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August 10, 2025 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 10 August 2025

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General Debate

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Cassandra

The state of race relations in New Zealand is worrying. The elephant is the insidious insertion of Maori First into what should be a service for the public, for all of us. Even the Fire Service now has the Treaty of Waitangi as its guiding light. The Fire Service? How on earth is fire fighting and disaster relief affected by race?

Add on the other jobs we’re paying for which are reserved for Maoris such as a deputy Vice Chancellor at every university, staff to liaise with tribes and sub tribes in city councils and government departments, a myriad of expensive positions which contribute almost nothing to the functions and performance of the organisation.

This all started when Jim Bolger was the PM and Doug Graham was appointed as the Treaty Minister. Bolger says that the biggest issue was to get Pākehā to “face up to the reality that we owed Māori. Māori … had been badly, badly treated by the early settlers, we owed Māori redress and change. I put that higher than managing the books.”

“The Treaty principles and recognition that the early European settlers did not treat Māori fairly, I think was hugely important.”

Bolger said he did not understand those, such as David Seymour who “want to diminish the role of Māori in New Zealand. They were here first, they were here very much before everybody else, and they have been part of our history from that time on.”

Note that Bolger and co never got round to defining the principles of the ToW.

The key here is “Bolger said he did not understand.”

Somehow 175 years later New Zealanders owe something to other New Zealanders who happened to have a rellie who might have been disadvantaged a very long time ago. Well, my relliess came here in 1872 wth about as much as your average Maori of that time – nothing.

Bolger attributes his attitude to his Irish roots. The English mistreated the Irish 200 years ago so he has inherited his bigotry. I believe him. It’s all weird. It has now permeated every aspect of NZ society. Daily we see the ridiculous antics of the Maori Party’s MPs but that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Lenin’s useful idiots are beavering away to insert a Maori gloss onto every aspect of NZ, encouraged by a Maori Mafia who are raking in a fortune.

We’ve strayed far from the Bolger/Graham “putting things right” to some strange universe where the only determinant of special treatment is a tiny bit of DNA.

We’ve got to move on from perpetual grievance. It didn’t happen to you. I didn’t do it. We’re both in this together. We’re all Kiwis. It’s going to take a lot of effort. Let’s do it.
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August 10, 2025 8:01am
- Pope Punctilious II
  
  The story of Bolger and Graham serves to remind us that the Nats have long been part of the problem. And no small part of the problem.
  
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  August 10, 2025 8:17am
  - Paul Marsden
    
    What concerns me most of all, is that this country is never going to attract any sort of significant, overseas investment whilst this nonsense continues. Why Mr. Luxon fails to see the elephant in the room, has got me buggered.
    
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    August 10, 2025 1:04pm
    - David Garrett
      
      Paul: Oh im sure Luxon sees the elephant…he is just too damn weak to do anything about it.
      
      We are seriously fucked as a country. My son and his two children are moving to Oz next week…joining tens of thousands of other young people.
      
      Fortunately I have my gig in Tonga while I still have all my marbles.
      
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      August 10, 2025 4:09pm
      - Raphael
        
        The prospect of the current Greens possibly being in a position of power next election has me, for the first time since I moved to NZ 17 years ago, considering a period of exile in Australia.
        
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        August 11, 2025 4:29pm
- Yvette
  
  [1]
  As Tukuroirangi Morgan said, during “3 Waters”, Claims Māori will own NZ’s water infrastructure dismissed –
  “It’s absolute nonsense. We have always said, that we’re not interested in owning the water assets. What we’re interested in is the proprietor rights over water, and that is a discussion to be had with the Crown, not with councils.”
  https://www.1news.co.nz/2022/03/09/claims-maori-will-own-nzs-water-infrastructure-dismissed/
  What is apparent here is any water ownership is an exclusive discussion (still to be had) with the Crown, excluding the rest of all New Zealanders, who are not a factor in the Treaty, apart from reputed bad pioneer behaviour being a reason for the Treaty.
  
  [2]
  We’ve got to move on from perpetual grievance. It didn’t happen to you. I didn’t do it. We’re both in this together. We’re all Kiwis. It’s going to take a lot of effort. Let’s do it. Cassandra, that is true of course.
  
  Concerns Arising As Raised by Critics Like Gary Judd KC –
  The concern, stripped of emotional or ideological charge, is not necessarily about Māori culture per se, but about institutional imbalance and democratic principles, including:
  • Legal asymmetry: One culture’s traditions being treated as legally binding or superior, without equivalent treatment for others.
  • Historical selectivity: Emphasis on colonial injustices without equal recognition of inter-iwi conflict, early Māori agency, or post-colonial progress.
  • Lack of consent: Major constitutional shifts are occurring through judicial activism or bureaucratic reinterpretation, rather than public referendum or parliamentary mandate.
  • Suppression of dissent: Dissenting voices risk being labelled racist or anti-Māori, which can stifle open democratic debate.
  • Cultural essentialism: Assuming Māori are a unified group with one voice, which overlooks internal diversity and the rights of individuals.
  
  [3]
  Or in the words of another Commentor on Kiwiblog – … the truth of it is that their superficial paternalistic ‘niceness’: a bigotry of low expectations, is destroying the very people they imagine they are helping. Locking them into learned infantile helplessness, reliant on govt and others to support them in their sad low-agency lives. It’s fucking them and their kids, condemning them to shitty lives on the bottom rungs of society,
  
  An end to all special treatment and concessions – tough love and return to the pre-welfare state days demand for industriousness and self reliance (an end to easy welfare) will make them far happier, prouder of their achievements, better parents and role models for their kids and actually contributing to society.
  
  Obviously RACISM! Where is the Race Relations Commissioner (there is one out there somewhere) //
  
  [4]
  A knife-edge:
  • If a child is raised hearing only that they are descendants of loss, of being marginal, downtrodden, or “at the bottom of the heap” — then that identity can become a psychic cage.
  • Alternatively, if that same truth is shared alongside mana — pride, resilience, whakapapa, and the ancient strength that predates colonisation — then the historical pain becomes a challenge, not a sentence.
  Some messaging — whether from media, leadership, or social currents — seems to tilt more toward fatalism than fortitude. If the message to a Māori child is “You are born wounded and trapped,” what else can grow but despair?
  “To hand a child a mirror made of cracked grievance is to teach them to see themselves in pieces.”
  
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  August 10, 2025 8:38am
- wilderbeast
  
  Agree. Just as worrying is the unofficial behaviour it is now enabling. One of my staff was called during the week by a gentleman claiming to formally represent local Iwi and demanding payment for his “services”. This raised red flags immediately and some digging quickly revealed his claims to be false (though he is a known Iwi personality). I think the word is “extortion.”
  
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  August 10, 2025 8:39am
- Inandout
  
  Cass, many of us voted to get Maoriness off our backs and return Govt departments to English only. Well folks it has actually worsened.
  
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  August 10, 2025 8:47am
  - stewmar
    
    Last night the weather woman on tv1 started off by saying something about Aotearoa, in the next breath she uttered the words New Zealand. What are we to believe? In another item, same news bulletin, the spokesman for some govt dept was introduced as being from wake something or other instead of the English name. I thought the Nats were going to de maorify the names of govt depts. or has that not got through to TVNZ yet. Our paid servants.
    
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    August 10, 2025 10:14am
    - AitchW
      
      The government can’t control what the woke media says.
      Unless you want a PIJF on steroids….
      Don’t let Chloe read that.
      
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      August 10, 2025 11:16am
      - Jack5
        
        Buggering around on the media …
        
        If the Media Minister, Paul Goldsmith, is leaving Coalition media reform to the last quarter of the Parliamentary term it will likely be too late.
        
        The Coalition continued with Labour’s legislation in the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill, designed to help struggling traditional media get money from the internet-based media. In the meantime, the Coalition has continued State support to traditional news media – print, radio, TV. Someone may tell us whether Leftist blogs are also getting taxpayer help.
        
        The Coalition early on replaced Melissa Lee as media spokesperson. She had plans for media reform and you can read these at a link below.
        
        Here’s the bill content as it stands:
        
        https://www.legislation.govt.nz/bill/government/2023/0278/latest/whole.html
        
        Here’s where the bill stands in Parliamentary progress:
        
        https://bills.parliament.nz/v/6/fc7faac0-2ec0-4e47-7ab5-08db9ebb2302?Tab=history
        
        How the Coalition amended Labour’s bill on Digital Media:
        
        https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/government-taking-action-support-media-sector
        
        Here is the Kiwiblog guest post on 29 January 2022 by Melissa Lee, MP, when she was still the National Party spokesperson on the media:
        
        https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2022/01/guest_post_the_future_of_new_zealand_media.html
        
        From the media releases by Minister Goldsmith and the Under-Secretary
        Jenny Marcroft, you get an idea of what the Coalition’s been doing in relation to the news media:
        
        https://www.beehive.govt.nz/portfolio/nationalactnew-zealand-first-coalition-government-2023-2026/media-and-communications
        
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        August 10, 2025 12:22pm
      - Jack5
        
        And now the Woke are seeking taxpayer support for publishing novels!
        
        https://www.thepress.co.nz/business/360783000/demand-nz-fiction-has-shifted-dial-creative-economy
        
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        August 10, 2025 1:49pm
    - RalphT
      
      Speaking of Aotearoa and TV1, a couple of weeks ago their Australian based reporter read out a quote from some Australian group. While the text on the screen started with “New Zealand”, the reporter used the A word then faithfully repeated every other word. Nothing like indoctrinating the masses.
      
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      August 10, 2025 11:43am
  - R
    
    And it will continue to worsen, until the ideologically individuals are rooted out of the bureaucracy, and people stop taking every thing that they read, from activist and self interest opinion pieces as THE TRUTH!
    
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    August 10, 2025 10:16am
  - Burtland
    
    many of us THOUGHT we voted to get maoriness off our backs
    seems national are still somehow tied into the maori charity economy
    
    just as Labour blew their opportunity to create aotearoa, national and the coalition have blown the opportunity to eviscerate it
    
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    August 10, 2025 10:24am
    - R
      
      Burt, the coalition govt are working very hard to UNDO the damage of the Ardern/Hipkins /Robertson era. That you find the progress a bit too slow for your liking, gives a very good indication of the magnitude of the damage, and an indication of the recovery work that has to be done.
      What is surprising, is that despite all the information provided by the coalition during the investigations of the damage; there are still people who crave for the return of Ardern and company.
      
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      August 10, 2025 12:24pm
    - pdm
      
      Burt.
      ACT have tried to do it
      
      NZFirst say they will but, are not noted for action.
      National through PM Luxon seem to be on board with Maorification of NZ.
      
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      August 10, 2025 5:23pm
- Philview
  
  I heard the old argument a couple of weeks ago that Maori are disproportionately the victims of house fires. I am not sure what difference it makes when the fire brigade turn up. There were arguments that the fire brigade need to do more to engage more with Maori on prevention. I think we know what that means. If you want to install smoke alarms in our properties show a bit of courtesy and bring some Koha. That doesn’t sound nice but a couple of doctors told me they had that request when they want to run a health programme.
  
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  August 10, 2025 8:50am
  - pdm
    
    Philv – would a FREE smoke alarm not be a form of Koha?
    
    I think it would and what is more likely to save a life or two than the folding stuff that is expected.
    
    A question – how will Koha be paid in a cashless society?
    
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    August 10, 2025 10:08am
    - Burtland
      
      who needs a cashless society – Ngai Tahu have 45 registered charities
      
      the maori economy is hidden in the 30,000 registered charities
      
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      August 10, 2025 10:28am
    - gravedodger
      
      Cannot use a credit card on a bus, one must apply for a bus card from Dist Council, so there will be Koha Card issued for a fee from local Marae I guess.
      
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      August 10, 2025 10:31am
      - peterwn
        
        You can use a credit card on Auckland Transport buses just like you can on Sydney buses.
        
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        August 10, 2025 1:12pm
    - AitchW
      
      Tinnies.
      
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      August 10, 2025 11:17am
  - Paulus
    
    Possibly from an Insurance point that Maori are the inhabitants of rental properties, which as not being theirs they are careless because the state will see them havce another on.
    They have no personal insrance because people and the marae will see them right.
    
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    August 10, 2025 11:50am
  - rouppe
    
    but a couple of doctors told me they had that request when they want to run a health programme
    
    I wish that just once, the leader of such a programme would put out a statement to the effect of “we are no longer able to pursue our health programme here because the local iwi required a bribe to continue”.
    
    All it would take was some minuted meeting notes.
    
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    August 10, 2025 12:20pm
  - PurplePen
    
    I still can’t make a connection between the three articles of the treaty and government being responsible for any Maori-specific service such as the Fire Service. The only article that might have a connection is 3 where the Crown offers their protection. The thing is, in the context of the time when the treaty was signed my interpretation is protection relates to foreign powers. Protection from unruly settlers was not included. This is dealt with by all in the country being subjects and subject to the law. Certainly, protection, has nothing to do with government services other than foreign affairs and the defence force. Even then, the implication from the treaty is these are applied equally for all.
    
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    August 10, 2025 2:32pm
    - alloytoo
      
      Fire firefighting was not the responsibility of the Crown when the treaty was signed.
      
      It had (for more than a century) been funded through insurance companies (basically their clients) and municipal fire services were only beginning to emerge in Britain in the early 19th century.
      
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      August 11, 2025 7:55am
- rouppe
  
  recognition that the early European settlers did not treat Māori fairly,
  
  Let’s call it what it is. Early British seekers did not treat Maori fairly.
  
  I resent being fined every year for something neither I nor my parents perpetrated or perpetuated.
  
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  August 10, 2025 9:01am
  - kowtow
    
    ‘Early British seekers did not treat Maori fairly.’
    
    I wouldn’t get into that either , as it’s part of the trap.
    
    The colonists treated the “Maoris” a damn sight better than the Maoris treated each other.
    
    That’s what everyone in New Zealand today needs to realise and indeed cherish as a huge cultural , historical achievement for all New Zealand citizens.
    
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    August 10, 2025 10:43am
  - Cantabrian
    
    I resent my ancestors being accused of mistreating Maori when there were very few in the area in which I grew up. Besides, many of my ancestors made significant contributions in the areas of science, medicine, and politics – all of which help to make New Zealand the great little country it once was.
    Why should we be accused of -and be expected to pay for – mistreating Maori. I have done nothing, and no Maori has ever been impacted by my actions.
    And – elephant in the room – what about the actions of Maori in the 19th century. Why are they not being accused of mistreating non-Maori? We keep shovelling money in their direction for minimal return.
    Finally, every Maori has predominantly non-Maori ancestry.
    
    This exchange with Charlie Kirk is appropriate:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI4BHyL2qo4
    
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    August 10, 2025 11:07am
    - PurplePen
      
      Wouldn’t it imply you should be rewarded by government for your ancestors that did good?
      
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      August 10, 2025 2:34pm
  - Quail
    
    Rouppe,
    Let us call it what it is.”Early (BRITISH )settlers did not treat Maori fairly???.”
    Not true.
    Society ,in those days particularly ,was dog eat dog. Maori killed .defrauded and robbed a substantial number of those settlers themselves before losing the war .
    That was how they lived , died and allocated property.
    British law protected them from that time on.
    Maori were then able to trade their assets ( gained by force)for other imported assets and they did .
    Example a “useless “swamp traded for a cannon. British settlers expertise and work ethic turned that swamp into the highly productive Wairau Plain.
    The tribe that made that transaction is still asking for more.
    The British Crown was mostly very fair.
    
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    August 10, 2025 11:20am
    - kowtow
      
      ‘trade their assets’
      
      Much is made these days of a certain flag , denoting some kind of autonomy / independence.
      
      Well that was a ‘gift” of the imperial power. You need a flag on your ships to”trade” .Otherwise you’re not allowed to play in the real world.
      
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      August 10, 2025 11:47am
    - PurplePen
      
      They and we all behaved much like any other human has and does. We’re all the same. Funny that.
      
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      August 10, 2025 2:35pm
- R
  
  This comment from Cassandra, is possibly the most sensible one that I have seen on the Treaty of Waitangi debate
  
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  August 10, 2025 9:08am
- Quail
  
  Irish influence in Maoridom is substantial in NZ.
  Particularly in the South.. For example The O’Regan family is inextricably linked with Nga Tahu .
  Recall Muldoon’s ( in ) famous comment to Tipene was along the lines of “ you were Thomas when I knew you.”.
  
  Irish division along religious lines is well known and documented. Their social division caused much human suffering.
  A social/ legal divide on racial , colour ,religious , or any such spurious reason is absolutely the last thing that New Zealand needs!
  
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  August 10, 2025 9:36am
  - Swifty
    
    Tipene = Stephen
    
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    August 10, 2025 10:00am
    - Quail
      
      Correct Swifty,
      Thomas was Stevens brother .
      Apology for the error.
      
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      August 10, 2025 11:24am
      - Steve Todd
        
        It would appear you are wrong again, Quail.
        
        Stephen’s/Sir Tipene’s brother is/was Richard. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolland_O%27Regan.
        
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        August 10, 2025 12:29pm
  - imalwaysright
    
    First prize for the daftest post Quail.
    
    If you don’t like Irish people just say so.
    
    I guarantee 100% you wouldn’t compare Maori with the Jewish on this blog, which is as equally ridiculous.
    
    And, by the way, Tipene is the Maori version of Stephen.
    
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    August 10, 2025 10:12am
    - Quail
      
      IAR
      Have Irish ancestors myself.
      What chance is there for NZ if we do not regard ourselves as New Zealanders first and foremost ?
      
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      August 10, 2025 11:30am
  - pdm
    
    Quail – not to mention the Italian influence in Horowhenua and Central Hawkes Bay.
    
    The Sciascia family in particular in both districts and if my understanding of what I have read is right that includes activist MP Takuta Ferris.
    
    I will say the Sciascia’s of Porangahau were highly respected people in the community when I was growing up there.
    
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    August 10, 2025 10:12am
  - Steve Todd
    
    “ you were Thomas when I knew you.”
    
    Ah, no. Muldoon would have said, “you were Stephen* when I knew you.”
    
    * In fact, in his early days, Sir Tipene was known as ‘Steve O’Regan’.
    
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    August 10, 2025 10:19am
    - alwyn.a
      
      Yes. I knew him when we were at University and he was Stephen. I wouldn’t bet on whether it was Stephen or Steven though,
      
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      August 10, 2025 11:10am
      - Steve Todd
        
        See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipene_O%27Regan.
        
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        August 10, 2025 11:37am
  - gravedodger
    
    I think that was Stephen Quail.
    
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    August 10, 2025 10:32am
  - Jigsaw
    
    Quail – Not Muldoon but Bob Jones and not Thomas but Stephen which is his original name.
    
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    August 10, 2025 10:55am
    - Steve Todd
      
      Yes, it would have been Sir Bob, who was two months younger than Sir Tipene – they would have been at Vic together. Muldoon was 18 years older than both of them. And Bob would more likely have said, “you were Steve when I knew you.”
      
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      August 10, 2025 11:57am
      - Swifty
        
        I’ve seen a speech from Sir Bob talking about knowing Steve O’Regan since they were both very young “I knew him before he was Maori…”
        
        Heh.
        
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        August 10, 2025 12:13pm
      - Steve Todd
        
        ‘Heh’ is right, Swifty.
        
        I can remember, back in the 70s perhaps, a couple of family members chortling when they heard/saw mention of ‘Tipene’ O’Regan. They, too, were highly amused by his sudden discovery of his “Maori-ness”. He was always Steve O’Regan to them.
        
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        August 10, 2025 12:52pm
      - Swifty
        
        Yeah, my mother and O’Regan knew each other since they were kids together in Wellie in the 40s.
        
        She always knew him as Steve.
        
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        August 10, 2025 1:18pm
  - Flossie
    
    Wasn’t O’Regan STEVE? My sister in law was a training college with him and that’s what she said.
    
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    August 10, 2025 10:59am
  - Cantabrian
    
    Vincent O’Malley is another influential historian who clearly lets his Irish hatred of the British influence his work.
    
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    August 10, 2025 11:11am
    - Pope Punctilious II
      
      O’Malley is married to Maori activist Joanna Kidman.
      
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      August 10, 2025 4:52pm
- Waipuk
  
  This maorifactation push of the various government departments etc is orchestrated from with the public service.
  
  While the government pushes back in small ways in various areas the drive for everything Maori first drives on relentlessly. One step back, two steps forward.
  
  The only way to stop it is to have a version of Dodge to root out.
  
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  August 10, 2025 9:40am
  - Paulus
    
    I would be intereste if as I was told recently that the Maori influence in the Public Service is in effect female versus Male whatever, and Maroirdom is the opportunity to push this continually – and it is working.
    
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    August 10, 2025 1:45pm
- Clyde
  
  Oh, if this was this easy. But the proverbial cat is well out of the bag, and thanks to basically sewer rat cunning “activists” and money driven “liberals”, there will be no meaningful change in my life-time. Behind every cowboy hat clad racist MP and their lawyers like Finlayson, are embedded hierarchys in Universities and every public body in the country. FGS, even St John has adopted the maorification process.
  
  It would take a seriously driven politician to reverse this whole mess and frankly, there isn’t one on the horizon unless it is a mix of Seymour and Shane Jones who has yet to appear.
  
  My assessment is that there are still more people that would support the cessation of the maori gravy train and the systemic grievance process, than those who support it, but fear stops them from speaking out. The only way to overcome that fear is by the secret ballot. If a political party and its candidates would make it plain that their basic policy is equality of opportunity and that NZ is part of the future and not of the past, then they would win and we would have a hope. But until then, most of our future is booking tickets to Australia.
  
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  August 10, 2025 10:06am
- Eastlander
  
  If we’re going to be talking grievances forever then let’s turn that around on them. Who can say with a straight face that Maori have always been honest or faithful to us?
  
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  August 10, 2025 10:15am
  - R
    
    MAORI IWI LEADERS…,!
    
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    August 10, 2025 11:26am
    - Eastlander
      
      The majority of Maori support the Iwi leaders and their agenda – it is no use to pretend otherwise.
      
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      August 10, 2025 1:07pm
- Notsofast
  
  HDPA today in Herald
  
  “NZ First is trying on ridiculous culture war ideas many don’t care about”
  
  I never noticed that no one cared about sterilizing children, men punching women in the face in a boxing ring, a fake language into which you can’t translate humour or Shakespeare, and an obscene ticket clipping grift on all things animate and inanimate by people 90% European.
  
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  August 10, 2025 10:58am
  - Eugene
    
    How many does she thinks care about her obsessive war against rugby that she wastes time on nearly every drive show? The related sycophantic promotion of the NRL makes me sometimes wonder what is behind it.
    
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    August 10, 2025 12:28pm
    - AitchW
      
      It’s done tongue in cheek. Her show isn’t a documentary, it’s light entertainment to amuse you as you drive home from work.
      (That’s probably why the left hate the Hosk’s show, it assumes that you listen in your car on your way to work. The left hate people who work for a living. )
      At lease she’s not one of those who proudly proclaim that they never watch any sport….
      
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      August 10, 2025 1:50pm
      - David Garrett
        
        Aitch: what have you got against people like me who have very little interest in sport? I am particularly totally uninterested in the organized thuggery called rugby. A “Game” that requires – so I am told – about 250 laws to keep the players from seriously injuring or killing each other each other.
        
        The Beautiful Game which i watch at the Club now and again only needs fewer than 10 rules IIRC
        
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        August 10, 2025 4:26pm
- Damocles11
  
  And this is the standard of MP that this culture is sending into our Parliament –
  
  https://x.com/mrsward007v2/status/1953724847231840558?s=42
  
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  August 10, 2025 12:56pm
- cmm
  
  “We’ve strayed far from the Bolger/Graham “putting things right” ”
  
  I think that was the thin end of the wedge that opened up the crack to get to where we are now and where we are heading.
  
  Was there really something that needed to be “put right” in the Bolger era of the early 1990s (incidentally when I arrived in NZ)?
  
  Maori had had the vote since the 1800s – before white people got the vote.
  Maori have had full access to schools, universities, etc etc. All the resources are there if you just get off your arse and access them.
  
  So no, I think the Bolger era “putting things right” actually set up Maori for long term failure.
  
  Since then the grievance machine has been in overdrive and it is not at all apparent that this is helping outcomes for Maori at all. If anything, it has only helped to make Maori more and more state dependent and less capable than ever.
  
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  August 10, 2025 3:01pm
  - David Garrett
    
    cmm: Very well said Sir. Very few people know that Maori males had the vote long before white men who didnt own property.
    
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    August 10, 2025 4:30pm
David Garrett

A cool morning up here in the Kingdom: 18C…about as cold as it ever gets here.
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August 10, 2025 8:09am
- Cassandra
  
  A cool 4 in Paradise but sunny and a clear blue sky. Curry special at Otumoetai with 20 friends coming up. $20 includes a beer! (After matins of course).
  
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  August 10, 2025 8:20am
  - [email protected]
    
    0.5 this morning in Whau Valley, Whangarei.
    
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    August 10, 2025 8:24am
NeverMindTheBollocks

In what will be a surprise to no one, Wellington‘s new sludge plant is heading for an $80m overspend (20% of an already nose watering $400m – are these things made out of gold?).

No wonder Councillors refused $7m for fencing off the ocean. They should have cancelled the $100m+ for the Golden Mile revamp while they were there.

At a tangent, I note that there’s no Maori name for the sludge plant, and there’s no queue of local body worthies queuing up for the naming rights. I suggest that we kill two birds with one stone by gifting it the name of its principal moving force, thus the Tory Whanau Sludge Plant.
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August 10, 2025 8:14am
- pdm
  
  Bollocks – why not – The Tory Whanau Dung Heap?
  
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  August 10, 2025 10:15am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  I note that there’s no Maori name for the sludge plant,
  
  It’s Te Whare Wai Para Nuku
  
  https://wellington.govt.nz/your-council/projects/moa-point-sludge-minimisation-facility
  
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  August 10, 2025 10:20am
  - alwyn.a
    
    I wonder what the “gift” of that name cost us?
    
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    August 10, 2025 11:12am
    - Damocles11
      
      It’s ‘the gift I mean – grift – that keeps on taking.’
      
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      August 10, 2025 12:57pm
- mogg
  
  Councils are now dinosaur organisations.
  The crunch must come soon because private businesses which are already much more efficient,
  will move so far ahead with AI that they will be forced to into change.
  A very knowledgeable friend tells me that councils are now 10 years behind with their technology, and
  very difficult to deal with.
  Of interest is what AI has done to programming, where AI can do coding in 20mins, something that a human would take 2days over. With endless capacity for checking the work
  
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  August 10, 2025 11:22am
  - AitchW
    
    Has nobody seen the Terminator movies?????
    
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    August 10, 2025 1:51pm
- NothingLeft
  
  What’s Maori for “Taking The Piss”?
  
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  August 10, 2025 4:00pm
Bridgenag

Senior HHS Adviser Confirms the Worst COVID Fears Were True
This explains why RFK Jr. effectively shut down all mRNA vaccine funding.

“HHS Secretary RFK Jr. dropped a mega bombshell on Tuesday when he announced that BARDA will be CANCELING 22 mRNA vaccine development contracts, saving taxpayers about $500 million in the process.
He declared, “mRNA technology poses MORE risk than benefits for these respiratory viruses.””

“Dr. Hatfill added that the shots send a “sudden flood” of mRNA into the body, which overwhelms the cells and creates “BIOLOGICAL HAVOC.””

https://open.substack.com/pub/vigilantfox/p/senior-hhs-adviser-confirms-covid?r=1aj1bv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

I think it is disgraceful that the gullible are still getting vaccines because or media promotes them. I don’t watch TV …..has any of this been reported on?
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August 10, 2025 8:16am
- MCōs
  
  Gullible cuts two ways
  
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  August 10, 2025 8:28am
  - igm
    
    You fortunately are not one of many affected by the filthy vaccine. People who caused this must be brought to justice.
    
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    August 10, 2025 9:51am
  - Gary Benner
    
    MCos, maybe you have missed the evidence based material that has been released, but not necessarily reported on the 6 O’Clock News:
    
    1. The spike proteins, we were told, stayed in the arm where it was injected, and disappeared after a few days. Since then research has shown that it remains in the body, and in fact travels throughout the body, causing the “biological havoc” mentioned above.
    
    2. Pfizer hid their results showing negative effects of the vaccine, including deaths in the trial participants. Some of the data they tried to have sealed for 76 years!! This is Pfizer, the company fined over 2 Billion US Dollars for dodgy business practices.
    
    3. And of course the efforts to marginalise the benefits of alternatives such as Ivermectin and Fenbendazole – all to allow them to bypass the normal testing regimes under the lie that mRNA was the only way to save humanity from a terrifying malady – that turned out to be nothing more than a bad flu. (Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_human_disease_case_fatality_rates)
    
    4. Assigning deaths due to Covid to everything – ie motor accident victims who had tested for Covid were assigned to covid death rates!
    
    5. Massive incentives given to hospitals to classify deaths as caused by Covid in return for financial benefit.
    
    6. PCR testing that turned out to be useless, because they turned the sensitivity way high.
    
    PCR tests suffer from an alarming level of false-negative and false-positive results, so it is necessary to look for further improvements to the RT-PCR test.
    
    Ref:https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0344033821001047
    
    7. Doctors who raised concerns about the whole debacle were attacked and some stripped of their certification. Politics overriding good sense.
    
    Gullibility to watching the mainstream media and believing that the narrative provided is indicative of common understanding, or is reality. Sadly politics and vested interests controls almost all commonly available media. To get a better view of reality you need to go search for it, and basically using a sort of triangulation technique from many sources, determine as best you can. Often by what is not said as much as what is said.
    
    There is an old saying “truth will out”. This is what we are seeing. But we are also witnessing (and will continue to see for some time) the wails and shrieks of indignity from those responsible for the lies. It’s good to understand why.
    
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    August 10, 2025 10:31am
    - balanced
      
      Never forget and never forgive!
      
      Come on Mr Luxon. Who got the $66b spent on covid + the balance of the $200b added to public debt.
      
      Taxpayers didn’t receive any benefit so….. who has our money?
      
      How has Jacinda lived the high life for 2 years without an income?
      
      Who owns the consulting companies hired by the Labour hierarchy to work on so many white elephant projects (harbour tunnel, pumped hydro, airport light rail, maori health authority, te pukenga, firearm register, mine reentry, 3 waters, etc.) ?
      
      And who owns the road cone company?
      
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      August 10, 2025 11:44am
      - HeatherW
        
        Jacinda Ardern has had plenty of “income” in the last 2 years. The NZD57K p.a. + travel +expenses won’t have gone far but the 3 roles at Harvard Kennedy School would have been paid, as would the Global Progress Fund Field fellowship. Then there is the book advance, Melinda Gates millions, speaking fees etc.
        Christchurch Call and Earthshot prize may not have been salaried but surely would have included travel and accommodation.
        Jacinda is now listed in the staff list as being in the World leaders circle at Oxford University (Blavatnic School of Government).
        
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        August 10, 2025 1:31pm
      - balanced
        
        Heather, it is interesting you are running cover for Ardern. Do you have a bit of skin in the Game?
        
        The Harvard roles are voluntary.
        
        I searched for a donation by Gates and ardern didnt receive the money, she was tasked with distributing the money to worthy causes.
        
        I did more searches and found a little story about Pfizer back handers.
        
        Heather , Perhaps you could enlighten us as to why Ardern lied to every Kiwi about the Pfizer jab being safe and effective, right after medsafe told her it was neither safe nor effective. A fact RF Kennedy and his team of specialists just confirmed.
        
        Heather, perhaps you can also explain why $66b was spent on a flu and a jab which had no affect on that flu. And where the other $133b of our hard earned went. (crown debt is touching on $200b)
        
        Tax payers certainly didnt get any benefit from the Ardern governments spendup, so who did?
        
        And while you’re there, who owns the consulting companies The H Clark advised Ardern spent billions on, with once again no benefit for tax payers?
        
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        August 10, 2025 3:55pm
  - newview
    
    Agree mcos. There is evidence many are unfortunately affected in some way but for the vast majority it’s still beneficial. What’s filthy to some is fine for others me being one of them. I believe risk should be made clear at vaccination time and leave it to the individual to decide. No doubt I’ll be down ticked but that’s just opinion all said and done.
    
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    August 10, 2025 5:32pm
- sungsamning
  
  RFK is doing great work. A Kennedy like his dad, or uncle in the cabinet every generation will benefit all Americans. It doesn’t matter what the rest of the family do.
  
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  August 10, 2025 8:32am
  - Nikola Donatello
    
    What “great work” has he done? He is literally a threat to humanity.
    
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    August 10, 2025 1:41pm
- Nikola Donatello
  
  This was predictable. Appoint a rabid anti vaxxer as Health Secretary and vaccines get cancelled. It is hardly a cause for you to celebrate.
  
  As for “Dr Hatfill”, he is a long time conspiracy theorist who promoted hydroxychloroquine as a Covid treatment.
  
  I can’t believe that you are cheering this stuff.
  
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  August 10, 2025 1:39pm
Cassandra

The foreign ministers of NZ, Australia, UK, Germany and Italy reaffirmed support for a negotiated two-state solution, contingent on a demilitarised Hamas having no role in the governance of Gaza.

Empty words and even worse, naive (or dishonest).

Hamas is simply one of the public faces of Arab determination to destroy Israel. Remove this Hamas and another will spring up to replace it. This war is between Islam and Jews. Unless the majority of Arabs and Iranians accept Israel’s right to exist there is no two sate solution. Actually there’s no solution period.
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August 10, 2025 8:16am
- Philview
  
  I read an article this week saying Jordan used to be part of Palestine but no one argues they should give up land for a new Palestinian State.
  
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  August 10, 2025 8:40am
  - R
    
    Jordan WAS the Palestinian state following the 148, or there abouts partition. The PLA lost the subsequent election, and became terrorists. Aided and abetted by many of the surrounding Arab countries
    
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    August 10, 2025 10:21am
- Gulag1917
  
  Israel is doing a good job destroying Gaza. Then there is the maniacal goal of Greater Israel which means millions of displaced people.
  
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  August 10, 2025 8:51am
  - imalwaysright
    
    Yes, I wonder what the Jewish activists will say when the Palestinians and others accuse them of genocide.
    Its all on film, hard to deny.
    
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    August 10, 2025 10:34am
  - artemisia
    
    Certainly better than Hamas destroying Israel. Their avowed intent, but not sufficiently backed up by competence.
    
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    August 10, 2025 1:15pm
  - cmm
    
    “Israel is doing a good job destroying Gaza.”
    
    Oh, bullshit. If Israel had the goal of destroying Gaza there would not be two bricks standing on top of each other.
    
    Israel has only the goal of cutting Hamas down in power sufficiently that they don’t cause too much trouble for 5 to 10 years.
    
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    August 10, 2025 3:05pm
- Wandering Star
  
  Israel have never wanted a two-state solution, despite their usual barefaced lie that they are willing while the Palestinians are the impediment.
  
  And why would they want a Palestinian state? It’s not because such a state would endanger Israel, it is the opposite: a Palestinian state would protect the Palestinians from the Israelis.
  
  There is no question at all under international law that it is illegal to invade and destroy an established state, and annex its territory. This is why Israel are trying to wipe out Gaza before a Palestinian state can be declared and/or more widely recognised.
  
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  August 10, 2025 11:08am
  - R
    
    “Is illegal to invade…..” a law that doesn’t seem to apply to Russia. Not a squeaqe from UN either about Russian aggression.
    
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    August 10, 2025 11:31am
  - cmm
    
    “There is no question at all under international law that it is illegal to invade and destroy an established state, and annex its territory.”
    
    A law you plucked out of your arse.
    
    A country has every right to pursue terrorists across boarders.
    
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    August 10, 2025 3:06pm
- mogg
  
  Amongst these is the intellectual titan David Lammy, UK Foreign Minister who thinks that Marie Antoinette was the French scientist who won a Nobel prize, that Versailles is in the centre of Paris, and Henry the VII followed Henry the VIII. And the list goes on.
  
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  August 10, 2025 12:00pm
  - NothingLeft
    
    Most left wing MPs are DEI hires these days. Intelligence and Competence are not something they select for – for the simple reason that very few Intelligent and Competent people align politically with the left.
    
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    August 10, 2025 4:01pm
Bridgenag

The Moral Cost of Modern Transplant Medicine
By: Joseph Varon
“There is no dignity in a system that cuts corners to save organs. There is no science in a system that calls someone dead based on arbitrary timelines and vague reflex testing. There is no trust in a system that silences physicians who speak up.“

https://open.substack.com/pub/rwmalonemd/p/the-moral-cost-of-modern-transplant?r=1aj1bv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
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August 10, 2025 8:16am
artemisia

Whangarei woman can’t vote in Maori wards after unauthorised roll switch Herald today, front page.

Not sure ‘Chase’ is the poster child for the TPM High Court proceedings application relating to concerns the Electoral Commission may have made unauthorised changes to enrolments.

Chase admitted she did not see her enrolment pack, posted in April, which contained the incorrect details. Seems may also have not seen a letter confirming a roll change.

Reported that ‘Chase’ was unable to get reasons for the roll change over the phone and has asked for more details. Assuming the EC has her enrolment update details it is possible a mistake has been made somewhere in the end-to-end process. Hopefully ‘Chase’ will provide an update to we-the-people. No doubt the Herald reporter Denise Piper will be assiduously following up.

The EC is standing by its processes, which include “We won’t put voters on either roll by default and we won’t change a person’s roll without their permission, either online using verified ID or by providing a signed enrolment form.”After a roll change is made, a letter of confirmation is sent out so people can check their details and make any corrections, he said.
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August 10, 2025 8:23am
- CJames
  
  I would be very concerned if EC would give out information over the phone like Chase wanted. Where is the identity verification?
  The most likely explanation is that Chase ticked the wrong box at one of the many roll checks. EC then acted on this.
  
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  August 10, 2025 8:54am
  - artemisia
    
    Agree CJames. Also likely is that checking would need to be done if there is a potential error, and we are told there is a standard EC operating procedure for that. Was the SOP followed in this case? Servo pie it was. And if so, where does that leave the ‘ripped off’ complainant?
    
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    August 10, 2025 9:09am
    - Boy Geoff
      
      I don’t think I’ve ever encountered such racist mansplaining as to what likely happened.
      
      The electoral enrollment process is nothing but embedded systemic sexist racism perpetuated by the aged white patriarchal hegemony.
      
      Heh
      
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      August 10, 2025 10:04am
- rouppe
  
  Why is she saying she can’t vote in Maori wards? Just put some paperwork through to switch it ffs.
  
  However a week or two ago I read something about a bunch of people being put ON to the maori roll so maybe there is a systems process issue…
  
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  August 10, 2025 9:05am
  - Burtland
    
    does a government algorithm determine whether you’re maori yet?
    
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    August 10, 2025 10:39am
  - Steve Todd
    
    Why is she saying she can’t vote in Maori wards? Just put some paperwork through to switch it ffs.
    
    Answer: If the law is strictly applied, then, after being moved from the Māori roll to the general roll without her knowledge or consent, “Chala Chase is now unable to vote for Māori ward candidates as it is too late for her to revert to the Māori roll before the local body election.”
    
    The deadline was 10 July 2025, being three months before polling day on Saturday 11 October. (See section 78B(4) of the Electoral Act 1993, here, https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1993/0087/latest/LMS829458.html.)
    
    It seems to me, for this matter to be rectified in the manner you suggest, the Electoral Commission is going to have to admit that they erred. What are the chances of that, I wonder?
    
    The relevant NZ Herald/Northern Advocate article is here, https://www.nzherald.co.nz/northern-advocate/news/whangarei-woman-cant-vote-in-maori-wards-after-unauthorised-roll-switch/3H6QIKCVSNDD7H5IX3FPBR3W7E/.
    
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    August 10, 2025 11:24am
    - AitchW
      
      Was she ever on the Maori roll?
      
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      August 10, 2025 1:54pm
Planet B

After watching all the Nazi solutes in the crowd when Ukraine supporters enjoyed their football team playing the other day, do we still believe there are no Nazis in Ukraine and that Russia is losing the war? Asking for a friend
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August 10, 2025 8:24am
- Eastlander
  
  The Russians also let swastika-heads enlist in their army, so let’s not point fingers.
  
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  August 10, 2025 10:26am
  - Planet B
    
    Interesting comment given the legality of being openly Nazi in Russia versus Ukraine. But hey let not let a good story get in the way of quenching our thirst on the koolaide eh? How many stadiums in Russia has the stands screaming sieg heil in unison… take your time
    
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    August 10, 2025 1:14pm
    - Eastlander
      
      For European football fans, especially easterners? Commonplace and unremarkable.
      
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      August 10, 2025 7:20pm
- Burtland
  
  it appears that russia needs Trump on their side to win the war – 3days have turned into 3 years – pesky Ukrainians still arent keen on free russian citizenship
  
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  August 10, 2025 10:50am
- Allan
  
  A small minority of supporters.
  
  When we see a few skinheads doing it or Mongrel Mob gang members doing it and shouting “Seig Heil” in aotearoa that means there are nazi’s here too?
  
  Asking for a friend.
  
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  August 10, 2025 10:54am
- David Garrett
  
  Planet: What is this puerile “asking for a friend” I see here from time to time???
  
  Obviously some cultural “development” which passed me by.
  
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  August 10, 2025 4:48pm
  - Allan
    
    It’s some sort ot twee attempt at humour.
    
    It is usually employed when asking an embarasing personal question as an attempt to suggest that it is someone else who has the problem.
    
    For example; “is it normal to have warts on your genitals? Asking for a friend”
    
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    August 10, 2025 10:45pm
    - David Garrett
      
      Allan; Thanks for that … but the puerile question above doesnt seem to fit that explanation. But thank you for taking the trouble to answer me. I like “twee attempt at humour”
      
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      August 11, 2025 6:37am
sungsamning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuNMh2IpVIQ
Seymour takes on woke DEI in the public sector.
David Seymour speaks on a new law to require public service appointments to be made on the basis of merit, not race or sex – advancing an ACT coalition commitment.
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August 10, 2025 8:27am
- Paulus
  
  Won’t happen as it is the powerful women non Maori activists who still control the Public Service and err at your peril.
  
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  August 10, 2025 1:52pm
- cmm
  
  It is really sad as anything that we’re in a situation where we even need to be discussing this.
  
  How can putting the best person in the job be at all controversial?
  
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  August 10, 2025 3:09pm
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    First, define “best”.
    
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    August 10, 2025 5:50pm
  - R
    
    Because it doesn’t tick the DEI box. Competence, experience, and aptitude don’t count as positives under DRI employment policies
    
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    August 10, 2025 8:30pm
sungsamning

https://thefederalist.com/2025/08/08/report-doj-appoints-prosecutor-to-probe-adam-schiff-letitia-james-mortage-fraud-allegations/
Report: DOJ Appoints Prosecutor To Probe Adam Schiff, Letitia James Mortgage Fraud Allegations.
Lets hope this ends with orange jumpsuits and a vacant seat.
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August 10, 2025 8:28am
Tauhei Notts

Cricket.
Under its present administration can Zimbabwe be considered a proper test nation?
At present it is a great place to boost one’s test match statistics.
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August 10, 2025 9:12am
- CJames
  
  Wasn’t Sri Lanka the easybeats when they first entered test cricket? Or even NZ if one goes back far enough?
  
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  August 10, 2025 9:26am
  - pdm
    
    Bangladesh the same.
    
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    August 10, 2025 10:18am
- Damocles11
  
  I suppose you say the same when the AB’s play Spain or Romania.
  
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  August 10, 2025 11:33am
- wilderbeast
  
  Correct. Their utter hopelessness was well known before NZ turned up too. They got utterly blown away by England and SA too. Sadly cricket administration has lost its balls and is falling over itself to accommodate them. What really sh*ts me is reading the coverage on my favourite cricket website cricinfo and the African reporter constantly walking past the obvious that Zimbabwe’s woefulness is a direct result of black tribal politics, purging whites out of the country and economic mismanagement. She’s equally head in the sand about South Africa.
  
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  August 10, 2025 11:58am
vand

Remember when Andrew Little was in the Cabinet that set up an implementation unit to monitor central government spending We know how that turned out, Now he wants if he becomes Mayor to do the same with Wellington Council spending and cost overruns (such as the $80 million just revealed on the sludge project). If projects continue to be plagued by poor planning and fiscal management then large cost overruns will continue the high debt and servicing we now have. Dreams are free but often shattered.
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August 10, 2025 9:27am
surfing

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/teen-boy-housed-in-tauranga-motel-by-oranga-tamariki-for-more-than-a-year/G25X653PG5BKNOSK4CYAPV5PAU/

This is everything that is wrong with CYF’s or whatever it is called these days.

These social workers have no idea. The boy needs a role model and a person he can engage with. Not white female social workers who flit in and out of his life.
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August 10, 2025 9:38am
Maggy Wassilieff

I suspect it would have been a damn sight more therapeutic for this child for OT to have sent him to a boarding school than to install him in a motel with round-the-clock care-givers and no education.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/teen-boy-housed-in-tauranga-motel-by-oranga-tamariki-for-more-than-a-year/G25X653PG5BKNOSK4CYAPV5PAU/
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August 10, 2025 9:40am
- Burtland
  
  seems OT has moved on from free KFC to free overseas holidays …
  
  “OT sent *Cody on a state-funded trip to a Pacific Island, with his now-estranged mother, to see if he could connect with family – this had “not gone well”, and after the trip last August, it was back to the motel”
  
  one more failed government dept that needs to be disestablished and rebuilt from the ground up
  
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  August 10, 2025 9:54am
- surfing
  
  He’s not going to boarding school for the safety of the staff and students.
  
  This ‘child’ must be extremely violent to require such round the clock care.
  
  I’d say the root cause of his issues are abandonment by both of his parents. Thus the trip to see if he could reconnect with other family members.
  
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  August 10, 2025 10:01am
- pdm
  
  Good idea Maggy.
  
  I assume he is Maori ( I have not read the piece) so Te Aute or recently reopened ST Stephens are two options that come to mind.
  
  16 2
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  August 10, 2025 10:21am
  - R
    
    Both these schools involve, and instil discipline, something that the lad wouldn’t be familiar with. Also provide credible ROLE MODELS – MALE type.
    
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    August 10, 2025 10:25am
  - Boy Geoff
    
    I would say that ‘special needs’ are in play.
    
    Apparently he’s allowed to see his girlfriend and he games all the time. He visited the Pacific Islands with his mother but it didn’t end very well.
    
    Capitalism is just so insidious, isn’t it…?
    
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    August 10, 2025 10:54am
  - Paulus
    
    St Stephens is a new Charter School remember.
    
    6 0
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    August 10, 2025 1:54pm
- cmm
  
  It’s just holding pattern until he’s 18 and can go to prison.
  
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  August 10, 2025 3:11pm
Gulag1917

High turnover US IRS
Commissioners of the US IRS 2025

Bill Long
June 17, 2025 to present

Michael Faulkender (Acting)
April 19, 2025 to June 16, 2025

Gary Shapley (Acting)
April 16, 2025 to April 18, 2025

Melanie Krause (Acting)
February 29, 2025 to April 16, 2025

Douglas O’Donnell (Acting)
January 21, 2025 to February 28, 2025

Danny Werfel
March 13, 2023 to January 20, 2025
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August 10, 2025 9:46am
- Jethrod
  
  No wonder they have problems…… no Feb 29 this year!
  
  4 4
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  August 10, 2025 10:36am
- Allan
  
  State your point.
  
  6 1
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  August 10, 2025 10:58am
  - Jethrod
    
    // I thought it was fairly obvious// // //
    
    1 5
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    August 10, 2025 12:44pm
Yvette

Cassandra (1st comment of the day, both in position and calibre) – Daily we see the ridiculous antics of the Maori Party’s MPs but that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Lenin’s useful idiots are beavering away to insert a Maori gloss onto every aspect of NZ, encouraged by a Maori Mafia who are raking in a fortune.

May I suggest (as a Commentor often has done here before) that re-inforcing and strictly en-forcing that Government is secular (treating all religious views, including te Ao o Maori – a religious worldview – as equal, therefore a neutral position on all religions, and not raising one German 1930s Aryan-like above all others) is the way to halt much of a Maori gloss being cast Joseph Goebbels-like onto every aspect of New Zealand national life.

The UN Declaration of Rights guarantees Freedom Of Religion – so does the corollary apply? – Freedom From Religion?
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August 10, 2025 10:20am
- PurplePen
  
  An aside. Freedom of religion. Does that include secular belief organizations or secular movements. It should. Why should some manufactured religious belief have priority over and be put on a pedestal above equally manufactured secular beliefs. I hope freedomof religion does include the secular.
  
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  August 10, 2025 4:20pm
  - Yvette
    
    PurplePen, as an aside to your aside, I believe that your belief that you have no beliefs should fit in fine, since to be neutral the Government should laud no belief above any other beliefs, so I belief they should not mention any belief, especially te Ao o Maori, which should be right up your alley, I believe.
    
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    August 10, 2025 9:12pm
Damocles11

A colleague at work was busy trying to get herself – and her partner, who appears to be of European ancestry – onto the Maori electoral roll……
”because we have to get more on there”. I said that the push by TPM to get more Maori on the roll was ultimately in order to increase the number of Maori seats, . “Oh, that’s what it’s all about is it?” She said. She’s a nice enough person but perhaps a bit indicative of the kind of ‘low information’ voter who is easily manipulated by TPM.
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August 10, 2025 10:27am
- cmm
  
  AFAIK, you can still party vote TPM even if you are not on the Maori Roll.
  
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  August 10, 2025 3:13pm
  - AitchW
    
    True, but TPM owning the Maori seats creates an overhang.
    Ie they get more seats than the proportion of party votes would otherwise deliver.
    
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    August 10, 2025 3:37pm
Ian Boag

An idle thought on the RUCS/excise user pays thing ….

Road user charges – in whatever form – are a hypothecated tax ie the money is collected to be spent on a specific object. This is deemed to be a “good thing” – user pays and all that.

As it happens we don’t have any other taxes like that – we don’t have a specified “health tax” (to cover the $20bn or so that it costs) or an “education tax” (for a similar amount) or whatever. These and other big ticket items things are funded out of general taxation.

Fuel excise collects about $1bn give or take a bit. RUCs at present are a bit less. In the overall scheme of government expenditure (about $120bn or so) it’s not a lot.

So we could just fund it out of general taxation – would amount to a tax increase of maybe 1.5% with no admin at all. The reasonable point is made that trucks thrash the roads and should therefore be levied a sum towards that. User pays etc etc. But of course these charges are built into the truckies’ freight rates so we the end users finish up paying them anyway ….

If excise and RUCs were done away with the general tax bill would go up by a bit under $2bn. As cmm would say “that doesn’t really move the needle a lot … ”

No digital doofers – no tracking – no money for the clever private solution providers – whatever – just 1.5% on the general tax bill. Probably a bit too radical … 🙂
10 4
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August 10, 2025 10:42am
- ISeeRed
  
  How much does GST raise on fuel sales?
  
  7 0
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  August 10, 2025 11:03am
- Stu2
  
  The current method of collecting light RUC revenue is expensive, far too much of the revenue is chewed up in admin costs.
  
  Petrol tax has become unfair given how fuel efficient hybrids can be, so revenue per km driven can be a poor match for the cost of providing the road. But it does have the huge advantages of being really cheap to collect and unavoidable.
  
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  August 10, 2025 11:36am
  - Ian Boag
    
    revenue per km driven can be a poor match for the cost of providing the road
    
    True …. but my point was “why bother?” – the amount collected is under 2% of total tax revenue. We don’t bother to do this sort of thing for much bigger ticket items. Total collection – excise + RUCs – is about $1.8bn. Adding in GST on the RUC/excise bit of fuel cost takes it to a little over $2bn. Plus of course the costs associated with the smart technology for collecting the $$$ plus all the privacy issues that go with tracking movements etc. The current proposals will move that all the collection to RUCs collected by special smart systems. OTOH we could just move the $2 and a bit biilion into general taxation with no new admin costs …. a sad day for the techno geeks but it does make sense.
    
    And of course when “we” charge hefty fees to trucks “we” end up paying the fees in the cost of the things the trucks carry ….
    
    2 3
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    August 10, 2025 12:15pm
    - Stu2
      
      Why bother?
      
      Looks like the tech suggested could be used for road pricing – higher charges fior travelling on the Auck and Wgtn motorway systems at peak. You don’t have to reduce volumes by much to achieve far better travel speeds by what is left
      
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      August 10, 2025 1:33pm
      - NeverMindTheBollocks
        
        RUCs and fuel tax are supposed to be about raising revenue only, and not about adjusting New Zealanders’ behaviour.
        
        1 0
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        August 10, 2025 5:57pm
- Mod88
  
  In an interview with Greg Murphy this is what the CEO of E-Roads, Mark Heine, said in summary.
  
  – Records where the vehicle is all the time
  – It will monitor distance, and the speed you are doing.
  – They can monitor emissions, Mark says “that’s what the govt wants us to do”
  – Will be a huge data collector which is ‘exciting because of the possibilities’. Oh yes the possibilities. Endless.
  
  13 1
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  August 10, 2025 12:23pm
  - Ian Boag
    
    the CEO of E-Roads …
    
    If RUCs were binned he would be the CEO of nothing 🙂
    
    8 1
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    August 10, 2025 12:41pm
    - AitchW
      
      I’m not so sure. Plenty of employers still want to monitor their drivers’ behaviour on the road.
      
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      August 10, 2025 3:38pm
- MCōs
  
  In Bangkok there are no rates. Also out our way I’ve never see a library, a swimming pool, few parks, etc.
  
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  August 10, 2025 12:27pm
- surfing
  
  You assume governments are ‘good’ and well behaved.
  
  Your idea fails when it comes to the nature of politicians.
  
  Ring fencing the funding and costs of roads together, makes it more difficult for politicians to divert money raised from vehicle taxes into other non-related things.
  
  8 1
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  August 10, 2025 1:14pm
  - Ian Boag
    
    We don’t do it for health – or education – or welfare – or the pension etc etc. What’s so special about roads relative to these other much more expensive things?
    
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    August 10, 2025 2:40pm
    - NeverMindTheBollocks
      
      What are you suggesting, Ian? A hypotheticated tax on junk food? Fatties to contribute more to the health budget?
      
      Works for me, by the way.
      
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      August 10, 2025 5:58pm
- Nikola Donatello
  
  Those numbers are incorrect. Look at the NZTA financial statements. The combined total of RUC and petrol excise in 2023/24 was $3.9 billion.
  
  https://www.nzta.govt.nz/assets/resources/annual-report-nzta/2023-24/nltf-annual-report-2024-section-c.pdf?utm_source=perplexity
  
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  August 10, 2025 1:32pm
  - Ian Boag
    
    Sorry – got my numbers from ChatGPT ….
    
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    August 10, 2025 2:38pm
- cmm
  
  Yes, certainly there is some sense to doing that.
  
  After all, building roads is of benefit to everyone. Everyone needs groceries delivered by truck etc.
  
  But road use, and road damage in particular, is extremely impacted by larger heavier vehicles. That is why the heaviest vehicles pay over 10x the RUC per km that a light diesel vehicle does (and over 20x what a PHEV pays).
  
  One “solution” might be to just scrap all RUC on all vehicles below 3.5 tonnes. That would make the vast majority of private motor vehicles RUC-free.
  
  The devil is in the details though: the income still needs to come from somewhere. Should that be a “progressive” tax or a consumption tax. Maybe we’d need to push up GST to 20% to compensate?
  
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  August 10, 2025 3:36pm
  - PurplePen
    
    A hybrid as you’ve suggested would be the solution. As Ian Boag muses, we don’t have a targeted tax for health, education etc. Why for roads. It might be that the private sector benefits direct from road use and while maybe not the biggest user, does create a lot of wear and tear. Whereas for big other ticket items such as health, there’s no direct benefit for the private sector.
    
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    August 10, 2025 4:29pm
  - Ian Boag
    
    That is why the heaviest vehicles pay over 10x the RUC per km
    
    The operators pay the RUCs and recover the money out of their charges to customers. It is a pass-through – all operators are hit with much the same numbers so the pass-through will be the same. These charges then find their way though to the people who buy what is being freighted. … ultimately the bill stops with the end user. Us. We are paying for the road damage ….
    
    Actually, given that road wear varies as the fourth power of axle weight (really!) ….. 3x the axle weight is 81x the road wear, but if those figures were applied properly there would be a mega-stink ….
    
    No approach is perfect, but …. if we must have some charges we could first take excise off petrol and RUCs off light diesel vehicles and EVs and get that money from general taxation.
    
    That would mean a general tax increase of about 2%. The overheads of collecting and monitoring a whole lot of small RUC payments would go away.
    
    Incidentally if we go 100% RUC for road charges, we will lead the world. We already lead the world by being the only place with RUCs for light diesel vehicles – the common approach is just to charge excise on diesel at the same rate as petrol.
    
    Nothing wrong with leading the world I suppose – it’s their own silly fault if they choose not to follow 🙂
    
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    August 10, 2025 5:10pm
    - NeverMindTheBollocks
      
      Of course, this would just mean that the usual mugs pay more tax and the usual suspects pay nothing for the roads, along with paying no tax for anything else bar GST.
      
      Nothing new in that, you’d say Ian. And, you’d be right. But I for one am sick of paying and paying and paying taxes and rates and levies. Fuel taxes at least force everyone to pay some tax (or walk).
      
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      August 10, 2025 6:05pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        Fine. Leave excise on petrol – put excise on diesel – take the RUCs off light diesels (<3.5 tonne) and leave the RUCs on EVs. Collecting RUCs is a whole lot more expensive than collecting excise …. in 2021 there were about 800,000 light diesels on RUCs.
        
        0 1
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        August 10, 2025 6:34pm
MCōs

What’s the point of Presidents Putin and Trump having a meeting to decide the outcome of the war in Ukraine without the latter being involved?
5 7
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August 10, 2025 12:14pm
- Wandering Star
  
  Because it’s a proxy war between the US and Russia, although it is staged in Ukraine.
  
  5 14
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  August 10, 2025 12:36pm
  - mandk
    
    Like the proxy war between Iran and Israel, aye WS?.
    
    Both Israel and Ukraine are fighting for their existence against evil aggressors that want to eliminate them entirely.
    
    6 4
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    August 10, 2025 2:05pm
- NothingLeft
  
  Putin is trying to buy more time to take more land and keep ’emergency’ going so that he can hold onto power. Trump was threatening sanctions with teeth (strong arming India into not buying Russian oil), so…
  
  Sounds like general ‘Trump’ plan is that Putin is gifted a whole lot more land in Donbas and Luhansk that he hasn’t been able to take and sanctions get removed in return for a ceasefire.
  
  Putin will of course then take that break as an opportunity to rearm and find an excuse to invade Ukraine again in a few months to years as he has done many many times before in this and other conflicts. Trump is too ignorant to understand that he is being played, again.
  
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  August 10, 2025 2:36pm
- cmm
  
  Because Ukraine has little influence in the direction of the war.
  
  The war stops as soon as Russia, USA and, to a much lesser extent, others stop pouring petrol on the fire.
  
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  August 10, 2025 3:39pm
  - NothingLeft
    
    Ukraine are producing more long range drones, able to destroy more and more of Russia’s vital revenue producing oil and gas infrastructure. And while Ukraine has western support to keep their country going and ramp up military procurement and tech, Russia’s economy is in increasingly dire straits, their stores of soviet weapons are exhausted and they are struggling to match Ukrainian drones both in numbers and tech advances.
    
    They do have an advantage in long range drone production so far, with huge support from North Korea (10’s of thousands of troops and large fraction of their artillery supplies) and China in military supply chain.
    
    Hard to know what ends this war of attrition (if Trump intercession has no effect), Ukraine running out of frontline soldiers (they are doing a great job of developing drone tech to largely take their place, but are hard pressed with many Ukrainians sensibly emigrating), or Russian economy tanking.
    
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    August 10, 2025 7:01pm
PurplePen

Christchurch Press reports Philip Arps is running as a candidate for mayor. I’d never heard of him, but he is reportedly a white supremacist, jailed recently for threatening behaviour, sharing the mosque attack video, and ran for a school board.

That his candidacy is even possible has raised some ire in the Christchurch community. The article goes that there are no ways to stop him running. An irony is those whose ire is raised do they support prisoners being able to vote, or not. My guess is the former. Participation in democracy rules to suit it would seem.
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August 10, 2025 12:26pm
- Jack5
  
  For links to background of Arps, see yesterday’s General Debate in Kiwiblog.
  
  [Mod – Link to Jack’s post ]
  
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  August 10, 2025 1:18pm
Jack5

Police have arrested “more than 466” at a protest in London by a designated terror group, Palestine Action.

It was banned under anti-terrorism legislation in July after members broke into an RAF base and damaged planes.

The Telegraph reports that Moazzam Begg, a former detainee at Guantanamo Bay, was among those arrested.

It says that merely being arrested for demonstrating in support of a banned organisation like Palestine Action, stops someone from travelling to the United States or from working in education.

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-police-arrest-more-than-466-protest-banned-palestine-action-group-2025-08-09/
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August 10, 2025 1:34pm
- cmm
  
  Good start.
  
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  August 10, 2025 3:39pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  “More than 466”. 467?
  
  3 0
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  August 10, 2025 6:09pm
  - cmm
    
    Yes, very strange wording.
    Normally they’d say “at least 466”.
    
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    August 11, 2025 7:38am
Boy Geoff

So Te Pati Maori and the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand seem to be having a competition for who can shock the electorate the most.

Obviously they see a market in certain carryings on. Might be an interesting 1.5 years.
9 0
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August 10, 2025 5:06pm
Swifty

I wonder if this pic will serve as material for Coalition party election advertising material next year:

https://x.com/sonofomahu/status/1954400785229602909?s=46

If it was me I’d find a way to include it.

“What the Maori Party thinks of New Zealand”

“What Debbie thinks of our Parliament.”

“Labour’s best buddies.”

“Your future under Labour.”

Something like that.
7 1
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August 10, 2025 5:49pm
- Ghost
  
  Just ignore her. You are playing into her game. She wants to create a stir, she wants to get peoples attention. She wants to create outrage. Every time you push what she is doing, she is winning in this game of hers. You are giving her the very oxygen she seeks
  
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  August 10, 2025 6:03pm
  - Swifty
    
    If polling told me that swinging voters would be put off Labour by the association with the Maori Party I’d use the pic.
    
    3 1
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    August 10, 2025 6:17pm
Swifty

Do these cash in circulation numbers seem light?

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360781092/weve-had-so-much-taken-us-backlash-drift-towards-cashless-society

Sorry, just reread, they’ve updated it.

They were initially way out.
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August 10, 2025 5:55pm
Swifty

Get on board the crazy train!

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/greens-want-to-lead-government-chris-hipkins-not-interested-in-arguing-with-them/2IJ6HKQIVNFYNHUXDF46V6O4EE/

Toot toooooot!
5 0
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August 10, 2025 6:14pm
- Ghost
  
  Davidson said New Zealanders had the ability to “take back control” and build “the most progressive Government Aotearoa has ever seen”.
  
  Sounds good to me. If they are going to set up a government for Aotearoa then that must mean that the south island will have its own government. Finally, no longer tied to Aotearoa……
  
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  August 10, 2025 6:25pm
Ghost

It’s April fools day right?

There is an increasingly popular trend of grown adults using pacifiers, or binkies to ‘relieve stress’.

Yes, really. Men and women are literally regressing to a pre-toddler state of mind when the world becomes too much for them, the New York Post reports.

Despite the devices being bad for jaws and teeth and being dangerous to sleep with, people are acting like babies and sucking on pacifiers because they can’t handle the real world.

Article

Ok, after reading that, can someone stop the planet, I think I want to get off now…..
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August 10, 2025 6:52pm
- greybeard
  
  In New Zealand we call them “vapes”.
  
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  August 11, 2025 7:30am

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