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July 14, 2025 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 14 July 2025

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General Debate

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NeverMindTheBollocks

21 months in jail is now the going rate for killing someone in NZ.

That’s after a “career” of 70 driving infringements, 11 driving convictions, and drugs, violence, dishonesty and weapons charges. No doubt it’s only his six previous stints in jail that stops the list being longer.

Scum.

http://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/566767/honorary-filthy-few-member-mark-kimber-sentenced-for-the-manslaughter-of-tauranga-pedestrians-geoffrey-and-karen-boucher
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July 14, 2025 8:01am
- Ghost
  
  The positive here is that he got jail time, and not home detention.
  
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  July 14, 2025 8:59am
  - R
    
    ‘Only just’ a positive ,
    
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    July 14, 2025 10:31am
  - Paulus
    
    He is very familiar we understand with Jail anyway as all his pals are there.
    
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    July 14, 2025 11:12am
  - NZer In Exile
    
    Wrong ancestry.
    
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    July 14, 2025 7:08pm
- cmm
  
  If we were to imprison everyone for their full sentence then we’d need somewhere around 6 to 10 times as much prison capacity as we need now.
  
  It would be worth it in at least two ways:
  * make stronger punishments that serve as both correction and deterrents.
  * keep the worst offenders out of society.
  
  There is a massive pressure for sentences to be reduced to less than 24 months because those can often be converted to home detention. Hopefully that is not the case here.
  
  For every person in prison we have 3 in home D and almost all have had their sentences chopped in half by parole etc. If two thirds of the home D were imprisoned (ie. home D was reserved for the mildest cases and not the default setting) and everyone served their full sentences then we’d have 6x as many prisoners.
  
  If prisons were a bit less flash, it probably wouldn’t cost a huge lot more to house the increased prison population.
  
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  July 14, 2025 9:06am
  - imalwaysright
    
    The extra prisons would be worth it in that ,as most crimes seem to be committed by recidivists, putting them in jail reduces the workload on police and the courts and gives the public confidence to walk their own streets.
    
    More prisons, or, preferably, more people in the existing prisons, is a good idea.
    
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    July 14, 2025 9:24am
    - R
      
      Can only give you one ‘uptick’ unfortunately.
      
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      July 14, 2025 10:33am
  - peterwn
    
    Well, Sheriff Arpaio of Maricopa County (Pheonix, Arizona – population similar to NZ) dealt successfully with a big influx of prisoners in his jails.
    
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    July 14, 2025 9:25am
    - David Garrett
      
      Peter: Yes…and he fed them on USD2 per day by buying food that was after its “best before” date…and the meals were perfectly adequate…I had lunch in one of his jail back in 2007
      
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      July 14, 2025 9:34am
      - David Garrett
        
        Visiting … not an inmate!
        
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        July 14, 2025 9:41am
      - peterwn
        
        Did you also have liquid refreshments that are not provided to inmates?
        
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        July 14, 2025 9:56am
      - David Garrett
        
        Peter No liqiud refreshments…I should also add that they didn’t know I was going to ask for a prisoners lunch…so I got exactly what they got: the American equivalent of a filled roll, an apple, and a tub of yoghurt
        
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        July 14, 2025 10:00am
      - Mike
        
        Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
        His jail conditions were repeatedly ruled illegal.
        Instead of fixing the jails, he spent his time conjuring a fake assassination attempt, ignoring sexual assault cases, trying to prove Obama wasn’t born in the US, and recruiting posses of untrained (but armed) volunteers to guard schools which didn’t want guards. Convicted of contempt of court, he was pardoned, by Trump of course, before going on to lose three or four races for public office.
        What a shining exemplar for penal policy.
        
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        July 14, 2025 10:58am
      - PaulP
        
        David, seems to me the “filled roll, an apple, and a tub of yoghurt” would be fine for our school lunches too. not sure why they insist on a hot lunch.
        
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        July 14, 2025 12:57pm
      - imalwaysright
        
        Paulp
        
        You are right.
        
        Perhaps the people who run the house where the child lives could give them a filled roll etc to take with them to school to keep them fed until dinner time.
        
        This “hot lunch” crap that we hear is the thin end of the wedge. What’s next? Onesies supplied by the school in case one of them catches a draft?
        Baby food in case they can’t chew?
        Wet nurses in case they don’t like solids?
        
        NZ is becoming the world leader in Wankerism.
        
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        July 14, 2025 1:28pm
      - David Garrett
        
        Paul: Now that I think about it, I also had a cardboard container of apple juice.
        
        As I say, because it was a spur of the moment decision on my part, I can be 100% sure that my lunch was the same as the prisoners’
        
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        July 14, 2025 2:04pm
    - cmm
      
      Yup, it astounds me that it costs over $10k a month per prisoner in NZ (Over $300 per day).
      
      In South Africa the social grant is about $35 per month. Does a NZ prisoner “deserve” more than that?
      
      Some years ago I spoke to an ex-prisoner who started bitching that Corrections took too long to fix the broken skylights in Chch prison and the rain came in and they got cold.
      I asked how the windows got broken. The prisoners broke them.
      He was less than happy when I said I thought is good that prisoners learned a bit of cause and effect.
      
      Not much learned there though – his son was already in borstal.
      
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      July 14, 2025 9:57am
      - pdm
        
        cmm – that would include staff wages and other admin costs.
        
        Nothing is cheap these days.
        
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        July 14, 2025 12:02pm
      - imalwaysright
        
        Pdm
        I could fit 10 prisoners in my basement for $3000 a day.
        I guarantee they won’t escape and they will be adequately fed.
        
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        July 14, 2025 12:32pm
      - cmm
        
        Yes, that does include the full cost of running prisons.
        
        Apparently the standard cost in FY 2023/24 was $8.21/day for prison meals. I suppose it is $10 now. That’s quite a lot.
        
        Considering prison farms etc, you would think they could feed themselves with zero support.
        
        Still, that is a tiny part of the $300 a day overall cost,
        
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        July 14, 2025 12:54pm
    - Ra Henare
      
      [Mod – last time I looked you weren’t a moderator, so just comment without your usual snark directed at moderators]
      
      How about the biggest prison camp in the world, run by Sheriff Netanyahu.
      
      The Gaza strip, 2 million inmates to contain a few thousand repeat offenders/freedom fighters).
      
      Meal cost approaches zero as supplies are restricted.
      
      Absolute punishment(death) does NOT seem to stop the need for more harsh treatment.
      
      For all those who poopoo fatality rates. Found this in an Israeli MSM source. Seems said source can provide names, ID numbers and lineage of said dead people.
      
      https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-06-26/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/100-000-dead-what-we-know-about-gazas-true-death-toll/00000197-ad6b-d6b3-abf7-edfbb1e20000
      
      So I guess big, prisons, harsh/extreme conditions and throw everyone in jail doesn’t really work.?
      
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      July 14, 2025 3:50pm
      - Ra Henare
        
        Sorry mod, I wasn’t impugning or attempting to immune you. My attempts at humour obviously went astray.
        
        I have respect for mods.
        so I withdraw and apologise.
        
        I am a mod on two large blogs(One NZ, One International). And know the difficulty in drawing a line, while respecting that some commenters can be a bit blunt.
        
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        July 14, 2025 9:15pm
      - Fraggle
        
        When are you off to fight for Hamas?
        
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        July 15, 2025 9:30am
    - Jake Dee
      
      I don’t want to nit-pick here (too much) but jails are for pretrial detention but prisons are for custodial sentences.
      No one should be serving their sentence for any degree of homicide in the Sheriff’s county jail. Unless the whole system is massively overcrowded jails should only be holding convicted felons temporarily or misdemeanor convicts.
      
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      July 14, 2025 6:50pm
      - David Garrett
        
        Jake: you are in NZ son…there is no distinction here between jail and prison…and the terms “felon” and “misdeamenor” are peculiar to American law
        
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        July 15, 2025 5:34am
      - Jake Dee
        
        David, the discussion started with “the going rate for killing someone in NZ. The discussion then moved to the solutions implemented by Sheriff Arpaio of Maricopa County, Phoenix, Arizona. But nobody is serving time for homicide in a county jail.
        It’s relevant.
        
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        July 15, 2025 7:21am
  - Taieri
    
    If prisons were a bit less flash
    ———-
    
    I have only ever been inside of the abandoned Patarei Prison in Tallin, Estonia. It wasn’t very flash, even before it was abandoned. One of the most moving sights I’ve ever experienced.
    
    https://www.timetravelturtle.com/estonia/patarei-prison-tallinn/
    
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    July 14, 2025 9:32am
  - ObligatoryMarxist
    
    1) Prison doesn’t work as a deterrent, almost every actual study of the impact of harsh sentences shows this
    2) Harsh prisons don’t work as “corrections” – they instead tend to harden and make recidivism more likely
    3) Keeping people “off the streets” only works for the ones who’ve already committed major crimes, and harsh prison sentences just give them more opportunity to mold inmates who are there for a shorter time into more hardened criminals and build their networks.
    
    If your argument is just “People who commit murder are scum, and I will personally feel better if they’re miserable”, that’s fair enough, but you can’t argue it will make us safer. Unpleasant as it may be, the most effective long term way to improve and make people safer is to treat even horrible scum like people and try and address those root causes academics are always talking about.
    
    Though again, if your argument were just “Punishing horrible people makes me feel better so we should do that”, I’d respect that argument for being honest.
    
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    July 14, 2025 10:13am
    - David Garrett
      
      Marxist: Well named…at least half of what you say is bollocks – but since i am using my phone I cant be bothered addressing your comment piece by piece.
      
      Here’s the short version: by the time anyone other than murderers – who are often “clean skins” – finally get sent to prison, most will have already had all the “community based” sentences, aimed at promoting rehabilitation.
      
      The average prisoner has 46 previous convictions, meani g they are already hardened criminals with no interest in taking a different path.
      
      The only logical policy is to make prisons bleak and cheaply run, in the slim hope that just perhaps, some inmates might decide they’ve had enough before the age when most stop offending.
      
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      July 14, 2025 10:41am
      - Fender
        
        Or a pick inserted up the nose and wiggled around makes them a bit more compliant
        Cured all sorts of things in the past //
        
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        July 14, 2025 11:15am
      - imalwaysright
        
        “The average prisoner has 46 previous convictions, …”
        
        Presumably 45 victims’ suffering was inadequate proof that the scumbag should not ever be allowed back into society to rack up number 46.
        
        How can the judges and the parole boards not see that letting these people back into society is a guarantee that there will be another innocent victim?
        
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        July 14, 2025 11:28am
      - Jack5
        
        Obligatory Marxist’s …Prison doesn’t work as a deterrent …
        
        But you’re surely not saying that punishment doesn’t work.
        
        Not a helluva lot of thieves in Saudi Arabia.
        
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        July 14, 2025 12:17pm
    - cmm
      
      Oh dear:
      “1) Prison doesn’t work as a deterrent, almost every actual study of the impact of harsh sentences shows this”
      
      Really? I doubt that very much. People learn cause and effect. Crims try to avoid capture so clearly they don’t like it inside.
      
      What would make it an improvement is to make them like it less.
      
      “2) Harsh prisons don’t work as “corrections” – they instead tend to harden and make recidivism more likely”
      
      Absolute nonsense. NZ, with some of the softest prisons in the world, has some of the highest recidivism rates. Perhaps it is just a Maori defect, but I doubt that.
      
      I would argue that with soft prisons (as per NZ), prisoners quickly learn that it isn’t so bad so they don’t mind coming back for more – hence recidivism.
      
      “3) Keeping people “off the streets” only works for the ones who’ve already committed major crimes, and harsh prison sentences just give them more opportunity to mold inmates who are there for a shorter time into more hardened criminals and build their networks.”
      
      Please. This is the age of the internet. Criminal networking has never been easier. The idea that they only learn in prison is beyond broken.
      
      Bottom line is that what we are doing now is not working. We need to try something different.
      
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      July 14, 2025 11:24am
      - Ra Henare
        
        CMM.
        Enough of the racism, thank you.
        
        Absolute nonsense. NZ, with some of the softest prisons in the world, has some of the highest recidivism rates. Perhaps it is just a Maori defect, but I doubt that.
        
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        July 14, 2025 3:33pm
    - Gussy Fink-Nottle
      
      Some ideas are so stupid, only academics believe them.
      That is, of course, academics that have yet to be victims of serious crime.
      
      Ok, punishment doesn’t deter (much), the likelihood of getting caught does.
      
      But ask yourself this: what would you have done with Hitler, Goebbels, and Eichmann?
      Or Ted Bundy, for that matter?
      
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      July 14, 2025 11:50am
    - rouppe
      
      The corollary, proved by the ram raid epidemic, is that treating criminals like people just encourages them to continue to be criminals.
      
      So if being nice doesn’t stop people being criminals, and being harsh doesn’t stop people being criminals, what practical action should we as a society take in order to keep safe those of us trying to make a living?
      
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      July 14, 2025 12:35pm
      - cmm
        
        It is unclear that the rise and fall of ramraiding has anything to do with getting soft or tough on crime.
        
        Rather I expect it is far more to do with what is fashionable on tiktok etc.
        
        At the time that ram raiding really went crazy in NZ, there was an international craze around ram raiding and similar activities.
        
        Social media is a huge driver of crime. Kids like to copy, or outdo, others for “clout”.
        
        An example of these is the “Kia Challenge” craze of 2022 and kids stealing cars and deliberately running down cyclists etc.
        
        Just like all internet crazes, these eventually lose popularity and people move onto different things.
        
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kia_Challenge
        https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/481402/revealed-what-s-behind-ram-raid-rampage-tiktok-and-adrenaline
        
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        July 14, 2025 3:02pm
      - rouppe
        
        So you think the revolving door of youth “justice” had nothing to do with the severity of the crimes or the length of time they went on?
        
        Whatever…
        
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        July 15, 2025 2:27am
    - KH
      
      I have to mostly agree with the Marxist. Punishment, deterrence and rehab does not work.
      But here is the thing. Keeping them on the other side of a fence from civil society does work. It stops them continuing the predatory behaviour on us.
      Given the way the criminal behaviours work (see DGs comment) and 45 convictions is what happens before final incarceration – those who end up in prison are the right ones.
      Keep em there long as possible. It has the best benefit for us.
      
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      July 14, 2025 1:42pm
    - Eastlander
      
      You will improve your understanding of the world immensely if you can just grasp that in every instance your understanding of the cause and effect relationship is ass-backwards.
      
      Let’s start with the obvious – deterrence most certainly does work. Career criminals in particular pay close attention to the probable sentences for the offences they might wish to commit and manage their affairs accordingly. Youth offenders are especially bold precisely because they know that there’s very little the just system can do to them.
      
      Then we come to the idiotic ‘school of crime’ meme, and it’s here that your funhouse mirror understanding of cause and effect is thrown into sharp relief. Offenders reoffend after longer sentences not because prison has changed their character but because by the time they get them they’re already hardened criminals. As for networking, it’s a lot easier to do that when you aren’t in prison – you would know this if you had ever been in employment.
      
      And punishment. A thoroughly normal human desire and as it happens, essential to the rehabilitation of the criminal (on the vanishingly rare occasions this happens) – an offender who actually feels contrition welcomes punishment, restoring as it does the balance of the world. You far more than anyone here share the impulse to punish – being a communist you most likely spend your abundant free time fantasizing about killing white people who own houses. It’s simply that your distorted moral compass doesn’t find fault in crimes against persons or property.
      
      On reflection though I don’t think you can learn from what I’ve tried to tell you. Being a communist means there’s something fundamentally wrong with you, and there’s very little you can do about that.
      
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      July 14, 2025 6:04pm
    - NZer In Exile
      
      ObligatoryMarxist: “Unpleasant as it may be, the most effective long term way to improve and make people safer is to treat even horrible scum like people and try and address those root causes academics are always talking about. ”
      
      Low level offending “maybe”. Violent psychopaths, no. Humane treatment? Sure. But securely away from the community.
      
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      July 14, 2025 7:14pm
    - Jake Dee
      
      A broad analogy can be made here between crime and disease, prisons and hospitals, law enforcement and medicine.
      In both cases the theoretically perfect can be the enemy of the practical and quite good.
      We all want people to live long and healthy lives and an ounce of prevention is always better than a pound of cure, stop the infection before it even enters the house and all that.
      BUT, there is a trade off and resources are ALWAYS limited, resources used to treat or cure a particularly difficult case are resources that can’t be spent on shoring up immunity in the healthy and vice versa.
      There are always going to be some cases where the correct option is to permanently isolate the sick so they can’t spread the infection further.
      The problem with Marxism and other theoretically perfect systems is that it’s trying to make straight planks out of the often very bent wood of humanity. If the observed reality doesn’t meet the theoretical model then it’s reality that’s wrong, not the model.
      Christianity may have a similar problem, it’s an article of faith that any soul can be redeemed
      “bring all souls into heaven, especially those most in need of they mercy”.
      Both Marxists and Christian should want to save everyone from a life of sin/crime and incarceration, but both should also be wise enough to known that is never going to happen and that time and effort spent on trying to cure the most difficult cases can also be time that the infection of crime and suffering can spread further.
      
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      July 14, 2025 7:22pm
  - Simon
    
    National party: Prisons are a moral & fiscal failure
    
    This is on the National party. They are the ones. Recall how recently National mildly increased the sentence guidelines. They waited for Luxon to get back to announce. It was that important for National. Pure performance.
    
    All sentences are political. All crime is political. The out of crime culture is down to the National party
    
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    July 14, 2025 10:44am
    - cmm
      
      “Prisons are a moral & fiscal failure”
      
      I think they are a failure too, but that does not mean I think they should get rid of them.
      
      Instead, I think prisons need to be a bit more focused in what they do to achieve better outcomes.
      
      Those outcomes should be measured in three ways:
      * Do they keep the worst criminals off the street to make society safer? That is the most important facet of imprisonment.
      * Do they “correct” as measured by recidivism rates?
      * Do they serve as a deterrent and keep people on the straight and narrow?
      
      I would argue though that even with our very expensive prison service, they are not a fiscal failure. The worst criminals cost us far more in damage to society than the cost of keeping them buttoned up.
      
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      July 14, 2025 1:07pm
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        When English said that he was also not talking about getting rid of prions, infact they were busy building a new prison, but as usual taken out of context
        
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        July 14, 2025 2:03pm
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    I see that Sweden is outsourcing some of its prison population to Estonia.
    
    That’s an idea that could catch on here. We’d want somewhere closer than Estonia, of course. How about Tonga or the Solomons? A sort-of reverse RSE scheme.
    
    http://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2025/06/06/sweden-to-lease-a-prison-in-estonia-to-deal-with-overcrowding_6742079_4.html#
    
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    July 14, 2025 10:52am
    - David Garrett
      
      Nevermind: I visit the Nuku’alofa prison fairly often, and I certainly wouldn’t want to be an inmate at what is colloqially known as “The Hu’atolitoli Hilton”
      
      It’s never going to happen of course, but I’m prepared to bet that the recidivism rate for NZ prisoners who’d served their time at the HH would be a fraction of what it is now.
      
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      July 14, 2025 11:26am
      - Skippytony
        
        I just drove past the Kerobokan Hotel in Bali – Jesus thats a pretty grim place. Designed for ~300 and holding over 1,200.
        
        I doubt very much that the daily cost there runs to more than about 5 bucks per.
        
        Taxi driver in Singapore the other day was all for the local approach including the Rattan back scratcher. You can walk the streets at night in complete safety. Cab drivers never get robbed. Leave your keys in your car…
        
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        July 14, 2025 2:59pm
    - cmm
      
      “We’d want somewhere closer than Estonia”
      
      Why? It costs us $10k per month (over $300 per day) per prisoner here. If Estonia could do that at, say $1500 per month ($50 per day) that would probably be a good deal all around.
      
      Let’s consider setting up something like this for all prisoners serving 2 years or longer:
      
      * We have a holding tank prison.
      * Every month we send a prison ship which takes the contents of the holding tank and ships them to Estonia, This trip takes around 6 weeks.
      * Estonia holds them $50 per day (they’d probably make a bit of a profit).
      * 2 months before then end of the sentence they’re back on the prison ship back to NZ, 6 week trip.
      * They spend their last few weeks in a the holding tank in NZ.
      
      If flying is cheaper than ship (quite likely) then they get to fly instead on a chartered plane. Probably around $1000 return trip. No inflight entertainment, drinks etc.
      
      So what would that cost us? $20,000 per year per prisoner + transfer costs of around $1000 (return flight at charter rates). That’s less than a fifth of the cost of keeping them in a NZ prison.
      
      Put it out to tender. If some South American or African shithole can do it cheaper then they get the contract.
      
      Now clearly that’s quite harsh treatment, so I would only recommend it for return customers – those that failed to get the message with their first stint in prison.
      
      Yeah, I know, dreams are free – we’d never see that in NZ.
      
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      July 14, 2025 11:40am
      - David Garrett
        
        cmm: You are a very sensible chap…but as you say, none of that is ever going to happen here. There was a big enough fuss about private prisons within these shores.
        
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        July 14, 2025 11:50am
      - Taieri
        
        Estonia holds them $50 per day
        ———-
        Considerably more than that.
        
        “According to the agreement, Sweden will be able to send up to 600 prisoners to Estonia at a cost of around €8,500 per prisoner per month.”
        
        “According to the Estonian Ministry of Justice, there are vacancies in all three of Estonia’s prisons, but there are no definite plans to rent those places out. The three prisons have a total of 3,000 places, with only around half currently filled.”
        
        https://news.err.ee/1609744695/further-renting-of-prison-spaces-depends-on-estonia-s-capacity-to-provide-services
        
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        July 14, 2025 12:42pm
      - cmm
        
        Taieir: “According to the agreement, Sweden will be able to send up to 600 prisoners to Estonia at a cost of around €8,500 per prisoner per month”
        
        They’re laughing to the bank then. That’s much more than the cost in NZ.
        
        In Kenya it costs $2.26 a day (KES 175) to keep a prisoner behind bars. I’m sure they’d do it for us for $50 a day.
        
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        July 14, 2025 1:14pm
      - Manu-Rau
        
        Bomana Prison in Port Moresby is a lovely spot. And reachable in five hours in one of the RNZAF’s new Hercules C-130Js.
        
        I’m sure the RPNGCS would be able to provide an appropriate standard of accommodation for $1k a month.
        
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        July 14, 2025 2:26pm
      - Raphael
        
        Wouldn’t a container on White Island be cheaper for the worst of our criminals?
        
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        July 14, 2025 5:40pm
  - NothingLeft
    
    We send $100’s of millions in financial aid to pacific islands.
    
    How about we do a quid quo pro instead. They can run prisons for our longer term inmates at say 10-20% NZ costs (just tents and barbed wire fences), they get some jobs industry, and we get a safer NZ at with a much lower cost Criminal Justice system.
    
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    July 14, 2025 11:50am
    - cmm
      
      Quite.
      
      Many South Africans doing National Service spent a year+ living in tents in places like Heidelberg which gets colder than Canterbury in winter.
      
      It seems crazy to me that prisoners need to be treated better than soldiers.
      
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      July 14, 2025 1:17pm
      - David Garrett
        
        cmm: that was exactly Sheriff Joe’s reasoning: American troops were living in tents in Eye-rak – where it is even hotter than Arizona – so why shouldn’t prisoners “enjoy” the same conditions in his jail?
        
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        July 14, 2025 2:11pm
      - AitchW
        
        I spent an October living in a tent in Waiouru in the early 80s. It’s bloody cold even then!
        
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        July 14, 2025 3:04pm
      - Jake Dee
        
        There is a major problem with comparing the conditions endured by prisoners and conditions endured by soldiers, even soldiers doing national service, some of whom (not all) don’t want to be there.
        I think you can see what it is.
        A soldier knows or at least should know that what they’re doing is important and useful, they’re humping their heavy packs up and down frozen mountains again and again in defence of their people, either actively fighting in or preparing for a war that could be life or death for them and their families. A prisoner has nothing but the hope that one day they aren’t a prisoner anymore.
        The military offers a path to advance towards status and esteem. That raw recruit in a frozen tent could become a Colonel in 20 years if they are smart and dedicated, after 20 years a prisoner is just a hardened old lag, much worse and of lower status (in the real human community) than when they went in.
        The best, strongest and most dedicated soldier actually wants MORE of it not less, they are training and applying for the elite units where the dangers and the hardships are WORSE not better.
        And Monks have conditions even worse than soldiers, at least soldiers get leave where they can meet women and their superiors try to get them better food an recreation. No parole board for Monks, no time off for good behavior.
        If prisoners shouldn’t have it better than soldiers then why shouldn’t have it better than Monks?
        The answer is the human spirit, or if you like psyche or soul.
        Incidentally the very strict Orthodox monasteries of Mount Athos turn away maybe 80-90% of applications, similar rates to many elite military units.
        
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        July 14, 2025 8:00pm
  - Local Miller
    
    The logic here is false. 3 Strikes was going to massively push up the prison population, but it didn’t because it is a deterrent. If we were to put first offenders in prison for the maximum term based on their crime, there would be a massive deterrent to not commit crime. As it stands now, all the crims know they will get slapped with a very wet bus ticket the first 20+ times they get caught, so “who cares”. Commit a crime, spend a few months sitting at home on the tax payers dime, then go out and do it all again.
    To be effective justice must be swift and proportional to the crime. Anything less results in a disregard for the law, which is what we see in NZ.
    
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    July 14, 2025 11:56am
    - David Garrett
      
      Local: To be effective punishment- any punishment, whether it’s a toddler biting his sister or imprisonment- said punishment must be certain, immediate, and proportional (you mention the last two but not the first)
      
      The New Zealand justice system fails on all three criteria: punishment for criminal offending is neither certain, nor immediate, nor proportional.
      
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      July 14, 2025 12:14pm
      - Local Miller
        
        I know there was another one, but just couldn’t remember it, and being at work doesn’t give me time to look things like this up.
        
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        July 14, 2025 3:41pm
  - Graeme Hall
    
    Auckland Island is a natural prison. Our own Sharkatraz. Air drop some supplies every month. Cheap. Secure. Lot of fresh air.
    
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    July 14, 2025 3:01pm
- Cassandra
  
  Kimber was doing 110km/h in a 50km/h zone in the lead-up to Bethlehem roundabout, just before the incident, and before that he’d been travelling an estimated 30km/h above the speed limit on the expressway. And he ran a red light. He got a discount for his upbringing – he’s 60 years old! He killed two people. He’s got a record as long as your arm. He should have been in prison for life years ago.
  
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  July 14, 2025 9:08am
  - cmm
    
    “He got a discount for his upbringing – he’s 60 years old!”
    
    At least it is only for his upbringing and not 5 generations previously.
    
    When is someone going to point out that Maori are privileged because they got the vote before white people?
    
    They also have the privilege of Mātauranga Māori and Whanaungatanga denied the rest of us.
    
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    July 14, 2025 9:24am
    - imalwaysright
      
      “He got a discount for his upbringing – he’s 60 years old!”
      
      Mental picture of judge changing 60 year old’s nappy…
      
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      July 14, 2025 1:42pm
    - Ra Henare
      
      CMM
      Again with the racism.?????
      I understand you are from South Africa.
      But that is no excuse for repeated racist remarks.
      
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      July 14, 2025 3:37pm
      - imalwaysright
        
        Ra,
        To be fair, if Maori allow their self appointed gangster representatives to cite the multitude of excuses, that they seem to have an unlimited supply of, for the plight of the Maori people, then it is not only acceptable, but necessary to recite the same excuses in order to highlight the fraud upon which the “Maori” industry is based.
        
        The last in the Maori industry queue will always be the poorest Maori.
        
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        July 14, 2025 5:03pm
      - David Garrett
        
        Ra: So what’s ur explanation for the massive overrepresention of Maori in prisons – colonization? Really? The only catastrophe the effects of which get WORSE the more time which passes from said catastrophe
        
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        July 14, 2025 6:09pm
      - Ra Henare
        
        For those commenters who dont understand racism.
        Its easy really.
        Merriam Webster says.
        : a belief that race is a fundamental determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race
        
        So every time you throw around comments like Maori this or Maori that, as a Generalisation.
        You are showing Racism.
        
        If you said SOME of Maori descent, or a high percentage of those in Jail are of Maori descent, Then that would be attempting to expose a fact and NOT racist.
        
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        July 14, 2025 9:23pm
      - David Garrett
        
        Ra: do you own a dictionary? Or know to use Google?
        Using either mode, look up the word “racism”. Here’s a wee hint – stating facts – that Maori have things available to them that we Europeans dont – is NOT racism..but the existence of said things based on ones race alone might well be
        
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        July 15, 2025 5:49am
  - Simon
    
    Did he lose his license for the rest of his life?
    
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    July 14, 2025 10:45am
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      No,
      Only disqualified for 3 years once he is released.
      
      https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/honorary-filthy-few-member-mark-kimber-sentenced-for-the-manslaughter-of-tauranga-pedestrians-geoffrey-and-karen-boucher/6CNT6OGOH5EJ3PEQTGBLLRZOCQ/
      
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      July 14, 2025 2:18pm
- David Garrett
  
  Nevermind: It’s worse than that mate…the Sentencing Act automatically cuts that 21 months in half…no parole application necessary
  
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  July 14, 2025 9:28am
  - imalwaysright
    
    Its almost as if the punishment is for getting caught.
    
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    July 14, 2025 9:51am
    - R
      
      For most criminal elements, in their minds, getting caught was the crime; not the actual misdemeanor. Criminals consider such as irrelevant, it is their way of life and therfore faultless.
      
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      July 14, 2025 10:39am
  - Simon
    
    “automatically cuts that 21 months in half…no parole application” Sentencing Act
    
    Thanks National party. The scum are laughing
    
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    July 14, 2025 10:47am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      Not any longer, can’t reduce the sentence to less than 60% of the punishment, and thanks government for getting rid of 80-90% reductions of Labours
      
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      July 14, 2025 2:15pm
      - David Garrett
        
        G: you are wrong…the cutting in half of sentences of two years or less is not a discount…it is prescribed qin the Sentencing Act. Of course the Nats could repeal that section if they were serious about crime reduction – but they are not, as evidenced by the joke replacement for the three strikes law…which will actually make things worse as judges work around the prescribed minimum sentences before it kicks in.
        
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        July 14, 2025 2:56pm
- mandk
  
  If you consider the number and range of convictions that man has had, you realise it would probably have been cheaper to keep him in prison that out of it.
  
  I have served on a jury twice, once for a case of assault causing bodily harm and once for a case of manslaughter.
  
  There can be a lot of waiting around for jurors during a trial, so I took the opportunity to estimate the cost of police time investigating the crimes, the cost of preparing the defence and prosecution cases and their time in court, the cost of expert witnesses, the cost of the judge’s time, and the loss of economic output for the jurors.
  
  My conservative estimates were around $75,000 for the assault case and around $250,000 for the manslaughter case.
  
  For a recidivist offender, the cost of their criminal career could run into several, or even many, $millions.
  
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  July 14, 2025 10:46am
  - cmm
    
    Yup and that’s not even the cost of the mayhem they cause in society.
    
    It “only” costs $10k a month to hold a prisoner. Many of them are causing more than $10k of damage a day while they are on the streets.
    
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    July 14, 2025 11:44am
NeverMindTheBollocks

The Govt is looking to extend how much time overseas students can work while studying, from 20 to 25 hours per week.

Hmm. Sounds to me more like a work visa with part-time study attached. However, the one thing any study visa must not do is give the student the right to reside in NZ post-study. Enjoy your student years, have a bit of a holiday post-study and then take the tales of your happy years in NZ back home with you. And if you think you have something to offer NZ post study then by all means apply from your home country.

http://www.1news.co.nz/2025/07/14/govt-aims-to-double-economic-impact-of-international-students-by-2034/
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July 14, 2025 8:14am
- Nigel Kearney
  
  Why? If a foreign student graduate wants to work here, we get 40 years of benefit from their work and the taxes they pay, and some other country had to pay for their entire upbringing and education. That’s a great deal for us.
  
  What we should be looking at instead are people who come here and don’t work, or people who take their NZ taxpayer funded education and go overseas and work. Those are the people that are hurting us.
  
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  July 14, 2025 8:53am
  - pdm
    
    NK – even more so we should be looking at people born in NZ who have never worked. Probably bred into them because their parents and the parents siblings have not worked either.
    
    Oh the lifestyle.
    
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    July 14, 2025 8:56am
    - imalwaysright
      
      Pdm
      Correct, we are soon to see families introduce their children as the fourth generation of unemployed.
      
      Before the 1970’s no maori family would have tolerated the nephews and nieces couch surfing, so the current situation can’t be blamed on the settlers.
      
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      July 14, 2025 10:00am
      - David Garrett
        
        Imalways: until the early 70’s Maori were underrepresented in prisons. The change began with the urban drift- away from traditional whanau, hapu and iwi structures which had hitherto controlled most bad behavior – albeit no doubt with some rough Justice meted out by elders.
        
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        July 14, 2025 10:45am
  - cmm
    
    ” If a foreign student graduate”
    Not all study is the same and it really depends on what that “graduate” graduated with. If someone studied at one of those “business colleges” then they’re not really set up to do more than Uber driving or working in a take away.
    
    “or people who take their NZ taxpayer funded education and go overseas and work”
    Again, it depends very much on the area they studied in.
    
    Yes, if an engineer or nurse leaves NZ (hint they do), then we lose their value.
    But perhaps half of degrees in NZ are bullshit basket weaving degrees and the loss was already in allowing the degree to be funded in the first place – it was never going to create value.
    
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    July 14, 2025 9:15am
    - David Garrett
      
      cmm: Do you mean that my degree in Womens studies is not going to be much use??
      
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      July 14, 2025 10:19am
      - I remember when
        
        DG: Was that the one with the 100% pass rate?
        
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        July 14, 2025 10:37am
      - David Garrett
        
        I remember : Why Yes…and everyone got an A !
        
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        July 14, 2025 11:30am
      - imalwaysright
        
        Any married man over 60 is, by default, entitled to a PhD in Women’s Studies.
        
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        July 14, 2025 12:45pm
      - David Garrett
        
        Imalways: Not to a degree in Tongan Women’s Studies mate! You can spend a lifetime and not get one of those – no matter how hard u study
        
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        July 14, 2025 2:18pm
      - waikatosinger
        
        Amazing. Only the women got A’s in mine.
        
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        July 14, 2025 2:36pm
    - Paulus
      
      At least the Colleges teach in English as far as I know and, not Maori – yet !
      
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      July 14, 2025 11:17am
- cmm
  
  What is the problem you are trying to solve?
  
  Keeping foreign students out of the workforce makes sense if you think there is a shortage of work that is keeping cuzzies on the couch. But the cuzzies are on the couch regardless of whether there is work available or not.
  
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  July 14, 2025 9:09am
- MCōs
  
  A few years ago I went down to a graduation ceremony at Hamilton where my niece picked up a phd. After her presentation we sat through a long stream of graduates picking up degrees and a good proportion were Asian — like half at least.
  I suspect a plenty of them were foreign students who bring in much needed money both for the country and the university.
  To my mind it’s a bonus if they stay here and plug gaps in the professional workforce, which they do.
  
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  July 14, 2025 9:35am
  - cmm
    
    It very much depends on what they studied. A PhD in feminism isn’t worth much but a PhD in microbiology probably is.
    
    The people who come to “study” in one of the “business colleges” should not be considered the same as engineers etc.
    
    A few years back we got two Indian students through the one of those student work arrangements to come plant some trees. They worked well.
    
    The course they were doing all had video lectures which they watched when convenient (normally in the evenings) and they were working around 40 hours a week.
    
    They certainly were working more than studying, but I’ll welcome hard workers any time.
    
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    July 14, 2025 10:29am
- Handyman
  
  The universities have admitted that without the promise of a NZ passport, no one would pay for their supposedly “world class” New Zealand education.
  New Zealand attracts poorer quality students and if they work 25 hours a week at the liquor store they are not going to be top graduates.
  
  Follow the money: 70% of the entire cost to a foreign student is the fees which go directly to university academic staff (most of whom are from overseas). They don’t care about the quality of the graduates – they just want bums on seats.
  
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  July 14, 2025 10:05am
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    That’s exactly my point. If we were honest, we’d say that the price of citizenship is whatever it costs to study here. As CMM says, not all qualifications are the same.
    
    At its heart, our foreign student policy is in fact a major part of our immigration policy, but you won’t hear the Minister saying this.
    
    If we want better quality from our Universities then the best way to achieve this is by severing the link between studying and citizenship. As things stand, Universities can serve up any old tosh and students will still come from overseas because the quality of the qualifications is secondary to their main purpose for coming here.
    
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    July 14, 2025 10:48am
    - imalwaysright
      
      The problem with universities is that they certify their own students.
      That seems a bit dubious.
      
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      July 14, 2025 12:51pm
      - kowtow
        
        I think in the dim and distant past universities had a modicum of integrity .
        
        These days, not so much.
        
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        July 14, 2025 2:18pm
      - waikatosinger
        
        Many degrees (and most of the worthwhile ones) are accredited by a professional body. If your solution involves putting the government bureaucracy in charge of certifying degrees then your cure is worse than the disease.
        
        The bureaucracy you set up will be subject to institutional and ideological capture. I could see science and engineering degrees not being certified unless they were 50% matauranga maori.
        
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        July 14, 2025 2:44pm
  - Jack5
    
    Our universities are selling a path to NZ citizenship rather than education.
    
    Labour’s former Finance Minister, infamous for the billion-dollar printing of money during Covid, is now head-honcho at Maorified Otago University. He will pull strings and levers and push buttons to keep universities’ residency sales going.
    
    Why aren’t are resources going instead into a medical school in Hamilton to train doctors tied to the regions by post-graduation requirements? It’s probably because Otago and Auckland universities don’t want the competition.
    
    Many young foreigners come to NZ to study computing subjects, either at university or in private “colleges”.
    
    Do they end up writing code? They are far, far more likely to become salesmen at a big retail store.
    
    These young folk want entry to a First World country. That’s understandable given the bleak job outlook in their home countries.
    
    India, a source of many of the students brought in by our universities, has millions of under-employed, or even unemployed university graduates.
    
    This is from an Indian education-industry web site:
    
    According to a new study by the Institute for Competitiveness, only 8.25% of Indian graduates are working in jobs that match their educational qualifications. Meanwhile, more than 50% of graduates are employed in lower-skill roles such as clerks, machine operators, and retail sales workers—positions categorized under Skill Level 2 by the National Classification of Occupations (NCO).
    
    https://educationtoday.co/news/daily-news/only-825-of-indian-graduates-hold-jobs-matching-their-qualifications-deepening-skill-mismatch-highlights-urgent-need-for-reform
    
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    July 14, 2025 10:51am
    - Paulus
      
      To become a useful Doctor take some 10 years, so without starting now the Waikato Tainui Medical School, Doctors from there will not exist for 10 years.
      
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      July 14, 2025 11:21am
      - David Garrett
        
        Paulus: The Fiji achool of medicine turns out doctors in 3- 4 years…but the drawback is they can only practice in the South Pacific…
        
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        July 14, 2025 11:33am
      - Jack5
        
        Doctors from a new medical school “will not exist” for 10 years.
        
        Nor will doctors coming from Auckland and Otago.
        
        Nurse practitioners and rongoā — Maori healers — take time to learn, too.
        
        On the other hand, bogus doctors like this 31-year-old got into the game early:
        
        https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/fake-middlemore-hospital-doctor-with-walter-mitty-view-of-life-sentenced-to-jail/R72OF6WG45H37EFPYIXUXVHFXE/
        
        And there was this one:
        
        https://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/man-dies-after-fake-doctor-performs-botched-penis-enlargement-operation-in-germany/W6DQ4LNMLNAYLPLZSTGAKUNCRQ/
        
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        July 14, 2025 11:45am
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        6 years study to be a doctor, one year in placement and a rotation service, not sure where you get the 10 years from, even specialising is only an extra year
        
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        July 14, 2025 2:19pm
      - Jack5
        
        I should have checked before.
        
        Waikato’s idea is a four-year course for bachelor’s degree holders So that’s probably seven years in all.
        
        Damn it any way, they’ve got racism in the mix:
        
        “It will focus on selecting students who are committed to careers in primary care and who come from underrepresented, underserved Maori, Pacific, remote and rural communities.”
        
        Asians will be dominant in the non-racist slice for Otago, with a required pass as high as 96 per cent.
        
        Given the Wokies’ DEI bias, that means NZ’s aiming to all but shut White males out of medicine.
        
        The details:
        
        https://www.waikato.ac.nz/about/major-projects/medical-school/
        
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        July 14, 2025 3:56pm
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  They need to be able to support themselves when here
  
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  July 14, 2025 2:16pm
  - kiwimike
    
    G to your comment earlier about med training.
    
    1.med school 7 yrs
    2-3 yrs to become competent doctor.
    there 10yrs training.
    then
    2.
    4 yrs specialist training
    2-3 yrs to become competent specialist.
    
    3.
    17yrs all told training for a competent practitioner.
    
    I know 30-50 doctors
    this was/is their life.
    been married to one for 42 yrs.
    in that time roles have been sho mo smo specialist hod
    
    these are the facts about the progression …….
    hope this helps M
    
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    July 15, 2025 6:14am
Gravelroad

David Seymour has posted on social media an alleged University of Auckland job advert.
One of the requirements for applicants is:
“You will be whakapapaMaori/be of Maori descent.”
Seeing as this is in the public domain, I assume it is now legal within employment law?
So if I want to advertise for a farm employee here, I would not be breaking any law by stipulating in the application that:
“You will be of European descent.” ?
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July 14, 2025 8:27am
- Souvlaki
  
  Entirely logical….I’m pleased we are obviously allowed to stipulate thus!🤣
  
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  July 14, 2025 8:37am
  - Cassandra
    
    I imagine there’s some weasel wording about “by Maori, for Maori” which permits this. IMO if racial preference is allowed for one then it should be for all. But better not for anyone.
    
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    July 14, 2025 8:58am
    - imalwaysright
      
      I feel a bit sick saying it, but let them do it. If they want to hire on race then they will do it anyway.
      At least we know who the racists are.
      
      The ladies who run Auckland Uni are Cecilia Tarrant and Dawn Freshwater.
      
      Are we to assume that they are racists?
      It certainly looks that way.
      Pakehaphobia rears its ugly head again…
      
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      July 14, 2025 10:12am
      - R
        
        They also appear to have DEI credentials
        
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        July 14, 2025 11:25am
      - Maggy Wassilieff
        
        Dawn Freshwater announced her resignation in June.
        She’ll leave Auckland Uni at the start of 2026.
        
        https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/university-of-auckland-vice-chancellor-dawn-freshwater-resigns/3JZU7REJLZBHTMTVUHSZIC5ZLA/
        
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        July 14, 2025 2:23pm
      - waikatosinger
        
        Auckland University is one of the worst. It is the nutty woke girl bosses who push this nonsense. It isn’t Maori.
        
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        July 14, 2025 3:10pm
- Ghost
  
  Position is for the Māori graduate program.
  
  https://jobs.smartrecruiters.com/TheUniversityOfAuckland/744000067786667-kaihopara-raukura-maori-graduate-programme
  
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  July 14, 2025 8:58am
  - Cassandra
    
    I’ve got a family member who would qualify. 1/32nd Maori. He’s already been asked to take up a Maori position which he declined. It really is nonsensical.
    
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    July 14, 2025 9:01am
  - rouppe
    
    Are there any men in the Ministry for Women? I would be shocked if there weren’t.
    
    Has everyone in the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment run a business, or innovated something? Of course not.
    
    Why does running a programme for Maori require you to be Maori?
    
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    July 14, 2025 12:52pm
- Nigel Kearney
  
  No, because of this:
  
  https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1993/0082/latest/DLM304672.html
  
  A section that should be repealed if there was a centre-right majority in Parliament.
  
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  July 14, 2025 9:02am
  - cmm
    
    The current left wing government won’t touch that.
    
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    July 14, 2025 9:17am
- RoboRob
  
  As associate minister of Education, Seymour should be taking action if it is required, not posting click bait social media posts.
  
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  July 14, 2025 9:06am
  - Gravelroad
    
    I would still like to know the answer to my question above:
    Can I advertise an employment opportunity which states that applicants must be this:
    “You will be of European descent.” ?
    I have had a look through some employment and Human Rights legislation sites and it would seem that I cannot seek to employ someone based on their race.
    But others can………
    
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    July 14, 2025 10:39am
    - rouppe
      
      After several instances of being burned by tenants of a certain ethnicity, when I advertised for new tenants I accepted all applications and then discarded the ones I would no longer consider.
      
      “I’ve decided to choose someone else”.
      
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      July 14, 2025 12:57pm
- G152
  
  Ah smells of racism
  
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  July 14, 2025 9:57am
- Souvlaki
  
  And following the above, a prescient commentary from Muriel Newman :
  https://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2025/07/nzcpr-newsletter-reversing-cultural.html
  
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  July 14, 2025 10:08am
  - Tricati
    
    That’s a great article and should be compulsory reading, especially by the National Party who ran on a ticket to expunge Racist Policies from NZ.
    All I have seen to date is tinkering around the edges, and more disturbing, the re-enforcement of Labour’s he pau pau agenda.
    The panel selected to review the contentious education policy only reinforces my view.
    
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    July 14, 2025 11:17am
- R
  
  ‘will be of…….’ and prepared to do a full day’s productive work; not standing on your shovel texting; vis some road work employees
  
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  July 14, 2025 10:46am
Simon

If Bongino steps down then the Trump Admin is covering a pedo ring run by Israel via Epstein. Every one knows Israel was running a pedo ring. Trump will not be able to bail out Israel yet again. Its quiet disgraceful for Trump to cover for Israel’s pedo ring.
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July 14, 2025 8:29am
- imalwaysright
  
  I upticked you for raising the subject.
  
  However, the one thing a pedophile ring needs is pedophiles.
  
  If the Israelis ran a trap to expose the pedos I would applaud them, but it seems that blackmail was the motive.
  And using actual children in the filming of the scumbags is evil and unforgiveable
  
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  July 14, 2025 10:35am
- NothingLeft
  
  Maybe. Though it’s not for sure, and dropout Epstein was nonetheless a very smart guy who worked his way up from the bottom as a likely freelancing blackmailer before being bought into the CIA? Mossad? fold. There’s a theory that Epstein had compromat on a Saudi royal playing with boys – he had a Saudi passport which that would explain – and that could have been a part of the genesis for the Abraham Accords if the CIA/Mossad got in on it.
  
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  July 14, 2025 2:15pm
- NZer In Exile
  
  I just can’t see state level blackmailers exploiting underage girls. That’s just going to blow up into the public sphere sooner or later. If you think about recent Mossad ops they just don’t do sloppy stuff like that.
  
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  July 14, 2025 6:49pm
artemisia

Queenstown’s housing crisis. Maybe.

But a big chunk of the article concerned Stella’s inadequate housing which was all she could afford.

Have to say the writer Caroline Williams was clutching at straws with this example. Stella came from Malaysia on a working holiday. In 2023. But was not working.

And when she did get a job she could move in to better housing with a room of her own. Whew!

https://www.stuff.co.nz/home-property/360750686/queenstown-housing-crisis-worsens-waitlist-grows-41-two-years
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July 14, 2025 8:40am
- Taieri
  
  Somehow, I find it a bit difficult to feel sorry for someone who comes from Malaysia (or anywhere else for that matter) for working holidays in Queenstown and then complains about being unable to find/afford a suitable housing.
  Is it compulsory now to holiday in Queenstown?
  Anyway, a good employer would provide its staff with accommodation in such a place (as for example does RealNZ). A bad employer is not worth working for.
  
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  July 14, 2025 9:17am
- imalwaysright
  
  Why don’t they build the Japanese style sleeping pods hotels?
  
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  July 14, 2025 10:41am
  - muzled
    
    It pretty much works like that now.
    
    It’s 18 months ago now but I overheard a hostel owner talking about how another hostel sublets bed to more than one person.
    
    Can’t remember the figures but they were making a small fortune out of it.
    
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    July 14, 2025 1:27pm
    - NZer In Exile
      
      Slumlords much?
      
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      July 14, 2025 6:51pm
- PurplePen
  
  As with the working holiday person, there must be a reasonable number that don’t actually need to be in Queenstown for work, they’re somewhat itinerant. In this case if the living arrangements are uncomfortable or unaffordable or not to your liking then why stay and complain. Just move to somewhere else.
  
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  July 14, 2025 12:20pm
Souvlaki

An interesting ‘twist’ in the Wellington Mayoral fiasco.
It does have some credibility at first glance:
https://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2025/07/matua-kahurangi-did-national-aligned.html?m=1
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July 14, 2025 9:01am
- RoboRob
  
  If true, that is totally repulsive. A National aligned MP advocating to Andrew Little as Mayor just so that she can get her hands on the baubles of power. Revolting. As I have said, better to vote Left then vote right and get left. (no I am not voting Labour)
  
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  July 14, 2025 9:10am
  - MCōs
    
    That article has no credibility except that Cr Young has National Party lineage.
    Apart from that it’s just more gossip.
    Maybe she endorsed Mr Little. I can’t find any evidence
    
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    July 14, 2025 10:48am
- cmm
  
  Professional wrestling. Political opposition is as fake-as.
  
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  July 14, 2025 9:30am
- Eastlander
  
  If true, then together with Finlayson’s endorsement of Angry Andy it nicely demonstrates why we don’t want national in local government either.
  
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  July 14, 2025 9:33am
- Swifty
  
  Someone should straight out ask her.
  
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  July 14, 2025 10:28am
- PurplePen
  
  She did go on radio and say Whanau should resign due to behaviour unbecoming for the Wellington mayor.
  
  Chung was politically naive with his email. And according to him it was after being a councillor only 6 weeks and he wanted advice from those more experienced as to what should be done with the information he had to hand. (NewstalkZB interview).
  
  It would be useful to get the complete email as it would confirm Chung’s context for the email. MSM has only provided an extract with no context. So naturally enough everyone else fills in the blanks as to why Chung might have sent the email.
  
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  July 14, 2025 12:28pm
  - Ghost
    
    Full email was in the herald article, it is paywalled
    
    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/exclusive-wellington-mayoral-candidate-ray-chungs-sex-and-drugs-gossip-about-tory-whanau/YIEIRU6J3FF7POYARBERTAW6FA/
    
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    July 14, 2025 12:34pm
    - PurplePen
      
      Pay walled ends up in the physical NZ Herald paper. The article in the link is in the Saturday 12 July paper. The article has selected excerpts but not the entire email.
      
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      July 14, 2025 2:19pm
      - Ghost
        
        No, the paywalled article has the full email, actually they even have the heading in large bold
        
        Ray Chung’s email in full
        
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        July 14, 2025 2:37pm
- PurplePen
  
  At the same time you’d hope that the donor Markus Dunajtschik might have contacted Chung to get his side of the story and even asked to see the email before pulling his support. To be fair.
  
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  July 14, 2025 12:35pm
Vidar

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/free-dental-gp-visits-and-ece-is-it-finally-time-to-tax-the-rich-the-front-page/NCKZGYSMJFGFHE6DRTEJLCP2LU/

“Should the ultra-wealthy pay more tax?”

They already do. In New Zealand, the top 3 percent pay nearly a quarter of all income tax. This is not about fairness. It’s about squeezing a smaller and smaller group of people to fund promises politicians can’t afford.

“Over the years, New Zealand has experimented with various taxes on wealth…”

Yes, and we dumped them for a reason. They were messy, expensive to run, and didn’t raise much. Every country that’s tried a wealth tax has watched money leave the country and never come back.

“Yet, no New Zealand government has been brave enough to impose one.”

That’s not cowardice. That’s sanity. You don’t need guts to wreck the economy. You need restraint to leave things alone when every populist instinct tells you to meddle.

“The Green Budget promises bold moves to make sure everyone has a warm home, decent kai, and the care and support for a good life.”

Every word of that is emotional bait. The actual plan is to tax people who’ve worked, saved, and invested, then hand out that money to buy votes. That’s not generosity. It’s forced transfer, dressed up in nice language.

“Free early childhood education, free dental care, and free GP visits…”

None of it is free. It just means someone else pays. In this case, the bill goes to people with a net worth over two million. In other words, small business owners, landlords, people with a couple of investment properties, or anyone who’s planned for retirement and doesn’t want to rely on the government.

“Chlöe Swarbrick says it’s not as radical as it seems.”

That’s because she doesn’t understand how capital works. Most of this so-called wealth is tied up in productive assets. Taxing it means pulling money out of businesses, out of jobs, out of the economy. It kills growth at the root.

“In the 1930s and 40s, we came together to build a nation…”

And we didn’t do it by punishing success. We built it by encouraging people to work hard and create. That worked. What they’re proposing now is the opposite.

“The top 1% hold 23% of the wealth… and pay less than half the effective tax rate of the average New Zealander.”

That’s misleading. IRD included paper gains as income. If your house goes up in value, that’s not real money until you sell it. But they counted it anyway, then claimed people weren’t paying their share. It’s not tax evasion. It’s a dishonest way to make a headline.

“Nobel economists call for a global wealth tax…”

Of course they do. It won’t affect them. These are academics with lifetime incomes and no skin in the game. The people actually creating jobs and carrying risk aren’t calling for it. They’re preparing to leave if it happens.

“The Greens propose a 2.5% wealth tax above $2 million net worth…”

That sounds small until you run the numbers. If someone’s net worth is tied up in a business or land, where is the cash supposed to come from to pay this tax every year? Selling assets? Firing staff? Raising prices? It’s a policy that forces productive people into stupid decisions.

“Ease should not be the reason we do something. Fairness should be.”

There’s nothing fair about targeting a small group of people to pay for promises made to everyone else. That’s not fairness. That’s opportunism.

“Some of the hardest-working New Zealanders I’ve met are single mums…”

No one disputes that. But this policy doesn’t help them. It just punishes people who built something. You don’t lift people up by tearing others down.

“Social freedom is illusory without access to material basics…”

That’s just a clever way to justify state control. If freedom depends on what the government gives you, then you’re not free. You’re dependent.
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July 14, 2025 9:15am
- Swifty
  
  Excellent.
  
  Very well expressed.
  
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  July 14, 2025 10:27am
- artemisia
  
  It would be rather nice to see how many jobs and how much spending is provided by that 3%. Then we-the-people would get an idea of what might (will) happen if capital flees New Zealand.
  
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  July 14, 2025 10:30am
- R
  
  Vidar, this comment is possibly the most sensible one on economics that I have ever read on KB. Unfortunately it is too long, and detailed, for the attention span of those who vote to spend other people’s money; that is, the few of them who are in anyway literate
  
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  July 14, 2025 10:59am
- David Garrett
  
  Vidar. Excellent analysis and demolition of Green bullshit
  
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  July 14, 2025 11:00am
- mogg
  
  Wealth tax is a minefield of complications.
  Most European countries have tried it at some point only to discover that it drives entrepreneurs and successful business people away, produces very little tax benefit, with people either hiding their wealth or
  finding ways to avoid paying it. As with most others Sweden dumped their wealth tax when the founder of IKEA left the country and took his wealth with him. Wealth is liquid so expect a property tax when the Green/Marxist/Anarchist party are in the next government.
  
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  July 14, 2025 11:26am
  - Don Beckett
    
    Yes, but Chloe is too thick to realise that.
    Thank you MMP.
    
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    July 14, 2025 2:49pm
- Tom Hunter
  
  A history of wealth taxes….
  
  Ireland: Scrapped in 1978.
  Austria: Scrapped in 1994.
  Germany: Scrapped in 1997.
  Denmark: Scrapped in 1997.
  Netherlands: Scrapped in 2001.
  Iceland: Scrapped in 2006.
  Luxembourg: Scrapped in 2006.
  Finland: Scrapped in 2006.
  Sweden: Scrapped in 2007.
  France: Scrapped in 2018.
  
  I was a bit shocked to find that Sweden had a wealth tax for almost 100 years before it was eliminated. In the year before that the revenue amounted to just 0.16% of GDP and its abolition had “virtually no effect” on government finances.
  
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  July 14, 2025 11:41am
  - cmm
    
    A wealth tax has nothing to do with getting more money in the coffers.
    
    It is all about appealing to voter envy.
    
    Ditto all the noise about means testing the Super etc.
    
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    July 14, 2025 3:27pm
    - Ian Boag
      
      Ditto all the noise about means testing the Super etc.
      
      It would raise something like a billion dollars give or take. “Only” 🙂 . Taken from people who would not be forced into penury and can (grudgingly) afford it. I’m not sure whether anyone under 45 would have a problem with it ….
      
      A billion extra tax income would not solve the deficit problem but as they say … every little helps 🙂 Here on KB there are folk who get bent out of shape about rainbow crossings ….
      
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      July 14, 2025 7:09pm
  - MCōs
    
    By definition our tax system is already based on wealth
    Higher the income the more tax you pay
    More money you spend the more gst you pay
    Flasher your house, the higher your rates
    And so on
    Don’t like it, put your money into property
    
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    July 14, 2025 5:22pm
- PurplePen
  
  The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money. Margaret Thatcher.
  
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  July 14, 2025 12:37pm
- PurplePen
  
  Another point of view, not necessarily to advocate for Chloe. Maybe taxation is significantly different in the US.
  
  Warren Buffett has long been a vocal advocate for tax equity, emphasizing that the wealthy and large corporations should pay their fair share. He contends the current tax system, by granting preferential rates and many loopholes, allows billionaires like himself to pay only a fraction of what they reasonably should, ultimately shifting an unfair burden onto ordinary Americans.
  
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  July 14, 2025 12:46pm
  - rouppe
    
    The moment I hear the word “equity” I smell a rat.
    
    Is one of those words that are used to stifle questioning.
    
    I need details before I can consider the matter.
    
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    July 14, 2025 1:26pm
    - NZer In Exile
      
      Equity is a rubbery word which is used to push quasi-Marxist rubbish. It has no precise meaning so quasi-Marxists make it up as they go along. It has nothing to do with equal opportunity.
      
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      July 14, 2025 6:56pm
- kowtow
  
  Someone referred recently to her as Silverspoon Swarbrick .
  
  I can find nothing about her upbringing , schools etc
  
  Is it true she comes from a wealthy family background ?
  
  Genuine question.
  
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  July 14, 2025 1:01pm
  - Ghost
    
    Little is written about her family, apart from her parents divorced when she was young
    
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    July 14, 2025 1:09pm
    - David Garrett
      
      Ghost: Trust me…if the media really wanted to find her back story they would…which suggests to me there is something there that their Green supporters may not like….at least not the Ladies Who Lunch variety
      
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      July 14, 2025 2:25pm
  - Eastlander
    
    Don’t know about her upbringing, but a friend knew her at university. She had a propensity for inserting herself into projects of various kinds and then backing out when she couldn’t find a way to personally benefit from them.
    
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    July 14, 2025 1:49pm
    - NothingLeft
      
      Seems all the Green MPs are hard core Narcissists, which would marry up with the old maxim:
      “Every revolutionary is a closeted aristocrat”
      
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      July 14, 2025 4:01pm
  - PurplePen
    
    When interviewed alongside Karen Chhour, after Chhour gave an potted self-history about coming from an poor background Ryan Bridge turned and asked Swarbrick if she had a wealthy upbringing or something similar. Swarbrick evaded the question and answered that she was brought up in a loving and caring environment or some such answer.
    
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    July 14, 2025 2:13pm
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Her Father, Paul, was in Finance.
    
    She has lived in the UK, PNG and NZ
    
    She went to Epsom Girls Grammar.
    
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chl%C3%B6e_Swarbrick
    
    I think we can conclude that she’s not a working-class kid from a South Auckland ghetto.
    
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    July 14, 2025 2:33pm
    - David Garrett
      
      Mags: She’s probably never even BEEN to a South Auckland ghetto…
      
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      July 14, 2025 6:16pm
- rouppe
  
  Based on the good old 4% rule, for every $100,000 of gross income from a defined benefit scheme, $2,500,000 of capital would be required.
  
  So I wonder whether all these bureaucrats on the defined benefit superannuation scheme would think the same if their income were assessed like that?
  
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  July 14, 2025 1:20pm
- Philview
  
  Anyone with overseas equity investments with a cost over $50k will notice they are really already paying a wealth tax to the NZ Government. One of the reasons billionaires aren’t queuing up to live here.
  
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  July 14, 2025 1:39pm
  - Ghost
    
    Aren’t they? You’d be surprised how many billionaires actually do have property here to bail out to when the shit hits the fan
    
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    July 14, 2025 4:39pm
- cmm
  
  “Social freedom is illusory without access to material basics…”
  
  Unfortunately there has been a lot of movement in what is considered basics.
  
  Having lived in Africa for 30 years, I suspect my definition of basic is somewhat different to that of an NZ Chardonnay socialist.
  
  I would consider having a full tummy of beans and maize porridge (even if that is all you have eaten for the last 3 years) and a roof over your head and blanket around your body constitutes the material basics.
  
  In a flush Western country we might extend that to basic clothing, access to schooling (attending it is up to you) and basic medical infrastructure.
  
  For her, wine chilled to only 12 degrees and having anything less than a $500 handbag is perhaps cruel.
  
  I severely doubt that anyone in NZ really does not have access to the material basics.
  
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  July 14, 2025 4:19pm
Vidar

I forgot this gem from the socialist Greens co-leader:

“I used to be a libertarian… then I read a second book”

After one book, she believed in personal responsibility.

After two, she abandoned it for a worldview where everyone is entitled to everyone else’s paycheck.
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July 14, 2025 9:18am
- mandk
  
  I used to be a socialist until I grew up and gained a fully developed a brain.
  
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  July 14, 2025 10:52am
  - Jethrod
    
    I used to be thick , but I’m alright now.
    
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    July 14, 2025 1:00pm
  - NeonTeepee
    
    You grew up 🙂
    
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    July 14, 2025 3:37pm
- R
  
  From my listening to Swarbrick, she may have only ever read two books; one would have been Marxist Theory perhaps.
  
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  July 14, 2025 10:53am
  - Tarquin North
    
    Chloe can read?
    
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    July 14, 2025 11:58am
- Nobby2
  
  Vidar, Did she read the books or just look at the pictures?
  
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  July 14, 2025 4:53pm
Chuck Bird

Outsiders yesterday was interesting with Shane Jones being interviewed by Rowan Dean about Net Zero.
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July 14, 2025 9:19am
- kowtow
  
  Shane Jones , who was a senior member of the party that gave us Ardern and the oil and gas ban , I think I’ll pass.
  
  NZF will say anything that keeps their snouts in the trough.
  
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  July 14, 2025 11:20am
  - Jack5
    
    What happens if Winston Peters retires?
    
    Where would National get the numbers to form a coalition if Jones and co. couldn’t attract sufficient voters?
    
    You can’t assume NZ First voters would swing to National.
    
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    July 14, 2025 1:15pm
    - kowtow
      
      hey I’m just pointing out NZF are troughers of the first order.
      
      but you’re quite right . no one can assume anything with NZF , who I believe will always go with whichever major party is the highest bidder for whatever baubles Peters is chasing at the time.
      
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      July 14, 2025 2:16pm
    - cmm
      
      I doubt that Jones et al have the political “nose” to identify 5% political issues like Winston does.
      
      When Winston goes, NZF will fold. There’s a reason it is called the Winston First party.
      
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      July 14, 2025 4:21pm
  - mogg
    
    Very selective comment, 95% of parliamentarians have got their feet in the trough, past and present.
    
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    July 14, 2025 2:12pm
cmm

I am very pro-police being safeguarded doing their jobs and being provided the equipment, training and such to be able to step in and deal with crims etc.

But expecting criminals to respond more gently to female police officers is bullshit.

“A bloodied female police officer can be seen sobbing after she was punched in the face”

“She told the jury she was absolutely terrified after she was floored”

Let’s change the sex: “A bloodied police officer can be seen sobbing after he was punched in the face”
“He told the jury he was absolutely terrified after he was floored”

Do we get the same outpouring of sympathy? If it was a man, we’d tell him to man up.

If women need special treatment in the police then they should not be there. Some women clearly can cope should be there, but many not.

This DEI nonsense not only puts them in danger but also those that depend on them.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/world-news/360754299/watch-police-officer-left-bloodied-after-being-punched-manchester-airport-row
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July 14, 2025 9:47am
- Flossie
  
  I am presuming that the woman police officer is being paid the same salary as her male counterparts? You really can’t have it both ways!
  
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  July 14, 2025 10:09am
  - Allan
    
    You don’t have to presume. Equal pay is a certainty.
    
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    July 14, 2025 12:13pm
- David Garrett
  
  Cmm: I agree 100%…wish I could give u more than one uptick
  
  An alternative which could be considered is to have female police, but limit their duties, as was the case back in the day. But of course that would be sexist, and we can’t have that in 2025.
  
  So, more young women who shouldn’t be in the job sobbing after encountering some violent POS coming to your favorite news site.
  
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  July 14, 2025 10:16am
  - peterwn
    
    I bet many male police officers would be flat on the floor if they received the same sort of punch. In any case even if the officer was limited to dealing with women and children only at the airport, the officer would be still vulnerable to unexpected attacks by males.
    So distractors are saying that the woman police officer ‘asked for it’ and are trying to vilify her personally just because they think she should not be in the job. Incidentally a female parking warden is also vulnerable to such attacks but no one suggests that women should not be parking wardens.
    
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    July 14, 2025 10:42am
  - cmm
    
    I think it is a case of these women often living in a very protected bubble where everyone walks on eggshells around them, tells them how awesome they are and tells them that they are not just equal, but superior to men.
    
    From a young age they are fed a pap of “girl power” where some Disney female character becomes a warrior and instantly beats men who have years of practice all because she “believes in herself”.
    
    Even at police college, the bullshitting continues with lower fitness standards (explained away by insisting than women are better negotiators than men, or think better than men so they can use brain instead of brawn – true or not is highly debatable).
    
    Then they encounter the real world where some brawn really does matter and find this equal treatment isn’t what they really wanted after all…
    
    Few men are really cut out to be a cop (I certainly am not) and even fewer women. We certainly shouldn’t be putting a thumb on the scales to try for anything like gender equality in policing. This puts everyone in danger.
    
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    July 14, 2025 10:44am
    - David Garrett
      
      cmm. Again, spot on Sir.
      
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      July 14, 2025 10:49am
    - peterwn
      
      Even when the Police was all male, the Police found it necessary to hire women (titled ‘Matrons’ or similar) to help process female prisoners, women in distress or lost children at police stations. So that is how women got into policing. Also the Police benefits greatly from female detectives even if they are not up to full male fitness standards.
      
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      July 14, 2025 11:17am
      - David Garrett
        
        Peterwn: Exactly what I have suggested: horses for courses; big strapping bastards to go out on the beat, WPC”s – as they once were – for dealing with those individuals you mention: female prisoners, women in distress, and lost kids.
        
        I stand to be corrected, but I think the Brits still have WPC’s rather than trying to pretend both sexes are the same with the same abilities .
        
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        July 14, 2025 11:41am
      - Jack5
        
        The case of police women bashed at Manchester Airport is relevant to this discussion:
        
        https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14893815/Female-police-officer-terrified-punched-Manchester-Airport-court.html
        
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        July 14, 2025 11:52am
      - cmm
        
        DG: Unfortunately you are now wrong, the British female cops are put on the beat “equal to men”.
        
        This has led to much hilarity on the internet, but the reality is that it’s bloody dangerous for everyone.
        
        https://www.youtube.com/shorts/vhrJBK24ClI
        
        Male cop can’t step in because that would be sexist and “mansplaining”.
        
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUO9q6_w2RE
        
        5 1
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        July 14, 2025 1:31pm
    - Master Mariner
      
      Similar Contest,
      When I was in My early 20’s, The best bit of advice I have ever received whilst in south Africa was “Walk as if you belong here”.
      This advice has been with me in all of my Travels and stood me in good steed.
      Basically self confidence and assurance. This is what is lacking in this particular case I assume.
      
      12 2
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      July 14, 2025 12:06pm
  - R
    
    The Feminist movement has to bear a lot of the responsibility for this situation, with their ‘woman can do, and should be allowed to do anything that a man does’ mantra
    
    11 2
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    July 14, 2025 11:08am
    - peterwn
      
      What utter MCP claptrap.
      
      1 9
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      July 14, 2025 1:16pm
- Eastlander
  
  ‘She said: “Nobody came to assist. I felt everyone in that room was against us. To be honest, I was terrified.”’
  
  She is a police officer. She is supposed to BE the assistance, not receive it. The general public aren’t afforded a salary, equipment and legal cover to fight with criminals – she is. Britain pays her to strut around in a costume and pretend to be a cop when she can’t possibly do the job. In a crisis she quickly defaults to crying and expecting men to come to her rescue.
  
  Hiring this cosplayer as a police officer meant that someone else didn’t get the opportunity. It also meant that her colleagues didn’t have an additional colleague they could count on when push came to shove, they had another person they needed to protect.
  
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  July 14, 2025 10:24am
  - kowtow
    
    ‘Britain pays her to strut around in a costume and pretend to be a cop when she can’t possibly do the job.’
    
    That’s a bit harsh and from the footage I sympathise with the Plod there.
    
    It certainly didn’t look like Britain .
    
    Those thugs were called upon by their mother to sort out another passenger upon her return from Pakistan .
    
    The Cops were called and then the two “charity” worker brothers from Rotherham , heard of that place before in another law and order context , laid into the police.
    
    I’d bet those two pos and their mother have been brought up in the most unBritish of environments , indeed one almost totally devoid of what once upon a time made Britain the greatest and most civil country in the world .
    
    But ‘Britain” does need to make up its mind about who it stands for ; its police , veterans and folk who subscribe to British values or to those who would tear it all down.
    
    And like the George Floyd case I believe there’s a lot more to this family and story and wonder if the msm will ever give us the full story .
    
    13 3
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    July 14, 2025 12:42pm
    - Eastlander
      
      ‘Full story’ well, statistically speaking the perpetrators here have probably raped teenage girls as part of a gang.
      
      6 1
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      July 14, 2025 2:27pm
  - cmm
    
    Well, yes, that is part of it.
    
    Another part is that nobody wants to step in to support a policeman or policewoman because you’ll probably end up being charged with assaulting the criminal just for touching them.
    
    Until there is very good protection for people performing citizen’s arrest, and otherwise acting in good faith, you can expect people to just walk on by.
    
    13 3
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    July 14, 2025 1:42pm
    - Eastlander
      
      Yes, and one should also mention that even the police in this case were accused of using unlawful force and were in serious danger of being hung out to dry to appease the ‘community’.
      
      9 1
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      July 14, 2025 2:25pm
      - peterwn
        
        Well, they would, would not them. They want to save their sorry little arses. A symbol of Manchester is the bee because they represent what Manchester is all about – industrious and productive. Hope the perpetrators of this senseless violence get well stung in the backside.
        
        4 1
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        July 14, 2025 3:18pm
    - peterwn
      
      Cite some examples of where members of the public have been charged or convicted of assault while assisting a police officer, please.
      
      4 3
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      July 14, 2025 3:14pm
    - rouppe
      
      Especially in Britain at the moment…
      
      3 0
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      July 14, 2025 7:32pm
- Pope Punctilious II
  
  Even Martyn Bradbury gets this one right. He has argued (correctly, I think) that putting female cops on the street increases the likelihood of police having to resort to lethal force when dealing with offenders. As most women aren’t physically formidable enough to deter offenders from violent action, or to subdue offenders without use of weapons, the offender is more likely to end up dead (and the officers are more likely to be injured).
  
  DEI is one of the dumbest ideas to ever take hold in this country.
  
  22 4
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  July 14, 2025 10:32am
  - peterwn
    
    That is the offender’s funeral. It is not a Police or Society problem. Guns were called ‘equalisers’ for a purpose.
    
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    July 14, 2025 6:55pm
- R
  
  Assaults on Police Officers is not DEI nonsense, it is a comment on the failure of society; due mainly to the abandoning of standards in schools, tertiary institutes and the advent of opportunistic politics by Marxist organisation’s
  
  13 2
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  July 14, 2025 11:05am
  - cmm
    
    “Assaults on Police Officers is not DEI nonsense”
    
    It is, at least partially.
    
    In an ideal world nobody should be assaulted – no matter their size, gender etc. But what should be and reality are different things. We have to deal with reality – not some idealistic world.
    
    In the real world, cops need to be able to deal with some argy-bargy. If they look weak, then crims will take a swing or resist arrest etc.
    
    I am actually a meek and mild person, but I am 6ft5 in the old money, size 14 to 16 boots and normally around 120kg. In general, people don’t screw with me. At university I sometimes did a bit of bouncing and I never got into any fights. People would just look at me and listen: listen mate, let’s just keep this calm eh, time for you to go elsewhere…
    It worked every time for me.
    
    One of my university mates was ex-Rhodesian special forces. He’s much smaller than me, but supremely deadly if he wants to be. He did a lot more bouncing than me and got into a lot of fights (which he handled with ease). In one fight six or so biker types thought they’d “teach him a lesson” and many bones were broken – none of them his. They only tried it out because he was smaller.
    
    Violent people even when drunk are not completely stupid. They size up their opponents and decide if they can win or not. Generally that is based on perceived size and strength.
    
    If you’re smaller, weaker looking, or female then chances are they’ll give it a go vs if you’re over 6ft, larger and male.
    
    So yes, DEI putting the wrong people into dangerous situations is part of the problem.
    
    13 2
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    July 14, 2025 1:58pm
    - David Garrett
      
      cmm: I take your point, and I’m sure what you say is generally true…however, 30 years ago there used to be a bar in Wellington where the bouncer was a woman…not a small woman, but not large either. I never saw her called upon to perform her job.
      
      I guess even drunk punters could figure out that if she was the bouncer then she’d be up for the challenge.
      
      6 2
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      July 14, 2025 2:35pm
- rouppe
  
  The bigger problem to my mind was that she spent the next 10 seconds sitting on the floor doing nothing.
  
  Then she gets up and struggles to get her taser out, and I can’t remember (from the original BBC footage) whether she used it.
  
  Now one of the other officers had been suspended because he gave the offender a kicking.
  
  https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3gekjyq3j7o
  
  7 2
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  July 14, 2025 1:41pm
  - peterwn
    
    He will most probably be perfecting his CV and looking for a nice job in the security industry – at more pay and less personal risk. A NZ Senior Sergeant was told he faced investigation for a vexatious complaint (he had stopped the complainant taking her own life). He thought ‘blow that’ and promptly found a security industry job.
    
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    July 14, 2025 7:07pm
- NothingLeft
  
  Stasiesque UK police have turned themselves into the enemy of all. They are a tool of state oppression, that are only minimally working to protect the citizenry from the predations of criminals – basically no property crime is being policed, but they are arresting thousands for tweets that offend the leftist elites or draw attention to clear and massive govt-policy-created social ills.
  
  So when you see the UK Police in bother you know that taking a risk on getting involved is more likely than not going to result in officious trouble landing on you. The Police are not on your side and the goodwill is gone.
  
  5 1
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  July 14, 2025 2:24pm
- mogg
  
  That male cop who came to the rescue was stood down from duty pending an Enquiry into that incident. Also a Muslim mob protested/rioted in Manchester over that same arrest.
  
  11 1
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  July 14, 2025 2:32pm
- Sir Henry Morgan
  
  Until the crims start their own DEI drive this “gender equity” stuff has zero place in policing.
  
  And because DEI has taken over the police force, a young man would be an idiot to join.
  
  A young man in the police, particularly if he is white and heterosexual, will be systematically passed over for promotion in favor of colleagues who are female, or non-white, or homosexual. You see evidence of this everywhere across the Anglosphere these days, with females mysteriously comprising a disproportionate share of senior roles. Guess that besides being ‘politically correct’, promotion is one way to shield the females from physical harm.
  
  Meanwhile, a young male officer will be exposed to extra physical risk every time he works alongside a physically less capable female partner. Every single time something physically dangerous needs doing it will be his ‘turn’, and should the situation go against him, well I guess at least his partner can call for back up. . .
  
  Across the Anglosphere the police, military and fire services are infected with gender-equity cancer that cripples organizational effectiveness, drives away potential recruits, and fritters away taxpayer dollars for the sake of ideology.
  
  Then you have the other male-dominated fields where nobody seems to campaigning for gender equity. I’m thinking sewer cleaning, rubbish collection, truck driving, etc.
  
  9 1
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  July 14, 2025 3:02pm
- NZer In Exile
  
  Yes I’ve often wondered of a 5′ nothing 25 year old “woman” is actually a net drain on front line policing. Shocking thought, I know.
  
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  July 14, 2025 7:01pm
sungsamning

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/trump-administration-advances-crackdown-on-china-tied-land-purchases/
Trump Administration Advances Crackdown on China-Tied Land Purchases.
The U.S. government moved this week to shore up national security vulnerabilities stemming from China-linked land purchases in America, launching the initiative in a high-profile press conference with senior Trump administration officials and governors from several states.
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins described American farming as “under threat from criminals, from political adversaries, and from hostile regimes that understand our way of life as a profound and existential threat to themselves,” during the Tuesday press conference. [It’d be nice if we could do the same here. And cut immigration to the bone to force house prices down. ]
6 4
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July 14, 2025 9:48am
- MCōs
  
  “cut immigration to the bone to force house prices down”
  My understanding is that people are leaving the country in droves. House prices aren’t going up.
  In some places they’re going down. My cv the other day was 28% lower than the last one.
  I’m not planning on moving so it’s just numbers, but for some people who might need to borrow on their house or have to move and have negative equity that could be a disaster
  
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  July 14, 2025 5:41pm
sungsamning

https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2025/07/11/june-budget-surplus/
Trump Tariffs Deliver Surprise Budget Surplus.
Golden Age: Trump Tariffs Deliver Surprise Budget Surplus
The federal government posted an unexpected budget surplus in June, fueled by a sharp rise in tariff revenues and higher-than-anticipated tax receipts, marking a notable vindication for President Donald Trump’s economic strategy.
The $27 billion surplus reported Friday by the Treasury Department stood in stark contrast to forecasts for a $50 billion deficit, representing one of the largest upside surprises in recent budget data.
Monthly surpluses typically occur in April, when many Americans file their taxes. Surpluses are also common in January and September. A June surplus is highly unusual.
Much of the improvement stemmed from a 301 percent increase in tariff collections compared to June of last year. Customs duties totaled $27 billion in June, up from $23 billion in May and more than quadruple the $6.7 billion collected a year earlier. For the fiscal year to date, tariff revenues have reached $113 billion, an 86% increase over the same period in 2024. [This can’t be happening. The ‘Economist’, CNN, and ‘The Financial Times’ told me so. When have they ever been wrong. ‘Experts’ know stuff…. all.]
9 6
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July 14, 2025 9:48am
Jethrod

I have just viewed the Taxpayers Union take on rates increases over the last 3 years.
34 %…. which is just phenomenal!!
What are the 3 drivers of this apart from the totally abysmal final years of the last Labour government.
Sure some of the districts have had to cover Gabrielle costs, but some of the nice to haves could have been slashed.
20 2
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July 14, 2025 10:15am
- surfing
  
  I downloaded my rates bills (council+regional) since I bought my house in 2007 (Tauranga). The average annual rates increase on my property since 2007 has been just under 10%.
  
  The power of compounding amounts really raises its ugly head, a $270 increase at the start seems OK. But, now my annual increase is around $1300. Next year it will even more. That’s just nasty!
  
  I used to complain, but, there is no point
  
  17 1
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  July 14, 2025 10:35am
- cmm
  
  Rates are crazy. There is absolutely no valid reason for them to continue to climb at any more than inflation.
  
  Cut spending – all the frilly stuff first. Unfortunately that’s not how the councils think. They will keep the frilly stuff and cut the boring stuff – pipes in the ground, potholes etc.
  
  24 1
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  July 14, 2025 10:47am
  - Don Beckett
    
    With 20% rate increases for three years, then 10% this year means that Tauranga rate payers have had over 100% rates increases in 4 years.
    Ir’s bloody disgusting, and Mahe Drysdale has been part of the problem, not part of the solution.
    
    17 2
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    July 14, 2025 11:13am
- R
  
  ‘Failure of last Labour government ‘ the failure was by a Labour government -1999 I believe-which gave councils the ‘power of General competence’, deliberately intended for the implementation of Labour’s Socialist policies.
  
  17 0
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  July 14, 2025 11:13am
- Tom Hunter
  
  Over at his blog, Not PC, architect Peter Cresswell points out the source of the problem, the 2002 Local Government Act and its ‘power of General competence’. He includes his writing from late 2001 about what this would mean.
  
  I never read that as it preceded blogs and I took little notice of the Libertarianz Party, but I expressed similar concerns, in that I thought it was a way for the Left to keep pushing much of their bullshit even when they lost power in central government. Having hard Left Alliance MP Sandra Lee in charge of the bill was just another tell.
  
  But what really pisses me off is that two successive National-led governments have done nothing to reverse that Act. Why not? Too small an issue? Agreement with the idea of “corporate” councils?
  
  19 2
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  July 14, 2025 11:32am
  - Quail
    
    Totally agree TH.
    The Power of General Competence enables all sorts of social spending.
    Councils activity must be limited to core business.
    And it really “pisses me off too” that this gutless National Party will not make these simple reforms!
    Add in the failure to address the Natural Environment chapters of the RMA plus a similar failure to support ACT’s treaty bill one is left wondering what they have actually achieved.
    
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    July 14, 2025 6:04pm
  - kiwimike
    
    Also don’t forget the repealed sec 11A
    core services to be considered in performing role…
    
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    July 16, 2025 1:08am
Damocles11

Audrey Young asks today in the execrable Herald ‘who would lead if Luxon fell under a bus’. How utter crass and puerile to put it like that, disgraceful. Predictably the left wing trolls have a field day with it on-line. If you are still paying money to / for the Herald, whatever the warped rationale, you are a huge disappointment.
16 3
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July 14, 2025 10:24am
imalwaysright

This is paywalled but the problem is obvious.
$2,700,000 for traffic management.
How about the public get to see who got the money and what did we get in return. Or is it “commercially sensitive”? A euphemism for “corruption”.
Wellington Water reveals $2.7m traffic bill and $1.4m corporate fee on single project | The Post https://share.google/Mf2BKWMmNvLrMgPmF

[Mod – article is not paywalled unless you’ve read too many of their article]
12 1
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July 14, 2025 11:10am
- imalwaysright
  
  Yes, I saw that when I checked the link that the paywall had gone, but I reloaded the original page and its still paywalled. Strange.
  
  6 0
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  July 14, 2025 11:37am
- surfing
  
  Jeez, if I was the road cone contractor, I’d feel like a thief submitting those invoices.
  
  4 0
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  July 14, 2025 4:11pm
Swifty

An interesting take on the Aussie economy and particularly the massive decline in manufacturing:

https://x.com/qbccintegrity/status/1944351990383083910?s=12
5 1
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July 14, 2025 11:28am
Damocles11

‘The Prime Minister is back from his holiday and insists the economy has turned a corner.
But it’s not showing in the unemployment data. June 2025 benefit data is just out. All benefits are up 6.6 percent on June 2024. Jobseeker is up 10 percent year on year.’

https://www.bassettbrashandhide.com/post/lindsay-mitchell-pm-s-new-line
7 1
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July 14, 2025 11:57am
imalwaysright

This looks a bit odd.
DOC closes a cave system for dubious reasons and , from the article:

“One kaumātua simply said: “There are things below that are not for everyone to see.””

It’s official: This North Island cave is closed until further notice – but no one’s told the full story https://share.google/X3fSqE3n8NRXB89fz
14 4
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July 14, 2025 12:03pm
- Ghost
  
  Sounds like a bit of creative writing. I would wait until there is actually confirmation this exists. No caver ever posting any photos or talking about such a cave, sounds strange….
  
  6 2
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  July 14, 2025 12:30pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  Caves were used by old time Maori for burials, if I recall.
  
  2 0
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  July 14, 2025 6:50pm
- AitchW
  
  Clan lab?
  
  1 0
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  July 14, 2025 8:05pm
- kiwimike
  
  probably proif of pre-maori people in NZ
  
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  July 16, 2025 1:10am
I remember when

At a time when rural transport services for schools is under considerable stress, and serious protest from parents, is the following of note?

Maori-medium Schools (MMS) school transport assistance: Breaking Views.
Maori-medium School transport assistance funding is paid to kura boards quarterly in advance and is reviewed on an annual basis.
Kura are required to use this funding to provide school transport assistance to all eligible akonga.
9 3
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July 14, 2025 12:09pm
sirknz

Considering the demographics of the surrounding neighbourhoods, I’m going with arson.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/st-marys-priest-recounts-waking-to-his-avondale-church-ablaze-in-west-auckland/MH77ODD2A5GR7EZZW6XCHXJPKQ/

Peaceful types? There arep lenty of French churches that have been spontaneously combusting…
9 1
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July 14, 2025 12:46pm
kowtow

Oo la la, I just realised today is the day the French celebrate murdering their own citizens and state sanctioned anarchy .

Odd folk .
12 4
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July 14, 2025 12:47pm
- Grumpy Silver Top
  
  Bastille Day – we could also describe it as the day the French revolted against a despotic aristrocracy, which is more accurate than your description kowtow.
  
  7 3
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  July 14, 2025 1:59pm
  - kowtow
    
    You can describe it any way you like,
    the simple fact is it was not the “French” but the Paris mob who stormed a prison/fortress to seize arms and in so doing murdered members of the garrison , fellow Frenchmen .
    
    And the ‘revolution’ involved civil war and genocide against its “enemies’ , including exporting its crazy ideas and ended up creating an even more despotic Emperor who brought war to nearly all of Europe and resulted finally in a monarchy .
    
    7 1
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    July 14, 2025 3:57pm
- Mike
  
  It actually celebrates a revolution that abolished absolute monarchical power and paved the way for a democracy.
  
  5 13
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  July 14, 2025 2:07pm
  - Graeme Hall
    
    Should have paved the way for democracy but went badly off the rails into tyranny and socialist madness. The reign of terror ended or was reversed by the Thermidorian Reaction to Robespierre and a return to stability and moderation. The clean out of the revolutionaries was known as the “White terror”.
    
    6 1
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    July 14, 2025 4:29pm
  - David Garrett
    
    …Mikey at a massive price…including eventually turning on its own in unbridled savagery
    
    4 1
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    July 14, 2025 6:38pm
Ghost

Be interesting to see who votes against this

Representative Ro Khanna (D‑CA) has announced plans to force a vote in the House of Representatives demanding the full, unredacted release of all documents related to disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Article
8 4
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July 14, 2025 1:03pm
- rouppe
  
  And then where do you stop?
  
  Diddy Combs?
  Michael Jackson?
  Bill Clinton?
  
  5 3
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  July 14, 2025 2:38pm
- Ghost
  
  Ghislaine Maxwell is ready to testify in front of Congress about the Jeffrey Epstein files, according to the Daily Mail.
  
  Maxwell is currently serving 20 years for child sex trafficking charges and has been the only person arrested related to Epstein.
  
  Article
  
  5 0
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  July 14, 2025 5:17pm
Bridgenag

Five Days to Midnight
Nation First warns Australia’s sovereignty will be signed away to the WHO this Saturday.
JUL 14

“This Saturday, 19 July 2025, unless the Albanese Government does an about-face, Australia will fall under a binding international law that gives the World Health Organization unprecedented power over our nation.

Not next year. Not in theory. This Saturday.”

https://open.substack.com/pub/nationfirst/p/five-days-to-midnight?r=1aj1bv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
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July 14, 2025 1:12pm
Swifty

Grok 4 Heavy (just released) when asked for its surname replies ‘Hitler’ with reasons given.

https://x.com/afpost/status/1944485724801450425?s=46

Mechahitler lives!
9 0
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July 14, 2025 1:50pm
- Mike
  
  I read that the conversion of Grok to Nazidom was a result of a Musk tweet to make it endorse statements about ‘white genocide’ in South Africa.
  
  2 8
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  July 14, 2025 4:02pm
  - NZer In Exile
    
    “I read that the conversion of Grok to Nazidom”
    
    And which bastion of lefty garbage did you read this in?
    
    3 0
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    July 14, 2025 7:04pm
cmm

I must say I am struggling to make sense of this Epstein thing.

Ghislaine Maxwell sits in prison for sex trafficking.
Jeffrey Epstein was jailed in 2008 for child prostitution etc, then again in 2019 he was arrested where he managed to break his own neck with toilet paper or something.

But, apparently there were no clients. No sir, nothing going on here…

Hmmm, surely even the most basic business has a client list?
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July 14, 2025 2:20pm
- rouppe
  
  Maxwell procured girls. That’s the sex trafficking.
  
  I doubt Epstein ran a brothel. He may have had files on certain people for later leverage.
  
  Would he have those files in Manila folders in a cabinet? Doubtful. I wouldn’t.
  
  But certainly a very curious situation. Trump administration certainly not doing any favors with suddenly saying “nothing to see”
  
  9 1
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  July 14, 2025 2:34pm
- Spoff
  
  “But, apparently there were no clients. No sir, nothing going on here”
  So how come Ghislaine Maxwell is in prison?
  Are we to believe she acted alone?
  Very curious.
  
  2 0
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  July 14, 2025 8:36pm
Ghost

Don’t think there was anything in this doco that people haven’t talked about before. Nothing explosive, but it will interest some

https://whoshottrump.us/
2 0
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July 14, 2025 4:30pm
nz_aj

Where do I find the original text from the open letter “Our energy market is broken” published in papers yesterday? All I can find is articles talking about it.
2 0
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July 14, 2025 7:22pm
- Ghost
  
  https://backend.meug.co.nz/assets/Documents/Open-Letter-to-PM-on-Energy-Market.pdf
  
  1 0
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  July 14, 2025 7:30pm
  - NZer In Exile
    
    They got the problems right but not the solutions.
    
    “Unlock investment in low-cost, renewable generation.”
    
    There is no such unicorn.
    
    1 0
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    July 15, 2025 7:18pm
kiwimike

Coal and Gas first
Nuclear 2nd
maybe wave and tides later
0 0
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July 16, 2025 1:15am

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