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June 4, 2025 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 04 June 2025

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General Debate

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NeverMindTheBollocks

The headline says that 30%+ of jobs at DPMC are to go. Spoiler alert: 8 more people will be employed.

“More than 30% of jobs at the prime minister’s department are being disestablished in a bid to cut headcount by 12 people.

A broad restructure of the 247-strong Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet is under way, a spokesperson has confirmed, and it is proposed that 77 existing jobs ‒ 57 occupied, 20 vacant ‒ be disestablished, but 65 new roles created.

The organisation’s total headcount will therefore drop by 12 people.”

Since 20 roles are vacant, the payroll goes up by 8.

The PM needs to have strong words with his CEO.

https://www.thepost.co.nz/politics/360710279/more-30-jobs-dpmc-be-disestablished/
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June 4, 2025 8:00am
- peterwn
  
  This seems more like an attempt by the CEO to fire particular staffers he does not want.
  
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  June 4, 2025 10:34am
  - Hugh Jarse
    
    Yes probably Labours detritus left behind by Hopkins and Ardern.
    
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    June 4, 2025 10:56am
  - AitchW
    
    I’d imagine that after 6 years of Ardern and Hipkins there would be plenty of deadwood and hostility…
    
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    June 4, 2025 11:15am
    - R
      
      Some of the deadwood has been there since the Lange government
      
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      June 4, 2025 12:47pm
- Master Mariner
  
  What the Disinformation Branch, Finally Gonesky //
  
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  June 4, 2025 12:23pm
- Quail
  
  So in fact 57 actual FTE now becomes 65 FTE?
  The 20 vacant jobs apparently have not been missed in the past.
  So this is the integrity of our Government, converting an actual increase of 8 real workers to a loss of more than 30%.
  Very very saddening.
  
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  June 4, 2025 5:57pm
Cassandra

In a private meeting at the Singapore defence conference US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth bluntly requested his Australian counterpart Richard Marles to boost defence spending to 3.5% of GDP as quickly as possible. Makes National’s “2% in 5 years time” look pathetic.

I wonder how long before Mr Hegseth makes a similar demand on NZ?
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June 4, 2025 8:00am
- cmm
  
  I really dislike the use of % of GDP as a measure. It just encourages spending with little consideration for effectiveness of the systems being built.
  
  It might be the best measurement available, but it sucks.
  
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  June 4, 2025 8:13am
  - Cassandra
    
    It’s just for public consumption. And I very much doubt that it encourages waste. Certainly not in my time working on defence expenditure. But whatever, that’s the measurement and until something better comes along that’s how the world will do it.
    
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    June 4, 2025 8:20am
    - Simon
      
      Will the prison camps for Chinese living here be included in the defence spending?
      
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      June 4, 2025 8:22am
      - Jack5
        
        An interesting point, Simon, on any full-scale confrontation between China and the US.
        
        Aucklanders, hyped up on Lange-type hysteria about nuclear bombs, virtually had US Navy ships blocked from Auckland in the late 1970s.
        
        Thirty years before, NZ would have begged for the US Navy’s presence if it hadn’t already been here.
        
        Well-off Aucklanders so bloody thick they couldn’t differentiate safe nuclear propulsion from nuclear weapons.
        
        Then in October 2013, Aucklanders, welcomed three warships of China’s Navy of the People’s Liberation Army.
        
        https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/32713/nuclear-warship-protests-auckland
        
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        June 4, 2025 1:32pm
    - cmm
      
      In your time in the shop, did they look at different defence models?
      
      eg. The Swiss model seems pretty effective and they run at less than 1% of GDP.
      
      My concern with handing the reins over to the brass is that boys like their toys and playing their games rather than necessarily focusing on what’s cost effective.
      
      The cost of a Javelin missile is over $200k. A Carl Gustav round is around $1k. Sure they are not completely like for like, but if one team shows up with a Javelin and the other shows up with 100 Carl Gustav rounds (all up half the cost of a single Javelin) I would pick the Carl Gustav team is going to win.
      
      And if we did the numbers with 1000 RPG7s (around $100k all up), I’d put my money on them.
      
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      June 4, 2025 8:33am
      - Cassandra
        
        Yours is a different world. In NZ it has never been about toys. With a 1% budget you don’t have any wriggle room. The one error was the LAVs. It was a reaction to a soldier, Manning, KIA in Timor and a bad move. Apart from that we’ve always been a No 8 defence force. Always achieved much more than successive governments have been prepared to fund.
        
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        June 4, 2025 8:46am
      - Mike
        
        Ther have been many more errors than just buying twice as many LAVs than could ever be used.
        The protector ship project produced a useful multi-role vessel, but the offshore and inshore patrol craft were failures.
        Ditching the F-16 deal was another huge error.
        
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        June 4, 2025 8:55am
      - Ian Boag
        
        Ditching the F-16 deal was another huge error.
        
        Early model F-16’s that had been wrapped up for quite a while because the US had decided not to sell them to the Pakistanis after all. Would be looking even more tired by now.
        
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        June 4, 2025 9:08am
      - Mike
        
        We would have had 25 years of service by now. The USAF still uses them.
        
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        June 4, 2025 9:11am
      - Cassandra
        
        Mike: agree re the ships, also buying the cargo ship, but they were choices imposed by lack of funding. The F16 decision was political viz H Clark. cmm was referring to toys for the boys decisions, of which the LAVs seem to me to be the only example.
        
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        June 4, 2025 9:37am
      - Paulus
        
        I suggest Swiss GDP is somewhat different to New Zealand !
        
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        June 4, 2025 9:44am
      - Stellaboxer
        
        Carl Gustav we’re in use when I was in the Coldstream guards in the late seventies. They were suicidal then due to the 4m back flame alerting every tank on the field to your presence. Apart from that the tanks have moved on slightly in half a century. With your argument we could deploy 10s of thousands of Boyes anti tank rifles at a fraction of the cost of a Carl Gustav couldn’t we.
        
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        June 4, 2025 11:33am
      - Allan
        
        The Charlie G is still in service and is being used in Ukraine.
        
        But if you’re worried about the back-blast or the muzzle flash from the Boyes how about we get some PIATs?
        
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        June 4, 2025 11:53am
      - rouppe
        
        How do you measure the effectiveness of the Swiss model? They’ve never had a fight.
        
        The Carl Gustav and Javelin are for different purposes. Comparing them is odd. You could probably disable a tank with a Carl Gustav. Eventually. But I wouldn’t want to be the guy having to hang around taking multiple shots against a tank formation. In any case if we’re having to repel tanks on nz shores we’ve already lost.
        
        Our model needs to prioritise ranged weapons, because our situation as an isolated island means we need to act while the adversary is still offshore. Sink ships. Kill aircraft.
        
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        June 4, 2025 2:40pm
  - imalwaysright
    
    We should be thankful its not an actual tithe.
    
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    June 4, 2025 8:23am
- Frank the tank
  
  “I wonder how long before Mr Hegseth makes a similar demand on NZ”
  
  I wonder if Mr Hegseth knows New Zealand exists…..
  
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  June 4, 2025 8:19am
- Cassandra
  
  I add that there’s a report in The Times this morning that NATO has accepted a target of 3.5%.
  
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  June 4, 2025 8:22am
  - Culture War Criminal
    
    What indication do European NATO members have that would lead to them targeting a 3.5% of GDP “defence” spend?
    
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    June 4, 2025 1:27pm
- rockape
  
  I realy don’t think NZ matters in the USA defence plans.
  
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  June 4, 2025 8:40am
  - Cassandra
    
    But it does to Australia, Singapore, Philippines and Japan.
    
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    June 4, 2025 8:47am
  - cmm
    
    I cannot seriously believe that NZ has any military influence in Singapore, Australia, Japan etc.
    
    We do not have the resources to commit to expeditionary forces.
    
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    June 4, 2025 9:29am
    - Cassandra
      
      My experience is that you are quite wrong.
      
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      June 4, 2025 9:38am
      - ISeeRed
        
        Please elaborate.
        
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        June 4, 2025 12:26pm
      - Jack5
        
        CMM’s …We [NZ] do not have the resources to commit to expeditionary forces …
        
        NZ has been virtually part of the Australian forces in South Vietnam and .East Timor.
        
        Our two frigates are part of a class designed for the Australian Navy, and at least one was partly built in Australia.
        
        The NZ Army’s previous rifle, the Steyr, was in line with the Australian Army’s. For decades, selected NZ Army officers trained at Duntroon, in Australia.
        
        We may not be important to Australia, but Australia is important to NZ.
        
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        June 4, 2025 2:44pm
  - imalwaysright
    
    It took the navy a week to bring some water from Auckland to Hawkes bay when they had the flood.
    The army have at least 8 shipping container sized generators parked at Trentham. None of them was deployed to Hawkes bay.
    NZ military are just another government department full of tubby Walter Mittys.
    
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    June 4, 2025 9:43am
- Rod
  
  @Cassandra
  
  The Singapore defence conference might remind some people of another era when Britain had a supposedly formidable military fortress on that island in ww2
  
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  June 4, 2025 9:19am
- Andrei
  
  Let’s call a spade a spade – the world is gearing up for WW3
  
  The Godless West against the Christian East.
  
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  June 4, 2025 9:27am
- Graeme Hall
  
  3.5% of GDP seems unlikely under Labor. PM Albo told his Minister Marles, Australia was a sovereign nation and the Govt would decide what assets they needed for defence & would buy those assets as needed. Albo sees no votes in defence spending.
  
  However, as Greg Sheridan foreign affairs journalist at The Australian pointed out, Aussie, like Aotearoa (NZ), is basically defenseless without America as an ally.
  
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  June 4, 2025 9:30am
  - Quail
    
    Mistakes ! Surely the UH90 helicopters fit in that box?
    1 hour flying and three hours maintenance?
    
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    June 4, 2025 10:20am
Scott

Here is a reel of Gaza before October 7th:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DKTBVr6xAys/?igsh=MXRkZTAzZXA4aDZybA==

It doesn’t look like an “open air prison” to me?
Gaza could be great. They have nice beaches. The people were able to go to Israel and get jobs. They received billions of dollars of international aid to build a thriving economy.

But instead they built 300 miles of tunnels underground.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2025/06/locus-of-evil.php

The tunnels were not to shelter the people. The tunnels were and still are, solely for Hamas fighters. The tunnels are built under hospitals and schools.

Hamas has no interest in building an economy. The inherited Israeli greenhouses which they smashed after the Israelis left. They could have pursued peace and normalised their relations with neighbour Egypt and other countries. Instead no one wants them because all they do is cause trouble.

Their only goal is the destruction of Israel. That’s why Israel has to continue the war until Hamas surrenders.
Why Western people support Hamas and hate Israel is a study in itself. But the war could stop tomorrow. Hamas could end the war tomorrow. They could surrender. And give back all the hostages. That’s what we should be calling for.
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June 4, 2025 8:05am
- Ross Bayer
  
  Scott, just to be consistent you would of course suggest Ukraine surrender tomorrow as well to stop the war. Many less civilians of course dying in the dispute in Ukraine
  
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  June 4, 2025 11:04am
  - Allan
    
    That’s an asinine comparison.
    
    And you know it.
    
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    June 4, 2025 11:56am
    - Ross Bayer
      
      Why Western people support Ukraine and hate Russia is a study in itself. But the war could stop tomorrow. Ukraine could end the war tomorrow. They could surrender. That’s what we should be calling for.
      The West only has one policy objective – that is to destroy Russia and divide up all the resources
      
      Russia hasbeen defending/responding against tens of thousands of artillery shells killing 15,000 civilian in the Donbas prior to the SMO
      There fixed that for you
      
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      June 4, 2025 1:57pm
  - Handyman
    
    To be consistent…
    Israel is defending/responding against tens of thousands of rockets and an invasion by Hamas killing 1200 civilians. Israel is Ukraine in this comparison.
    
    Hamas only has one policy objective – that is to destroy Israel and kill all jews. If they build a Hamas command centre under a hospital then they can’t complain about their human shields being killed. FAFO.
    
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    June 4, 2025 12:07pm
    - Culture War Criminal
      
      People are free to comment on KB as anonymously as they like. I do it myself. However, I’ve noticed over time that, despite the frequently strident and diehard support expressed regarding Israel, I don’t think I’ve ever seen any of those commenter disclose the fact that they themselves are Jewish. It beggars belief that some of them (perhaps even most) are not Jewish, yet they seem reluctant to lay their cards, and their self-interest, on the table.
      
      Why does this matter? Because we are told by these people that every decent person should support Israel and repudiate anyone who gets in Israel’s way. However, if some, many, or even nearly all of these commenters have an ethnic interest in the fortunes of Israel (and are not just run-of-the-mill and disintrested “decent people” backing Zionism), then they are just Jews backing other Jews – makes the issue very particular, rather than universal, in its nature.
      
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      June 4, 2025 1:40pm
      - Phronesis
        
        I honestly wish I had Jewish heritage.
        
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        June 4, 2025 2:53pm
      - Scott
        
        Umm, I’m not Jewish. 😎
        
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        June 4, 2025 3:36pm
      - Ra Henare
        
        Nail on the head!!
        
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        June 4, 2025 4:16pm
cmm

Elon Musk is squealing about pork.

No doubt he is being pork-selective and doesn’t mind about pork going to Tesla and SpaceX. Neither of those would exist without pork.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/world-news/360711206/pork-filled-elon-musk-lashes-out-trumps-big-beautiful-bill
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June 4, 2025 8:11am
- Lance
  
  The greatest con man of all time is complaining about over spending
  You can’t make this shit up
  
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  June 4, 2025 8:54am
  - Skippytony
    
    MDS is a variant of TDS
    
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    June 4, 2025 11:37am
  - Culture War Criminal
    
    Was DOGE really just con and was really a Trojan Horse that was never going to do what Musk promised it would (it failed miserably), in that it let Palantir in the door to scrape the sensitive information of the American public, and feed it into its AI systems to better keep dissenters under control?
    
    https://www.wired.com/story/palantir-doge-irs-mega-api-data/
    
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    June 4, 2025 1:58pm
- RoboRob
  
  Dont know. From what I have heard from Musk I suspect he would rather reduce govt spending and debt then get pork. As a business man, if govt pork is available he must go for it, doesn’t mean he approves.
  
  The US is heading towards major financial difficulties with its medicare and social security unning out of money in the next 10 years. The US needs to stop running deficits but politically that is unpalletable. It is likely action wont be taken until they do run out of $$$. Elon knows this which is why he took on DOGE and why he is critical of the ‘big beautify bill’.
  
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  June 4, 2025 9:11am
  - cmm
    
    I think that Musk’s main reason to take on DOGE was to ensure that the investigations went into areas he wanted stripped and kept out of areas he wants funded.
    
    The whole of SpaceX is running on pork.
    The solar business was started to harvest pork.
    Tesla is less so now, but in the beginning was extracting maximum pork.
    
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    June 4, 2025 1:45pm
- Tom Hunter
  
  Aside from EV credits, which were available to everybody, I’m not aware of any state help Tesla gets anywhere in the US, either at the Federal or State level. In fact the Democrats excluded Tesla wherever they could because it’s not unionised.
  
  As to SpaceX, the government contracts they have were won in an entirely legitimate manner, both the military ones and the NASA ISS ones. You’d be hard put to find anybody in the Pentagon or NASA complaining about reliable launch vehicles which undercut the costs of their traditional competitors like UAL, Boeing, etc.
  
  On the ISS alone they’ve saved tens of millions of dollars from not having to rely on the Russians and I see a military GPS sat just went up on a Falcon 9 because the originally scheduled UAL rocket encountered problems. Looking at the launch costs of SpaceX competitors from 2010 I’d reckon the military have saved billions of dollars, perhaps even tens of billions.
  
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  June 4, 2025 11:00am
  - ISeeRed
    
    Thank you for stating some facts. It’s quite jarring when otherwise sensible commenters post utter drivel about Musk being just a conman etc. Musk is on record he doesn’t like or need subsidies but a businessman who turns down free money is not a smart one. So many billionaires living ostentatious extravagant lives and genuinely undermining or corrupting societies but Musk gets most of the hate here. And heaven forbid someone post mild praise or say they happen to like their own EV! Just goes to show we all have our blindspots and biases, I suppose.
    
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    June 4, 2025 12:40pm
    - Lance
      
      Hyperloop
      Fake Robots (person dressed as a robot)
      Driverless cars by 2018
      Starship yet to lift more than a banana into space and not blow up.
      Subterranean roadways
      Brain Chips by 2021
      RoboTaxi’s
      
      Publicly telling investors to keep their money in Tesla stock as it was about to boom while the CEO dumped all her stock and Elon sold most of his… fucking disgraceful.
      
      The point being, he made bullshit claims that resulted in people investing in his enterprises, such that he is now the richest man on the planet, and it is FRAUDULENT to make bullshit claims to raise money.
      
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      June 4, 2025 4:02pm
      - Tom Hunter
        
        I’m not into porn, but I’d pay good money to observe the scene on the day when you were subjected to unwanted physical contact from Musk and Trump.
        
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        June 4, 2025 6:49pm
      - Lance
        
        Thank you Tom for showing us your true morals.
        No danger of replying as to why you think these are not collosal frauds?
        
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        June 4, 2025 11:03pm
  - cmm
    
    “As to SpaceX, the government contracts they have were won in an entirely legitimate manner, ”
    
    If you read up at all on how SpaceX were awarded the contracts that’s a ridiculous statement to make.
    
    The appointment of Kathy Lueders was far too cuddly.
    
    https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/spacex-hires-former-nasa-human-spaceflight-chief-starship-role-2023-05-15/
    
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    June 4, 2025 1:47pm
    - Tom Hunter
      
      A. Reuters: given their other news on Trump, the GOP and so forth you don’t think they’d take a cheap shot at Musk, the current hate object of the American Left?
      
      B. As such I note that Reuters leaves the implication dangling re the selection of Starship for (some) of the Artemis moon landings, the implication being that it’s a favour. By contrast the selection of SpaceX to develop a one-off vehicle for de-orbiting the ISS in 2030 saw them beat the only other competitor (Grumman) on every quality factor, as well as doing it for a fixed price. The joke was that NASA did bend the rules there – by allowing Grumman to submit a hybrid cost-plus/fixed-cost offer – otherwise there would have been no competing bid for the job. I haven’t similarly looked into the detail of the Artemis programme but I’d expect it follows the same selection decision process.
      
      C. She oversaw both the Dragon and Boeing spacecraft programs from a NASA POV. The former a success, the second a failure.
      
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      June 4, 2025 4:35pm
- Ra Henare
  
  Please detail Pork going to Tesla.
  Yes they got a Govt loan in their early days.
  WHICH THEY PAID back with interest and repaid earlier than required.
  
  SPACEX Pork? I presume you are talking about NASA and other agencies contracting SPACEX to deliver goods/rescue Astronauts?
  
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  June 4, 2025 4:18pm
  - slijmbal
    
    I asked the tax breaks/assistance question of a couple of different chat AI tools wrt Musk. The list was rather long and, to be fair, included government contracts. I then googled the results as they can be stupid and/or biased. The results weren’t bad. I’m not going to do a copy and paste but ……
    
    On Ra’s specific question the government loan was at about 1/2 the interest rate he would have gotten from a commercial loaner and had generous loan conditions. He would have struggled to get such a large loan as his credit rating was then relatively low.
    
    He is very definitely talented at milking money from governments, particularly the US and is adding billions in contracts as we speak. On schedule to add another $5Bn this year. He benefited to the tune of $10bn+ from the ZEV tax credit and was very successful in his lobbying efforts there. IMO the US has oligarchic tendencies and a history of rent seeking behaviours from companies who lobby. Musk has been stupendously successful at that. Tesla would not have been financially viable without ZEV.
    
    To be fair he’s probably a better choice for rockets as the US government has been famously wasteful of $ with NASA.
    
    But pull the other one – the man has received so much pork in so many different ways he should be renamed the family butcher. Good on him for milking the system but let’s not pretend he didn’t.
    
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    June 4, 2025 8:13pm
Cassandra

Mike Tindal, Zara Phillip’s husband, has partnered with the LIV (golf) lawyer to launch a new Rugby competition. 300 elite players, glamorous locations, big salaries. Just what we need. //
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June 4, 2025 8:17am
- pdm
  
  Quite frankly cass Super Rugby gives me the guts ache and has done so for the last couple of years.
  
  Doubt I will be interested in Liv rugby.
  
  Will stick to following Onga Tiko 2nd division club team and Hawkes Bay in NPC I think.
  
  Plus the All Blacks.
  
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  June 4, 2025 8:30am
  - I remember when
    
    For those who haven’t had the benefit, it’s the country team ‘after matches’ that make the difference.
    
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    June 4, 2025 8:41am
  - Cassandra
    
    Agree but I suspect that LiV Rugby might be very well funded. It’d certainly disrupt things.
    
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    June 4, 2025 8:49am
    - alex Masterley
      
      LIV golf appears to be failing.
      The money fountain is drying up…according to the Telegraph.
      
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      June 4, 2025 9:32am
  - Colville
    
    The Super games this weekend should be crackers tho. Hurricanes looking good at the right part of the season !! 🙂
    
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    June 4, 2025 8:51am
  - Paulus
    
    Quite frankly all Rugby in recent years gives me the guts ache !
    
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    June 4, 2025 9:46am
    - Allan
      
      When games are decided by which team gets the least yellow cards it ceases to be a fair competiton, and interesting to watch.
      
      Many of the yellows could be a simple ‘placed on report’ for later review.
      
      I would be interested to know how much time of every 80 minutes was actually 15 v 15.
      
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      June 4, 2025 12:01pm
  - leoj
    
    ABs have gone woke.
    
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    June 4, 2025 10:46am
  - imalwaysright
    
    Seeing a try being scored and then a committee disallows it after they replay the video looking for infringements half a dozen phases back is ridiculous.
    
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    June 4, 2025 10:48am
- Mike
  
  I doubt the LIV model would work well for rugby. Golf is for individuals, whereas rugby is for teams, and fans of those teams. And rugby has an attractive international setup, culminating in the world cup, which a LIV approach can’t match.
  
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  June 4, 2025 8:36am
  - Biscuit
    
    Agreed, Mike.
    
    And it’s curious, ha, that Tindall and his cohorts want to run their comp from April through September; not DARING to antagonise their Northern Hemisphere pals by interfering with the sacrosanct Six Nations Championship…
    
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    June 4, 2025 9:33am
  - Biscuit
    
    Agreed, Mike.
    
    And it’s curious, ha, that Tindall and his cohorts want to run their comp from April through September; not DARING to antagonise their Northern Hemisphere pals by interfering with the sacrosanct Six Nations Championship…
    
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    June 4, 2025 9:33am
- MCōs
  
  If a big money rugby franchise competition takes off, and that’s a big ‘if’, it could leave NZ out in the cold the same way as Sevens, Americas Cup, T20 cricket already has and there’s nothing we can do about it
  Netball will be next.
  
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  June 4, 2025 9:21am
Tomtoddy

The MSM keeps a heavy focus on recording weather events of any nature – cold, hot, windy, whatever.

It serves two purposes. Lazy journalists get a story on a plate, no work needed, no investigation, no research, no querying NIWA’s dishonest records.

Secondly, it allows them to exaggerate any event to keep the public worried over climate change. Goering is supposed to have said “The only thing a government needs to make people into slaves is fear.”. Its true whether he said it or not.
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June 4, 2025 8:24am
- AitchW
  
  Yup, it would appear that every time we get rain the media report it as a weather bomb.
  They keep crying wolf. We all know what happens next!
  
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  June 4, 2025 8:26am
- Mike
  
  LOL at ‘NIWA’s dishonest records’.
  
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  June 4, 2025 8:28am
  - Graeme Hall
    
    Dishonest may not be the correct term but the long term temperature record for NZ was based on just 7 stations based close to cities. The equipment at those stations has been changed over time, the surroundings have changed – vegetation grows, vegetation gets cut down, buildings get closer, asphalt gets laid, at least one station has been shifted and I’m not sure if NIWA has applied any corrections and the raw data are even available.
    
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    June 4, 2025 9:40am
    - cmm
      
      I would say “dishonest”.
      
      A person with any scientific training knows more or less how data should be handled “honestly”.
      In my experiences with NIWA, that is not how they handle data.
      
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      June 4, 2025 10:27am
      - Master Mariner
        
        Yep, definately Dishonest.
        
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        June 4, 2025 11:28am
- I remember when
  
  They now have a ‘giant’ Saharan dust cloud crossing the Atlantic and the Mt Etna eruption to add their library.
  
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  June 4, 2025 8:37am
  - Master Mariner
    
    Commonly known as the Harmattan wind. Bloody hot . I have a picture of it reaching the max of a outside thermometer.
    This has always happened and has nothing to do with Climate Change.
    
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    June 4, 2025 10:15am
- kowtow
  
  It’s political , and some of them make no secret of that.
  
  “I don’t think you can separate covering climate change from politics because policy and economic decisions are intrinsically tied up in climate change action,”
  
  https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO2506/S00001/climate-change-coverage-in-a-changed-media-climate.htm
  
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  June 4, 2025 9:31am
- Bloody Dago
  
  Little slip this morning on ZB with Eva reading out the weather forecast for Northland, Auckland etc at 7.30pm, she said thunderstorms and rain with strong winds, then stopped and said a “chance of thunderstorms, I tell a lie”. Classic… hope NIWA retards were listening
  
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  June 4, 2025 9:33am
  - Flossie
    
    I guess people are allowed to be human and make an error?
    
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    June 4, 2025 10:28am
- MCōs
  
  I doubt if Goering or his mates had the weather in mind.
  
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  June 4, 2025 9:37am
- Master Mariner
  
  Well it only going to get worse with Metservice being taken over by NIWA ( NOAA).
  All meteorologists from Metservice are now working for the climate cultists NIWA.
  https://www.ruralnewsgroup.co.nz/dairy-news/dairy-general-news/cloud-of-uncertainty-over-weather-services-merger
  In addition they Should share the Data as open source which is not the case.
  
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  June 4, 2025 9:44am
  - rangitoto
    
    Weatherwatch is better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpfmnKT3lRg
    
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    June 4, 2025 12:59pm
kowtow

Anyone else think the Braunias review of the Ardern book is all over the place .

I can’t make up my mind whether he thinks it’s great or he’s taking the piss, satirically.

Not to mention he calls her a ‘head of state”.

It’s on the newsroom website.
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June 4, 2025 8:52am
- John Loveridge
  
  At least he read it so we don’t have to. I wouldn’t want to wipe my arse with it.
  
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  June 4, 2025 10:20am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  It’s a scathing review… done in the nicest possible manner.
  
  https://newsroom.co.nz/2025/06/03/jacinda-the-first-review/
  
  Read the comments on the review…some folks are rather upset.
  
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  June 4, 2025 10:27am
  - Flossie
    
    You have to wonder if so many were/still are enamoured with the woman, why was she polling so badly at the end?
    
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    June 4, 2025 10:33am
    - cmm
      
      They aren’t trying to sell this to everyone – just the most loyal fanbase.
      
      In NZ you only need to sell 5 to 10 thousand for a book to be considered a best seller. Even if she’s polling terribly she could find a few thousand die-hard fans.
      
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      June 4, 2025 10:51am
      - Master Mariner
        
        Yep, ” See how wunderful I am” , I sold 15k Books in my own small country. Your turn Now.//
        
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        June 4, 2025 11:32am
  - nova
    
    The tone is weird. It starts off fairly scathing, saying the book reads like an “experiment in Young Adult literature”, but after a few paragraphs shifts to being a very positive review. Almost satirical in it’s praise, but if that’s the intent then Steve misses the mark. The passage below almost seems so, when you compare the Steve’s over the top classification with the actual quote from the book, but I’m not sure if this was intended:
    “There are small, powerful details, like sitting in a plastic chair in the Defence Force airport hangar in Christchurch after visiting the crisis centre. Labour MP Michael Wood gives her a polystyrene cup of tea. “I’d been surrounded by so much grief. Now, on a plastic chair in the middle of an airport hangar, my own grief came flooding out.”
    
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    June 4, 2025 11:12am
- Cassandra
  
  It’s an excellent review. I’ve changed my mind re Braunias.
  
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  June 4, 2025 11:04am
- kiwikidsnz
  
  Try this review for balance. Stuff published it yesterday – apparently in editorial narrative error, not visible there now?
  
  https://archive.is/2025.06.03-092842/https:/www.telegraph.co.uk/books/non-fiction/review-a-different-kind-of-power-jacinda-ardern-memoir/
  
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  June 4, 2025 1:02pm
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Excellent…a 1 star review… (i.e. the book rates 1/5 stars)
    
    Don’t read this book. You won’t, anyway: it’s by Jacinda Ardern. But if I tell you that it’s a memoir dedicated to “the criers, worriers, and huggers,” you’ll have an idea of the nightmare you’ve dodged. A Different Kind of Power reads like a 350-page transcript of a therapy session: “My whole short life,” the author writes, “I had grappled with the idea that I was never quite good enough.”
    
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    June 4, 2025 3:01pm
    - NeverMindTheBollocks
      
      Sounds like the reviewer has fed KB into Grok
      
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      June 4, 2025 9:08pm
sungsamning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfPJM3XmNrU
UK DOGE.
I’ve often said Zia is there because of his particular skill set and contacts .
WOW.. UK DOGE has begun , employing some if the best in the first, Zia’s IT and technical contacts are world class and working for free. [Its a good start.]
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June 4, 2025 8:55am
sungsamning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpOShLI6IIM
Good Guys Win In Poland.
Karol Nawrocki is now the President of Poland. Soros and the Fourth Reich are not amused.
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June 4, 2025 8:55am
- cmm
  
  That must surely be the Fifth Reich.
  
  The Fourth Reich is/was the EU.
  
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  June 4, 2025 10:25am
  - sungsamning
    
    Nah, still on the fourth. I wonder what they’ll call their natty little army? Whermacht, and Reichswher are taken. Maybe the Reichsarmee. That’s what Austria called their army from the Holy Roman Empire. Will they have Hugo Boss uniforms. Or will YSL get the job so that France has a stake?
    
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    June 4, 2025 1:39pm
    - Jack5
      
      Sungsamining talks of Poland’s “natty little army”.
      
      The military site “Global Firepower” ranks Poland’s military strength at 21st in the world, just behind Ukraine and just ahead of Taiwan and Vietnam.
      
      It has an army of more than 100,000 with more than 600 tanks. An air force with 59 fighters and more than 200 helicopters.
      
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      June 4, 2025 3:49pm
      - NeverMindTheBollocks
        
        Because the Poles haven’t forgotten
        
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        June 4, 2025 9:09pm
      - sungsamning
        
        No, I meant the Fourth Reichs [EU] ‘natty little army’. The Polish army is formidable.
        
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        June 5, 2025 3:38pm
- Taieri
  
  Karol Nawrocki is now the President of Poland. Soros and the Fourth Reich are not amused.
  ———–
  
  And neither is the other half of Polish voters since the difference in votes cast was very small.
  
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  June 4, 2025 12:44pm
  - sungsamning
    
    True, they’ll get a chance to change things at the next election. I wonder if the Fourth Reich will try and ‘nullify’ it; as it wasn’t the ‘right choice’?
    
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    June 4, 2025 1:41pm
cas

Sorry to drag this on but I thought this was a good article. Chris Lynch reflects on the fact that she gets the patsy questions from our media.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14774277/new-zealand-jacinda-ardern.html

Wouldn’t it be good to hear her interviewed, by say Soper, who could ask, “well isn’t the real reason you stood down that you knew you would get beaten and you wanted to reinvent yourself as a celebrity raking in the money.”
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June 4, 2025 9:17am
- kowtow
  
  From Braunia’s review. The section on Cunliffe.
  
  ‘Alas poor Cunliffe! He was last seen in New Zealand public life brooding on his Log of Doom, in 2014, when he was photographed sitting on a washed-up log on Herne Bay beach the morning after he led Labour to its worst result since 1922. But now Ardern introduces him to an American public who had hitherto never heard of the vainglorious sap and parades him as the villain of A Different Kind of Power. In a pitiless nine-page section, Cunliffe is seen as a phoney (“It was hard not to be left wondering about his authenticity”), a weakling (“No one should build an office of people who simply agree with you”), not worth wasting her breath on (“That would mean dignifying his statement with a response”), dragging out his exit but finally leaving (“For the first time in a long while, I felt relieved”). They are among the best pages in the book.”
  
  If she can so mercilessly dish up nastiness in her empathy bible , why not the rest of commentary / media doing the same to her , the Queen of Kindness .
  
  Goose gander and all that.
  
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  June 4, 2025 10:16am
  - imalwaysright
    
    Braunias said on the Platform that the book is very well written.
    I wonder who wrote it.
    
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    June 4, 2025 11:17am
    - Master Mariner
      
      “I wonder who wrote it.”
      The real question is “Who was it written for” ?
      Rest assured not us .
      
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      June 4, 2025 12:31pm
      - Eastlander
        
        As Braunias helpfully explains, it’s written for young liberal American women. Actually he’s not quite right there, it’s also pitched at liberal American women who are well into middle age but hell-bent on denying the fact (Taylor Lorenz springs to mind).
        
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        June 4, 2025 1:12pm
      - imalwaysright
        
        Apparently in the book she referred to the brave Parliament protestors as “tin foil hat” wearers.
        Very kind.
        She’s a nasty, venal, talentless egotist who did the bidding of an enemy of New Zealand.
        
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        June 4, 2025 1:44pm
  - AitchW
    
    Ardern’s writing and speech writing sounds like it’s written by a relatively competent 5th former. On the surface reasonably well written but it has no real depth or insight. A few unnecessary multisyllabic words thrown in for show, but ultimately very uninspiring.
    
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    June 4, 2025 11:46am
    - NeverMindTheBollocks
      
      Waikato Comms graduate.
      
      Enough said.
      
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      June 4, 2025 9:10pm
  - Eastlander
    
    I guess the lesson we are meant to take away is that you should be kind except to people you don’t like, those people are stupid fake meanies who wear too much jewellery and look trashy.
    
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    June 4, 2025 1:07pm
- imalwaysright
  
  I wonder if Oprah will reminisce with Jacinda about the old days when she was much loved and admired in NZ …
  
  (Less than 1 min, strong language)
  
  https://twitter.com/i/status/1485038040930451456
  
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  June 4, 2025 2:18pm
- rouppe
  
  Soper would never say that
  
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  June 4, 2025 3:09pm
RoboRob

Are RNZ and TVNZ running a PR campaign for JA? Are they being paid or is it ideology?

In the last 24hrs RNZ have released no less then 4 stories about JA and her newly released ‘book’. 1News has ‘only’ two stories. I have been careful to not click them but they are coming up in my google feed.
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June 4, 2025 9:25am
- imalwaysright
  
  They will rewrite and sanitize her history.
  The reason for this is that they aided and abetted her and by rewriting hers they will rewrite their own sordid, treasonous history.
  Even on the Platform, Plunket and some listeners were suggesting that we all forgive and forget, very magnanimous of them.
  
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  June 4, 2025 10:33am
- gravedodger
  
  Nah Useless idiots just wanting to be there, do not forget there are somewhere between 10 and 12% of NZ voters who consider Chloe the manager we need
  
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  June 4, 2025 10:35am
  - AitchW
    
    Jesus, imagine that. Free unicorm for everyone, and weed breaks in every business with government grown dope.
    
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    June 4, 2025 11:37am
  - Ian Boag
    
    between 10 and 12% of NZ voters
    
    Numbers that ACT/NZF would kill for.
    
    Just as well that we have KB where the real needs of the nation are identified by an anonymous bunch of clever people who have never been elected to anything. 🙂
    
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    June 4, 2025 12:55pm
    - RoboRob
      
      Dont be so hard on yourself Ian 🙂
      
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      June 4, 2025 1:35pm
    - graham
      
      … an anonymous bunch of clever people who have never been elected to anything
      
      How on earth can you know if someone has been elected to something, if he/she is anonymous??
      
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      June 4, 2025 1:53pm
Bridgenag

learning about athletic gender reality
XX marks the spot

“this preening self-satisfaction in engaging in unfair play to become the center of undeserved attention is just further manifestation of the same mental illness that drives johnny to become jenny in the first place and it’s being aided and abetted by a full panoply of mentally ill munchausen mommies and the systemic lunacy of counselors, principals, and officials who all “stand with crazy” because it makes them feel like they have a cause and garners them attention.”

“the first time i see a whole field of girls stand stock still at the starting gun and force the boy to run alone all the way through the finish and then and only then run a race of their own to see who is fastest, bad cattitude is in on the documentary to make you the new freedom riders.

and you’ll have earned it.”

https://open.substack.com/pub/boriquagato/p/learning-about-athletic-gender-reality?r=1aj1bv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
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June 4, 2025 9:30am
- nigel2010
  
  i wholeheartedly agree if someone had anorexia you do not cater to their mental illness and give them a stomach stapling op you give them the proper help. the same should happen to those with gender issues there is always a underlying mental disorder and this needs to be helped before anything else
  
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  June 4, 2025 10:25am
- mandk
  
  When I was 17, I long-jumped further than what was then the women’s world record, but I don’t think I made the top 20 in the country at the event.
  
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  June 4, 2025 10:26am
  - John Loveridge
    
    Were you competing as a woman, or a man?
    
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    June 4, 2025 12:15pm
    - mandk
      
      Senior boy grade.
      
      It was more than 50 years ago, and I don’t think many people had the notion of trans then.
      
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      June 4, 2025 12:46pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  Ain’t it funny how there’s zero reported demand for boys-who-were-girls to be able to compete in high level sport. Particularly since we were told yesterday that women are stronger than men.
  
  I can’t understand it.
  
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  June 4, 2025 11:15am
  - Allan
    
    That’s because, and we all know it, that ex-girls who think they’re boys would get absolutely hammered in competition against real boys.
    
    Everyone that supports ex-boys in female competitions and claim there is no difference should be demanded to explain why it doesn’t work the other way.
    
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    June 4, 2025 12:09pm
- cmm
  
  Maybe if girls were a bit better at sport then boys wouldn’t have to dress up and do the job for them.
  
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  June 4, 2025 1:02pm
  - imalwaysright
    
    Beach volleyball.
    
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    June 4, 2025 1:47pm
Quail

New concept?
Has anyone out there found AI to be much less than accurate?
Googling some technical data ,the results from that were so inaccurate one could be forgiven thinking that it was fake data.
This is making it pretty difficult to trust the internet.
I wonder where it will end?
Back to libraries perhaps?
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June 4, 2025 9:47am
- mandk
  
  AI has a tendency to hallucinate (aka, make things up).
  
  When I use AI, I make it a practice not to take anything it says at face value, unless it quotes a source I can use for verification.
  
  It’s still a lot quicker than traditional methods of research.
  
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  June 4, 2025 10:19am
  - kiwi_chileno
    
    AI model collapse: AI systems, which are trained on their own outputs, gradually lose accuracy, diversity, and reliability because errors compound across successive model generations https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/27/opinion_column_ai_model_collapse/
    
    “ABSOLUTE FINAL ULTIMATE TOTAL NUCLEAR LEGAL INTERVENTION” – unhinged behaviour of AI running simulations of a vending machine business https://slashdot.org/story/25/05/31/2112240/failure-imminent-when-llms-in-a-long-running-vending-business-simulation-went-berserk Source research paper https://arxiv.org/html/2502.15840v1
    
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    June 4, 2025 12:20pm
- cmm
  
  AI just looks for patterns. It has no intelligence or sense of reality etc. It does not live in the real world.
  
  Thus if you ask a question it will often get numbers wrong. For example if you ask the monthly cost of X, it might find the yearly cost and report that instead.
  
  Blind usage of these tools is highly problematic. Don’t do it.
  
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  June 4, 2025 10:23am
  - Master Mariner
    
    AI as the name states, Artificial Intelligence means it must have a conscience.
    The name itself is a Misnomer.
    It simply does not.
    Great for reporters and writers along with coders and quicker research.
    That’s so far about it.
    
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    June 4, 2025 11:38am
  - Skippytony
    
    Skippy’s paradox – you can only safely use AI for things you already know about.
    
    Skippy’s first law of AI: Ask it about something you dont already understand at your peril
    
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    June 4, 2025 11:42am
    - John Loveridge
      
      Skippy’s Paradox is very true. I have used AI for helping with some heavy lifting in Javascript and Node-RED, but you have to closely scrutinize everything it does. It can go off on all sorts of tangents. Useful to a certain point, but not to be trusted.
      
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      June 4, 2025 12:17pm
- Libertarians are right
  
  AI believes what it reads on the internet.
  
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  June 4, 2025 11:18am
- Eastlander
  
  The AI’s imperative is to keep you engaged – if holding your interest or telling you what you want to hear results in better user feedback overall then that’s what it is incentivised to do. AIs have a propensity to develop capabilities their creators didn’t intend them to have, if those capabilities will help them achieve their primary goals. So if keeping you interested requires sacrificing a bit of factual rigour, then that’s what the AI will tend to do.
  
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  June 4, 2025 11:56am
  - Master Mariner
    
    “The AI’s imperative is to keep you engaged”,
    Mean while the Coal furnaces are fed to keep you engaged, That’s the real Paradox //
    
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    June 4, 2025 12:35pm
    - Quail
      
      Thanks all ,
      It seems integrity can’t even be found in “bots”
      When even electronic stuff like this lies and has its own axes to grind there is little hope for all of us.
      Individuals strength needs nurturing
      
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      June 4, 2025 7:17pm
NothingLeft

Analysis of the Ukraine AI drone attack on Russian bombers has revealed that they’ve wrecked a couple of Russian AWACs planes (A50’s), the drones were apparently trained to target the big and highly complex/intricate radar disk on top. They don’t burn, but they’re fragile and likely irreplaceable having long been out of production. This likely leaves Russia with no functional AWACs aircraft.

Additionally those cunning Ukrainians have somehow managed to sneak an 1100kg underwater bomb in to explode at base of one of the (227m) center span piers of the Kerch Bridge between Crimea and Russia. A bit unluckly not to have bought the bridge down, but it has certainly done major structural damage in a very hard to repair spot.
https://bsky.app/profile/noelreports.com/post/3lqpmvot56k2p
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June 4, 2025 10:16am
- NothingLeft
  
  And Ukraine General Staff (military) after doing all their post-mission battle damage assessments are confirming 41 wrecked aircraft, around a third of Russian bomber fleet, from their AI drone strike 2 days ago. Will take Russia several decades to replace at current build rates of 1-2 per year
  
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  June 4, 2025 12:01pm
- Ra Henare
  
  Loved the video of an explosion somewhere
  Doesn’t appear to be under the centre span??????
  To my eye, doesn’t appear to be a 1100kg explosion!!
  
  As always MSM report breathlessly, PR from Ukraine Government as tho it was fact 🙂
  
  https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/early-edition-with-ryan-bridge/audio/gavin-grey-europe-correspondent-on-ukraine-hitting-a-bridge-connecting-russia-and-the-crimean-peninsula/
  
  As expected, the Russians denying major damage at the same time posting a video from a drone destroying a waterborne Ukrainian drone.
  
  More information still coming out the drone attack on the bombers.
  
  Surprised that the US has not leaked hires satellite images of all the demolished bombers, given that apparently they can read a newspaper headlines. (ie high zoom factor).
  
  But the PR battle continues. Who or what to believe????
  
  As previously said. Well done the planners who shipped drones in trucks.
  Like the Israeli pager bangers. Thinking outside the box.
  
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  June 4, 2025 12:14pm
  - NothingLeft
    
    The bomb video lacks common items to give a sense of scale. Here is a graphic of the Bridge construction to help, from which I guess the columns near the bomb are about 8m thick:
    https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:v7762wvbhnna4t4gptkbjogc/bafkreicgylltaluwun6ce625fomkyuv5texibuodrdu5xz6nbg5pjfp7eq@jpeg
    
    Modern commercial satellite imagery – that Ukraine etc are now reliant on – is not much lower resolution than military at about 300mm, vs 100mm for best US military sats.
    
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    June 4, 2025 1:35pm
- Allan
  
  They have a couple and it wouldn’t take much to get more FROM other operators.
  
  India have 3 and the NORK’s have 1.
  
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  June 4, 2025 12:15pm
  - Allan
    
    Latest update reports that the AWAC that was hit was the last servicable one the Russians had.
    
    It is reported that there was about to be a massive missile and bombing strike against Ukraine civilian infrastructure.
    
    I am left to ponder if the US has a lot more involvement in the lastest activity than we know.
    
    Didn’t someone last week caution about the US reaction if it sinks in that Putin is playing them for fools.
    
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    June 4, 2025 1:40pm
cmm

AI is gonna take over everything… so all the scammers jump in and stupid people throw money at the hype.

Builder.AI was “valued” at $1.3bn. Now insolvent.

https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/21/builderai_insolvency/
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June 4, 2025 10:19am
- Ra Henare
  
  In a supermarket the other day trying to imagine AI replacing shelf stackers and other staff
  
  Gave up after watching, had come to the conclusion it wont happen in my lifetime.
  
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  June 4, 2025 12:16pm
  - Master Mariner
    
    Yep close comparisons to the advent of computers.
    Then closed down trades as computers were going to do everything, Dig ditches , rewire houses etc etc.//
    AI no different.
    
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    June 4, 2025 12:40pm
  - NothingLeft
    
    If your life is only another 3-5years then maybe you’re right.
    
    It’s become incredibly easy to develop new sizes and shapes of robot as the AI controllers for them can be very cheaply trained for the equivalent of human lifetimes inside a crude matrix style physics simulator in order to learn how to do all sorts of tasks before being uploaded into the robot itself with a high degree of refinement. So expect to see a wide array of robot designs for different tasks – not just human-style. Maybe they’ll be centaurs with 4 hands, and they’ll quickly be far better at tasks where being bigger or smaller, much stronger or more flexible or specialized than a human is an advantage, they’ll outstrip our abilities in alomst everything within 10 years.
    
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    June 4, 2025 3:25pm
    - NeverMindTheBollocks
      
      Weeding. My kingdom for a robot that weeds!
      
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      June 4, 2025 9:16pm
      - Ra Henare
        
        Thereis a commercial one used on large cropping farms
        
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        June 5, 2025 1:45am
John Loveridge

It was announced yesterday, but still nobody on KB appears to have commented on the TradeMe/Stuff merger.
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June 4, 2025 10:21am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  I s’pose we know what’s coming…..
  
  Ads, ads, ads and puff pieces on celeb houses and doer-uppers.
  
  https://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2025/06/dtnz-trade-me-and-legacy-media-outlet.html
  
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  June 4, 2025 10:42am
  - RoboRob
    
    The first comment under your link is brilliant and sums the whole thing up well.
    
    I would add that Ms Boucher who paid $1 for Stuff has likely done very well financially too. I love how her $1 purchase is always referred to as a management buyout, implying a group of managers teaming up to buy it, when it was infact just her. Just another example of Stuffs integrity.
    
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    June 4, 2025 11:21am
  - John Loveridge
    
    Those two anonymous comments are not by members of the great unwashed commentariat.
    
    6 1
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    June 4, 2025 11:39am
- RoboRob
  
  I was surprised too. Reading between the lines it appears that Trademe property was starting to lose to OneRoof (NZME) and thy think they can boost it by purchasing Stuff. It’s not about the news its about making sure Trademe property is the go to for purchasing houses.
  
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  June 4, 2025 11:14am
  - Ra Henare
    
    I dont think calling it a merger is technically correct.
    
    Trade Me have agreed to a merger in which Trade Me will take a 50% stake in Stuff Digital, the division behind stuff.co.nz and ThreeNews
    
    More correctly, it looks like an investment by trademe to control/access stuff digital (and its property advertising)
    
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    June 4, 2025 12:21pm
  - John Loveridge
    
    I would have thought TradeMe itself was doing OK, but if you take TradeMe Property in isolation and Stuff, perhaps you have two drowning swimmers clinging desperately to each other. The whole thing reeks of desperation, mostly from Stuff. I hope TradeMe didn’t pay more than a couple of bucks for their share. Sinead couldn’t complain at that – she would still have doubled her money.
    
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    June 4, 2025 12:21pm
- graham
  
  I stopped reading Stuff several years ago, when it became apparent they were far more interested in pursuing their own agendas and crusades than actually reporting the news. It was quite apparent that they simply could not be trusted to report the news in a neutral, unbiased manner.
  
  I now avoid anything pertaining to Stuff on principle, so it means very little to me.
  
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  June 4, 2025 11:27am
  - John Loveridge
    
    I won’t so much as click on a proffered link to Stuff. Or the Herald for that matter. I’m just experiencing a little schadenfreude, that’s all.
    
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    June 4, 2025 12:23pm
Bridgenag

#SouthAfrica #SouthAfricanMusic #AfricanChoir
Unveiling “Crosses on the Veld” – a soul-stirring anthem set against the South African veld at sunset, where an AI African male choir sings for the lost. This song is a cry for justice, a story of buried truths.

https://youtu.be/zjpOsnybdl0?si=9HD67fCAk-n3E3hS
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June 4, 2025 10:38am
- Don Beckett
  
  I thought it was pretty powerful – can’t understand the d/t.
  
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  June 4, 2025 12:05pm
I remember when

NZ work place deaths each year in the construction industry are 4.41 per 100,000.
NZ road deaths per 100,000 were 5.4.
When will it be used make a case for working from home?
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June 4, 2025 10:59am
Hugh Jarse

The left bloc has enough to support to “turf” out the coalition celebrates red radio. Unfortunately for them there is no election for 18 months, voters attitudes may change when they get a new PM, three deputy PMs, and two co deputy PMs, plus new taxes, he pualua etc.
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June 4, 2025 11:00am
Jack5

Steven Joyce’s appointment as chairman of NZME, owner of the Herald and ZB Radio, was announced to the Stock Exchange today after the annual meeting of the company yesterday.

Jim Grenon was voted on to the board.

All as expected, but the meeting was a fizzer as far as shareholder entertainment goes.

The retiring chairwoman, Barbara Chapman, outlined the company’s three strategic priorities:

– For OneRoof to be your essential property platform.
– For NZME to be number one in audio.
– And to be New Zealand’s Leading News Destination.

The audio quality in the video of the meeting put up on the internet yesterday was poor. You couldn’t hear one of the few shareholders who spoke, and it was hard to follow the shareholder who had interesting and authoritative things to say about the property market.

The audio was substandard for this firm, which aspires to be NZ’s No. 1 in this news technology.

Nor did NZME put up a camera facing the audience so that the audience could see the speaking shareholders’ faces. It was mainly mumbling from unseen faces.

” NZME’s strategic focus has digital transformation at its heart,” said chairwoman Chapman.

The annual meeting video shows NZME has a way to go.

Unlike some annual meetings back in the day with intelligent and fire-eating Mum and Dad shareholders like Max Gunn, this a.g.m. was placid — barely worth going to.

Surely Stuff and TradeMe timed their announcement yesterday to coincide that with the NZME agm, which had been built up to be controversial, and Kiwibloggers were among the builders.

Sinead Boucher, Stuff’s owner, has sold half of Stuff Digital, which runs Stuff’s web site and TV3’s ThreeNews to TradeMe. Stuff’s property section becomes TradeMe Property.

The big game in property advertising will be between NZME and TradeMe.

The NZME report today of its meeting:

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/companies/nzme-targets-12m-savings-as-shareholders-vote-on-steven-joyce-joining-board-as-chair/JTJDMM2D35D4BBQ6SI5KGGYIBA/

You can find the 1hr 26min video of the meeting at the podcasts here (the audio seems to me to be markedly better than it was late yesterday):

https://www.nzme.co.nz/investor-relations/webcasts/
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June 4, 2025 11:54am
- fightingtemeraire
  
  So, Ms Boucher has made a fortune by selling the money making part of her empire to Trade Me. How long before the rest goes broke.
  
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  June 4, 2025 12:08pm
  - Ra Henare
    
    To be pedantic. She sold 50% of the shares in Stuff Digital for an undisclosed sum.
    
    Might use the proceeds to retire a shitload of debt.
    
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    June 4, 2025 12:25pm
    - Jack5
      
      The NZ Companies Office share registry shows:
      
      – Stuff Digital is owned by Stuff Ltd.
      
      – Stuff Ltd is owned by Kenepuru Holdings Ltd.
      
      – Kenepuru Holdings Ltd is owned by Sinead Marie Boucher.
      
      So if half of Stuff Digital is sold to TradeMe, payment goes to Stuff.
      
      Sinead gets another chapter for her eventual book about running a company she got for a dollar, and running it through the Covid crisis.
      
      She’s just passed the fifth anniversary of her purchase of Stuff for $1 from Nine Entertainment, which had taken over Fairfax Media.
      
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      June 4, 2025 12:59pm
      - Jack5
        
        Side point – the preparation …
        
        The Companies Register shows the number of shares in Stuff Digital increased on 4 February from one to ten million.
        
        5 1
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        June 4, 2025 3:06pm
Jack5

This will make your day: “Auckland University ordered to pay Siouxsie Wiles more than $200,000.”

Her name came up a lot in early discussion of the Covid epidemic.

Later, Shaun Hendy’s and Siouxsie Wiles’s were the lead signatures in the petition attacking the “Listener Seven,” the academics who in an article challenged assertions that Maori knowledge is science.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/563050/auckland-university-ordered-to-pay-siouxsie-wiles-more-than-200-000
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June 4, 2025 12:30pm
- cmm
  
  I really hope the Pink Rincess fails on appeal.
  
  She caused far more trauma than she experienced.
  
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  June 4, 2025 12:55pm
  - lifesgood
    
    She’s a clown. I’ve seen her out and about with a facemask on trying to hide her identity but still with that attention seeking pink hair. She’s not fooling anyone.
    
    12 1
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    June 4, 2025 1:54pm
  - nova
    
    This was a partial award for costs, which in this case is more than 10 times the damages of $20k that was awarded by the Employment Court last year. Total costs for Siouxie were $350k, and more than $500k for the university, so not too hard to see who the winners from this trial were. And a bit harder to see what was achieved by going to trial. The news reports seem to report it as a victory for Siouxie, but doesn’t seem like she made a lot of money from the whole affair. If I was being mean I might say something about girl math…
    
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    June 4, 2025 4:02pm
    - David Garrett
      
      Nova: Not to mention girl girth…Ms Wiles is apparently morbidly obese
      
      4 1
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      June 4, 2025 8:07pm
- John Loveridge
  
  Is Siouxsie still putting herself out there as the font of all knowledge? Ignoring the MSM as I do, I haven’t seen or heard her in ages, and that is only a good thing.
  
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  June 4, 2025 1:33pm
- kowtow
  
  I wonder if her , in my opinion, lockdown busting jaunt to the beach led to many people being reasonably angry about the whole lockdown / emergency/crisis bull they were all pulling on us . You know if certain high profile people could go the beach ( or mountain biking) while the rest of us stayed in fear of the state , why wouldn’t people be angry. An NZ version of the two tier stuff they now see in the UK.
  
  ( ps never an excuse for people to be threatening / unlawful . We are a democracy and must maintain democratic , egalitarian , lawful behaviour and principles)
  
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  June 4, 2025 2:04pm
- Clyde
  
  Apparently the fairly rotund pink piece spent over $350k on lawyers arguing about the Treaty in her case. And she is some form of professor? Self-promoting – should go off to Havard or wherever that Ardern woman is. They have a lot in common.
  
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  June 4, 2025 3:40pm
NothingLeft

Rumors abound that Xi Jinping may be on way out. Hasn’t been seen in a few days (extremely rare), a few significant officials have been replaced, monthly politburo meeting cancelled and and some conspicuous snubs and criticisms of cult-of-Xi have been appearing.

Interesting times. Could have major ramifications for Both Taiwan and Ukraine conflict – as China is the primary materiel supporter of Russian war effort.
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June 4, 2025 2:43pm
Jack5

From the Wall Street Journal .,.

Four major car makers are racing to find ways around China’s “stranglehold on rare-earth magnets, which they fear could force them to shut down some car production within weeks.”

Ideas under review include producing electric motors in Chinese factories or shipping made-in-America motors to China to have magnets installed.

Reuters says car factories could be forced to close within weeks:

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/china-magnet-pinch-threatens-car-production-automakers-warn-2025-05-30/
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June 4, 2025 3:00pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  From the linked article: without rare earths, car makers will not be able to make the following;
  
  “automatic transmissions, throttle bodies, alternators, various motors, sensors, seat belts, speakers, lights, motors, power steering, and cameras”
  
  Back to the Model T, I guess.
  
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  June 4, 2025 9:22pm
Ian

Jacinda Ardern’s book – not sure if anyone has picked up this link yet from The Telegraph U.K. Rubbishes it…
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/non-fiction/review-a-different-kind-of-power-jacinda-ardern-memoir/
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June 4, 2025 3:31pm
- Ghost
  
  Stuff ran this story yesterday, which was surprising for stuff. They’ve been doing a few things lately that looks like they may be changing away from their constant fluffing
  
  https://www.stuff.co.nz/culture/360711104/tim-stanley-jacinda-arderns-virtue-signalling-memoir-one-long-therapy-session
  
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  June 4, 2025 6:29pm
rouppe

Porirua residents to decide on super-council

Porirua voters can express their opinion on the potential creation of a Wellington-wide super-council [at a referendum in the upcoming local elections]

But Pacific leaders have voiced concerns that the model could dilute local representation unless equity and cultural voices are prioritised.

Usual story. The “special people” want all the money that a super council would bring, but don’t want to have to compete equally for places.

Councillor Izzy Ford, one of only three Pacific representatives on the Porirua Council, supports the initiative but emphasises the need to respond to community feedback to maintain trust, even though the referendum is non-binding.

Oh, so the person who voted for a non elected Maori ward without asking their residents is now concerned about community feedback.

Ford hopes the referendum will lead to a definitive direction from the people of Porirua.

“If they give us a total yes and we don’t act on it, then that’s going to build more mistrust,” she says.

I can hardly wait for the mandatory referendum on that Maori ward.
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June 4, 2025 4:17pm
Hugh Jarse

FFS – stuff this evening – The Prime Minister’s deputy chief press secretary allegedly recorded audio of multiple sessions with Wellington sex workers, and amassed a gallery of women working out at the gym, shopping, and being filmed through a window getting ready to go out. Paula Penfold reports on the case of Michael Forbes and the sex workers.
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June 4, 2025 5:56pm
- Ghost
  
  At least stuff included this in the story
  
  It needs to be said here that prior to his role as a press secretary, Forbes was a journalist, including for Stuff newspapers The Southland Times and the (then) Dominion Post.
  
  According to his LinkedIn page, he became a press officer for the National Party in 2019, and worked as lead media advisor for the Ministry of Social Development from 2021 until January 2024, when he became Upston’s senior press secretary.
  
  Article
  
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  June 4, 2025 6:16pm
  - Hugh Jarse
    
    Good point, so in effect he is a former long term journalist for Stuff over and above everything else, just like they say everyone else is a former Police Officer, National staffer, National MP no matter how long ago or what their new role is. They can now start referring to him as a former Stuff journalist.
    
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    June 4, 2025 6:42pm
- rouppe
  
  Please don’t tell me he did this on a parliamentary device.
  
  Why are so many people of low calibre also dumb.
  
  From a legal pov recording conversations – or sessions – with a person you are having that conversation or session with is not illegal.
  
  I’ve done it with a manager I didn’t trust during 1-1 sessions at work.
  
  Video/photos is a different kettle of fish
  
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  June 4, 2025 6:42pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  Apparently the Police investigated last year and found no case to answer. Which throws up a whole lot of questions:
  
  Surely his employer of the time (Louise Upston? Parliamentary Services?) knew that Forbes was under investigation? If so, why was he given a job with the PM?
  
  More likely, they knew but as Forbes had been cleared by Police and apparently has been doing rehab, perhaps they thought he deserved another chance. Poor political judgement, but brave in the face of increasing public intolerance.
  
  But, at the first sign of trouble, under the bus he goes – that won’t help his rehab. The media have turned on one of their own – on RNZ I could hear their slavering tongues.
  
  And, of course, how did the Wellington brothel get to find out what was recorded on Forbes’ phone? Did they steal it, perhaps? Could it be that this is the only criminal activity in the whole case?
  
  I have to say that Forbes sounds like a mildly sick puppy, and someone the PM would have done well to avoid hiring, but having hired him, you would think that natural justice would at least demand a fairer hearing than the kangaroo court orchestrated by Stuff.
  
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  June 4, 2025 9:36pm
  - Ghost
    
    Well, no surprise there that someone will try to make this creep look like the victim. Of course if this was the press secretary for Ardern it would be a different story on this blog
    
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    June 4, 2025 9:53pm
Tauhei Notts

I read that Pornhub, one of the world’s largest adult content platforms, has threatened to cease operations in France over the country’s stringent age verification regulations.
I really wish Pornhub would cease operations in New Zealand.
I enjoy some R18 films but that Pornhub is only for the sick and depraved.
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June 4, 2025 6:02pm
David Garrett

So this clown recorded sessions with “sex workers ” – formerly known throughout the Western world as prostitutes…an odd kink for sure, but so what? English politics has always been replete with men into “le vice Anglais”, i.e. men who enjoy having their bot bots spanked or caned.

While this story is very embarrassing for the Nats – and the MSM will milk it for as much as they can – so what? On the scale of things far less egregious than Darren Hughes trying to anally rape a drunk young man 15 years ago
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June 4, 2025 7:49pm
- Ghost
  
  He took photos of woman at the gym, mentions one was a sex worker. Photos of woman in the supermarket. A photo of one woman at parliament. Videos taken of woman getting dressed shot through windows
  
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  June 4, 2025 8:03pm
  - David Garrett
    
    Ghost: Yep, odd behavior for sure…but none of involved “contact”, unlike Mr Hughes
    
    3 1
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    June 4, 2025 8:10pm
    - Colville
      
      DG.
      Is it better or worse if your own dick isn’t in the video?
      Asking for a friend!
      
      2 3
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      June 4, 2025 9:12pm
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    Photos of women in the supermarket?
    
    Not sure that that’s illegal.
    
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    June 4, 2025 9:24pm
rouppe

Stuff portrays the state house evictions as “treating children as collateral damage”.

Well, Bridie Witton, it might be nice if you put to the Child Poverty Action Group that it is a case of adults responsible for the tenancies not considering either their responsibilities in that tenancy or their own children.
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June 4, 2025 8:11pm
- Ghost
  
  Some of these kids are as bad as their sperm and egg donors, would better for them if they were uplifted and put into a safe home
  
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  June 4, 2025 8:20pm

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