About
Contact
Advertise

Facebook
Twitter

August 4, 2025 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 04 August 2025

Like this:

Like Loading…

Email
Facebook
Twitter
Comment110

Uncategorized
General Debate

Comments (110)

Login to comment or vote

NeverMindTheBollocks

I think the $200m gas exploration subsidy is likely to be money wasted. Why would we not just build an LPG import terminal & buy the stuff in from Australia?

Sure, the gas ain’t ours but imports provide certainty of supply, which is what industry needs at this point. It opens up the option of burning gas for electricity and removing dirty Indonesian coal (a climate change win!).

By contrast, there’s a lot of hope that drilling will find gas in sufficient quantities and in good time. As someone said, hope is not a strategy.

http://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/568869/the-great-gas-gambit-why-drilling-for-fossil-fuels-is-not-expected-to-resolve-a-developing-energy-crisis
13 6
Log in to Reply
Report
August 4, 2025 8:01am
- nz_aj
  
  Imported LNG is estimated to cost between $17 and $24 per gigajoule, while domestic gas prices range from $8-$10 per gigajoule.
  
  23 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  August 4, 2025 8:42am
  - RoboRob
    
    Unfortuately we are going to have to import it, at least in the short term. Even if the ban was reversed and companies flocked back to explore (which they aren’t for good reason), the time between starting searching for gas, finding it and starting pumping is measured in years.
    
    Low energy ‘Watts’ talked about preparing to import gas but, like the rest of his list, very little has happened.
    
    The really dumb thing is, there is this crazy orange man putting tariffs on people who is sitting on a shit ton of gas. We need gas. We could have gone to him and offered to buy it from him. This would have ‘fixed’ the balance of trade with the US and had us on 10% tariffs.
    
    We could still do this. Luxon and the minister of trade are sitting there saying, ‘it is what it is’.
    
    7 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    August 4, 2025 9:05am
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    The price discrepancy is only relevant while we have local gas. A shortage means the price will rise, likely rapidly. As firms substitute electricity in for gas or go out of business, the fixed (network) price component will rise as a proportion of the overall charge for the remaining users. There’s no reason why the NZ price won’t exceed the import price in these circumstances.
    
    Best to front foot this problem by building an import terminal, if we see gas as part of our energy future. Gambling on finding commercial quantities within the requisite timeframe verges on blind optimism, in my view.
    
    5 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    August 4, 2025 10:01am
- mandk
  
  “Why would we not just build an LPG import terminal & buy the stuff in from Australia?”
  
  Who are ‘we’?
  
  There’s nothing to stop a business, or a consortium, from doing this. And there’s no case for the government to dip its hands into taxpayers’ pockets to fund a terminal.
  
  4 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  August 4, 2025 9:23am
- rouppe
  
  Because we then become dependant on someone else’s ability, willingness, and profit motive for the ability to keep the lights on.
  
  It is a core tenet of domestic security to have energy security.
  
  8 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  August 4, 2025 9:36am
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    On that basis we’re already completely stuffed, since every last drop of transport fuel is already imported, and has been for years.
    
    4 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    August 4, 2025 1:07pm
- rockape
  
  Think of the damage to our balance of payments. Being a non manufacturing country we import enough.
  
  17 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  August 4, 2025 9:38am
- Eastlander
  
  The reasons why oil and gas aren’t coming back have been outlined here ad nauseam. It couldn’t ever happen unless the labour and green parties were outlawed and promotion of their ideology criminalised. And that’s where we are as a country – it is either endless managed decline or old country methods.
  
  11 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  August 4, 2025 10:18am
- NZer In Exile
  
  Plenty of coal is already on NZ soil. If a new far-left clown show is elected in 2026 and bans coal, it can be unbanned if and when NZers have experienced enough pain and damage. The latest high efficiency coal power plants are pretty close to gas in terms of lower emissions. Not that there is any evidence whatsoever of a human emissions driven “climate emergency” and not that there is any evidence whatsoever that Co2 is driving the climate to any significant degree. The physics of the gas shows it can’t anyway.
  
  4 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  August 4, 2025 1:56pm
- Paulus
  
  Surely any gas found will belong to the local Iwi ?
  
  4 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  August 4, 2025 2:32pm
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    How far offshore does the rohe run?
    
    1 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    August 4, 2025 5:44pm
Cassandra

There’s an extraordinary article in The Spectator, to the effect that, given the dire problems facing China and the indifferent performance of its leader, it seems quite plausible that forces within the CCP have had enough of President Xi.

The author has put together a number of jigsaw puzzle pieces, such as Xi’s absence from the news pages, a substitute chairman for the Military Commission, rumours that some generals are not so keen on a Taiwan war, the rehabilitation of former president Hu, that sort of thing, and concluded that Xi might be out soon.

The consequences for Taiwan and US-China relations could be dramatic – and possibly beneficial to both. NZ might get away with 2% after all.
28 1
Log in to Reply
Report
August 4, 2025 8:03am
- kowtow
  
  Don’t worry about China.
  I see the UK Telegraph reporting that due to Europe net zero nuttiness and huge power costs ,German BASF in 2024 decided to close 11 chemical plants and invest euro 10 billion in building a mega site in China .
  Not to mention the closing of so many aluminium plants .
  Euro politicians are driving their economies and working classes into the ground , and making their enemies rich and powerful.
  
  19 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  August 4, 2025 8:33am
  - RoboRob
    
    Lol, because polluting in China is better for the world then polluting in Europe.
    
    6 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    August 4, 2025 9:08am
  - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
    
    Yes, fortunately our government would never commit economic suicide by signing up to Net Zero…..
    
    Oh yes, oops.
    
    If the Western elites had been co-opted by our enemies to destroy us, what would they do differently?
    
    8 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    August 4, 2025 9:15am
  - imalwaysright
    
    It seems that the easiest and cheapest way of taking over a country is to control their leadership.
    
    Look at the Ardern régime- her, Robertson, a few top judges and the police commissioner, and a few media editors, were all that were needed to reduce NZ to a quivering mess.
    
    Its a fair bet that the UK and the EU leadership are part of the same régime.
    
    9 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    August 4, 2025 9:20am
    - Paulus
      
      It is said that Starmer is on his way out and the woman Deputy and her friends will have him out by Christmas.
      
      2 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      August 4, 2025 2:34pm
- fightingtemeraire
  
  The Generals know that a Taiwan invasion will result in a blood bath for the PLA..
  
  If they did eventually succeed, they will take over a ravaged landscape.
  
  The PRC economy will collapse as people refuse to buy their good.
  
  They will have thousands of “one child families” with no children left.
  
  17 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  August 4, 2025 8:38am
  - RoboRob
    
    According to the US military, if a war over Taiwan was to break out China would win, at least in the short term. The distances for the US to get force to Taiwan vs the distance for China makes it hard.
    
    They are not saying it would be easy for China, but the projections are an eventual win.
    
    Agree with all the rest of your post though. A war would be a disaster for China but becuase of their shrinking population, its now or never.
    
    7 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    August 4, 2025 9:11am
  - G152
    
    And the US will not be happy and if China hits anything US the US will not be happy militarily ………. bye bye China
    
    5 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    August 4, 2025 9:13am
  - [email protected]
    
    One of the reasons China wants Taiwan is because Taiwan produces most of the world’s advanced integrated Circuits. But China probably realizes that if they attack Taiwan very few, if any, of those IC factories would be in working order when the Chinese finally capture Taiwan.
    
    The most advanced IC manufacturer in Taiwan is TMSC and it is building an IC plant in Arizona, USA.
    
    4 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    August 4, 2025 3:59pm
- Tom Hunter
  
  There were two stories on this back in late June.
  
  Is Chinese President Xi Jinping on his way out?
  
  How Xi Jinping Lost His Grip on China’s Communist Party
  
  Almost like going back to the days of Kremlinology.
  
  6 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  August 4, 2025 12:10pm
imalwaysright

If you want to know what’s wrong with NZ education and how to fix it then watch this man.
(Fast forward the daft questions from Jack Tame).

https://youtu.be/LAJ5NNz112o?si=AeUgZw9bNE4pBqIi

NZ school leavers are 2 years behind where they should be.
NCEA not fit for purpose- lax testing and weak curriculum.
NZ should stop writing their own curriculum and adopt Singapore’s.
32 1
Log in to Reply
Report
August 4, 2025 8:11am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Speaking to Q+A, Crimson Education co-founder Jamie Beaton said NCEA wasn’t setting students up well for future success, and lacks international recognition.
  
  “To be honest, it’s rough. NCEA is basically not a rigorous curriculum at all, and students graduating with it are often two years behind in core subjects like maths, science as well,” said Beaton.
  
  https://www.1news.co.nz/2025/08/03/ncea-leaves-kiwi-kids-unprepared-for-future-crimson-head/
  
  NZ has been paddling its own waka in circles as the rest of the world surges ahead.
  
  24 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  August 4, 2025 8:57am
  - Ian Boag
    
    We have this hangup about a national high school exam “qualification”. It was inherited from our colonial ancestors and has to be hard enough that a significant proportion fail it so we can blame the teachers.
    
    For an example of a different system ask chatGPT how it all works in Ontario (I picked that at random because I lived there for a few years) and I would guess that the rest of Canada is not very different. They have a thing called a High School Diploma with requirements about credits in specified areas. There is a lesser one for people who don’t last the distance or didn’t get enough of the right credits. No external exams. Employers and universities etc have been coping with this forever ….
    
    I think most of the US is similar. I looked up California and it was sort of the same. So that’s a significant part of the world where the secondary school system gets by without a national exam …
    
    Go figure.
    
    2 23
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    August 4, 2025 9:14am
    - lifesgood
      
      Amercains would be some of the most poorly educated in the western world so I wouldn’t want NZ to follow their example.
      
      16 6
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      August 4, 2025 9:20am
      - Ian Boag
        
        The place is so bad that they have a lot of the world’s “best” universities (eg MIT, Berkely, Yale, Texas A&M …. ). They have the wealth and scientific talent to lead the world in computing stuff.
        
        I could go on 🙂
        
        6 15
        Report
        August 4, 2025 9:25am
      - David Garrett
        
        Ian B: Both of you are right…Anyone who has had a bit to do with the USA knows that the country contains cultured highly educated individuals, and others who are uneducated morons.
        
        14 2
        Report
        August 4, 2025 10:02am
      - Ian Boag
        
        DG – as do most countries. The UK, France, Germany all have national exam systems that produce geniuses and morons both. As do we. The question is whether NCEA makes things any different. I’m in the “not really” camp …
        
        4 11
        Report
        August 4, 2025 10:07am
      - cmm
        
        Ian
        
        Yes, USA has some of the best universities, but only very few exceptional people get to go there.
        
        Silicon Valley has been a draw card to people from across the world. It concentrates some of the top minds who come from USA and across the world to one location. There are a few other places like that.
        
        Do not confuse the top 1% with the average education, they are far from typical.
        
        12 0
        Report
        August 4, 2025 10:28am
    - imalwaysright
      
      Should we ask our kids to aspire to mediocrity?
      
      0 3
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      August 4, 2025 9:24am
      - Ian Boag
        
        Does a national exam have anything to do with that?
        
        2 7
        Report
        August 4, 2025 10:07am
      - MCōs
        
        A good proportion of the population is needed to work in mediocre jobs that require little more than basic education and it’s in the interests of the elite to maintain the proportionality so that they remain elite.
        
        1 4
        Report
        August 4, 2025 10:24am
      - imalwaysright
        
        Ian
        My post was a comment on the defeatist tenor of your post.
        That others have low standards is precisely why we should have better standards.
        Why can’t kiwi kids be the best in the world?
        
        4 1
        Report
        August 4, 2025 10:53am
      - MCōs
        
        Yesterday I saw a chap interviewed on Q & A who inferred we should be following the education system used by Singapore
        Singapore is nothing like New Zealand with construction work and low paid work carried out by large numbers of immigrants from surrounding countries
        That sort of two tier society arrangement would go down like a lead balloon in egalitarian NZ
        
        2 1
        Report
        August 4, 2025 1:37pm
    - Manu-Rau
      
      Sorry, I stopped reading at ‘colonial ancestors’.
      
      9 1
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      August 4, 2025 11:40am
  - Paulus
    
    Since David Lange’s “Tomorrow’s Schools” how we have suceeded in Education ?
    – we now have some 4,500 Head Office (plus 50,000 Teachers) ingraciated staff in the Department, foaming discontent, much in Te Reo.
    
    6 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    August 4, 2025 2:39pm
sungsamning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5PaGmGQMWo
Classified Russia Intel Exposes Soros.
Senator Chuck Grassley has released a new batch of intelligence that directly links Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign—and operatives tied to billionaire activist George Soros—to the deliberate creation of the Russia collusion narrative. The documents suggest a coordinated effort to weaponize government agencies and media channels in order to discredit Donald Trump and subvert the outcome of the election. [It’d be nice to think this is a step toward an actual treason charge, and the forfeiture of the $oros fortune to the state.]
22 4
Log in to Reply
Report
August 4, 2025 8:13am
Nukuleka

It beggars belief that anyone, least of all the mother of the child, could place a 2 year old inside a bag and have it stored inside the luggage compartment of an InterCity bus. To this has NZ come.
41 0
Log in to Reply
Report
August 4, 2025 8:13am
- Souvlaki
  
  My money is on ‘perp’ being a drug addled psych case.
  
  24 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  August 4, 2025 8:21am
  - David Garrett
    
    Souv: my bet is she is also one of the Special People…you know, the ones who have “wrap around support” but seem to fuck up spectacularly regardless.
    
    I should make it clear that my Maori friends would find this as appalling as I do. But then those people don’t regard themselves as “Special”.
    
    14 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    August 4, 2025 1:25pm
- kiwikidsnz
  
  Also a lead story on BBC world this morning …100% PureNZ
  
  23 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  August 4, 2025 8:44am
- Ian
  
  Could have travelled for free if sitting on mother’s lap – otherwise a fare. Poverty, don’t you know….
  
  21 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  August 4, 2025 8:47am
- the deity formerly known as nigel6888
  
  Indeed.
  
  Drug crazed loser
  Child abduction
  Fare evasion????
  Extreme stupidity – at the sub-moron level
  
  Is there another possible explanation?
  
  9 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  August 4, 2025 9:18am
- mandk
  
  This is clearly the result of colonialisation.
  
  25 2
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  August 4, 2025 9:26am
  - Tauhei Notts
    
    The second excuse is that the mother suffered from ante-natal alcohol syndrome.
    
    15 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    August 4, 2025 9:34am
  - David Garrett
    
    Mandk: You are of course being sarcastic, but you will soon see some members of the chattering classes saying exactly that.
    
    7 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    August 4, 2025 1:28pm
  - R
    
    Yes, it was colonialism that introduced busses!
    
    5 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    August 4, 2025 1:58pm
- rouppe
  
  Hone Harawira’s rohe.
  
  What’s that Hone? Can’t hear you.
  
  Hone? Hello? Hone, where are you?
  
  12 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  August 4, 2025 9:45am
- Scooter
  
  Some moron from Intercity had this to say. “No one was harmed during the incident”. Gee is child abuse so common now that it’s a nothing to see here mentality?
  
  “Police were called to respond, and they are now investigating the matter. No one was harmed during the incident and the service has resumed. As this is now an active police investigation, we are unable to comment further.”
  
  4 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  August 4, 2025 6:12pm
sungsamning

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/ghislaine-maxwell-moved-texas-prison-jeffrey-epstein-1236336169/
Ghislaine Maxwell Moved to Lower-Security Texas Prison .
The news of her transfer comes as the details and mysteries of the Epstein saga have come roaring back into the news after Attorney General Pam Bondi said earlier this month that no more files related to the Epstein sex trafficking investigation would be made public and that he didn’t maintain a “client list.” [If there are 100 clients; 10 maybe had sex with minors, and the rest were hobnobbing. It could be more. Getting solid evidence would be a good exchange for her freedom.]
11 2
Log in to Reply
Report
August 4, 2025 8:15am
- Colville
  
  IMHO the threat of the list is the only thing keeping her alive.
  
  While they dont know how much evidence she has she is safe.
  
  8 2
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  August 4, 2025 8:59am
  - David Garrett
    
    Colville: How exactly is not knowing what she knows keeping her alive?
    
    5 3
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    August 4, 2025 1:31pm
  - sungsamning
    
    Yes, I agree. If the list is really big; there’d be more chance of some creative arm twisting, with a few perp walks to keep the base happy. A double win.
    
    3 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    August 4, 2025 7:38pm
- Philview
  
  Lower security isn’t always good for a longer life span in this case!
  
  6 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  August 4, 2025 9:02am
  - [email protected]
    
    Hopefully she has placed copies of the list in multiple secured areas and insured that those will be discoverable in case of her early demise.
    
    3 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    August 4, 2025 3:07pm
  - sungsamning
    
    Maybe the cameras and guards are more reliable.
    
    3 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    August 4, 2025 7:40pm
- Paulus
  
  There could be hundreds of young women, not only from the USA, sexually advanced working to make money, beign their intention and the hundreds if not thousand names could well horrify top men around the world who it has been said may have already paid big money to keep the subject quiet.
  I have the feeling that the whole saga is much wider than anticipated internationally and Maxwell has the knowledge and is keeping schtum or she may well be fund to have committed suicide.
  I am sure that with an hour I could get the names of such an agency or agencies on a international scale.
  
  5 3
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  August 4, 2025 2:48pm
  - sungsamning
    
    True; but it could be way over hyped. Say 90% private hobnobbing out of sight of the peasants; and 10% ‘special services’.
    
    2 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    August 4, 2025 7:42pm
artemisia

Homeless in the news a lot atm with “numerous organisations” saying it’s a crisis and are “urging the Government to act and to change its policies”. What they mean is more taxpayer $ needed.

Then there is this concept of personal responsibility, seldom mentioned by those “numerous organisations”.

Auckland City Missioner Helen Robinson said “They are usually unwell – physically, mentally – and have exhausted every opportunity for shelter”.

Those described by her as exhausting shelter options likely means neither family or the private sector (including boarding houses) are offering shelter. Many will have history, including addictions. Some will have tenancies terminated due to rent arrears, damage, anti social behaviour.

Current emergency housing eligibility includes not contributing to their own situation. Every year tens of thousands of applications made by landlords are heard in the Tenancy Tribunal. A random glance for an hour or two and easy to see why many are never going to be top of a landlord’s list – and they check.

For example, this RNZ headline (and sink photo) yesterday suggests Jessica Michelle Duffy might find it quite difficult to find a new rental. Landlord finds squalid home, tenant Jessica Michelle Duffy ordered to pay $4822

https://www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/360776584/homeless-new-zealand-how-we-reached-crisis-point
15 0
Log in to Reply
Report
August 4, 2025 8:20am
- Souvlaki
  
  Many years ago…..the bulk of this ‘type’ of person were ‘housed’ in institutions like Oakley/ Kingseat Hospitals……these and similar institutions no longer exist of course.
  
  39 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  August 4, 2025 8:25am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    That’s the reality that many on the left aren’t willing to acknowledge.
    
    A proportion of our population requires long-term care. Not everyone manages in the mainstream.
    
    44 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    August 4, 2025 8:32am
    - Jethrod
      
      Unfortunately this the reality of present times.
      Just waiting now for the downtickers to come along.
      
      28 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      August 4, 2025 8:42am
      - Don Beckett
        
        Thanks to Helen Clark closing all those care institutions for those unable to cope with the world we live in because of various personal & psychological issues.
        
        17 0
        Report
        August 4, 2025 11:00am
      - Bridgenag
        
        They are at school
        
        5 0
        Report
        August 4, 2025 1:51pm
  - Cassandra
    
    The move to care in the community was a world wide change in philosophy. Institutions had their problems but community care is more difficult and more expensive. Perhaps a mix might be the solution, with better supervision of institutions.
    
    19 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    August 4, 2025 8:56am
    - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
      
      But we were assured by “experts” that community care was far more humane, and all the savings from closing the residential facilities would go into community care….
      
      Thanks Auntie Hulun.
      
      Of course the counter-factual is that the residential homes run by the “caring professionals” of the state bureaucracy were torture chambers run by sadistic scum – and all of that was well known too.
      
      7 1
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      August 4, 2025 9:23am
  - Chuck Bird
    
    Correct. I worked at Oakley for about a year in 1967.
    
    18 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    August 4, 2025 8:56am
    - Colville
      
      We did come contracting work (re-pipe of the heating system) at Kimberly in Levin maybe 20 yrs ago.
      
      OMFG what a horrible place but filled with adults who couldnt tie their own shoes or speak a sentence.
      
      I dont know what the answer is to that problem.
      
      10 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      August 4, 2025 9:03am
  - artemisia
    
    True, but in the community they now have an income and ready access to alcohol. And illicit drugs, though much less affordable. We do however hear anecdotes of some making good coin from passer by donations.
    
    In Wellington much increased numbers in cruise ship season.
    
    6 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    August 4, 2025 12:36pm
  - peterwn
    
    They cost a fortune to run and were prone to issues such as those at Lake Alice. It was considered that their welfare and upkeep costs would be cheaper if they were in the community.
    
    2 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    August 4, 2025 7:15pm
    - RdM
      
      Peterwn;- Have you read, by James McNeish
      Breaking Ranks
      Three Interrupted Lives
      
      ?
      
      The first part, chapter, is about John Saxby, at Tokanui Hospital, from the late 60’s through to late ’90s, his influence, and then the changes there. Poignant. I met him in the early 70’s
      
      Regards;- Rossdm
      
      2 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      August 4, 2025 8:07pm
- slightlyrighty
  
  My Mother in Law is a retired Psych Nurse. She is of the opinion that a fair percentage of the homeless are those who would, 30 years ago, be in residential mental health Care.
  
  While community based care can help, it isn’t for everyone. In shutting down asylums, we may have thrown out the baby with the bathwater
  
  34 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  August 4, 2025 8:30am
  - Colville
    
    this ^
    
    6 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    August 4, 2025 9:04am
  - Philview
    
    I agree, I think we need to get back to more institutionalised care. The down side is there were clearly disturbed people working in these places given what we hear about sexual abuse back in the day.
    
    9 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    August 4, 2025 9:06am
  - kowtow
    
    “Community based care” is a euphemism for “homelessness”.
    
    9 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    August 4, 2025 10:40am
    - peterwn
      
      No. I know of two ‘special needs’ women living in a flat and who are supported by an agency who arranged the accommodation and provide household assistance. this has been a successful arrangement for some years now. One had the ambition of operating a Mr Whippy van, but alas she is not able to drive and would have trouble handling the business.
      
      4 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      August 4, 2025 7:22pm
  - David Garrett
    
    Slightly: Throwing the baby out with the bath water is virtually inevitable when policy is dictated by ideology – as closing the asylums was.
    
    Something many people don’t know – told to me by my psychiatrist of many years – the reason they were called asylums was because they were “places of asylum” from a cold, hard and unforgiving world. Think political asylum for those in peril for their lives.
    
    9 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    August 4, 2025 1:39pm
    - peterwn
      
      And those who ran asylums (eg Bethlem (aka Bedlam), etc opened them to the public and charged admission as if they were zoos.
      
      1 2
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      August 4, 2025 7:37pm
- Eastlander
  
  ‘Exhausted every opportunity for shelter’ – meaning that their families don’t want them because they smash furniture, befoul their living areas and steal anything they can pawn for drug my money. Few things quite so sharply illustrate the the folly that lies at the root of left-wing thinking as advocacy for the ‘plight’ of the homeless – we are told we owe a litany of obligations to the most vile and cretinous people in the country, who owe nothing at all in return.
  
  The place for the homeless is prison.
  
  18 6
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  August 4, 2025 8:47am
  - john1234
    
    Prison is way, way too expensive.
    Emergency housing should be of the homeless shelter type. Safe, warm bunkroom accomodation with shared bathrooms and soup kitchen food.
    Not motels or houses. Not with emergency cash for food that goes straight to a gang dealer.
    
    10 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    August 4, 2025 9:18am
  - MCōs
    
    “The place for the homeless is prison”
    
    Very Dickensian suggestion
    
    7 6
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    August 4, 2025 9:54am
    - Eastlander
      
      A contemporary Christmas Carol would have a kindly and endlessly generous Ebeneezer Scrooge being incessantly swindled by passers-by pleading poverty and taken advantage of by his indolent employee Bob Cratchit who ‘works from home’ three days a week but can never be reached in normal business hours (Scrooge smiles and remarks to himself that he must be on a long call).
      
      5 2
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      August 4, 2025 10:31am
      - peterwn
        
        That is not how Bob Cratchit was portrayed in ‘A Christmas Carol’. The Cratchit family were impoverished, hardworking, and warmhearted and Bob was a loyal and experienced employee of Ebenezer Scrooge.
        
        5 0
        Report
        August 4, 2025 7:44pm
- RoboRob
  
  On the radio this morning they were saying, ‘highest level of homelessnes in a number of years‘.
  
  An interesting way of avoiding to say, the ‘highest level of homelessnes since the last Labour government‘.
  
  14 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  August 4, 2025 9:16am
- imalwaysright
  
  We seem to have an endless supply of Qango welfare organisations. They probably outnumber the homeless while they spend their year working from home on their once a year press release.
  
  Like Maori being repressed by activists to fuel their gravy train, there is a similar methodology applied to these people to ensure continued funding for the hand wringers.
  
  Human misery pays well.
  
  11 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  August 4, 2025 9:37am
  - artemisia
    
    As someone said the other day, farming the poor.
    
    10 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    August 4, 2025 12:32pm
- sungsamning
  
  Homelessness will drop when Chippy is PM. Guarantee it!
  
  2 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  August 4, 2025 7:42pm
kowtow

Photo over the weekend of a number of Hamas terrorists surrendering to IDF .

They look very well fed indeed.
22 2
Log in to Reply
Report
August 4, 2025 8:37am
- Blog-aholic
  
  Funny that.
  
  11 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  August 4, 2025 9:43am
Libertarians are right

So the Democrats (Schumer) are saying that none of Trump’s appointees are qualified (because Trump chose them) and therefore they will continue to block every one of them.

Unless the Republicans release a Billion dollars to organisations of the Democrats choice in which case they will allow a small tranche through and then require another Billion etc.

This is why you can dislike Trump and still think he was the right choice.
15 1
Log in to Reply
Report
August 4, 2025 9:06am
- leoj
  
  Dems are very good at standover tactics and blackmail.
  
  Unions (all leftists) do it all the time.
  
  3 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  August 4, 2025 6:09pm
G152

The photos of the starving kids come from hamas….
What is claimed as media from Gaza is better described as propaganda
13 1
Log in to Reply
Report
August 4, 2025 9:18am
- kowtow
  
  And in the same way the west’s “leaders” danced to Thunberg’s tune , they dance to Hamas’ .
  
  And people slag off Trump!
  
  8 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  August 4, 2025 12:46pm
Pope Punctilious II

Just in case someone hasn’t already posted this positive news. With a bit of luck, the public service might actually be able to appoint the best person for the job now.
https://newsroom.co.nz/2025/08/01/collins-to-strip-diversity-pay-equity-rules-from-public-service-law/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
19 0
Log in to Reply
Report
August 4, 2025 9:46am
Rusty

Homelessness and mental health do go together and not all come from abusive lower-socio economic backgrounds

For example we all remember that lady living and dying in her car not far from her family house in Remuera who had mental health issues
6 0
Log in to Reply
Report
August 4, 2025 10:04am
Pope Punctilious II

Jonathan Sumption is worried that Trump could end democracy. While I agree that is possible, I find it strange that he doesn’t seem similarly worried about the undermining of democracy by radical “progressive” and globalist agendas in the UK and elsewhere.
https://youtu.be/nyl2LuR_rKI?si=l3UCjzhM_IlEry2i
9 2
Log in to Reply
Report
August 4, 2025 10:27am
- MCōs
  
  There’s more to the world than the USA and the UK.
  
  5 2
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  August 4, 2025 2:22pm
Bridgenag

Gandhi Almost Died Going Vegan—What He Discovered About Animal Fat Changed Everything
The untold story of how Big Oil spent $1.7 million to hide a food that cuts diabetes risk by 60% and contains gene-regulating compounds no plant can provide

https://open.substack.com/pub/sayerji/p/gandhi-almost-died-going-veganwhat?r=1aj1bv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
6 1
Log in to Reply
Report
August 4, 2025 10:51am
- imalwaysright
  
  A great actor. Only made the one film.
  
  8 3
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  August 4, 2025 10:58am
Swifty

I see some on the left looking to blame Luxon for Trump whacking us with a 15% tariff.

I think they’re wrong and that it’s far more likely to be the fault of those TVNZ people who shot the Trump doll with the Bug-a-Salt gun.

Yes, round them up!

😃
15 2
Log in to Reply
Report
August 4, 2025 11:04am
- leoj
  
  Maybe Trump’s spies have seen TV One’s coverage of him?
  
  2 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  August 4, 2025 6:10pm
Tom Hunter

I use the Brave browser and this morning found that the “General Debate 04 August 2025” post wasn’t visible because it’s covered by the pdf in the NCEA post.

An amusing glitch because I was sitting here wondering why there was no GD today. 🤦‍♂️ 🙂
16 1
Log in to Reply
Report
August 4, 2025 12:22pm
- H. Upmann
  
  Same with Firefox.
  
  5 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  August 4, 2025 1:44pm
- Rumblestrip
  
  It’s an ongoing issue that occurs every time DPF embeds a PDF (heh). Has been happening forever. It messes up formatting for a number of users.
  
  4 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  August 4, 2025 4:32pm
- NZer In Exile
  
  Librewolf (privacy and security fork of Mozilla Firefox) on Linux (Debian/KDE) working without issues here.
  
  1 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  August 4, 2025 6:14pm
Jethrod

Just realized I was on 4 July Kiwiblog thread, making all these intelligent comments! Then b….ger me wrong date. Confound it.
Don’t know how that happened.
5 0
Log in to Reply
Report
August 4, 2025 4:39pm
- Rusty
  
  @Jethrod
  I have done that.
  
  2 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  August 4, 2025 5:17pm
Swifty

The hard-earned tax money from New Zealand families is being funnelled to Trans lobby groups who write that their opponents are Nazis and fascists who want trans people murdered and genocided.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2M01cbuctGk&pp=ugUHEgVlbi1HQg%3D%3D

All as a result of funding decisions by Ardern and Robertson apparently.

Sickening.
4 0
Log in to Reply
Report
August 4, 2025 5:40pm

Add a Comment Cancel reply

Login to comment or vote

« Prison appropriate for these death threats

NCEA goneburger »

Donations

You can now donate to Kiwiblog

Exclusive content from DPF on Patreon

Become a Patron!

Never miss a post

Email Address

Join 13K other subscribers

Highlights

Target achieved II
Good progress on attendance
Health Target 5 – elective treatments
Health Target 4 – Specialist appointments

Links

Alan Greenspan, 1926-2026: 'The Undertaker' passes away
Not PC
John Raine: Canary in a Climate World - When Political and Media Narratives Depart from Scientific Evidence
Breaking Views
Word of the day
Hompaddock
Free Speech is in Trouble in Europe
No Minister
The mistakes that sealed Keir Starmer’s fate
Point of Order
Keir Starmer’s fate vs Chippy’s Green Party refusal – a warning to Labour
The Daily Blog
Open Mike 24/06/2026
The Standard
NRL Predictions for Round 17
Stats Chat
The Partition: Ireland Divided 1885 to 1925 by Charles Townshend (2021)
Utopia
Time to tax the rich
No Right Turn
Media Link: “A View from Afar” on Systemic Change.
Kiwipolitico
Alex Berenson on Fatherhood Manifesto, Marijuana & Biden’s COVID
Bob McCoskrie's McBlog
People Power
NZCPR
Levies as end-runs around the Generic Tax Policy Process
Offsetting Behaviour
A central banker’s fiction
Croaking Cassandra
THE WORKING FROM HOME RACKET BY PUBLIC SERVANTS
No Punches Pulled (Bob Jones)
The Accidental Engagement
Imperator Fish
Legal Beagle: Election '23: The Special Votes
Public Address
Get Vaccinated Tomorrow Or Shut Your Pie Hole
Cactus Kate
Making this movie might have been a mistake
Liam Hehir
Why I am retiring from political blogging
Kiwi FireWalker

[email protected]

PO Box 12270, Thorndon, Wellington 6144

Facebook
Twitter
FourSquare
Instagram
LinkedIn
Google+

Archives
Disclosure Statement
Editorial Policy
Privacy Policy
Complaints Policy
Comments Policy

Design by cre8d

%d

Share this:

Like this: