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July 29, 2025 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 29 July 2025

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General Debate

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artemisia

Government proposes scaffolding rules change to align with risk level Consultation with the construction sector will soon get under way.

I hope that Dr Bryce Wilkinson from the NZ Initiative is consulted.

Back in the day – actually 10 years ago – Dr Wilkinson wrote a very good paper on scaff ‘A Matter of Balance’. Link below. A brief excerpt –

But recent changes in WorkSafe regulations, mandating extensive and expensive scaffolding for roof repairs and new builds adds, indicatively, from two to seven thousand dollars per project. The regulations were imposed with no cost-benefit assessment. WorkSafe has not struck the right balance in its scaffolding regulations, which have been spectacularly expensive.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/568229/government-proposes-scaffolding-rules-change-to-align-with-risk-level

https://www.nzinitiative.org.nz/reports-and-media/reports/a-matter-of-balance-regulating-safety/
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July 29, 2025 8:15am
- pdm
  
  A personal experience re use of Scaffold.
  
  When we sold our house 9 years ago and moved to our present address we had a small `cosmetic’ gap in the exterior above the front door of our single story townhouse. I say cosmetic because it never leaked, caused draughts etc.
  
  We contracted a repair company to repair it at a cost of just over $400.oo.
  
  A couple of days later they phoned to say they were finishing a job nearby early and would be round to do our job within the hour.
  
  Sure enough two vans and 3 men arrived and started putting up scaffolding which took about 30/40 minutes. When I queried the need for scaffolding they said they had been caught twice not using it and were on their last warning – presumably from Worksafe.
  
  Once the scaffolding was up two men went up on the roof and did the job in about 15 minutes. They took the scaffolding down and said they would be back next morning to paint over the repair – we had the matching paint on hand.
  
  Sure enough at about 9am the next day one of their staff arrived, put up a ladder, went onto the roof and did the required painting. All over in less than 10 minutes.
  
  Most of the cost of the job was for the scaffolding, including putting it up and taking it down.
  
  Bloody ridiculous.
  
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  July 29, 2025 8:37am
  - Colville
    
    Its a problem for the company.*
    
    If a staff member falls off your roof and is injured or dies then company director is personally liable for a massive fine and possibly prison.
    
    So all the company does is loads the cost onto the customer…
    
    Same with road works…the company doing the work charges customer for the road cone bullshit so their staff are safe. Everything is slow and expensive but why would the director put themselves in financial jeopardy?
    
    *if the householder fixes a roof Worksafe can do nothing to force use of scaffold. I have 7M drop off one side of my house onto concrete so I use a harness to clean the gutters 🙂
    
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    July 29, 2025 11:03am
    - David Garrett
      
      Colville: Just out of interest, what do you attach ur harness to? I am at the stage where I shouldn’t be on the roof without a harness.
      
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      July 29, 2025 11:44am
      - mogg
        
        The psychology of working at height: if you think you are going to fall off, you will fall off.
        The ridge is a structural part of the roof.
        
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        July 29, 2025 12:04pm
      - Colville
        
        DG.
        You can buy (or someone can install for you) a stainless steel wire running along the ridge of the roof. You clip onto that and adjust a rope to a harness. I do it so I can just reach the gutter.
        
        https://www.totalheightsafety.co.nz/products/cable-life-lines/
        
        I made mine at a fraction of the cost as I am beachfront and a 316SS one was insane price.
        
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        July 29, 2025 1:29pm
    - Blackfan
      
      Does the harness prevent you from falling? If not, and you do fall with your harness arresting that fall what is your rescue plan.
      
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      July 29, 2025 6:42pm
  - slijmbal
    
    We have a two story house on a reasonably steep slope.
    
    When trying to replace our roof the quotes for scaffolding was actually greater than those for the actual re-roofing. I think it was bumped up by scarcity of scaffolding. I put off the work.
    
    I also looked for quotes for re-staining. I was very surprised to be told this needed scaffolding. I put that off.
    
    I understand the requirement for a re-roof but not for a paint job.
    
    About to dive back in and will look to re-roof and re-stain with one set of scaffolding. Not looking forward to the quotes. Hopefully, scaffolding prices have dropped back.
    
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    July 29, 2025 12:27pm
    - Colville
      
      slijmbal
      
      (wtf is that handle? 🙂 )
      
      Painters all own their own scaffold now…its cheap to buy the ali stuff… or if they dont they will be getting a deal from a company. its a fraction of what it was. Price pressure as there are a LOT of providers.
      
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      July 29, 2025 1:23pm
  - cas
    
    We had our roof recoated and the guy in charge had Google earthed us, confirmed we couldn’t be seen from the road and did the job with no scaffolding.
    
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    July 29, 2025 12:39pm
- kowtow
  
  As I recall a lot of this bollocks came in under …….the Nats.
  
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  July 29, 2025 9:01am
- mogg
  
  Now to clean out a down pipe, roof gutter joint on a neighbour’s two storey house, it needed two trucks 4 scaffolders and 4 mt of scaffolding. The actual cleaning out process took about 45 mins. The whole operation was spread out over 4 days.
  Cost unknown.
  
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  July 29, 2025 10:40am
- comm4nder
  
  This reminds me of the crazy earthquake strengthening regulations in places like Auckland which are not earthquake prone. A friend of mine once said that more people will die strengthening buildings than will die in an earthquake.
  
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  July 29, 2025 10:46am
  - NZer In Exile
    
    Auckland is potentially volcanic (EG Rangitoto popping up in the Waitemata and erupting around a mere 700 years ago or so). Those eruptions bring earthquakes. Volcanoes aside, the whole of New Zealand is potentially earthquake prone anyway I believe.
    
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    July 29, 2025 8:25pm
Paulus

Why shouild I be forced to pay more for my morning coffee (soon this morning) when the Government has decided that people silly enough to use the 2% surcharge for their purchase.
They do not have to – like me pay either on the EFTPOS system, or even (real) cash.
I watch in the queue so many different people, both young and old, just flashing their cards to pay extra.
I though this country had a personal finance problem, but obviously so many people do not care, or understand, except this invariably goes to their Credit Card account, not a current account.
No wonder our education system is stuffed.
But why should I have to pay more for my coffee because the Government decides that I should, because of many people’s silliness.
Used to be called User Pays.
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July 29, 2025 8:24am
- Spam
  
  Or alternatively, how can the banks and credit card companies justify such exorbitant fees for a completely electronic transaction?
  
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  July 29, 2025 8:26am
  - slightlyrighty
    
    My question is why is this a percentage? The cost of a single Data Transfer of an amount shouldn’t change with the amount. Certainly it costs a Bank the same to conduct a transfer if an amount is $10 or $10,000?
    
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    July 29, 2025 8:53am
    - Spam
      
      Over a certain threshold, anti-money-laundering kicks in. But I agree: It costs them the same for a $1 transaction as a $1,000 one.
      
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      July 29, 2025 10:26am
    - Gary Benner
      
      There are three costs involved:
      
      1. Payment Gateway Fee, which covers the provisioning of the terminal, and the computer systems to manage the transaction through to the Banking system,
      
      2. Bank Transaction Fee, which may include a component paid to Visa, Mastercard etc on credit card payments,
      
      3. Paywave Fee which covers the risk of misuse, as there is no security other than the person having possession of the card. ie if a card is stolen the card it can be used for many transactions up to $200 at a time until reported.
      
      These are genuine “costs of sale” to use an accounting term, and the latest edict means that the costs of the use of all methods of payment must be amortised over all transactions by the vendor. The result is that using Cash or EFTPOS, which incur less costs, will not be a cheaper option any more for the customer as the base price will be now increased for all of us, and reduced a little for others who wish to use c/c and paywave.
      
      I suspect that paywave will be turned off at a number of shops now.
      
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      July 29, 2025 11:32am
      - Paulus
        
        Am not sure I agree as most will wait until next year first as they perhaps like the present system.
        
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        July 29, 2025 2:36pm
      - 70andstilllearning
        
        It’s only since the tech enabled the retailers to ‘self customise’ a transaction surcharge into the machine that it’s become an issue. Since then, most retailers that didn’t have paywave/cc capability have added it, usually with a healthy % surcharge. These charges have always been accounted for anyway with retailers margin calc’s and to be frank I’ve never noticed any retailer drop their margin when they’ve added on the surcharge at the till. Agree some may turn paywave off but I think the more likely reality is that they will simply double calc it back into the margin. No way they will forgo this wonderful little double dip the terminal providers gifted to them in the last few years.
        
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        July 29, 2025 3:23pm
  - balanced
    
    The 2 reasons I support the ban are:
    
    1. The nz banking cartel further cement their outrageous position and profits by eliminating competition from credit card companies.
    
    2. The regime allowed retailers to add their own charge on. Therefore hiding the true price of their wares until you pay.
    
    Just another example of clever thinking by Luxon and his National ministers, improving the Lives of NZers.
    
    Now Mr Luxon, how are you getting on with discovering:
    
    1. what happened to all the cash H Clark, Ardern, and their coconspirators funneled into the Maori Kings family?
    
    2. who owns the consulting companies and road cone companies which profited so handsomely whilst producing nothing, under the Clark/Ardern axis of evil?
    
    3. How Ardern lived the high life for 2 years with no income?
    
    4. Where the H Clark foundation millions came from?
    
    5. Why the Labour Ministers caught out giving millions of our taxes to companies owned by their family members, haven’t been held to account?
    
    6. Why millions of our dollars were given to the multi billion corporate, blue steel to buy a new boiler?
    
    7. Who received the $50 million plus of taxpayer money to not re-enter pike river despite the government knowing re-entry was impossible because of the rock fall?
    
    8. Who received the millions of our tax money spent on projects which were always financially implausible…. pumped hydro, harbour tunnel, airport light rail, etc?
    
    9. Why the Clark Ardern axis put so many measures in place to help gangs drug profits soar.
    
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    July 29, 2025 8:57am
  - James Stephenson
    
    The banks didn’t make $7 billion profit last year by accident…
    
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    July 29, 2025 8:59am
  - [email protected]
    
    I used to work for a payments company.
    
    The simple answer is because they can. The credit card companies drove the costs – initially saying this was required to pay back the development costs of creating and then deploying the contactless technology. Which initially had some sense behind it. However it has continued and is now purely being done because people are used to it and they continue to rake in the extra money.
    
    What also gets me is the way they change the risk liability. Not only have the credit card companies (and by extension the banks) found a way to charge extra extra profit per transaction but they have altered the very point of credit card companies. They used to be a trusted third party to help guarantee that both the vendor and the customer could have faith in the transaction. In the case of faulty or unsupplied goods you could reverse the charges and in the case of a customer defaulting on payment (way back with the zip zap machines) then the vendor still got paid and the credit card company would chase the default as needed.
    
    That is very much not the case now and the risk liability is worn by the vendor now entirely for contactless. Transaction falls over after the customer has walked out the door? Tough luck – you as a vendor wear that.
    
    The chances of things going wrong have reduced with the electronic systems we now have in place. But it can and does still happen – part of standard banking practice is the reconciliation at the end of the day where payments that have had issues have to be sorted out. Often manually.
    
    The floor limit of $200 being a required PIN entry does mitigate this a bit. But still it has been something of a shift to advantage mainly the credit card companies and the banks.
    
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    July 29, 2025 9:36am
    - Gary Benner
      
      Many shops have CCTV cameras operating over the transaction terminal, meaning it is risky to use Paywave, especially service stations where they’ll pick up your vehicle as well. So the risk is not as great as initially thought.
      
      BTW they upped the floor limit from $50 to $200 during Covid to minimise hand contact with the terminal, and to date there does not appear to have been a problem – open to be informed though!
      
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      July 29, 2025 11:39am
  - Ghost
    
    Visa do not support the surcharge.
    
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    July 29, 2025 9:37am
    - rouppe
      
      Does Visa continue to charge interchange fees?
      
      That’s the real question.
      
      Saying “Visa does not support the surcharge” is like saying “I believe in climate change” while flying all over the world.
      
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      July 29, 2025 11:14am
- pdm
  
  We got the bank to remove the easy pay or whatever it is called from our cards.
  
  Too dangerous if you lose your card – at least a pin provides some protection.
  
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  July 29, 2025 8:40am
  - Ghost
    
    You don’t need the bank to do it anymore, if you have their app you can just turn it on and off in the app. But yes, very easy to steal. At a New World down here last week, someone used an elderly man’s debit card to buy $50 worth of stuff. Elderly man didn’t know he had lost it until he went to pay and had no money in his account.
    
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    July 29, 2025 9:36am
    - pdm
      
      We don’t use any of those sorts of apps.
      
      Call us diehards or worse if you like.
      
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      July 29, 2025 1:37pm
      - NZer In Exile
        
        I avoid most apps unless they are open source, audited for privacy and have a very unambiguous policy of protecting my privacy. Better to log in to your bank account regularly using a PC, a privacy respecting operating system (EG Linux) and a privacy respecting browser. There is much more you can do to protect your privacy online but I won’t bore you here.
        
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        July 29, 2025 8:53pm
  - john1234
    
    I no longer use cards. They live in a drawer at home. I only use my phone to paywave which requires a face-unlock so is secure against misuse.
    However this means a) I have been royally ripped off by surcharges and b) some vendors have no paywave. With the ban on surcharges both these issues will go away.
    Good.
    
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    July 29, 2025 9:51am
    - Keith White
      
      I use cash for everything I can, everywhere. One day that won’t work; but by then I’ll be negotiating on another plane 🙂
      
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      July 29, 2025 11:14am
    - rouppe
      
      Why don’t you always dip your card and choose “cheque (transaction) account”?
      
      I don’t think the ban on surcharges will make lack of paywave go away.
      
      Visa and Mastercard will still charge the interchange fee to the merchant. Those that have a terminal but don’t accept paywave will still do so to avoid the charge. Though they can’t really now, because they can’t pass on the credit card charge either.
      
      Perhaps the only option to absorbing the cost is to not accept credit card payments or contactless, if that’s possible.
      
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      July 29, 2025 11:38am
- mw
  
  Yes it was what I was thinking as well, and as the radio/talkback hosts are usually slow to pick up on the issues they had nailed them all by the time I was listening.
  
  So the government, to make this transparent, has most likely hiked the price for us. The one thing the will try to not be transparent is that price hike if it happens.
  
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  July 29, 2025 8:41am
- Callum
  
  They are regulating the fees via the commerce commission at the same time. It also costs to handle cash but I doubt you would be happy with a cash handling fee being charged for your coffee? The reason it is having to be regulated is too many dodgy businesses charging more than it actually costs and others not disclosing at all.
  
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  July 29, 2025 8:49am
  - Observer of Life
    
    Whatever happened to the business calculating all those additional costs into their fees/charges for everyone. Adding the surcharge is a rort. And a diet that everyone is jumping on the band wagon of these days.
    I guess more’s the point, why is the bank even charging an extra fee for something that has made their life easier.
    Grrrr….
    
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    July 29, 2025 9:23am
    - Dougal10
      
      You want to deal with freight companies , a lot of them run a fuel price surcharge which from experience can range from $10 to $60 per unit which you have no idea about until invoice arrives.
      
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      July 29, 2025 10:54am
    - Blog-aholic
      
      IMO alot of those smaller businesses were sending a message to their customers that the prices were fair before the ‘surcharge’ that they did not want to have to charge because of they are a rort.
      Supermarkets don’t because they are big enough players to work a compatible deal (cheap cheap) with their EFT suppliers.
      I once got charged 3.8% in a lower south island council owned carpark……I am pretty sure they did not pay all of that to the Eft company…..no way no how!
      
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      July 29, 2025 10:56am
    - Dudley Quaffquaff
      
      calculating all those additional costs into their fees/charges for everyone
      
      =
      
      making everybody pay for the cost of something that only some of them use
      
      Do you really think that better than getting a choice as to whether you incur the cost or not?
      
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      July 29, 2025 12:19pm
    - rouppe
      
      It’s not the bank. It’s Paymark. When you tap your card:
      * merchant transaction is sent to Paymark.
      * Paymark works out which bank owns the card and sends a transaction authorising the payment. For which they charge a (interchange) fee.
      * once authorised, Paymark authorises the transaction with the merchant, but adds the fee on top.
      
      Merchants charge different fees. I’ve seen 1%, 2%, 3% and sometimes something in between. I don’t know whether that’s because Paymark charges different merchants different amounts, or whether the terminal suppliers like verifone are in between taking a percentage as well, or whether the merchant can specify any percentage they like.
      
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      July 29, 2025 2:26pm
      - RichardF
        
        Sorry rouppe but that’s not quite correct. Paymark, now known as Worldline, do not authorise transactions nor are they involved in interchange. They are a ‘switch’ in the middle that connects card issuers and acquirers. The card issuer authorises the transaction. Interchange is a fee paid by the acquiring bank to the issuing bank. Worldline do charge transaction fees to banks and its probably a few cents per transaction, even for ‘free’ eftpos transactions. There are other switches too. Verifone, aka eftpos nz, formerly owned by ANZ back in the day, is an alternative switch. Worldline is significantly larger. Eftpos terminal vendors do not make any money on individual transactions, their only revenue is terminal hardware rental. Payments is a murky world, all smoke and mirrors.
        
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        July 29, 2025 6:21pm
  - OlderChas
    
    …………too many dodgy businesses charging more than it actually costs and others not disclosing at all.
    Couple of days ago Mrs Older and I had a snack and coffee at a place we had never been to before. Had to ask for a receipt printout (helps us keep track in our home finances records) which showed $45.50. Card was ‘plugged in’ and ‘PIN’d’, not waved.
    Checking bank accounts the next morning this was charged at $46.28. So despite there being no signage saying there was an extra charge for using a credit card, this was added to the cost, but not shown on the receipt printout.
    Won’t be returning to that outlet again.
    
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    July 29, 2025 11:20am
    - Callum
      
      I went to a concert, no signage about surcharges at all. Checked my account after buying a beer to find 2% extra charge. Challenged the staff member who called over the manager who insisted that the charge had displayed on the terminal and I had approved it. So I bought another beer in front of him, showed him the screen. When I called him a lying thief he threatened to call security.
      
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      July 29, 2025 11:52am
      - rouppe
        
        That is unusual. I bought a beer at a bar on Sunday and there was no warning about a surcharge but it did prompt me on the screen. Though it may have been after the tap which is a bit stink.
        
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        July 29, 2025 2:29pm
- Local Miller
  
  The wife and I never use Paywave. At a rough estimate between us we spend about $450 a week on general transactions with our cards that could be done with Paywave. At a 2% surcharge that’s about $9/week, or coming up to $500/year. It may not sound like a lot of money to some, but as Mom used to say, “look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves.”
  
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  July 29, 2025 8:51am
  - Observer of Life
    
    Local: The problem now is a lot of businesses are adding the surcharge to a credit card transaction regardless of whether its paywave or not. More and more businesses are refusing to accept cash as well, which is frustrating. If you’re going to whack a surcharge on, don’t limit us with the “cash not accepted” BS. When I paid cash for some drinks last week, the guy was stunned and suggested I was either a small business owner or drug dealer!!! Bring back cash.
    
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    July 29, 2025 9:20am
  - Paulus
    
    But you must be rich, when we hear continuously from the media how we cannot afford to live in New Zealand any more, and it’s this Government’s fault that we are all so poor and we need more money.
    Thank goodness for Labour creating this wonderful situation.
    
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    July 29, 2025 10:55am
  - Dougal10
    
    Its noticable that some of the card readers are so shit that the easiest thing to do is give up and tap rather than keep swiping and inserting.
    
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    July 29, 2025 10:57am
  - rouppe
    
    Is worth noting that the interchange fee is charged for both contactless and dipped credit card transactions.
    
    Because both go through Paymark.
    
    Note, even a contactless debit card transaction goes to Paymark first because you can only do this with Visa or Mastercard debit cards.
    
    The only way to avoid it is dip/swipe and choose your transaction account
    
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    July 29, 2025 2:33pm
- AitchW
  
  Let us hope that those businesses who currently charge for Paywave will stop today, and not wait for the government to legislate.
  FWIW our business has never charged for Paywave, it’s simply a part of doing business.
  
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  July 29, 2025 8:57am
  - Paulus
    
    You must be joking = how many small businesses fiddle it ?
    
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    July 29, 2025 10:57am
- peterwn
  
  Not sure whether this addresses the issue with airlines, IRD etc. When doing internet purchases or bookings, cash payment is not possible so a credit or debit card must be used. However the advertised price of an airline fare assumes cash payments which are physically not possible. There is a thing called POLi where you can pay the ‘advertised’ price but using POLi is contrary to banks’ terms and conditions but while banks could easily defeat POLi, they have not bothered to. So for such purposes the change would be welcome, or alternatively the Commerce Commission should require vendors to include transaction fees in their pricing.
  Then there is the case of IRD and other organisations who expect to receive complete payment when paying by card so the card companies charge a ‘convenience fee’. Will the Government outlaw this, probably not because the Ministers of Finance or Revenue would not want a bite taken out of tax revenue or student loan repayments.
  
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  July 29, 2025 10:28am
  - Flossie
    
    I was particularly annoyed at the IRD Convenience Fee when trying to settle a small debt to them! In the end I paid though as all other options were more cumbersome.
    
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    July 29, 2025 11:28am
    - marleybob
      
      I’m doing the same, I’m paying down a tax bill every pension day. $100 +$1.42 Convenience fee. I wonder if that fee will also be dropped.
      
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      July 29, 2025 3:37pm
- mogg
  
  It has also been suggested that all of the extra costs of their eftpos and payWave facilities are already priced into their products whether coffee, groceries or whatever.
  
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  July 29, 2025 10:49am
Ipanema69

Could somebody at Auckland City/Watercare please go out and clean a few blocked stormwater drains. It would prevent the chaos that always occurs when it rains!
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July 29, 2025 8:38am
- AitchW
  
  Whoah, they’ll need a working group to establish which drains need clearing. That’ll report back after consultation with local iwi and hapu and a cultural safety report has been provided.
  You’ll need a kapa haka group, a kaumatua to deliver a blessing and caterers to provide kai. A bit of koha never goes astray…
  Thn you’ll need an approved traffic management plan and the appropriate number of cones.
  By the time that’s arranged it’ll be summer and the drains won’t need clearing.
  
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  July 29, 2025 9:42am
- MCōs
  
  When I lived in Ngaio the drain outside our house on Ottawa Rd often blocked with leaves, flooding half the street and the footpath
  I got out there with a rake and unblocked it myself in five minutes and the water soon disappeared
  There was an ulterior motive. I couldn’t get to my garage otherwise!
  
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  July 29, 2025 9:45am
  - imalwaysright
    
    Good on you Mcos, community spirit and common sense go a long way, but unfortunately both are rare.
    
    There is a man near us who is a bit simple. He walks the main road into town everyday and picks up litter on the way.
    The staff at the local BP station on his route heard about him and they shout him a coffee every day.
    
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    July 29, 2025 10:50am
    - MCōs
      
      There is a similar chap who walks around here picking up litter.
      I thought he’s a bit lacking in the IQ department until I got into a conversation with him one day about a current cricket test. I just think he was normally socially awkward
      
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      July 29, 2025 12:55pm
      - imalwaysright
        
        Another uptick.
        Many avert the gaze and don’t engage with people who appear different.
        I’ve rarely, if ever, been disappointed by impromptu meeting of such people. Like most, they are shy and sometimes also lonely.
        It is never time wasted.
        
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        July 29, 2025 1:03pm
  - ISeeRed
    
    Reading these little stories have really made my day.
    
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    July 29, 2025 2:06pm
- RoboRob
  
  I must give a thumbs up to the Christchurch city council. I walk in the evenings and almost always see gutter cleaning trucks out ahead of any up comming weather event. Good work CCC.
  
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  July 29, 2025 11:52am
hookerphil

Thought the passport change was really good, until I saw the small print.
”
Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden confirmed that English will once again appear above te reo Māori on New Zealand passports, reversing a 2021 Labour-era change that had Māori first.

The redesign won’t take effect until unused passport stock runs out, likely in 2027, and comes as part of broader security upgrades.”

One thing about Labour, if they are back in power by then any new ones that have been ordered will be thrown in the bin and everything will continue as is.
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July 29, 2025 8:45am
- keepcalmcarryon
  
  If you haven’t seen this great article on maorification as a power grab it’s a well worth a read:
  https://www.bassettbrashandhide.com/post/ani-o-brien-it-s-just-a-passport-cover-except-it-s-not
  
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  July 29, 2025 9:26am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Some paragraphs from Ani O’Briens’s opinion piece:
    
    But somewhere along the way, inclusion morphed into dominance. What began as a well-meaning effort to honour Māori language and culture has, in the hands of our cultural elites, become a tool for ideological conformity and social stratification.
    
    It’s not really about te reo, tikanga, or even Māori. It’s about power. The university-educated, bureaucratically-ensconced, BlueSky-scrolling class have seized on te ao Māori as a mechanism through which to assert their own moral superiority over the “low-status” masses. It’s a modern version of the noble savage trope only this time, the reverence isn’t for the culture itself, but for what revering it allows them to do.
    
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    July 29, 2025 11:19am
    - muzled
      
      Absolutely must read piece, 10/10 Ani O’Brien!
      
      The last sentence below sums it all up to absolute perfection.
      
      By elevating mātauranga Māori to sacred, unchallengeable status, above science, above secularism, above democratic consensus, these cultural elites get to draw a bright line between the enlightened and the ignorant. They get to be the priest class.
      
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      July 29, 2025 12:10pm
- MCōs
  
  We’ll all be micro chipped by then
  
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  July 29, 2025 9:50am
  - john1234
    
    I hope we’ll all be long dead before Labour are allowed anywhere near the treasury benches.
    
    9 1
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    July 29, 2025 9:55am
    - AitchW
      
      There are a lot of people with short memories who are currently being programmed to fixate on the price of butter.
      Hipkins is constantly yapping about National’s cost of living crisis (and at every passing car) and the polls are looking pretty grim for the coalition.
      One can only assume that the government is keeping some good news up its sleeve for the few months leading up to next year’s election.
      Meawhile Peters is testing the waters to see which populist issues he’ll campaign on. And he will sign with Hipkins if the baubles are shiny enough.
      
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      July 29, 2025 11:59am
- peterwn
  
  Canadian Bank Note Company (who produces NZ passports as far as I know) will be rubbing its hands with glee.
  
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  July 29, 2025 10:02am
  - Jimbo666
    
    Why doesn’t NZ go for some sort of smart plastic card instead of a paper based passport. A card could hold all of the electronic data the present passport holds. I guess NZ will adopt it one day after the rest of the world does it.
    
    5 2
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    July 29, 2025 10:18am
    - Ghost
      
      Article
      
      Te Tari Taiwhenua is working with the ICAO to develop a digital passport which would transform how we travel internationally.
      
      3 1
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      July 29, 2025 10:28am
      - RoboRob
        
        WTF is ‘Te Tari Taiwhenua’. And not I am not going to bother looking it up. A name should be meaningfull.
        
        12 0
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        July 29, 2025 11:57am
      - Ghost
        
        It made me wonder, i think it is from the ardern/Hipkins govt and not updated
        
        1 0
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        July 29, 2025 12:03pm
    - Paulus
      
      I watched a TV programme from the UK recently in New Zealand in which we were shown, often serrupiticiously, for security purposes, how a UK Passport was produced.
      Incredible technology and difficulty in forging one.
      An eye opener.
      
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      July 29, 2025 11:02am
      - AitchW
        
        That same programne demonstrated how one of the Scandinavian countries is evaluating the use of facial recognition in place of passports.
        
        4 0
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        July 29, 2025 12:00pm
      - peterwn
        
        Design of Canadian passports (and hence New Zealand passports) is discussed with USA authorities since Canadian citizens are in a fairly privileged position when entering USA and USA wants Canadian passports to be as secure as possible.
        
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        July 29, 2025 3:02pm
  - lifesgood
    
    My passport is valid until 2031 and it has English first.
    
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    July 29, 2025 10:33am
    - OlderChas
      
      Mrs Older’s issued Jul 2019 does also and is valid until 2029
      
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      July 29, 2025 11:29am
      - Jack5
        
        Meanwhile the New Zealand passport is in joint fifth space with Greece and Switzerland in the number of countries it gives access to, according to a report in the Daily Mail.
        
        Or is it? Actually, the NZ passport’s equal 18th given those in joint rankings above it.
        
        No mention of Aotearoa in the report.
        
        https://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-14946957/Worlds-powerful-passport-UK-drops-rankings.html
        
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        July 29, 2025 12:59pm
      - MCōs
        
        I had a British friend who’d been to Israel and didn’t think he’d be there off allowed into Saudi so to be on the safe side he went for a swim with his passport and scrunched up the page with the Israeli stamp before applying for a new one.
        
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        July 29, 2025 2:42pm
    - peterwn
      
      Mcos
      Some years ago, I read that Israel would not stamp passports if requested. They required a visa on arrival which they would issue separately from the passport and presumably stamped that.
      
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      July 29, 2025 3:06pm
Bridgenag

European nuclear submarine command systems hacked — source code stolen in major French defense breach

“In a stunning cyberattack with global repercussions, France’s Naval Group—the nation’s premier naval defense contractor—has suffered a catastrophic breach of classified nuclear submarine combat management systems. According to intelligence sources and hacking forums, the attackers exfiltrated 13GB of sensitive data, including missile launch protocols and guidance algorithms for France’s ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs).”

https://open.substack.com/pub/boriquagato/p/overeducating-the-midwits?r=1aj1bv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
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July 29, 2025 8:52am
- kowtow
  
  Extraordinary , innit . That Mini Bonaparte talks a big talk about fighting Trump’s tariffs and rewarding Hamas terror by recognising “Palestine” but can’t look after his own interests .
  That’s why shit pollies make big noises over foreign affairs , gets headlines to distract from how shit they are.
  
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  July 29, 2025 9:06am
  - Paulus
    
    He is French !
    Does not that answer the problem, created over many hundreds of years.
    Arrrogant Prick.
    
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    July 29, 2025 11:04am
- JackRabbit
  
  Wrong Link.
  
  An actual link.
  
  https://www.naturalnews.com/2025-07-28-european-nuclear-submarine-command-systems-hacked.html
  
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  July 29, 2025 9:10am
  - Mike
    
    This story has not yet been confirmed.
    
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    July 29, 2025 10:17am
    - JackRabbit
      
      Confirmed by who? You? The guy at the local pub?
      I prefer news / cyber security feeds.
      
      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/07/27/french-submarine-maker-targeted-by-hackers/
      
      https://www.bitdefender.com/en-us/blog/hotforsecurity/french-submarine-secrets-surface-after-cyber-attack
      
      https://www.firstpost.com/world/hackers-attack-france-naval-group-the-maker-of-indian-scorpene-class-submarines-13914196.html
      
      https://charismanews.com/news/potential-crisis-for-naval-security-as-hackers-threaten-nuclear-submarine-leak/
      
      https://ground.news/article/french-submarine-maker-targeted-by-hackers
      
      https://www.varindia.com/news/Europe%E2%80%99s-Defence-Giant-Naval-Group-Hit-by-Major-Cyber-Breach
      
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      July 29, 2025 1:09pm
      - Ghost
        
        Mike is right, as of yet it hasn’t been confirmed
        
        “Naval Group has noticed being the target of a reputational attack with the claim of a cyber-malice act. We immediately launched technical investigations.
        
        “All teams and resources are currently mobilised to analyse and verify the authenticity, origin and ownership of the data as quickly as possible.
        
        “At this stage, no intrusion into our IT environments has been detected and there has been no impact on our activities.”
        
        Article
        
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        July 29, 2025 1:24pm
    - imalwaysright
      
      So, are you waiting for the media to tell you that a story from the media is true?
      Or are you waiting for them to tell you its false?
      Or are you just waiting for them to tell you something …
      
      Stop waiting, you’ve arrived.
      
      10 3
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      July 29, 2025 1:16pm
    - NZer In Exile
      
      Please wait for the far left international confirmation team to make an announcement.
      
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      July 29, 2025 9:06pm
- Jake Dee
  
  Before we all start going through the particulars of French Nuclear Submarine data, we have to consider what is the source of this story,
  “According to intelligence sources and hacking forums”
  “…first reported by cybersecurity watchdog CyberNews,”
  If the story is legitimate I can see 2 possible primary sources, the people who stole the data and the people who had their data stolen.
  Now consider what possible motivations either of those groups would have for making true and accurate knowledge about the theft of what must be some of the world’s most sensitive data public knowledge?
  Always chew before swallowing.
  
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  July 29, 2025 10:34am
  - Phronesis
    
    Clearly it’s the hackers who are trying to sell the information to the highest bidder that are the source of this story. I’ve seen all of the Mission Impossible movies.
    
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    July 29, 2025 11:20am
- Colville
  
  The French have a submarine?
  
  They must have worked out how to hoist a white flag while underwater.
  
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  July 29, 2025 11:22am
greybeard

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360772562/its-going-destroy-whole-area-locals-upset-hindu-temple-gets-resource-consent
When this sort of thing happens I have to wonder if the councillors who voted for it have been compromised in some way. Money ? Menaces ?
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July 29, 2025 8:58am
- Eastlander
  
  Take a look at the back office staff. Even in Gisborne you’ll often find sub-continentals.
  
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  July 29, 2025 9:04am
- artemisia
  
  NIMBYs will NIMBY. Sure they may not like a new development in the area but it’s no different in urban environments. The bungalow in the burbs can have several 3 story townhouses built next door, for example. Then same on the other side and over the back fence.
  
  Lots of rural in New Zealand to move to if they choose.
  
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  July 29, 2025 9:28am
  - Colville
    
    14 meters high with a gold dome will stick out a bit in a rural production zone!
    
    119 carparks, that is approx 4000M2 of sealed hardstand. I cant see how that would be compliant in any production zone and how it could get past NPS – HPL.
    
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    July 29, 2025 11:26am
- MCōs
  
  Couldn’t be more ostentation than the Mormon Temple alongside the Southern M’way in Manukau
  
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  July 29, 2025 9:32am
Bridgenag

overeducating the midwits
and the death of reason

“university used to be for the top 3-5% of intellects, a serious and seriously difficult undertaking suitable for and completable by only a very small group of people whose IQ cutoff was likely around 125. the standards were rigid and many aspirants to sheepskins went home empty handed.

jamming universities full of 100’s and 110’s broke the system, forced it to dumb down, and drove it away from ideas of logic and critical thinking and into doctrine and regurgitation because the “customer” was no longer capable of the former and thus had to be served the latter.

“understand this” was replaced with “memorize this.””

https://open.substack.com/pub/boriquagato/p/overeducating-the-midwits?r=1aj1bv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
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July 29, 2025 9:13am
- Pope Punctilious II
  
  Top 10-20 % would be more realistic. But our bums-on-seats model induces universities to compete to enroll as many students at possible (it’s now 40 % of school leavers). And what’s not widely appreciated is that taxpayers pick up over 70 % of the bill. In principle tuition fees charged to students cover 35% of the cost of teaching, but as no interest is charged on loans, that will depreciate to less than 30 %. Plus the final year of study is “free”.
  
  It’s hard to think of a worse university funding model.
  
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  July 29, 2025 10:35am
  - imalwaysright
    
    Yes, the public pick up the majority of costs for degrees that have zero commercial value. The people taking these courses seem to be better suited to the dole but they are too embarrassed to admit it and save the country a few grand.
    
    Maybe we should offer zero fees to people who do well in courses that the country needs and who stay in NZ in an appropriate job for a decent period. Make it competitive, top 20% say.
    
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    July 29, 2025 11:07am
  - Ian Boag
    
    It’s hard to think of a worse university funding model
    
    A pity you aren’t sharing your better idea … which one assumes is not hard to think of. Us oldies of course – who came from the 10% days – had no tuition fees to pay, got a parsimonious universal student allowance and – if male – could self fund it through well-paid summer work in seasonal industries. That model worked OK for me …. 🙂
    
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    July 29, 2025 3:34pm
    - Pope Punctilious II
      
      And it’s the model we should go back to. The old model possibly needed tweaking to stop a minority from wasting taxpayers’ money, but there was nothing fundamentally wrong with the model.
      
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      July 29, 2025 8:15pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Our poor lecturers at Uni are finding their workloads all a bit much:
  
  Early career academics navigating the ecology of the university: a collaborative autoethnography
  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1177083X.2025.2527229
  
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  July 29, 2025 11:56am
Souvlaki

Below , an excellent synopsis….and pertinent comments following too.
Too much I expect, for ‘important’ Cabinet Ministers or PM to deign to read?

https://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2025/07/ani-obrien-its-just-passport-cover.html?m=1
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July 29, 2025 9:13am
- Souvlaki
  
  …and another article , best read in conjunction with Ani O’Brien’s….plausible , the way NZ is ‘charging’…..
  https://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2025/07/pee-kay-civil-wars-tend-to-happen.html?m=1
  
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  July 29, 2025 9:58am
Chuck Bird

I am a Zionist. Israel has a right to exist, although there could be an argument about the borders. Hamas are subhuman terrorists. However, Israel is not blameless and they tell lies. These videos are not long. If you think they wrong, then say why.

Jaw Dropping Footage: Journalist Embedded Himself Within Israeli Nationalists At The Gaza Border.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJoXfGk1dU8

Former US Green Beret says Israel committed war crimes at Gaza food distribution site | BBC News

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72aZhsNMOWk
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July 29, 2025 9:25am
- Cassandra
  
  The problem, Chuck, is your source. BBC is like the Guardian – and the Telegraph I suppose. Accusing Israel of genocide is simply wrong and the hysteria from many people is outrageous. I’d really like an objective observer to inform me. Are children starving to death because Israel is deliberately denying them food?
  
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  July 29, 2025 9:34am
  - Chuck Bird
    
    Do you think the Former US Green Beret or the journalist are lying? There are many more sources I have who have told me how people are treated in the West Bank. I am talking about Kiwis here in NZ.
    
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    July 29, 2025 9:55am
  - kowtow
    
    Sources . Yep.
    
    CJames posted this on the Swarbrick post , it deserves the widest dissemination, given how duplicitous our legacy media willingly are
    as they are now apologists for terrorism.
    
    https://dailysceptic.org/2025/07/28/the-medias-complicity-in-hamas-propaganda/
    
    It’s about that skinny child they all show. A genetic condition.
    
    Oh and perhaps all these Israel bashers should reflect on the importance of not starting wars (or in this case embarking on terror campaigns , as Hamas did at the behest of Iran)
    
    It’s in all the literature , why don’t these evil people ever learn.
    The Bard ;
    
    ‘A curse shall light upon the limbs of men;
    Domestic fury and fierce civil strife
    Shall cumber all the parts of Italy;
    Blood and destruction shall be so in use
    And dreadful objects so familiar1495
    That mothers shall but smile when they behold
    Their infants quarter’d with the hands of war;
    All pity choked with custom of fell deeds:’
    
    Sherman
    “War is hell”
    
    An old Greek ;
    
    ‘The first casualty of war is truth.’
    
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    July 29, 2025 10:00am
    - Paulus
      
      The men all carrying huge bags of food do not seem to be struggling to carry such weights or be undernourished,
      
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      July 29, 2025 11:07am
      - Don Beckett
        
        At least there is one news outlet prepared to do the research & present the truth – Sky News Australia. Again, they point out the stupidity of some politicians who keep promoting Israel as Stalin/Nazis, and in so doing give succour to Hamas so they keep up their war crimes.
        
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSpnp-so8RI
        
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        July 29, 2025 1:04pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        men all carrying huge bags of food
        
        “All”? They obviously aren’t starving. So what? Seems to be a fair bit of footage that suggests others might be. I suppose it could all be done with AI for images of starving babies and actors who lie down to play dead.
        
        Reminds one a bit of Biafra for those of us old enough to remember.
        
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        July 29, 2025 3:29pm
  - Chuck Bird
    
    “I’d really like an objective observer to inform me.”
    
    President Trump
    
    7 6
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    July 29, 2025 10:06am
  - imalwaysright
    
    The problem is that people still think that the media work for the people and report what happened.
    
    Media is an illusion, and has been since the shareholders of their companies started dictating the output. The recent rise of Neo Marxism was only possible because they control the media, they realised that lies are far more effective than bullets.
    
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    July 29, 2025 10:28am
    - Chuck Bird
      
      I am a shareholder of NZME. I have said to the Board that Groundswell should have a right of reply to Simon Wilson’s attack on Groundswell.
      
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      July 29, 2025 12:01pm
      - imalwaysright
        
        That’s my point Chuck. Shareholders should be silent, even in your case where you are asking for balance.
        
        Editors and reporters should be aiming for the impossible -impartiality.
        
        But, like many scientists, they won’t have a job unless they say what the boss wants them to say.
        
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        July 29, 2025 12:20pm
  - Jake Dee
    
    What qualifies an “objective source”?
    Seriously, the only people perfectly objective would also be totally disinterested.
    By way of analogy, I think the only people qualified to do an independent study of the Covid-19 situation would be scientists from the planet Mars.
    Everyone else is biased.
    
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    July 29, 2025 10:39am
  - Ra Henare
    
    You are entitled to your opinion, Cass, its just that. An opinion. Personally, I think you are simple wrong.
    
    What would you call the systemic killing of over 50,000 civilians (and why doesn’t Israel let journalists in to Gaza????)
    
    So it’s Israel policy NOT to let objective (independent) observers in to Gaza.
    
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    July 29, 2025 1:10pm
- Prince
  
  Release the hostages.
  
  22 2
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  July 29, 2025 10:11am
  - AitchW
    
    And stop firing rockets into Israel from schools, hospitals and UN compounds.
    
    16 3
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    July 29, 2025 10:46am
    - kowtow
      
      And from Yemen.
      
      9 1
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      July 29, 2025 11:57am
    - Ra Henare
      
      and Israel stop shelling Civilian areas.
      And stop fuzzing out all the satellite footage of the area.
      
      As I understand it, Israel/US have purchased all available hi-res satellite footage of the area so independent analysis can be done.
      
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      July 29, 2025 1:11pm
- Jake Dee
  
  Chuck what is a “National right to exist”?
  Where does it come from? What does it mean in practical terms? Where does it exist?
  I covered this in great detail under the “Ass kicking professor” bit yesterday.
  To summarize my position it’s all an invented fantasy, a political anthem deployed to cover old school tribalism under a disguise of logic and natural law.
  Once the logical implications of a “National Right to Exist” starts to bump up against tribal politics the whole thing just gets dumped.
  
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  July 29, 2025 10:48am
- mogg
  
  The real problem is that UN is allowing Hamas to use food as a weapon of war. The trucks full of rotting food at the border are in the control of UN food agency. UNRWRA is known to have Hamas terrorists working for it.
  Hamas in conjunction with media like ‘BBC Arabic’ and many others are winning the propaganda war.
  I am yet to hear a positive word said about Israel on either TV3 or TV1 news.
  If your need tobelieve the You tube videos shows a great deal of naivety.
  
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  July 29, 2025 11:09am
  - AitchW
    
    The UNRWA has been proven time and again to be hopelessly compromised by Hamas. Known Hamas members in its employ, hostages held in its compounds for God’s sake!
    Palaestinian children in its schools indoctrinated with jihadist propaganda and Hamas tunnels built with entrances in its compounds.
    Hamas weaponry stored and deployed from its offices.
    How did the UN allow this to happen?
    
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    July 29, 2025 12:05pm
    - mogg
      
      UN observers/peace keepers watched terror tunnels being constructed in Southern Lebanon and kept quiet about it.
      
      6 1
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      July 29, 2025 1:34pm
  - Ra Henare
    
    Just a simple question based on rational thinking.
    
    What rational/logic would mean Hamas leaving food to rot?
    
    They rely on the Gaza population. Why visibly piss them off
    In the west, it’s called the football Mums vote/power.
    Do you think teh Gaza Mums are sitting by and allowing food to go rotting while thei kids starve?
    I can see no benefit in allowing rotting food (a great propaganda tool for the Zionists)
    
    I am now waiting for stupid knee-jerk HAMAS controls the population BS.
    
    If after all this time HAMAS still has such great power, then all the IDF operations have been an abject failure.
    
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    July 29, 2025 1:18pm
    - mogg
      
      Maybe it’s because all the useful idiots in Weatern Media rush to blame Israel.
      
      6 3
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      July 29, 2025 1:36pm
    - David George
      
      The food is waiting to be delivered. The (UN & NGO) agencies charged with distribution don’t trust Hamas since they steal the food and murder the drivers and random civilians. The UN won’t allow the IDF to be involved either – since that would be some sort of recognition of them – something like that.
      Hamas hates the alternative joint US/Israeli distribution effort since they can’t steal the food* so have taken to shooting people to discredit the program.
      *They have been warehousing a lot of it to control availability and price
      
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      July 29, 2025 2:15pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        Worth doing a few sums on the quantities required. Set a saily food minimum at 500gm (a rough as guts estimate). 2m people so that is 1m kilos per day = 1000 tons. A big truck might have 10 tons tops. That’s 100/day assuming a perfect match on type of food plus no leakage etc.
        
        Air drops are just pissing in the wind.
        
        I didn’t realise Hamas have taken to dressing up in IDF uniforms and shooting people at the distribution points. Cunning devils …
        
        As far as controlling the price is concerned, there have been no banks in Gaza since forever and I would guess that the war/blockade has gone on long enough that the general population have buggerall of anything that looks like money ar jewellery or whatever.
        
        Gaza is about the same size as the Hutt Valley. So imagine if you squeezed in 2 and a bit million people, demolished 50% of the buildings and blockaded the place plus took away essentially all motorised transport. Then set up four food distribution points for people to walk to and from. Doesn’t sound like something that would work very well … 🙁
        
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        July 29, 2025 3:22pm
      - David George
        
        I B “Doesn’t sound like something that would work very well”
        So what did they think would happen when they decided to invade Israel and slaughter, rape and torture civilians?
        Israel has no option but to put the perpetrators permanently out of business.
        
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        July 29, 2025 4:52pm
  - Paulus
    
    The sooner we come out of the UN which was once good and worthy the better.
    Think of the money that could used here for say Education.
    
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    July 29, 2025 2:46pm
  - Jake Dee
    
    How is food rotting at the border in anyway the fault of the U.N.?
    The IDF controls the border, they are the ones preventing it from being distributed, they’re responsible.
    
    1 5
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    July 29, 2025 8:23pm
    - Don Beckett
      
      The food is stored inside the border under the jurisdiction of the UN, but they are complicit with Hamas.
      
      3 1
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      July 29, 2025 9:45pm
- Mike
  
  Well, Netanyahu says there is no starvation in Gaza, so I guess there’s no doubt about it.
  
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  July 29, 2025 12:37pm
john1234

This is quite big news in the USA:
https://www.foxnews.com/us/brutal-downtown-brawl-leaves-victims-bloodied-cincinnati-police-launch-investigation
Wouldn’t make the front page in NZ.
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July 29, 2025 10:01am
- Ghost
  
  Why would that story make New Zealand news? Hell, just another night in the USA.
  
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  July 29, 2025 10:34am
  - john1234
    
    Let me explain it for you. If there’s a similar assault in NZ it would not make the news. Here it would require a fatality. In the USA it made the news. We have become accustomed to violence in NZ.
    
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    July 29, 2025 11:44am
    - Ghost
      
      Rubbish, it does make the news, perhaps you should try reading the news. Hell we’ve had a lot of school brawls in the news over the years. Read the news
      
      Here are some recent stories
      
      https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/rugby/school-rugby/auckland-schoolboy-rugby-game-called-off-early-after-brawl-erupts-among-spectators/SKFFCYBPDFGS5GSYW44Q3BCMLA/
      
      https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/national/police-called-to-auckland-grammar-v-de-la-salle-schoolboy-rugby-game-after-brawl-erupts-among-spectators/
      
      https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/539254/police-respond-to-brawl-at-auckland-s-newmarket-station
      
      https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/pakuranga-night-market-fight-video-shows-stool-goods-flying-in-pakuranga-carpark-assault/FOJAKEAFMVBITBA36FEJACSOYU/
      
      https://www.1news.co.nz/2025/02/27/man-hospitalised-after-early-morning-brawl-in-aucklands-cbd/
      
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      July 29, 2025 11:50am
    - Ra Henare
      
      NZ News is rubbish if New stalk ZB website is anything to go by.
      I have a quick look each morning to see if NZ still exists.
      Todays front page I looked before the Michael Hill death notice)
      
      https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/
      
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      July 29, 2025 1:22pm
  - kowtow
    
    Well if our media can endlessly report an unfaithful couple , canoodling at a concert ………then I don’t see why not.
    
    What won’t get much coverage is another massacre of Christians and a destroyed church in Congo . Now had that been Gaza and the IDF , phuweee!
    
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    July 29, 2025 12:05pm
    - Ghost
      
      Why not? Because is so common in the USA our papers would be full of the constant brawls, murders, shootings, etc etc etc from the USA.
      
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      July 29, 2025 12:10pm
BeaB

RNZ bores on and on. First school lunches, for weeks, then days and days of butter and now the riveting topic of Paywave surcharges. It’s unbelievable that a state broadcaster can harp on endlessly about such small issues and totally ignore the big questions of the day. One suspects their personnel isn’t up to much more than parish pump topics.
And with all their ignorance, silly comments and giggling about serious stuff, is RNZ really the right source of civil defence info for us? It’s hard to take them seriously.
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July 29, 2025 10:17am
- MCōs
  
  The paywave topic has been in the news for a day because the government has little other good news to offer the squeezed middle
  
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  July 29, 2025 12:39pm
sungsamning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMr7iqjQADw
USDA Fires Many Chinese Postdocs.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has fired over 70 researchers, most of whom were postdoctoral fellows from China. The USDA stated that the dismissals were related to food safety, and these researchers, from countries like Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China, will no longer be allowed to participate in USDA research projects. The statement also mentioned that the researchers were not informed in advance and found out they were fired only when they tried to use their access cards and discovered they no longer worked.
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July 29, 2025 10:20am
sungsamning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogRg0VaaTwM
Western Provinces Just Made a Huge Wexit Announcement!
Alberta, and Saskatchewan leaders are talking to each other on the mechanics of secession from Canada.
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July 29, 2025 10:20am
- MCōs
  
  If there is a referendum should it be restricted to the people directly effected or to the whole country?
  
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  July 29, 2025 12:23pm
  - Ghost
    
    Nothing will ever come of this
    
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    July 29, 2025 12:31pm
  - Local Miller
    
    A referendum would be held within the state wanting to leave the cede from Canada. Only voters registered in the state can vote.
    
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    July 29, 2025 1:48pm
    - mandk
      
      Canada has Provinces, not States.
      
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      July 29, 2025 3:04pm
  - Tom Hunter
    
    Details here if you’re interested, More Alberta Fallout
    
    Quebec’s independence move failed decades ago, but Quebec has the same problem that Scotland faced in its failed independence vote a few years ago; both are tied to the nanny state because they’re not economically independent enough.
    
    That is not the case with Alberta and Saskatchewan. At a minimum I’d bet they’ll get a better deal in keeping more of their own money and control within Canada than now.
    
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    July 29, 2025 1:59pm
    - sungsamning
      
      What they need to do is forget statehood within the USA. That deprives the globalists of one major objection. It also removes a lot of technical headaches. Next, they want to ink in diplomatic recognition, an FTA, pipeline agreement, and dollarization. Then present an all but done deal to the population. Job done.
      
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      July 29, 2025 3:38pm
  - sungsamning
    
    Those directly affected. Like Quebec in the 90s.
    
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    July 29, 2025 3:35pm
Southern Raider

Does this Govt actually have an action plan for natural gas and one with short term delivery?

Just got an advisory that my gas supply charges are going up again in September and this time a 10% increase. Last increase was probably only six months ago. Gas must have doubled in price in last 3 years.

Don’t come back blaming it on Labour. Yes they are the root cause. However what is the current Govt actually doing to address fundamental cost issues to businesses and consumers like gas supply. They seem to just tinker around the edge with things that don’t deliver actual fundamental cost benefits now.
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July 29, 2025 10:41am
- Ghost
  
  What do you expect they can do? It’s going to be an uphill battle to try and get companies interested in coming back to N.Z.
  
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  July 29, 2025 10:50am
  - Mike
    
    Especially as it is now many years since any new fields were discovered.
    
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    July 29, 2025 11:19am
  - David Garrett
    
    Ghost: For the reasons have explained here a number of times, oil and gas explorers will never return to NZ – particularly as Hipkins says Labour will simply reverse National’s oil and gas policy when they are re-elected – and sadly that is when rather than if.
    
    I had thought of the government setting up Petrocorp 2.0 as a government owned oil company, but again, Labour would just wind that up when it returns to government.
    
    In short, the oil and gas industry in NZ is dead as a dodo and can’t be recovered.
    
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    July 29, 2025 12:29pm
    - ISeeRed
      
      Sadly true about “Petrocorp 2.0” as our only option, which would no doubt end up becoming a “partnership” between iwi and the government.
      
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      July 29, 2025 2:13pm
- imalwaysright
  
  SR
  A starting point would be the government asking the gas producers what it would take to get them back.
  
  Not sure if they have done that or not, but until they do, nothing will happen.
  
  Sooner the better, the longer they leave it the harsher the terms will be.
  
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  July 29, 2025 11:21am
  - RoboRob
    
    In the short term they could contact Trump and say, hey buddy you have a shit ton on natural gas. What say we buy a heap from you and you look at reducing our tariffs?
    
    Regardless of if they can get explortatino going, in the short term (10yrs?) we are going to need to import gas. They have made little (no?) progress with this.
    
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    July 29, 2025 12:14pm
  - Ghost
    
    They aren’t coming back. If you have gas, time to replace it
    
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    July 29, 2025 12:32pm
    - Mike
      
      Better to leave our petrochemicals in the ground against the day that they are more valuable than simply fuel.
      
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      July 29, 2025 12:41pm
      - imalwaysright
        
        What?
        Makeup products?
        
        5 0
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        July 29, 2025 1:24pm
      - ISeeRed
        
        Yeah. “More valuable” to the Maori tribal elites that will claim the lot for themselves.
        
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        July 29, 2025 2:15pm
      - NZer In Exile
        
        “Simply fuel” that is the essential for powering modern civilisation.
        
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        July 29, 2025 9:23pm
  - David Garrett
    
    I’m always: See my comment above. In short, the ONE major advantage we had as a exploration target – political stability – has now gone. Like virginity, once that’s gone it’s gone forever.
    
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    July 29, 2025 12:44pm
    - imalwaysright
      
      DG
      I agree that stability has gone, but it is also an opportunity for the government to put the focus on Labour et al to agree to a supermajority on energy and other essentials and reinstill political stability for investors.
      The country is falling apart, doing nothing is not a viable option.
      
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      July 29, 2025 1:35pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  The gas volumes we have are more than sufficient for domestic use. It’s industrial use including burning for electricity that has the problem.
  
  Best that we just set up an LNG import terminal.
  
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  July 29, 2025 12:53pm
  - Southern Raider
    
    Exactly the kind of solutions the Govt should be leading from the front with. Instead of sitting back blaming Labour. Assist major users to move to LNG and will be more than enough countries willing to supply.
    
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    July 29, 2025 1:26pm
  - Ian Boag
    
    Unfortunately, if gas usage was just domestic then the overheads of pipelines and well maintenance and all that is spread over a much lower gas volume, so price would have to rise significantly.
    
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    July 29, 2025 4:56pm
Jack5

Winston Peters puts on a stellar show in the 37-minute video yesterday of an interview with a veteran Maori Leftist, Moana Maniapoto, who was once married to Willie Jackson.

Let’s use first names, without intending disrespect.

When Moana presses him repeatedly for a one-word answer, emphasising “one word,” Winston sets the interview tone with: “We don’t do one-worders. One worder’s are for cartoons.”

Entertainment builds in the last 10 minutes, as Moana, wielding her right hand like a warrior with a balloint pen for a combat patu, throws rapid questions trying to overwhelm the veteran politician.

Will Winston panic? Will he crack?

No. Winston holds calmly, with only a couple of flickers through the smile. So Moana throws flurries of charm and praise.

She’s well above the Maori Party team in debating skill; she’s not limited to full-on aggression.

Moana looked serious, chilly when she began the interview. By the end she had warmed somewhat to Winston’s charm.

Another 20 minutes and he could have signed Moana up as an NZ First member.

The video:

https://youtu.be/krw4i7hC6io?si=7ocEngp0VXel5kj5

Moana’s witty, and I repeat a link I’ve given before on Kiwiblog to her 2017 article on ex-husband Willie Jackson, including his then knowledge of the Treaty of Waitangi:

https://e-tangata.co.nz/comment-and-analysis/moana-maniapoto-the-willie-jackson-i-know/
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July 29, 2025 10:56am
- Graeme Hall
  
  For all her talk Moana is about as indigenous as Captain Cook. I went to the first Neville Brothers concert in Christchurch and her band “The Moa Hunters” were the support. Their music at the time was a crudely attempted copy of the Neville Brothers New Orleans style. During the main act one of her band worked his way on stage to the back where he sat grinning at the audience until he suddenly vanished. No special privileges were granted by the Brothers for de Bros.
  
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  July 29, 2025 3:42pm
Ghost

Good, this was a disturbing case.

Oranga Tamariki has been ordered to pay more than $100,000 in legal costs over a battle to remove a Māori child from her Pākehā foster parents.

In her ruling, Justice Helen Cull is also critical of Oranga Tamariki’s ‘egregious’ campaign to discredit the foster parents.

The $108,000 indemnity costs stem from a battle over the long-term care of the girl, given the pseudonym “Moana” under automatic suppression orders for all those involved in the case, according to a High Court ruling.

Article
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July 29, 2025 11:02am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  And is it any wonder that OT now has to house vulnerable youths in top hotels with 24-hr Concierges on hand.
  
  https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360768770/forget-boot-camps-teen-housed-top-hotel-24-hour-concierge-service
  
  Who would be idiotic enough to become a care-giver/ foster parent when O.T. is involved?
  
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  July 29, 2025 11:24am
- imalwaysright
  
  G
  Yes, that was a very sad case for the little girl and the foster parents.
  
  The other hero was Judge Callinicos who was put under intense pressure from his bosses and also from Wira Gardner who all interfered in the hearing.
  
  Callinicos stared them down and told them to stay out of his court.
  
  His boss and Gardner should have been arrested for contempt at a minimum.
  
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  July 29, 2025 11:29am
- Blog-aholic
  
  If I recall they tried to cancel the OG judge and also perfured themselves to suit themselves too…..
  
  This is a fundamental problem in NZ and instead of being cured the cancer is running the oncology department.
  
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  July 29, 2025 11:32am
- Keith White
  
  What’s good about it overall? Yes it is some measure of justice to the couple who were bullied, had their reputations trashed, and spent a lot of their own money – but the racist OT bullies are not paying the 100k, the rest of us are; and the racist OT bullies are not identified or fired, so they can happily keep up their apartheid-based practices indefinitely.
  
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  July 29, 2025 11:33am
  - imalwaysright
    
    “…and the racist OT bullies are not identified or fired, …”
    
    On the contrary, these people and their co conspirators will see this judgement as a badge of honour and will see themselves as examples to the rest. Probably since promoted.
    
    I wonder how Moana is.
    
    Question: How did the return to her culture work out?
    
    Answer: If it was good news, it would be all over the news.
    
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    July 29, 2025 12:08pm
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    They should take the $100k out of Chappie’s pay.
    
    He can afford it.
    
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    July 29, 2025 12:56pm
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      Chappie has gone.
      
      https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/557179/oranga-tamariki-chief-executive-chappie-te-kani-resigns
      
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      July 29, 2025 4:36pm
- NZer In Exile
  
  The process was the punishment. Caring and committed foster parents dragged through this abysmal harassment. National & Co, please put a stop to this evil garbage once and for all.
  
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  July 29, 2025 9:27pm
Philview

Chris Luxon getting booed at the Netball Final had the whiff of a set up. It gave the impression the political reporters had advanced warning and had their attack stories carefully prepared.
I am noticing another line of attack in the comments of some right wing blogs attributing He Puapua to Key and Luxon. I suspect these people are really left wing activists muddying the waters.
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July 29, 2025 11:17am
- kowtow
  
  It’s also been suggested , by a caller to hdpa show last night , as she was making a very big deal of this , that they were actually booing the head of the netball cos she not popular for some reason.
  
  But of course , more Fake News! Bigly!
  
  Once again a lie can travel round the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.
  
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  July 29, 2025 11:54am
  - Burtland
    
    “Pay cuts could be coming for New Zealand’s top netball players as the broadcast deal for the domestic competition drags on.”
    
    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/sport/568344/top-netballers-may-need-secondary-income-as-broadcast-deal-drags-on
    
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    July 29, 2025 3:56pm
- MCōs
  
  Politicians regularly get booed at sporting events
  
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  July 29, 2025 12:04pm
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    I don’t know that there was anything in particular in the headlines that would have given rise to the sudden and seemingly coordinated boo-ing of Chris Luxon that was apparent from the TV footage.
    
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    July 29, 2025 12:35pm
  - Philview
    
    I might have misunderstood the footage last night but it gave me the impression the political reporter was actually at the Netball and commenting on the booing.
    
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    July 29, 2025 1:13pm
- surfing
  
  Sometimes one thinks NZ deserves a shit left wing government that borrows and spends in order to keep radical special interest groups happy, and grant co-governance to maori.
  
  The people who actually work for a living can go and live in Australia.
  
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  July 29, 2025 12:09pm
NeverMindTheBollocks

Man, those Europeans are stupid. And bullies. No one likes a bully.

The EU have dictated that large O&G suppliers must have a plan for Net Zero, and failure to achieve said plan will see the EU levying a 5% fine on turnover.

Qatar have told them to sod off.

“Qatar’s energy minister Saad al-Kaabi put things plainly, speaking to the Financial Times. “If the case is that I lose 5 per cent of my generated revenue by going to Europe, I will not go to Europe . . . I’m not bluffing,” al-Kaabi said. “Five per cent of generated revenue of QatarEnergy means 5 per cent of generated revenue of the Qatar state. This is the people’s money . . . so I cannot lose that kind of money — and nobody would accept losing that kind of money.”

In summary, the EU can support their industrial sector or they can pander to the Green morons.

Pick one.

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Natural-Gas/LNG-or-Net-Zero-Europe-Faces-Critical-Decision.html
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July 29, 2025 12:33pm
- AitchW
  
  They’ll pick the morons. Because birds of a feather….
  
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  July 29, 2025 3:49pm
- Burtland
  
  bit like our 2024 free trade deal with the EU delivered by Ardern
  
  has anyone read it ? – 4000 pages of bullying goodness
  
  https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ:L_202400866
  
  some of the things we must do for the EU to buy our produce …
  
  ARTICLE 19.6 Trade and climate change
  
  has us handcuffed to the Paris agreement, shipping emissions reductions and even phasing out flurocarbons under the Montreal Protocol
  
  ARTICLE 19.7 Trade and fossil fuel subsidy reform
  
  this time the Glasgow Climate Pact and phasing out harmful fossil fuel subsidies
  
  ARTICLE 19.12 Trade and responsible business conduct and supply chain management
  
  theres also a Chapter 20 on Maori Trade for which dispute settlement doesnt apply
  
  How anyone could sign this is unfathomable – all for “free trade” – meaning amongst other things, being tariffed 20% on milk powder and butter with quota restrictions
  
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  July 29, 2025 5:19pm
Ghost

Four people are dead, including the suspected gunman and a police officer, after a shooting at a Manhattan office building, reports say.

The death toll was reported by CNN. It comes after Fox News earlier reported law enforcement sources saying that up to 6 people had been shot.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/world-news/360773466/new-york-city-authorities-respond-report-shooting-building-houses-nfl
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July 29, 2025 1:09pm
- ISeeRed
  
  Thanks Ghost! Any update about the beheading and quadruple stabbing in London?
  
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  July 29, 2025 2:17pm
Quail

All todays threads ( including the others )seem to have an economic flavour to them. Posters are relying on respected economists from the past.
But no one appears addressed the fact that ,as in the story of the little red hen , Governments are largely about redistribution of wealth.
The concepts of working hard and receiving a fair recompense gets little traction.
Neither does property or individual rights
All todays governments do is redistribute the cake or take the receipts of their hard working citizens.
Governments do not grow or make wealth.
They do make it harder and harder to produce by unmercifully regulating and taxing producers .
Growing a bureaucracy that consumes more than 60% of GDP. Choking out productivity.
NZ is in big trouble, trouble that can only be averted by allowing/ encouraging those who can produce to produce. And allowing them ownership of the resources they earn!
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July 29, 2025 1:16pm
- Dudley Quaffquaff
  
  Rewarding people for work, creating wealth and growth, and indeed also paying out more to people who’ve put in more (eg Super) – these are not things that Government does, or that Government should try to do. They’re what marketsdo, and markets do all that far better than Governments can.
  
  Government exists to deliver the things that can’t and won’t be delivered by market forces, not to try to replicate those that can and are.
  
  Certainly, Government should try to do what it does at least cost to the operation of the market. But a society where markets operate entirely unregulated won’t work any more than one where markets aren’t allowed to work at all.
  
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  July 29, 2025 3:12pm
  - Quail
    
    Governments interference in markets is rife.They use regulations tax etc so entrepreneurs, producers etc are struggling to afford to produce items to sell on the world markets.And they use inflation to continue their redistributing of wealth.
    Look at all Government constructs that are plainly unaffordable.
    Tonight’s addition is more regulation ,(endorsed by Federated Farmers ) limiting what odd jobs children living on farms are allowed to do!
    There will be another lot of bureaucrats to enforce this no doubt!
    
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    July 29, 2025 6:55pm
Ghost

Sir Michael Hill has died

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/companies/retail/sir-michael-hill-dies-aged-86/FB3BCBYSMBDGPJLQ6A3MAEV24A/
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July 29, 2025 1:35pm
- Jack5
  
  Sides to Michael Hill …
  
  – From a thwarted dream of becoming a concert violinist to starting his own business in his 40s;
  
  – Building it to nearly 300 stores in Australasia and Canada;
  
  – Developing the NZ Golf Open at his championship course, the Hills, in Queenstown;
  
  – Creating and sponsoring the Michael Hill International Violin Competition;
  
  – Drawing cartoons for the Queenstown newspaper, the Mountain Scene.
  
  – His personally fronted TV advertisements, which sparked a Queensland customer to complain about his NZ accent: “It’s Hill, Hill, Hill … not Hull,”
  
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  July 29, 2025 2:30pm
  - NZer In Exile
    
    In Australia, that would be heal, not hull.
    
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    July 29, 2025 9:31pm
- Blog-aholic
  
  If there was ever a man who re-invented himself it was Michael Hill, Jeweller. RIP.
  
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  July 29, 2025 2:50pm
greybeard

https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/360773898/govt-regulate-farm-kids-collecting-eggs-and-watering-plants

What a dumb idea. This is more like something Labour and the Greens would dream-up. Bad move by ACT, especially now that their support is rising.
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July 29, 2025 4:12pm
- Ghost
  
  Brooke van Velden Is reminding me of the stupid Helen Clark years of pointless regulations
  
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  July 29, 2025 5:10pm
JJ56

How long can Quigley survive as Governor of the RB. Michael Reddell serves up another nail in his latest blog post https://croakingcassandra.com/2025/07/29/they-didnt-tell-her/. The RB is required to give the Minister of Finance their draft expected operating expenses, that subsequently proved to be a blow out, but just didn’t do so.
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July 29, 2025 7:27pm
- greybeard
  
  Quigley is Chair, not Governor.
  
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  July 30, 2025 8:04am

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