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April 7, 2025 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 07 April 2025

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General Debate

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Cassandra

CATO scholar Scott Lincicome, a libertarian, summarises the Trump tariffs:

“Trump’s reciprocal tariffs:
1) Impose hundreds of billions of dollars in new taxes on Americans without public/congressional input
2) Are based on secret calculations that have little, if any, connection to actual foreign trade barriers
3) Ignore all U.S. tariff/nontariff barriers, which in some cases are quite high
4) Are justified by a “national emergency” that reflects a total misunderstanding of how trade deficits work
5) Disregard U.S. trade agreement commitments, including ones made by Trump himself
6) Will make us all poorer, and likely do real and lasting harm to the U.S. economy (including in manufacturing)
7) Embolden our adversaries around the world.

And those are just the ones off the top of my head.”

The proof of the pudding will be, as always, in the eating. Prof Robert McCulloch has a contrary view, at least as far as trying to solve the problem America has and that is a national GST. Tariffs are only the opening salvo. US Treasurer and Commerce Secretary both say that there won’t be a recession, JP Morgan says there will. This has a way to go. The next step in this is what happens when US prices rise – as they will – and wages don’t. Voters don’t like that. There’ll be some fine-tuning and some deals done. NZ can do a deal.
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April 7, 2025 8:01am
- All_on_Red
  
  US Voters seem happy so far.
  ‘President Donald Trump is more popular now than before he sent the global markets into a frenzy by enacting sweeping new tariffs.
  
  An exclusive DailyMail.com/J.L. Partners survey of over 1,000 registered voters conducted from March 31 to April 3 found that the Republican remains largely popular in the U.S.
  
  The poll found that Trump’s approval rating rose to 53 percent, a 4-point increase over last week when it was 49 percent.’
  ‘It is up by 13 points since March 7 among those aged 18 to 29.
  
  Trump also saw a six-point increase in favorability among Democrats and independents, according to the survey.
  
  The Republican’s support among black voters skyrocketed 17 points since last week, the poll found.’
  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14573081/trump-tariffs-americans-deliver-verdict-trade-poll.html
  
  “when US prices rise – as they will –”
  Prior Data indicates maybe not.
  ‘inflation and relative price changes are not the same thing. When tariffs increase the price of one product, consumers have less money to spend on other goods, exerting downward pressure on prices elsewhere. Tariffs rearrange prices within the economy; they do not cause a broad, sustained rise in prices across the board.’
  ‘Research into Trump-era tariffs—including studies by economists at the Federal Reserve and the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)—found minimal pass-through into broad inflation. Any price increases that reached consumers were largely confined to targeted items, with prices elsewhere remaining flat or declining. Inflation under Trump’s first term was typically below the Fed’s two percent target. Kudlow’s point that tariffs alter relative prices rather than cause broad inflation is validated by this empirical evidence.’
  https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2025/03/26/breitbart-business-digest-why-tariffs-do-not-and-cannot-cause-inflation/
  
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  April 7, 2025 8:25am
  - Cassandra
    
    Early days, Red. Difficult to see how prices won’t rise, the compensation will be a wage increase. We’ll see.
    
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    April 7, 2025 8:29am
    - All_on_Red
      
      The actual observed data says this; ‘Any price increases that reached consumers were largely confined to targeted items, with prices elsewhere remaining flat or declining’
      Given how countries like Israel and Vietnam are saying they will go Zero Tariffs I suspect the end game is not yet clear and that all these ‘International Economic Experts’ pontificating about the sky falling and prices rocketing should perhaps wait and see.
      
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      April 7, 2025 8:34am
      - RoboRob
        
        The problem is, thus far, the tariffs dont relate to other countries tariffs. They are based on balance of trade. Of course a country like Israel with 10m people will sell more to the US (with 350m) then it will buy. Zero tariffs from Israel wont effect the balance of trade.
        
        I am hopeful Trump tones this stuff down, but at the moment I’m bot sure how countries like NZ can negotiate.
        
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        April 7, 2025 9:06am
      - All_on_Red
        
        ‘Taiwans President Lai Ching-te on Sunday offered zero tariffs as the basis for talks with the U.S., pledging to remove trade barriers rather than imposing reciprocal measures and saying Taiwanese companies will raise their U.S. investments.’
        ‘Taiwan’s TSMC (2330.TW), opens new tab, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, last month announced an additional $100 billion investment in the U.S.’
        https://www.reuters.com/world/taiwan-wont-take-reciprocal-tariffs-against-us-will-remove-trade-barriers-2025-04-06/
        
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        April 7, 2025 9:08am
      - MCōs
        
        America is Thailand’s number one export destination and goods now have a 36% tariff presumably because of the trade imbalance.
        My wife watches Thai news and Thais living in the USA, mainly LA, are bracing for huge price increases for imported Thai food ingredients not locally available
        
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        April 7, 2025 9:18am
      - Stu2
        
        Given the apparent goals of moving manufacturing back to the US and reducing trade deficits, zero tariffs don’t seem material. It isn’t as though countries like Vietnam would buy vast amounts more from the US if their tariff situation were different.
        
        Australia sells less to the US than it buys, has hardly any tariffs but still got 10%.
        
        Of course Trump might decide to retreat and claim victory over tariff deals.
        
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        April 7, 2025 10:03am
      - MCōs
        
        ‘Of course Trump might decide to retreat and claim victory over tariff deals’
        That sort of approach may be normal when buying a second hand cars
        
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        April 7, 2025 11:50am
      - MCōs
        
        Further to my comment above
        There are a number of Asian supermarkets around Auckland, several of which we are familiar with because my wife is Asian
        Apart from locally grown meat and vegetables they sell products sourced from Asia as you’d expect. The clientele, workers and owners are predominantly Asian.
        I don’t know, but I’m guessing it’s a similar situation in America, particularly on the west coast.
        Suddenly most the stuff they sell is going to skyrocket in price and there’s a lot of Asians in America. A lot of voters
        
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        April 7, 2025 3:50pm
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      We export organic wool to the US through my work, the price per KG of raw wool is $3 ahead of the market, when they mss as me carpet out of that wool, and sell organ carpets the price will not go up 10% sure it will go up slightly, but the 10% across the whole product will be negligible, and possibly not even be noticed by consumers, fully manufactured products will have the full 10% on it, but even then that is before taxes which in the us are not on the shelf price, but added on purchase
      
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      April 7, 2025 8:44am
    - slightlyrighty
      
      But wage increases also causes price rises….
      
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      April 7, 2025 8:58am
    - kowtow
      
      We should be seeing a Trump Tariff dividend right now , this minute .
      
      NZ $ down , barrel of oil price down bigly .
      
      Big drops at the pump ?
      
      On yer bike .
      
      It’s not Trump screwing us , it’s NZ Bigly Business ! As per effing usual .
      
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      April 7, 2025 10:34am
      - [email protected]
        
        Price of crude oil currently down 38% from January 2025. Went from US$78 per barrel to US$60 per barrel. Have not seen the price of petrol drop. Glad to be driving an electric car.
        
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        April 7, 2025 1:00pm
      - grumpy
        
        The Pacific Peso has fallen so fast that any saving in price has been wiped out.
        
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        April 7, 2025 2:41pm
      - NZer In Exile
        
        As they say over here in Aus, with the fuel industry, prices rocket up, but feather down (as in a feather slowly slowly drifting down).
        
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        April 7, 2025 7:59pm
  - emmess
    
    All_on_Red
    You clearly aren’t or you would have been wiped out by now
    
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    April 7, 2025 8:39am
  - Mike
    
    LOL
    https://www.reuters.com/default/trump-approval-falls-43-lowest-since-returning-office-reutersipsos-poll-finds-2025-04-02/
    Even if Trump’s approval rating was high, his fans would struggle to justify how why triggering a global recession is a genius move, let alone explain how a chatbot sets tariff rates.
    
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    April 7, 2025 8:42am
    - NZer In Exile
      
      Many bargain hunters will be buying up cheap value-shares. Which will cause things to bounce up again.
      Trump is not creating systemic reasons for an economic collapse. He’s started a game of musical chairs, so there is a commotion at present. The end game is big industries “in-sourcing” back to the USA, more Americans employed and less fentanyl/crack/cocaine mayhem/deaths on the streets. Also less dependence on what is essentially an enemy regime for essential goods.
      
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      April 7, 2025 7:53pm
  - emmess
    
    Also, the Daily Mail poll seems weirdly out of line with all other recent ones
    https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/approval/donald-trump/approval-rating
    
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    April 7, 2025 8:48am
  - MCōs
    
    There’s polls and then there’s other polls
    https://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/local/colorado/2025/04/05/president-trump-approval-ratings-colorado/82890301007/#
    
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    April 7, 2025 8:50am
  - kowtow
    
    AoR
    
    Devil’s Advocate here .
    The recent Wisconsin Supreme Court election went to the Dems . Some commentary that it may have been a bit of a reaction to Musk .
    In any event it’s a blow to the Republicans and could cost some Congressional seats due to future redistricting .
    
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    April 7, 2025 8:58am
    - grumpy
      
      So far…..huge voting irregularities uncovered. Court has referred 65,000 votes for voter identification. Election was “won” by only 700 Votes.
      
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      April 7, 2025 12:00pm
      - kowtow
        
        grumpy
        
        Where that figure from . I’ve read the Dem got over 200,000 more than the good guy .
        
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        April 7, 2025 12:05pm
      - Ghost
        
        No, not sure where you are getting 700 votes from
        
        Susan Crawford. 1,301,128 55.0%
        Brad Schimel NP. 1,063,244 45.0%
        
        https://www.wpr.org/election-results-2025
        
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        April 7, 2025 12:14pm
  - Raphael
    
    I was listening to a group of American Lawyers talking about it this weekend.
    
    Their perspective on the tariffs, which seems to be echoed from other American sources, is that Since WW2 America has been the world’s policeman, at a cost that other countries don’t appreciate.
    As a result, many countries don’t have to spend as much on their own security.
    
    So the general sentiment is one of “about time”
    
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    April 7, 2025 9:01am
    - RoboRob
      
      Yes, many are lapping up Trumps sales lines like this. I am sure that plenty of people in the US believe that NZ charges 20% tariffs on American goods too.
      
      Yes the US has been the worlds police man. They have also reaped the benefits of this too. Taxing Americans buying overseas products isn’t righting the situation you describe. Tariffs are about protectting local industry, we shall see how this all works out 🙂
      
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      April 7, 2025 9:10am
    - redeye
      
      Free trade is supposed to be reciprocal. The USA has been running trade deficits since the 70’s. That’s a huge transfer of wealth from US taxpayers to the rest of the world that they are rightly trying to halt.
      They’re 36 trillion dollars in debt and it’s rising by 2 trillion a year. They’re currently spending more per year on interest than their entire military budget.
      If they stay on the same track they would become the world’s broke policeman.
      I have no idea if tarrifs will fix their position but I do notice, in amongst all the moaning, there’s no other ideas as to how they can correct their ship.
      
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      April 7, 2025 9:15am
      - Michael Johnston
        
        You seem to be confusing trade deficits with government debt.
        
        Reciprocal trade means equal access to markets, it doesn’t mean equal amounts traded in each direction. America is a wealthy and populous country. Its residents can afford to buy a more from other countries than residents of those countries can afford to buy from America.
        
        America’s massive government debt is largely caused by welfare entitlements. It has very little to do with trade.
        
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        April 7, 2025 1:12pm
      - redeye
        
        America is a wealthy country that been put into record debt because of its welfare entitlements? So wealthy they can afford over 50 years of trade deficits?
        I’m confused alright but not between debt and trade deficits. I do know the only way to pay down debt is with a trade surplus. International debt at least.
        
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        April 7, 2025 4:29pm
    - Taieri
      
      Since WW2 America has been the world’s policeman, at a cost that other countries don’t appreciate.
      ———
      
      Self appointed, since it was in the US interest to become one, or to be precise, in the interest of the US armament and military sector. And maintaining an empire is expensive.
      
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      April 7, 2025 9:35am
      - Sir Henry Morgan
        
        Exactly. Post WWII the US was very keen to hasten the dismantling of the British Empire. That ended up causing no end of chaos in Africa. Several more decades of benevolent and efficient British rule might have avoided communist revolutions, farcical elections, and all kinds of violence and deprivation. Rhodesia in particular was betrayed.
        
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        April 7, 2025 12:11pm
    - newview
      
      R. “Since WW2 America has been the world’s policeman”. So who’s fault is that. Many would say the US has interferred with plenty of overseas’s situations because of its own agenda’s. They are also blaming other countries for tariffs and trade balances that could have been dealt with individually over time. Its businesses have also suffered because in some cases they aren’t competitive. Who would want to buy a big gas drinking car outside of the US and many in the US don’t want them either.
      The US seems to be blaming everyone else for problems it’s created itself.
      
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      April 7, 2025 9:46am
      - kowtow
        
        Yeah too right .
        
        ‘We’ really didn’t need them here in the Pacific or Normandy .
        
        Stop interfering , we want to eat rice and wasabe , and drink sake . ( Lucky if you’d get it , whitey) .
        
        Yanqui vamos !
        
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        April 7, 2025 10:43am
      - Groggy
        
        @ Koiwtow, they would have happily let us and Australia eat rice if it wasn’t for Pearl Harbour forcing their hand.
        
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        April 7, 2025 5:39pm
    - Lance
      
      Yes, that’s true, but there was a strategy to being ‘the worlds policeman’, it made the US the centre of the western world. Which was a colossal advantage, making itself the default currency for many purchases like oil, it created strong loyalties especially with military alliances, arms interoperability (US weapons became the standard to source) and the US was at the centre of many or most trade alliances.
      The USA is quite entitled to change this strategy, and let the rest of the western world stand on its own two feet, but they shouldn’t be surprised if they are now on the outside of alliances, trade deals etc. Good grief, the whining has already started about the US no longer being the preferred source of high performance fighter jets.
      Although I would add, insulting the rest of the world was arrogant and moronic.
      
      The USA has chartered a new course that will see it isolate into its own borders.
      Time will tell if that was smart or stupid.
      
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      April 7, 2025 10:00am
    - slightlyrighty
      
      If the US has been the world’s policeman, it’s because they appointed themselves to the role. Much of this can be laid at the feet of Truman, who negotiated the role of the US in the post WW2 world, and gave us the Truman Doctrine and Eisenhower, who saw US Military Dominance as the method by which Peace could be maintained.
      
      Eisenhower did push for a rearmed Europe, however that did not take.
      
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      April 7, 2025 10:07am
      - kowtow
        
        Yeah that’s right.
        
        Churchill should never have engaged with FDR to try and pull the imperialist Yanks into the original Atlantic alliance, the actual forerunner of the United Nations .Which they forced everyone at gunpoint to join and subscribe to.
        
        Cos Uncle Joe and his various minnions in China , N Korea etc was such a nice guy and allowed so much freedom in the ‘liberated’ territories ……
        
        FFS.
        
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        April 7, 2025 10:48am
    - alloytoo
      
      I think this will be a feature of any deal that’s to be struck, countries relying on the American tax payer for their security will be asked to contribute a little more.
      
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      April 7, 2025 10:19am
    - MCōs
      
      Americans used to have an unusual impression of what the rest of the world thinks of them.
      They used to think nobody liked them whereas apart from the countries where they had a military presence most people were indifferent
      
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      April 7, 2025 10:47am
    - Handyman
      
      It must be Monday or Wednesday. “The US is the world’s policeman, interfering in other people’s business”. Tell them to f*** off.
      
      On Tuesdays and Thursdays… the US must send 200 billion dollars to Ukraine to save the Europeans having to spend on defence. The US is shirking their responsibility.
      
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      April 7, 2025 12:31pm
      - losingtheplot
        
        US spent less supporting Ukraine than Europe. Trump just makes stuff up when he’s riffing to justify what he wants to do. Most of his facts and figures are just fantasy.
        
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        April 7, 2025 2:54pm
  - RoboRob
    
    In general prices for US consumers will rise. Trump is popular at the moment becuase he is actually doing what he promised. It remains to be seen how popular he is when prices start rising.
    
    Many things aren’t readily replaced with an American version. Apparently US relies on NZ and AU beef to supplement its burger supply, they dont have enough of the right beef. When the price of a burger goes up everywhere, Americans will notice.
    
    Lets see how happy they are when iPhones go up in price etc
    
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    April 7, 2025 9:02am
  - cmm
    
    The vast majority of tariffs are applied to items which are discretionary spending. People can choose to buy them or not.
    
    Many of the things that have tariffs either have, or will have, local alternatives.
    
    Tariffs are good in that they are visible (vs, say, subsidies which are invisible) and people who pay them can choose to do so (or not).
    
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    April 7, 2025 10:26am
    - Hard Cheese
      
      Except when Trump applies a 34% blanket tariff to everything imported from China. There is no such thing as discretionary spending on goods made in China.
      
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      April 7, 2025 11:22am
      - cmm
        
        Of course there is.
        
        The vast majority of stuff people are buying is crap they don’t need.
        
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        April 7, 2025 11:53am
      - Stu2
        
        Some of what comes from China are components used in US manufacturing, so a 54% tariff is not in the least helpful, and possibly not avoidable, for those products
        
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        April 7, 2025 12:49pm
      - Hard Cheese
        
        @cmm You must be joking. Clothes, footwear, household items, electronics, toys – none of these things will have reasonably priced locally made alternatives now or in the future. Where in America are they going to produce clothing and footwear at the same prices as China, pray tell? Or do people just do without that type of discretionary spending? LOL
        
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        April 7, 2025 3:24pm
      - cmm
        
        Cheese: There are vast amounts of well made clothing in USA and it is easy to ramp up clothing production.
        
        Yes, USA has many of their electronic products manufactured and assembled in China (eg. the beloved iphone that apparently everyone must have). The value of the assembly costs of an iphone (ie. the part that is going to be subject to duty) is less than $100 (probably actually less than $50), so adds maybe $20 to a $1200 product.
        
        The cost of a Tshirt imported from China is maybe $2, but sells for $20. Add a 34% tariff to the $2 and we’re adding 68 cents to a $20 product. Let’s call that $1 to round up.
        
        That really isn’t going to move the needle for consumers, but could change the supply chain somewhat.
        
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        April 7, 2025 3:51pm
- Jethrod
  
  The US has a problem. They have a massive deficit that has built up since the late 90’s. The various wars they have involved themselves in, in the main unsuccessfully, have had to be paid for somehow . So borrowing happens.
  No one, up to this time, has had the guts to attempt to turn around this fact.
  People can blither on about tariffs being bad , but a little pain is needed at times to arrest this certain decline into would be a catasclysmic crash of the world’s finance system.
  
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  April 7, 2025 8:33am
- Simon
  
  Lol libertarian as discredited as the left. Capital & Labour is international therefore the libertarians are just lying.
  
  No one knows the outcome of the Trump tariffs. [Deleted – stop trying to turn every conversation into a vaccine one]
  
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  April 7, 2025 8:41am
- G152
  
  But what are those poor penguins going to do?
  Is Trump going to take their fish away?
  And is the Pope really catholic?
  
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  April 7, 2025 8:47am
- peterwn
  
  Trouble is, states already occupy the GST space with their sales taxes. This would mean customers are taxed twice,.
  
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  April 7, 2025 8:48am
- slightlyrighty
  
  Who is Ron Vera?
  
  Ron Vera is an expert that has been quoted in Trump Circles as an advocate for Tariffs who has claimed that Tariffs work to “Defend the Economy and have no negative impacts on growth or stock market rise”
  
  The advisor that has been quoting Vera is Peter Navarro, the Trump Advisor that was imprisoned for ignoring a congressional subpoena.
  
  Eagle eyed posters may notice that “Ron Vera” is an anagram of Navarro. That’s because Navarro invented Ron Vera so he would have someone to quote.
  
  Has Trump wiped Trillions from the stock market because of this made up person?
  
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  April 7, 2025 8:57am
  - Mike
    
    David Dennison’s at it again?
    
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    April 7, 2025 1:21pm
  - NZer In Exile
    
    “Has Trump wiped Trillions from the stock market because of this made up person?”
    
    No, silly people have panicked and started an lemming rush over the cliff. Meanwhile smart people have bought up the shares they dropped, at bargain prices.
    
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    April 7, 2025 8:03pm
- Interested Party
  
  From listening to various commentaries on the tariffs, some points to counter the sky is falling media.
  
  1) The tariffs have a one off inflationary impact
  2) Overseas suppliers and local importers / distributors will negotiate pricing to wear some of the increase rather than pass it all on
  3) Imports only make up 11% of the US economy
  4) Currency fluctuations overtime can have a greater impact on prices than tariffs (especially for the lower tariffed imports)
  5) Where possible importers will switch to lower tariffed countries
  6) Where it makes sence, distributors will switch to domestic suppliers.
  7) From a geo political security perspective the US needs to support the growth of some industries e.g Steel, chip making etc
  
  From a pure economics perspective tariffs are not good, however many countries have non tariff mechanisms that support local industries- how does the US counter this to reduce its trade deficit
  
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  April 7, 2025 9:02am
  - Stu2
    
    There is another downside – tariffs on inputs such as steel or aluminium give the domestic producers an opportunity to push their prices up.
    
    Also applies to manufactured items like vehicles, expect some profit taking by the locals
    
    The losers are the consumer, and US competitiveness
    
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    April 7, 2025 12:56pm
    - cmm
      
      “Also applies to manufactured items like vehicles, expect some profit taking by the locals”
      
      There are not necessarily a lot of extra profits to be had there. Those Evil Capitalist Bastards are going to have to spend huge building factories, training and hiring staff (Union workers) etc etc.
      
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      April 7, 2025 4:03pm
  - cmm
    
    There are some interesting upsides for other consumers.
    
    Consider some commodity X which sells for $10 per kg and is subject to $2 per kg tariff.
    
    Depending on who holds the upper hand in the supply and demand games, the seller might still only be able to sell to USA for $10 and thus only make $8/kg because they must pay the $2 duty.
    
    Thus they are now incentivized to sell at a lower price to non-USA countries. For example, they could sell to, say, UK for $9/kg and make a better profit.
    
    That way the seller is getting $1/kg more and UK is getting a $1/kg better price. Win Win.
    
    It isn’t a zero sum game.
    
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    April 7, 2025 4:02pm
- Paulus
  
  Didn’t the US Voters vote for this ?
  
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  April 7, 2025 2:18pm
  - Mike
    
    The tariff question was not put to the electorate. And this set of measures wasn’t in the Project 2025 manifesto.
    
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    April 7, 2025 2:46pm
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      Yes they did go to to the election knowing retaliatory tariffs would happen, it’s absolutely pointless lying about that fact
      
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      April 7, 2025 6:21pm
- Ra Henare
  
  So 50 countries apparently have agreed to reduce THEIR tariffs. Vietnam down to 0%.
  
  The game is afoot.
  
  So take a deep breath as negotiations begin and the US tariffs get adjusted””.
  
  So much heat and smoke around at the moment.
  
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  April 7, 2025 2:41pm
NeverMindTheBollocks

RNZ claims there is support for the insertion of a cycleway into a busy PN road. The cycleway has meant that the bus stops are now in the middle of the road, while parking has been wiped out.

In favour: cyclists, of course. “At the sites were counts took place, 88-142 cyclists a day were recorded, compared with 81-118 in November”. Not much of an increase, eh.

Against: St John Ambulance. “This is difficult to quantify, but the general consensus is that response times have increase by some minutes. This can have an extremely negative effect when responding to a cardiac arrest.”
Fire and Emergency. Trucks delayed at peak times, negative effect ditto.
PNBHS. The loss of on-road parking means hall hire revenue is down.
Retail. Spending is down.

So, a risk to other people’s lives, property and livelihoods is perfectly acceptable to cycling advocates and the perhaps 7 additional cyclists.

Oh, and it reportedly cost just $2m. I’m willing to bet the traditional servo pie that this figure excludes plenty of Council time.

http://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/557357/palmerston-north-street-no-longer-a-viable-option-as-a-key-response-route
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April 7, 2025 8:02am
- Colville
  
  I just saw this and was interested as I am ex Palmy.
  
  This intersection is a total clusterf*ck, the supermarket on the corner, you cant get in or out of the carpark. Maccas across the road must have halved its turnover.
  
  So circa 100 bikes a day, so that is 50 in each direction. This is with the Boys High School a few hundred meters away that has 1700 students.!!!
  
  Council planner says effect to traffic is “less than minor” Yeah Right!
  
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  April 7, 2025 11:27am
- cmm
  
  One of the magically reworked roads in Christchurch is Hanson’s Lane.
  
  They took all the margin out of the road and squished it down – making a huge cycleway separated off by a concrete berm.
  
  A few months ago I was driving along in rush hour traffic with an ambulance stuck in the traffic in front of me. Nobody could move aside and let the ambulance through. It must have been delayed by at least 5 minutes.
  
  During those 5 minutes one person came through on a bike.
  
  https://maps.app.goo.gl/8o9aPZ3cDC3gsCRt5
  
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  April 7, 2025 11:59am
Cassandra

This isn’t really news anymore: A 21 year old gang member committed an armed robbery, assault and kidnapping of a courier driver. Three year 9 months in jail. Anywhere else in the world he’d get 10 to 20 years. Betcha he’s back in court soon after release. Even the judge said the gangster was hopeless – “addicted to gang life” – so why smack him with a slightly damp bus ticket? And then there’s a man named Butler who hit a dying cancer patient with a patu (so I assume Butler is a Maori). The judge called it a senseless act of violence. 4 years 6 months.
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April 7, 2025 8:02am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  so I assume Butler is a Maori)
  
  Not necessarily so…
  read the article carefully, and you’ll discover that it was the victim who opened his front door holding a patu…
  
  When the victim opened the door to the stranger who was aggressively knocking, the pair had a “verbal dispute”.
  
  The victim was holding a patu and, as the confrontation escalated, he hit Butler with it several times. The court heard the force used appeared to be minor.
  
  https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/cancer-patient-60-beaten-with-patu-outside-his-te-aroha-home-dies-six-months-after-attack/3XVSLRRF2VCBRIG63IRE2IJLJM/
  
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  April 7, 2025 8:10am
  - alex Masterley
    
    The headline was somewhat misleading. Typical of the quality of today’s journalism.
    
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    April 7, 2025 8:19am
  - Cassandra
    
    Maggy: indeed. My error. Perhaps the victim was Maori?
    
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    April 7, 2025 8:33am
- MCōs
  
  ‘Anywhere else in the world he’d get 10 to 20 years.’
  Maybe
  If he were apprehended
  
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  April 7, 2025 8:22am
  - cmm
    
    Are you saying there’s more catching which must be balanced by more early releasing?
    
    I doubt it.
    
    1 8
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    April 7, 2025 8:31am
    - MCōs
      
      I’m saying that first of all the offender has to be apprehended and there’s plenty of places the police don’t have the resources or the inclination to investigate cases such as this.
      Or they might have an arrangement with the gang.
      
      7 1
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      April 7, 2025 8:48am
      - cmm
        
        If the cops don’t have the inclination to investigate cases like this (armed robbery, assault and kidnapping) then we’re well screwed.
        
        In this case though, the cops do seem to have put in the effort, but it is the dudge dropping the ball.
        
        The crimes carry up to 7 year sentences. He gets less than 4 and will be out in less than 2.
        
        9 4
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        April 7, 2025 9:46am
      - MCōs
        
        I’m not talking about NZ
        
        3 1
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        April 7, 2025 10:49am
    - MCōs
      
      Btw
      ‘Anywhere else in the world he’d get 10 to 20 years.’ Hamish and Mattson Day, 36 and 38, were on holiday in Phuket when they were arrested in March and charged with robbery, obstruction of police duty, physical attack against a policeman, driving without a licence and bribery.
      There is a photo of one of them flourishing the policeman’s gun.
      Those guys were back in NZ in less than four months.
      If two foreign tourists were thus arrested here and let go the sky would fall.
      
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      April 7, 2025 12:15pm
artemisia

Whenever there is opposition to a central or local government proposal it is always a good idea to lift the lid to see if it is really about ‘follow the money’. It often is, carefully coded to look like there will be victims impacted if implemented. Hungry kids, less service to clients causing harm, less ability to ‘put food on the table’, jobs lost, union dues reduced. (OK that last one does not usually figure, but still…)

Generally opponents are convinced that retaining or adding to the existing regulations, and associated funding, is the obvious answer.

The latest relates to a proposed change to the gambling sector. The Online Safety Iwi Leaders Group say Maori and Pasifika are disproportionately affected by gambling and “We think this will create another set of dependents. People will be able to sit in their homes and have a casino in their hand and in their pocket. It will ultimately affect the way of life for some of our families.” …. “If it’s offshore then there is no compulsion to honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi, that there is no feedback into the community, and financial support for harmful gambling.”

Did I mention follow the money?

Meanwhile the Minister says Online gambling companies would also be required to pay GST, the offshore gambling levy, and the problem gambling levy (which is used to fund services that treat gambling harm)

Is the Online Safety Iwi Leaders Group trying to find out why, as they say, Maori and Pasifika are disproportionately affected by gambling? And perhaps whether those groups would be better served by reducing the unregulated gambling sector, as proposed.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/557339/gambling-by-stealth-iwi-leaders-call-for-halt-on-gambling-law-reform
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April 7, 2025 8:07am
- cmm
  
  Gambling, drinking, smoking, crime, poor vehicle maintenance, teenage pregnancy, obesity, bad debt, using loan sharks, excess consumption of junk food, wagging school, low education attainment,….
  all these come down to common attributes: poor impulse control and short term thinking.
  
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  April 7, 2025 8:30am
  - artemisia
    
    Also known as choices.
    
    19 2
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    April 7, 2025 8:36am
    - cmm
      
      Quite.
      
      I would think that regulating online gambling is no more effective than regulating teen sex, or regulating school attendance etc.
      
      12 2
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      April 7, 2025 8:39am
    - Colville
      
      choices or habits?
      As excellence is a habit so is making shit choices and unfortunately for us taxpayers there is a sector of society that were raised by shit parents or more likely just mother with a very poor male role model (if at all) , living a life full of poor spending decisions and life choices.
      I know its not a popular thing to say but some people just dont know any different way, they live in a neighbourhood full of people who are varying degrees of the same level of shit and dont socialise with people who make better choices (like working!) because that makes them feel bad about their lives.
      
      My Mum (who is in her 80’s) recently gave up volunteering in a food bank. She says the average “client” of the food bank dosent know how to cook a decent meal, NONE of them can bake even something simple as scones.
      
      About the kindest thing you can call these people is “low skilled” but lacking any motivation and having significant drug and alcohol problems isnt going to help either.
      
      If you know how to break this cycle please tell the government, because the policy settings of the last 50 years have done nothing but worsen it.
      
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      April 7, 2025 9:19am
      - Bridgenag
        
        Open up the hardly used schools for adult classes
        
        5 2
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        April 7, 2025 11:28am
      - artemisia
        
        OK, breaking one cycle. Work for the dole. The usual suspects flood in and say it doesn’t work, research shows etc.
        
        However. I have relatives in Melbourne, now retirement age, but had periods of unemployment over the years. They were required to do 15 hours a week voluntary work to keep the dole. Voluntary, unpaid.
        
        One had several stints working at a council plant nursery in the next suburb. It was geared up for repetitive simple work.
        
        The other had office work experience and worked at a couple of local charities, filing and other basic clerical.
        
        If nothing else this approach helped change work habits and also helped out charities and ratepayers.
        
        Why not trial something like this? Yeah, I know, the usual suspects will complain loudly and publicly. Ignore them.
        
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        April 7, 2025 1:19pm
    - cmm
      
      There is very little effort put into trying to find out what is really going on and trying to fix anything.
      
      Maori teens have three times the pregnancy rates of the general population.
      
      Of course, officially, that is due to deprivation and colonialism. Nothing to do with personal choice.
      
      Reality is that the same basic behaviours that cause teem pregnancy also cause poor socio-economic outcomes.
      
      https://www.maramatanga.ac.nz/media/217/download
      
      16 1
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      April 7, 2025 9:43am
      - Phronesis
        
        Choices at the individual level become Culture at the group level.
        
        If you refuse to accept that your culture might be less than perfect then you can’t fix these problems.
        
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        April 7, 2025 10:19am
      - rouppe
        
        Maori teens have three times the pregnancy rates of the general population.
        
        Well there’s definitely a “follow the money” element in that.
        
        Benefit rates skyrocket once there’s a child involved. They will have been well informed of that by family or close friends.
        
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        April 7, 2025 10:47am
  - imalwaysright
    
    …and laziness.
    
    5 0
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    April 7, 2025 8:44am
- pdm
  
  mrspdm was approached, for some reason not known to her even now, by a lady acquaintance a few weeks ago. Said lady’s husband had apparently squandered the couples life savings of about $50,000 through on-line gambling.
  
  No Maori blood as I understand it but, maybe some Chinese a generation or two back.
  
  My understanding is it all happened over a very short period, less than 6 months, too. A usually sensible man in his 70’s got hooked.
  
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  April 7, 2025 8:37am
  - Colville
    
    pdm.
    Its not a new thing its just the way its done is a bit different.
    Maybe 10 years ago an acquaintance of mine (mate of a mate) parked his demo derby car thru the wall of a pub.
    Not just any pub and not just any part of the pub but the wall where all the pokie machines were at the pub.
    His wife had drained HIS savings account that he had been doing perk work for years to by a classic car. All gone. She was coming into the pub while the kids were at school and blowing a couple of hundred a day for months.
    
    His plan (he isnt Einstein) was to crash thru wall…get out and tip petrol over machines light it and make a get away. To say the least he was a bit fucked up by the crash and didnt get away.
    
    He is now known as Crash.
    
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    April 7, 2025 9:27am
    - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
      
      Indeed. Pokie machines have zero redeeming features. Their sole purpose is to prey upon the weak, the foolish and the desperate.
      
      That is why they cluster in the poorer communities.
      
      The people and the “trusts” who operate them, are all lowlife scum.
      
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      April 7, 2025 12:03pm
- artemisia
  
  Maybe I spoke too soon. A Northland iwi leader is sounding the alarm over what he calls an escalating crisis of methamphetamine use
  
  And has come up with a free way to start dealing with the crisis.
  
  The community also needed to start calling people out, he said. “There’s no secret and we need to speak up about it ourselves, around the supply and who’s doing it.”
  
  He had a few other ideas as well, using OPM, but a free initiative to tackle supply would be an excellent start. Nothing stopping that right now of course. I’m sure Chairman of Te Rūnanga ā Iwi o Ngāpuhi Mane Tahere is working on his plan and will be reporting names and places to the Police Minister any day now.
  
  If not, why not?
  
  https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/557394/iwi-leader-sounds-alarm-over-northland-drug-crisis
  
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  April 7, 2025 1:05pm
- Paulus
  
  I love the way we are now seeing Pacifica being conjoined with Maori now to suit Maori.
  Are they not capable of speaking for themselves ?
  
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  April 7, 2025 2:21pm
Bridgenag

ALL GOOD FUN

sunday memepool
back to where we started

https://open.substack.com/pub/boriquagato/p/sunday-memepool-fbd?r=1aj1bv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

sunday meanpool: dating
lots of videos today. (not that that should worry you)

https://open.substack.com/pub/boriquagato/p/sunday-meanpool-dating?r=1aj1bv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

Sunday Strip: Jumping Off a Cliff
without a paddle

https://open.substack.com/pub/rwmalonemd/p/sunday-strip-jumping-off-a-cliff?r=1aj1bv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
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April 7, 2025 8:08am
cmm

“Three year 9 months in jail.”
Wasn’t it a 3 year 9 month sentence?
In which case he’ll be out before 2 years.
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April 7, 2025 8:08am
- Cassandra
  
  Correct. Bus ticket not even damp.
  
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  April 7, 2025 8:31am
goNZ1

The PMs at it again! the dreaded ‘I’ word –

“He said the country was well placed to weather the tariff uncertainty: “NZ is INCREDIBLY well positioned relative to another countries to deal with this environment,” he told RNZ.

( the dictionary meaning of this thrashed word ,
Definitions from Oxford Languages
adverb: incredibly
1.
to a great degree; extremely.
“Michele was incredibly brave”
2.
used to introduce a statement that is hard to believe; strangely.
“incredibly, he was still alive”)
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April 7, 2025 8:24am
NeverMindTheBollocks

Shell Lane (The Terrace) bike rack report:

At 8.35am, not a single, solitary bike today.

A cool, calm, dry morning in the Capital, ideal for cycling.
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April 7, 2025 8:36am
- Bridgenag
  
  Still the weekend
  
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  April 7, 2025 11:29am
kowtow

The Herald’s David Fisher has quite a long item ostensibly on the nasty attack on Dot Jones , even the headline , “MP’s wife accosted in horrible experience”.

It’s quite detailed , the attacker we’re told being “a bald Pakeha man , in glasses , in his 50’s” . Interesting. I take it now that NZME will be forthcoming with racial descriptors in future .

Make no mistake the attack on Dot was totally unjustified and wrong and there’s no place for that appalling behaviour in our democracy but it actually started as a nasty verbal attack on Shane , obviously by a crazy who based on that behaviour should be in a secure lock up .

Dot intervened and the crazy then went at her .

Upshot is she has , rightly , made a police complaint.

But Fisher has made this out to be about Mr Benjamin Doyle , as only a few paragraphs in ;

“The altercation follows a week in which Green Party MP Benjamin Doyle was targetted in an online campaign that resulted in an ‘immense’ number of death threats.”

Now we know the only source for “immense number” is the Green leadership , but has that been independently verified , “fact checked” as they love to say or is the Herald simply repeating Green party “disinformation” , they do have immense form for that .

The article goes on to inform us that , in a truly Orwellian twist ;
“In 2019 a new agency called the Fixated Threat Assessment Centre was set up with experts from the Ministry of Health and police to identify people seeking to harm politicians or parliamentary staff”.

And the article ostensibly about Dot concludes with a paragraph about Doyle.

“The Green party has said Doyle was staying away from parliament after a surge in threats that followed a highly personalised and targeted online campaign”.

So there you have it , the Herald has turned Doyle into the victim of the Dot Jones attack .Along with a 1984 warning9 or is it a threat ) that Big Brother is watching.
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April 7, 2025 8:39am
- H. Upmann
  
  David Fisher. Enough said.
  
  16 2
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  April 7, 2025 11:41am
- Colville
  
  kowtow.
  
  The report I read yesterday said she got inbetween them, raised her hand and “his nose hit her hand.”
  
  So she punch or slapped him.?
  
  I wonder why he got pissed off?
  
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  April 7, 2025 12:23pm
  - kowtow
    
    The Herald said the nutter got right upto Shane’s face and then she , imo rightly , put her hand between them resulting in nutter claiming assault .That’s why he turned on her .
    
    No excuses . On the reports received the nutter is way out of order .
    
    No doubt being in airport there’ll be footage . Also there were vultures on phones .
    
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    April 7, 2025 12:51pm
- alloytoo
  
  I believe the Green Party initially asserted “Massive Death Threats”.
  
  Which I took to mean a large font was used.
  
  It does seem amusing that Greens like the police when “Massive” or “immense” or whatever… death threats are allegedly received. Other times, not so much.
  
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  April 7, 2025 12:58pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  How do they know this man is pakeha? Could it be he’s as white as, for example, Mihi Forbes?
  
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  April 7, 2025 9:54pm
imalwaysright

The military should take over our Civil Defense.
Its only a matter of time and a dose of rain before we are back to the same state as previous years with part-time bureacrats and Health and Safety types trying to navigate their way through it.
Maybe transferring the CD budget to the military could count as our proposed increase in military spending.
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April 7, 2025 8:55am
- Cassandra
  
  No, no and no. CD is NOT a military function. Military can support CD of course. What next? The fire service? Ambulances? Police?
  
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  April 7, 2025 11:22am
  - imalwaysright
    
    Fire, ambulance and police are used every day and work well.
    I would rather have the military run emergency disaster response than the local mayor and their mates from the Lions Club.
    CD is not a military function, but it is a function that they would be very good at.
    Why not?
    Get some people on the ground who don’t go to pieces when they see a bit of blood or destruction and can keep a cool head.
    We have to use what we’ve got. Demarcation is for unions and Marxists.
    But I understand your point.
    
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    April 7, 2025 11:44am
    - pdm
      
      Exactly Ima.
      
      We tried to get a thermos filled with hot water for our almost 90 year old neighbours during Cyclone Gabrielle.
      
      Civil Defence were useless for a small but core requirement. They had one small urn for the whole of Hastings as far as we could find and most of the Civil Defence people had no idea where it was located.
      
      4 3
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      April 7, 2025 12:53pm
      - imalwaysright
        
        I get the impression that the military are there for others, not kiwis.
        As for boiling a cup of water for your neighbor, each day before and after Gabrielle, the eight 900kw containerized and transportable generators at Trentham Military Camp maintained their position. I’ve got the photos.
        (Fair play to the army, there were no weeds)
        
        4 2
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        April 7, 2025 1:30pm
    - Cassandra
      
      CD would be a total,distraction from the main military task. What happens when there’s a major exercise and also a flood somewhere? Abandon hundreds of man- days prep for the exercise? Abandon the exercise? Even worse if the force is deployed overseas. Of course they’d do it well. Lots of CD is done by ex military. But that’s not the point. Of course you could always increase the size and budget of the army but that’d be very inefficient.
      
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      April 7, 2025 1:27pm
      - imalwaysright
        
        What is the task of the military though ?
        I would rather that they were employed at tasks that are beneficial to fellow citizens , that’s the purpose of an army.
        Exercises and preparation for war that they can’t access is pointless. Why not do something usefull.
        
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        April 7, 2025 5:48pm
    - gravedodger
      
      Nice kick in the Goolies for Lions Mr Right, makes it reasonably clear you have never been involved very deeply in Lions, if at all.
      As one with 25 years service to Lionism I have never encountered any Mayors or even local councillors or community board members as Lions.
      They are Service Clubs and very likely the most bereft outfit as regards the aggrandisement that Politicians seek adnauseum.
      Have a nice day.
      
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      April 7, 2025 3:00pm
- kowtow
  
  Are you serious?
  
  They send ships to sea that are not properly crewed or trained.
  
  And this latest .
  
  having a go at “inequity” in education. wtf !
  
  “The inequity of the NCEA Level 1 system meant that opportunity for different people in our society – that inequity – meant that not everybody had the same access to a career with us, so the changes that we have made makes the NZDF wholly more accessible and that’s really, really exciting.”
  
  https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/557355/nzdf-drops-entry-requirements-in-bid-to-boost-numbers
  
  You’d be better off giving any tasks to the Salvation Army than to our barmy army!
  
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  April 7, 2025 11:23am
  - imalwaysright
    
    Fair point Kow, maybe the sheets, soup, and soap brigade would be more effective…
    
    6 2
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    April 7, 2025 12:38pm
- pdm
  
  Good idea ima.
  
  As long as they have the people and resources to do the job when a disaster happens.
  
  It was a major mistake to not call them in immediately during Cyclone Gabrielle.
  
  4 2
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  April 7, 2025 12:43pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  I think you will find that the head of NEMA (National Emergency Management Agency) has a Military background…
  
  https://nz.linkedin.com/in/david-gawn-327805180
  
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  April 7, 2025 3:00pm
In Vino Veritas

With media around the world (and the Democrats) deriding Trump for wanting to buy Greenland, it is interesting to note that the USA has made 3 offers (and in 1955, there appears to have at least been discussion of a purchase) prior to Trump. Try 1867 (President Johnson, Democrat), 1910 (Taft, Republican), 1946 (Truman, Democrat) and the 1955 discussions of the Eisenhower (Republican) Presidency.
Why is it then, that the opening of discussion by Trump is treated with such derision?
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April 7, 2025 9:09am
- Hard Cheese
  
  Because a purchase is a very different thing than an annexation. Trump’s stated position is he will get Greenland “one way or another”. If the owner doesn’t want to sell something to you, you accept their decision with good grace and that’s the end of the matter.
  
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  April 7, 2025 11:41am
  - alloytoo
    
    Trumps stated position is not set in stone, it usually starts off as an extreme and gets whittled down closer to what he actually wants.
    
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    April 7, 2025 1:13pm
greybeard

https://www.stuff.co.nz/home-property/360641837/auckland-harness-racing-track-sale-after-100m-deal-falls-through

“…..since 1948, when it was purchased by the Franklin Trotting Club, which merged with the Auckland Trotting Club in 2014.”

– The place has been owned by Auckland trotting interests since 1948.

“The club was to use funds from the sale to settle debt, leaving it with about $9m for reinvestment….”

– They owe debtors $91m : why? Why did the writer of this article not follow that line of enquiry?

How come they are in debt when they have had the place for 77 years and from all accounts it is regularly used ?
(“According to the trotting club’s 2024 annual report, between 160-200 horses train on the facility’s three tracks each day.”)

Where has their money gone?
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April 7, 2025 9:28am
- trout
  
  The Trotting Club lost a shed load of money building apartments for sale on part of the Club land at Alexandra Park. Apartments were sold off the plans at prices way below the cost of construction because of cost escalation, builder incompetence,and failure in project management.
  
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  April 7, 2025 10:02am
  - greybeard
    
    So, that could be translated as “ the Trotting Club board got greedy and blew the lot”. Thanks.
    
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    April 7, 2025 10:32am
    - SWIM
      
      Sounds like next level incompetence which even beats the local racing club (Hastings).
      
      A bunch of amateurs playing with other peoples money for vanity.
      
      Hastings went off without any professional advice and purchased a couple of blocks of land out of town to relocate onto. Borrowed the money borrow the interest payments. After 5 or so years of faffing about they realise they have zero chance of relocation to that site as the District Plan forbids it. So the board and Chair that did those deals all quit and hand the shit sandwich to the new guys in the shape of a $10Mil ++ debt.
      
      All this while ignoring the problems at the track which has seen it shutdown for racing for a year.
      
      So big debt and no income. Sound like good governance? Company Directors would be jailed for that.
      
      But it gets better!
      
      They also have a grandstand that needs to be totally demolished as its a deathtrap and they cant afford to do the work!
      
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      April 7, 2025 10:54am
- Cassandra
  
  Development of Alexandra Park?
  
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  April 7, 2025 10:05am
- Jethrod
  
  Are iwi involved?
  
  7 4
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  April 7, 2025 10:06am
Jack5

Is this a a Stuff hit job — on the headmaster of Christchurch Boys’ High School for 12 years — or is it sloppy journalism?

I can’t see that it’s fair, impartial and just.

A former teacher in dispute with the the headmaster, accuses him of shitting on her property.

No proof. It’s an accusation. To hundreds, perhaps thousands, of high school boys over years this will be a legend.

The Stuff report concedes that the headmaster and the school “dispute large parts of her account”.

The report says “the defecating” occurred eight times in 2018 and 2019.

The former teacher was directed to a private investigator. “The person said, ‘Do you have conflict with anyone?’ I said I do. He said, ‘Is it a male?’ I said it is. He said, ‘Then don’t look any further. I’m very much suspecting this is your person’.”

“Suspecting?” And this leads to the headmaster of a prominent school being branded like this?

Holy shit in more ways than one.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360641198/boys-high-dispute-headmaster-accused-being-nocturnal-defecator
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April 7, 2025 10:57am
- kowtow
  
  Te media should never have run that stroy without authenticating where the poo came from.
  
  Have they defamed the headmaster ?
  
  Amazing though how they’ll prominently run a poo story about a headmaster but not so much an MP.
  
  Double standards ?
  
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  April 7, 2025 11:19am
  - Don Beckett
    
    Can you get DNA from poo ?
    
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    April 7, 2025 12:32pm
    - Allan
      
      Yes. Then a sample from the suspect to confirm.
      
      DNA in shit is used to detect bum cancer.
      
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      April 7, 2025 1:14pm
    - kowtow
      
      Don’t know, but some people get a thrill from it.
      
      But we must understand that in terms of ‘Chloe context’ .
      
      7 2
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      April 7, 2025 1:29pm
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      Yes…
      
      https://www.insideprecisionmedicine.com/news-and-features/stool-dna-reveals-personal-information/
      
      Not only the DNA of the pooper, but also the DNA of their gut microbugs…
      
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      April 7, 2025 1:38pm
- cmm
  
  Bloody hell!!
  
  The most obvious nocturnal shitter (assuming this is not just a complete fabrication by the teacher) would be a an ex-pupil who holds a grudge.
  
  There must be tens of thousands of teachers who have had their houses egged, car tyres let down, potato up the exhaust etc. Heck that even happened to a few teachers who taught my high school class (and I might have even been present when one or two events happened. If I was there, I didn’t see the headmaster in the group.).
  
  While it is certainly possible for a headmaster to be the mystery dumper, that really seems an unlikely thing for a headmaster to do.
  
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  April 7, 2025 11:51am
  - Pope Punctilious II
    
    “and I might even have been present…”
    Shades of Danny Ocean’s “I was once in a bank vault while it was being robbed”.
    
    9 0
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    April 7, 2025 12:26pm
  - Graeme Hall
    
    It maybe an unlikely action for the top dog to do but there are examples. There was a case of an Australian CEO who went for a run every morning and then did a dump on his neighbour’s driveway. Not a good career move. Said neighbour videoed him and took him to court. Media published his name and some choice screen caps. He became famous as the “Poo Jogger”.
    
    https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/poo-jogger-revealed-as-corporate-executive/news-story/e4ffd51c96480a29d3ea805100e1a777
    
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    April 7, 2025 3:12pm
- peterwn
  
  The teacher seems a nut case to make such claims unless she can provide solid proof (eg set up a trail camera in her garden). The teacher would be wide open to a defamation suit over this – to defend it, the onus would be on the teacher to prove that it happened, not the other way around. The Headmaster probably cannot be bothered suing the teacher.
  Seems a case of self destruction to me.
  Remember a teacher from years ago who left in a huff and wrote a long letter of resignation which he shared to other staff. The thought was that a psychiatrist would have a lot to go on reading that letter. He used the cane more than the other teachers put together. His resignation was treated with a sigh of relief from the Principal, staff and kids. He also put his name forward for National Party candidacy (pre MMP days) but fortunately was not selected.
  
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  April 7, 2025 12:15pm
- Colville
  
  Immediate question to mind is were the two of them bumping uglies prior to the hostilities breaking out?
  
  8 2
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  April 7, 2025 12:25pm
- cmm
  
  “For more top class journalism from The Press, click here.”
  
  7 2
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  April 7, 2025 12:43pm
Ghost

Good day to be new world, or pack n save.

Almost all 185 Woolworths stores closed for a time on Monday morning due to a problem with electronic price tags.

The supermarket chain said there was a technical glitch with its electronic shelf labels across its network.

Article
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April 7, 2025 11:20am
- MCōs
  
  We went to the local Pak n Sav a couple of hours ago and it was pretty quiet.
  
  2 0
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  April 7, 2025 12:24pm
- imalwaysright
  
  Strange how they never undercharge the listed price. Bastards
  
  5 1
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  April 7, 2025 12:33pm
Handyman

My prediction for the next TDS meltdown…
President Trump will endorse RFK jr focus on organics, healthy food, and active lifestyles with reduced dependence on big pharma. He will say “show your support for Trump’s MAHA by going to the gym and riding your ebike”.
Wait till the placards read “regulate organics”, “our body, our choice”, “anyone on a bike is a Trump lover and will be attacked”, “cancel your gym membership”.

He has already got lefties to oppose peace in Europe and to burn EVs, so it could happen.
11 5
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April 7, 2025 12:25pm
cmm

NZDF is reducing the entry requirements removing some NCEA level 1 and 2 prerequisites. Now all you need to have done is 3 years of high school. Passing anything is optional.

“Wing Commander George Magdalinos said the changes widened the talent pool without lowering candidate quality”

Ummm, HTF do you reduce requirements to let more people in without lowering candidate quality?

The last war that just needed cannon fodder was over 100 years ago. In an increasingly technologically driven defence force, reducing entry requirements is EXACTLY the wrong thing to do.

During WW2, the US Army determined that people with a low IQ were far more of a hindrance than a help. Even in South Africa during conscription in the 1980s, people who were incapable of passing Std 8 (approx: NCEA1) were often not called up. Things were much simpler back then.

If NZ does indeed end up hiring such people, they will be a bloody danger to their colleagues in any training situation let alone battle situation. They will never be able to rise above Private and will need a lot of supervision. Basically more hassle than they are worth.

But, hey, Magdalinos will get his recruitment numbers and that’s all that matters. Right?

Their last DEI-focused drive was a failure. Now they’re targeting stupid people.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/nzdf-eases-entry-requirements-to-boost-recruitment-amid-challenges/3TK7MEBVTNHRBN2AB5NCRUIMGA/
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April 7, 2025 12:37pm
- kowtow
  
  Not to mention MacNamara’s Morons in Vietnam.
  
  It’s not fair on the recruit and it is very unfair on the unit these people are posted to.
  
  Fatal.
  
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  April 7, 2025 12:44pm
- Stu2
  
  US did the same during Vietnam, and those individuals did not do all that well
  
  9 1
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  April 7, 2025 1:00pm
  - Don Beckett
    
    Correct – look at Forest Gump. 😆
    
    10 2
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    April 7, 2025 1:28pm
    - Jack5
      
      As long as NZ doesn’t descend to the level of “McNamara’s Morons” in the Vietnam War.
      
      This the name bestowed on low-IQ men sent by the US to fight in the Vietnam War.
      
      To provide sufficient men for the Vietnam War,Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defence, and President Johnson, could have extended conscription to college students, or sent the National Guard. But those choices would have been politically unpopular.
      
      In 1966, McNamara decided to draft each year 100,000 men who had failed aptitude tests.
      
      In all, McNamara sent 354,000 low-IQ, low-aptitude men to the armed forces. Among the troops they were often known as “McNamara’s morons” (women weren’t conscripted).
      
      About 11 minutes into this video, the speaker tells of trying to train some of these low-IQ recruits in throwing dummy grenades.
      
      Sent to Vietnam, their fatality rate was three times higher than other than that of other troops. Of the 150,000 or so sent to combat units, 5478 were killed.
      
      This 36min video tells their story:
      
      https://youtu.be/_J2VwFDV4-g?si=NUYs9qGpESiiZ8ts
      
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      April 7, 2025 2:44pm
- imalwaysright
  
  Possible recruits have seen a DEI hire sink a boat and, by the grace of God, avoid killing over 70 human beings.
  The possible recruits, as well as current staff, have seen the top brass defend the lady luvvin lady who turned the boat into a reef, being defended!
  It was all about everything else but the captain apparently.
  The navy is done, I would guess the other pretenders are feeling the wind around their bollocks also… Who in their right mind would join the military?
  
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  April 7, 2025 1:10pm
  - Mike
    
    It seems likely that the captain will be disciplined. What the court of inquiry has found, though, is more serious than the horror of a lesbian commanding officer.
    
    6 6
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    April 7, 2025 1:29pm
    - fightingtemeraire
      
      Mike
      
      1 who decided to appoint an unqualified person to the position of CO.
      
      2 Why, two years later, was the CO still unqualified.
      
      3 Who appointed unqualified watch keepers to the vessel.
      
      4 Why was the vessel carrying out a hydrographic survey without any hydrographers on board.
      
      11 3
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      April 7, 2025 2:45pm
      - Mike
        
        You might find some of the answers here:
        https://www.nzdf.mil.nz/assets/Uploads/DocumentLibrary/MAN-COI-ROP-FINAL-31-Mar-25_Redacted-v2.pdf
        
        5 2
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        April 7, 2025 2:58pm
      - kowtow
        
        FT
        
        I feel somewhat sorry for most of the crew of that ship . Sent into danger by much higher people up the line.
        
        Where does the buck stop .
        
        Our essential and emergency services are very badly served .
        
        Meanwhile the govt spends up bigly on climate scam and huge numbers of non essential , pen pushing ,poi poi twirling bureaucrats etc
        
        5 3
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        April 7, 2025 4:09pm
      - Steve Otto N Shore
        
        4 Why was the vessel carrying out a hydrographic survey without any hydrographers on board?
        So the question is why was the vessel there and what was it doing?
        An Island hoping holiday for 70 odd who have nothing to do with marine surveying?
        Sound like a taxpayer funded junket.
        
        7 4
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        April 7, 2025 5:01pm
    - cmm
      
      Mike.
      
      I doubt many care what is in the commander’s pants or what she/he/zhur does with it. All we want is competence.
      
      Nor do we want the ship run “with a woman’s touch”. We want it run with the Naval Touch.
      
      The issue is not with her being a woman (or a lesbian). The issue is with the Navy’s obsession with promoting females ahead of men. To do this they no longer place competence as the first, and only, grounds on which to select leadership.
      
      That is severely broken.
      
      We now have opportunity to learn. We can choose to learn from this. Or we can do what Judith Collins and Naval bigwigs seem to be doing – shrug shoulders – it could have happened to anyone and full steam ahead with a broken policy.
      
      It was a very expensive lesson. I hope we don’t have to repeat it to learn from it.
      
      14 3
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      April 7, 2025 3:24pm
    - cmm
      
      While the Captain should wear a lot of this, one might ask why the Brass turned a blind eye to the incompetence of the Captain (and the ship in general).
      
      The NZ Navy (and military in general) is woke as hell. They are obsessed with DEI and promoting based on DEI principles. Any time you do this, competence must suffer.
      
      And in case you think I am anti-females in military, I had some dealings with Colonel Hilda Botha when I was at SA Army HQ and I had the utmost respect for her.
      
      11 2
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      April 7, 2025 3:41pm
      - Sir Henry Morgan
        
        Exactly. Blame the captain, but don’t forgot to blame the DEI idiots who made her captain.
        
        10 2
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        April 7, 2025 3:56pm
- kowtow
  
  Magdalino’s morons.
  
  4 2
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  April 7, 2025 1:59pm
- Handyman
  
  School academic qualifications are unnecessary in the modern world.
  You don’t need to learn maths if you have a calculator on your phone.
  You don’t need to learn how to pilot a ship if you have autopilot.
  Oh wait!
  
  7 5
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  April 7, 2025 2:54pm
  - cmm
    
    I take it you’re being sarcastic.
    
    5 0
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    April 7, 2025 3:42pm
  - Ian Boag
    
    You don’t need to learn maths if you have a calculator on your phone
    
    Maths is more than just arithmetic …
    
    4 0
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    April 7, 2025 6:22pm
Quail

Mike,
Don’t know the actual process ,but.in the past a Naval court martial would have been certain.
And any punishment or consequences used to be very severe.
Is this to come?
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April 7, 2025 2:10pm
- Mike
  
  There has been a court of inquiry. the courts-martial are yet to come.
  
  2 1
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  April 7, 2025 2:47pm
  - Jack5
    
    The captain trained as a teacher but wanted to be a restaurateur. Then she joined the Royal Navy.
    
    That’s what the Defence Department said when Commander Yvonne Gray took command of the Manawanui on 09 December 2022. Peeni Henare was then Labour’s Minister of Defence.
    
    https://www.nzdf.mil.nz/media-centre/news/yorkshire-woman-takes-command-of-royal-new-zealand-navy-ship/
    
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    April 7, 2025 3:01pm
    - Mike
      
      Minister of Defence has no role in military appointments.
      
      4 4
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      April 7, 2025 3:09pm
      - cmm
        
        Nonsense Mike. Of course they do.
        
        https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/chiefs-navy-army-and-air-force-appointed#:~:text=Defence%20Minister%20Judith%20Collins%20today%20announced%20Commodore,the%20Navy%2C%20Army%20and%20Air%20Force%20respectively.
        
        8 3
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        April 7, 2025 3:31pm
kujira

So correct me if i’m wrong but to govern Labour need bothe the Greens and Maori parties.
So do we expect all the criminals in jail to be released no police and an apartheid state.
Sorry but if you vote for this shit show you need to be classified as – looking for the correct medical term – A FUCKING MORON
15 4
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April 7, 2025 3:09pm
- MCōs
  
  The Greens have never been part of coalition government. TPM has never been in coalition with Labour.
  Neither of them will enter into coalition with National the way they at the moment.
  I would suggest if the present coalition fails to gain enough seats next year Labour will enter into a confidence and supply type of arrangement with the Greens and TPM if necessary because those two minor parties have no leverage and are too radical
  
  7 2
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  April 7, 2025 4:05pm
  - peterwn
    
    Greens were part of Jacinda’s Labour government although they had almost zilch influence and were rather invisible. They just had to accept the crumbs that Winston offered, he knew they had nowhere to go. The only way the left could have governed after the last election required a four way coalition between Labour, Greens, TMP and NZ First. Chris Hipkins had promised Labour would not go into coalition with NZF and TMP would have been impossible to negotiate with.
    After the next election, Labour and Greens would together need an absolute majority if they were to form a coalition. Winston seems very happy with his lot, so is unlikely to support Labour.
    
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    April 7, 2025 8:44pm
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  Well, One news Varian poll tonight showing people are waking up a 6 point gap between right and left with the right in front
  
  4 0
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  April 7, 2025 6:29pm
  - JerJer
    
    The coalition will be re-elected next year with a larger majority than the first time. The slow drip of good news and continual reversing of labours stuff ups will see to that.
    
    4 0
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    April 7, 2025 7:04pm
  - peterwn
    
    And that is on top of the Curia poll that the media has ignored. Chris Luxon still has six quarterly plans (five yet to be unveiled) to work through before the next campaign.
    
    2 0
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    April 7, 2025 8:47pm
Maggy Wassilieff

Defund the police

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/billboards-attacking-green-mps-chloe-swarbrick-and-tamatha-paul-appear-in-auckland-wellington/R5TXGHP56RGX3LFS25PAIL3Z2Q/
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April 7, 2025 3:10pm
- cmm
  
  “Swarbrick, in a statement, said her party advocated for “real, evidence-based debate on policy”.”
  
  That would be a first.
  
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  April 7, 2025 3:16pm
  - mandk
    
    Are we talking about the same Swarbrick who likes to denounce people as racist, while being unable to cite any examples of their supposed racist statements?
    
    7 1
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    April 7, 2025 4:52pm
- Jack5
  
  If you’re curious about the wording in the poster, this is the song it comes from: Woop, Woop, That’s the Sound of the Police.
  
  The Herald says it’s a nod to Tamatha Paul’s use of Sound of da Police by rapper KRS-One during a “DJ set” at the Wellington Street festival CubaDupa late last month.
  
  https://youtu.be/9ZrAYxWPN6c?si=0CWBaYxHLRP1lZLq
  
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  April 7, 2025 3:41pm
Ghost

The government will invest $12 billion over the next four years for a “modern, combat-capable” New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF).

Major investments 2025-2028

Enhanced strike capabilities
Frigate sustainment programme
Persistent surveillance (uncrewed autonomous vessels)
Replacing the maritime helicopters
Javelin anti-tank missile upgrade
Network enabled army
Special operations sustainment
Vehicles for the NZDF
Counter uncrewed ariel systems (UAS)
Long-range remotely piloted aircraft
Replacing the Boeing 757 fleet
Space capabilities
Enhancing cyber security capabilities
Enterprise resource planning
Improving intelligence functions
Updating classified digital services
Accommodation, messing and dining modernisation
Defence estate regeneration
Defence housing programme
Future Devonport naval base design
Ohakea infrastructure programme
Defence, Science and Technology uplift
Technology accelerator
Information management
Digital modernisation
Logistics resilience
Consolidated Logistics Project Infrastructure
Implementing a workforce strategy

Article
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April 7, 2025 4:18pm
- Bevan
  
  Im not a religious man, but I hope that God does indeed defend New Zealand.
  
  Cause I was left wondering what the point of delaying that plan was….
  
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  April 7, 2025 5:14pm
Swifty

Two-faced Dems – sickening.

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1BD7mfzsh7/?mibextid=wwXIfr
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April 7, 2025 6:27pm
MCōs

The retiring judge was also a liberal so there’s no surprise there.
However the total number of votes cast in the previous election was 813,200 compared to 2.35mil in this election.
One would have to think that Musk’s blatant attempt to buy the election backfired.
The chap was reasonably likable to most people until he involved himself in politics. Kim Dotcom was the same sort of person here.
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April 7, 2025 8:19pm

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