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June 27, 2025 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 27 June 2025

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General Debate

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artemisia

Predicting a big bump in ‘golden visa’ inquiries from New York City.
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June 27, 2025 8:03am
- mike
  
  You must think the mayoral election is already decided. Personally, I doubt Curtis Silwa can win, so no exodus from NYC should be expected.
  
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  June 27, 2025 8:37am
  - CJames
    
    I was hoping Eric Adams gets back – the best of a very bad bunch.
    
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    June 27, 2025 8:41am
    - AitchW
      
      Are local body elections the same the world over? Poor voter turnout out, even poorer candidates?
      
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      June 27, 2025 11:46am
      - Jack5
        
        The New York result’s surely made folk cautious about any similar proportional voting system to replace MMP in NZ.
        
        (See yesterday’s General Debate thread for how intricate the system is.)
        
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        June 27, 2025 3:14pm
      - Steve Todd
        
        @Jack5 @ 3:14PM
        
        Yet another uninformed poke at PR/STV by Jack5, confusing it with single-seat preferential voting.
        
        Preferential Voting to elect a mayor or to fill some other single vacancy (known as the Majority-Preferential Vote (PV), or ranked choice voting (RCV)) is not proportional representation (PR). PR/STV is used to fill multiple vacancies, such as the seven-seat Blenheim Ward of the Marlborough District Council, or all 14 seats city-wide in Dunedin City.
        
        In the New York City Democratic mayoral primary, the candidate who received the most first-preference votes, Zohran Mamdani, received 432,305 votes, being 43.51% of all votes so far counted. Whether Kiwiblog commenters like it or not, he was clearly the most favoured candidate. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_New_York_City_Democratic_mayoral_primary.)
        
        Over the next few weeks, the votes given for the least favoured candidates will be transferred to second- and later-preference candidates, as indicated by the relevant voters, in a manner similar to what is done, for example, in mayoral elections in Hamilton, Tauranga, Palmerston North, Porirua, Wellington, Nelson, Blenheim and Dunedin, until one candidate – almost certainly Mamdani – attains 50% of the votes. Why does anyone need to be “cautious” about that – because a majority of voters preferred a candidate not liked by a couple of hundred or so Kiwiblog commenters? That is ridiculous.
        
        The mayoral general election will be held on 4 November, and will be conducted by FPP.
        
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        June 27, 2025 4:08pm
      - AitchW
        
        Steve Todd, my preference for a voting system for both local and national elections is STV.
        But then I look at how many people still don’t understand MMP after almost 30 years and I wonder if the slightly more complicated STV might not be just too tricky for some folks. A Aardvark, being the first name on the ballot paper, would win in a landslide every time.
        
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        June 27, 2025 5:27pm
      - Steve Todd
        
        @AitchW @ 5:27PM
        
        Good to see your preferences, AitchW.
        
        PV and PR/STV work perfectly well in the local jurisdictions I referred to in my response to Jack5, and the people of Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Malta, Australia, San Francisco, and Portland OR, have no trouble using these voting systems to elect their parliaments or local councils, as the case may be.
        
        Why do you think A Aardvark would win “every time”? Do candidates with, say, A to G surnames dominate local councils now (whether elected by FPP or STV), or the parliaments of Ireland, Northern Ireland, Malta, or Australia? Of course not. The way to overcome any perceived alphabetical bias is to randomise the names on the voting documents (as is done in Wellington City). At the national level, with STV, the parties would determine the order of the names in their respective party columns, so alphabetical bias simply would not be an issue.
        
        For the voters, STV is literally as simple as 1, 2, 3, …. They don’t have to worry about strategic / tactical voting, and the split vote (A1 35, A2 25, B40, therefore B wins) is eliminated.
        
        Who are these people you say “still don’t understand MMP”? What percentage of the voting population are they? How do you know? What exactly do they not understand? Does their lack of understanding prevent them from casting a candidate vote for their preferred candidate and a party vote for their preferred party? I suspect not.
        
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        June 27, 2025 7:14pm
  - artemisia
    
    Smart people tend to think ahead. Plan B, plus a Plan C …. Ready to implement if and when they choose.
    
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    June 27, 2025 8:46am
    - cmm
      
      Quite. Fools will wait for something to go wrong before they react.
      Those with resources will be looking at what is happening today and extrapolate that into the future.
      
      I know one Washington DC type that has bolt-hole properties in South Africa, New Zealand (both South and North Islands), Russia, Portugal and in 3 states in USA. I haven’t spoken to him for a bit so he probably has more now.
      
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      June 27, 2025 9:44am
      - NeverMindTheBollocks
        
        Seems excessive.
        
        Just saying.
        
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        June 27, 2025 7:14pm
- CJames
  
  When one looks at the NY celebrities that infest the gossip pages, NZ will have to be very careful as to who it allows in. Just having megabucks from Daddy should not be a criterium. They need to be those that add skills (especially those in short supply) and are of a benefit to us. The same applies to all migrants.
  
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  June 27, 2025 8:40am
  - MCōs
    
    “When one looks at the NY celebrities that infest the gossip pages”
    I’m unfamiliar with these gossip pages you frequent?
    
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    June 27, 2025 10:13am
    - CJames
      
      Most of the Herald and stuff are gossip pages, aren’t they? Very little serious content like broadsheets used to have.
      
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      June 27, 2025 1:05pm
- Cassandra
  
  I find it extraordinary that the Democrat party of a major Jewish city in which Jews play a significant role, city and party, would nominate a Moslem socialist. Cuomo is standing in the election and while he’s no messiah one can only hope New Yorkers get behind him.
  
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  June 27, 2025 9:15am
  - mike
    
    Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
    In a country which elects a rapist president, Cuomo’s sexual assaults might count in his favor with some voters.
    
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    June 27, 2025 9:27am
    - Ghost
      
      Good point Mike
      
      For those who don’t know all the woman that came out with allegations
      
      https://www.thecut.com/2020/04/joe-biden-accuser-accusations-allegations.html
      
      Then you have the inappropriate showers with his daughter.
      
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      June 27, 2025 9:34am
      - Ipanema69
        
        Good point ghost but i thought mike was talking about bill clinton.
        
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        June 27, 2025 12:19pm
      - Cassandra
        
        Cuomo would still be a better mayor than a Moslem socialist. But that’s not really the point of my comment. NY Jews can’t come up with something better?
        
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        June 27, 2025 1:23pm
      - Cassandra
        
        Re Cuomo: “Criminal charges ultimately were never pursued — the Albany County District Attorney’s Office declined to prosecute.”
        
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        June 27, 2025 1:45pm
      - Mike
        
        Well, I guess there might have bben a few Trump voters who preferred him to Trump on moral grounds, but I think those would fewer than those who preferred a pussy grabber over a mere hair sniffer.
        
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        June 27, 2025 2:20pm
    - AitchW
      
      Are you talking about JFK? Clinton? Biden?
      Gosh, there does seem to be a pattern emerging here….
      
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      June 27, 2025 1:21pm
      - John Loveridge
        
        Even Bush senior…
        
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        June 27, 2025 2:50pm
  - Wandering Star
    
    “…a major Jewish city in which Jews play a significant role…”
    
    That’s exactly why it doesn’t matter if a “Moslem socialist” becomes mayor of New York, or really whoever becomes mayor. What matters, at any level of politics, is who has and can exercise power, not who a elected representative who is nominally in power.
    
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    June 27, 2025 12:50pm
  - kiwimike
    
    Cass
    Wake up.
    He is an Islamist, the socialist is a cover for the Progressives.
    
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    June 27, 2025 11:18pm
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  Don’t think so, they will be US business owners that would want to be anywhere apart from the bottom of the world, the fact Florida has very low taxes and some tax sectors are tax free will see them with one-way tickets to Florida
  
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  June 27, 2025 11:51am
NeverMindTheBollocks

If extended, this could be a smart deal for Aus. There are circa 9000 Tuvaluans. 3000 already want to come to Aus. Rather than give them residence, why not offer citizenship to all of them, in return for Tuvalu being absorbed into Aus?

Keeps out the CCP, big nautical zone, nothing that they don’t do already.

For the Tuvalans, first world living.

Win-win.

http://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/565276/nearly-one-third-of-tuvalu-residents-apply-for-australian-climate-change-visa-programme
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June 27, 2025 8:03am
- artemisia
  
  Tuvalu land area has apparently been increasing overall for decades.
  
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  June 27, 2025 10:26am
  - Master Mariner
    
    Never let the facts get in the way of a good story //
    
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    June 27, 2025 1:20pm
  - Jack5
    
    Is poster Artemisia referring to this article?
    
    https://www.sciencealert.com/pacific-island-nation-expected-to-sink-is-getting-bigger
    
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    June 27, 2025 8:29pm
NeverMindTheBollocks

Without (having time to) drilling into the numbers, I smell a very big rat. Lefty media celebrating how well Te Pukenga is doing.

Weren’t they given a huge starting budget? And, how much property have they sold?

No economic miracle here, methinks. To echo the old saying, the best way to end up with a small fortune is to start with a big one.

http://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/565230/te-pukenga-disestablishment-continues-despite-16-point-6m-surplus
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June 27, 2025 8:07am
- artemisia
  
  Saw something in the media in passing that Te Pukenga meant nothing to some overseas students. No idea what it was. Polytechs, though, understood. Impact on international enrolments? Maybe.
  
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  June 27, 2025 10:28am
  - pdm
    
    Maybe arty?
    
    More likely certainly!!!
    
    That is what virtue signalling gets you.
    
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    June 27, 2025 10:40am
  - Phronesis
    
    I once found myself in the unusual position of explaining to an overseas University Vice Chancellor that the actual business of a university was to sell bits of paper to people with their name, and the name of the university, on them. In other words, it’s hard to overestimate the importance of an institutions name and reputation. The idea that an institution that trades entirely on it’s name, and mostly enters into one off short term contracts with its customers (3 year degrees), would be as stupid as to change that name to something entirely unrecognisable is a uniquely NZ phenomenon.
    
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    June 27, 2025 11:37am
    - Mike
      
      Example: the idiot vice-chancellor who wanted to change VUW’s name.
      
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      June 27, 2025 2:23pm
      - Don Beckett
        
        Correct. We used to have the Bay of Plenty Polytech in Tauranga. Then I started hearing adverts on the radio for ‘To Ohomai’, and I wondered if this was some new institution specifically for Maori, but unknown age group. Was it for homeless people, people requiring housing or education ?
        Then it appeared on advertising hoardings & on the back of busses. Took about a year to realise it was the re-naming of Bay Polytech.
        Wonderful name recognition & association – NOT.
        
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        June 27, 2025 4:55pm
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  They maybe doing well, but the fact remains the centralisation of the Politec’s was a billion dollars over budget.
  
  I see where you are coming from though. next week or the week after they will be suggesting this is wasting millions undoing the shambles, but once Again it was promised at the election, and a Hipkins mess will be fixed
  
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  June 27, 2025 12:00pm
  - AitchW
    
    Yet another massively over budget government project. Why can governments departments with their army of public servants, many of whom are undoubtedly legally qualified, not write contracts with fixed prices and penalties for late delivery?
    Or, do government departments interfere during the execution of the work, adding cost and complexity to the job and therefore increasing the price and pushing out delivery?
    I think we all know instinctively the answer…
    
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    June 27, 2025 5:21pm
- the deity formerly known as nigel6888
  
  Precisely. Cancel some of the stupid stuff- like the one computer system to control them all, and trumpet the “savings” that have been made!
  
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  June 27, 2025 1:23pm
  - AitchW
    
    I wonder, how many government departments have ordered bespoke computer systems when a bit of international research would have yielded perfectly usable off the shelf systems?
    How many millions might that have saved we taxpayers?
    
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    June 27, 2025 5:47pm
Chuck Bird

Chris Morrison: Trees Get Bigger Around the World Thanks to Higher CO2 Levels

https://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2025/06/chris-morrison-trees-get-bigger-around.html#more
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June 27, 2025 8:10am
- JackRabbit
  
  1000 to 1200 ppm is the “sweet spot” for CO2 to O2 conversion efficiency. Rather like a car tuned to 100km/hr to 120km/hr maximum efficiency.
  
  But you still get greenies who want cars traveling at 70km/hr as it is more efficient.
  
  The earth’s atmosphere is tuned for CO2 to be a minimum of 600ppm through to 1400ppm. There are massive benefits in being in that range.
  
  And CO2 increase as a result of human activity is not linear. Since 1800 population has increased 800% but CO2 ppm has only increased 50%.
  
  That would indicate that things are not at breaking point, with only 2.5 years left to save the planet from CO2 as quoted by Greta. (she quoted 8 years in January 2020).
  
  If Greta was to be believed CO2 levels should now be toxic and hovering around 1800ppm. Sigh.
  
  She has forgotten that prediction, as she is off on other socialist crusades.
  
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  June 27, 2025 9:07am
- Michael Sommerville
  
  ALL plant life will grow better with an increase in CO2. Fact.
  
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  June 27, 2025 9:31am
  - JackRabbit
    
    Yup. But facts don’t boost the carbon credits market
    allowing corrupt people to makes millions. And facts don’t make scared people and councils vacate seaside properties.
    
    If the CO2 bullshit was real, AL Gore and Obama would have not bought sea front properties, that by now should be under 3 feet of water.
    
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    June 27, 2025 9:41am
    - Notsofast
      
      It takes a bit longer but it will happen.
      
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      June 27, 2025 11:00am
      - JackRabbit
        
        If there a /sarc missing?
        
        Aside from quoting Rachel Hunter in her Shampoo advert, do you have a rate of verified increase that we can go and mark on a tidal gauge?
        
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        June 27, 2025 12:42pm
  - Notsofast
    
    That is a fact agreed by everyone.
    The other agreed facts are:
    
    The world is warming.
    CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
    Only humans produce a surplus besides breathing.
    
    It may well be that moving populations back from the coast is the best strategy.
    
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    June 27, 2025 10:59am
    - rouppe
      
      CO2 is also a trace gas.
      
      Water vapour is a greenhouse gas and much more abundant than co2.
      
      A significant generation of co2 comes from natural sources.
      
      We’re still coming off an ice age, yes, even after 10000 years.
      
      Lots of things going on, not just co2.
      
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      June 27, 2025 12:37pm
    - JackRabbit
      
      That is a fact agreed by everyone.
      
      I don’t. So it is everyone – 1.
      
      The other facts are not agreed on.
      – The world is warming.
      Actual Evidence please.
      
      – CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
      So is water, at thousands of times the volume of CO2.
      
      – Only humans produce a surplus besides
      breathing.
      Since when were Volcanos classified as “humans”?
      
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      June 27, 2025 12:45pm
      - kowtow
        
        “Since when were Volcanos classified as “humans” ”
        
        Chris Finlayson could .
        
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        June 27, 2025 1:58pm
    - Michael Sommerville
      
      “The world is warming.
      CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
      Only humans produce a surplus besides breathing.”
      
      All true but what you fail to say (and perhaps realise) is that the increase of CO2 and its effect on temperature is algorithmic. That is if there is a doubling of the level of CO2, there is not a doubling of the greenhouse effect and it starts to level off. After a certain level, the increase in temperature is nonexistent or at least negligible.
      
      The other far more important gas from a greenhouse effect is water vapour. It is many more time more effective as a GH gas. How are you going to get rid of that?
      
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      June 27, 2025 12:51pm
      - Notsofast
        
        I am aware of that, we have gone 250 to 420 and there is a 1.5 degree effect.
        The next 70% may not cause another 1.5.
        The real problem is people struggling with the science due to the sunk cost of denial, people locally like Leighton Smith, Sean Plunkett and so on. I won’t mention a celebrity on this blog.
        They engage in a psychological attempt to square the impossible.
        
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        June 27, 2025 1:06pm
      - JackRabbit
        
        CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
        
        All gases are greenhouse gases including oxygen, nitrogen, and all trace gases, and of course canary farts. Which is why Mars and the Moon, have such wild changes in temperature, because there is no atmosphere.
        
        Atmosphere is what traps heat. Stating that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, is as truthful as saying water is wet.
        
        Without greenhouse gases, temperatures would swing between the extremes of a low of -180°C and a high of +400°C.
        
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        June 27, 2025 1:14pm
      - Local Miller
        
        I think you meant “logarithmic”
        
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        June 27, 2025 3:22pm
    - Don Beckett
      
      Sydney harbor has the oldest tidal gauge in the world that has been checked daily or weekly since the late 1800’s.
      Guess what ? The level has increased about 2 mm over that time.
      
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      June 27, 2025 4:59pm
NeverMindTheBollocks

Shell Lane (The Terrace) bike rack report:

At 8.15am, null bikes again today.

A cool, calm, wet morning in the Capital. No gumption by cyclists today.
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June 27, 2025 8:16am
- Ra Henare
  
  A cool overnight 25c in Siem Reap after a mild day time 29c
  And shock horror it rained!
  
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  June 27, 2025 1:19pm
Scott

Why I think Trump is awesome and necessary Part 1,231 –

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DLXn2nihnfk/?igsh=ZXBreDM4aWQ3cDFu

Watch the clip. A black panel member on CNN bangs on about poor black people and how we are subjected to the N word every single day and how that accounts for black people suffering relatively poor health compared to white people. Notice he talks on and on, like a petulant child.
Now notice how ineffectual are the white people on the panel trying to answer him. How deferential they are and how it does no good. The black guy goes on and on, like a spoiled child.

That was every Republican in the past. Exceedingly deferential, hand wringing, apologetic to minorities.
As a aside that’s also the National party of NZ when faced with radical Maori.

But what does Trump do? He doesn’t back down, he doesn’t pander, he doesn’t apologise and kowtow to racial minorities.

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/114745592965123786

He calls AOC not very smart, Jasmine Crockett a low IQ individual and the New York mayoral candidate a communist.

Now maybe that’s not very nice. Maybe it’s a mean tweet. But at least he fights! That’s what we need here in NZ. We need to fight against the radicals and the socialists.
That’s why everyone here on the centre right should support Trump. He stands up for himself and for the centre right and against the radical left.
Best president in our lifetime. By a lot. 😎
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June 27, 2025 8:21am
Rusty

Climate change is so unpredictable, its raining too much at the moment.
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June 27, 2025 8:25am
- kowtow
  
  H2O , the principal “green house gas” !
  
  We need a net zero dihydrogen oxide by 2030 policy!
  
  There’s far too much of it about and it’s heating the planet !
  
  If we don’t limit it , our trading partners will punish us!
  
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  June 27, 2025 9:46am
Northshoredoc

I suspect certain pundits will lose their composure over Pauk Henry’s appointment to TVNZ.
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June 27, 2025 8:36am
- Notsofast
  
  Any general disgust at Paul Henry’s puerile musings should be set aside in case TV1 news becomes watchable again.
  
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  June 27, 2025 11:06am
graham

Jacinda’s mantra of ‘what if kindness came first‘ may make for a nice sound-bite, but seems to have been little more than just that – a sound-bite.

As reports emerge of how Ms Ardern’s government was ‘anything but kind’, it seems more people are starting to point out the harsh realities of life under the rule of Jacinda Ardern and her lieutenants – and seeking to hold them to account.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/lawsuit-targets-trevor-mallards-use-of-bad-music-and-sprinklers-to-drive-parliament-protesters-away/FR5JPXQEWRE4ZFOEWFNQL7PPQI/

Lawsuit targets Trevor Mallard’s use of ‘bad music’ and sprinklers to drive Parliament protesters away

Sir Trevor Mallard was explicitly told by police leadership that soaking the anti-mandate protesters at Parliament in water and playing “bad music” would make the situation worse – and yet he persisted.

That determination now has Mallard – former Speaker of the House and now New Zealand’s ambassador to Ireland – facing a High Court case brought by a girl who was 11 at the time of the protest.

The child, who is from Northland but will seek name suppression, claims Mallard blasting “Let It Go” and “Baby Shark” while soaking her with water weaponised “songs that she liked”, causing “mental anguish, humiliation, degradation and dehumanisation”.

The case seeks a declaration that the child’s rights were breached, as well as damages of $40,000 for three separate breaches.

Get the popcorn ready folks …
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June 27, 2025 8:41am
- Swifty
  
  Just BTW, have you seen Mallard lately?
  
  He’s looking quite unwell.
  
  The last few years have aged him terribly.
  
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  June 27, 2025 9:43am
  - JackRabbit
    
    Karma.
    
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    June 27, 2025 10:09am
    - Keith White
      
      The link goes to an evenhanded review of the Mallard’s Parliamentary history.
      
      It seems to prove the aphorism ‘you end up in old age with the face you earned in your lifetime.’
      
      https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/26-08-2022/the-two-sides-of-trevor-mallard
      
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      June 27, 2025 5:54pm
  - Scooter
    
    Here’s his pic on X with Chippie in Ireland. Looks like death warmed up, maybe Winston won’t need to sack him, he doesn’t look like he’ll be there that long.
    
    https://x.com/Anywonbutlabour/status/1937722668775780661?t=2awke0Q0LYVDKPwUygFNrA&s=19
    
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    June 27, 2025 10:53am
    - JackRabbit
      
      Aged 15 years in 3. All those Irish pubs.
      
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      June 27, 2025 12:47pm
  - Keith White
    
    Not as much as his jab mandate aged my child. Dogma, meet karma.
    
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    June 27, 2025 12:44pm
  - Ra Henare
    
    A shave would help!
    
    4 1
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    June 27, 2025 1:25pm
  - imalwaysright
    
    Mallard is a vicious and vindictive coward who hid behind the well guarded doors of Parliament while ordering his minions to assault women and children.
    
    I hope his family are ashamed of him.
    
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    June 27, 2025 1:28pm
    - lifesgood
      
      And don’t forget he spat on soldiers returning from the Vietnam war. A loathsome individual.
      
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      June 27, 2025 2:07pm
      - H. Upmann
        
        That was Goff. Equally despicable.
        
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        June 27, 2025 2:25pm
      - Mike
        
        That’s a flat out lie.
        
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        June 27, 2025 2:26pm
      - Inandout
        
        life, it was Goff who spat, the one who held hands with that Arab guy.
        
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        June 27, 2025 2:50pm
      - Michael Sommerville
        
        Mike, I clearly remember the Herald picture of the protesters when the troops returned from VietNam. It was Helen Clark, Phil Goff and I think Margaret Wilson. I don’t think Mallard was there as he was not up with the Labour intellectuals at university.
        
        I am a Viet Nam vet with medals to prove it. I shall counter your statement of “That is a flat out lie.” Were you there or have you just been told by your Labour acquaintances that it is a lie?
        
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        June 27, 2025 2:54pm
      - Mike
        
        No one has ever produced any evidence that those future Labour MPs ever spay on anyone. It’s complete bullshit.
        
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        June 27, 2025 4:37pm
      - lifesgood
        
        Big apologies. I stand corrected. They are cut from the same cloth so I was confused.
        
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        June 27, 2025 8:50pm
- kowtow
  
  Soaking people who had a right to be there is assault , and that right , ironically enough was partially established by the likes of Mallard and Hipkins being arrested there in the past .
  
  You see , it’s different when the left do it. They really do have fascist tendencies.And are massive hypocrites.
  
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  June 27, 2025 9:54am
  - Mike
    
    They didn’t have a right to be there.
    
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    June 27, 2025 2:26pm
    - NeverMindTheBollocks
      
      Wrong, Mike. Power resides in the people. Parliament is solely an expression of and is subsidiary of the people. Which is why we can vote the ratbags out.
      
      In this case, people turning up to the grounds of Parliament (so much more Our Place than Te Papa will ever be) is absolutely the right of every New Zealander.
      
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      June 27, 2025 7:29pm
- kowtow
  
  When you think about it that particular sinecure going to that particular Labour Party Mandarin has to be have one of the most egregiously ,cough cough , dubious “jobs for the boys” appointments in recent NZ history ; especially coming from a regime that ostensibly made so much of moral leadership and “equity”.
  
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  June 27, 2025 10:22am
- greybeard
  
  I have never met an 11-year-old who knew that the words “weaponised, anguish, humiliation, degradation and dehumanisation” existed, never mind spell them.
  Obviously she is a proxy for her mother, who should be identified so that the real issue can be revealed. I suspect that this is 100% about getting easy money.
  
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  June 27, 2025 11:05am
  - kowtow
    
    ‘I suspect that this is 100% about getting easy money.’
    
    Depending on their relationship with their lawyer that might be a very inaccurate suspicion.
    
    I suspect there’s nothing easy about taking a case to the HC.
    
    I believe the lawyer is going to be on leah panapa’s show on the Platform today .
    
    Might be worth a listen.
    
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    June 27, 2025 11:19am
    - Master Mariner
      
      Tudor Clee- you tube video with Ryan on Nz Herald.
      
      3 1
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      June 27, 2025 1:26pm
      - Don Beckett
        
        Greybeard.
        At least 2 of my grand-daughters new what those words were & meant when they were 11 y/olds.
        
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        June 27, 2025 5:11pm
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    She was 11 years old on 11 Feb 2022, perhaps nearly 12 years old…. in which case she’d could well be 15 years old now.
    
    8 2
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    June 27, 2025 12:29pm
  - Ra Henare
    
    She was 11 in 2022(during the event referenced)
    
    So try 14 year old now.
    
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    June 27, 2025 1:27pm
- AitchW
  
  10k out of court settlement, unless the tax payer picks up the tab for his defence.
  
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  June 27, 2025 11:50am
- Ghost
  
  She should sue her parents for taking her, protests aren’t something parents should drag their kids along to.
  
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  June 27, 2025 12:46pm
  - Philview
    
    My reaction is that maybe it is time for that child to move on and look to the future.
    
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    June 27, 2025 1:18pm
Flossie

We went to a big mall in Auckland earlier this week and felt like we were in a foreign country. Very few white faces amongst a reasonable sized crowd, and many – women in particular – wearing decidedly untypical kiwi garb. Language snippets from all over, especially Asian, and a smattering of Pacific Island. Interestingly not a word of Maori reached my ears. Shop staff of course spoke English but with a variety of accents.
My main takeaway from our outing was that the Maori population will be swiftly overtaken, and not by Caucasians. If that has not already happened.
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June 27, 2025 9:22am
- artemisia
  
  Not sure about that Flossie. Anyone can identify as Maori if they have any Maori heritage at all, and these days even if none in some places. When we look at fam trees, say starting with two grandparents, each generation adds an increasing number. Exponential.
  
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  June 27, 2025 9:31am
  - Flossie
    
    artemisia – not everyone who has Maori ancestry choses to identify with that part of themselves. I know I prefer not to.
    
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    June 27, 2025 10:40am
    - kiwimike
      
      I know loads who identify as Kiwi and many of them look Maori…..
      
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      June 27, 2025 11:31pm
- Paulus
  
  I am old but am having to learn what I consider English, but I have difficulty with the Indian accent, which is increasingly more, coming into everything in a daily environment.
  
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  June 27, 2025 10:18am
  - Anthony Melchett
    
    It’s the abrasiveness of delivery as much as anything
    
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    June 27, 2025 11:07am
- MCōs
  
  “We went to a big mall in Auckland earlier this week and felt like we were in a foreign country.”
  Sometimes I could feel like I’m in a foreign country in my own home when my wife’s mates are around, if I was to think like that.
  
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  June 27, 2025 10:34am
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    I think you signed up for that when you said “I do”.
    
    Not so much, the rest of us.
    
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    June 27, 2025 7:32pm
- pb
  
  And yet Tehran seemed more western than our own countries, despite the propaganda to the contrary.
  
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  June 27, 2025 1:05pm
RoboRob

Heard a guy from NZ rugby union (participation development manager) on the radio with HDPA last night. If you were looking at why NZR is having problems look no further for an example of what a diversity / woke environment will do. They guy couldn’t answer a single question and clearly knew what had happened but assumedly didn’t want to say becuase it may have related to the maori rugby team coach.
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June 27, 2025 9:30am
- imalwaysright
  
  I’m waiting for them to instruct all referees to referee equitably and to honour the treaty….
  
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  June 27, 2025 10:30am
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  NZR let that Perinaria fly that ranitara flag after the haka in Italy, what a way to lose support from a very unpopular AB on his last test
  
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  June 27, 2025 12:04pm
sungsamning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qP_rKfz-Wa0
David Seymour On The Regulatory Standards .
Thanks for standing up for good laws David. How can anybody complain about a law which requires all government regulations to involve consultation with the public, and to apply the rule of law and good law making practice? And it guarantees our civil liberties (which the lefties now turn their backs on) and protection of property rights! The only issue is that it might not apply to existing regulations and to the generally appalling way in which they are applied and enforced.
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June 27, 2025 9:30am
- mike
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  The bill prioritizes some rights over others:
  It will limit the ability of public services to deliver effectively for communities – particularly any specific groups identified as disadvantaged.
  It places individual property and corporate rights over the collective good.
  It will enable ‘compensation’ for companies, restricting the government’s ability to legislate in the interests of people and the environment.
  And, of course, it’s another attack by Seymour on the place of the treaty.
  
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  June 27, 2025 9:42am
  - Swifty
    
    Why do you lie so much?
    
    40 3
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    June 27, 2025 9:44am
    - Keith White
      
      His pathology drives him to be pathognomic. Gotta feel sorry for him, really.
      
      11 2
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      June 27, 2025 12:47pm
  - JackRabbit
    
    Define “Collective”, define “Good”, and define “Collective Good”.
    
    8 2
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    June 27, 2025 10:13am
    - Wandering Star
      
      Equally, define an “individual” with all of the usual familial and societal ties characteristic of anyone living in a group setting.
      
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      June 27, 2025 1:13pm
  - Eastlander
    
    Yes, it’s good for people who work and bad for people who don’t, that’s what makes it good.
    
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    June 27, 2025 11:22am
  - rjay
    
    It does none of those things. Any law can still be passed but the government will have to explain why it wants to not pay compensation or give special rights to certain groups.
    Why are people afraid of that?
    
    2 2
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    June 27, 2025 4:11pm
  - Terry Dalee
    
    “restricting the government’s ability to legislate in the interests of people and the environment.”
    
    That’s worked out so well with NZ gas. It’s hardly in the interests of people to lose their jobs due to the lack of energy required to keep the economy going. How is importing Indonesian brown lignite coal in the best interests of the environment… This is all from legislation that DID NOT restrict that governments ability to enact poorly thought out legalisation…
    
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    June 28, 2025 12:48pm
sungsamning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtftsTcNCB0
How France Lost its Grip on Africa.
France is being kicked out of Africa – militarily, economically, and psychologically. We unpack how Françafrique, France’s decades-long system of control over its former African colonies, is collapsing in real-time.
Why are African nations suddenly rejecting France? Why are French troops being expelled, CFA currency being ditched, and French media blacklisted? And most importantly, what does this mean for the future of African sovereignty?
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June 27, 2025 9:31am
- kowtow
  
  ‘for the future of African sovereignty’
  
  Since “decolonisation” it’s simply a matter of whoever’s in charge selling it to the highest bidder and at the moment that’s the Russians and Chinese.
  
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  June 27, 2025 9:59am
  - sungsamning
    
    Yes, there’s a fair bit of that going on. And a fair bit of propaganda in these items.
    
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    June 27, 2025 6:37pm
- Paulus
  
  Money !
  
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  June 27, 2025 10:19am
- Ruahine
  
  It means that the Chinese have more money and the Russians have Mercenaries. Mercenaries that basically do as they like and the Western Media do a Sgt Schultz for them. Put a US Marine or a Nato contingent and it is War Crimes and Genocide on tomorrows 6 oclock News by all the usual useful idiots.
  
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  June 27, 2025 11:03am
- fightingtemeraire
  
  And non British Empire/Commonwealth countries want to join the Commonwealth. Wonder why???
  
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  June 27, 2025 11:08am
Ghost

This is just pathetic that nz has got to this point

Local government politicians will soon be able to claim up to $4500 to install security systems in their homes, following what Local Government New Zealand has called a “significant increase in abuse, harassment and threatening behaviour”.

Article
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June 27, 2025 9:41am
- JackRabbit
  
  I wonder if Scotties could claim $4,500 to beef up security?
  
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  June 27, 2025 10:14am
- Nobby2
  
  And when they are no longer a councilor they should have to pay back the $4500, or return the whole system.
  
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  June 27, 2025 10:59am
  - Colville
    
    it would cost more to remove the system and fix the screw and wire holes than the system is worth.
    
    Sunk cost, write it off. Aint no one becoming a councilor for a free security camera.
    
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    June 27, 2025 12:29pm
- Eastlander
  
  Forcing them to pay back these claims should be a policy goal.
  
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  June 27, 2025 11:24am
- Keith White
  
  …and yet – where are all the listed, charged, proven assaults that justify spending more taxpayer’s money on these locally-yoked crybullies?
  
  The average ER staffer gets more threats on a weekly basis from the pseudo-tough once-wuz-warrior-wannabes physically acting-out against us than these pusillanimous poxies get all their terms, but we have no realtime video monitoring and no police response – and no right of self-defence either… Bah.
  
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  June 27, 2025 12:51pm
  - imalwaysright
    
    A hospital foyer is a good place for a small satellite police station.
    Apart from being close to a large number of vulnerable staff and patients, they are usually well positioned to be deployed off site in an emergency.
    
    As for the “significant increase in abuse, harassment and threatening behaviour.”-
    It is extremely difficult in this age to engage in any of those activities without being traced and identified.
    They know the public are pissed off with them and so are trying to position themselves as the victims. Pathetic .
    
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    June 27, 2025 1:49pm
    - Flossie
      
      Not really a whole lot of help to have your assailant traced and and identified after they’ve left you with your injuries. An ounce of prevention etc….
      
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      June 27, 2025 2:12pm
  - Ghost
    
    Our ER has a security guard. I doubt anyone knows the home address of the staff. But hey, perhaps people could stop abusing elected officials instead of claiming they are crybullies.
    
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    June 27, 2025 2:32pm
    - imalwaysright
      
      “Security Guard” in NZ is a misnomer.
      
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      June 27, 2025 3:45pm
    - Keith White
      
      The people who harass you in the ER sometimes follow you; in a town of ~50,000 they shop where you shop; they are often gang-affiliated or gang members’ ‘friends’, family etc; they like their standover tactics in numbers; if you park in the ER doctor’s park near the Resus door they know exactly where to key your bike’s tank; and hey, perhaps you’re one of the abusers Ghost. You seem not to have to worry about it for family or yourself.
      
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      June 27, 2025 4:12pm
      - Ghost
        
        Actually, I’ve never abused a political or a medical staff in my life, but hey, like I said our ER has a security guard, and local politicians now need protection, not because they are crybullies, but because some of you have anger problems you need to learn to control.
        
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        June 27, 2025 4:47pm
- Mod88
  
  Good Grief, what about the rest of us…..I know, get a Firearms Licence.
  
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  June 27, 2025 2:27pm
Ghost

The exchange…. A god awful name to call a CBD. Maybe it will become a place druggies can take their needles…..

Article

It’s been more than two years in the making, and on Friday the rebrand of Timaru’s CBD as a destination celebrating local business, creativity, culture, and community, will be launched.
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June 27, 2025 9:45am
- keepcalmcarryon
  
  Or bodily fluids.
  
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  June 27, 2025 10:27am
- MCōs
  
  The name Timaru itself dates back to 1868 when the two adjacent towns of Government Town and Rhodestown were amalgamated.
  The two original rival towns previously refused to cooperate. They were divided by North St and streets on one side didn’t line up with streets on the other
  A few years later the local Orange Order were going to have a parade as those fools are wont to do and train loads of gallant Catholics came in from round the district to sort them out. A contingent of police came down from Chch and violence was averted.
  
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  June 27, 2025 10:59am
- Taieri
  
  The last time I was there the place was virtually deserted. No people on footpaths in Stafford Street and no shoppers. And that was in the middle of the day, which is a shame as it appears to be very well looked after.
  
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  June 27, 2025 12:53pm
RoboRob

Is Tama Potaka in the wrong party?

I dont profess to know much about the man but after hearing the story about Maori health funding an islander professional rugby team and his interview, where he knew nothing and was waiting on advice from Te puni kokere, I looked him up on wikipedia.

He looks like a smart, probably good, lawyer who has spent the majority of his life working for left wing organisations. His education was at Columbia University which is one of, if not the wokest universities in the US. It is not a coincidence the Columbia was the home to recent anti Isreal protests.

Besides a stint at the super fund the rest of is work in NZ is for maori organisations and he has relations in the Maori party. Not that having relations in the Maori party necessarily means anything.

To be fair there are a number of Nats who would fit well in the Clarke Labour government, which is probably why National seems to have know principles.
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June 27, 2025 9:45am
- Ghost
  
  Why do you blame him? They lost the funding, funding they had for 10 years, so funding that started under the last national government.
  
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  June 27, 2025 9:52am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    But it seems that the diversion of Whanau Ora- Public money to the Moana PasifikaProfessional Rugby team occurred when Labour was in Government and stopped checking how Whanau Ora funds were spent.
    
    https://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2025/06/perspective-with-heather-du-plessis_27.html
    
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    June 27, 2025 10:10am
    - Swifty
      
      It would be interesting to see the PMA’s gift register, should they maintain one, and see what footy tickets and corporate box patronage their exec and governance teams have enjoyed over the years….
      
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      June 27, 2025 11:28am
      - Colville
        
        I believe they would get given complimentary tickets that have a face value of zero $.
        Would they need to declare them?
        
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        June 27, 2025 12:32pm
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      Yes, so sick of media trying to say this started last year, the funding of MP started in 2022
      
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      June 27, 2025 12:06pm
      - Wandering Star
        
        And what did National do about when they got a chance? Nothing.
        
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        June 27, 2025 1:06pm
  - RoboRob
    
    I didn’t blame him, I asked if he is in the wrong party.
    
    But I DO hold him to account. Whilst he has dropped the current crew, they are still in power for now and he is still responsbile for their actions. For 1.5yrs they have continued to spew out government funds to the organisations they like. He is responsible for those funds, he doesn’t seem to know or care where who they have funded. The rugby funding ‘may’ not have happened during his time but what else, that is less startling, has been funded. Does he even know?
    
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    June 27, 2025 10:34am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      Everyone is rubbishing him, he quickly stated he wanted a report on his desk and if funding is not being used for what it is supposed to the funding will stop
      
      5 7
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      June 27, 2025 12:07pm
  - pdm
    
    Ghost asks.
    
    `Why do you blame him?’
    
    Did you not hear him with Hosking this morning? He was awful and nothing more than an apologist for Whanau Ora with seemingly little interest in getting to the bottom of what is going on.
    
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    June 27, 2025 11:13am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      Sorry, but Hosking was trying to blame him, the funding to MP started in 2022, it was hidden under the ministry, it will not have been seen on a balance sheet
      
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      June 27, 2025 12:08pm
  - kiwimike
    
    Ghost
    So why did they lose the funding why ?
    
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    June 27, 2025 11:37pm
- rouppe
  
  Just listened to Hosking interview Potaka.
  
  I now have zero confidence in Potaka.
  
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  June 27, 2025 1:02pm
  - Hugh Jarse
    
    I heard that interview as well. Based on what I heard your confidence in him is rated exactly where it should be.
    
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    June 27, 2025 3:23pm
  - kiwimike
    
    Rouppe
    Same for me with Erica Stanford yesterday and Her Education Amendment stealth creeping Maori Apartheid rubbish.
    
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    June 27, 2025 11:40pm
- Wandering Star
  
  “It is not a coincidence the Columbia was the home to recent anti Isreal protests.”
  
  How does “wokeness” relate to anti-Israel protests? I’d say it’s a sufficient, but by no means a necessary, condition of opposing Israel. Aren’t the “antisemites” usually found on the decidely non-woke hard right?
  
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  June 27, 2025 1:09pm
  - RoboRob
    
    I dont know where the antisemites ‘usually’ are found. Seem to be a lot on the left at the moment.
    
    Part of wokeness / leftism is an oppressor / oppressed mentality. If you are seem as oppressed (in this case Palestine) then you can do anything you want without criticism to fight your oppressor (in this case Isreal). The same is true for racism, heard the expression ‘minorities cant br racist’.
    
    It is also the same reason people on the left in the US appear to hate their country. Since the US, by virtue of power, is always the oppressor, then anyone fighting the US must be oppressed and therefore supported.
    
    It is a strange mindset.
    
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    June 27, 2025 2:45pm
    - Wandering Star
      
      Didn’t Jews invent the oppressed (them)/oppressor (everyone else) mentality? But I agree, it is a strange mindset, almost to the point of sociopathy.
      
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      June 27, 2025 5:07pm
JerJer

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360735153/winter-sickness-puts-life-hold-families-worst-yet-come

Excellent. The esteemed Dr Baker recommends those suffering from the common cold go see the doctor, because we have such a surplus of doctors sitting around to attend to people that are not really sick. Why not go to bed, stay warm and recover like normal people do on the odd occasion that they are sick.

How about encouraging people to maybe have a better diet, and exercise rather than sitting around eating white bread and sizzlers and getting fatter and sicker and complaining about it……more sick leave needed, get a grip. These people are hopeless.
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June 27, 2025 10:04am
- Flossie
  
  These people are hopeless…. You mean this person (Baker) is hopeless?
  
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  June 27, 2025 12:02pm
  - JerJer
    
    All of them. The baker guy is supposed to be smart, as it the media. You do not have to be a rocket scientist to understand that we used to have 5 sick days per week, now we have ten and somehow people are now sick exactly 10 days a year and complain for more, and they are mostly sick on Mondays or Fridays. Quite incredible really how people get so sick on Mondays and Fridays, but seemingly on holidays they always have a great time and don’t get sick.
    
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    June 27, 2025 12:25pm
    - imalwaysright
      
      They should have made the extra 5 days entitlement unpaid.
      Why should an employer pay for people who don’t turn up for work?
      
      11 1
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      June 27, 2025 1:57pm
      - AitchW
        
        The problem is that among many employees there is an attitude that sick leave is an entitlement which must be used each year.
        Perhaps employers should be able to charge the government the cost of sick leave.
        
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        June 27, 2025 3:26pm
  - Keith White
    
    Baker is an epidemiologist, speciality is public health. Whatever patient-focused face-to-face medicine he ever practised is literally decades in the past – “he’s been a fulltime staff member at the University of Otago since 2003”.
    
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    June 27, 2025 4:16pm
- rouppe
  
  There is nothing a doctor can do about the common cold.
  
  Get some paracetamol and Pseudoephedrine, stay in bed and keep fluids up
  
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  June 27, 2025 12:48pm
Tauhei Notts

I saw a quote from Dmitry Medvedev where he said;
“The European Union, stuffed with rainbow freaks and yapping bitches in Brussels, constitutes a threat.”
I thought that if one changed the European Union to the civil service and Brussels to Wellington one would adequately sum up our country.
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June 27, 2025 10:07am
- JackRabbit
  
  When the Ukraine failed to turn up to peace negotiations in 2022, Putin was reported as saying “I’d rather deal with the military, as the leaders of Ukraine behave like ‘drug addicts and neo-Nazis’.
  
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  June 27, 2025 10:19am
  - kowtow
    
    And what does Putin behave like .
    
    15 3
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    June 27, 2025 1:02pm
- AitchW
  
  Very well said. I’m sure there are public servants who are good, decent and honourable people.
  From a discussion I had with a Site Certifier none of those work for Worksafe. The stories I heard sounded like something written by Kafka.
  If there was ever a government department needing a good investigative journalist to do some digging, it’s that one!
  
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  June 27, 2025 11:57am
  - MCōs
    
    So you believe some angry nobody in the organization who thinks they know better than everyone else
    
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    June 27, 2025 2:05pm
    - AitchW
      
      [Mod – just debate the topic]
      
      The person I was talking to is a site certifier I’ve known and used for 10 years, and who has been the subject of an ongoing vendetta by Worksafe for those 10 years. They have been proved wrong and vindictive in court.
      The culture in that organisation is that site certifiers are all liars and not to be trusted.
      And yes, I believe my site certifier.
      
      10 1
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      June 27, 2025 3:24pm
Jack5

Nobby Clark’s last stand against the Woke!

Who’ll keep Invercargill from sinking under the Woke waves when Mayor Nobby Clark retires at the end of his current term?

He’s both blocked the council from an anti-Israel measure; and blocked council adding Woke diversity measures to its procurement policy.

Clark, a Vietnam War veteran and former sailor, has been outspoken against Woke-ism endured by once-enterprising Southland. He’s suffered health problems in the last part of his term, and these undoubtedly contributed to indiscrete comments at both a fire-fighter conference and during a TV ambush.

Clark’s now refused to allow what the Otago Daily Times calls “an advocate for Palestinian freedom” to speak at a council meeting.

With Clark’s casting vote breaking a 6:6 tie, the council rejected a boycott-type move against 112 companies allegedly connected to illegal Israeli settlements within Palestinian territory. Not that Invercargill ever had business with them.

The other Woke move was to allow the council to ask tendering businesses whether they recorded diversity data. A 6:6 vote again was topped by Clark’s casting vote.

The “O.D.T” reports a “UN-created” list of companies was brought to the council’s attention by the group Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa.

Clark refused to allow a group member, Seren Palliser-O’Donohoe, to address the council. She alleged “follow-up presentations” had been allowed at other councils.

Councillors discussed the issue for 30 minutes, one of them, Darren Ludlow, bringing up the example of local bodies declaring themselves nuclear-free “in days gone by”.

Council staff had recommended amending the city’s procurement policy, saying changes had been made in guidelines of the Christchurch City Council, Environment Canterbury, and the Nelson City Council. The changes relate to companies on the “Palestine list” drawn up by the UN, and include Airbnb, Expedia, and Motorola.

Mayor Clark’s block included the council questioning tendering firms on their data recording about diversity and “carbon impact”.

What Invercargill’s two past Jewish mayors have thought of the Wokies’ Palestine move?

The two were Abraham Wachner, a World War 1 soldier fondly remembered and commemorated by a place name in the city; and Eve Poole, who was in a contingent from what was to become Israel with the British Army in the Middle East in WW2. That’s when she met her husband-to-be, a soldier from Invercargill.

Clark’s stand was reported in the Otago Daily Times with the help of the State subsidy for regional local-body coverage:

https://www.odt.co.nz/southland/important-voices-%E2%80%98get-heard-about-%E2%80%99

AND:

https://www.odt.co.nz/southland/%E2%80%98why-have-it-there%E2%80%99-mayor-digs-over-diversity-data
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June 27, 2025 10:29am
- MCōs
  
  You quite clearly don’t know what Abraham Wachner and Eva Poole would have made of the situation
  Is it an Israel/Palestine issue or Jewish or no business of local body politics?
  
  1 8
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  June 27, 2025 1:46pm
  - Jack5
    
    Jeez, Cossie: Read and think before you post responses.
    
    The obvious theme of my post was that Invercargill’s present Mayor thought that the Israel-Hamas issue is no business of local body politics.
    
    The post asked what those past Invercargill Jewish mayors would would have thought of the Wokies’ Palestine protest to the council.
    
    6 1
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    June 27, 2025 3:03pm
    - MCōs
      
      If ME politics is no business of Invercargill, or any other local body politics, what would the former mayors being Jewish have to do with it?
      I notice you’ve added a reference to the terrorist organization Hamas now
      
      0 5
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      June 27, 2025 6:54pm
rouppe

I wake up this morning and every story in the Herald seems to be paywalled, both those marked premium and those not.

Turned on my vpn, but no change. I signed in thinking that might be the problem but no change again.

Is this a new thing?
5 2
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June 27, 2025 12:41pm
- Jack5
  
  Perhaps it’s a good thing. If the Herald was mostly paywalled, the Government could turn off the subsidies tap.
  
  5 0
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  June 27, 2025 3:11pm
  - rouppe
    
    Is weird. Happens on my Android tablet but not my Android phone. Both set to Indochina time, both on the same wifi…
    
    Not sure what’s going on
    
    4 0
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    June 27, 2025 4:13pm
rouppe

Golriz has popped back up again.

She believes another revolution driven from within [Iran] is the only way to topple the current theocratic regime, not interference from the West.

Please, Golriz, help with that. From within.
23 4
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June 27, 2025 1:18pm
- mandk
  
  I don’t think she will go back to Iran.
  
  She would be worried that her light-fingered tendencies would lead to her getting a hand or two chopped off.
  
  18 2
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  June 27, 2025 1:57pm
  - rouppe
    
    Of course she won’t. She’s all mouth no burka.
    
    17 0
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    June 27, 2025 2:37pm
  - Pope Punctilious II
    
    Oh very good, mandk ;). I don’t think the mullahs would approve of her heavy eyeliner either.
    
    10 0
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    June 27, 2025 3:12pm
- Rumblestrip
  
  Once upon a time, a shamed and ousted political figure would take the hint and retire from the public eye. By bowing out and self-imposing exile, you may regain a small degree of honour.
  
  Nowadays nobody has any shame, so Golriz seems to think her banal platitudes are still newsworthy.
  
  What’s next? Maybe Stuff can interview Graham Capill for his latest thoughts on morality.
  
  11 1
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  June 27, 2025 2:54pm
  - AitchW
    
    She’s a Green. They are better than you and I.
    Anyway, her shoplifting wasn’t her fault, it was all those fascists saying mean things to her.
    
    10 1
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    June 27, 2025 3:59pm
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    I hear there’s a vacancy for someone just like her, in Wellington’s Council Chamber.
    
    3 0
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    June 27, 2025 7:44pm
Pope Punctilious II

Here you can see the tireless Elizabeth Rata’s submission criticizing Erica Stanford’s treachery in the innocuously-titled “Education and Training Amendment Bill (No. 2)”
https://www.bassettbrashandhide.com/post/professor-elizabeth-rata-submission-to-the-select-committee-on-the-education-and-training-amendment
This bill is a shocker from Stanford. Why is she trying to impose Labour/Greens/TMP policy on our schools? Apparently she’s been stung by criticism of the bill, calling her critics “liars” and “haters” on Newstalk ZB this morning.
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June 27, 2025 1:51pm
- Eastlander
  
  All must keep pouring scorn on her in that case, hopefully she’ll take the hint and quit.
  
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  June 27, 2025 2:33pm
- DimChappie
  
  “Complete and utter garbage lies”
  Education Minister Erica Stanford has defended her work on section 127 of the Education and Training Amendment Bill No 2 on ZB this morning (Friday June 27) and denied trying to sneak anything past the public. It is worth contrasting her latest comments with her reponses at an earlier select committee hearing (see links below)
  On ZB she said she didn’t put the treaty stuff there, it was there throughout the Education Act already and all treaty references will be examined by Paul Goldsmith’s review team. There were “legitimate questions’’ about the role of the treaty in schools.
  She told Mike Hosking: “This what happens when you get a bunch of people who get all whipped up with hatred, frothing at the mouth and spouting complete and utter garbage lies.’’
  She said the uproar over section 127 was a “sideshow’’ to the vital reform of the school curriculum underway. Critics including Hobson’s Pledge were “yelling at the sky’’ and misinformed, she said.
  Below are links to the ZB interview and the June 18 session of the Education and Workforce select committee with a partial transcript (treaty responses from the 15min mark):
  
  https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/mike-hosking-breakfast/audio/erica-stanford-education-minister-on-section-127-in-the-education-and-training-amendment-bill-no2/
  
  https://vimeo.com/showcase/10758097?video=1094225392
  (treaty question at 15min mark)
  
  TRANSCRIPT of select committee session from 15min mark:
  
  Q: “Did you seek any advice on the impact of devaluing Te Tiriti through this legislation?
  
  Erica: “Well I disagree with the with the assertion in your question. It’s not being devalued at all – it’s still there, it’s still a crucial contributing factor to achieving student outcomes and student achievement so you know and I think the one thing that I’m proud of though – in some of the changes we made in section 127 was reordering some of those. If you look down to section 127 2 (e), making sure that achieving equitable outcomes for Maori students was placed at the very top of giving effect to the treaty of Waitangi. I mean that is so important.
  “If you want to honour the treaty, making sure that there are equitable outcomes for tamariki Maori is crucial. That’s why we’re doing all of the things that we’re doing in our education reform package.
  “That’s why structured literacy is compulsory. That’s why we’re doing structured math. That’s why we’ve created every single resource in te reo Maori as well, because we’re supporting a bilingual education system.
  “If we’re going to honour the treaty, we need to make sure there are equal outcomes for Maori students and I think we’re doing more than any government in a very long time to achieve that.’’
  
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  June 27, 2025 2:35pm
  - Pope Punctilious II
    
    Brilliant, thanks for that DC.
    
    8 1
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    June 27, 2025 2:42pm
  - RoboRob
    
    I really like Erica Stanford. I have posted here a number of times that I think she would do a better job of leading National then Luxon. Her work around education appears to be excellent.
    
    However, I heard the interview and she was very clever, which normally is a good thing.
    
    Yes she didn’t add section 127, it was already there.
    Yes she said Goldsmith would look at it.
    
    She however, did not answer whether she thought is should be there.
    
    The fact that other clauses in law required Maori in schools doesn’t mean she shouldn’t take the opportunity to remove one when she is drafting new law/
    
    The argument that it should be looked at as part of the larger process misses a critical point…
    She could have chosen to remove it from the new law and had Goldsmith put it back if he thought it was required. That would have made the default, ‘no section 127’, instead it is in by default. She and anyone that is paying any attention, knows that Goldsmith wont have finished his process by the end of this year. She also knows that Goldsmith wont be doing anything politically dangerous like removing Maori clauses in an election year. This means section 127 is in to stay unless another party wants to remove it post election 2026.
    
    Also where is Seymour in this. He is associate minister right? The fact he has said nothing would indicate he is in agreement with Stanford. Disappointing.
    
    * There is also a really big question around whether National ever had any intention of completing this work. Last I heard a total of two clauses had been removed from legislation.
    
    14 4
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    June 27, 2025 2:59pm
    - Graeme Hall
      
      I voted to put a stop to identity politics as played by the last Labour-led Govt. Like you, I thought Erica Stanford was a good appointment to Education. I was wrong, Erica did herself and the National Party no favours in her interview this morning with Mike Hosking. Despite all her calling out the “haters” and wriggling about, it is her that is responsible for keeping the race-based clause in the bill and all she accomplished in the interview was to prove that her critics were right about her. A pity.
      
      20 3
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      June 27, 2025 3:34pm
    - Pope Punctilious II
      
      I struggle to understand the enthusiasm for Stanford on this site, as it’s been obvious to me from the start who she is. Look at her voting record – 3 years ago, she voted to criminalize any parents and medical professionals who are unwilling to “affirm” a child’s gender dysphoria.
      
      She says schools must achieve “equal outcomes for Maori students”. How are they supposed to do that? By neglecting non-Maori students? Anyone who knows any history knows that inequality of outcomes across different demographics is the norm, not the exception. The example of the Ottoman Empire is informative in this context. The empire ran on Sharia law, which meant that Christians and Jews were second-class citizens who faced legal and financial discrimination (they paid the lion’s share of the tax). Yet Christian Greeks became better educated and wealthier on average than Muslim Turks, presumably because of different cultural priorities.
      
      So I see no reason to regard Stanford as intelligent, or wise. What is more, her position shows that “equity” is her moral north, her apex value. That places her firmly on the left of politics. Not the right person to be in charge of our education system.
      
      10 0
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      June 27, 2025 5:56pm
    - muzled
      
      Seymour was quizzed on this by Plunkett the other day and he wasn’t happy about it. ACT will be voting against it in select committee which would then need the commies over at labor to vote for it.
      
      That’s my understanding of it anyway.
      
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      June 27, 2025 6:21pm
  - lifesgood
    
    She’s a huge disappointment. What a load of utter garbage.
    
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    June 27, 2025 3:47pm
  - Keith White
    
    ““If we’re going to honour the treaty, we need to make sure there are equal outcomes for Maori students…”
    
    Brainlessness evident right there.
    
    We need to make sure we have equal opportunities for all.
    
    You want equal outcomes Erica – go to Venezuela or Cuba. Everybody (except the nomenklatura) is equally badly off. But then you’d be in the ‘elites’ so good for you, sucks to be the peasantry, huh?
    
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    June 27, 2025 4:19pm
  - rouppe
    
    Is very reminiscent of another female politician. I almost expected her to say “rivers of filth”.
    
    Erica:
    1. You are changing the Education Act.
    2. It is the perfect time to fulfil your “remove Treaty references” election promise in that one Act at the same time. Efficiency and all that.
    3. That you’re not gives the perception that you don’t want to fulfil that promise.
    4. Perception is everything
    5. You are losing support in the polls due to that perception.
    6. Calling people “frothing” is just going to reinforce all the trauma from 2020-2023
    
    Wake. Up.
    
    19 1
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    June 27, 2025 4:22pm
    - Jack5
      
      The posters above report that in the radio interview Erica Stanford said words to the effect of: “all treaty references will be examined by Paul Goldsmith’s review team.”
      
      Will Goldsmith do a better job than he’s done on news media since Luxon sidelined Melissa Lee?
      
      10 0
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      June 27, 2025 5:12pm
      - rouppe
        
        That’s a complete sidestep.
        
        She says its not my job description to examine the Treaty references in the Education Act, it’s goldsmiths.
        
        Goldsmith was on hosking this morning as well, and he stammered through some pretty easy questions about Ngapuhi Treaty elements which might take “2 or 3 more years” and then we’ll see… To bloody late by then Paul.
        
        He’ll roll out the “complicated”, and “sensitive” and “consultation” line about the Treaty references work and by the time something might be ready it’ll be election year and they won’t want to be accused of “scrapping the Treaty” which is what the media will trot out 3 times a day for 9 months.
        
        Despite certain folk here saying the Treaty Principles Bill was “stupid” and “simplistic”, and that the National/NZ First coalition agreement was “better”, nothing has happened, nothing will happen and come the end of 2026 there will be more legislation favouring Maori, not less.
        
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        June 27, 2025 7:37pm
  - Rumblestrip
    
    I’m already annoyed this government isn’t rolling back Ardern’s failed legacy fast enough.
    
    If they are actually allowing the gravy train of quasi-racist drivel to move forwards, they can absolutely get f**cked.
    
    Nats like Stanford should think very very hard about the current state of the Conservative Party in the UK: out-of-touch and haemorrhaging their base to a smaller party that still seems to have principles. Then they should wonder if that is where they want to be in a couple of years too.
    
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    June 27, 2025 5:29pm
    - muzled
      
      Totally agree rumble.
      
      ACT will gain a lot of votes if this goes through.
      
      6 0
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      June 27, 2025 6:22pm
- kiwimike
  
  I listened to that, from what she said, she’s a witch and enabling Maori Apartheid by stealth.
  Absolutely atrocious.
  
  Mike Hosking was very good with her and Potaka as well….
  
  The thing is Luxon and National are obviously ignoring their agreements with ACT & NZF and pushing Maori this and Maori that….
  
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  June 27, 2025 11:48pm
KH

There is no problem with land area in the Pacific islands.
They do have a big problem with massive population increase.
Some places, particularly in Micronesia are waters edge to waters edge completely urban.
A nightmare, but it’s not sea level rise.
9 1
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June 27, 2025 4:37pm
- Jack5
  
  Malthus’s argument: population increases at a geometric rate, food supply increases — if it increases — at an arithmetic rate.
  
  If islanders can be resettled in First World countries like Australia, NZ, and better still, the US, money remitted to island families helps finance food imports.
  
  This lifts the rate of increase in food supply, but it’s still an arithmetic-scale increase.
  
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  June 27, 2025 5:37pm

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