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July 2, 2025 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 02 July 2025

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General Debate

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Chuck Bird

Ian Bradford: CO2 – the gas of life

Ian Bradford, a science graduate, is a former teacher, lawyer, farmer and keen sportsman, who is writing a book about the fraud of anthropogenic climate change.

https://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2025/07/ian-bradford-co2-gas-of-life.html#more
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July 2, 2025 8:03am
- Simon
  
  Never seen Luxon so worked up when someone from National questioned man made climate fraud.
  
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  July 2, 2025 8:15am
  - imalwaysright
    
    Recently Mark Mitchell said the government has “zero tolerance for Islamaphobia”.
    
    Luxon seems to have “nett zero tolerance for Climaphobia”
    
    19 2
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    July 2, 2025 10:01am
    - Odakyu-sen
      
      “zero tolerance for ____phobia”.
      
      Fear will be banned. If you express your concerns, you will be arrested.
      
      16 0
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      July 2, 2025 12:24pm
    - NZer In Exile
      
      And phobia of Christianity and Judaism? How about phobia of infidels?
      
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      July 2, 2025 5:34pm
  - coge
    
    Luxon is a steadfast believer in Disney science.
    
    9 1
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    July 2, 2025 3:20pm
    - NZer In Exile
      
      As someone once said; “Fantasyland. The happiest kingdom of them all. “
      
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      July 2, 2025 5:37pm
- lastmanstanding
  
  My first concern as regards central and local Government isnt the amount they spend its the amount they waste. Taxpayers and ratepayers need a detailed forensic audit on a line by line basis to uncover the exact amount of the wasteage.
  Humans are humans and when you are spending other peoples money (OPM) its likely you wont take the care as when you are spending your own.
  IMHO the waste is significant and could be redirected to either areas they require spending or returned to taxpayers and ratepayers in the form of lower taxes and rates.
  BUT and this is the big BUT. No Council and Government will commission such an audit as the results would reflect badly on them.
  Forget the AG office. They can only do as much as their budget allows and Governments make sure the budget and their remit continues to conceal the waste.
  
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  July 2, 2025 9:08am
  - septic skeptic
    
    I guess you are correct and there is a fair bit of waste. But is waste enough to explain the huge blowout in spending and the ludicrous price of anything they build? My gut tells me no – it just doesn’t smell right. I think we have corruption and plenty of it.
    
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    July 2, 2025 9:24am
    - R
      
      Koha for ethnicity consultations, and advice is very expensive these days. There is a long trail of scientific research to be examined on each occasion.
      
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      July 2, 2025 10:12am
    - imalwaysright
      
      Septic your gut is correct, corruption is rife.
      
      There seems to be a perception that if one doesn’t punch, stab, or shoot someone or doesn’t burgle them, then its not a crime.
      
      Benefiting personally from bending or ignoring the rules or the law is becoming a perk of the job and is seen as victimless.
      
      And seeing the major players getting away with it just emboldens those further down the ladder to consider it not just a perk, but as a normal part of their employment remuneration package.
      
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      July 2, 2025 10:30am
    - notreadyet
      
      you need to read an article that I saw recently in the political research newsletter that explained how changes the Clarke govt made to local body act drove them to expenditure on all manner of feel good project rather than concentrating on rubbish water and roads, as a result everyone could jump on the feel good project bandwagon and osts blew out exponentially
      
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      July 2, 2025 5:15pm
  - rjay
    
    I know there is what I would call “fat” in the council I sit on. However I have yet to convince a majority of my colleagues to agree with me.
    
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    July 2, 2025 10:37pm
artemisia

Comments here yesterday about flood plains. For those not aware there is the government Natural Hazards Portal that allows search by address and includes flood info along with a lot of other hazards including claims in the wider area.

Probably does not cover everything but a useful start for those looking to build or buy. Or to check your own place.

http://www.naturalhazardsportal.govt.nz
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July 2, 2025 8:04am
- All_on_Red
  
  Flood Plains should be in the Council LIM Report.
  If it isn’t noted then the Council will have liability.
  
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  July 2, 2025 8:42am
  - G152
    
    If its flat it floods
    
    13 1
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    July 2, 2025 8:50am
  - Chris R
    
    Every LIM Report I have read, and there ‘s been many, contain a denial; of liability as a suffix. The Councils are not liable for any misinformation or omissions.
    
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    July 2, 2025 8:50am
    - R
      
      ‘not liable for ‘….. well they should be! Councils charge an arm and a leg for these reports. The reports should be accurate, having been compiled by highly paid supposedly competent individuals.
      
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      July 2, 2025 10:15am
    - All_on_Red
      
      Yes they are.
      They may say that but that doesnt negate the issue.
      And I have seen plenty of LIMs where its been pointed out there is a flood risk- even on elevated ground but which could be subject to flooding from the ground higher up. (Glenfield was that last place I saw that)
      
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      July 2, 2025 12:50pm
- kowtow
  
  That portal is very woke .
  
  I wonder how much extra ( and un necessary ) spending went into making it so woke.
  
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  July 2, 2025 11:22am
  - muzled
    
    Yeah, as I clicked around looking this waffle popped up
    
    https://www.naturalhazardsportal.govt.nz/s/about/te-ao-maori
    
    In developing the Natural Hazards Portal we have endeavoured to apply the principles we have committed to in the Toka Tū Ake Te Ao Māori Strategy
    
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    July 2, 2025 1:56pm
- David George
  
  Those flood maps are not particularly accurate. Always check the soil itself if there’s any doubt, alluvial flood plains have fine sand particles mixed with the soil.
  
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  July 2, 2025 2:24pm
Simon

Any idea why National are bringing in hundreds of thousands of Indians given what is happening with jobs because of AI?

Well reported job losses overseas because of AI. It’s a matter of time until happens here.
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July 2, 2025 8:10am
- MCōs
  
  “National are bringing in hundreds of thousands of Indians”
  Last year there was a total of about 130k immigrants from all countries; predominantly Chinese, Indian and Filipino.
  National doesn’t “bring them in”. They apply for visas.
  
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  July 2, 2025 10:31am
  - Mike
    
    And AI isn’t going to replace many of the (allegedly skilled) jobs that most immigrants find,
    
    2 11
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    July 2, 2025 11:12am
    - John Loveridge
      
      AI still can’t drive Ubers or wipe old people’s bottoms.
      
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      July 2, 2025 1:26pm
      - David George
        
        A few thousand laid off lanyard wearers can do those jobs, John – there’s also good honest jobs on our farms and orchards.
        
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        July 2, 2025 2:27pm
      - MCōs
        
        During the school holidays back in the sixties I used to hang around on the Timaru waterfront at about 6am and pick up casual part time work for the day.
        We were called seagulls. Someone would yell out you, you & you go to shed 6 or whatever. We were 100% unskilled. (But made a lot of money, nonetheless)
        Do you think rest home nursing requires no skill & anyone could just turn up at the back door and look after the aged and infirm?
        
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        July 2, 2025 4:56pm
      - NZer In Exile
        
        Just read today that robots are taking over Amazon warehouses.
        
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        July 2, 2025 6:13pm
    - Simon
      
      “And AI isn’t going to replace many of the (allegedly skilled) jobs that most immigrants find”
      
      The point is AI will end jobs. There will be a surplus of people. Dont need the Indians.
      
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      July 2, 2025 3:23pm
  - Simon
    
    lol – National doesn’t “bring them in”. They apply for visas.
    
    National sets the rules. They have made specific changes for accredited employer work visas which will objectively benefit Indians ahead of any other group.
    
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    July 2, 2025 3:21pm
  - NZer In Exile
    
    MCōs ” National doesn’t “bring them in”. They apply for visas.”
    
    Who controls how many visas can be issued each year? And if it’s nobody (which I doubt), who has the ability to control this?
    
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    July 2, 2025 5:41pm
- Wandering Star
  
  IT Indians, of all people, could work remotely from India. All of the Indians you speak to when you phone various 0800 numbers are also working from India. Moreover, with billions of Indians already living in India, you’d think India would be the tech capital of the world. Even if they had to physically come here, there’s no reason why they would then have to be granted citizenship or permanent residency. Places like the UAE and Saudi Arabia bring in workers who then are sent home when their usefulness is at an end.
  
  They are really being brought in to keep the GDP up and/or growing, and to radically alter the demographics in order to disempower white people.
  
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  July 2, 2025 1:35pm
  - Simon
    
    “They are really being brought in to keep the GDP up and/or growing, and to radically alter the demographics in order to disempower white people”
    
    Disempowering white people, ie the dripping wet National party all in on Maorification would be good thing.
    
    The only thing keeping something as stupid as Maorification going are dripping wet whites. Indians & Chinese etc once embedded aint goint to tolerate it.
    
    Its GDP though. of the working age 1/8 in on permanent welfare another 1/5 is working in govt in some capacity. The neolib clown show need the bodies to tax farm.
    
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    July 2, 2025 3:28pm
- Groggy
  
  AI can’t cook or wait tables
  
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  July 2, 2025 3:30pm
  - OlderChas
    
    Heard of robots?
    
    0 0
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    July 2, 2025 5:49pm
  - JJ56
    
    i wouldn’t dine out on that https://images.app.goo.gl/rhKdvzYfFAZFu5PE6 🙂
    
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    July 2, 2025 7:07pm
- NZer In Exile
  
  A cheap and dirty way to make the economy look good in certain ways. Ultimately bad for everyone. The devil finds activities for idle hands. Cheapo overseas labour takes jobs away from the unskilled. So they sit on the couch and do drugs and/or crime and/or go bonkers instead.
  
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  July 2, 2025 5:45pm
artemisia

Minister Chhour stands by her principles again. She has renamed Te Puna Aonui to Executive Board for the Elimination of Family Violence and Sexual Violence.

And reworked it to be more clearly multicultural, including by replacing its Maori Advisory Group. Te Pukotahitanga is the name of the Tangata Whenua Ministerial Advisory Group and is replaced with a multicultural advisory board.

Te Pukotahitanga is not happy and has requested the gifted names Te Pukotahitanga and Te Puna Aonui to be removed “from all Crown use”.

Obviously ‘gift’ can have different meanings these days, though if there was a koha involved I’m sure it will be repaid …

Good post on this from Ani O’Brien at below link.

https://www.bassettbrashandhide.com/post/ani-o-brien-what-is-in-a-name-te-puna-aonui
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July 2, 2025 8:13am
- pdm
  
  Karen Chhour’s commitment to her Ministerial duties is outstanding. She is not deterred by the ill informed wrath that descends on her from the left,
  
  If only the National Party leadership, cabinet ministers and caucus had the same work ethic and commitment to rectifying these issues.
  
  Section 127 of the Education Bill being the current issue that needs their attention.
  
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  July 2, 2025 8:30am
  - balanced
    
    Whilst commentators (naively or insidiously) demand instant change, NZs adroit PM implements his staged plan to fix Ardern’s corrupt mess and address NZ’s enduring problems.
    
    “RNZ’s longtime Morning Report executive editor is stepping down, a move that insiders believe will be the catalyst for a rethink of the show’s direction – and possibly other personnel changes.”
    
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    July 2, 2025 9:00am
    - RoboRob
      
      Not instant change, but if a National MP is rewriting legislation I expect them to change it in ways that reflect what they promised voters NOT re implement the existing flawed bill. If National promised to fix the budget deficit I expect them to reduce spending not increase it. If National promised to reduce govt staffing numbers I expect them to actually meaningfully reduce the numbers, not just cancel job vacancies. I could care less about RNZs executive editor, that’s not meaningful change.
      
      We are half way through Nationals term and what progress from Goldsmiths ‘fix the treaty principles’ work group? Does anyone really think National will remove or alter anything controversial next year in an election year?
      Does anyone think it’s a coincidence that after getting caught out with section 127 there are a flood of increased sentences released as a feel good distraction?
      
      As people can probably see, I am very frustrated with National at the moment. 😊
      
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      July 2, 2025 10:07am
      - pdm
        
        You are not alone re your last sentence RR.
        
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        July 2, 2025 11:05am
      - Nigel Kearney
        
        National has been this way since the 1970s. If you are frustrated it is because your expectations are too high.
        
        13 1
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        July 2, 2025 11:11am
  - balanced
    
    Roy Morgan NZ: In June, support for National-led Government surges to highest level so far this year
    
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    July 2, 2025 9:23am
    - RoboRob
      
      ‘Within the National-led Government support for National was virtually unchanged at 32%, support for ACT was little changed at 11.5% and support for NZ First increased 1.5% points to 8% – driving the overall increase.
      
      For the Parliamentary Opposition, support for Labour was virtually unchanged at 28.5%..’
      
      So National lead labour by 3.5% and thats a good result?
      
      NZF and Act are on 19.5% combined. That shows a lot of right wing voters unhappy with National.
      
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      July 2, 2025 10:15am
      - balanced
        
        “Christopher Luxon has overhauled the centre-right party since becoming leader and has now returned it to power with a win that has seen several LABOUR STRONGHOLD SEATS TURNING BLUE.”
        
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        July 2, 2025 12:06pm
      - pdm
        
        Balanced – your 12.06.
        
        You mistake National for disgust at what Labour and Greens did n the period 2020 to 2023.
        
        National was the vehicle to change the Government but, they are now swinging into Labour lite mode on everything but the economy.
        
        A huge disappointment.
        
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        July 2, 2025 12:52pm
      - balanced
        
        1. New data shows Kiwis are becoming safer with the Government tracking ahead of its violent crime reduction target, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith and Police Minister Mark Mitchell say.
        
        2. Every term since Term 1 2024 the coalition produced higher school attendance than the same term of the previous year.
        
        3. Efforts in the last quarter have delivered strong progress on the Government’s health targets, with more children fully immunised and emergency department stays shorter nationwide.
        
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        July 2, 2025 1:38pm
      - RoboRob
        
        @balanced
        
        ‘LABOUR STRONGHOLD SEATS TURNING BLUE’ you think that National turning into Labour and taking their vote is a good thing?
        
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        July 2, 2025 1:43pm
      - balanced
        
        PREJUDICE: an adverse opinion or leaning formed without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge
        
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        July 2, 2025 1:44pm
  - Beach Haven expat
    
    Agree re Minister Chhour. My concern with her is she clearly gets very upset by the vile attacks on her by Te Partly Maori et al and may decide it’s not worth it. That would be a loss.
    
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    July 2, 2025 11:55pm
- sungsamning
  
  Are ‘gifted names’ the same as grifted names? Asking for a friend.
  
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  July 2, 2025 8:30am
  - Clyde
    
    This form of snout feeding extends to Councils in the country that have almost zero East Polynesian presences. I’m aware of at least one that used to use a couple of lists of pioneers, people who had actually achieved something, or geographical features being replaced by a “gifted” list which had absolutely NO connection with either the community or the landscape. And yes, these Councils pay a yearly “retainer” fee to a self-appointed East Polynesian entity, and NO, the ratepayers are generally unaware of this gravy train that they are paying for.
    
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    July 2, 2025 9:33am
    - R
      
      NZ MSM make sure that ratepayers are unaware of such practices by not reporting such when they are implemented
      
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      July 2, 2025 10:21am
    - Mike
      
      Again with the “East Polynesian’ schtick?
      
      4 21
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      July 2, 2025 12:32pm
      - NZer In Exile
        
        Hurty feelings Mike? You’ll be fine.
        
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        July 2, 2025 5:47pm
    - pdm
      
      Here is information on the latest Council rort courtesy of Hobsons Pledge – Taupo District Council this time.
      https://nominister.wordpress.com/2025/07/02/co-governance-is-coming-to-taupo-district-council/
      
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      July 2, 2025 12:54pm
- keepcalmcarryon
  
  Although statistically speaking if any agency should retain a Maori name it’s that one.
  
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  July 2, 2025 8:43am
- alloytoo
  
  Te Pukotahitanga is not happy and has requested the gifted names Te Pukotahitanga and Te Puna Aonui to be removed “from all Crown use”.
  
  So that’s how it’s done.
  
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  July 2, 2025 9:14am
- RoboRob
  
  According to Luxon and Stanford you cant do that, you need to wait for Goldsmiths neverland Maori removal board to take action!
  
  If Chhour can remove stuff from her department there is nothing stopping Stanford, except the will to do it.
  
  It is now clear that National have ZERO interest in the removal of Maori ‘gunk’ from the public service. At least we now understand why Luxon in particular and National in general were so against Acts treaty principles bill. It was clearly not the process, which National used as their reasoning, it is now clear they never intended to follow through on their promise.
  
  This also explains why Seymour couldn’t get rid of school lunches, paid union leave during class hours (instead of during school holiday), a proper 3 strikes law and potentially why the roll out of partnership schools is tiny and slow. It seems clear that National just dont believe in this stuff and simply played lip service to it during the election period.
  
  If labour get decent, sane leadership like Helen Clark / Cullen again National is toast.
  
  I have few options on where my vote will go next year, at this point I am even considering note voting for the first time in my life. Even voting Act seems wrong as they just enable National.
  
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  July 2, 2025 9:18am
  - keepcalmcarryon
    
    It’s not they have zero interest in removal, Nats have actively inserted this nonsense in to legislation.
    Far far more dishonest.
    
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    July 2, 2025 9:36am
  - Debsta
    
    I understand the sentiment Rob, but don’t cut off your nose to spite your face will you. Act has the closest policy to your way of thinking by far so of course you should vote to give them a voice in parliament. A non-vote would be as feeble as the welded on unthinking left vote. Don’t be that.
    
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    July 2, 2025 9:45am
  - Mike
    
    It’s almost as if the national party don’t want to indulge in pointless virtue signaling to indulge assorted racists.
    
    2 24
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    July 2, 2025 12:34pm
    - RoboRob
      
      ‘…get rid of school lunches, paid union leave during class hours (instead of during school holiday), a proper 3 strikes law and potentially why the roll out of partnership schools is tiny and slow’
      
      Seems like its a lot more then that.
      
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      July 2, 2025 1:45pm
    - NZer In Exile
      
      On the contrary Mike. It’s almost as if they are desperate to appease assorted racists of the most blatant type.
      
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      July 2, 2025 5:49pm
kiwikidsnz

“Roy Morgan’s New Zealand Poll for June 2025 shows the National-led Government (National, ACT & NZ First) on 51.5% (up 1.5% points) and the Labour-Greens-Maori Party Parliamentary Opposition virtually unchanged on 44.5% (down 0.5% points) – the largest lead for the National-led Government for nine months since September 2024.”
https://www.roymorgan.com/findings/9983-nz-national-voting-intention-june-2025?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MRU%201%20July%202025&utm_content=MRU%201%20July%202025+CID_d3249ee1dd8848a2097abcc8349c4c28&utm_source=Market%20Research%20Update&utm_term=Read%20Full%20Article
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July 2, 2025 8:18am
- Debsta
  
  I guess that’s something
  
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  July 2, 2025 9:47am
  - R
    
    Hopefully, for our future, and that of our grandchildren, this is the beginning of a desirable trend.
    
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    July 2, 2025 10:41am
- cmm
  
  To me the scariest number is the 13% support for Maori Party with the 18-49 women.
  
  Maori are 17% of the population (though Maori are maybe 20% of the 18-49 population), so more than half of Maori women support TPM.
  
  If more than 50% of a demographic support a racist, activist, pro-terror organisation that’s a big concern.
  
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  July 2, 2025 12:41pm
  - Debsta
    
    The demographic of which you speak is young indoctrinated women of all races – captured by the feelz and sucked dry of their critical thinking skills. It is an out of control distortion now.
    
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    July 2, 2025 1:38pm
  - Groggy
    
    Yes hopefully ACT will go back to single figures. Ideally 0% but as shown on this blog, there are plenty of misogynist (Debsta looking at you) racists around.
    
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    July 2, 2025 3:37pm
kiwikidsnz

They’re everywhere…& they breed!

Civil servants in the UK have published a 150-page dossier on how to use the dot in the Government’s new £500,000 (NZ$1.12m) website logo.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/world-news/360743311/dotty-uk-civil-servants-spend-ps500k-full-stop
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July 2, 2025 8:24am
sungsamning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rPvHwY9ENE
Mamdani and AOC are the Democrats of the future.
The radical candidate’s primary victory means more about what lies ahead for the party than it does about prospects for the survival of American Jews.
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July 2, 2025 8:31am
sungsamning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FbEVjvjLns
What China’s Silence During The Iran Israel Conflict Says.
Mike Baker is joined by Stephen Yates of the Heritage Foundation to unpack China’s silence during the recent Iran-Israel war—including the U.S. bombing of Iranian nuclear sites. Why didn’t Beijing speak up? Was it strategic restraint—or something more revealing? Yates breaks down what China’s muted response says about its ambitions in the Middle East, its relationship with Iran, and its rivalry with the United States. [Thank God President Trump didn’t tell Dems/MSM until the last minute. Otherwise the CCP would have found out.]
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July 2, 2025 8:31am
Maggy Wassilieff

Chris Trotter writes of Labour’s dilemma:

The choices which Chris Hipkins and his team will have to make in relation to the forthcoming by-election are daunting.

https://pointofordernz.wordpress.com/2025/07/01/race-and-class-eh-cant-win-with-em-cant-win-without-em-order-your-popcorn-now/
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July 2, 2025 8:42am
- kiwikidsnz
  
  “… the social-cohesion-dissolving ideas and policies of Māori separatism: a process now so far advanced that Labour is unable and/or unwilling to stand up for a New Zealand composed of equal citizens with equal rights.”
  
  Not only Labour: add for eg. academia, the justice, legal, education & health systems, local govt, mainstream media…
  
  “The racist ethnostate that dare not speak its name”
  
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  July 2, 2025 9:02am
- RoboRob
  
  Labour is in a very strong position. Their polling is exceptionally good considering their massively incompetant team. If they were to replace their leadership with decent, intelligent people they would likely coast home next election. If National can bearly beat them with Hipkins at the helm imagine what would happen with a leader like Clark.
  
  Also trotter says…
  ‘Christopher Luxon, David Seymour and Winston Peters could individually and severally present Labour as a party enthralled to the social-cohesion-dissolving ideas and policies of Māori separatism: a process now so far advanced that Labour is unable and/or unwilling to stand up for a New Zealand composed of equal citizens with equal rights.
  
  At this point the above is simply not true. Luxon, Standford and likely Goldsmith clearly buy into the Maori seperatisim stuff.
  
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  July 2, 2025 9:27am
  - Media hater
    
    I think you are right about Labour being in a strong position. Mind you, almost by definition no ‘decent and intelligent people’ will lead the modern Labour party.
    
    How could anyone with any integrity even justify the shambles of 2020 to 2023, other than stating that the party had moved on from some unspecified hiccups that occurred during the covid era?
    
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    July 2, 2025 10:41am
    - RoboRob
      
      I expect a new leadership team could sweep in and claim, labour had gone too far under JA and Hipkins and that the new leadership team was moving Labour back to its pro worker roots. Easy.
      
      If Labour can be only 3.5% behind National with ‘We will reinstitute the oil exploration ban’ Hipkins at the helm it wouldn’t take much to have them well ahead on National.
      
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      July 2, 2025 11:54am
  - Paulus
    
    But where can they find replacements with decent, intelligent people ?
    This is New Zealand Labour remember.
    
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    July 2, 2025 2:56pm
- mogg
  
  Whichever way Labour chooses, the fact still remains that they are totally dependent on TPM at the next election. I expect Winston and Shane Jones to exploit to the max.
  
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  July 2, 2025 3:07pm
Bridgenag

The Plot to Get RFK, Jr.
BIO: “It is time to go to The Hill and lobby that it is time for RFK Jr to go.”

“This isn’t a war against misinformation. It’s a war against public transparency in science. BIO fears Kennedy not because he is wrong, but because he has exposed the scaffolding of a regime that substitutes marketing for medicine. He has publicly pledged reforms that, if enacted, could disrupt the financial and regulatory relationships this memo appears to protect by requiring the firms actually follow the rules.”

https://open.substack.com/pub/rwmalonemd/p/the-plot-to-get-rfk?r=1aj1bv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
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July 2, 2025 8:51am
G152

Friend called in and we watched Jaws2.
First though was who wrote this rubbish.
Second was if people actually acted like that and lived beyond 10
And a shark biting an electric cable and catching fire at sea.
?????????????
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July 2, 2025 8:54am
- Flossie
  
  Clearly you won’t be watching Superman then…a man who can fly and has x-ray vision to mention just a few of his super powers!
  
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  July 2, 2025 10:27am
  - pdm
    
    Flossie some of us almost (now) 80 year old kids grew up on Superman, The Phantom and Mandrake.
    
    Are you telling me they are not real?
    
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    July 2, 2025 1:45pm
    - Flossie
      
      Of course they are real! As real as that shark in Jaws (and the tooth fairy).
      
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      July 2, 2025 2:07pm
- imalwaysright
  
  If you like animal fiction you should try the Attenborough documentaries.
  Best watched with a bucket of popcorn and a pitcher of Kool-aid…
  
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  July 2, 2025 10:40am
  - Flossie
    
    I used to love David Attenborough’s documentaries but now you just KNOW you’re going to get the “we’re (you’re?) ruining the planet” lecture. Even after the cute lion cub scenes.
    
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    July 2, 2025 11:25am
    - muzled
      
      I started watching one with the family last year.
      
      About 3mins in I heard some doomsday prediction for the 3rd time and turned it off.
      
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      July 2, 2025 2:05pm
    - sungsamning
      
      Yes, he used to be watchable. No longer though.
      
      9 1
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      July 2, 2025 2:53pm
      - NeverMindTheBollocks
        
        To be fair, he is 99
        
        3 1
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        July 2, 2025 8:07pm
      - kiwimike
        
        and he lies.
        “fallen Idol” by Susan Crockford the Polar Bear scientist….
        
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        July 3, 2025 1:53am
- MCōs
  
  Jaws2 is not a documentary
  I read a Jack Reacher book in which someone hit him on the head with a hammer. He adjusted the bones and carried on and it wasn’t mentioned again.
  
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  July 2, 2025 1:18pm
- John Loveridge
  
  Hell, G152, don’t watch How To Train Your Dragon then!
  
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  July 2, 2025 1:30pm
I remember when

Principles of Treaty of Waitangi:
Where are the principles that Maori must adhere to?
Surely a Treaty requires action from both parties.
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July 2, 2025 9:00am
- RoboRob
  
  If Maori want to sell land they are required to offer it to sale to the government first and accept the price offered by the government.
  
  Of course this is never enforced, and is totally out of date.
  
  Maori get to be citizens and folow the laws if the land. Most do and are just like everyone else in NZ. A tiny subset chose to pretend they are not subject to ‘our’ laws and are instead ‘special’ people. It is sad that this small group ruins it for the rest.
  
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  July 2, 2025 9:31am
I remember when

When did NZTA become a patron of Maori Cultural Artwork?

Kaikoura Cultural Artwork Trail, Forgotten World Highway, Te Ahu a Turanga (Manawatu Tararua Highway), Waikato Expressway.

Part of what appears to be support for one area of the Art and Culture world.
An area that appears to have become a necessary part of every new highway upgrade.
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July 2, 2025 9:07am
- cmm
  
  NZTA is patron of many things.
  
  They are a patron of the “Centre of Excellence” thing that has the mathematical modellers who told us 80,000 grannies were going to die during Covid.
  
  NZTA should not be patron to anything other than maybe the Patron Saint of shovels and fixing pot holes.
  
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  July 2, 2025 1:10pm
  - Mike
    
    Perhaps you have better estimates from your other epidemiological studies of effects on unvaccinated and unquarantined populations made in advance of the arrival of Covid.
    
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    July 2, 2025 1:59pm
    - muzled
      
      Are you saying you still, even now, support Michael Hendy’s ‘model’ predicting there would be 70,000 cases by Waitangi day?
      
      And when we got to Feb 6 there were how many Mike?
      
      Correct me if I’m wrong but it was 376.
      
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      July 2, 2025 2:08pm
    - NZer In Exile
      
      What Sweden (and to a large degree Norway, Denmark and Finland) did would be something worth looking at in that regard Mike.
      
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      July 2, 2025 6:17pm
- Paulus
  
  Well Taxpayers will unknowingly pay for this crap !
  
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  July 2, 2025 2:58pm
imalwaysright

One good thing about the Youth Parliament is that the Green Youth are too young to face charges…
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July 2, 2025 9:09am
- sirknz
  
  As emotionally mature as their adult counterparts…
  
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  July 2, 2025 10:16am
RoboRob

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/565709/taxpayer-funded-satellite-likely-irrecoverable-after-losing-contact-with-the-ground

‘MethaneSAT was given $29 million from the New Zealand government, with the aim of growing the space industry.

The mission’s goal was to name and shame oil and gas producers that were allowing planet-heating methane to escape into the atmosphere.’

‘The University of Auckland has been waiting to take over the mission control at its new, partly taxpayer-funded Te Pūnaha Ātea Space Institute.’

Which government wasted our money on a ‘name and shame oil and gas producers’ satellite? How does funding such a mission ‘grow the NZ space industry’?

I am a shareholder in Rocket Lab the company that launced this thing. They would have received well less then $5m for their launch costs. If the NZ government wanted to fund Rocket lab (which they shouldn’t) they could have just given them the $29m without the virtue signalling.
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July 2, 2025 9:57am
- RoboRob
  
  From Co pilot
  
  The New Zealand government funded MethaneSAT through a partnership established in 2019 with the U.S.-based Environmental Defense Fund and its subsidiary, MethaneSAT LLC. The funding came from two main sources:
  
  🛰️ $18 million from the Strategic Science Investment Fund to establish the Mission Operations Control Centre at the University of Auckland’s Te Pūnaha Ātea Space Institute
  
  🌱 $6 million over four years from Catalyst: Strategic to support an atmospheric science programme focused on agricultural methane emissions
  
  So thanks very much Jacinda.
  
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  July 2, 2025 10:19am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Which government wasted our money on a ‘name and shame oil and gas producers’ satellite?
  
  It seems to be clearly a brain-fart of the Labour-Green Coalition Party.
  
  In 2019 MethaneSAT announced the NZ Govt was putting $16Million into the project…and confirmed that they had been in discussion with NZ for the past year.
  
  https://www.methanesat.org/project-updates/new-zealand-invest-16-million-methanesat
  
  How the hell the project morphed into a $29 Million
  balls-up is well hidden in spin.
  
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  July 2, 2025 11:06am
Gravelroad

This Mamdani bloke who is seeking to stand for Mayor of New York (and his far left activist supporters) must be loving all the free publicity he is currently getting.
Now Mr Trump has called him out as a communist.
He might be better advised to say nothing at all about Mr Mamdani.
The Mamdani cult is going along well enough without the President drawing attention to their leader and his authoritarian policies.
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July 2, 2025 10:19am
- Mike
  
  I LOL’d the other day when one of the KBB regulars called Mamdani a communist.
  Words actually have meanings. Mamdani would fit comfortably here as a centrist National or Labour MP,
  
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  July 2, 2025 11:16am
  - RoboRob
    
    I dont think Labour or even National are proposing state owned supermarkets (a la Russia). The extreme left (green / TPM) are talking about the government setting rental prices though.
    
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    July 2, 2025 11:57am
  - Cassandra
    
    Nonsense. Acquiring the means of production, as he advocates, is not centrist. He is a classic socialist – rent conservative nteols, more tax, state controlled weed supermarkets and so on.
    
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    July 2, 2025 11:59am
    - Tom Hunter
      
      He literally said, “The end goal is seizing the means of production”
      
      It doesn’t get more communist than that.
      
      He’s also a dumb bastard, claiming that NYC was subsidising grocery stores to the tune of $140 million a year and proposing to use that money instead for his government grocery stores.
      
      Trouble is that he misread website talking about how $140 million was “invested into NYC’s economy through FRESH,” – except that’s almost all private investment…. from corporate-owned grocery stores.
      
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      July 2, 2025 12:27pm
      - Swifty
        
        Mike spewing nonsense once again.
        
        His “seizing the means of production” comment is one of many which have surfaced from Mamdani in the last few days which openly reveal his hatred of capitalism and free markets and his love for central planning and state control.
        
        And it’s all on tape.
        
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        July 2, 2025 12:41pm
      - Mike
        
        Ha!
        Yes, and Sid Holland called for the “private ownership of production, distribution and exchange” yet somehow kept the welfare state, government-owned businesses and compulsory unionism!
        Benjamin Netanyahu wants “Israel sovereignty from the river to the sea”!
        Some municipal grocery stores? Spare it. How about moaning about all the red states running liquor stores?
        
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        July 2, 2025 12:47pm
      - Wandering Star
        
        Do none of you realise that “the free market” is a myth, except perhaps on a localised level? It doesn’t exist because “the capitalists” fund politics and what they get in return for their ownership of the government apparatus is the ability to determine its policies and laws.
        
        Ask yourself why on earth billionaires would advocate for or allow a free market in which they could lose out? They wouldn’t. They pay for protectionism and subsidies, and that is what they get. Then they convince the easily led masses that we live in a meritocratic free market to distract from the reality.
        
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        July 2, 2025 1:51pm
    - MCōs
      
      Here is an NYT article on Mamdani’s promises
      https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/28/nyregion/mamdani-policies-economy-housing-buses-childcare.html
      
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      July 2, 2025 1:15pm
      - NZer In Exile
        
        Haven’t followed the Mamdani thing closely but I can guarantee if he gets in (if he hasn’t already) he will cause millions more to flee NYC and the place will become more crime ridden and unaffordable (and probably screwed in many other ways). “Social Democrats” (aka quasi-Marxists) always screw things up.
        
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        July 2, 2025 6:22pm
- kowtow
  
  These gilded “communists” are a larf a second.
  
  Mamdani , while he spouts all the classical marxist platitudes ,to get the support ,unbelievably of the higher level educated class white Democrat useful idiots is in fact a hypocrite who is wealthier than most of his support base and while he talks the talk against “whites” , his family moved to the US and are basically now themselves American aristos of the Hollywood and Academia set.
  
  Even better , while he spouts far left clap trap , his family left an “independent” post colonial Uganda as the newly freed and now no longer oppressed by the evil British basically didn’t want Indians living there , where his family must have set up shop in colonial white run Africa , taking advantage of the undoubted benefits of being subjects of the greatest empire the world has ever seen.
  
  And perhaps best of all , he himself is reported as still owning land in Uganda , which must make him some sort of colonial master himself and in the mind of his hero Karl Marx , part of the evil bourgeois land owning class!
  
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  July 2, 2025 1:28pm
  - Mike
    
    his family must have set up shop in colonial white run Africa , taking advantage of the undoubted benefits
    
    Indentured laborers, but perhaps that was done for the benefit of the laborers, like slavery was to benefit slaves or colonization was for the good of the colonized.
    
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    July 2, 2025 1:56pm
I remember when

“The instrument of dissent and criticism is the individual faculty member or the individual student.
The university is the home and sponsor of critics; it is not itself the critic.”
David Lillis and Peter Schwerdtfeger.
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July 2, 2025 10:28am
Philview

I listened to an interesting interview by Neil Oliver this week where he discussed the Fabian Society and influence on current British politics. He mentioned that the Fabian logo is a wolf in sheep’s clothing and also discussed the ideology promoted by socialists of gathering together a coalition of minorities to fight for a single goal of destroying the white middle class in the UK. He was talking about the UK but clearly a similar ideology has been promoted here. Many commenters talk of being subjected to critical race theory etc. Has anyone ever heard if Jacinda Ardern is a Fabian?
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July 2, 2025 11:21am
- fightingtemeraire
  
  Read why they are called the Fabian Society.
  
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  July 2, 2025 11:32am
  - Cassandra
    
    Fabians active here in the 1930s. Closely involved then in the NZLP.
    
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    July 2, 2025 12:01pm
  - imalwaysright
    
    From the interweb:
    “The Fabian Society (/ˈfeɪbiən/[1]) is a British socialist organisation whose purpose is to advance the principles of social democracy and democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist effort in democracies, rather than by revolutionary overthrow.”
    
    So they prefer to infiltrate, undermine, and then overthrow, democracies.
    
    Sounds like NZ may be the first bullet point on their CV.
    
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    July 2, 2025 12:29pm
  - Jack5
    
    Fabian Society members of the past included famous New Zealander William Pember Reeves.
    
    A Christ’s College old boy, he served three terms in Parliament as an Independent then Liberal member. Reeves introduced NZ’s Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act 1894.
    
    Reeves became first NZ’s High Commissioner in London and then was director of the London School of Economics from 1908 to 1919. From 1917 to 1931 he was chairman of the National Bank of New Zealand.
    
    Several prominent British writers were Fabians, including George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, and G.K. Chesterton.
    
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    July 2, 2025 2:47pm
- Mike
  
  Very scary.
  Check out https://www.fabians.org.nz/
  
  We seek to build a community of interested and engaged citizens thinking about policy and acting on their progressive ideals to make a difference to New Zealand society.
  
  ‘Progressive ideals’ is obvious code for destroying the bourgeoisie, collectivizing agriculture and establishing gulags.
  
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  July 2, 2025 12:52pm
  - rouppe
    
    It was jacinda that established gulags in the form of forced MIQ hotels.
    
    It was such a socialist ideal you had to pay for your own confinement!
    
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    July 2, 2025 2:24pm
    - Mike
      
      You may be surprised to earn that medical quarantine predates Ardern and even predates socialism!
      
      3 12
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      July 2, 2025 3:56pm
      - Taieri
        
        You may be surprised to earn that medical quarantine predates Ardern and even predates socialism!
        ————
        
        It does. The difference is, Ardern quarantined healthy people.
        
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        July 2, 2025 5:59pm
  - NZer In Exile
    
    Progressive is code for regressive and authoritarian. There is very little that is progressive about so called “progressives” these days.
    
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    July 2, 2025 5:51pm
- Wandering Star
  
  “Fabian socialists” didn’t comprise the Frankfurt School who devised critical theory. They didn’t flee 1930s Nazi Germany and set up in New York because they were Fabians.
  
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  July 2, 2025 1:56pm
ecco

Interesting to read in the nzh about the parking meter debacle at Wellington city council. Where those new solar power, te reo compliant meters cost $8800 each. The nzh asked for details of the coatings under the official information act. The wcc told them to rack off citing commercially sensitive information. Really? So wcc really are a law unto themselves on every level.

What are the left leaning green and labour councillors saying about this? They are driving this council. Just thanking my lucky stars I don’t live in that town anymore with its exorbitant rates structure and council that fears no one. So sad to see a once great city go down the gurgler at the hands of the woke council. A woke city in one of the wokest countries in the world,..
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July 2, 2025 12:02pm
- MCōs
  
  What’s your actual problem?
  The cost of replacing a system that apparently had reached its use by date?
  The reticence of the council to say how much it cost?
  The bilingual instructions, which I’d agree is a bit of a luxury?
  I used that system when I was Wellington recently and its streets ahead of some I’m encountered for taking your money!
  I also ran into a parking warden who was very pleased with the new system as he gaily issued someone with an infringement notice!
  
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  July 2, 2025 5:59pm
lifesgood

People living in the Waiwera valley, north of Auckland are being called out as nimbys for objecting to a colossal gold statue of Buddha being erected in the countryside. I don’t live anywhere near Waiwera but I understand their feelings. This so called “art work”, which, of course it isn’t, is going to be 50 feet or about 5 stories high smack bang in the middle of beautiful rolling green countryside. It will definitely be a blot on the landscape. I can’t understand how it got resource consent. Does this clear the way for anyone to erect enormous installations anywhere in NZ’s beautiful countryside and claim them as art work? Please note I have a great respect for the Buddhist religion.
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July 2, 2025 12:13pm
- graham
  
  The answer is, it didn’t get resource consent. None was required, because the council considers it “art”.
  
  https://www.1news.co.nz/2025/07/01/just-monstrous-giant-buddha-statue-causes-a-stir-with-rural-community/
  
  Residents only learned of the building plans in recent months. After raising concerns with the council, they were told the piece had been accepted as artwork under the Auckland Unitary Plan.
  
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  July 2, 2025 12:48pm
- Yvette
  
  Always tell the truth, even when you’re not
  The core message is to avoid lying and deceit in all forms.
  
  The plinth is over-engineered, visually and structurally. It’s taller and bulkier than needed to simply elevate the statue artistically. It has the proportions of a foundation platform — suspiciously similar to what you’d see at temples in Thailand, Nepal, or Tibet, where the statue is phase one, and a hall, shrine, or gathering space grows around it.
  Nobody builds an oversized plinth like that for aesthetics alone, especially when they’re already dodging resource consent by calling it “art.” A monastery, to study art installations in the Waiwera valley, will be next.
  
  It is obviously an odd place to erect a likely rather costly art form and hope people will be converted to consider it in religious reflection, when the planning perversion to build it is probable against the teachings of the entity the “art form” will represent.
  
  For example, the Dalai Lama has often emphasized:
  •Buddhist projects must respect the wishes and sensitivities of the broader community,
  • Spiritual development cannot be imposed or snuck in under false pretenses,
  • True Dharma practice is about harmony, consent, and openness, not tactics that fuel resentment.
  
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  July 2, 2025 1:10pm
  - imalwaysright
    
    I wish Dalai Lama would run the Maori Party.
    
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    July 2, 2025 5:28pm
- Ehlana
  
  IIRC the answer is yes, if you call it an art work Council can’t stop it.
  But, if you organise a gathering to eat/pray/teach around it, you will need resource consent.
  
  They would have been better to engage with their neighbours before going ahead with this.
  
  And we should change the “artwork” rules to specify that the art must not be visible to passersby.
  
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  July 2, 2025 1:27pm
- MCōs
  
  My Buddhist wife thinks these people should be thankful that such an auspicious monument is being located in their vicinity.
  I’d add that’s it better than an ugly power pylon or a helipad or a wind turbine
  
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  July 2, 2025 1:45pm
  - NZer In Exile
    
    I’m OK with Buddhists. Pompous lefties playing at being oh so holy buddhists can be chunder material though.
    
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    July 2, 2025 5:54pm
- NothingLeft
  
  The world does not need another bloody statue of that fatty, there are already millions of them all over the planet. Spend the money on something that actually helps people.
  
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  July 2, 2025 6:30pm
cmm

I was looking at some of the stats around community-service sentences. They’re shocking.

There are around 10,000 prisoners in NZ and 30,000 people serving community sentences.

People can, effectively, choose when they work etc within a few parameters: max 10 hours a day, max 40 hours a week, minimum of 100 hours every 6 months (or about 4 hours a week at a sustained pace).

Up to 20% can be claimed for learning work and living skills. Spend time learning to drive, budgeting, reading, cooking etc, go to work? All those count as community service.

However it would seem that this is not what is happening on the ground:
* In 2023 660,000 hours of community work were done. Sounds like a lot, but based on 30,000 people that would be 22 hours per person average in a year. This suggests that very few people are diligently turning up. They certainly are not meeting the 100 hours every six months requirement.
* Between 20 and 25% don’t complete the service and it is unclear that there are significant consequences.

Yet again, the problem is not with the laws. The problems are with the application and enforcement.

Things I would like to see National accomplish to prove that they are “tough on crime”:
* Over 90% of people fully comply with community service requirements – show up rain or shine and do their time on time. 100 hours every 6 months.
* Less than 1% of people end up with hardship extensions etc (eg. unexpected medial issues).
* The rest end up going to prison.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/what-you-need-to-know/533152/most-offenders-serve-their-sentence-in-the-community-but-what-does-community-work-involve
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July 2, 2025 12:25pm
- imalwaysright
  
  “The problems are with the application and enforcement.”
  
  Definitely.
  
  Could this be a result of workplaces becoming babysitting services for the employees, and asking said babies to actually do the job for which they are paid will probably lead to the Employment Court and the employer charged with bullying?
  
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  July 2, 2025 12:37pm
Swifty

Apparently we have the lowest number of houses per 1,000 people in the developed world:

https://www.reddit.com/r/newzealand/comments/1cm9qtf/new_zealand_has_the_lowest_number_of_houses_per/

This has got to be one of the greatest political failures of my lifetime – progressively over decades making it too expensive, difficult, complex, long and risky to build affordable houses en masse.

Our political class is so incompetent they can’t even get basics like this right – but now expect applause and acclaim, as well as your vote, for belatedly building a few using your tax money.

Some UK info too:

https://x.com/ben_a_hopkinson/status/1939974469553926507?s=46
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July 2, 2025 12:37pm
- Mike
  
  Dead right. Successive governments have made housing steadily more unaffordable.
  
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  July 2, 2025 12:55pm
  - NZer In Exile
    
    So have nutcase local councils.
    
    4 0
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    July 2, 2025 5:56pm
- [email protected]
  
  Houses are expensive in New Zealand because a house is the best place to put your money. When inflation is higher than interest income ( which is taxed) keeping your money in the bank is a losing situation.
  
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  July 2, 2025 1:24pm
  - Quail
    
    Info@ cp
    Agreed.
    Inflation is a just another way for Government to redistribute the savings people have worked so hard for.
    
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    July 2, 2025 1:48pm
    - Don Beckett
      
      Housing is so expensive in NZ because since around the 1990’s land has become extremely expensive. Central govt. has given local govt. the power to do whatever they want re zoning etc.
      Up till the 1970’s there were plenty of affordable houses, and in the mid 1970’s central govt imposed regs. to prevent too many houses being built, involving financial constraints.
      In the late 1990’s I was involved in small scale development – due to RMA & constrictions by local govt., land prices quadrupled in 5 years.
      There are other reasons, but the problem is fairly recent & has caused housing unaffordability.
      
      8 1
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      July 2, 2025 4:30pm
      - imalwaysright
        
        I heard that the average age of a first home buyer in London is 37, New York 38.
        NZ must be getting up there as well.
        Its looking like ownership of your own home will be for high earners only.
        
        4 0
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        July 2, 2025 5:36pm
  - Nigel Kearney
    
    I agree with the first sentence. The second sentence is true but irrelevant. Keeping money in the bank is nearly always a poor choice. The problem in NZ compared to places like the US or Singapore, is that regulations and tax make it unattractive to invest in businesses here, so residential property has become our preferred form of investment.
    
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    July 2, 2025 1:56pm
  - NothingLeft
    
    Sharemarkets have gone up about 5x in last 25 years, houses about 3x. I’ve done far better out of shares than houses, and have gotten out of housing altogether in the last few years as prices ascended to insane levels – I’m far better off renting and keeping my equity in shares.
    
    2 1
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    July 2, 2025 6:42pm
- artemisia
  
  While I agree there are way too many housing rules, regs and costs it is possible to build homes more cheaply. It’s just that they will look like the ‘projects’ – high rise, small and very basic – and plenty would not choose to live there. Not the New Zealand way.
  
  What could be the NZ way, however, is an idea Rodney Hide floated years ago. Subdivide some land, let owners build what they like, and no comeback from councils and neighbours.
  
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  July 2, 2025 4:25pm
Jack5

Goldsmith ain’t no fireball

That’s apparent in a media interview put up today. I’m cynical but I thought the goals of Media Minister Paul Goldsmith were typified in it by his hope that Shortland Street would continue.

The Government’s kicking media reforms down the road. That’s apparent in the interview of Goldsmith by the Herald’s Shayne Currie.

Currie says in conclusion there’s a sense that several media initiatives have been pushed back on the Government’s several programme and are hardly a priority.

There’s an unspoken message that the Coalition’s media strategy is that of the National Party: dividends, content – more of the same, dividends, dividends, and look after the “Fourth Estate,” it’s important.

You can watch the interview here:

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/media-insider/media-insider-rnz-morning-report-faces-shake-up-longtime-executive-editor-martin-gibson-retires/SM4QNTROZFCGTO4I6CETSAVR3U/
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July 2, 2025 1:12pm
- R
  
  We had 6 years of a self-styled fireball government, and look at the mess they left; nearly burnt the country to the ground.
  
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  July 2, 2025 4:51pm
Sparrow

With the talk especially from the likes of ACT to privatise the InterIslander. It got me thinking it would be ideal for Bluebridge to consolidate the service. In my abject naivety I thought that would be great one New Zealand company operating across our most important transport link. How silly of me time and events had passed me by. Bluebridge is owned by Morgan Stanley Infrastructure based in London and New York. History keeps repeating itself New Zealand companies get gobbled up by foreigners. I would hate to see Cook Strait owned by heavyweight foreigners. Seymour gave school lunches to a very dubious UK company, whats next on his list ? Hopefully Winston keeps to his NZ First thinking.
.
7 3
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July 2, 2025 1:40pm
- cmm
  
  “I would hate to see Cook Strait owned by heavyweight foreigners.”
  Why? If they do the job who cares who owns them?
  Sure, if you’re going to get apples vs apples then an NZ mob would be preferable, but that’s not likely to happen.
  
  NZ is capital-poor. Things either get gobbled up by overseas investors or the government.
  Which would you prefer?
  
  10 4
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  July 2, 2025 2:07pm
  - Paulus
    
    Why do we not lease our ferries from any one of the major European Ferry Services – one breaks down another follows straight away.
    But we have Unions !
    
    7 1
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    July 2, 2025 3:05pm
    - Ian Boag
      
      Why would the unions care who owns the ferries they crew … ?
      
      1 1
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      July 2, 2025 5:35pm
      - kiwikidsnz
        
        Because Govt SOE jobsworths are invested in their own bureaucracy, weak & constantly rollover to Union demands & featherbedding.
        
        Think back to pre Prebble finally dealing to the ferry unions who held NZ to ransom every holiday period.
        
        2 0
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        July 2, 2025 6:13pm
      - AitchW
        
        Kiwikids, I worked in the shipping industry when Prebble et al were dealing to the unions. We came to within a hair of the shipping companies caving in to the watersiders, but the union blinked first.
        
        2 0
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        July 2, 2025 9:27pm
    - Taieri
      
      But we have Unions !
      ————
      
      A number of vessels trading on the Kiwi coast in the recent years were bare-boat chartered. Some of them were operated by what is now Kiwi Rail:
      Purbeck, Valentine, Kaiarahi and Kaitaki. The last 3 vessels were subsequently purchased by Kiwi Rail.
      
      1 0
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      July 2, 2025 6:09pm
- MCōs
  
  The rail/ferry system was privatized by the Bolger administration and renamed Transrail.
  Ten years later it was back in government hands due to lax safety standards, inadequate maintenance, asset stripping and insider trading
  
  10 4
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  July 2, 2025 2:37pm
  - Tom Hunter
    
    Ten years later it was back in government hands due to lax safety standards, inadequate maintenance, asset stripping….
    
    Nope, debunked many times, Urban myths about Kiwirail by “Liberty Scott” who specialises in transport analysis.
    
    … and insider trading
    
    Is this a reference to the desperate jabs Labour was taking at John Key? I recall something along those lines and it never went anywhere.
    
    Oh, and in a separate post he looks at other aspects of such claims amidst a long piece on NZ privatisation in general
    
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    July 2, 2025 5:47pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  Bluebridge was started by a New Zealander who owned a trucking firm & got sick of dealing with KiwiFerry, so he bought his own boats instead. When he died, his family sold the combined firm to MacQuarrie (I think), who after a period sold it on to Morgan Stanley. They in turn will sell it at some point, probably to the California Teachers Pension fund or some such.
  
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  July 2, 2025 8:40pm
rouppe

This could have some implications in other areas regarding in utero.

Auckland boy racer jailed for hitting pregnant teen, causing baby’s death

An Auckland boy racer who hit a pregnant teen at an illegal event, resulting in her baby’s death, appears in the High Court at Auckland for sentencing on a manslaughter charge.

Who was it that insisted that in utero babies aren’t humans?

Mike?
17 5
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July 2, 2025 2:04pm
- mandk
  
  I think this is great.
  
  By implication, anyone who performs an abortion is guilty of homicide, and anyone who receives an abortion is complicit in the homicide.
  
  The legality of killing an unborn baby must not rest on whether or not the mother wants the baby.
  
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  July 2, 2025 2:24pm
- Mike
  
  There is quite a difference between early termination of a pregnancy, later terminations for medical reasons and termination as a result of criminal activity.
  
  4 12
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  July 2, 2025 2:45pm
  - rouppe
    
    The main difference seems to be the number of cells in the victim
    
    10 3
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    July 2, 2025 4:00pm
    - Mike
      
      Zygotes are not ‘victims’.
      
      0 11
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      July 2, 2025 5:40pm
      - rouppe
        
        A zygote is a single cell formed from the union of an ovum and a sperm cell.
        
        Which happens in the fallopian tube, before even reaching the uterus.
        
        Which by definition can’t be subject to a termination because there’s still the natural possibility of it not attaching to the uterus and resulting in no pregnancy.
        
        And nothing close to your previous assertions that terminating a foetus at any stage cannot be killing a baby.
        
        You’re bouncing around trying to wiggle out of this by flinging words about. And not actually bringing your stinging// intellect to the implications of this death being prosecuted as a homicide.
        
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        July 2, 2025 9:26pm
    - imalwaysright
      
      I agree that women have the right to decide what happens to their body.
      That includes the right to not get pregnant.
      Disposal of a baby because it is inconvenient is wrong.
      
      4 0
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      July 2, 2025 5:45pm
  - NZer In Exile
    
    Mike, apart from you being an adult and a foetus not being one, what is the difference between you being in a coma and someone deciding that you’re not wanted so you get stabbed in the head (without your permission) and a live human foetus being stabbed in the head (obviously without it’s permission)?
    
    See if you can answer that honestly without being obtuse.
    
    5 0
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    July 2, 2025 6:03pm
- R
  
  I imagine that the pro-abortion movement will provide support for this miscreant. Financial and moral
  
  5 2
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  July 2, 2025 4:55pm
  - MCōs
    
    I’d have to say that’s a pretty disgusting comment, no matter where you sit on the abortion debate
    
    1 2
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    July 2, 2025 5:41pm
    - NZer In Exile
      
      Is this like trying to shame someone because they are rattling the cage of feminist dogma?
      
      2 0
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      July 2, 2025 6:06pm
Surely Knott

Similar crime very different response from police/media. :

This morning: “Man accused of killing young daughter and dropping body at police station, named” “Mukesh Prashad, 37, is accused of smothering his five-year-old daughter, Tulsi Amola, to death sometime on January 5.”

Also this morning: “Freemans Bay homicide investigation: Dead baby found in Auckland wheelie bin” ” “This is a tragedy for everyone concerned and there is a person’s wellbeing to consider here alongside the investigation, so we will ensure the woman gets the support she needs,” Beard said.” ?!!!???

So the woman who dumps her baby in the bin needs support, the woman who murdered her baby with zip ties needs support, but a man who smothers his baby with a pillow has to take full responsibility.
12 3
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July 2, 2025 2:47pm
- Swifty
  
  Right outside my sister’s shop.
  
  She thinks it’s her bin, but not allowed outside to check, cops have it all roped off.
  
  10 1
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  July 2, 2025 3:58pm
- Mike
  
  Did you miss the bit about it being a ‘homicide investigation’?
  
  2 13
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  July 2, 2025 3:59pm
  - Surely Knott
    
    Yes. I see it’s a homicide investigation. So it’s interesting that their comment is about the suspects well being.
    
    8 1
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    July 2, 2025 5:07pm
    - Mike
      
      That’s not inconsistent with investigating a possible homicide. From what is reported, it could have been a stillbirth, or the baby died from natural causes.
      
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      July 2, 2025 5:46pm
Ra Henare

I was disappointed with Mike Hoskins correspondent from America this morning. No fact checking or push back from Mike.

It seems he just regurgitates US MSM info.

I refer to the current debate about the cuts to Medicare and Medicaid.

Yes Trump on the Campaign trail said he would not touch those two benefits.

Richard Arnold says ..that was a lie….
Good for a click bait but doesnt standup to scrutiny.

What has been identified and cut is the fraud and waste. Ie Illegals do not qualify but have been paid out in the past.

So Richard Arnold is “”full of it””

The details of the changes.

https://www.kiplinger.com/retirement/medicare/changes-to-medicare-in-the-one-big-beautiful-bill-act
8 3
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July 2, 2025 3:16pm
- Mike
  
  If you think that the cuts to Medicaid are about combating fraud and waste, then you haven’t been paying attention.
  
  1 9
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  July 2, 2025 5:43pm
Scooter

Oh good, so he’s out after 13 years for murdering and dismembering his girlfriend’s body. At least he has to disclose any intimate relationships. And maybe they should add buying any saws or large knives to that.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/carmen-thomas-murder-infamous-killer-brad-callaghan-to-be-released-this-month/HZD3JMNYS5CFFOWGMXI2ZYFFU4/
11 2
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July 2, 2025 4:44pm
- NZer In Exile
  
  Just a random thought. If we had WW3, I’m thinking the survivors would get together and terminate people like this. But because we are drunk with the selfishness of gluttony and excess we tolerate the intolerable.
  
  6 0
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  July 2, 2025 6:09pm
- NothingLeft
  
  A large number of women are attracted to violent nutters like this due to the cumulative effects of evolution in more violent times.
  
  Women’s ~~porn~~ romance novels features a lot of violent powerful monsters (vampires, werewolves), and men (domineering billionaires etc), and show pretty clearly that their fantasies are strongly skewed towards these attributes and not sensitivity, supportiveness or other pro-social behavior they pretend to value.
  
  3 0
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  July 2, 2025 6:52pm
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    QV the female journalists who get all excited about MMA (and yet are strangely critical about Run At).
    
    3 0
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    July 2, 2025 8:43pm
- [email protected]
  
  Hard to understand why New Zealand doesn’t have the death penalty. Everyone is worried that an innocent person might die.
  
  The number of innocent people that might get executed would be negligible compared to the number killed by the people that get out when they should have been terminated.
  
  3 0
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  July 2, 2025 7:13pm
  - NothingLeft
    
    Be an interesting hypothesis to test and poll to run; what percentage of released murderers go on to seriously hurt or kill new victims after release, and what percentage is acceptable to society. Set sentencing and parole accordingly. Not based on judge’s biases
    
    0 0
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    July 2, 2025 9:32pm
  - kiwimike
    
    Yep ask the Jews about the thousands they hand back for hostages !!
    
    0 0
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    July 3, 2025 2:11am
Swifty

Do New Zealanders under 40 or 50 even know what ‘Tory’ refers to these days?

https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/360605837/live-nz-politics-blog

Hipkins, what an egg.
4 0
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July 2, 2025 5:42pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  Mayor of Wellington!
  
  1 0
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  July 2, 2025 8:44pm
- AitchW
  
  Real cloth cap Labour petulance.
  
  2 0
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  July 2, 2025 9:23pm
Swifty

I wonder if the lefty youth MPs walked out when the righties got up to speak as they’ve done in previous years:

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/565764/e-mail-to-youth-mps-could-have-been-clearer-ministry

Primadonnas. Pansies.
4 0
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July 2, 2025 6:09pm
- AitchW
  
  Just emulating their adult lefty role models.
  
  1 0
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  July 2, 2025 9:22pm
NothingLeft

Surprising stat: Women perpetrate more child abuse than men, in this Australian study about 4:3 ratio:

https://www.aic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-05/18-1314-FinalReport.pdf

Which really says that the general working assumptions of judiciary/society with regard to who is the best parent to care for kids is actually most likely to be the dad, not the mum – particularly as women tend to suffer from more mental health issues, anxiety disorders, negative emotions in general. And that is without taking into account also the rather bad selfishness inducing narcissistic impacts wrought by constant exposure to ‘yes women’ approvals and excusing of destructive behaviors in social media (princess pumping).
4 0
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July 2, 2025 7:41pm
rouppe

Australia also seems to be having an energy crisis with gas and coal having been pushed aside for unreliable renewable energy.
4 0
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July 2, 2025 8:02pm
- kiwimike
  
  yep
  serves them right…
  Consequences/
  
  0 0
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  July 3, 2025 2:13am

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