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June 16, 2025 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 16 June 2025

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General Debate

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Cassandra

Luxon shows leadership: commenting on Israel’s attack on Iran’s nuclear weapon capability PM Luxon said that he wanted to see the parties come together and have conversations.

Further demonstrating that he really doesn’t have clue.

Iran has, for 40 years, been threatening to destroy Israel and for much of that time funding and facilitating others eg Hamas, to do just that. Iran was days away from acquiring the uranium for nuclear weapons and getting close to an actual test. “Conversations” have been going on for years and Iran has consistently played the West for suckers. I suppose Luxon really wanted Israel to talk to Hamas too?
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June 16, 2025 8:02am
- greybeard
  
  Just heard Hosking interviewing the PM: let us hope that Luxon is a bit more articulate when talking with Xi, rather than starting sentences with “Yeah, look, I mean, Umm”.
  It sounds TERRIBLE.
  
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  June 16, 2025 8:05am
  - pdm
    
    grey.
    
    It not only sounds terrible – it is terrible.
    
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    June 16, 2025 8:19am
    - pdm
      
      His other one is along the lines of:
      
      get the joint moving.
      
      I may be old but I understand joint to have several connotations.
      
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      June 16, 2025 12:59pm
- cmm
  
  But… it sounds reasonable….
  
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  June 16, 2025 8:06am
  - All_on_Red
    
    Yep , he is practising Real Politik and trying to stay out of it and conform to what everyone else is saying.
    Trouble is, he does this a bit too often and it’s starting to make him look weak.
    
    Does anyone really think a Two State solution like he and others talk about will ever happen?
    
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    June 16, 2025 8:41am
    - cmm
      
      Two-state sounds like the “happy middle ground” etc.
      Unfortunately it is delusional expecting the parties to agree so it is really a waste of time proposing it.
      
      Yes, fence sitting is weakness. It will also get him kicked out (refer my other post about Nick Freitas).
      
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      June 16, 2025 8:46am
    - GJM
      
      there was a 2 state solution with Gaza from 2005. that didnt work very well.
      
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      June 16, 2025 11:27am
      - kiwimike
        
        The 1st 2 state solution was 1922
        when GB gave away 70% of the Palestine Mandate
        to the Hashemites for Trade favours……
        
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        June 17, 2025 1:17am
  - Positan
    
    Luxon’s vocabulary is full of juvenile expressions – “fantastic” as a positive reaction being one of his constant favourites.
    
    Every time he resorts to vague terms when responding to questions, his “abilities” whatever they might be, appear more and more devoid.
    
    I wish he’d do an Ardern and depart while there’s still room to fix things.
    
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    June 16, 2025 9:14am
    - Pope Punctilious II
      
      But who would you replace him with? Would any of the likely replacements be any better?
      
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      June 16, 2025 10:17am
    - Jack5
      
      Luxon’s done well holding the coalition together.
      
      Successful coalition leaders will be this style of politician: “chairman of the board”.
      
      Coalition governments fostered by voting systems like MMP aren’t known for dynamic leadership.
      
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      June 16, 2025 10:28am
      - R
        
        ‘systems like MMP’………..MMP was never intended to provide a productive dynamic dynamic government; it was a concept of Marxist thinking for a different agenda
        
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        June 16, 2025 11:41am
- Tom Hunter
  
  I was amused yesterday at mention of the US Intelligence Communities (IC) assessment that Iran had not re-started the nuclear weapons programme it stopped in 2003, and was not trying build a nuclear bomb. Since Wikileaks surfaced Tulsi Gabbard’s testimony to that effect, before Congress a few months ago, I’ve seen it popping up on numerous blog sites.
  
  So it’s worth remembering that in August 1978 the IC reported to President Carter that “Iran is not in a revolutionary or even a ‘pre-revolutionary’ situation.”
  
  I’d also point out that Gabbard was specifically asked about the June 2024 IAEA report concerning Iran’s enrichment of uranium to 60% purity. She accepted that Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was “at its highest levels” and “unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons.”
  
  Well yes. Unprecedented because there is no civilian use for such a level of enrichment, especially in the quantities they had. Nuclear reactors chug along quite happily at 3-4%, maxing out at 5%. The June 2024 IAEA report stated that Iran had increased its stockpile of 60% enriched uranium from 121.5 kilograms to 142.1 kilograms in just a few months.
  
  Understand also that the hundreds of centrifuges used to do this had started at the natural rate of 0.7% for U-235, an 8,600% increase. It would thus be a fast and trivial process for the same system to once again recycle that metal to enrich it to a bomb-level of 90%+, and in sufficient quantities for several bombs.
  
  In the face of the IAEA evidence alone, the American IC is dancing on the head of a pin in saying that the Iranian nuclear weapons program has not re-started. The Iranians want a nuclear weapon and by now they are in a position to build one quickly before anybody is any the wiser. The “evidence” would be ground tremor with nuke characteristics.
  
  And in what world is anybody waiting for the Ayatollah to publicly declare that they’re re-starting the nuclear weapons programme, knowing that it would draw the same attention it did in 2003. Who would be that fucking naive to pretend the orders wouldn’t be given in secret?
  
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  June 16, 2025 8:15am
  - cmm
    
    If those numbers are true, it would seem that they must be playing the long game rather than the quick game. If they were going for the quick game they’d be targeting getting enough material for a single bomb.
    
    If they have 140-odd kg of 60%, that would presumably concentrate to a far smaller amount of 90% (assuming the process is a bit lossy). Still, it takes less than 10kg of the stuff to make a Hiroshima-level bang so you’d think they would be close to being able to construct something.
    
    The other question some have been asking is whether the friendliness between South Africa and Iran could have resulted in some transfer of material. Solid details are few, but many believe that South Africa still had around 300kg of weapons-ready uranium in storage.
    
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    June 16, 2025 8:31am
    - Tom Hunter
      
      The other question some have been asking is whether the friendliness between South Africa and Iran could have resulted in some transfer of material.
      
      If so that would a hell of an irony given the nuclear relationship between South Africa and Israel, including the Vela Incident.
      
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      June 16, 2025 8:54am
      - cmm
        
        It’s a different group of South Africans so things change.
        
        The current mob are the ones that took Israel to the ICC or whatever over Gaza and it would seem they did that for an Iranian pay-off.
        
        The ruling elite in South Africa are a bit tight for cash. If they had something worth selling they quite likely would do so.
        
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        June 16, 2025 9:01am
      - kowtow
        
        ‘The ruling elite in South Africa are a bit tight for cash.’
        
        I suspect their Swiss bank managers might disagree.
        
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        June 16, 2025 9:19am
      - kiwi_chileno
        
        And the Argentina connection. In the 1980s, Argentina signed deals with Iran to supply nuclear material and technology. In 1992, Argentina cancelled co-operation after US pressure. In retaliation, Hezbollah, in an attack masterminded by Iran and Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader killed by Israel last year, bombed the Buenos Aires Jewish community centre (AMIA) in 1994 – 85 people killed, 300 wounded. (The Israeli Embassy was bombed in 1992.) Hezbollah has a deep-rooted network in the Lebanese diaspora in the Argentine-Brazil-Paraguay tri-border area.
        
        Milei has designated the AMIA attack as a human rights crime. There are preparations for in absentia trials of the perpetrators. Those facing indictment include Iranians – former Ministers, commanders of the Revolutionary Guards / Al Quds Force, etc., some of whom may now have been killed by Israel. The prosecutor has also asked for an international arrest warrant for Ayatollah Ali Khameni, the Great Satan, who authorised the AMIA attack.
        
        This is after years of obstruction and cover-ups, especially under the Peronist President Cristina Kirchner. In 2015, the prosecutor Alberto Nisman, was murdered (never solved) the day before he was going to expose Kirchner’s role. Last year, judges, prosecutors, and police were convicted for mis-conduct and obstructing the investigation. Kirchner has just been jailed for 6 years and permanently barred from public office for corruption. She’s also facing a treason charge because, in 2013, she signed a MoU with Iran that effectively shielded Iranian suspects from investigation.
        
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        June 16, 2025 12:23pm
    - NothingLeft
      
      Russia could have easily swapped a few tonnes of weapons grade in part payment for all the missiles and components Iran is supplying it. They wouldn’t tell us.
      
      Dollars to donuts Iran already has a few 100kgs of weapons grade already and 10’s of bombs built, likely have thermonuclear (fusion secondary) in the works and probably aiming at north of 100 warheads before they announce with a test.
      
      This is world’s last chance to stop the mad Mullahs getting the bomb – followed by rapid proliferation throughout the middle east.
      
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      June 16, 2025 9:09am
      - Tom Hunter
        
        … followed by rapid proliferation throughout the middle east
        
        Starting with Saudis. It’s long been thought that they’ve poured tens of billions of dollars into the nuclear weapons programme of their fellow Sunni Muslims, Pakistan, so that when the time came they could quickly go nuclear themselves if the Shite Iranians did so.
        
        It’s also another marker of what the Gulf Arab nations really think of the whole situation that they have not developed nukes so far despite knowing the Jews have had them since the late 60’s. Apparently nobody thinks the Jews will just go off their rockers and launch nukes – whereas the idea that the Ayatollah’s would is less far-fetched.
        
        Notably the two Arab nations that did make an attempt were driven by socialist, secular leaders, in the form of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and Syria’s Assad – and Israel was definitely their target also, which is why Israel took out out those programs in 1981 and 2007 respectively.
        
        Aside from the Sunni-Shiite thing there’s also the whole Arab-Persian deal. Those racial and cultural memories go 3000 years deep, Mohammed or not.
        
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        June 16, 2025 9:59am
      - R
        
        This would be the most intelligent comment on the Iranian nuclear ambition so far on KB. Iran has probably been in the nuclear bed with Russia since the fall of the Berlin Wall, if not before said event
        
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        June 16, 2025 10:44am
      - mike
        
        There doesn’t seem any particular reason to suspect that Russia wants Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.
        
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        June 16, 2025 11:43am
    - Tom Hunter
      
      If they were going for the quick game they’d be targeting getting enough material for a single bomb.
      
      True, but the Iranian thinking on this may be the same as the Americans in 1945, where they didn’t want to drop Little Boy until they had a couple of Fat Man’s in the pipeline; the argument being that even if shocked by such a bomb the Japanese government would dismiss it if it was not followed up by a second. IIRC by the 1980’s evidence had emerged that that was exactly one of the arguments made to the Emperor after Hiroshima, but before Nagasaki.
      
      Not quite the same here of course, as Iran would not be looking for Israel to “surrender” but be destroyed, and you’d certainly need more than one un-boosted atomic bomb for that.
      
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      June 16, 2025 9:09am
    - Ross Bayer
      
      Here try this might give people a better perspective
      
      https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/col-macgregor-dear-president-trump-keep-america-first-not-israel-first-not-ukraine
      
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      June 16, 2025 12:00pm
      - NothingLeft
        
        MacGregor is a fool His Ukrainian prognostications have been a clear fail.
        
        When ‘experts’ predictions fail to eventuate you should stop listening to them.
        
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        June 16, 2025 2:45pm
  - mike
    
    Well, there seem to be two very different stories here:
    The US does not believe that Iran is close to building a bomb. Israel claims that Iran is ‘days away’ from a nuclear weapon. Both these assessments cannot be true, although it seems the US has less incentive to lie.
    More importantly, it is highly unlikely that military action could prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons. The Israeli attacks provide an incentive for the Iranians to acquire a nuclear deterrent as soon as possible.
    There are two ways to prevent Iran: a regime change (Netanyahu’s fantasy) or a new agreement like the JCPOA.
    
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    June 16, 2025 9:12am
    - bennerg
      
      Mike said “Both these assessments cannot be true, although it seems the US has less incentive to lie.“.
      
      I think what is more important is that “Israel has much more to lose”.
      
      The Western nations often assume that the principles of life that they grew up with (the “Christian principles of honesty, fairness, diligence, humility, and a commitment to treating all stakeholders with respect) which form the basis of honest negotiation and agreements, are enjoined by the rest of the world.
      
      However these simply do not apply to most of the “others”, particularly those from the Middle East, where their founding document embraces lying to an opponent.
      
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      June 16, 2025 10:04am
      - mike
        
        You have got to be kidding if you’re going to claim that Western governments conform with ‘Christian principles’.
        
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        June 16, 2025 11:39am
      - bennerg
        
        Mike, may I respectfully suggest a visit to specsavers, as I said “Western nations”… our culture has developed over two millenia, and has created a people – and I’m talking about you and me here – who are for the most, honest, trusting, honour our word, and do so irrespective of the person or party we are dealing with. Of course there are exceptions, but the majority of us, especially Kiwis, are so ingrained from our childhood upbringing. (Feel free to exclude yourself of course 🙂
        
        I found this living and working abroad, and made me a sought after employee – ie trustworthy and hard working. It was an eye opener to see and experience others for whom there was little respect for life and honestly.
        
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        June 16, 2025 12:57pm
    - cmm
      
      Serious question: Do you really think appeasement will stop them?
      
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      June 16, 2025 10:11am
      - mike
        
        A negotiation is not the same as ‘appeasement’. If Iran is determined to acquire nuclear weapons it will get them.
        
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        June 16, 2025 10:59am
      - cmm
        
        Negotiation might not be appeasement, but an agreement (which is what you said) would be appeasement. They would have to be appeased to agree.
        
        In your absolute wildest dreams what do you think Iran would agree to? Living side by side with Israel?
        
        Be real. The only thing current Iran would agree to is a complete annihilation of Israel. That might take a whole lot of hand outs etc for the short term, but that’s not in their longer term goals.
        
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        June 16, 2025 11:10am
      - mike
        
        Why do you think Iran signed the JCPOA, with which it was complying before Trump wrecked it?
        
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        June 16, 2025 11:37am
      - RoboRob
        
        @Mike
        
        Iran signed it because the US gave them a pile of money and they got to continue developing a Nuclear capability.
        
        Why does an oil rich country need nuclear energy? Why do they spend so much time and effort enriching uranium far higher them is required for nuclear power? Could it be they want to build a bomb?
        
        If Iran had a bomb would they hold it for defense or attack with it? If you just went by their own words, they would use it to wipe out the little satan (Isreal) and then then move focus to the big satan (USA).
        
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        June 16, 2025 12:02pm
      - bennerg
        
        cmm, Any negotiations with Iran would take the same trajectory as those between Israel and Palestine – decades of well meaning attempts, ending at the last minute with the Palestinians exiting. All the while they were arming themselves to to the teeth.
        
        Iran has the same mission as Hamas / PLO, to destroy Israel, so why would they agree to anything that created peace while Israel existed? For them it makes no sense.
        
        I suggest that Israel is going to take the best advantage of their air superiority, and bomb the s**t out of every known military location (their intelligence has been shown to be pretty good in this regard), top any military leader and nuclear scientist they can locate, bomb the industries that supply the military, and then go the Mullahs and provide an opportunity for some regime change.
        
        For the installations underground I would not put it past the Israelis to decimate the surface buildings and security, and then send in elite troops to do the same underground.
        
        I do not think Iran is going to come out of this in any way shape or form like what it was a week ago. Like our All Blacks had to learn some years ago the hard way, never take your foot off of their throat until the job is done.
        
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        June 16, 2025 2:24pm
    - Don Beckett
      
      I would believe Israel before the USA. Mossad has many embedded agents, probably including many disaffected Iranians, & will know every heartbeat of the Ayatollahs & the Iranian scientific community.
      My guess is if this conflict continues to escalate, next next target will be the Ayatollahs themselves, sparking a revolution to regain the Iranian political scene they had back in the 1970’s.
      
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      June 16, 2025 11:01am
    - Ross Bayer
      
      Mike,
      Have to agree 100% with you recent posts
      There seem to be a number of people who believe the anti Iran and anti Russia narrative, they probably get their info from CNN or the View both highly disrespected sources of news who supported the WMD deception
      
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      June 16, 2025 1:18pm
    - NothingLeft
      
      Israel has top notch intelligence gathering in Iran -given it is their primary concern. They’ve turned high ranking officials, and have a very detailed picture of what is going on in the country as evidenced by the amazing successes they’ve had in numerous Iranian operations over the last few decades.
      
      US not so much.
      
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      June 16, 2025 2:49pm
  - Paulus
    
    Perhaps the Aytollah will buy a couple of bombs from Pakistan.
    Much easier.
    
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    June 16, 2025 10:03am
    - Tom Hunter
      
      As I point out above, the Sunni Saudis would certainly have something to say about to their fellow Sunnis in Pakistan about selling nukes to Shiite Persia.
      
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      June 16, 2025 10:18am
      - mike
        
        Iran and Pakistan have long-standing friendly relations. They even conduct joint military exercises.
        
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        June 16, 2025 11:00am
      - bennerg
        
        Mike said. “They even conduct joint military exercises“.
        
        I suspect not any more. By the time Israel is finished, no Air Force, no Navy, and more than likely a regime change.
        
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        June 16, 2025 2:28pm
- kowtow
  
  ‘Iran has, for 40 years, been threatening to destroy Israel’
  
  The question must be ‘why’ . But no one really wants to ask that .
  
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  June 16, 2025 8:27am
  - Lance
    
    I was once sitting on a rooftop area of a hostel we were staying at in the old city of Jerusalem. One of the Palestinian Arabs that owned the hostel (he wasn’t a big fan of being called an Israeli Arab, he thought it was silly to name a country after a person) said to us, the Arabs hate Israel because it is the West in our midst, it doesn’t belong here.
    
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    June 16, 2025 10:25am
    - Lance
      
      I didn’t say I agreed with it, the question was , ‘why do neighbouring countries want to destroy Israel’
      
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      June 16, 2025 11:27am
      - Unity
        
        A question I’ve asked many times on various sites. Why can’t these people live in peace – ignore the other country if they must but why on earth do they want to wipe a country out? It just doesn’t make sense to me. They don’t need to interact with each other. Ignore the other country if they must but – war??!!
        
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        June 16, 2025 1:16pm
      - Don Beckett
        
        Not neighboring countries – Jordan & Egypt are at least passive, Jordan quite friendly. But if you listen to what the countries like Iran are saying, That question would not need to be asked.
        
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        June 16, 2025 1:27pm
    - NothingLeft
      
      The Arabs and Muslims hate Israel and the west because of their conspicuous success putting lie to the stories told of Islamic ascendency in the Quran.
      
      Islamic culture has been tested and found severely lacking in the competitive marketplace of ideas and ways of running societies, and that pisses Muslims off endlessly.
      
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      June 16, 2025 2:52pm
  - Cassandra
    
    Ideology. And the Koran. Do you have others?
    
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    June 16, 2025 10:31am
    - R
      
      The history of Persian and Arab ideological differences
      
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      June 16, 2025 10:47am
    - kiwi_chileno
      
      Mahdism, Shi’a Islam’s apocalyptic eschatology. Muhammad al-Mahdi – the Rightly Guided One, the Hidden Imam, the saviour – will one day return to rid the world of evil and injustice. His coming will bring about one final apocalyptic battle between two armies, in which Shi’a believe that the Mahdi and his forces will prevail over evil. The existence of Israel is the greatest barrier to the return of the Mahdi and a global Shi’a Caliphate. The destruction of Israel and the Jews is the necessary prelude for the Mahdi’s return.
      
      https://www.mei.edu/sites/default/files/2022-05/Iran%E2%80%99s%20Revolutionary%20Guard%20and%20the%20Rising%20Cult%20of%20Mahdism-%20Missiles%20and%20Militias%20for%20the%20Apocalypse%20.pdf
      
      https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA467203.pdf
      
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      June 16, 2025 11:34am
      - Tom Hunter
        
        Thanks. Amidst the occasional screech about evangelical Christians supporting Israel as a pathway toward The Last Day, it’s important to remind people that the same insanity lies at the heart of Iran’s theocracy.
        
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        June 16, 2025 12:46pm
      - kowtow
        
        TH
        
        If I might be so bold . I don’t think we can equate the two insanities at all .
        
        Evangelical Christians tend to gather in halls and pray and listen to sermons etc and to varying degrees towards the extremes might talk in tongues , babble , get snake bites , do “healing” . But in very few cases do they actually take arms , en mass as they did in Soudan in the late 1800’s , Iran in the 1970’s and Syria and Iraq more recently .Not to mention the tens of thousands of Salafists now residing less than peacefully in western Europe.
        
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        June 16, 2025 1:12pm
  - mogg
    
    Because ‘God is great’.
    
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    June 16, 2025 10:39am
  - kiwimike
    
    ask me ask me !!
    
    The existence of Israel is an affront to Islam……
    
    and shows that Muhammad was wrong !
    
    Their God is not so great !!
    
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    June 17, 2025 1:27am
- Simon
  
  Cassandra didnt know you lived in Israel. What is it like at night time? Its still safer there in Israel than Auckland at night time would expect.
  
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  June 16, 2025 8:35am
- Inandout
  
  Cass, I wonder if Luxon knows Israel has planned this attack for many months, if not years. With precision Israel has targetted Iran’s sites after insiders supplied their whereabouts. The supposed end game is to get the Iranians to uprise against the religious bosses and maybe return to happier times.
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFL-j5IbHck&t=214s
  
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  June 16, 2025 8:40am
  - Unity
    
    I would say Israel planned this only for the reason of what actually happened. Does everyone forget that Hamas started this? I don’t blame Israel one teeny bit for being ‘prepared’. They know that the surrounding countries want to wipe them from existence, so wouldn’t you be prepared!! I’m with Israel all the way and hope they win. Those who don’t want to live in peace should leave Israel and take their tyranny elsewhere.
    
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    June 16, 2025 1:20pm
    - Jake Dee
      
      That “Hamas started this” is a pretty standard but totally ignorant response.
      This war has been going on for generations.
      Do you remember Yassir Arafat and the PLO?
      They were secular Nationalists aligned with Marxists.
      Israel first conquered Gaza in 1956 when they attacked Egypt with the help of Britain and France to seize control of the Suez canal from Abdul Nasser’s government. Nasser’s parties were anti-monarchy, anti-colonial, socialist, and nationalist and they still fought Israel.
      Israel supported the Islamists, including Hamas to knock off the Nationalist.
      The idea that “Hamas started this” only makes sense if you are willing to cut out a chunk of your brain and ignore large amounts of well documented history.
      This is probably the worst part of this war (for New Zealanders at least) the deliberate stupidification you have to undergo for the MSM Israeli narrative to make any sense.
      If you are a straight up Zionist and admit that your idea of human rights exist on an ethic-religious hierarchy, that at least is consistent. But the idea that fighting that has gone on for generations began on October 7th 2023 is zombie level brain death.
      Hamas cannot travel backwards through time.
      
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      June 16, 2025 8:31pm
- KH
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  Israel is the problem. It is a rogue state.
  Who would want to live next to them?
  They need to tone it down, not up. They won’t listen so why bother.
  
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  June 16, 2025 8:44am
  - Cassandra
    
    Israel has been under threat and attack since 1948 and the Jews of the Moddle East since forever. I can understand how Israelis feel. If Islam would accept coexistence then this would all go away.
    
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    June 16, 2025 10:34am
    - imalwaysright
      
      “I can understand how Israelis feel”
      
      Tell us how they feel.
      
      That sort of arrogance is insulting to the people of Israel.
      Keep banging on about your NZ military experiences, fair enough, but don’t tell us you know what the people on the ground feel.
      
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      June 16, 2025 12:34pm
- imalwaysright
  
  Suggesting a “conversation” to resolve such a serious situation is condescending and disingenuous.
  
  We would expect that from Ardern.
  
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  June 16, 2025 9:25am
- gravedodger
  
  Before the overthrow of Shah Mohammad Reza, Israel and Iran had a good working relationship based on advancing the aspirations of the two peoples.
  Of course the establishment of the government by the followers of the Paedophile prophet ended what had begun as Persias massive intellectual advances over centuries in a heartbeat, for starters the dismissal of half the brain power with the reestablishment of subjugation of women, and accompanied by criminalisation of queer males and stringing them up on cranes.
  
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  June 16, 2025 9:26am
- Ross Bayer
  
  cassandra,
  This is the most unbalanced and incorrect post from you for a long time.
  The US DNI said under oath that Iran is not developing a nuclear weapon.
  The Iranian head negotiator clearly stated they would be happy to sign an agreement which keeps the level of enrichment within agreed limits
  Israel’s response well they have assassinated the head negotiator.
  Have you forgotten about the reason for invading Iraq, complete BS sold to suckers around the world, which probably includes you
  If you want to bomb nuclear sites why would you decapitate the Iranian military
  Anyone who supports this action clearly does not understand history or the grave threat this poses to humanity
  
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  June 16, 2025 9:39am
  - bennerg
    
    Ross, you said “Iranian head negotiator clearly stated they would be happy to sign an agreement“.
    
    I suspect that such agreements are not worth the paper they are written on. I commented elsewhere the similarity with negotiations with the Palestinians of many forms over the decades … platitudes then exit at the last minute, all the while re-arming themselves.
    
    If you look at the other Middle Eastern nations, it is the ones that have modernised that can live in peace with Israel. It is the depraved lot from the dark ages that cannot. Recognising that fact makes the whole picture come into focus.
    
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    June 16, 2025 2:34pm
    - Jake Dee
      
      Who is entitled to arms and why?
      
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      June 16, 2025 8:33pm
- mogg
  
  Luxon and every other Western country, with the exception of US.
  
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  June 16, 2025 10:37am
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  Yet Trump is openly still calling for both country to come together and do a deal.
  
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  June 16, 2025 12:19pm
  - kiwimike
    
    psy ops brilliant……
    
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    June 17, 2025 1:32am
- Ra Henare
  
  and for more than 40 years(Try 77) Israel has been slowly destroying the Palestinians!
  
  Love it when I read opinions.
  
  Small fact check.
  Iran was days away from acquiring the uranium for nuclear weapons and getting close to an actual test.
  
  This bogey man has been floated by Western Sources for many years.
  
  Fact check. Iran has been producing Uranium(albeit at lower enrichment levels for 20+ years)
  
  Can I respectfully suggest this is a Netanyahu strategy to IMHO
  a) Take the focus of IDF operations in Gaza which have been stepped up. ie more bombs.
  b) weaken? the Iranians economy by destroying their revenue stream(Ie Oil) under the cover of destroying Nuclear capability.
  
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  June 16, 2025 4:11pm
  - Jake Dee
    
    Another important fact check that everyone here should remember is that under the terms of Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Iran is entitled to develop nuclear technology.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Non-Proliferation_of_Nuclear_Weapons
    Israel (along with India, Pakistan and South Sudan) is not a signatory to that treaty.
    This is actually the crux of the problem.
    Power.
    Nuclear power is only a sub-set of that.
    Iran can either be powerful and develop that power in anyway it sees fit, including any weapons it sees fit and Israel will have to come to some sort of deal with it. Or Iran must be kept weak for ever, in which case Israel must keep smashing it down for ever.
    The same logic applies to the Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians et al.
    Nobody seems to want to answer the question
    “Who is entitled to weapons, and why?”
    
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    June 16, 2025 8:53pm
- Jake Dee
  
  Israel not only talked to but directly funded and supported Hamas for years.
  There is no consistency, logic or even memory here.
  
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  June 16, 2025 8:00pm
NeverMindTheBollocks

Ain’t it amazing how Gaza has fallen out of the headlines.

Surely 100,000 kids starving in a week’s time is more important than a few people being blown up by whizzbangs.
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June 16, 2025 8:02am
- sirknz
  
  No mention of the Egyptians mass deporting the clowns who were there to walk into Gaza. Some of the videos were cringey at best like the Welsh guy pleading to the Egyptian authorities to let them ‘feed your fellow Muslims’.
  
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  June 16, 2025 10:10am
- Nobby2
  
  Ukraine has also fallen out of the headlines. Putin is as mad and deranged as hamas and the ayatollah.
  
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  June 16, 2025 10:42am
  - NothingLeft
    
    Ukraine conflict is not going to resolve anytime soon, does appear in recent times that Russia’s war making abilities are weakening, but expect another year or two of this conflict
    
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    June 16, 2025 2:57pm
goNZ1

Christians on this blog may be interested in a briefing a short time ago from the head of the IDF on Operation Rising Lion.
he quotes from the Old Testament
‘Behold, the people shall rise up as a great lion,
And lift up himself as a young lion:
He shall not lie down until he eat of the prey,
And drink the blood of the slain.’

Numbers 23.24 (KJV)
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June 16, 2025 8:04am
- mike
  
  The Bible is certainly a go-to source for quotes about mass killing of one’s enemies.
  
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  June 16, 2025 9:32am
  - RoboRob
    
    If your big into that sort of thing Mike you might want to go to the real experts. Try Maos little red book, or perhaps some stuff by Stalin or Lennon.
    
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    June 16, 2025 9:40am
    - Pope Punctilious II
      
      Is “Lennon” a Freudian slip? You’re not thinking of John’s agitprop smash hit “Imagine”, are you?
      
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      June 16, 2025 11:19am
  - mandk
    
    It’s not a patch on the Koran.
    
    6 3
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    June 16, 2025 9:41am
  - Nobby2
    
    It’s just another story book.
    
    8 3
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    June 16, 2025 10:44am
    - Colville
      
      Has any other story book caused as many deaths ?
      
      4 3
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      June 16, 2025 11:20am
      - NothingLeft
        
        Theology is a convenient excuse for abhorrent behavior, but despots and petite monsters will latch onto any excuse or rationalization that enables them to do their murderous worst. At the root it is always just competition for limited resources – and a drive to kill or subjugate the other before they can do it to you, no different than what drives head-hunters in Papua New Guinea
        
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        June 16, 2025 3:03pm
    - mike
      
      Full of particularly violent stories…
      
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      June 16, 2025 11:34am
- imalwaysright
  
  If these Bible quotes were written in plain English they would lose a great deal of their mystique:
  
  “There’s going to be another war in the Middle East”
  
  Very prophetic….
  
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  June 16, 2025 9:44am
- Bevan
  
  Religion being used to justify war? Im shocked!
  
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  June 16, 2025 10:14am
- Don Beckett
  
  I don’t think biblical passages have any relevance here. Israel is a secular, not religious state.
  
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  June 16, 2025 11:05am
  - imalwaysright
    
    Agree Don.
    But to criticise the Israel government is to be equated with an antisemite.
    
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    June 16, 2025 12:21pm
  - Jake Dee
    
    That is quite obviously false and I’m surprised to hear you say that publicly
    
    “Chairman Ohana stated: “This is the law of all laws. It is the most important law in the history of the State of Israel, which says that everyone has human rights, but national rights in Israel belong only to the Jewish people. That is the founding principle on which the state was established”
    
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Law:_Israel_as_the_Nation-State_of_the_Jewish_People
    
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    June 16, 2025 9:11pm
NeverMindTheBollocks

Government solves Pacific Islander overstayer problem. “We should have thought of this before!” crows one advocate. “Dawn raids were never necessary”.

Well, not exactly.

RNZ reports 4,000 recent overseas adoptions, most from Samoa & elsewhere in the Pacific. Other reports indicate that many of these are 18-23 (upper age limit). These adoptions are waved through by Immigration, and are not subject to Oranga Tamariki oversight.

A major flaw in both areas, and one that deserves to be addressed by Parliament under Urgency.
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June 16, 2025 8:13am
- Jack5
  
  The dawn-raids saga was exaggerated by the Left-wing media, led by Red Radio.
  
  If people are in the country illegally and you don’t know their employers, how can you check on them except by early-morning or night calls on homes?
  
  The Wet Left turned the racket into a tale of heroic border crashers harassed by the country’s authorities.
  
  At least America and the UK aren’t making their border invaders into heroic victims.
  
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  June 16, 2025 10:37am
cmm

I saw an American political commentator making an interesting observation on Youtube yesterday.

Leftie politicans get kicked out because they do too much.
Rightie politicians get kicked out because they don’t do enough.

It is certainly true for NZ.

Instead of restoring the balance, the rightie politicans go for the “reasonable”, “centrist” position – which is turf that the lefties held a decade or two ago.

The net effect of this is that the Overton window keeps lurching left. We’re going where the lefties want because the righties aren’t making corrections.
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June 16, 2025 8:14am
- cmm
  
  The link: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/P-bCs1cxdzc
  
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  June 16, 2025 8:19am
- I remember when
  
  Because the left do too much, costs increase, as a consequence outcomes for the poor gets worse, interest costs rise, and the right have to balance the books when they come into power.
  
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  June 16, 2025 9:42am
  - cmm
    
    “right have to balance the books when they come into power.”
    But they don’t really do enough. That’s the point.
    
    Lefties over deliver, righties don’t deliver enough.
    
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    June 16, 2025 11:12am
    - Pope Punctilious II
      
      Any “right wing” government focused solely on balancing the books is a poor government. In the long term interest of the country, the right must also fight the culture war.
      
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      June 16, 2025 12:38pm
- nz_aj
  
  Big difference between “doing too much” and “spending too much with nothing to show for it”.
  
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  June 16, 2025 2:31pm
Maggy Wassilieff

Finally….

PM announces national inquiry into grooming gangs

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c7872pngj2qo

Let’s see if the City of Bradford will co-operate

https://www.switalskis.com/blog/bradford-grooming-scandal-a-call-for-investigation
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June 16, 2025 8:24am
- All_on_Red
  
  ‘When Iran gets liberated, Londoners will be able to flee to Tehran for a safer place with fewer Islamic extremists.’
  //
  
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  June 16, 2025 8:46am
- mogg
  
  Protection for the Rape Gangs has filtered upwards through the Labour Party, through social services, police, local councillors to MPs and onto Starmer himself. Starmer knew about this when he was Crown Prosecutor 12 years ago. At that time he said “I did not take action because I needed more evidence”. Since that time thousands of White girls have been raped and abused, and he is complicit.
  
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  June 16, 2025 10:54am
  - kiwimike
    
    yep
    Jail 2 good 4 him and the other offenders….
    
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    June 17, 2025 1:36am
artemisia

iSouth Taranaki hapu want the Waitangi Tribunal to halt a fast-track bid to mine the seabed off Patea.

Is the fast-track process going to get increasingly tangled up in presumably futile lawfare and culturefare?

Meanwhile – Taranaki economy takes hit in latest quarterly report

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/564202/tribunal-asked-to-halt-seabed-mine-fast-track
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/564205/taranaki-economy-takes-hit-in-latest-quarterly-report
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June 16, 2025 8:24am
- Tarquin North
  
  I didn’t think the Waitangi Tribunal had the power to alter government decisions?
  
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  June 16, 2025 8:30am
  - Spam
    
    It doesn’t stop them pontificating on them, and then the media asking why the government isn’t following their “advice” (because, you know, not following their advice means that they’re ignoring their obligations under Te Tiriti).
    
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    June 16, 2025 9:49am
    - Tarquin North
      
      Good point, I can just imagine Luxon and co quavering at the thought of being called racist for not agreeing with the sacred tribunal. I do wish our leadership would grow a set just for once.
      
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      June 16, 2025 10:04am
  - Paulus
    
    They don’t !
    They are not an elected Government of the electorate.
    
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    June 16, 2025 10:07am
  - Nobby2
    
    TQ. It doesn’t, but maori grievance adherents think it is the be all body to go to, so that all their problems get solved and all their fantasy’s come true.
    
    9 2
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    June 16, 2025 10:50am
    - KH
      
      Give the Iwi money their opposition will evaporate.
      That’s the culture.
      
      9 3
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      June 16, 2025 11:14am
  - pdm
    
    TN 8.30am – Messrs Luxon and Potaka will be striving hard to stay on side with the Waitangi Tribunal.
    
    It will be up to Jones, Peters, Seymour, Court and others to get this up and running.
    
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    June 16, 2025 1:11pm
- cmm
  
  … and another 120 of NZ’s finest got on a one-way flight out of NZ yesterday…
  
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  June 16, 2025 8:33am
  - Simon
    
    “and another 120 of NZ’s finest got on a one-way flight out of NZ yesterday…”
    
    National dont care. Why fix things when you can import a couple hundred thousand from India.
    
    14 7
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    June 16, 2025 8:38am
- Inandout
  
  I have driven through Patea on many occasions and of late the number of businesses closed up is astounding. I think a chemist, WINZ and a couple of takeaways remain. If any area needs a financial boost it is Taranaki.
  
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  June 16, 2025 8:47am
  - RoboRob
    
    Would that be the same Taranaki that got screwed over by JA and her captains call? The same one that still overwhelmingly supported Labour anyway!
    
    11 1
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    June 16, 2025 9:34am
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    Patea has been dead since the freezing works closed, back in the 80’s.
    
    The works was sited there because there is a small river mouth port, long since silted up & unserved due to the vanished coastal shipping trade.
    
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    June 16, 2025 9:47am
    - fightingtemeraire
      
      Owned by the Vestey’s who upped sticks and left and left NZ to clean up the mess.
      
      I don’t think that any cargo was shipped out of Patea, it would have been sent to NP and loaded there.
      
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      June 16, 2025 12:23pm
      - mike
        
        Patea had a working port until the 1950s.
        
        4 4
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        June 16, 2025 2:34pm
  - bennerg
    
    Patea, often known as the “tradesman’s entrance to Taranaki”.
    
    7 1
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    June 16, 2025 10:06am
- Mod88
  
  Oppose Seabed Mining because no Koha but support massive Offshore Wind Generation Plants because Koha perchance.
  
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  June 16, 2025 9:13am
Bridgenag

Sunday Strip: Happy XY Day!
Terror Alert! Space bears invade our moon base.

https://www.malone.news/p/sunday-strip-happy-xy-day?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
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June 16, 2025 8:27am
NeverMindTheBollocks

Shell Lane (The Terrace) bike rack report:

At 8.32am, just the one bike today.

A cool, clear, calm, dry morning in the Capital, ideal for cycling. Where ARE all the cyclists?

Put another way, if they’re not going to cycle today, they’re never going to cycle.
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June 16, 2025 8:32am
- imalwaysright
  
  Its Monday Nevermind.
  That’s only halfway through the Wellington weekend.
  
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  June 16, 2025 9:37am
- graham
  
  For many years I used to cycle into work in the heart of Auckland CBD, virtually every day. Wind, rain, sun, I was on my bike. I would arrive at work soaking wet, sometimes unable to feel my toes or nose due to the cold in the winter. Never bothered checking the weather forecast, just went ahead and cycled.
  
  I get it that many people won’t be quite that eager (or daft, as my wife would say 😉). But on calm and dry days, why wouldn’t you take the opportunity to hop on your bike – IF there really are all these people out there who dearly want to hop on their bike and save the planet while getting some exercise in. SURELY they’re out there, with all the money being poured into infrastructure for them … right?
  
  As you say … if they’re not going to cycle on such a day as you’ve described, they’re never going to cycle.
  
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  June 16, 2025 9:56am
  - pdm
    
    graham I have a simple reason for not cycling these days.
    
    As you get older the seat gets higher from the ground.
    
    BTW I still have my 28inch wheel Hercules Atlantic that I got for my 12 birthday. Nostalgic I guess.
    
    5 1
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    June 16, 2025 1:16pm
    - slijmbal
      
      I don’t cycle around Auckland because we have an element of homicidal drivers who almost took me out a couple of times.
      
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      June 16, 2025 2:29pm
Bridgenag

Surviving psychiatry
Laura Delano on how the mental health industry took over her life – and her fight to get it back

“At age 14 she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and so began her initiation into the world of psychiatric medicine. Medicated according to an ever increasing cascade of prescriptions and repeatedly institutionalised, Laura became a full-time Patient. However, despite all these psychiatric drugs and interventions, Laura’s state did not improve. Or, it finally dawned on Laura, because of all these psychiatric drugs and interventions, her state did not improve. Eventually, Laura was able to taper off the drugs, find her feet, and leave her previous full-time Patient identity behind. Writer, speaker, consultant, wife, mother, Harvard graduate – Laura is many things, but most of all, she is herself.

Unshrunk is a compelling memoir threaded with close examination of the scientific evidence base for the drugs that Laura spent a decade and a half imbibing under the close direction of her various treating doctors.”

https://open.substack.com/pub/rebekahbarnett/p/surviving-psychiatry?r=5aqwv0&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
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June 16, 2025 8:50am
- Skippytony
  
  This is a really tough area. I had a friend who for many years struggled with manic depression. At times very severe. It is incredibly difficult to be around, let along to go through. My friend had a love hate relationship with the different combinations of drugs that were inflicted on him over the years. He would try to scale back at what seemed the wrong times, have unforseen reactions to different combinations of drugs, some of which appear to have done permanent damage to his health and would routinely get conflicting advice when he bumped up hard against the “health system” which, sadly he did quite often. His behaviour exhibited patterns. He would start to feel good, pass through the normal range of happy and cycle up into almost delirious ecstasy at which point he would decide he didnt need the drugs. Two months later I’d be round at his house pulling him out of the swimming pool at 2.00am and waiting for the ambulance.
  Took him about ten years, giving up working, divorce, gave up drinking, moved to the country and turned semi-vegan. Seems to be “stable”
  
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  June 16, 2025 9:31am
  - NothingLeft
    
    Brain chemistry and cycle of same alter with age. Sometimes people get lucky and the chemical imbalances trying to kill them naturally abate.
    
    I find it fascinating that self-reported levels of happiness reach a nadir around 50, when suicides naturally peak, and then people tend to get happier all the way up to death.
    
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    June 16, 2025 3:28pm
- Jack5
  
  What are you suggesting, Bridgenag?
  
  NZ psychiatric hospitals are packed to over-full. The police are pulling back on helping deal with folk having psychotic outbreaks.
  
  Do you think they should just be closed?
  
  Or are you saying keep the hospitals but no treatment for the patients? Make them detention centres?
  
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  June 16, 2025 10:52am
  - imalwaysright
    
    Jack
    The impression I get from the quote is that the patient is there to justify the prescription of the drugs.
    
    Has the health system become drug dealers?
    
    4 2
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    June 16, 2025 11:10am
    - Jack5
      
      If we’re going to attack psychiatry, we should acknowledge that the anti-psychiatry movement includes extremists, such as:
      
      – Scientologists. Followers of this cult-religion are strongly opposed to not only psychiatry, but to psychology as well.
      
      – The psychologist Timothy O’Leary, described by President Nixon as the most dangerous man in America. O’Leary was a champion of LSD.
      
      – Michel Foucault, as a cultural Marxist, a progenitor of the Woke movement that’s infected the developed world.
      
      – Gilles Louis René Deleuze, another progenitor of Woke-ism.
      
      – Thomas Szaz, a Hungarian-American psychiatrist who introduced the idea of mental illness being a myth.
      
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      June 16, 2025 1:04pm
      - imalwaysright
        
        Why do you describe them as extremists?
        They have an opinion , as do you.
        Are you also an extremist?
        
        The problem is that the genuinely mentally ill can’t get to see a psychiatrist because there are so many people, who shouldn’t be,in the queue .
        
        5 1
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        June 16, 2025 1:50pm
      - Jack5
        
        You are right, IAR….
        
        I should have described those anti-psychiatry folk as prominent proponents of their view.
        
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        June 16, 2025 2:58pm
      - Graeme Hall
        
        Maybe Harvard employed Dr Timothy O’Leary was onto something?
        
        https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/trail-blazing-psychedelic-medicine-the-clinical-trial-treating-depression-with-tiny-doses-of-lsd/IBJSRX4XR7NNW3RN3O6NJNDTME/
        
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        June 16, 2025 4:11pm
      - Jake Dee
        
        I’m aware of all of those, but if you wish to defend psychiatry then you should also acknowledge that quackery and abuse also exists.
        The MKULTRA experiments and the cranial lobotomies of António Egas Moniz spring immediately to mind.
        Iatrogenic disease, those caused by doctors, medicines and hospital exist in every other field of medicine.
        Why should we believe that iatrogenic psychiatry doesn’t exist too?
        
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        June 16, 2025 9:26pm
- Ra Henare
  
  IMHO pills are a cop out by many(not all) mental health “”professionals””
  
  Reviewing that statement.
  I am reminded of an English Doctor in Phnom Penh. IN a private conversation he said he had many wealthy/Elite Cambodians/Chinese coming to him( Foreign Doctors are fantastic dont you know).
  
  They described their symptoms. When he wanted chest xrays or ultrasound or blood tests. The standard response was I just want medicines!!
  
  He learnt to say at that point. Sorry I can’t help you, goodbye. TRying to explain was futile.
  
  I am very wary of taking any prescription medications until I have researched their efficacy and side effects
  
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  June 16, 2025 4:29pm
hookerphil

Do not want to kill a child in the USA.

“Mother and Her Boyfriend Sentenced in Indiana Death of Little Girl

A mother whose toddler’s body was found in a dresser drawer after the one-year-old girl had been thrown on the floor by her boyfriend will be spending 25 years in prison, while the boyfriend was sentenced to nearly twice that for his role in the child’s death.”
“The Morgan County Coroner’s Office ruled this week that the toddler had died from homicide by “unspecified means,” also noting that her leg had been broken.
Marshall pleaded guilty to neglect of a dependent, resulting in the 25-year sentence.
Waters pleaded guilty to three counts: Neglect resulting in death, neglect placing a dependent in danger, and neglect involving abandonment or cruel confinement, which earned him 45 years in prison.
As part of the agreements, all other charges, including murder, were dropped.

“That 45 years is an important number because although he was not convicted of murder, it’s a sentence that murderers do serve,” Dan Cicchini, chief trial deputy at the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office, told news outlets.

He added, “The fact that two adults who had the care of this child would let these things happen to her and do these things to her is just terrifying.”

No Sir, just keep on killing them in good old New Zealand – you wont even be arrested, or at worst you might have to stay in Home Detention, but still on a benefit.

https://www.breitbart.com/crime/2025/06/14/mother-her-boyfriend-sentenced-indiana-death-little-girl/
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June 16, 2025 9:04am
- imalwaysright
  
  Here’s the mentality that enables child murder in this country:
  
  ” In fact many in the community blame the culture of “not wanting to nark”[5] or inform the police of domestic violence matters as one of the prime contributors to Nia’s death. For example, one of the prosecution witnesses Rawhiti Simiona, a neighbour to the house where Nia suffered, told New Zealand television he regretted not calling the police when he saw the toddler being swung on the clothes line.[9]”- Nia Glassie Wiki
  
  How could Simiona consider his trustworthiness to his shit community as more important than a 3 yr old being abused in front of him?
  
  A good indication of a culture is how they treat their children.
  
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  June 16, 2025 10:56am
- cmm
  
  If you don’t give negative feedback (eg. punishment) then there is no motivation to change.
  
  The high profile Kahui twin murders seemed to have set up the way things are thought about in Aotearoa.
  
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  June 16, 2025 10:58am
- Inandout
  
  hook, obviously no cone of silence involved in that case.
  
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  June 16, 2025 11:05am
Handyman

I bet about now Thunberg’s fellow protesters off the selfie boat wish they had accepted the free ride home.
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June 16, 2025 9:21am
I remember when

Lovely, if cool, day yesterday so I visited New Zealand’s latest tourist meccas.
The new Manawatu Gorge highway and Woodville, as a result.
As I travelled along the new highway I marvelled at the constant stream of orange and lime green EV cycle riders.
All the viewing areas were approaching capacity, with a stream of cars entering and leaving.
In Woodville, the sunshine made it seem like a Mediterranean tourist haven.
In Woodville parking was at a premium and the through traffic seemly endless.
Cafe 88 thought it was their Christmas, New Year and birthday, all rolled into one.
The second hand shops were full of what, I imagine, they hoped were potential customers.
Unfortunately, being on the shady side of the main street the temperature seemed polar.
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June 16, 2025 9:29am
greybeard

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360724579/last-gasp-u-turn-keeps-military-settlers-name-taranaki-park

“Taranaki iwi representative Jacqui King” may want to change her name if she wants to remain constant.

But it is “Matarubbish” week so I guess we are in for lots more of this stuff for a few days.
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June 16, 2025 9:41am
imalwaysright

Ruth Richardson was on Q&A.
She suggested council budgets increases be linked to inflation and the power of General Competence be rescinded.
A good start.
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June 16, 2025 9:52am
- Handyman
  
  Council bureaucrats have been playing this game for a long time and are quite good at it.
  The allowed funds will be spent on desirables, eg bike lanes and urban furniture, borrowing to the max while minimising spend on essentials. Eventually there will be a crisis and clamour to fix water, flooding, libraries etc. The fault will be pinned on the government’s “silly rules” restricting an increase in rates or borrowing.
  In a worst case scenario, a Labour/Greens/Maori government will offer to pay for all council core activities. It will enjoy the same success as the free hospital system and the free education system.
  
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  June 16, 2025 12:07pm
NeverMindTheBollocks

I see NZ is leading the world again.

Akld United’s 0-10 loss to Bayern Munchen is an all-time record for FIFA tournaments.

Not to criticise the amateurs that play for AU; but to stick it to Infantino, who thinks this tournament is a good idea.
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June 16, 2025 9:59am
Yvette

Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka says that a new committee led by Adrian Rurawhe is working on formally integrating tikanga Māori into Parliament. – New Parliamentary Committee to Integrate Tikanga Māori Announced – Waatea News

Haven’t Te Pāti Māori MPs Rawiri Waititi, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, and Hana Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke tried that already, and –
HE AO TAKITAKI – The stars that guide us
https://www.parliament.nz/media/9285/te-ao-ma-ori-strategy-2022-2025.pdf
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June 16, 2025 10:06am
cmm

Yesterday I looked into the cost of building various generator options. Today let’s look at two of these:

Tauhara geothermal in near Taupo: Generates 174MW. Cost $924M to build (approx $5.3/W).
Kowhai solar power station in Christchurch: Still under construction. It is expected to generate 150MW and cost $300M (approx $2/W – assuming they stay on budget).

So if solar power costs less than half the amount per Watt to build, who in their right might would make anything else?

Not. So. Fast.

The above numbers are nameplate capacity. That is the peak output in perfect conditions.

In NZ, that solar farm is only expected to be generating about 2 to 3 hours worth of electricity per day on average. In other words the average cost per W goes up by a factor of 10 to $20/W.

The geothermal station, on the other hand, has an availability of 90%. That’s around 22 hours per day on average. Cost per W goes up by a factor of 1.09 to $5.80/W

So once we do the numbers properly, the solar farm costs about 4x a geothermal per W.
4x as much and it still doesn’t give us power when we really want it (when the sun isn’t shining).

Worse yet, the Christchurch solar farm is supposed to end up being 300 ha (3 square km). The Tauhara geothermal station is less than a tenth of that – around 20 to 25 ha.

We have around 1000 to 2000MW of geothermal sitting there that we could develop but doesn’t because it is unfashionable (solar is the rage) and maybe due to the taniwha complaining.

But, hey, all our leftie greenie politicians (including the Green Blue Nats) think solar is awesome, so guess what we’re getting….
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June 16, 2025 10:08am
- Tom Hunter
  
  Meanwhile this fucking idiot – specifically “Idiot Savant” on his No Right Turn blog – is having an orgasm on the exponential growth of solar, We don’t need the fast track to kill fossil fuels
  
  He long ago shut down comments on his blog so that he didn’t have to listen to alternative arguments like yours.
  
  [Mod – link fixed]
  
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  June 16, 2025 10:36am
  - cmm
    
    Solar is just too damn erratic to be useful as a solution. At best it is an extremely expensive range extender for hydro.
    
    If we look at the solar output for this month, the highest we have had in a day was 515MWh and the lowest was just 41MWh. Since we have 179MW of PV installed, that’s a high of 2.9 hours worth and a low of 14 minutes worth (yes, MINUTES) worth of electricity per day.
    
    If No Right Turn is prepared to live with 14 minutes of electricity a day, then he (forgive me for assuming gender) is welcome to his lefty utopia.
    
    Currently we’re running 62MW with only light cloud up and down the Eastern half of the country. That’s a third of the nameplate capacity.
    
    https://app.em6.co.nz
    https://www.transpower.co.nz/system-operator/live-system-and-market-data/consolidated-live-data
    
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    June 16, 2025 10:52am
  - Jack5
    
    Couldn’t get Tom Hunter’s link to work (his 10.36 post).
    
    But the link below takes you to the No Right Turn blog.
    
    It’s surely a spoof. The blog motto is “Irredeemably Liberal.”
    
    “Liberal” means so much, but by this standard Mao Tse-Tung and the Khmer Rouge would be liberal.
    
    Did you disinfect your computer and router after going to that site, Tom H?
    
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    June 16, 2025 11:23am
  - Tom Hunter
    
    Grrrr…. Thanks Mod. Got distracted and didn’t double check.
    
    Also, readers on this issue will enjoy this Substack article by one Richard Lyon, as he makes scathing attacks on Britain’s pursuit of Net Zero, but expands those criticisms into a general argument, The Iron Law of Energy.
    
    The synopsis is that civilisations grow by constantly moving to higher density energy sources and that every civilisation that went in the opposite direction – prior to Net Zero this was never intended – has failed.
    
    Four sections:
    – Energy density: The Storage Question
    – Power Density: The Land Use Reality
    – The Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROEI) Challenge
    – Power Quality: Why a Joule is not a Joule
    – Why Downward Density Transitions Fail: The “bridge fuel” problem.
    – The Modern Gamble: A Wilful Disregard for History and Physics
    
    I’ve often thought that our hydro-system would buffer us in two ways.
    
    First, because it provided 80% of our electricity which can absorb the problems of solar/wind, at least up to some percentage which is unknown, but which our power engineers are keeping an eye on (and who seem to have listeners in government, unlike Lyon’s portrayal of Britain).
    
    Second, that 80% percent is obviously renewable, enabling us to argue back against critics pushing us to Net Zero or ending fossil fuel use.
    
    Unfortunately we haven’t used the second reason at all in our insane pursuit of the perfect at the expense of the good. Also unfortunately, the first buffer doesn’t work as we pile more electrical usage on top of the system in moving away from fossil fuels.
    
    If you want to see the insanity of the latter here’s the report from recently retired professor of Engineering at Cambridge, Net Zero for NZ. That’s a downloadable PDF but I’ve provided a summary of it, plus other commentary and analysis, at NZ Power Blows. Just one of Kelly’s bottom lines:
    
    “The cost to 2050 will comfortably exceed $550 billion, a workforce comparable in size to the health sector will be required for 30 years, including a doubling of the present number of electrical engineers, and it will need about 10% of the global annual production of lithium, cobalt, neodymium and other materials. On the manpower front, New Zealand will have to rely on the domestic workforce, as I assume that every other country in the world is working towards the same target. If they were not all so working elsewhere, the value of the New Zealand specific target is moot.”
    
    Is there a National Minister, or anybody in National who could sit down with Luxon to explain this?
    
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    June 16, 2025 12:07pm
    - rouppe
      
      Much of that 80% is also very old. What is the remaining lifetime of some of those hydro assets?
      
      3 1
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      June 16, 2025 12:53pm
      - Tom Hunter
        
        Well I’d like to think the huge concrete dams are good for another few hundred years.
        
        As to the turbines, generators, transformers, switching yards and such, I understand they get updated over time. Certainly the generators in Manapouri had completely changed between my visits there in 1983 and 2013,
        
        5 1
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        June 16, 2025 2:39pm
    - kiwimike
      
      luxon is a fool on this, look at how he schooled that woman MP about Climate Change…
      
      Ir’s one of the reasons I won’t vote National…
      
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      June 17, 2025 1:45am
- kowtow
  
  As a matter of genuine interest what does coal cost per W .
  
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  June 16, 2025 11:01am
  - cmm
    
    I would estimate them to be in the same range as a geothermal station.
    
    While a coal station has a boiler, it does not need the drilling of the steam well or the exploration for that, so those probably even out a bit.
    
    The benefits of coal stations are that they can be made larger easily and can be placed anywhere (relatively speaking).
    
    The largest geothermal station I can find is around 300MW which is pretty small. Coal power stations go to over 20x that size. Most geothermal stations are around 20-20MW. Piddling things.
    
    We have the gift of locations that support 100MW+ geothermals. We should develop them.
    
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    June 16, 2025 1:02pm
    - kowtow
      
      TY
      
      3 0
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      June 16, 2025 1:14pm
bennerg

Senator Bernie Sanders is leading a new bill to address a key priority of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who serves as President Donald Trump’s Health and Human Services Secretary.

Sanders introduced the “End Prescription Drug Ads Now Act,” which, if passed, would ban prescription drug advertising on TV, radio, print and digital platforms as well as social media.

“We’re one of only two countries in the world that allow pharmaceutical companies to advertise directly to consumers,” Mr. Kennedy said.. “Everybody agrees it’s a bad idea.”

The United States and New Zealand are currently the only countries that permit direct-to-consumer (DTC) prescription drug ads.

So we hear crickets on this one. When will our government see that it is a very bad idea?

Kennedy had pointed out that the advertising was not for what one thought it was, and rather than promoting a product to the public, it was an underhand method of paying the media organisation to deny dissenting voices airtime.
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June 16, 2025 10:09am
- imalwaysright
  
  Tv1 does about 5 minutes every morning of two people in a chemist flogging fear juice.
  At other times they are pushing flu vax, shingles vax, an assortment of painkillers and asthma products etc.
  However, in the evening they coincidentally flog the death insurance for those who won’t buy the drugs…
  
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  June 16, 2025 11:27am
- mike
  
  Kennedy’s a crackpot, but this could count as a stopped-clock moment, except that he has the wrong reason for stopping DTC advertising.
  Meanwhile, he’s getting ready to endorse medicinal bleach:
  https://www.wired.com/story/chlorine-dioxide-bleach-mms-autism-rfk-fda-warning/
  
  5 18
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  June 16, 2025 11:47am
  - MCōs
    
    His thoughts on polio vaccines are confusing and dangerous
    https://pauloffit.substack.com/p/robert-f-kennedy-jr-should-stop-talking
    
    7 9
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    June 16, 2025 12:07pm
  - rouppe
    
    Oh for goodness sake.
    
    While Kennedy has a long history of promoting anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, he has not explicitly promoted chlorine dioxide as a treatment.
    
    Which would make you, mike, a flat out liar.
    
    11 4
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    June 16, 2025 12:58pm
    - mike
      
      I wrote that he’s getting ready to endorse the bleach. Perhaps he might not say it in so many words, but the nutters who think it’s a miracle cure already think he’s on their side and his key support is from the crank community.
      
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      June 16, 2025 2:52pm
  - bennerg
    
    Mike, again may I respectfully suggest you read something outside MSNBC, CNN etc.
    
    “Speaking in an NPR interview in November, Kennedy said Trump had given him three “instructions”: to remove “corruption” from health agencies, to return these bodies to “evidence-based science and medicine”, and “to end the chronic disease epidemic”.
    
    Kennedy (also) said in his NPR interview that vaccines were “not going to be taken away from anybody”.
    
    All that from the BBC. Hardly the attitudes of a “crackpot”.
    
    It is a long held belief by many that the pharmaceutical industry has become self serving, with profits taking over from the mission to serve humanity. The latest debacle with Covid shows just how vicious and diabolical that industry has become.
    
    RFK has not just arbitrarily shut them down, he is reverting to evidence-based science to prove what he has long thought – eg. that some of the vaccines cause Autism – and if not, then what is, because the numbers are staggering! Also that flouride in water has worse outcomes than benefits. Some States have already started to stop it, but I’d suggest the best way to deal with the issue is real science, not the sort that is currently manhandled by the Pharmaceutical companies themselves, controlling funding, careers, and the publishing of papers to suit themselves.
    
    History has shown any times it is the heretic that takes us to a new understanding.
    
    Meanwhile I’m sure there will be some gathering the sticks for the fire to burn him at the stake.
    
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    June 16, 2025 1:10pm
    - mike
      
      Vaccines do not cause autism.
      
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      June 16, 2025 2:56pm
      - bennerg
        
        Sadly Mike, you or I cannot every say that given the current state of the science.
        
        But there is a chance we will know shortly, once the scientific process is taken out of the control of those that “might” be the cause. You know how that works, we don’t get the Mongrel Mob to investigate crime.
        
        What we do know are the statistics, that the diagnosis for Autism has exploded over the last few decades, and correlation indicates that vaccines “may” be a cause. But there has been no scientific studies done on that by anyone other than the potential perpetrators themselves.
        
        So go grab a bag of popcorn Mike and let’s see what true independent science makes of the case. What most people, including myself and Kennedy, would appreciate is that a cause is actually found. Then it can be fixed. If it ain’t vaccines, and they get a clean bill of health, then we can all celebrate together. If not, then science will progress to find a better way.
        
        Then on to obesity and all the other chronic diseases besetting society. Can only be good.
        
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        June 16, 2025 5:36pm
    - Pope Punctilious II
      
      Can you show me even one reputable study that shows vaccines increase the risk of autism?
      
      2 3
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      June 16, 2025 3:35pm
      - mike
        
        bennerg’s just going to pretend it hasn’t been studied by proper scientist coz ‘big pharma’.
        
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        June 17, 2025 7:11am
Taieri

Not. So. Fast.

The above numbers are nameplate capacity.
———–

They are. But they are treated as the actual values the way solar farms are sold to the public. Otherwise the public might start having doubts.
7 2
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June 16, 2025 10:30am
Dudley Quaffquaff

that solar farm is only expected to be generating about 2 to 3 hours worth of electricity per day on average.

Basis for that? Even the little unit in my roof has been doing better than that, even in the cold grey days of midwinter and even given that it’s not facing in the optimal direction.
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June 16, 2025 10:41am
- [email protected]
  
  In almost exactly seven years our 5.3kw solar array has created 46.1 MWh of electricity.
  
  This equates to an average of 3.40 hours of full output per day.
  
  It’s actually slightly better than 3.40 hours because the array has NEVER output 5.3 KW of juice. The best I have ever seen was 4.9 KW output.
  
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  June 16, 2025 11:42am
- cmm
  
  ” Even the little unit in my roof has been doing better than that, even in the cold grey days of midwinter”
  
  Size is not a factor in this. As it turns out, solar farms would often seem to under perform compared to household rooftop solar.
  
  I call absolute bullshit to your claim that your home unit is performing better than 2 to 3x nameplate capacity on a cold grey (ie. cloudy) day.
  
  It might still be generating something, but not anywhere near its rated output.
  
  Today is a pretty good day for winter. Currently(1pm – around optimum time) the NZ PV fleet is generating 76MW out of 159MW. That is less than 50% of nameplate.
  
  Yesterday was the best production day this month and got 499MWh. That is just over 3 hours worth.
  
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  June 16, 2025 1:13pm
cmm

In case you were wondering what Matariki gifts to give to your whanau, Fishpond has some ideas…

https://www.fishpond.co.nz/browse/featured-list/id/2948
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June 16, 2025 11:06am
- JerJer
  
  Not sure why I would gift a book no-one can read to celebrate a holiday that does not exist.
  
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  June 16, 2025 11:13am
- Jack5
  
  These trivial titles will be the sort of crap the National Library is making room for by cleaning out the national treasure of scores of thousands of non-Woke books.
  
  13 1
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  June 16, 2025 11:26am
  - imalwaysright
    
    Jack5
    
    500,000 books to make way for NZ books?
    Assuming they have a few copies of each book, and knowing that there are very few books published each year that are about NZ, then why is there such a large effort to remove 500,000 books?
    How many NZ books come in every day?
    Not many.
    So why have a wholesale book pulping to accommodate a problem that doesn’t exist.
    Is it that they couldn’t bring themselves to actually burn the books?
    
    5 2
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    June 16, 2025 12:15pm
    - mike
      
      Pulping is the most efficient method of disposal for unwanted books. No library keeps books that haven’t been used for decades and that won’t ever be used again.
      
      3 7
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      June 16, 2025 1:07pm
    - Jack5
      
      The US, the UK, Australia, Canada, and India publish in English each year a total of about half a million new titles and reprints.
      
      New Zealand’s total is about 4,200.
      
      On Mike/Milky’s post 1t 1.07: each year, the US Library of Congress grows by about two million books.
      
      All publishers have to supply a copy of each title to that US library.
      NZ publishers used to have to do the same to the NZ National Library. Is it destroying many, most — or any — of these NZ books?
      
      5 2
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      June 16, 2025 1:14pm
      - mike
        
        No.
        https://natlib.govt.nz/about-us/media/disposal-decision-made-by-national-library
        
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        June 16, 2025 2:53pm
I remember when

Amberley Avenue in Palmerston North was closed in July 2024 for repairs.
It has recently reopened.
Just to show how strict the parameters were there is a pothole, several inches wide and at least an inch deep, within 25 centimetres of where the associated resealing stops.
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June 16, 2025 11:09am
rouppe

Anti ICE mob bring firearms to the protest, and someone is shot.

I am sure that somehow this is going to be blamed on Trump.
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June 16, 2025 1:07pm
- rouppe
  
  Just to put this in perspective: to protect federal property, and stop looting and destruction in the community,
  
  * Police use non lethal sponge rounds
  * Police use non lethal shields
  * Police use non lethal flash bangs
  * Police use non lethal tear gas
  
  But organized, democrat funded, anti democratic protesters, as well as organizers, calling themselves “peace keepers” and “security” bring lethal weapons to their “peaceful protest”, shoot and kill a bystander.
  
  It is those people, not trump, that are a threat to democracy.
  
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  June 16, 2025 3:27pm
  - mike
    
    Please distinguish this from the Kyle Rittenhouse incident.
    
    2 10
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    June 16, 2025 3:40pm
    - rouppe
      
      There isn’t much. Kyle Rittenhouse should never have gone wandering around with a weapon either.
      
      I’ll note that Kyle’s weapon was only discharged after he was attacked by several ~~mostly peaceful~~ protesters, in a city where many businesses were led and destroyed.
      
      But in my view as a private citizen he should not have brought lethal force to the area even though Wisconsin is an open carry state.
      
      Just as left wing anarchist anti democrats should not have brought legal force to the area in Utah, even though the state has open carry status there as well.
      
      But (as usual) you are diverting the conversation. My comments were about protesters who are complaining about government over reach bringing lethal weapons to a so called peaceful protest. Why would you do that?
      
      5 1
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      June 16, 2025 3:57pm
      - mike
        
        Exactly. Why would the US accept armed vigilantes attending protests then claiming self-defense? It’s a sick cycle.
        
        1 0
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        June 17, 2025 7:13am
    - Don Beckett
      
      Does self-defence ring a bell?
      
      4 5
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      June 16, 2025 5:16pm
  - waripori
    
    Not sure you have this exactly right.
    
    From Politico
    A man believed to be part of a peacekeeping team for the “No Kings” protest in Salt Lake City shot at a person who was brandishing a rifle at demonstrators, striking both the rifleman and a bystander who later died at the hospital, authorities said Sunday.
    
    Police took the alleged rifleman, Arturo Gamboa, 24, into custody Saturday evening on a murder charge, Salt Lake City Police Chief Brian Redd said at a Sunday news conference. The bystander was Arthur Folasa Ah Loo, 39.
    
    Not clear whose side Gamboa was on.
    
    4 0
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    June 16, 2025 4:48pm
Keith White

“Manawatū iwi outraged over secret radioactive waste facility.”

The waste / spent radioactive material was used for treating cancer, you nimbyist pathetic schmuckiwi bleaters. And for sure, Maori would have been treated in that patient group. Because they had cancer.

If you could have thought of anything more likely to make the rest of NZ despise your TPM-aligned BS, well, I suppose you would have. But whining and posturing about this is more than averagely stupid, shortsighted and selfish.
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June 16, 2025 1:30pm
- Colville
  
  A nuclear waste dump site in Palmerston North would explain a lot of things!
  
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  June 16, 2025 2:01pm
  - mike
    
    Prepare for more morons in Palmerston North and (slightly) fewer in Christchurch.
    
    7 2
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    June 16, 2025 3:34pm
- mike
  
  The outrage should be directed at the idea that the replacement storage facility could be authorized and constructed in secret. Did the ministry think that no one would ever ask where radioactive waste was being stored?
  
  4 6
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  June 16, 2025 3:33pm
  - Keith White
    
    Yes, because it would have been truly good and efficient to publicize and highlight everything a long way ahead of time so that there could be demonstrations, tent cities, rahuis, appeasements of weird spirits, koha, and above all, fix in the minds of a feral minority the location of the place to go if you want to steal radioactive stuff and wreak havoc.
    
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    June 16, 2025 3:55pm
mike

Ministry for Culture and Heritage plans to drop the heritage part:
https://newzealandhistoricalassociation.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/statement-from-phanza-nzha-and-nzhta-regarding-proposed-staffing-cuts-at-mch-16-june-2025.pdf
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June 16, 2025 3:04pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  The timing of these cuts is particularly concerning, coinciding with Sport NZ’s integration into the Ministry and a shift towards what appears to be a more limited ‘policy shop’ model.
  
  Might be time to start researching the history of pickleball in Pakotai or instigating cultural exchanges with policy bros in L.A. and Sami sistas in Finland.
  
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  June 16, 2025 3:54pm
  - mike
    
    It is certainly easier to write ‘policy’ than produce actual history products.
    Incidentally, the vote item for ‘heritage services’ has been increased by over $1 million in the latest budget.
    
    3 6
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    June 16, 2025 4:02pm
Ghost

Wow.

Just got polled. I was asked which following attributes do you think apply to Chris Hipkins, not a single negative one there. It then moves on to Luxon, many of the options are negative. Extreme religious views. Out of touch with ordinary New Zealanders. Makes a lot of mistakes. Uncaring, etc

What a rigged poll
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June 16, 2025 6:27pm
- imalwaysright
  
  Good info Ghost.
  It makes me wonder about the three yearly poll run by people like LeQuesne and Tamihere…
  
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  June 16, 2025 7:17pm
- NZer In Exile
  
  RNZ? Some astro-turfing grifting NGO?
  
  4 1
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  June 16, 2025 8:20pm

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