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March 16, 2025 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 16 March 2025

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General Debate

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Chuck Bird

Excellent article by Muriel

Eliminating Woke

https://www.nzcpr.com/eliminating-woke/
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March 16, 2025 8:03am
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  Jacinda is gone, but the seeds she planted are thriving. Past time to get the legislative weed killer out.
  
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  March 16, 2025 8:47am
  - Mark Hanley
    
    It wil take a long time and a lot of hard work to turn the good ship NZ onto a more fruitful course.
    
    But we can see signs that a corner is indeed being turned.
    
    Inflation is tamed after 6 years of unnecessary money printing, low interest rates, rampant house price growth, obscene borrowing, and ridiculous levels of government spending.
    
    Growth is returning to the economy.
    
    Foreign investors are expressing interest in nz infrastructure projects.
    
    Infrastructure projects and improved education will in time improve poductivity.
    
    Crime is reducing and gangs have lost the free advertising from patches and town takeovers.
    
    Brown kids have returned to school. Prisons are full of people who can’t read, write, and do maths…. crime is their only money making option.
    
    The issue is many people don’t understand how much time and work is required to fix Labour’s mess, and why that necessitates prioritization.
    
    For example. Keeping the TOW principles bill in the public eye until the coalition have fixed the far more urgent NZ money problems, allows the coalition to revisit the bill when voters are feeling richer and happier, and when ministers have less urgent priorities to address.
    
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    March 16, 2025 10:04am
    - kiwikidsnz
      
      “Why NZ Election 2026 will be close: its a choice between Labour’s Loser & National’s Salesman
      …NZ has never been more domestically politically unstable – with Kiwis living in a region of the world that has never been more geopolitically unstable. No wonder the polls are close.”
      
      https://www.downtoearth.kiwi/post/why-election-2026-in-nz-will-be-close-its-a-choice-between-labour-s-proven-loser-national-s-trave
      
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      March 16, 2025 10:41am
      - Mark Hanley
        
        I agree Luxon is a good salesman……
        
        Seymours lunch issues demonstrate just how difficult it is to run large government projects successfully.
        
        Yet, Luxon has expertly orchestrated a huge amount of work across many portfolios, to give him something to sell….
        
        Loser or salesman….. I know which one I’ll choose.
        
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        March 16, 2025 11:26am
      - peterwn
        
        This year is not the time for a salesman, next year will be including handouts. By the way the Wellington Mayor is proving to being a great salesperson for Chris Luxon by saying that he is not a nice person. One has to trade niceness with keeping order in Cabinet and making sure things get done. Jacinda was not capable of providing leadership to Ministers once the euphoria wore off.
        
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        March 16, 2025 12:36pm
    - Pope Punctilious II
      
      If Luxon wanted to “keep the TOW principles bill in the public eye until the coalition have fixed the far more urgent NZ money problems”, why did he say there’s nothing in the “divisive” treaty principles bill that he likes https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/360482666/pm-says-there-nothing-divisive-treaty-principles-bill-he-likes
      And why did he say “We’re Gonna Spike It, We’ll Kill It, Don’t Worry” https://x.com/EerykMcRae/status/1879306824526291209
      
      Who are you kidding, apart from yourself?
      
      This government has certainly rung some welcome changes. I’m very glad they’ve given power back to rate-payers (on Maori wards), reformed Kainga Ora, canned the Maori health authority, cut the Waipareira Trust’s contract, and made it harder for activists to get funding through the Marsden Fund. Luxon is happy to improve the management of our institutions, but show me a single piece of evidence that he plans to bring about the much-needed fundamental change in the country’s trajectory. A PM who was intent on doing that would not have put a progressive like Erica Stanford in charge of our education system, and would not have made those emphatic comments about the TPB.
      
      Luxon’s track record shows he is a woke corporate Hollow Man. But all the most likely potential replacements (Willis, Bishop, Stanford) would be worse, as they’re out-and-out progressives. So for the time being I think we’re stuck with the underwhelming Luxon, until a conservative with guts and brains comes along.
      
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      March 16, 2025 5:05pm
- Scott
  
  Although Muriel makes some very good points, I don’t think she’s correct with her analysis of National being Labour lite. The reality is that National is doing what it promised to do. Within 100 days they got rid of the Maori health authority, compulsory Maori wards and 3 waters.
  
  Erica Stanford has moved to get schools teaching the basics and cellphones have been banned. They are making some progress on transgender teaching in schools but much more to do there.
  
  Luxon is doing his best to get the economy moving and attracting investment into NZ. Seymour is cutting burdensome regulations and Peters is lashing out at the Maori party and wokeness.
  
  So that’s not the Labour agenda. It’s the opposite of the labour agenda.
  
  Regarding DEI, National didn’t campaign on that. Nor did they campaign on repealing climate change policies.
  
  So that’s the dilemma for National. Should they tack to the right and attack DEI and climate change and transgender policies? My suspicion is they will leave that to their coalition partners. National leaders are generally pretty liberal, John Key and Jim Bolger come to mind, and Luxon is seemingly cut from the same cloth.
  
  I suspect Luxon will try and inhabit the middle ground which does give room on the right for his coalition partners.
  Lastly I’m not as critical of National as many on this blog. Most of the things they are doing are pretty good to okay whereas with the Labour govt every week was a nightmare. This govt is doing 50% of what we want whereas the previous lot gave us 100% of what we don’t want.
  
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  March 16, 2025 8:57am
  - pdm
    
    `Within 100 days they got rid of the Maori health authority, compulsory Maori wards and 3 waters.’
    
    Did they?
    
    I am not convinced.
    
    We have forms of Co-Governance being introduced into Wanganui and Rotorua Councils plus Ngai Tahu are full bore in the Courts trying to take over South Island water.
    
    Yet nothing is heard from the Government.
    
    I have the clear impression that PM Luxon will not confront Maori issues. If it were not for David Seymour and his ACT Caucus plus Shane Jones and to a lesser extent Winston Peters confronting this issue. An issue which was BIG at the 2023 election.
    
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    March 16, 2025 9:39am
    - Pineapple Lumps
      
      Worse than PM Luxon not confronting these issues is that he won’t provide the environment for Seymour and Peter’s to address them either.
      
      Just look at the disaster of the TPB – the committee to hear NZ voices was stacked to predominantly hear from this opposing it. Yet the majority of NZ support the bill.
      In this regard Luxon is worse than Ardern, he gives you the hope he will do the right thing, when in reality he is never going to.
      
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      March 16, 2025 9:46am
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        Get out of the TPB mind set, Nats and NZF clearly stated before the election they would not support the TPB.
        
        You let yourself down when trying to suggest bizarrely somehow NZF would be for the TPB if they were allowed, no they would not, it’s simply arrogant to continue to suggest NZF are for the TPB. They are not.
        
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        March 16, 2025 10:14am
      - Pineapple Lumps
        
        G – where in my post have a said that NZF are for the TPB? So stop abusing me and making shit up!
        
        Luxon is either weak and unprincipled or a devious liar. Here is an example, when he receives a letter from an early childhood teacher raising concerns about children in her class that are claiming they aren’t their birth sex, he replied stating he unequivocally supports the LGBTQia community. Yet he tells us he is a Christian – where the first chapters of the bible talk of God making man and woman. So which is it – unprincipled or lying?
        
        As I said, he is worse than Ardern. She was a known Marxist. Those were her principles. Luxon gives the appearance of being on the right but he is woke as hell.
        
        You can claim he didn’t campaign to fix the sexualisation and mental confusion of children. You can claim he didn’t campaign on fixing the ethnostate in its entirety. That is fine. But if his claim is he is going to fix the economy then he isn’t doing a great job of that. Yes NZ will enjoy better agriculture payments this year, thanks to a bumper north island growing season, low dollar value and some better international demand. But none of that is thanks to Luxon. Most other sectors of our economy are not firing. Unemployment is high. What have they done to truely reduce spending in central government? What have they done to lift our productivity?
        
        I desperately want this government to succeed. To have another alt-left government in power fills me with despair. NZ will be over when that happens. So if I criticise this coalition government it isn’t to see them fail. It is more to provide a wake-up call. Winter is coming!
        
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        March 16, 2025 2:11pm
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      There is a referendum on council Māori seats as promised, that will happen at this years election, and the councils will have to go by what the referendum result is.
      
      Co-governance calling a mountain a person is bullshit, if you think k that is the equivalent of what Labour rammed through, and will double down with NZF and Greens next term. Don’t say Peter’s will not go left because yes he will
      
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      March 16, 2025 10:11am
    - JackRabbit
      
      I agree that Luxon is soft and could do a lot better. But we should be respectful and supportive of what he has done so far, instead of critical of what he hasn’t done. He is one man in 5 million. He can’t do it alone.
      
      You don’t allow a child to develop if you continually berate it for what it has not achieved; you complement and validate it for what it has achieved, so the child will continue developing and achieving more.
      
      Luxon does not have the power of executive orders that Trump in the USA has. Furthermore NZ has a gang of Maori activists who threaten war over co-governance, and are brewing said war; we have gangs of DEI thugs who are happy to beat up old ladies who dare speak up for women. NZ is powder keg with a short fuse.
      
      And we have a obsessed whining and biting cocker spaniel in the form of Hipkins, who if the 1st Covid inquiry had done their job properly, wouldn’t be on the loose, let alone in politics. Lets hope the 2nd inquiry has teeth. Thanks to the volume of submissions and the work of the three ladies from VFF, we stand a better chance of justice.
      
      Luxon will grow a pair if there is enough critical mass in the population to force real change, without lighting the powder keg fuse.
      
      Respecting the principle of critical mass, when people criticise lack of progress by Luxon, or on Climate Change, Co-governance, the Covid Vaccine deaths and injuries, I warmly respond by asking: “Who did you broach these subjects with today? How often you go outside of our comfort zone to subtly or overtly raise contentious issues where you do not the stance of the other person?”
      
      Nothing grows without fertilisation, including good ideas and change in critical mass. It helps before criticising others, to look inward to see if we are doing everything we can to hep the situation.
      
      As a general principle, someone criticising others, while ignoring what the individual can and should do, is the fundamental lie behind co-governance, that others (Pakeha) are responsible for their (Maori) failures.
      
      We all need to step outside our respective comfort zones in order to educate and affect the critical mass that will help tip the balance.
      
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      March 16, 2025 11:30am
    - rouppe
      
      100%
      
      I got a reply from the MoH about my complaint that Maori were getting preferential health care, with two examples.
      
      It was two pages of word salad.
      
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      March 16, 2025 12:47pm
      - JackRabbit
        
        Perhaps you could email them back complaining about the lack of enclosed salad serving tongs.
        
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        March 16, 2025 2:19pm
  - Pineapple Lumps
    
    The coalition government, National, ACT, NZF, need to sort this out. The NZ public are alarmed at the racial division of the country. If they don’t sort it out then the ethnostate becomes even more entrenched.
    
    While you aren’t currently bothered about this, put yourself in the shoes of young white NZers. They are being discriminated against with the power of the law allowing this. I have first hand examples of activists now in positions of power in institutions spouting about how they are decolonising the institution. White kids with better skills and qualifications are missing out on entry to institutions because of decolonisation.
    
    Entrenching maori positions into organisations destroys productivity ie just another overhead that does nothing to lift performance. Entrenching maori into education does nothing to lift performance. The list goes on.
    
    Even if National take the race lense off and just look at this as great economic managers – if it doesn’t lift our productivity then it needs to be gone. DEI tells people, particularly the up and coming, being the best doesn’t matter, being diverse matters. This will only destroy our productivity.
    
    So you might be happy with National to date. But that just means you are less impacted by DEI now than others. By the time you realise the damage it is causing it will be too late!
    
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    March 16, 2025 9:40am
    - Steve Otto N Shore
      
      DEI has resulted in a submarine up in Samoa.
      
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      March 16, 2025 9:47am
      - riffer
        
        That point of view has been well and truly discredited. Your mindset firmly belongs in the past, but is hardly surprising as many on this blog harbour misogynistic feelings. Sad, really.
        
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        March 16, 2025 10:48am
      - Pineapple Lumps
        
        Riffer when meritocracy is placed on the trash heap then unfortunately even if someone has been hired because they were the best for the job, the suspicion is that they were picked to fill a quota.
        
        Whatever the sex, sexuality or race of the ships captain they were proved to be incompetent. A ship driven onto the ocean floor being a pretty good definition of a captains failure.
        
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        March 16, 2025 10:57am
      - Taieri
        
        That point of view has been well and truly discredited.
        —————
        
        When and by whom?
        
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        March 16, 2025 12:12pm
      - Steve Otto N Shore
        
        Only discredited by the lefties, riffer.
        
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        March 16, 2025 2:46pm
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      The polls are saying the voters want more of the bullshit we hate, the division is being seen as pushed by Seymour as stated many times, voters bizarrely have forgotten the disgrace of Labour who were in power with a one party majority
      
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      March 16, 2025 10:17am
      - Pineapple Lumps
        
        Stop believing the polls and what the legacy media will report.
        
        If we had media that reported the number of submissions to TPB that were supportive of it. A media that had speakers on promoting equality and dismissing racism in the disguise of equity. Many NZers would be comfortable to say – hey I agreed with that etc. We are being silenced in public by the promotion that we have wrong think. That means the ideas get shot down and dismissed and the idea holder gets attacked. And the minority position gets sustained.
        
        So what can National do about this? Well they can write laws that forbid government influencing media through direct subsidies and excessive advertising. They could make it illegal for private bodies to have to uphold the principles of the treaty of Waitangi. They could require measurement of media bias and demand balanced reporting. Instead they are wasting time on a bill to require payment from global social media companies to our biased and failing media. We are all doomed by their lack of principles and a compelling vision for what NZ could be.
        
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        March 16, 2025 2:21pm
      - Steve Otto N Shore
        
        Some numbers of submissions for and against from the submissions committee would be a help as well Pineapple Lumps, but we all know we will never see that.
        
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        March 16, 2025 2:52pm
      - Mike
        
        Over 16,000 submissions on the bill have been published. Feel free to read these and provide your assessment of numbers for and against.
        
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        March 16, 2025 3:08pm
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    “I suspect Luxon will try and inhabit the middle ground”
    That is code for sitting on the fence, something that Luxon is excellent at doing.
    
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    March 16, 2025 9:45am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      Rubbish, as stated many times since MMP elections are won in the middle. No point saying no, it’s fact, if Nats veer to the right, they will take Act support, then they will lose more of the centre back to Labour
      
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      March 16, 2025 10:20am
      - Steve Otto N Shore
        
        I would say 90% of National MPs know he is sitting on the fence but they will not say so. Luxon has them all by the short and curly (portfolios) otherwise he would allow a conscience vote on the TPB.
        He sits on the fence full stop.
        There is talk of him stepping down after the India visit. You know anything G?
        
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        March 16, 2025 2:56pm
  - Chuck Bird
    
    She is right about Luxon being a climate change alarmist who is causing problems for our economy and farmers.
    
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    March 16, 2025 10:32am
  - JackRabbit
    
    Well said Scott, I hold the same viewpoint. Some people are never satisfied, and will be critical of anything and everything.
    
    As a former employer used to say, “If you think you can do better, stand for election, and show us how it is done.”
    
    Some commenters say that NZ needs a Trump. While I agree with getting rid of DEI, exposing deep state corruption, getting into a tariff war would wreck the NZ economy.
    
    Tariffs in general are a bad idea and contrary to Economics 101. However having a tariff war, even though everyone loses, favours your country when the opposing countries have more to lose than your own country.
    
    Other countries depend more on the USA than the USA does on those countries. NZ however depends on other counties far more then they depend on us. Imported oil being the most critical resource we depend upon.
    
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    March 16, 2025 11:00am
- Philview
  
  I share her concerns but ACT and NZ First aren’t exactly picking up support. What is happening is that the media, which we can now see is significantly controlled by a Labour supporting Union, is running a relentless campaign against the Coalition Government and causing damage.
  
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  March 16, 2025 9:16am
  - AitchW
    
    Well said Philview. A sentiment shared here often that bears frequent airing.
    For anyone who is sceptical of the power of the media and unions you need only look at the wall to wall negative coverage of the school lunches debacle.
    It’s a dumb policy dreamt up by an even dumber
    Labour government, inherited by the current government which is trying to sort out yet another of Ardern’s thought bubbles.
    A recent arrival would listen to the media, the teachers unions and the current opposition and believe that it is a poorly thought out coalition initiative.
    A significant proportion of the population who saw the introduction of the policy under Labour are now reported to believe that we should return to Labour’s silver service lunches after having been indoctrinated by the same media, teachers unions, and opposition.
    Make no mistake. The media are implacably hostile to the current government. Let us hope that the new broom at NZME might bring some balance.
    
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    March 16, 2025 9:46am
    - Clyde
      
      NZME new governance does not sort out the taxpayer subsidised TVNZ or RNZ. Both of those Boards need to be depopulated and replaced with those that can actually run a business rather than run the comms dept of the Maori Party. I forced myself to watch TV One News last night to see if things had changed and once again some long drawn out piece on some stage performance of a whole heap of special people grimacing and poking their tongues out. I muted it so saved myself from hearing the BS that was for sure being spouted. Luxon and co can do what they can for trade, the economy etc, but it doesn’t take all the Ministers to do that. Some can spend some time and effort on the changes in the media and defunding the race led Universities.
      
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      March 16, 2025 10:41am
    - riffer
      
      The media are not implacably hostile to the current government. What they are hostile to is the complete cluster this has developed into. Don’t mistake pointing out obvious disasters for antipathy.
      
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      March 16, 2025 10:50am
      - Pineapple Lumps
        
        The fact you can’t see the media’s extreme bias and hostility is that you are standing on their shoulders.
        
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        March 16, 2025 10:58am
      - Swifty
        
        Hahahhahahahahha!
        
        Post of the day from riffer!
        
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        March 16, 2025 11:04am
      - Steve Otto N Shore
        
        Jesus. Only just read that and nearly fell off my seat laughing! Only had 1 beer so far.
        
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        March 16, 2025 3:10pm
      - AitchW
        
        Any example of reportage not critical of the government and its policies?
        
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        March 16, 2025 3:30pm
    - Ian Boag
      
      wall to wall negative coverage of the school lunches debacle.
      
      Is it not news? A gift that keeps on giving.
      
      An objective view would be that the incidence of bad stuff (too hot, melted plastic etc) is down to a pretty low level. Delivery times seem to have got a lot better.
      
      Seymour has to take the credit – an unrealistically low price that has sent large suppliers to the wall. The story with quality assurance is that you need to get things right first time and that didn’t happen. But perhaps the media should ignore it ….. 🙂
      
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      March 16, 2025 12:59pm
      - Steve Otto N Shore
        
        The school lunches BS is just an attack on David Seymour.
        I say cut out all school lunch programs and kids can make their own – I did from age 5.
        NZ has to stop being a nanny state.
        BTW Ian, what did the kids eat in the school holidays? Lunches delivered to the door?
        No, kids under 14 can not be left alone at home so Mum made them. So how about Mum make them every day?
        
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        March 16, 2025 3:17pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        Steve – I completely understand that you are anti the school lunch thing, but the ship has sailed. For whatever reason(s), provision of school lunches is government policy.
        
        Seymour has not made a great job of managing it. Tell me I have that wrong and he is doing a great job … 🙂
        
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        March 16, 2025 4:32pm
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    Agreed. Luxon has said the right thing after the bullshit Labour poll, he says judge me next year at the election, this economy is turning, and what will they hate the government as the economy rebounds GDP this month and I suggest it will be well ahead of what was predicted
    
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    March 16, 2025 10:26am
    - Steve Otto N Shore
      
      He will not be running for PM next Election.
      Botany probably, but I seriously think Botany has had enough of his fence sitting.
      
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      March 16, 2025 3:19pm
  - wsk12345
    
    And yet this lot of numptys continue to financially support the MSM through RNZ/TVNZ losses, NZ on air, creative Nz and all manner of grants for lefty’s like Paula penfold. Ceasing that funding would lose close to no votes (nobody much watches it anyway) and shit down the relentless river of negative anti coalition stories.
    
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    March 16, 2025 1:27pm
- Ghost
  
  Well the good news is New Zealand first who helped create the mess is the public service when voting for the Public Service Act 2020 now wants to change it. Strange that, strange party. In one breath they help create the damage, in the other they hope the oldies are senile enough to forget what they did.
  
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  March 16, 2025 9:30am
  - pdm
    
    Ghostie – maybe the $3Billion Provincial Growth Fund control was the price they were more than happy to accept in exchange.
    
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    March 16, 2025 9:44am
  - AitchW
    
    Peters is the ultimate populist. He will support whoever gives him the biggest baubles.
    Remember his claim that capitalism has failed, used as justification for supporting the Ardern government, arguably the worst government and PM in our history.
    Peters is NOT your friend.
    
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    March 16, 2025 9:50am
    - Steve Otto N Shore
      
      Just like climate change. Scientists will give the opinion of whoever is paying the best.
      Same with Peters.
      
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      March 16, 2025 3:24pm
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    And NZF will go with Labour and Greens again if Labour finish ahead of Nats all to keep TPM out
    
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    March 16, 2025 10:27am
    - Dougal10
      
      Labour didn’t finish ahead of the nats last time he did it , its all about the baubles with him.
      
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      March 16, 2025 1:14pm
      - AitchW
        
        Peters will go with whoever promises him the brightest baubles.
        National and Labour both need to rule out coalition with TPM. Hipkins did it in the last election with NZF, does he have the intestinal fortitude to do it now with TMP or is he cowed by the so called Maori caucus?
        Will Luxon do it first?
        Can the whips have a quiet chat over a snifter of brandy and agree that both parties will rule out any coalition with TMP?
        
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        March 16, 2025 2:20pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        Peters will go with whoever promises him the brightest baubles
        
        And TPM/Greens are different?
        
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        March 16, 2025 7:15pm
Grunter

Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
We are going to war against Russia, a global super power who has the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons.

Luxon announces overnight that NZ is standing ‘shoulder to shoulder’ with Starmer’s coalition of the willing.

The plan is to exert “maximum pressure” on Russia. Boots on the ground. Planes in the air. Enforce peace (so not peace keepers but “peace enforcers”).

For full details and analysis from what has happened overnight, here American Daniel Davis.

So get all the young men in NZ ready. Off to Europe they go. Russia is a huge country, so it will require massive numbers of men to conquer it.

https://www.youtube.com/live/bByuV42BIuY?feature=shared
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March 16, 2025 8:07am
- Cassandra
  
  What a load of nonsense. Not even worth a downtick but I’ll give it one anyway.
  
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  March 16, 2025 9:40am
  - Grunter
    
    So please explain why saying “boots on the ground and planes in the air” against Russia is not war? And if NZ is “shoulder to shoulder” in this war plan why that means NOT sending young Kiwis to fight.
    
    You need to come up with a specific argument that is based on logic and realism as opposed to your dismissive nothing argument above.
    
    Have you even watched Starmers speech from last night?
    
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    March 16, 2025 9:46am
    - Andrei
      
      It’s all just posturing Grunter
      
      A chichuahua yapping at a BEAR.
      
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      March 16, 2025 10:07am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      I where has Luxon stated troops in war, I have only ever heard him say he is open to sending peace keepers, don’t bloody bother saying that is war, we have sent peace keepers to several war zones over 25 years, but I know I know, it’s about hating Luxon
      
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      March 16, 2025 10:32am
      - Grunter
        
        Nah – the Starmer plan says it’s ’Peace Enforcers’. He has said that they will be actively engaging with Russian military. This is NOT Peace keepers by neutral countries It is a coalition force against Russia. Watch the Starmer speech. Some journos ask the right clarifying questions.
        
        And Luxon needs to be specific by what “shoulder to shoulder” means for young Kiwis on the ground in Ukraine.
        
        This is very different to NZ sending peace keepers to say Somalia. This is like saying we sent peace enforcers to Afghanistan. Except this time it’s Russia. And remember, we lost the war against Afghanistan. We gave up after about 20 years.
        
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        March 16, 2025 11:46am
    - Jake Dee
      
      It’s all political posturing and rhetoric.
      The specific argument for my position, which is based on logic and realism, is that it won’t be done because it CAN’T be done.
      Popular support in New Zealand for going to war with Russia is zero. Actual capacity to go to war with Russia is virtually zero, Practical capacity to support a coalition going to war with Russia, somewhere between absolute zero and pathetically miniscule.
      Distance between Auckland and Vladivostok is 10548km and I estimate a 95% chance that any fleet would be literally dead in the water before they got within 500km.
      Going in through the western countries, Ukraine, Baltic states etc. I estimate the same result with the only difference being literally dead in the water or on the land.
      New Zealand, alone or part of a coalition has a much better chance of conquering Antarctica than of conquering Russia.
      
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      March 16, 2025 6:08pm
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  So who do they support then? Even Trump is now backing them
  
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  March 16, 2025 10:30am
- Allan
  
  Nobody is saying conquer Russia. Where on earth did you suddenly decide that was going to be the goal?
  
  That big and nuclear armed country did a great job when it invaded Afghanistan. Then got its arse handed to it.
  
  The Russian economy is wrecked. The Russian army is so bad it needs Chinese and North Korean troops fighting for it.
  
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  March 16, 2025 12:18pm
  - JackRabbit
    
    The Russian economy is far from wrecked. Putin did a good job in the early 2000s by dropping personal tax to a flat rate of 13%, business tax just north of 10-12% or a turnover tax of about 5 or 6%. Tax rates we can only dream about.
    
    Yes, tax rates have gone up, but less than many western countries. Russia has got rich off oil and gas. It focused on making money and left behind much of the old ways.
    
    The only thing that has damaged the Russian economy in recent times, was the careless act of jealousy incited by Biden’s handlers to torpedo the Russian-Germany pipeline. Which as hurt Germany more than Russia.
    
    No matter what you think of Russia, if someone sets out to destroy legitimate commerce i.e. Russia and Germany it is an act of terrorism. And that is on top of the insider controlled NATO, not respecting Russia’s boundaries by trying to get the Ukraine into NATO, by sparking a proxy war with Russia, with Ukraine as the fall guy.
    
    Russia of old would have swiped the west with a bear paw. Putin has been remarkably restrained.
    
    If Russia torpedoed say the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, would the USA be as restrained as Russia? I sincerely doubt it.
    
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    March 16, 2025 2:16pm
- cmm
  
  “We” have already been participating for well over a year now as part of the logistics and training operations.
  
  Our soldiers have been in Europe performing logistical support, driving trucks, training, and doing a bunch of non-combat roles.
  
  Logistics is an extremely important part of warfare. Being part of logistics makes you a legitimate military target.
  
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  March 16, 2025 12:27pm
- rouppe
  
  No one is considering conquering – ie invading – Russia.
  
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  March 16, 2025 12:54pm
Toes on the nose

Jane Kelsey seems really quiet on how Trump has implemented what she dreams of for here in… New-tarriff-Zeatearoa…
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March 16, 2025 8:12am
- Mike
  
  LOL. I wonder how many Kiwibloggers amping Trump’s tariffs would have previously disparaged Kelsey’s diatribes against free trade.
  
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  March 16, 2025 10:12am
  - Lance
    
    Using logic is TDS
    
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    March 16, 2025 5:13pm
- Allan
  
  The trafiffs are reciprocity.
  
  What traffifs does India, for example, put on US goods?
  
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  March 16, 2025 12:47pm
Bridgenag

fixing education and research
because we’re not going to have better or smarter guys next time

“the fact is that the whole idea of the school and the university needs to change to reflect the modern reality. most of what they teach is useless and most of those they teach it to are ill served by having learned it. most of how they teach it is antiquated and ridiculous. the university as we know it was created to address a scarcity of knowledge, to collect rare tomes and writings in one place where the students might access them and to allow collaboration between leading lights and their proteges to break new paths and find new things.”

https://open.substack.com/pub/boriquagato/p/fixing-education-and-research?r=1aj1bv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

“Government doesn’t solve problems, it subsidizes them.”
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March 16, 2025 8:24am
- Jack5
  
  Tariffs confuse many people.
  
  Not long ago we had Indian expatriates in Auckland protesting against moves in India to lower tariffs on agricultural goods imported into that country.
  
  That tariff change would have benefited New Zealand, which depends for a living on food exports.
  
  Immigrants in Auckland were protesting against the interests of New Zealand farmers and New Zealanders as a whole.
  
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  March 16, 2025 4:02pm
Bridgenag

Remember “dripping”………covered safe on the back porch….

Tallow –
Eat differently

https://open.substack.com/pub/rwmalonemd/p/tallow?r=1aj1bv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
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March 16, 2025 8:27am
- Allan
  
  Internal fat, perirenal and leaf are other names. It makes a purer and odourless tallow. The fat cut off the muscles has a beef taint to it.
  
  I was told that cows and steers have the largest deposits. Bulls are rather deficient.
  
  I preserve my own every time an animal is harvested.
  
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  March 16, 2025 12:56pm
  - Jake Dee
    
    Which is nice but there is a fundamental problem here, the quantity available for harvesting.
    The move from farm foods to industrial foods parallels the much older move from hunting and gathering to farms.
    The wild food available was of better quality but of much lower quantity. The nomadic hunter gatherers were stronger and healthier than the farmers but much fewer in number.
    
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    March 16, 2025 6:19pm
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  Food safe. I can remember a food safe at friends in Taumarunui. Had to take the butter out and put it in the fridge to thaw it out!
  
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  March 16, 2025 3:34pm
Bridgenag

Retard German political establishment responds to Donald Trump with the ultimate checkmate – a constitutionally-anchored pledge to deindustrialise in the next 20 years

https://open.substack.com/pub/eugyppius/p/retard-german-political-establishment?r=1aj1bv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
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March 16, 2025 8:30am
Yvette

In memory of yesterday –
On March 15, 2019, a white supremacist terrorist from Australia stormed into Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre.
In his speech, Luxon said there was no place for Islamophobia in New Zealand.
“As we reflect on this day we must also confront the forces that led to this tragedy,” Luxon said.
“Islamophobia – like all forms of hatred – has absolutely no place in New Zealand, and it is our duty to challenge it wherever it appears, whether it’s in words, policies, or in the silence that allows prejudice to fester.
https://www.1news.co.nz/2025/03/15/luxon-says-nz-must-confront-forces-that-led-to-chch-terror-attacks/

Ardern conflated the un-nameable gunman’s actions with Islamophobia, as did certain Islamic people, and Luxon (above) seems to do much the same, so I wonder who has actually read the Tarrant manifesto.

I did, before the Chief Censor said we shouldn’t have, so I would question the emphasis on the term “white supremacist” when Tarrant’s ideology appeared rooted in “ethno-nationalism” – which, although a specific form of supremacism, indicates New Zealand was a vast mistake as a venue for his heinous actions and also gives a rather troubling indication that something similar could happen with a different group – either as victim or victimiser.

But fuller rational discussion is curtailed by the Censor’s ruling which prevents any useful debate of such an historic event, and what Prime Ministers may conflate it with.

No one ever did seem to define “hate speech” but that didn’t mean much in Tarrant’s case, as there was no noted public hate speech of course to identify him before his atrocious actions.

He saw non-European immigration as an existential threat, but didn’t vehemently hate religion per se, over the fertility of ethnic “invader” group concerned – unless a man who must have contemplated he faced “police-assisted suicide”, chose to nullify his message by writing complete meaningless rubbish in his manifesto – although parts did rabbit-hole.
He did consider other means of causing mass death, but firearms were actually more accessible (information for those who would ban kitchen ware nation-wide after the LynnMall supermarket terror knife attack).

While Tarrant carried out his attacks alone, his beliefs were not isolated, and are “transmutable“.
“Transmutability” may actually be a greater danger than “Islamophobia”

It may be better for Luxon to talk of deranged thinking, and those who cross over into insane thoughts and return to sanity, and cross over again further, and can reach a point of no return.
Luxon may dismiss a whole process with one word, ‘Islamophobia’, and a Royal Commission didn’t reveal that much.

Released in December 2020, New Zealand Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCOI) into the March 15, 2019, Christchurch mosque attacks, found failures in intelligence and firearm licensing but no evidence the attack could have been stopped. It recommended structural reforms, better counter-terrorism efforts, and community engagement. The government accepted all 44 recommendations, leading to legal changes and improved national security measures.

And that seems to be about all that is understood of such an incident, and is not helped by the ruling that the document that may explain it cannot be referred to.
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March 16, 2025 8:33am
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  The offender was yesterday widely described as a white supremicist. It would have been more accurate to describe Tarrant as an Australian immigrant.
  
  I didn’t notice any media calls for “Australians – Go Home”.
  
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  March 16, 2025 9:41am
  - AitchW
    
    He wasn’t a terrorist. He was a deluded nutter acting out some sick fantasy fuelled by hours spent burrowing down into internet rabbit holes inhabited by other equally deluded nutters.
    I haven’t read his ‘manifesto’ or watched his live streamed video, but I am confident that, regardless of his nationality he was always going to carry out a mass murder somewhere. Sadly, for us, he chose NZ. I suspect that his intention was suicide before capture but he couldn’t bring himself to pull the trigger that one last time.
    
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    March 16, 2025 2:30pm
    - keepcalmcarryon
      
      Terrorism:
      “ the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.”
      By definition he clearly committed a terrorist act making him a terrorist.
      
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      March 16, 2025 6:31pm
    - Jake Dee
      
      It’s perfectly possible to be both a terrorist and a deluded nutter at the same time, in fact in many cases it may actually help.
      The difference is political, not psychological.
      Go on a killing rampage because you are being plagued by demons or little green men that live under your bed = nutter.
      Go on a killing rampage because you are being plagued by Muslims or homosexuals = terrorist.
      
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      March 16, 2025 6:39pm
  - Sir Henry Morgan
    
    So far as he was anything other than a nutter, he more a white separatist than a white supremacist.
    
    For some reason “white separatism bad, Maori separatism good”.
    
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    March 17, 2025 5:40pm
- Chuck Bird
  
  I have not heard Luxon condemn antisemitism and he is happy to fund Hamas via UNDRA.
  
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  March 16, 2025 10:12am
- keepcalmcarryon
  
  Does anyone know if the government could release the full findings that were buried from the public?
  Sunlight on the real facts would be healthy surely.
  
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  March 16, 2025 10:32am
- pb
  
  Hate speech, and its brethren, are hazy poorly defined concepts. Its all about emotions and perception. It elevates victimhood to sainthood. In the end hate speech is just what the rich and powerful hate.
  
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  March 16, 2025 10:51am
  - AitchW
    
    More what handwringing liberals don’t like.
    
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    March 16, 2025 2:32pm
- kiwi_chileno
  
  “Islam has absolutely no place in New Zealand.” Fixed it for you, Luxon.
  
  Tarrant in his own words: [Mod – please don’t post contents from his manifesto]
  
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  March 16, 2025 5:10pm
artemisia

There have been a few recent media mentions of people becoming very ill after taking opioids unwittingly. (Suppliers not so unwitting?)

Is New Zealand ready for an opioid crisis? Because once begun the only way is down.

In the below link Alex Berenson refers to the slow grinding disaster of our opioid addiction and overdose crisis, which has now killed almost 1.5 million Americans — and counting.

He suggests exacerbated by pain being quietly declared “the fifth vital sign.”

https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/on-the-failure-of-expert-guidance
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March 16, 2025 8:34am
- cmm
  
  Fentanyl is stupidly cheap and powerful and it is only inevitable that this finds its way into the supply chain as a substitute to P. Whether that is intentional though spiking fake P or openly sold as Fentanyl is inconsequential – it will get here.
  
  In USA the street price of Fentanyl keeps dropping as the market saturates. In Washington state a hit of Fentanyl can be had for between 50 cents and $5, depending on various factors. The bulk price is obviously less than that. There’s not much money to be made by the dealers.
  
  Imagine a situation like that getting into NZ (as it likely will).
  
  About the only thing keeping it out is that the gangs are probably not too stupid at business and P is still highly profitable. Why introduce Fentanyl and kill the goose that lays the golden eggs?
  
  Here’s the situation 18 months ago in Washington:
  https://washingtonstatestandard.com/briefs/price-of-illicit-fentanyl-in-wa-drops-to-as-low-as-50-cents-a-pill/
  
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  March 16, 2025 9:37am
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    Addicts do it to themselves
    
    4 3
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    March 16, 2025 9:42am
    - cmm
      
      Well, partially true, but….
      
      Imagine someone intending to have a joint. Unbeknown to them the weed has been laced with Fentanyl.
      
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      March 16, 2025 12:29pm
      - Dougal10
        
        Thats always been a risk if you don’t know your supply chain.
        
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        March 16, 2025 1:18pm
  - Don Beckett
    
    Drug o/d deaths are a sad situation, but its Darwinism in action.
    Can only improve the gene pool.
    
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    March 16, 2025 9:50am
    - artemisia
      
      Lee Child’s book The Midnight Line included a lot of detail about the opioid crisis in the US. Not Darwin though, as in the book the addict had been serving military, injured. Personal story though the book also takes a much wider view.
      
      Yeah, it’s fiction but homework done and a good read so there’s that.
      
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      March 16, 2025 9:58am
    - NothingLeft
      
      Highest birth rates in NZ area amongst the meth-and other drug addicted social classes heavily (and clearly destructively) supported by taxpayers.
      
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      March 16, 2025 2:28pm
    - Jake Dee
      
      That’s a very difficult argument to make if your first introduction to the drug was from a prescription from a certified doctor and distributed by a certified pharmacy.
      That’s a crucial point to the opioid epidemic, we will probably NEVER be free of opioids because they have legitimate uses.
      Did you know that Tasmania is a massive supplier of opioids?
      https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-13/tasmania-poppy-farmers-in-crosshairs-of-us-opioid-crisis/11588766
      
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      March 16, 2025 6:51pm
  - Colville
    
    cmm.
    Fentanyl is not nor will it ever be a replacement for P/meth.
    Fentanyl is an opioid so euphoric/relaxing type drug and P/Meth is speed/stimulant.
    Its really apples and oranges if apples and oranges were both highly addictive.
    Like comparing pot to cocaine.
    
    Ketamine which is a very popular recreational drug in New Zealand is at risk of fentanyl contamination…and that would lead to deaths.
    
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    March 16, 2025 12:19pm
- Jake Dee
  
  That’s part of the problem, but only part.
  The bigger question is how that was allowed to happen in the first place.
  There are moral failings amongst addicts, but there are also massive moral failings amongst the medical and pharmaceutical industries, and for the most part their massive moral failings have been highly profitable and perfectly legal.
  They have killed millions of people and made billions of dollars from it.
  
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  March 16, 2025 6:58pm
sungsamning

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/03/rep-james-comer-fbi-bring-criminal-charges-against/
Rep. James Comer and FBI to Bring CRIMINAL CHARGES Against ActBlue Operatives in Largest Money Laundering Scheme in U.S. History.
The hammer is about to drop on Act Blue, the Democrats’ golden goose of fundraising, as House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) teams up with the FBI to expose what could be the biggest money-laundering scandal in American political history.

In an explosive interview with Benny Johnson, Comer laid out a damning case against the far-left fundraising juggernaut, accusing it of funneling billions in suspicious cash—potentially from foreign adversaries—into Democrat coffers under the guise of “grassroots” donations. [With USAID, Act Blue, and the Dept of Ed gone; Dems will become an endangered species. Time to dump the student loan scam too.]
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March 16, 2025 8:47am
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  “Dems will become an endangered species”
  It will take much more than just that. The corruption has been going on for 7 decades or more.
  Don’t forget there is corruption in the Republicans. Just look at the way the RINOs behave.
  
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  March 16, 2025 10:15am
- NothingLeft
  
  ‘Smurfing’ as used at enormous scales by Act Blue is using the bank credentials of individuals, generally without their knowledge, to launder large illegal or want-to-be-anonymous donations. Tens of thousands of mostly elderly (and economically inactive) individuals have found that they have been donating to democrats weekly with donations of $10’s of dollars, their bank details having been copied.
  
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  March 16, 2025 2:34pm
sungsamning

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/columbia-expels-suspends-anti-israel-students-who-occupied-hamilton-hall-last-spring/
Columbia Expels, Suspends Anti-Israel Students Who Occupied Hamilton Hall Last Spring.
Columbia University announced Thursday it has expelled or suspended students who expressed anti-Israel sentiments while occupying a campus building last spring. The Ivy League school has also revoked the diplomas of some graduates. [Trump pulls $400 m, and nekminnit, the academics have a change of heart. Color me surprised.]
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March 16, 2025 8:48am
- pb
  
  Is it a crime to criticize Israel?
  
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  March 16, 2025 10:55am
  - Hollyfield
    
    They weren’t “criticizing” Israel. They were forcibly preventing students and lecturers from going to class.
    
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    March 16, 2025 11:44am
    - AitchW
      
      And calling for the total annihilation of Israel.
      
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      March 16, 2025 2:34pm
- MCōs
  
  If they were involved in the Jan 6 occupation of the capitol are they reinstating?
  
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  March 16, 2025 11:37am
Yvette

“Maori do not have a gene for conservation. The environmental record is clear, for example, that before the arrival of Europeans, Maori were responsible for the destruction by fire of between a third and a half of New Zealand’s original forest cover. Maori were responsible for the extermination of far more species of birds before European arrival than European settlers have eliminated since… To assume that any Maori input anywhere will be conservation-oriented is wilful blind stupidity.”– David Round, “accusing conservation groups of “woke lobbying for Maori supremacy”, David condemns their support for the handing over of the conservation estate to tribal interests”. https://www.nzcpr.com/eliminating-woke/

Then there is the general six-year Ardern/Hipkins period of raising up everything Maori, in an Aryan like way to a level of supremacy, when so many of their number occupy the lowest level of so many social statistics.
Tribal rule will fix that – lie!

It is the continual “force feeding” at every turn of such untruths which like a Pavlovian process has turned me into a semi-conscious bigot, and indeed likely a racist, that I mentally cringe and have cerebral after-burn, with each Maori item on television news or such mention in most media news websites.
It is not a healthy condition, nor is just accepting it.
William Tell – who must have been some sort of supremacist – wouldn’t have.
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March 16, 2025 9:06am
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  How Green Party members can support policies that have seen the Urewera National Park collapse into a Tuhoe fiefdom with no conservation values must take Olympic-level cognitive dissonance.
  
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  March 16, 2025 9:55am
  - Colville
    
    It was Green party members who were running around with machine guns and bombs practicing terrorism in the Ureweras.
    
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    March 16, 2025 12:23pm
    - rouppe
      
      Aspiring Maori Party activists as well. They were insanely lucky that the surveillance laws of the time were such a mess.
      
      Random impertinant question: where is Valerie Morse these days?
      
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      March 16, 2025 1:17pm
      - NeverMindTheBollocks
        
        Gone back home to the US, we can only hope.
        
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        March 16, 2025 5:48pm
      - Ghost
        
        Still around
        
        https://fyi.org.nz/user/valerie_morse
        
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        March 16, 2025 6:05pm
  - Hugh Jarse
    
    The last thing the Green Party is is an environmental organisation.
    
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    March 16, 2025 12:51pm
    - NeverMindTheBollocks
      
      Not necessarily so. For my sins I know several members of the little old lady brigade who see no further than the label, and are unaware that the Green Party of recent times is not what it was.
      
      One does what one can, but it seems their critical faculties are also not what they were.
      
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      March 16, 2025 1:05pm
    - Colville
      
      Hugh.
      I have to disagree.
      I believe if you questioned 1000 Green members every single one of them would say the Greens is an environmental organisation.
      Where Enviro comes in the ranking above or below social policy is up to debate tho and would vary member to member.
      
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      March 16, 2025 2:32pm
      - GJM
        
        Their environmental focus is why they voted against the Kermadec ocean sanctuary.
        “I have principles, if you don’t like them, I have others”. Marxists, of the political rather than the funny slapstick type.
        
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        March 16, 2025 5:02pm
- Pope Punctilious II
  
  “Maori do not have a gene for conservation.”
  
  I don’t think that’s a fair appraisal. The world around, the arrival of Homo sapiens invariably ushered in a wave of extinctions of animals that were “naive” to the dangers posed by a highly intelligent new predator. This wave of extinctions happened about 40-50K ago in Australia, about 12-13 K ago in the Americas, and only 500-700 yrs ago in NZ. Large, slow-breeding animals (“megafauna”) were most at risk, as they were unable to quickly replace losses caused by human predation.
  
  When people arrive in a new land, they have an “abundance” mentality, and don’t appreciate the limits of the country’s resources. Only when precious resources start to dwindle does a conservation mindset develop. This is true of all ethnicities – there’s nothing peculiar about the extinctions and forest clearance that resulted from Polynesian settlement of NZ.
  
  Europeans also had an abundance mindset in relation to the country’s timber resources when they settled here in the 19th century, resulting in wasteful destruction of much forest. Contrast with contemporary urban tree-huggers.
  
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  March 16, 2025 5:43pm
  - keepcalmcarryon
    
    I think the point is Maori are no more conservation inclined than anyone else so the government casting them as some kind of inherent guardians is tosh -as evidenced by the many extinctions they caused, which in NZs case actually outnumber those caused by the “evil” English colonizers.
    
    Ngai Tahu did massive dairy conversions in Canterbury and wanted more. ECAN bumped them back before the Maori take over , wait and see them kaitiaki the hell out of the nitrates when they get to rule over one of the necessities of life : fresh water after they win in the courts.
    Watch their nixed dairy conversions come to life.
    
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    March 16, 2025 6:42pm
    - Pope Punctilious II
      
      I hear you, but the quote I objected to seemed to go further than that. Don’t get me started about the prostitution of the “k” word – applied indiscriminately to iwi, but NOT to my non-Maori friends who run an ecological restoration society and who actually organize and DO STUFF on an impressive scale to protect native flora and fauna (pest control, bird translocation).
      
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      March 16, 2025 10:08pm
greenfinger

Eighteen months on from Labour, Green and Te Pati being ceremoniously kicked out of power, we are still paying the price for Ardern, Robertson, Hipkins and their good mate Orr totally cocking up the economy during their tenure. As for Mr Luxon, if you are listening, you are so far all talk and no result! The clock is ticking!
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March 16, 2025 9:07am
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  Luxon is ignorant and sitting on the fence.
  My great grandson (who is almost 2) will be paying for Ardern’s destruction when he gets to retirement age. Sure Robertson, Hipkins, and Orr were involved but as PM, Arden carries the can.
  
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  March 16, 2025 10:21am
  - peterwn
    
    And what will great grandad be doing to help his great grandson make a better deal of life than average. Hopefully not like that mum in Southland who considered the most appropriate thing was to teach her kids how to live in poverty on the benefit because they would not be able to get jobs. After all, journo Katie Bradford rose above the professional defeatism of her mum whose attitude was that the benefit was available so why not take it.
    
    2 3
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    March 16, 2025 2:08pm
Suze Wainwright

I had no idea of Eliza McCartney’s utter hypocrisy.

Has she been groomed by the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand to influence a perceived missing demographic in their voter support base?
28 4
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March 16, 2025 9:19am
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  Shame. She has abs to die for.
  
  5 1
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  March 16, 2025 9:43am
- pdm
  
  As I said earlier in the week Suze.
  
  Eliza McCarthy seemed such a nice, sensible young lady. Exactly the girl mrspdm and I would like one of our grandsons to bring home to meet us.
  
  Now I am not so sure.
  
  17 4
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  March 16, 2025 9:49am
  - Colville
    
    I think she has missed the mat a few times and landed on her head.
    
    6 0
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    March 16, 2025 12:24pm
  - Jack5
    
    Eliza McArthy’s the one Greenie you can, without offence, say is “jumped up”.
    
    Laughed at PDM’s thought of a grandson bringing lovely, lissome Eliza “home to meet us”.
    
    6 2
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    March 16, 2025 1:35pm
- Pineapple Lumps
  
  I would suggest she has been groomed by the NZ education system and a socially liberal society that lacks a rock solid moral foundation.
  
  23 4
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  March 16, 2025 9:49am
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    Wonder how good she is with maths that she presumably learnt in the Education System?
    
    7 2
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    March 16, 2025 10:24am
- AitchW
  
  Are they lining her up for a place on their list when she stops jumping?
  
  4 0
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  March 16, 2025 2:35pm
John Loveridge

Wellington City Council doing what Wellington City Council does best, and none of it includes keeping the essential infrastructure operational.

The city’s more conservative ratepayers might be fascinated to learn they’re paying for two staffers to sit and reply to comments on Facebook, and that those staffers couldn’t take the heat and turned off commenting.

https://www.facebook.com/share/1A2vmaom92/
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March 16, 2025 9:21am
Yvette

Act is primarily a supporter of the equality of treatment ‘before the law’. It likes to argue that everyone is the same, everyone should be treated the same, differences of ‘race’ (their term, not mine) shouldn’t matter.
At first glance, this sounds right and attractive. However, there are many, many ways in which, as a society, we don’t treat people the same, and certainly not ‘before the law’. We don’t treat children the same as adults, criminals the same as law-abiding citizens, we don’t treat differently-abled people all the same, or expect those in wheelchairs to use the stairs.
https://newsroom.co.nz/2025/03/11/equality-nzs-highest-principle-or-socialist-delusion/?

What follows below is a general guide to the meaning of the treaty texts.
In article 3 of the English text, the Crown promises to Māori the benefits of royal protection and full citizenship. In the Māori text the Queen agrees to give Māori the same rights and duties of citizenship as the people of England:
‘nga tikanga katoa rite tahi ki ana mea ki nga tangata o Ingarani’
This article emphasises equality and equity.
https://www.waitangitribunal.govt.nz/en/about/the-treaty/about-the-treaty.

Google Translate –
‘nga tikanga katoa rite tahi ki ana mea ki nga tangata o Ingarani’ apparently may just mean –
‘all customs are the same as those of the people of England’

Which does not seem to state “This article emphasises equality and equity” as the Waitangi Tribunal claims.

William Tell – who must have been some sort of supremacist – would likely have scorned this representation of the Truth as well.
Along with the Late Maori King – “The Treaty is written. That’s it”
11 4
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March 16, 2025 9:47am
- Don Beckett
  
  Equality, but NOT equity. Two different things. One implies self reliance, the other implies dependence.
  
  5 4
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  March 16, 2025 11:12am
  - wsk12345
    
    Certainly not equality of outcomes. Equal opportunities and equitable (fair) outcomes seems reasonable to me. Fair meaning if you don’t get off your arse you don’t get to have the life you want.
    
    4 1
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    March 16, 2025 1:39pm
- cmm
  
  Sure, we don’t treat children the same as adults, but that is because they are children and not fully capable yet and are, ummm, children and we do not expect adult behaviour from them.
  
  Does that mean it is OK to treat Maori as children? Are Maori lesser people for whom we should have reduced expectations?
  
  Likewise, we make some allowances for disabled people in certain circumstances. Is being Maori a disability?
  
  “In article 3 of the English text, the Crown promises to Māori the benefits of royal protection and full citizenship. In the Māori text the Queen agrees to give Māori the same rights and duties of citizenship as the people of England”
  
  Unfortunately the duty part of that is often forgotten about, and “rights” have been replaced with “outcomes”.
  
  If you find yourself holding Maori to lesser standards than white people then you’re being racist.
  
  9 2
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  March 16, 2025 12:22pm
- PurplePen
  
  “In the Māori text the Queen agrees to give Māori the same rights and duties of citizenship as the people of England”.
  
  How do the likes of the tribunal get from the above to saying it’s all about equality let alone equity? The same rights merely means they become get bound by the same laws as everyone else.
  
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  March 16, 2025 3:44pm
Pineapple Lumps

Really enjoyed the Leighton Smith podcast this week. His guest was Rodney Hide, who shared on his battle with the Wakatipu High School board. He is fighting a courageous battle along with “Let kids be kids” group against the grooming of children in our schools.

Definitely worth a listen!
24 4
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March 16, 2025 9:54am
- pdm
  
  Bloody hell Pineapple L.
  
  How could you possibly get two downticks for that?
  
  11 4
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  March 16, 2025 10:11am
  - Blog-aholic
    
    4 now and probably from the very people that Hide is talking about, the fatuous, vacuous woke, support any trendy cause and are offended perpetually on some one elses behalf……
    
    Now watch how many red thumbs I get for that…they’ll be from the same closet.
    
    13 5
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    March 16, 2025 11:06am
    - greybeard
      
      It has been the same all day: looks like a planned assault by The Left.
      
      2 4
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      March 16, 2025 3:45pm
      - greybeard
        
        And so it continues…….
        
        1 4
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        March 16, 2025 4:51pm
  - Pineapple Lumps
    
    PDM – I thought, it must be CDS (confectionery derangement syndrome). But I see you have the same number.
    
    3 1
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    March 16, 2025 3:58pm
- Steve Todd
  
  @Pineapple Lumps @ 9:54AM
  
  Definitely worth a listen!
  
  And yet you couldn’t provide a link to it?
  
  3 0
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  March 16, 2025 2:09pm
  - Pineapple Lumps
    
    Fair enough Steve.
    
    https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/the-leighton-smith-podcast
    
    https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/podcasts/the-leighton-smith-podcast
    
    3 1
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    March 16, 2025 3:55pm
    - Steve Todd
      
      Excellent. Thank you, Pineapple Lumps. Very much appreciated.
      
      0 0
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      March 16, 2025 8:53pm
Scooter

Very good article by Damien Grant. You’d think a public servant being paid as much as Orr (and being responsible for the money printing and huge losses incurred during COVID) would be made to explain his walking out on his 800k job with no explanation to the public. And he either hasn’t explained to the RBNZ or National or they are just covering for him. Either way it’s a disgrace.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360614756/damien-grant-adrian-orr-did-something-i-can-get-behind-he-resigned
13 1
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March 16, 2025 10:49am
Steve Otto N Shore

The next Department on the chopping block.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon. The idea is to do such a good job that she put herself out of a job.

https://patriotpulse.net/donald-trump-revealed-this-is-the-next-government-agency-to-be-shut-down/?

If only that could happen in NZ.
6 5
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March 16, 2025 11:41am
cmm

I really don’t understand why Trump is wasting resources sending forces to thump the Houthis.

Collins already sent 6 observers from NZ. The problem’s sorted. Long ago.
7 4
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March 16, 2025 1:33pm
- Colville
  
  Some deep recon “watchers” and some 2000lb bombs from a MQ9 reaper and it will get messy for them.
  
  1 1
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  March 16, 2025 2:36pm
  - cmm
    
    She didn’t send the SAS. She sent some shiney-shoe diplomatic types. They’re probably excellent at fetching coffee for the grown up countries that actually sent ships.
    
    2 3
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    March 16, 2025 4:37pm
    - Ghost
      
      A team of 6 was sent into Yemen to provide “precision targeting”.
      
      Oh well, keyboard warriors always think they do more than those actually out doing the work.
      
      2 0
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      March 16, 2025 4:45pm
Damocles11

Woke maorification continues with Mark Richardson announcing “and now here’s ‘the Call to Field’” ahead of the national anthems at todays T20 at Hagley Oval. A conch is blown loud and long, and then a Maori wahine launches into a karanga (call of welcome). She is flanked by two Maori warriors. At the conclusion of this there are some more words in Maori by an MC introducing the national anthems.
4 3
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March 16, 2025 2:14pm
- AitchW
  
  To be fair that sort of thing plays well to an international tv audience. Plastic tikis and all that….
  
  5 2
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  March 16, 2025 2:41pm
- greybeard
  
  I turned it off for 5 minutes.
  
  5 4
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  March 16, 2025 3:14pm
- Jack5
  
  Woke stuff at Hagley Oval contrasts with the ending of the Crusaders’ galloping knights and toy swords for supporters.
  
  And with the failed campaign to change the team’s name from Crusaders. No pressure though to change the name of the North Canterbury rugby club from “Saracens”.
  
  6 1
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  March 16, 2025 4:13pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  Yeah, but it’s cricket. Not exactly the sport of choice of the tangata whenua or their Pasifika chums.
  
  2 0
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  March 16, 2025 5:52pm
rouppe

A 2011 video clip of Barack Obama announcing he was on a drive to cut wasteful federal spending, and Joe Biden was in charge of it.

As an aside, notice when Joe Biden speaks here his eyes are wide open. In the latter part of his presidency whenever he made speeches or announcements he was squinting terribly. Wondered whether that was a lifetime thing but obviously not.
2 2
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March 16, 2025 2:27pm
Chuck Bird

The title explains it all.

NZ Election 2026 will be a close call. Choosing between Labour’s Proven Loser & National’s Travelling Salesman.

https://www.downtoearth.kiwi/post/why-election-2026-in-nz-will-be-close-its-a-choice-between-labour-s-proven-loser-national-s-trave
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March 16, 2025 3:07pm
AitchW

Why is Hagley Oval circular? Or is that just an optical illusion?
2 0
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March 16, 2025 3:19pm
- Mike
  
  It’s always been called an oval. Doesn’t look like a perfect circle to me, but just slightly flattened.
  
  2 0
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  March 16, 2025 4:12pm
  - rockape
    
    An oblate spheroid then, much like the Earth.
    
    2 1
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    March 16, 2025 4:30pm
- Jack5
  
  🥚Eggsactly!
  
  4 0
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  March 16, 2025 4:14pm
- MCōs
  
  Cricket grounds are ideally oval shaped to maintain an equal distance from the stumps.
  As a consequence a number of cricket fields are named ‘Ovals’. Kennington, Bellerive, Hagley, Nelson
  Aussie Rules is played on ovals because it was invented to make use of spare cricket fields in the winter
  
  2 0
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  March 16, 2025 9:52pm
greybeard

Pakistan were so bad you have to wonder if a fair bit of money was put on the result of this first T20 game.
1 2
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March 16, 2025 4:49pm
- MCōs
  
  Nobody ever says that when the Blackcaps put in the occasional pitiful performance and we’ve had a couple of proven and alleged match fixers in our ranks in the past
  
  5 0
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  March 16, 2025 8:33pm
greybeard

“Stuff” is desperate: this article is at least a year old.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world-news/360616604/rabbit-miraculously-escapes-avalanche
2 0
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March 16, 2025 4:56pm
- Ghost
  
  Happened in 2015
  
  https://metro.co.uk/2015/06/08/rabbit-manages-to-survive-running-through-an-avalanche-5236205/
  
  2 0
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  March 16, 2025 5:30pm
Ghost

Rawiri playing to his audience

The ACT Party has responded with condemnation against Te Pāti Māori, after a post from co-leader Rawiri Waititi compared his unmanageable lawns to David Seymour.

The Instagram post said: “Lawns are getting a good fkn hiding”. It said he was treating “every piece of grass [like it] is a David Seymour”.

Article
1 0
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March 16, 2025 8:04pm
- Colville
  
  you mean he is being and racist cu*t>?
  
  So situation normal them?
  
  0 0
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  March 16, 2025 9:10pm
Jack5

Maori street names are being pushed for Invercargill, though in this case the suggested non-Maori names were accepted:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360604055/confusion-over-invercargills-te-reo-maori-street-name-rules
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March 16, 2025 10:24pm

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