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July 5, 2025 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 05 July 2025

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General Debate

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NeverMindTheBollocks

I’ve been waiting for this. Maori-descent kids born overseas who have no right to live in NZ.

A penny to a knob of goatshit that Debbie & Rawiri will be screeching outrage before the day is over.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360745892/maori-kids-great-grandad-all-black-who-are-nz-illegally
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July 5, 2025 8:02am
- Northshoredoc
  
  He’s a shoe in – already on the benefit, signed up john Delamare as his lawyer and spouting nonsense about his Whakapapa.
  
  Probably be an MP after the next election.
  
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  July 5, 2025 9:14am
- lifesgood
  
  They are not and never have been New Zealanders. They have no more right than any other foreigner to live here. Father claiming he has family here, yeah, rellies he never knew or spent time with. Seems our welfare is just too attractive. Lol, the kids love living in Porirua.
  
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  July 5, 2025 9:17am
- artemisia
  
  Residency or citizenship on the basis of heritage alone will open the floodgates. There will be hundreds of thousands in that position. Including quite a few in my extended family. My siblings and more than half my many first cousins have lived in Australia and elsewhere overseas for many years, taken citizenship and raised families there.
  
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  July 5, 2025 9:27am
  - JerJer
    
    They have no show. There is nothing that says anything about this in the damn treaty. They are grasping at straws. This is not in the public interest, not exceptional and they have two ACT ministers to get through. So, not happening. They could try the investment route where you have to invest 5m in NZ business as part of the process, but it seems they don’t have the money. Hard cheese I say. Take your sob story somewhere else, and don’t make it about race…..again.
    
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    July 5, 2025 9:39am
    - Swifty
      
      You’re right JerJer, the Treaty is silent on this – but that doesn’t really matter, it’s the principles of the treaty that will matter and one of these is ‘active protection’.
      
      ‘Active protection’ of course can be made to mean literally anything some wish it to mean (that’s why it’s there) so I wouldn’t be the least surprised if it is applied in this case.
      
      BTW, has this bloke done a runner with the kids from Hawaii?
      
      I wonder how the kids’ mother thinks about their exit to New Zealand?
      
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      July 5, 2025 12:15pm
      - Ghost
        
        Currently going through the courts in Hawaii to get full custody, not sure how this will look to the courts.
        
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        July 5, 2025 2:24pm
      - Swifty
        
        If it’s going through the US courts can it be therefore presumed that the mother is contesting it?
        
        Has this bloke skipped the country with the kids?
        
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        July 5, 2025 2:58pm
      - Ghost
        
        I wondered about the case so went and searched
        
        https://www.courts.state.hi.us/legal_references/records/jims_system_availability
        
        Go have a look. If it is the same person a lot of traffic crimes, a domestic abuse cases, first filed against him, then he filed against the woman.
        
        as he doesn’t have full custody he cannot take the kids out of the USA without the mother’s permission.
        
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        July 5, 2025 3:31pm
    - rouppe
      
      The Immigration Minister will fold like a wet tissue.
      
      This seems to be the plan all along. It looks like he made no effort to gain a visa before arriving.
      
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      July 5, 2025 1:29pm
      - Ra Henare
        
        Just tried to fold a wet tissue, near impossible!!!!
        
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        July 5, 2025 4:57pm
    - Paulus
      
      But I bet someone in the Immigration Department will let them in.
      
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      July 5, 2025 1:55pm
  - Swifty
    
    Good points artemisia.
    
    Will be interesting to see whether this succeeds and whether non-Maori in the exact same circumstances would succeed too.
    
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    July 5, 2025 12:10pm
    - AitchW
      
      Come on, his great grandfather was an All Black. The man is a national hero.
      
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      July 5, 2025 3:44pm
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    A bigger question is, how many Maoris lack NZ citizenship? I suspect a significant portion of Maoridom live overseas – particularly, but not only, in Aus. That form of emigration started in the ‘70s, so we are several generations in.
    
    This highlights the fact that Maoris are immigrants to NZ like any other. Their distinguishing factor is their ancestors came here earlier than any others. But, like more recent immigrants & their children, it is possible for Maoris to move overseas, for economic & educational factors, for life etc – just like the rest of us.
    
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    July 5, 2025 1:04pm
    - Paulus
      
      Are the tens of thousands of Maori living in Australia participoating in dual citizensip – unlike the Aussies I believe who are not allowed another citizenship.
      And they still vote in New Zealand elections, and tribal Maori parties !
      
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      July 5, 2025 1:58pm
      - Maggy Wassilieff
        
        unlike the Aussies I believe who are not allowed another citizenship.
        
        Rubbish
        
        Australian citizens can hold multiple citizenships.
        
        Australian citizens may also hold the citizenship of another country or countries if the laws of those countries allow. This is known as dual, or multiple, citizenship.
        https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/citizenship-subsite/pages/learn-about-being-an-australian.aspx
        
        But their MPs can not hold dual citizenship.
        
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        July 5, 2025 3:19pm
  - rouppe
    
    Both my parents were born in the Netherlands. There is centuries of documented history of my family there.
    
    But my parents came here in the 50’s, my father had a government job and was told “no citizenship, no promotion” so naturalised in the late 50’s.
    
    Two of my older siblings who were born before the naturalisation and their children have NZ and EU passports, myself and my sister cannot as we were born after the naturalisation.
    
    There’s nothing I can do about it. I have no sympathy for this bloke.
    
    From what I can work out he is an Australian citizen as he was born there, so I don’t know why he has to go through NZ visa hoops. His children seem to be USA citizens, born in Hawaii. He must also have USA citizenship given the length of time he has lived in Hawaii and Washington State. Given the furore over the proposal to end birthright citizenship there, his apparent desire to repudiate his children’s citizenship is a bit odd.
    
    He says he has no familial connections in the USA but he spent the bulk of his life in Hawaii, there must surely be something on his fathers side there.
    
    But NeverMind is right. Waving this through will open the floodgates
    
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    July 5, 2025 1:42pm
- Pineapple Lumps
  
  It will be interesting to hear the arguments. Most of my ancestors came from the UK, Ireland, France and Germany. As a person indigenous to those places can I have citizenship there?
  
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  July 5, 2025 9:54am
  - MCōs
    
    My mother is English. I therefore have UK citizenship. However that’s not much use on its own without a passport and that’s the hard part because all sorts of documentation is required plus a wad of cash.
    
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    July 5, 2025 10:07am
    - pdm
      
      Wasn’t too bad when I got a British Passport in 2009.
      
      My father was born in the Scottish Outer Hebrides.
      
      mrspdms paternal grandfather was probably born in Ireland but, we have not been able to find a birth certificate due to a fire in the Belfast? registry sometime in (I think) the 1930’s. She would have been able to get an Irish Passport apparently had we found said Birth Certificate.
      
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      July 5, 2025 10:18am
      - MCōs
        
        I was reading about that fire recently. It was arson by the English who didn’t want the Irish to migrate to the UK, or some such.
        They didn’t want them to be able to source documentation that proved they were British prior to independence
        
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        July 5, 2025 10:44am
      - kowtow
        
        ‘It was arson by the English who didn’t want the Irish to migrate to the UK, ‘
        
        What absolute rot !
        
        If anything you people are referring to two of the greatest acts of vandalism commited in the modern history of Ireland .
        
        The Customs House raid ( and fire) by the IRA ,Dublin May 1921, a tactical blunder of the highest order and then the Irish Free State forces attacking the IRA illegally occupying the Four Courts building ,Dublin April 1922 , signalling the open salvoes of the vicious and bitter so called Civil War ( so called because the Irish war of independence as they like to call it was itself a civil war.)
        
        The destruction and loss of the documents in those two buildings is literally incalculable and had nothing to do with “the English” or migration.
        
        Legally , the “English” have been ridiculously and incredibly generously open to Irish citizens migrating to the mainland since “independence” and continue to be.
        
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        July 5, 2025 12:12pm
      - kowtow
        
        pdm
        
        Contact the Irish General Register Office , link below.
        
        https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-social-protection/services/birth-death-marriage-and-other-certificates/
        
        I believe there is a 3 generation rule qualifier , but they do have plenty of records.
        
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        July 5, 2025 12:18pm
      - pdm
        
        kowtow it was 15/16 years ago that we last looked into it and too old now to pursue it further.
        
        Happy to go back on NZ passports in the unlikely event we should re visit the UK. Only three cousins out of 7 left in Scotland now.
        
        We learned about the fire when we went to the Irish Embassy in London to enquire about the birth certificate. The guy we saw there treated us like we had green skin and social diseases – so we gave up.
        
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        July 5, 2025 2:43pm
      - kowtow
        
        pdm
        
        Too bad you didn’t bump into Kevin McDonald ( Scottish surname) but having said that 27000 smackers woudda been a bit stiff!
        
        ‘In the past, an Irish embassy official in London, Kevin McDonald, was suspected of selling Irish passports to individuals from various countries, including Libya, Lebanon, Morocco, and Iran, over a four-year period. He was suspended from his duties after failing to appear in Dublin in response to a summons from the Irish Foreign Ministry. Authorities suspected he was selling passports for up to $27,000 each. There were also reports of the use of forged Irish passports in the assassination of a Hamas official in Dubai, leading to the expulsion of an Israeli embassy official in Dublin. ‘
        
        source googleAI
        
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        July 5, 2025 3:34pm
    - Pineapple Lumps
      
      That’s cool Cossie but NZ and England aren’t governed by the same laws. This guy appears to be an entitled whiner. He has US citizenship and so do his kids. They are not stateless.
      
      Just another special person wanting something for nothing.
      
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      July 5, 2025 12:28pm
    - Countrygirl
      
      It was some years ago, but I wanted to get British passports for my two sons on the grounds I, their mother, was born in England. I managed to get them patriality but no passport. Their father had to be the one born there, not me.
      
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      July 5, 2025 10:16pm
  - Cassandra
    
    No. Countries make their own rules on this. Often they’ll give the first or second Gen an opportunity to apply.
    
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    July 5, 2025 10:08am
    - Don Beckett
      
      I have no problem with him getting residency for himself & his kids. He is obviously not a bludger & would probably make a good contribution to our society, having not been raised in the ‘entitlement syndrome’ of a fair proportion of Maori.
      The minister can step in if he chooses to do so.
      
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      July 5, 2025 10:37am
      - wsk12345
        
        The issue isnt that he can’t get residency for thrm – he doesn’t want to pay for it. Special people and all.
        
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        July 5, 2025 11:14am
      - Quail
        
        This is out and out racism!
        Privilege/ citizenship in NZ claimed because of ancestry.
        How about merit being the criteria!
        
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        July 5, 2025 11:35am
      - Pineapple Lumps
        
        But Don he is expecting entitlement because of his ancestry. He is an American who hasn’t contributed to our country and he expects free access to schooling, healthcare, etc etc because it suits him now to move to NZ. I don’t think me or my now working children should have to subsidise him and his children!
        
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        July 5, 2025 12:31pm
  - Gravelroad
    
    Yes, a chap here I know had a grandfather born in Wales. Spent most of his life here though.
    Friend thinking about trying for a rehab back to Wales in case there might be some coin in it for him.
    Is even prepared to learn to speak Welsh (for extra).
    
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    July 5, 2025 11:44am
  - cmm
    
    Lumps: It normally only goes back one generation or so.
    
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    July 5, 2025 3:24pm
- Colville
  
  How on earth did he get a benefit?
  Born in Australia with USA born kids.
  Why hasn’t he been deported?
  
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  July 5, 2025 10:09am
  - Don Beckett
    
    Because he has a visitors visa.
    
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    July 5, 2025 12:42pm
    - Colville
      
      You can come for a holiday and get the dole?
      
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      July 5, 2025 1:41pm
    - rouppe
      
      A “visitors visa” is the sort of thing someone holidaying here gets. Note his is a 3 month, typically a non-working, vacation type visa.
      
      You can’t get benefits on that.
      
      I tend to think he’s shown an Australian birth certificate to get a benefit.
      
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      July 5, 2025 1:50pm
    - Paulus
      
      Visitor Visas are 3 months and 3 months only, are they not ?
      
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      July 5, 2025 2:01pm
      - Ghost
        
        No, 6 or 9 months
        
        https://www.immigration.govt.nz/visas/visitor-visa/
        
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        July 5, 2025 2:15pm
      - Ra Henare
        
        No.
        Twice in the last 3 years A Cambodian friend applied for a visa for a single entry 2 week holiday/visit.
        
        In both cases she was issued a 12 month, multiple entry visa with a maximum total stay of 6 months for each Visa.
        
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        July 5, 2025 5:02pm
  - rouppe
    
    Pretty sure Australians can get benefits here. The “special relationship” and all that.
    
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    July 5, 2025 1:46pm
    - NZer In Exile
      
      Pretty sure it will be a “you can live and work here” (unless you have a significant crim record) type arrangement with a limited bunch of freebies re govt services. I’ll go ask Grok AI.
      
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      July 6, 2025 4:42pm
    - NZer In Exile
      
      OK so I asked GROK AI “What govt social services can Australian citizens get in New Zealand?”
      
      The answer:
      
      https://grok.com/share/c2hhcmQtMw%3D%3D_9e13816e-1c49-42e0-b402-2a3cc034c43b
      
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      July 6, 2025 4:47pm
- Handyman
  
  There are two separate issues here.
  1. Should a person be able to claim a NZ passport if they have ANY ancestor born in New Zealand?
  2. Should the rule apply to all or should the rule be different for maoris eg if they promise to go on the maori roll?
  
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  July 5, 2025 11:06am
  - Pineapple Lumps
    
    He can apply for residency but is claiming he is entitled because of his ancestry. On that basis all Māori should get citizenship in Pacific Islands and Taiwan. Their DNA will show they link back to the 8 people of Noah’s Ark – so they are entitled to citizenship in Africa/Middle East.
    
    Countries have rules around residency and citizenship- we all have to play by them and so should he.
    
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    July 5, 2025 12:25pm
- david in Aus
  
  He was born in Australia in the 1980s. Get Australian citizenship for himself and his children. Then he can live in NZ without issues. Sounds like a GoFundMe gee up, to make up for a lack of foresight and planning.
  
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  July 5, 2025 11:40am
- PurplePen
  
  Would he have any better case or would it attract any MSM attention if instead of his grandfather having been an all black and mother being a NZer of the Year they were instead a paedophile and a murderer.
  
  Different rules again for celebrity status, even if once or twice removed.
  
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  July 5, 2025 12:12pm
  - Pineapple Lumps
    
    Hi Purple Pen – that would be disgraceful if true. Who are these celebrity, peadophile, murderers that we are just giving citizenship to for free?
    
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    July 5, 2025 12:33pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  To be clear: he has an NZ passport via descent, being born in Aus of an NZ mother. He was brought to NZ when one week old, and lived here for a period. If his parents had changed the basis for his citizenship from by descent to by residency (still very easy to do for children) then he could have passed his NZ citizenship on to his kids & job done. But, his mother did not do the mahi and as it’s not possible for citizens by descent to pass on their NZ citizenship to their kids, his kids are immigrants like any other.
  
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  July 5, 2025 12:59pm
  - Paulus
    
    Can be complicated – my Granddaughter was born in Australia but due to her parent’s diplomatic roles she is not entitled to Australia Citizebanship, as born and lived there for a while, despite all the rules.
    But her mother is a UK born person, so she gets a UK passport also, to her New Zealand one, called matricality.
    
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    July 5, 2025 2:07pm
Cassandra

From an article about Biden’s DEI appointment, Justice Ketanji Jackson, to the US Supreme Court: “Serious countries do not elevate unqualified dimwits to public positions of extraordinary prominence.”

When I look at Parliament on TV that quote comes to mind. A good example is when I compare the Budget speeches of Shane Jones (masterful) with the Maori Party’s Takuta Ferris (“We’re a million people and there’s nothing in this Budget for Maori”, Ferris doesn’t know about whanau Ora, the Ministry of Maori development, ToW settlements, payments for water, myriad others and the zillions spent on Maori thieves in Court, in prison and by the Police.).
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July 5, 2025 8:03am
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  Not to mention roads, hospitals, defence and the myriad things provided by the tax payer for all New Zealanders.
  
  In fact, the only funding that Maoris don’t benefit from is that given to the Ministry of Pakeha Affairs.
  
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  July 5, 2025 8:15am
  - PurplePen
    
    And the Ministry of Pacific Affairs.
    
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    July 5, 2025 12:13pm
- goNZ1
  
  High radiation, broken machines: Crucial Sydney hospital service facing collapse
  Doctors and patients have urged the NSW health minister to intervene in the latest mass resignation to hit the state’s public health system. per smh.com today.
  Sound familiar? going to Oz could be the frying pan into a fire. How can a rich country get like that. Answer is socialism dosent work eventually
  
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  July 5, 2025 8:17am
- Gravelroad
  
  He does know.
  Being a victim is becoming a profession in this country.
  
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  July 5, 2025 8:22am
  - Pope Punctilious II
    
    And in 21st century NZ there’s zero basis for this claimed “victim” status. For example, look at the number of university scholarships that are available only to Maori (or Pasifika) students.
    Auckland Uni: https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/study/scholarships-and-awards/scholarship-types/scholarships-for-maori-students.html
    Waikato Uni: https://www.waikato.ac.nz/study/scholarships/find-a-scholarship/?page=1
    Otago Uni: https://search.otago.ac.nz/s/search.html?query=Maori+scholarships&collection=uoot-prod%7Esp-course-search&profile=subs-and-quals-search
    
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    July 5, 2025 8:59am
  - kowtow
    
    And very well rewarded by the state.
    
    Time to cut it all out.
    
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    July 5, 2025 9:35am
  - septic skeptic
    
    Well being a Maori is certainly a profession for a good number. Professional Maoris as opposed to Maori professionals.
    
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    July 5, 2025 10:18am
- Mike
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  Jackson has the temerity to point out the flaws in the specious reasoning behind the conservative justices’ wholesale attacks on the constitutional order. Naturally she will be the target of slanders.
  
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  July 5, 2025 8:38am
  - Cassandra
    
    Her minority judgment has been comprehensively demolished by Justice Barret, who, unlike Jackson, is a legal scholar. Both are worth reading, particularly as a cure for insomnia.
    
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    July 5, 2025 8:51am
    - Mike
      
      Which opinion in particular do you imagine has been ‘demolished’?
      
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      July 5, 2025 9:02am
      - Cassandra
        
        US v CASA. The birthright case.
        
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        July 5, 2025 9:34am
      - Cassandra
        
        “The principal dissent focuses on conventional legal terrain, like the Judiciary Act of 1789 and our cases on equity. JUSTICE JACKSON, however, chooses a startling line of attack that is tethered neither to these sources nor, frankly, to any doctrine whatsoever. Waving away attention to the limits on judicial power as a “mind-numbingly technical query,” post, at 3 (dissenting opinion), she offers a vision of the judicial role that would make even the most ardent defender of judicial supremacy blush.”
        
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        July 5, 2025 9:36am
      - Cassandra
        
        “We will not dwell on JUSTICE JACKSON’s argument, which is at odds with more than two centuries’ worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself. We observe only this: JUSTICE JACKSON decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary.”
        
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        July 5, 2025 9:38am
      - Mike
        
        There couldn’t be a clearer case of the majority bending over backwards to permit the use of unconstitutional power. The merits of the substantive case are practically unarguable: the 14th Amendment confers citizenship on any person born in the USA.
        Even the majority might feel compelled to uphold the constitution. Instead, to demonstrate fealty to the president, they have invented a new requirement expressly designed to circumvent lower courts prepared to enforce the constitution and disallow the executive order. The majority has simply pretended that nationwide injunctions are not available by claiming that equity has narrow limits and must be specific to named plaintiffs.
        
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        July 5, 2025 10:30am
      - Media hater
        
        Wby do you imagine that Cassandra only imagined Jackson’s demolition?
        
        And when are you coming back to defend your contention, lol.
        
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        July 5, 2025 10:34am
      - Media hater
        
        Why do you imagine that Cassandra only imagined Jackson’s demolition?
        
        And when are you coming back to defend your contention, lol.
        
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        July 5, 2025 10:35am
  - Pope Punctilious II
    
    Would you care to identify these “flaws”?
    
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    July 5, 2025 9:08am
Southern Raider

My first prediction for the 2026 election.

Aaron Hendry will be selected as a high ranking Green list candidate.

He has all the hall marks of a Green MP. Tax payer funded job, rallies against any legislation the centre right proposes which could have consequences for offenders and most importantly wears the terrorist scarf whenever interviewed on TV.
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July 5, 2025 8:06am
- Lenice
  
  Who is Aaron Hendry?
  
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  July 5, 2025 12:16pm
- pdm
  
  SR – ahead of or behind `bussy’ Doyle on the list?
  
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  July 5, 2025 2:52pm
Cassandra

The reality of Whānau Ora: a taxpayer-funded system where millions of dollars go missing in a maze of trusts and cultural branding. The poor stay poor. Healthcare hardly change. The connected get richer.

The organisations responsible wave away questions with empty statements about transparency and accusations of racism, while stuffing their boards with family and friends.

Whānau Ora should be dismantled. This isn’t empowerment, it is exploitation of the system by those lucky enough to sit at the top. The people it was meant to help never see the benefit. The insiders make sure of that.
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July 5, 2025 8:21am
- Northshoredoc
  
  And the current government sits on its hands.
  
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  July 5, 2025 8:23am
  - artemisia
    
    Perhaps not Doc. The non renewal of big Whanau Ora contracts would have sent a wave of panic. Although many from the previous contracts will no doubt be taken on by the new, I think we can be sure that contracts are a whole lot tighter now and will be monitored effectively. Hence the real reason for panic, clearly justified!
    
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    July 5, 2025 12:39pm
  - pdm
    
    Minister in charge of the enquiry is Tama Potaka.
    
    Enough said.
    
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    July 5, 2025 2:53pm
- Im Right
  
  Agree Cassandra, but it’s a catch 22 when it comes to maori and money/funds.
  Firstly the money (tax payers) is never enough, and woe betide any non maori telling them the best way to utilise/spend it, it ends up being sucked away by exorbitant salaries and internal maori organisational bureaucratic structure.
  
  You see it’s easy to spend and never having an audit of exactly where it was all spent (there is never a ‘spend Vs outcome/results’ audit done on most of these maori organisations) as they know they will receive more when the money runs out, hell….even have the cheek to ask for more.
  If whitey tries to have some sort of ROI (return on investment) plan, they say it’s not the maori way, it’s their ‘tikanga’ and it’s by maori for maori.
  The billions of tax money maori organisations get each year keeps the elite Iwi very wealthy and individuals, like John Tamahere, in their multi million dollar homes.
  Always remember….it’s never enough!
  (PS, how can a trust employee who only gets tax payers money, end up a multi millionaire?)
  
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  July 5, 2025 8:44am
  - PurplePen
    
    But what about non-Maori tikanga which is to have an ROI and business case for any taxpayer money doled out. Isn’t it in the nature of a partnership, which I disagree with. And doesn’t Article 3 of the ToW refer to the special people having the same rights AND DUTIES as everyone else.
    
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    July 5, 2025 12:18pm
    - Steve Todd
      
      You just don’t learn, do you, PurplePen? I pointed out to you just three months ago that it’s “rights and privileges”, but clearly, it suits you to ignore the truth. (See https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2025/04/general_debate_01_april_2025.html/comment-page-1#comment-3700824.)
      
      “Article the third:
      
      “In consideration thereof Her Majesty the Queen of England extends to the Natives of New Zealand Her royal protection and imparts to them all the Rights and Privileges of British Subjects.”
      
      It would have been nice if you had at least said: “I know Steve Todd has previously taken me to task over this, but I disagree with him.”
      
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      July 5, 2025 1:57pm
      - NeverMindTheBollocks
        
        A duty is a privilege, Steve. It’s a privilege to be able to reciprocate in return of the rights granted by the Treaty.
        
        And as we all know, reciprocation is the basis for all enduring relationships.
        
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        July 5, 2025 2:07pm
      - Steve Todd
        
        @NeverMindTheBollocks @ 2:07PM
        
        I’m sorry, Bolly, but that’s just nonsense; word salad.
        
        ‘privilege’ is “1. a special right, advantage, or immunity for a particular person. 2. A special benefit or honour.”
        
        ‘duty’ is “1. a moral or legal obligation.”
        
        Therefore, privileges and duties are two completely different concepts. Consequently, a duty is not a privilege.
        
        I’m very disappointed in you, Bolly, for attempting to twist the English language, and the ordinary, accepted, meaning of two particular words, in such an outrageous manner.
        
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        July 5, 2025 3:09pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Ah, but it is such a convenient arrangement for Governments and Departmental Heads…. They are one or two steps removed from the rort…
  
  They can keep their hands clean whilst turning a blind eye from the obvious.
  
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  July 5, 2025 8:47am
- artemisia
  
  As a first step, if funding (any funding) is determined to be misappropriated, then it must be paid back, selling assets as needed.
  
  Good luck with that.
  
  However, I am picking that the distributions under review will be found to be permitted under the contracts, if the mouth is held just at the right angle and the eyes squint. I expect the new contracts will be structured and monitored correctly, as of course required for taxpayer funding.
  
  Also picking that terminated contracts resulted in a flurry of distributions before the end date.
  
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  July 5, 2025 8:52am
  - imalwaysright
    
    “As a first step..”
    
    As a first step the Serious Fraud Office should be investigating, funding stopped, and everyone involved suspended and cautioned.
    
    9 1
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    July 5, 2025 9:20am
- kowtow
  
  ‘a maze of trusts and cultural branding’
  
  or behind the haze of koharuption.
  
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  July 5, 2025 9:36am
- AitchW
  
  I always wondered about the appointment of Chappie Te Kani to the top job at TPK. Was he a Mahuta? Or a Tamihere?
  How else did he get the job?
  
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  July 5, 2025 9:37am
- greybeard
  
  Great post: send it to Hosking & HdPA.
  
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  July 5, 2025 9:49am
Northshoredoc

“Serious countries do not elevate unqualified dimwits to public positions of extraordinary prominence.”

I couldn’t help but think that there are very few serious countries in the world these days.
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July 5, 2025 8:22am
Simon

Even if the Wellington Clown Show hides it from the cattle they must know AI will end thousands of government jobs.

A lot of govt jobs are welfare for the middle class. So its not only AI ends jobs in the normal fashion but then all those useless jobs, which serve no real function in the first place must go as well.
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July 5, 2025 8:24am
- PurplePen
  
  I’ve mentioned this before, AI and robots will end 70 to 90 percent of all human jobs in about 20 to 30 years. Proctor Gamble have just dumped 7000 employees, Microsoft has just downsized a division of software developers. It’s started.
  
  When it’s fully implemented government will have to tax extremely heavily those that remain that generate any revenue so a UBI can be paid to everyone else. Primary human jobs will be in the service industry only such as the wealthy might prefer a human dog-walker instead of a robot service.
  
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  July 5, 2025 12:24pm
greybeard

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360745892/maori-kids-great-grandad-all-black-who-are-nz-illegally

It took a long time to get to it, but yep, down there at the bottom, is the inevitable “Go Fund Me” plea.
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July 5, 2025 8:34am
- Cassandra
  
  The usual suspects will be all over this. A smidge of Maori back in the day and you’re tangata whenua forever. Actually they are Americans. They’re no more New Zealanders than I am Canadian (Grandad born in Ottawa, his daughter never went there).
  
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  July 5, 2025 8:40am
  - Mike
    
    He’s pretty unfortunate to have missed full citizenship by one week!
    
    4 10
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    July 5, 2025 8:48am
    - Pineapple Lumps
      
      Perhaps he was unfortunate but you could also say very fortunate to have US citizenship. At the end of the day a guy who has never lived in NZ wants to bring his family here, live on a benefit, get access to subsidised healthcare, schooling etc because of his DNA. So his bad luck appears to be very good luck for the rest of us who have lived here all our lives, have contributed and are still contributing.
      
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      July 5, 2025 12:48pm
  - Wandering Star
    
    “Actually they are Americans. They’re no more New Zealanders than I am Canadian (Grandad born in Ottawa, his daughter never went there)”
    
    So you must also agree, then, that people with ethnic Jewish ancestry from America, Canada, Eastern Europe and elsewhere, who (likely along with every other member of their lineage for more than a millennia) have never lived a day of their lives in the Levant, should similarly not have an automatic “right of return” to become Israeli citizens?
    
    https://www.nbn.org.il/life-in-israel/government-services/rights-and-benefits/the-law-of-return/
    
    “The Law of Return, granting every Jew in the world the right to settle in Israel, was passed by the Knesset on July 5, 1950, and published in Sefer HaChukkim (Book of Laws) No. 51, p. 159.”
    
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    July 5, 2025 10:02am
    - Pineapple Lumps
      
      Every country has the right to set their own rules on this. What the Israelis have decided in their parliament is their decision, just as NZ parliament has decided our immigration settings.
      
      If people without citizenship want to move to NZ then they need to play by our rules. Just as we would have to if we wanted to move our families to their country.
      
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      July 5, 2025 12:38pm
      - Wandering Star
        
        The commenter I replied to repudiated the idea of blood ties but without any other link to a place being a basis for citizenship in the case being discussed. I pointed out that, if that commenter wanted to be consistent, they would also have to repudiate the Israeli law, as a matter of principle. From previous comments by Cassandra, I very much doubt they disagree with the principle enacted in the Law of Return.
        
        I don’t see how the fact that the Israelis have chosen to enact that law is relevant to the point I made, which is about logical consistency. The point would stand even if they had not enacted it.
        
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        July 5, 2025 1:11pm
    - Cassandra
      
      Star: the right of return is an Israeli law. Decided by Israel. Supported by Israelis. It’s their rule, not anyone else’s. But you’ve probably given the Maori Party an idea.
      
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      July 5, 2025 1:11pm
      - Wandering Star
        
        I didn’t ask whether or not it is Israeli law, whether it was decided by Israelis or whether Israelis supported. The answer to these questions is obviously “yes.”
        
        I questioned whether you supported the Law of Return, given that you clearly don’t support the same idea in this case, which is someone with no links to a place, except blood ties to its historical inhabitants, who has never visited and is a citizen of a country other than that place, claiming a right of “return.”
        
        If you support the principle in one context, but not in a different context, how do you reconcile the inconsistency?
        
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        July 5, 2025 1:46pm
      - cmm
        
        Lost star: Whether or not anyone outside Israel supports Israel’s laws is irrelevant.
        
        It’s their country. They get to make whatever laws make sense for them. The opinions of outsiders does not matter.
        
        NZ is our country. We get to decide what laws we choose for ourselves.
        
        That said, I would argue that taking on an Israeli citizenship is not all unicorns and moonbeams. For one, it makes you, and your children, liable for military service.
        
        Here there are close to zero commitments – just hand outs.
        
        I would suggest that it is a bit simplistic to draw an equivalence.
        
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        July 5, 2025 3:52pm
    - cmm
      
      Each country is entitled to it’s own laws which they are free to set according to their desires. If Israel wants to allow any Jews in no matter what – so be it. If our parliament chooses to give any Maori citizenship so be it too.
      
      I have the same legal standing as Cassandra when it comes to Canadian citizenship.
      
      Both of us had a grandparent who was born in Canada. Both of us have never set foot in Canada.
      
      Up until 2009, anyone who had any Canadian ancestor (it didn’t matter how many generations previously) could claim Canadian citizenship.
      Since 2009 it was changed to first generation only.
      
      If Cassandra or I had claimed our Canadian citizenship before 2009 we’d both the Canadian dual citizens. Too late now.
      
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      July 5, 2025 3:46pm
    - AitchW
      
      If I were to convert to Judaism would I then have an automatic right to settle in Israel and become an Israeli citizen? Not that I’d want to, all their neighbours seem to want to kill them.
      
      1 1
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      July 5, 2025 3:54pm
      - Ghost
        
        Your answer
        
        https://lawoffice.org.il/en/aliyah-after-conversion-to-judaism/
        
        Btw, how the hell did this conversation get so hijacked.
        
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        July 5, 2025 4:00pm
- Pineapple Lumps
  
  Perhaps a new claim to be raised on the Waitangi Tribunal?
  
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  July 5, 2025 12:49pm
  - Paulus
    
    Isn’t the W Tribunal only an advisory body (very expensive) so why does anybody take any notice of what it says, or is it above Parliament now !
    
    3 0
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    July 5, 2025 2:57pm
    - cmm
      
      Everything is “Treaty lead” doncha know!
      
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      July 5, 2025 3:53pm
NothingLeft

Russians using chem weapons in Ukraine:
https://www.dutchnews.nl//2025/07/russia-is-using-chemical-weapons-in-ukraine-aivd/

And in other news Trump cancels all weapons shipments to Ukraine including those already in Poland, and removes sanctions on many Russian banks, including the one that does foreign weapons sales, cos that’s just what you do when you want and evil despot with a penchant for murder and war crimes to halt a war of aggression against a smaller neighbor
https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/trump-lifts-sanctions-on-russia-s-rosoboronexport-1751471026.html
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July 5, 2025 8:54am
- Wandering Star
  
  “The Dutch accusation comes at a time when Ukraine is facing ammunition shortages due to a worldwide lack of Patriot air defense system rockets.”
  
  How convenient – unevidenced accusations against Russia come out just as Ukraine needs yet another cash injection.
  
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  July 5, 2025 1:53pm
- Ra Henare
  
  Extract from that media article.
  
  country’s alleged use of chemical weapons in Ukraine,
  
  or
  Just another bit of propaganda to replace the fact that Trumps admin has just ditched Ukraine.?????? and want to gather sympathy/support from the Voters in an attempt to change political decisions?????
  
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  July 5, 2025 5:12pm
Bridgenag

Migrants will not stop molesting and assaulting children at swimming pools in the best and most democratic Germany of all time

“In the last ten years, we’ve welcomed a lot of ill-behaved and criminal young men into our country for no discernible reason, and along the way we’ve had the dubious privilege of discovering whole new categories of crime. There is the hostile-immigrant-drives-his-car-into-a-crowd-of-unsuspecting-innocents crime, there is the hostile-immigrant-stabs-a-bunch-of-random-people crime, there is the immigrant-gang-collectively-rape-underage-girl-in-park crime, and there is the immigrants-at-swimming-pool-molest-or-assault-various-children crime.”

https://open.substack.com/pub/eugyppius/p/migrants-will-not-stop-molesting?r=4oxscl&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
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July 5, 2025 8:56am
- mogg
  
  Illegals on small boats into the UK are ‘24 times more likely to be imprisoned than the average UK citizen’. Matt Goodwin.
  
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  July 5, 2025 9:32am
  - Pope Punctilious II
    
    See, proof of how racist the UK is! (sarc)
    
    7 1
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    July 5, 2025 11:54am
    - mogg
      
      Until recently those horrendous levels of criminal offending have been known by Labour and Conservative governments, but kept secret from public knowledge.
      
      3 1
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      July 5, 2025 2:04pm
- pb
  
  Deport illegals, nett negative migration. Coming to a popular political platform near you! End run the porky pig Uniparty.
  
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  July 5, 2025 9:37am
  - Paulus
    
    Can’t deport illegals any more.
    Against he EC rules anyway and France will not take them back .
    
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    July 5, 2025 2:59pm
- kowtow
  
  Public transport is another fave place for the ‘Merkel’s Migrants’ attacks.
  
  ‘Police initially said the perpetrator used an axe in the attack but later said he allegedly used a hammer and likely other weapons which they did not further name. They identified the man as a 20-year-old Syrian national.’
  
  https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/07/03/syrian-man-injures-four-passengers-with-hammer-on-ice-train-in-southern-germany-police-say
  
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  July 5, 2025 9:40am
- Wandering Star
  
  Part of the occupying forces’ program to “de-Nazify” Germany since they took over in 1945, an indefinite program of brainwashing that continues to this day and has spread all across the West, involves making Germans hate themselves and their heritage to such an extent that they would welcome immigrants from all the worst places as atonement for alleged crimes of the Nazis.
  
  It’s a form of collective punishment, which is a war crime in itself. The reality is that German kids in 2025 are regularly being molested and assaulted at swimming pools by foreigners because that was the sentence dished out to them at Nuremburg long before they were even born. Even worse, the British and French for instance (apparently the victors in WW2) haven’t escaped punishment either, because they have to put up with similar problems – even though they passed sentence against the Germans. Interesting to think about like this, is it not?
  
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  July 5, 2025 10:13am
- PurplePen
  
  It’s odd how a country will go all out to protect its biodiversity, insect, animal and plants and crops from foreign invaders being brought in. Yet when it comes to protecting a country’s culture, its completely ignored. The UN says wiping out the culture of a nation rather than the actual people is genocide. When a government then let’s their own country’s culture be nearly wiped out it must be cultural geni-suicide.
  
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  July 5, 2025 12:32pm
Taieri

Apparently the local government councillors lives are now so endangered that they are to receive an allowance for home security measures.

“Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) chief executive Susan Freeman-Greene said her organisation had advocated for new protections such as the allowance given a significant increase in abuse, harassment and threatening behaviour.”

“Central Otago Mayor Tamah Alley said she had been involved in putting the case to the Remuneration Authority. . .

While it was not possible to please everyone the decisions elected members made should not bring anxiety into their homes, Mrs Alley said.”

Funny that because…

It was Mrs Alley’s immediate predecessor, one Tim Cadogan, who suggested last year that people who can no longer afford astronomical rates increases should take reverse mortgages to raise money to pay their rates.

So, perhaps, it’s not just “a lack of respect for other people, a growing propensity to attack people personally rather than debating their views, and a lack of self-control from the perpetrators” as some commentators claim is the problem here? May be, just may be, our local government betters should look in the mirror every now and then?
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July 5, 2025 8:57am
- Master Mariner
  
  Yep. First thing that pops into my head are the journalists reporting from the Beehive during the Anti Mandates protest.
  So in this instance , Like you say Look in the Mirror and wonder why?
  The second one is JA , you are us statement (Incidently I can never grasp the meaning of this ).
  So with LGNZ, You are not like us ! If you need extra protection because of your perceived actions then change people’s perceptions with Honesty, Transparency and Trust.
  
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  July 5, 2025 8:24pm
Fender

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB2yiJMULyk
whats happening in Ukraine lately,true or not, make your own mind up
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July 5, 2025 9:02am
Bridgenag

After you graduate from college

https://youtu.be/1cRq5B99VXo?si=vdW2LDgDJWOy9jTU
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July 5, 2025 9:07am
- David Garrett
  
  bridge: That guy is hilarious. Can’t believe TWO people downticked your comment – one is the resident troll; today he apparently has a friend with him.
  
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  July 5, 2025 9:36am
  - Cassandra
    
    I cannot understand why anyone would simply downtick everything. There’s no reasoned response, just a red tick or a smart arse quip. What is the point?
    
    20 4
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    July 5, 2025 9:42am
    - David Garrett
      
      cass: Indeed. What a sad bereft life the resident downticker of everything must have.
      
      21 6
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      July 5, 2025 9:59am
      - Wandering Star
        
        Have you ever considered the possibility that people disagree with what they consider to be unconvincing arguments, David?
        
        4 12
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        July 5, 2025 10:22am
      - RoboRob
        
        @Wandering
        
        There is at least one poster here who downticks everything they read. It’s not about logical disagreement, just marking what they have read.
        
        9 2
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        July 5, 2025 11:51am
      - Pineapple Lumps
        
        The excuse that you down tick to mark what you have read is extremely weak. Up or down tick and you can see that you have marked that post. Choosing to down tick for that reason suggests a dark triad personality trait.
        
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        July 5, 2025 12:41pm
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      Oh I rejoice when I’m down-ticked..
      It shows I’m not commenting in an echo chamber.
      
      22 6
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      July 5, 2025 10:03am
      - Cassandra
        
        It’d be good to be able to engage in reasoned debate however. One of the joys of life is developing and defending (or conceding) a PoV.
        
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        July 5, 2025 10:11am
      - Gravelroad
        
        I don’t much care about downticks when the person doing it has a genuinely different perspective based on accuracy and knowledge.
        But for one or two on here, it seems to be personal.
        And the downticks come not because of the content of the comment, but because they don’t like you no matter what is contributed.
        For example – I made a fact based comment here yesterday about current weather damage. It was downticked.
        Facts are facts. Downticking won’t make any difference to that.
        
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        July 5, 2025 10:39am
      - RoboRob
        
        I believe Mike and perhaps some others, once posted that they downtick posts to mark them as read. Strange thing to do.
        
        10 3
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        July 5, 2025 11:50am
    - cmm
      
      DG abd Cassandra: ” What is the point?”
      
      The point is to piss in the well.
      Just make the place unpleasant.
      
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      July 5, 2025 3:58pm
  - Fuzzell
    
    Just checking down ticking works. Would have been better to test it on Maggie’s post below. S Sorry
    
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    July 5, 2025 10:11am
Damocles11

Chris Hipkins has stated that NZME and its “Tory owners” have decided to barely cover ram raids these days as they’ve decided “its not in the governments best interests” and “they do the National Party’s singing for them.”
Hipkins’ shocking lying about editorial independence at The New Zealand Herald, and the side of the political spectrum the newspaper favours, is so bald-faced and disingenuous it is enough to make one weep that this person was once Prime Minister and could be again. I opened a copy of The Herald at my local cafe to find the expected attack cartoon aimed at the government, this one skewering Chris Bishop at an ugly ‘Swamp Thing’ who wants to gut the RMA so he can do horrible things to wetlands.
Lying – done very earnestly and in a totally shameless manner – is the defining trait of the Left in my opinion. They are fundamentally dishonest people from the top of the leadership tree to the grassroots.
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July 5, 2025 9:50am
- rouppe
  
  The Left lying openly.
  
  Example: Opray Winfrey saying if you don’t vote against Trump, you may never be able to cast a vote again. First half of the video.
  
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  July 5, 2025 2:17pm
MCōs

There is a popular Facebook page headed up Humans of New York comprising photos of random people Brandon Stanton has talked to in the streets about their lives.
The other day he talked to a young guy who explained why he and and many other New Yorkers like Zohran Mamdani
https://www.facebook.com/100050429952420/posts/pfbid032nTuyX8AoE6xs8zQAk43Mhc6XomNcrFtvATkWX6mZUCSJ2We7daLha2td4GbUXmvl/?
Also today I read a piece by Bryce Edwards about the NRB Rich List
https://x.com/bryce_edwards/status/1931958151156490315?s=61
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July 5, 2025 10:29am
- Colville
  
  Bryce Edwards piece on the Rich List is a laugh.
  He says all wealth is based on rent seeking and property ownership yet the Mowbrays at number one and $20bil is pure manufacturing.
  No where does he tell us how New Zealand would be worse off if we had another 10 Mowbray families yet he says billionaires must be stopped and a wealth tax introduced.
  Political interference by billionaires is bad but he dosent mention Mills or the Unions purchasing political favour with the Labour Party.
  
  Was I surprised? Nope.
  
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  July 5, 2025 10:48am
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    If Bryce criticised the Mowbrays on the grounds that the plastic crap they produce pollutes the earth then he’d have a point.
    
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    July 5, 2025 2:13pm
    - NZer In Exile
      
      People don’t have to buy plastic crap.
      
      I believe there should be a plastic recycling bin. And all of it should go to high temp incinerators to be burned for energy production.
      
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      July 6, 2025 5:38pm
- Taieri
  
  Bryce Edwards says:
  
  “Comprehensive tax reform: Introduce taxes on wealth and capital (including a robust capital gains tax and possibly inheritance or wealth taxes), and close the loopholes that currently allow many ultra-rich to pay lower effective tax rates than middle-class salary earners. We need a tax system that redistributes wealth and funds public goods, rather than one that lets billionaires grow ever richer tax-free.”
  
  Is he really that naive or just plainly daft? Taxes on wealth and capital will not affect billionaires, they will hit mainly middle class, higher salary earners and small business owners. Billionaires didn’t become billionaires because they are stupid. They have the nous and the resources to minimize their tax liabilities, be it income taxes or any potential wealth and capital taxes.
  
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  July 5, 2025 11:05am
  - NothingLeft
    
    Just stupid and trying to appeal to his tribe of similarly doltish. If you tax wealth and rich it/they leave and govt ends up with less tax revenue than it started with. In recent times ask France, Norway, UK etc.
    
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    July 5, 2025 12:00pm
  - ISeeRed
    
    The rich will just raise their prices, which the little guy ends up paying. Consumers really pay taxes, not companies. It’s so simple. Why don’t they understand?
    
    3 0
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    July 5, 2025 2:56pm
  - Paulus
    
    Easy – introduce it and watch the Billions, like in the UK currently, go offshore
    QED
    
    4 0
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    July 5, 2025 3:02pm
Don Beckett

Anyone else having trouble with the webpage loading? Keep getting error notice.
4 2
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July 5, 2025 10:59am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  It’s been a bit sluggish this morning.
  Haven’t had the error message, tho’.
  
  4 1
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  July 5, 2025 11:09am
- imalwaysright
  
  I’ve noticed the moderation times have increased. 3hrs yesterday and 2hrs today, very unusual .
  Must be a technical issue.
  
  7 1
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  July 5, 2025 12:04pm
Vidar

Trump just signed his big, beautiful bill into law today, and damn he did it in style.

B-2s and F-22s screaming overhead in a flyover:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg2pYz8quqc

Pure spectacle.

Then he announces he’s planning to host a UFC event on the White House lawn next year to celebrate America’s 250th birthday.

Tell me that’s not the most red-blooded, stars n stripes moment you’ve ever heard.

Now I know some people get snobby about MMA “it’s just two guys punching each other” blah blah.
We’re all allowed a bad take once in a while, I guess.

But here’s mine: UFC is an incredible sport.
World-class athletes. Insane fitness. Ridiculously technical.

If you don’t see the skill, you’re not looking hard enough.
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July 5, 2025 11:07am
- Wandering Star
  
  “Then he announces he’s planning to host a UFC event on the White House lawn next year to celebrate America’s 250th birthday.”
  
  While I don’t mind UFC and respect the athletic ability of the participants, this may be the gayest idea I’ve ever heard. This is not the idea of a serious politician, nor something any serious observer would think was a good idea.
  
  He may as well hold a Miss Universe pageant on the White House lawn which, while my sentiments are similar to those regarding UFC, would also be a dumb idea and a sign of how degenerate US politics is.
  
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  July 5, 2025 12:12pm
  - Vidar
    
    “Miss Universe pageant”
    
    As long as its chicks only 🙂
    
    Could be worse, he could have half naked savages dancing and sticking their tongues out every other day
    
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    July 5, 2025 12:43pm
- NZer In Exile
  
  Vidar I get “sign in to be jerked around because we see you like privacy and use a VPN”.
  
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  July 6, 2025 5:40pm
lifesgood

“Not a bludger” ? On a benefit, that’s a bludger in my book. Just go back to your homeland, Hawaii.
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July 5, 2025 11:45am
Colinxy

Cults: Structures, Behaviours, and Dangers — A Critical Examination

I have spent several years studying cults, and in my view, they represent one of the most dangerous forms of social organisation in the world. While this may tread on sensitive ground for some, it’s a topic too important to avoid confronting plainly.

If magic exists in any real sense, it manifests in the extraordinary control cults exert over the minds of their adherents. The psychological grip of a cult can be absolute. Consider the tragic events of Jonestown, where members of the People’s Temple murdered their own children before participating in mass suicide. Or the eerie compliance of Heaven’s Gate followers, who willingly took their lives in pursuit of salvation through an imagined alien vessel. More contemporary examples include suicide bombers convinced they serve a higher cause.

While these are extreme cases, other cults have demonstrated similarly disturbing control in less overtly violent ways. The NXIVM group, for example, coerced women into branding themselves and becoming part of leader Keith Raniere’s personal harem. Many cults have driven members to financial ruin, self-isolation, or estrangement from family.

In the modern West, I would argue the two most significant threats to social cohesion come from cult-like systems: religious fundamentalism (Islam) and ideological extremism (Marxism). Often, these ideologies are not mutually exclusive and may reinforce one another.

What Is a Cult?

A cult typically forms around a charismatic leader — often the founder — who becomes the focal point of the group’s belief system and authority. Classic examples include Charles Manson with the Manson Family. However, there are exceptions. Adolf Hitler, for example, inherited the ideological groundwork laid by others, such as the now largely forgotten Rudolf Jung, the self-styled “Karl Marx of National Socialism.”

After a cult leader’s death (literal or figurative), cults tend to follow one of four trajectories:

Collapse entirely (e.g., People’s Temple after Jonestown).
Transfer power to a new leader (e.g., David Miscavige taking over Scientology).
Shift control to a council or committee (e.g., the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses).
Decentralise into loosely affiliated cells or sects (e.g., Islam, Marxism).

Cults share a unifying ideology or worldview, though this can vary wildly in content — from religious or spiritual systems to political doctrines, martial arts schools, or even multilevel marketing schemes like NXIVM. The specific beliefs matter less than the social and psychological mechanisms by which the group sustains itself.

Core Features of Cult Behaviour

Community and Isolation:

Cults offer a sense of belonging, often through an initial phase known as love-bombing, where recruits are showered with attention, affection, and validation. This builds a rapid sense of attachment. Over time, the cult isolates the individual from external influences — cutting ties with family, friends, and anyone outside the group, even if the cult exists within a broader society.

Inability to Leave Freely:
One of the clearest distinctions between a movement and a cult is how members are treated if they choose to leave. Former Scientology executive Mike Rinder described this difference succinctly: if you can leave without reprisal, it’s a religion. If leaving results in ostracism, harassment, or worse, it’s a cult. Social shunning, threats, and public smearing are common tactics. ‘Cancel Culture’ from the Left is part of this strategy.

Induced Guilt and Control through ‘Sin’:
Many cults compel members to confess real or fabricated misdeeds. This serves as leverage to discourage defection — any attempt to leave is met with the threat of exposing these “sins” to outsiders. Criminal organisations often require new members to commit a crime, ensuring complicity.

Fear of Punishment (Hell or Ruin):
In religious cults, the fear of eternal damnation is a powerful deterrent to leaving. Some secular cults substitute social or existential ruin in place of supernatural punishment.
Control of History and Truth:
Cults frequently engage in historical revisionism to legitimise their beliefs. They reshape narratives, erase dissenting accounts, and construct alternative histories to reinforce their worldview. Ideologues like Jean-Jacques Rousseau exemplified this tendency by inventing myths (such as the “Noble Savage”) to support his philosophical positions.

Myth of the Low-Intelligence Follower:
A dangerous misconception is that only the simple-minded fall for cults. In truth, cults often attract those who perceive themselves as highly intelligent, or at least as outsiders misunderstood by mainstream society. These individuals may see the cult as a venue for realising their intellectual or spiritual potential.

Inner vs Outer Circles:
Cults maintain hierarchies of knowledge and status. The inner circle comprises the most devoted, trusted, and intellectually capable members, privy to the group’s secrets and strategies. The outer circle consists of rank-and-file adherents, often shielded from the darker aspects of the cult’s operations.

Cult Recruitment Strategies
A single cult may use several of the following recruitment tactics:

Secrets: Offering exclusive, hidden knowledge, often revealed incrementally.
Salvation: Exploiting vulnerable moments — grief, debt, or crisis — to present the cult as a source of relief or redemption.
World-Saving Altruism: Framing the cult’s mission as saving humanity, the planet, or civilisation itself. This is especially common in environmental and political cults.
Apocalyptic Fear: Predicting imminent catastrophe and positioning the cult as the only refuge.

Importantly, no cult openly identifies itself as such. They present themselves as movements, communities, churches, political groups, or philosophical societies.

Additional Cult Behaviours Worth Noting
Here are a few other common patterns not previously covered:

Information Control: Regulating what members read, watch, and discuss. Dissenting information is dismissed as lies, propaganda, or spiritually dangerous.
Behavioural Uniformity: Enforcing dress codes, speech conventions, dietary restrictions, and social behaviours to foster conformity and group identity.
Doctrine Over Person: Members are encouraged (or forced) to suppress personal feelings, family loyalty, or empathy if these conflict with cult doctrine.
Enemy Creation: Cults often manufacture external enemies to justify internal controls and galvanise loyalty. These may be governments, rival groups, or abstract conspiracies.
Love/Approval Withdrawal: Affection, attention, and privileges are granted or withdrawn to condition obedience.

Closing Thoughts
Cults are fundamentally about power — whether over a handful of individuals or entire nations. While money is often a tool, it is not necessarily the objective. Some cults, like Heaven’s Gate, sought transcendence rather than wealth. But ultimately, all cults pursue control: of thought, behaviour, resources, and social reality.

Understanding their mechanisms isn’t merely an academic exercise. It is vital for protecting ourselves and others from falling into these destructive systems, and for recognising how cultic behaviours can infect broader institutions and ideologies.
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July 5, 2025 11:53am
- Wandering Star
  
  “Importantly, no cult openly identifies itself as such. They present themselves as movements, communities, churches, political groups, or philosophical societies.”
  
  So “cult” is really just a loaded label that has acquired negative connotations and is applied to a movement, community, church, political group or philosophical society etc. whose doctrine and practices someone disagrees with and wants to dismiss by applying the label.
  
  Saying “X is a cult” is not really an argument against X.
  
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  July 5, 2025 1:00pm
  - Colinxy
    
    Did you bother reading what I wrote?
    
    I defined what a cult is. I covered the universals of a cult, and I also included common characteristics of cults, but they aren’t universal.
    
    Money-making, for example, is a common feature of cults, but not all cults have this feature.
    
    A cult requires difficulty in leaving. This is a requirement of a cult IMO. For example, trying to leave Marxism will get you cancelled, aka ‘Cancel Culture’. Leaving the JWs will get you shunned (that’s their terminology) etc.
    
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    July 5, 2025 1:18pm
- Master Mariner
  
  Thanks ,
  That explains the Cult of Ardern to a tee.
  
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  July 5, 2025 2:46pm
Swifty

Jew hatred ramping up in Oz:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/world-news/360747567/restaurant-stormed-and-synagogue-torched-night-anti-israel-protests-melbourne

More nights of broken glass coming to your town soon.
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July 5, 2025 12:56pm
- Wandering Star
  
  “The attack follows the firebombing last December that gutted the Adass Israel Synagogue in Ripponlea. No charges have been laid in that attack despite Victorian and federal police launching a joint taskforce investigation into the suspected terror attack.”
  
  Federal and State joint taskforce investigation of an incident that occurred eight months ago, yet no charges laid? Did the joint taskforce not find out who did it despite all of the resources at their disposal, or did they find out who did it but nonetheless decided it would be less embarrassing if nobody was charged?
  
  The article says they have CCTV footage of this latest incident, so I don’t see any reason why they wouldn’t quickly locate and charge the arsonist in this case. I await with interest.
  
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  July 5, 2025 2:26pm
- kowtow
  
  It’s appalling .
  
  btw the other day HDPA was discussing with Oz correspondant about the latest criminal doings there .”Youths” hired to shoot up houses etc .
  
  ‘Youths” was all we were told .So much for our msm letting us know what’s actually happening ( seeing as it’s not a mushroom dinner murder they go on and on about in the greatest of details)
  
  Do the smallest digging and we come up with ;
  
  Middle eastern organised crime gangs .
  
  Celebrate the enrichment and diversity , they command us !
  
  Rather , it’s import the third world and you become the third world.
  
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  July 5, 2025 2:48pm
Keith White

So Mike Bush is telling the Aussies that he’s going to control crime now he’s in charge in Victoria. Why didn’t you do that in your last job in NZ, hey, Mikey? All you were good for was hoplophobic gun-grabbing and play-acting for the media, and locking-down ordinary Kiwis while blessing ethnic roadblocks – “Police Commissioner Mike Bush said there were good intentions around roadblocks – keeping the community safe”.
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July 5, 2025 3:08pm
- AitchW
  
  Are you sure you’re not mistaking him for Andrew Coster?
  
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  July 5, 2025 3:59pm
  - Keith White
    
    No, Coster might have been the organ-grinder but Bush was the monkey. For example – the same Bush who talked tough and hard about taking guns off the law-abiding because they were scary with big magazines, actually had tea with the gangs to persuade them to pretty please make him look good.
    
    November 7, 2019
    
    “Illegal guns are remaining in the hands of organised crime as gang leaders refuse to give up their weapons.
    
    “Police have met with more than 50 gang leaders in an effort to get them to comply with firearm law changes before an amnesty ends.
    
    “But it’s proving to be fruitless, as the patched members remain “very reluctant”, Police Commissioner Mike Bush told the Justice Select Committee on Thursday.
    
    “We have identified over 100 influential gang leaders and spoken to about half of them about how they are managing this and what their approach and attitude toward that [amnesty] is.”
    
    After the committee meeting, Bush said communication lines with senior patched gang members had revealed they had a different approach to law abiding members of the public, in relation to the return of guns.
    
    No sheeiite, Sherlock. Whatever was your first clue? Criminals don’t obey the law. Get a warrant and search their premises while you sip your cuppa, you toothless copper.
    
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    July 5, 2025 5:14pm
- kowtow
  
  Bush made comments re covid around and I paraphrase ;
  
  if you don’t do what we tell you , you’ll spend the night in the cells.
  
  I was shocked at the lack of critique there was from the usual suspects /msm re that most naked threat and potentially unlawful and unconstitutional utterance .
  
  But it goes to show how utterly supine the media are/were , when it suits.
  
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  July 5, 2025 4:26pm
- keepcalmcarryon
  
  Commissioner for Pike River mishandling and firearms licensing for Australian terrorists.
  Interesting choice.
  
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  July 5, 2025 6:15pm
- keepcalmcarryon
  
  And don’t forget commissioner for stopping rescues on White Island/ prosecuting heroes that did.
  Thoughts and prayers Victoria.
  
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  July 5, 2025 6:33pm

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