer inspired by stories of cannibalism.
  
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  March 3, 2025 10:27am
  - MCōs
    
    I’ve read that prior to the 20th century western medical knowledge was so primitive as to be virtually useless particularly in far off outposts such as colonial NZ
    What’s worse the new arrivals brought diseases with them the locals had no immunity to and thousands died as a consequence
    
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    March 3, 2025 11:55am
    - JackRabbit
      
      Stopping cannibalism was part of that medical knowledge.
      
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      March 3, 2025 12:07pm
    - Jack5
      
      Cossie, Cossie …
      
      Second point first: NZ had been isolated from 99 per cent of other people of the world for six or seven centuries. First relinking into the world was bound to bring in a wave of diseases to which they had either lost immunity or never developed immunity.
      
      First point: have a look at these medical advances in the Western world of the 19th century, and many of them before 1840.
      
      https://interestingengineering.com/lists/15-medical-inventions-and-discoveries-of-the-1800s-that-have-come-to-define-modern-medicine
      
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      March 3, 2025 12:12pm
    - cmm
      
      “I’ve read that prior to the 20th century western medical knowledge was so primitive”
      
      Where did you read crap like that?
      
      Knowledge is always relatively primitive when viewed from 120+ years later. What is important is not the knowledge itself but the process of improving the knowledge.
      
      You might say that 19the century knowledge was useless, but that would be bullshit. Here are just a few things that were available in western medical knowledge before the 20th century:
      * some significant medicine . Germ theory – probably the largest single step forward in medicine was established and rolled out in the 1800s.
      * the use of statistics and proper scientific methods (in medicine and other uses).
      * microscopes providing knowledge about things we couldn’t see.
      * properly documented understanding of the human body
      * anasthesia
      * the importance of good sanitation/clean drinking water, nutrition.
      * the provision of good sanitation/drinking water and nutrition.
      * chemistry (real understanding, not just folklore).
      * written language, allowing accurate record keeping
      * systems of measurement.
      * steel, glass and other materials allowing the manufacture of equipment.
      
      Then outside of medicine there was also a long list of knowledge, including:
      * wheel, horse, steam engine, rail
      * steel and various other metals, glass and many other materials
      * selective breeding based on scientific methods
      * mathematics including calculus etc.
      * map making and proper navigation
      * compasses etc.
      * proper astronomy (being able to calculate orbits etc).
      * understanding how weather processes work.
      * proper physics able to design buildings, bridges etc.
      * accounting, law making and all that goes into building complex societies.
      * the concepts of justice and fairness (not just might is right)
      * democratic systems
      * musical instruments, formal musical scales and scripts.
      * advanced optics: microscope, telescope,…
      * electricity
      
      Yup, bloody useless all of it.
      
      All of those are things the Polynesians lacked.
      
      It seems what was really important was knowing to plant your kumara after a certain star was visible in the sky, and that Rangi pulled the North Island out of the sea when he was fishing.
      
      The most important part though is the scientific process which is what drives forward knowledge via continual improvement.
      
      The West does not sit on its bum and consider 400 year old bullshit about pulling islands out of the ocean “knowledge”.
      
      In 50 years time we can expect Western scientific (and medical) knowledge to have made significant advances. Polynesian “knowledge” is unlikely to have moved on at all.
      
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      March 3, 2025 1:36pm
      - Miritu
        
        “.. Germ theory – probably the largest single step forward in medicine was established and rolled out in the 1800s”
        While you make a good point overall, this particular claim is attracting some serious challenges:
        5 Spectacular Fails From Germ Theory:
        https://drsambailey.com/resources/videos/germ-theory/5-spectacular-fails-from-germ-theory/
        
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        March 3, 2025 2:39pm
      - JackRabbit
        
        cmm
        
        You forgot that Maori had interplanetary travel and so had no need for the wheel, or any of that western mumbo jumbo. ///
        
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        March 3, 2025 4:11pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  And how many Year 9 (3rd Form) pupils are exposed to this socio-linguist’s view?
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uemvzee6S1U
  
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  March 3, 2025 10:55am
- mandk
  
  Could Dr Olsen-Reeder explain how the Māori population has grown 10-fold since the pakeha government was established ref Te Ara), if the intention was to exterminate Māori?
  
  Could he also explain why Māori would want to exterminate themselves, given the Treaty established (in his view) co-governance?
  
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  March 3, 2025 11:10am
  - Jack5
    
    Blurb on Olsen-Reeder from the Spinoff blog:
    
    Dr. Vini Olsen-Reeder (Ngā Pōtiki a Tamapahore, Ngāti Pūkenga, Ngāi Te Rangi, Te Arawa) is a te reo Māori lecturer at Victoria University, specialising in sociolinguistics and language revival. He is a published historical fiction and fiction author, poet, songwriter and translator.
    
    Two points.
    
    First, Wananga were set up and taxpayer financed to provide a Maori tertiary education sytem, parallel to universities and polytechnics.
    
    So why are so many people like Olsen-Reeder employed teaching in the NZ university system which is for the whole population?
    
    Looks like a case of mine’s mine and half of yours is mine, too.
    
    Second, sociolinguistics is a side-stream of linguistics that’s been polluted by Leftists who emphasise social-class elements and effects of languages. Neo-Marxism pops up often in this. Why is a Victoria University academic promoting this bullshit?
    
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    March 3, 2025 11:57am
    - NeverMindTheBollocks
      
      Must be something that slipped out of his fiction writing side
      
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      March 3, 2025 4:37pm
  - JackRabbit
    
    @mandk
    
    The Treaty of Waitangi put an end to Maori self extermination i.e. cannibalism.
    
    I doubt Dr Olsen-Reeder could answer any rational questions, requiring rational thought.
    
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    March 3, 2025 4:14pm
- Paulus
  
  Winston said a couple of years ago that to be on the Maori Roll the relationship was 1/512 and much greater now.
  It appears that a Samoan now with relationships can be a Maori too.
  
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  March 3, 2025 2:29pm
  - JackRabbit
    
    I heard that is someone who is 100% non Maori has a one night stand with someone Maori or part Maori, they can claim to have Maori in them.
    
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    March 3, 2025 4:16pm
rouppe

What has happened to this child is incredibly distressing.

But it was not caused by cultural deficiency in the health system. It drives me nuts that failures in the health system are pumped up as because the patient is Maori, rather than because the medical staff got it wrong.
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March 3, 2025 9:31am
- sirknz
  
  These dingbats were using ‘traditional methods’ to treat eczema. The traditional healing methods were working so well that the poor kid got a staph infection in the eczema.
  
  Somehow, this is all the fault of the staff working in the health system.
  
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  March 3, 2025 10:49am
- Sacha
  
  Many years ago when I was a student nurse-in-training we had a similar case.
  A baby about 6 months old, arrived in the Children’s Ward covered in ‘eczema’ with reddened, peeling skin. It screamed when touched. The poor child was kept in isolation, swabbed & tested and covered in this cream and that, covered with bandages, then unbandaged, bathed in skin-soothing liquids, fed with special foods, nursed on a sunbed, then dressed in sterile gowns, and after about a month was recovered enough to go home, presumably to live an ordinary life.
  The cause was never discovered, and I only remember it because it was often quoted over the years as an example of the mysteries of childhood ailments, and I was there.
  
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  March 3, 2025 10:56am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  There’s no immediate solution to every medical problem and often times the medical fraternity have to work through an array of possibilities.
  
  Staph infected eczema is always a possibility, but so is an unexpected flare-up from an unknown allergen, or a fungus or a virus.
  
  I had friends (husband with medical science background) whose infant developed badly weeping eczema as he was weaned. It took them quite a time to establish the child was allergic to legumes (soy products, peanuts, lentils). As the family was vegetarian – it presented quite a challenge to remove this main protein source from his diet.
  
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  March 3, 2025 11:14am
Chuck Bird

I must pass this on to the Methane Science Accord.

Satellites reveal world’s worst methane emitters—New Zealand doesn’t even register

https://centrist.nz/satellites-reveal-worlds-worst-methane-emitters-new-zealand-doesnt-even-register/?
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March 3, 2025 9:43am
- Jethrod
  
  Ahh…..but it’s the other forms of hot air that NEW ZEALAND produces is what causes the angst.
  
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  March 3, 2025 10:30am
vand

The churches I have been involved in make little surplus after expenses -that will include some charitable work so it won’t impact much on them. Maybe the bigger churches will have to pay tax but some )possibly more than smaller churches} spending likewise will be charitable- who will decide or check up on charitable spending as part of the overall expenses? What about the iwi charitable orgs!
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March 3, 2025 9:46am
- Eastlander
  
  The whole beat-up just recalls the Soviet Union’s first major assault upon the church. When they tallied up the results of their expropriation of church property the value of what had been seized was about 5% of what they had projected at the outset – so much for their propaganda about fat priests living in luxury off the sweat of the workers. Not that most of them learned anything much from the experience.
  
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  March 3, 2025 2:07pm
kevn

[Post some context with your links. mod.]
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March 3, 2025 10:35am
kevn

[Post some context with your links. mod.]
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March 3, 2025 10:36am
- imalwaysright
  
  People are upticking and downticking two posts that don’t exist !
  
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  March 3, 2025 12:51pm
imalwaysright

I see Justin Castreau has inserted himself into the European Pearl Clutching meeting yesterday.
What a sad little man.
Probably sadder than Z.
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March 3, 2025 11:09am
- Conservatarian
  
  How much longer will he suspend the parliament of America’s Progressive Tophat? I understand he is clinging on until the Canadian Libs vote in globalist central banker Mark Carney to campaign for re-election.
  
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  March 3, 2025 1:24pm
Sparrow

Rhineland=Crimea ×
Sudetenland=Donbas x
Czechslovakia =Ukraine?
Poland= Poland?
Remember
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March 3, 2025 11:13am
Philview

I was reading some discussion on LinkedIn yesterday about changing the electoral cycle to 4 years. I think the commentary was in response to Max Rashbrooke’s post. People were talking about having a Senate to provide more democratic accountability. The disturbing aspect was discussion on applying Te Tiriti to the Senate with someone proposing a 50:50 split with Iwi. It made me think we need to be very careful a 4 year cycle referendum isn’t used to provide a backdoor constitutional stitch up.
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March 3, 2025 11:29am
- Colville
  
  It wont be just a 50/50 split.
  It will be 50/50 split with iwi have a casting vote just in case something goes against them.
  
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  March 3, 2025 12:25pm
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  83:17 is the split and no more – otherwise it is apartheid.
  
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  March 3, 2025 3:53pm
MCōs

Consequences of cutting back on staff in America
https://x.com/thetnholler/status/1896298176942162317?s=46&t=XZLqGbhN-xeYzprhTaktsg
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March 3, 2025 11:37am
Benedict Yu

I have been doxxed. I will no longer be commenting on Kiwiblog.

Best wishes for the future.
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March 3, 2025 11:47am
- Don Beckett
  
  That’s sad Benedict.
  Do you know who did it?
  
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  March 3, 2025 11:52am
  - Benedict Yu
    
    No. It does not matter. I am done. It has made me question whether the data on users stored by DPF has been breached.
    
    [BY – FYI, your post has been referred to DPF. mod.]
    
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    March 3, 2025 11:57am
    - Pope Punctilious II
      
      This is sad news for Kiwiblog. I will miss your sane perspectives, Benedict. All the best.
      
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      March 3, 2025 8:45pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Bad news.
  
  I will miss your views.
  
  21 0
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  March 3, 2025 11:54am
- Northshoredoc
  
  That’s a real shame Benedict.
  
  15 0
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  March 3, 2025 11:54am
- David Farrar
  
  Can you e-mail me details of this, so I can check at this end.
  
  19 0
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  March 3, 2025 12:10pm
  - Benedict Yu
    
    Yes later this afternoon.
    
    13 0
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    March 3, 2025 12:24pm
  - Benedict Yu
    
    Emailed DPF at [email protected]
    
    [Thank you BY, it is concerning for us all in so many ways. mod.]
    
    15 0
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    March 3, 2025 1:53pm
- kowtow
  
  All the best to you too , BY .
  
  In a tiny measure this shows clearly how nasty the left are ( and dangerous).
  
  12 0
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  March 3, 2025 12:45pm
- Jack5
  
  Benedict: why not re-emerge as a new persona 🥷
  
  11 0
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  March 3, 2025 1:04pm
  - Bridgenag
    
    Yes… couple of nasty trolls here at the moment…..come back
    
    6 1
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    March 3, 2025 1:40pm
  - cmm
    
    People have a “finger print” of sorts. I think it would be quite easy to pick up BY’s style.
    
    14 0
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    March 3, 2025 1:48pm
  - imalwaysright
    
    It is one of the biggest indictments on our current society that someone ( and most of the rest of us) sees it detrimental to say who they are.
    This is another symptom of the disease of corruption that the fear of honest people for their livelihood can in effect silence themselves lest they suffer the consequences from anonymous people.
    Sick irony.
    Keep posting.
    We have to back each other up when it comes to free speech. Every body matters.
    
    12 0
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    March 3, 2025 1:53pm
  - Inandout
    
    Jack, not exactly an easy task for someone like BY who has a certain style. But a warning to others who may wish to dispense with a nom de plume. New Zealand is such a small country and I can understand how even Judges are wary of their personal details and abode being made public.
    
    11 0
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    March 3, 2025 1:54pm
  - goNZ1
    
    theres a vacancy coming up in the Vatican soon
    
    4 5
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    March 3, 2025 2:34pm
- Philview
  
  That’s not good, I enjoy your posts. Please stay with us.
  
  8 0
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  March 3, 2025 1:44pm
- cmm
  
  BY: All the best for the future.
  I always appreciated you insights and comments. I shall miss those.
  
  You have given out many details that could identify you in a small place like NZ. Maybe you self-doxxed?
  
  Of course you might not be an Asian Immigrant who has worked many state jobs and has an (inaudible) partner who works with (inaudible). You might actually be a white motorcycle riding lesbian. If it is the latter then yes it would indicate leaking.
  
  Anyway, I shall miss the conversations and the swordplay. Go well friend.
  
  11 0
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  March 3, 2025 1:47pm
- The Housekeeper
  
  Sorry to hear that BY, I don’t always agree with you but I always value your input. It’s a chilling reminder of how precious free speech is and how easily it can be taken. Hopefully we can get you back.
  
  11 0
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  March 3, 2025 2:12pm
- NothingLeft
  
  Sad to see you go.
  
  [Please leave speculation out of the discussion. The blog owner is dealing with this issue directly now, thanks for your suggestion. mod.]
  
  7 0
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  March 3, 2025 2:19pm
- Sir Henry Morgan
  
  [The issue is being dealt with. mod.]
  
  3 0
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  March 3, 2025 2:53pm
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  I believe this has happened before. There are some nasty types out there – even on this blog.
  I do hope it can be resolved Benedict Y.
  
  9 1
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  March 3, 2025 3:57pm
- Taieri
  
  Although I often didn’t see eye to eye with you, I’ve always appreciated your comments.
  All the best in all your future endeavours.
  
  7 0
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  March 3, 2025 4:35pm
Maggy Wassilieff

Dear oh dear, oh dear….

Wellington Water disarray..

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/543562/wellington-water-report-reveals-alleged-theft-structural-and-contractor-issues
12 0
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March 3, 2025 11:55am
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  The incompetence is staggering.
  
  6 0
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  March 3, 2025 4:44pm
trout

Significant changes in the shareholder Ownership of NZME (the NZ Herald)
‘Canadian billionaire James Grenon takes substantial stake in NZ Herald publisher and Newstalk ZB owner NZME’
Simon Wilson may have to look for an alternative outlet for his politically biased verbiage.
14 0
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March 3, 2025 12:03pm
- DimChappie
  
  Yes Grenon’s Centrist is full of great articles about NZ’s race and gender issues. He would be great as a majority owner.
  
  https://centrist.nz/
  
  7 0
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  March 3, 2025 12:25pm
- Colville
  
  Well if you thought the Herald was woke vacuous garbage before….”the Editor says…hold my beer!”
  
  4 0
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  March 3, 2025 12:27pm
- Blog-aholic
  
  Not money wisely invested I’d have thought….
  
  7 0
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  March 3, 2025 1:05pm
  - Tauhei Notts
    
    If the price was right it would be a great investment. There is huge potential there, IF the woke people are removed. Even NewsTalk ZB could attract many more advertisers in their death slot, that is midnight to 6 a.m. The present hosts, with their woke attitudes, chase listeners and advertisers away.
    Get rid of the likes of Simon Wilson and the repugnant unfunny cartoonist; watch the circulation figures.
    Newspapers are not dead; just their left wing commentators are driving subscribers away.
    
    15 1
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    March 3, 2025 1:41pm
    - kowtow
      
      The editors are woke as f@#k.
      
      7 1
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      March 3, 2025 3:26pm
- Jack5
  
  James T. Grenon bought the 9.321 per cent stake in NZME from Karori Capital Ltd, which is owned by Geoffrey Alexander Cumming, of Melbourne.
  
  The Hooer-eld says Grenon’s Auckland based.
  
  At the NZME share price early this afternoon, Grenon’s stake is worth about $20.14 million.
  
  5 0
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  March 3, 2025 1:26pm
TripeWryter

I’ve just been reading in The New Zealand Herald the painful story of Aria Kruger, aged 5 months.
It was an emotional telling of Aria’s skin infection on her face.
Her parents, Mr and Mrs Kruger (both of lots of Ngati and Ngai, but interestingly Ngati [volk]Deutschland wasn’t mentioned….)
The guts of the story was that Frau and Herr Kruger believed in traditional Maori healing practices – rongoa.
But the natural treatment wasn’t working so the whanau went to the doctors – where they proceeded to tell medical professionals what was wrong with Aria and how they should treat her.
I lost track of the story until I came to the part where Mrs Kruger was banging on about cultural competency among the medical people and how imperative it was that when whanau tell medical people how to do their job they should be listened to.
As usual Health New Zealand folded to the complaints.
As usual The New Zealand Herald gave it the full emotive telling.
21 0
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March 3, 2025 12:32pm
- Blog-aholic
  
  So the drift is that, the parents were using witchcraftery which did not work so they then fell back upon the white man science but in doing so they needed to ensure that the witchcraftery was still being respected by people highly skilled in white man science and when the white man science people got on with doing the white man science the witchcraftery having not worked was being disrespected by white man science practioners…..
  
  ARE WE ‘DONE’ YET NEW ZEALAND?
  
  21 1
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  March 3, 2025 1:11pm
- Eastlander
  
  ‘cultural competency’
  
  The culture described doesn’t deserve to exist. Let it fade away and be forgotten.
  
  7 1
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  March 3, 2025 2:26pm
- Inandout
  
  TW, Mrs K must have been consulting Dr te Google.
  
  6 0
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  March 3, 2025 5:49pm
kevn

The sought after words are in the link…
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/prince-harry-makes-veiled-attack-on-donald-trump-and-elon-musk-at-la-summit/7GJTDQUHLZEGBEU7DJ44XD7T44/
4 2
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March 3, 2025 12:56pm
Gravelroad

https://www.thepress.co.nz/nz-news/360599753/children-eat-melted-plastic-appalling-school-lunch
How long is the government going to allow this school lunch fiasco to continue?
It just ain’t working.
Cancel the contractors and give the money to the schools and let’s see if they can do better with the same amount of coin.
If they can, good.
If they can’t, it might stop this entrenched anti government activism.
The school kids are now just the meat in their non existent sandwiches.
15 2
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March 3, 2025 1:29pm
- Damocles11
  
  Did you see the photo of the gourmet wraps that the local cafe was providing? I bet the teachers were tucking into ‘free school lunches’ on a daily basis.
  This country is stuffed. Weak woke Luxon decided to carry on Labours unfunded socialistic giveaways, now we are in a total mess. How many people are going to find it acceptable that children are eating melted plastic? The optics are appalling.
  
  10 2
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  March 3, 2025 1:50pm
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    The teachers probably left the melted plastic lunches for the kids and hogged out on the wraps.
    
    4 2
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    March 3, 2025 4:07pm
Sparrow

Some dates to think about
July 28th 1914 Start of WW1- USA nothing
April 6th 1917 USA enters WW1- Reason loss of American lives on passenger vessel sinking
September 1st Start of WW2- USA nothing to do with us continuation of isolation.
July 10th 1940 Start of Battle of Britain- USA nothing
June 22nd 1941 Invasion of Russia – USA nothing
December 8th 1941 USA declares war on Japan after being attacked
December 11th Germany declares war on USA
Yes prior to this time USA had supplied military materials to the UK little doubt this prevented the defeat of the British Empire. However there was a financial cost which took Britain many years to pay off
March 29th 1973- USA pulls out of Vietnam
February 29th 2020-USA pulls out of Afghanistan
America has been isolationist throughout its history except for supporting dodgy country’s in South America and Africa when it suits them from a commercial viewpoint mining etc.
Do you really think Putin would not invade the Ukraine because there were a few American miners there. Get real.
Trump is no different than other USA leaders except in many ways he is more honest comes straight out with it.
Would I trust them not in a million years. He and Putin are from the same mould.
8 10
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March 3, 2025 1:35pm
- cmm
  
  “Yes prior to this time USA had supplied military materials to the UK”, and were not above providing technology to the Germans too.
  
  In both cases the American saw the European wars as not really their problem – though an opportunity to bolster their local economy.
  
  At the end of the day, Trump is not bound to serve other people’s interests. He is there to serve American interests as the American people see them.
  
  Most Americans are sick and tired of America playing empire and want America to focus on addressing its own problems.
  
  8 3
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  March 3, 2025 1:56pm
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    Henry Ford made motors for German tanks.
    See the “Dog and Lemon.”
    
    4 1
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    March 3, 2025 4:15pm
    - Taieri
      
      Most of German tanks were powered by Maybach branded engines assembled from the components made by various German manufacturers. Ford Germany wasn’t one of them.
      
      3 0
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      March 3, 2025 4:40pm
      - Steve Otto N Shore
        
        Dog and lemon guide says Ford did supply.
        
        2 2
        Report
        March 3, 2025 6:02pm
TripeWryter

I’ve just been back to The New Zealand Herald to have another look at the story of Aria Kruger, aged 5 months, and the infections that had ravaged her face.
It seems that the Herald has pulled it.
It should never have been run in the form that it was.
It was one-sided. It was emotive. And it didn’t seem to challenge the mother’s version of events.
‘Hang on, Mum, the rongoa wasn’t working and Aria’s condition got worse. And when you finally took her to the doctor you were telling the doctor how to do their job.’
Once upon a time a sub-editor would have gone to work on the story; the reporter might even have been told to go away and balance the story up.
The Herald is getting rid of the last sub-editors so this is the standard we can expect.
Someone should have seen Aria’s mother’s smokescreen for what it was.
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March 3, 2025 2:17pm
- Gravelroad
  
  I gather from what passes for reporting here (small to medium town -but busy) is that the days of the editorial staff all working in an office together are gone.
  Reporters work from home, upload their stories and publish – job done. Little or no oversight from senior reporters, subs or editors.
  Most of the time they get away with it. If someone is quoted incorrectly or unfairly maligned, nothing much happens. There might be a correction, but not likely.
  All too easy for bias and lack of balance to creep in – not to mention just plain incompetence.
  That is why a number of readers these days are skeptical about what they read – myself included.
  Trust gone and it will be almost impossible to get it back.
  
  12 0
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  March 3, 2025 4:03pm
- Blog-aholic
  
  No, its still there but you have to search for it using some key words….they sure have duck shoved it….Journalism it clearly is not.
  
  9 1
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  March 3, 2025 4:24pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  I’ve just discovered this blog by the mother of the infected babe.
  
  https://www.naturallyaio.com/pages/justice-for-aria
  
  She manufactures and sells creams and lotions..
  
  We make natural facial, body products and rongoā māori in Whangārei NZ.
  
  https://www.naturallyaio.com/
  
  Surely the Herald article should have mentioned this.
  
  12 0
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  March 3, 2025 7:35pm
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    Suddenly, the image snaps into focus.
    
    0 0
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    March 3, 2025 8:20pm
goNZ1

Zelensky rocks up to King Charles in his casual clothes per usual, tone deaf or what. Even the jihadist running Syria now wears a suit meeting world leaders!
https://nypost.com/2025/03/02/world-news/zelensky-meets-king-charles-iii-after-getting-kicked-out-of-white-house-by-trump/
8 8
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March 3, 2025 2:32pm
- MCōs
  
  The Blackferns turned up in tracksuits and gave the old bugger a hug that he seemed to enjoy enormously
  Let’s not get too precious. KCIII seems to have loosened up a bit since his brush with cancer.
  
  1 0
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  March 3, 2025 11:43pm
imalwaysright

Great to see a bloke nominated for Best Actress at the Oscars!
What a bunch of wankers.
11 1
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March 3, 2025 3:23pm
- kevn
  
  iam… Oscars? pffft.
  However, Mikaela is also known as Mikey.
  
  5 2
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  March 3, 2025 6:06pm
- graham
  
  I thought the only people who watched the Oscars these days were:
  (a) the actors themselves
  (b) the same people that watch the Kardashians
  
  6 0
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  March 3, 2025 6:10pm
Steve Otto N Shore

You’d Never Guess What Just Turned Up At Hutt Hospital!
We seriously need a Government with balls.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIBnML8qTow
3 5
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March 3, 2025 3:27pm
Chuck Bird

I think JD Vance’s wife will be the first Second Lady who is not a Christian.
5 2
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March 3, 2025 3:44pm
- Philview
  
  After the ski field incident yesterday I wonder if Vance might reconsider putting his young family in harms way as a political family.
  
  3 2
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  March 3, 2025 5:23pm
  - kowtow
    
    He’s not putting his family in harm’s way .
    
    Blame the crazies .
    
    Not to worry though the Feds are in good hands now and if there’s one thing one doesn’t do , it’s take on the Feds.
    
    4 0
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    March 3, 2025 6:36pm

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