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August 27, 2025 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 27 August 2025

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General Debate

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NeverMindTheBollocks

Pigeons, meet cat.

http://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/571152/commissioner-won-t-rule-out-absorbing-ministries-for-women-pacific-people-into-larger-organisations
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August 27, 2025 8:01am
- RoboRob
  
  Great news. Hopefully the commissioner is only now talking about this becuase people behind the scenes have given him the go ahead to do so. That would mean that National are perhaps in on this.
  
  Seems sad that Te Puni Kōkiri has been excluded. That said I have no idea of what exactly Te Puni Kōkiri does as opposed to say the Ministry of Pacific peoples. Perhaps Te Puni Kōkiri does more?
  
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  August 27, 2025 9:26am
- BeaB
  
  I hope the knife is going to cut deep. Not just an easy bit of tinkering.
  
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  August 27, 2025 9:33am
  - Nikola Donatello
    
    They won’t do that.
    
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    August 27, 2025 12:48pm
    - NZer In Exile
      
      Indeed the Luxo M.O. appears to be steadily chip away at the insane crap. That *could* work out long term but what I see missing is powerful comms. There are a hell of a lot of brainwashed people in NZ. They won’t get un-brainwashed by themselves.
      
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      August 27, 2025 5:43pm
- sirknz
  
  MBIE, more specifically WINZ shouldn’t be off the cards…
  
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  August 27, 2025 9:40am
- imalwaysright
  
  This is an example of a public servant trying to convince us that he is relevant and doing his job.
  Two very minor ministries- big deal. It will cost more for his meddling and virtue signalling than if he just left it alone.
  
  Meanwhile, to get an idea of where the government spends our money, have a look at this list:
  
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_public_sector_organisations_in_New_Zealand#State_sector
  
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  August 27, 2025 10:43am
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    Brian Roche is not exactly a career public servant. I’m surprised he took the gig, in all honesty. He surely does not need the money.
    
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    August 27, 2025 12:01pm
    - imalwaysright
      
      Its what he’s doing, and not doing, now, that is the issue.
      His reputation is irrelevant.
      
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      August 27, 2025 1:37pm
- rouppe
  
  I was having this conversation with someone the other week. My suggestion was to take every Ministry of [insert name] Affairs and then:
  * Take the best ten staff from each one
  * Make each ten a team in the Ministry of Internal Affairs
  * Make the rest redundant
  That team of ten should be able to come up with the relevant recommendations needed by the prevailing government.
  
  This would apply to Women, Pacific, Seniors, Ethnic, and most of the others I can’t be bothered looking up.
  
  You get rid of half a dozen elt, hr, and administrative staff, and hundreds of unnecessary ministry staff, as well as half a dozen ministers in government.
  
  It came about as a friend was telling me their moving experience. “We got a skip, and the throwing out of all that stuff was just so cathartic. We had just so much stuff we didn’t need.”
  
  I said “I reckon that’s what’s wrong with this country. We have filled it (politically, public service wise) with just so much stuff we didn’t need, it’s clogging up the whole system”.
  
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  August 27, 2025 11:44am
  - pdm
    
    `……………..as well as half a dozen ministers in government.’
    
    That is what ACT want to do and reduce Cabinet Ministers to 12 maybe 15 max.
    
    Seems like a good plan to me.
    
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    August 27, 2025 1:21pm
    - rouppe
      
      I thought that was because there were ministers of things that weren’t even ministries.
      
      We need to unclog this country. It goes beyond red tape, compulsory waiata and ‘considering the treaty in everything we do’.
      
      I honestly can’t remember anything that’s come out of the four ministries that I mentioned. It’s way too granular, and something that’s good for seniors might be bad for ethnic, or some such.
      
      Clear out the stuff that ‘we might need, just in case’ because generally we just don’t need it. A half decent Internal Affairs staff could (should be able to) do it. Ultimately you wouldn’t need all those teams of ten. Maybe a total of thirty, and look at society as a whole, from a few different perspectives to find the initiatives that are most valuable.
      
      If they can’t come up with anything substantive within the first year, well just dump the lot.
      
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      August 27, 2025 2:29pm
  - GJM
    
    We have a Children’s commsioner.. Sounds like a 1 person job, maybe with a part time admin? No there are at least 6 on the board, with a wet woke chairperson and the maoiri lineage is compulsory by th elook of it. There is no indication of overal employee numbers.
    It was a sop to Peter Dunne, of bow tie fame to prop up the government of the day in 1989. It shoudl have gone as soon as he was no longer required.
    
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    August 27, 2025 4:02pm
NeverMindTheBollocks

It seems that some schools are not open for the specified minimum number of days.

My question is why schools are not open for more than the minimum number of days. Are teachers gaming the system to take even more time off? Why would they not want to spend more time with their pupils, to better impart knowledge?

http://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/571157/parents-say-schools-getting-opening-hours-wrong-for-years
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August 27, 2025 8:01am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Are teachers gaming the system to take even more time off?
  
  Of course they are…
  
  I don’t recall having days off as “teacher only days” when I went to school…
  And when I was teaching, parent-teacher interviews took place immediately after school and up to 9pm.
  
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  August 27, 2025 9:31am
  - Spam
    
    I also don’t remember teachers having a day / week as “non-contact time”.
    
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    August 27, 2025 10:00am
  - Nukuleka
    
    The latest rort is that staff have a ‘teacher only day’ when it’s ‘meet the teacher’, so that parents can discuss their child’s progress with each subject teacher. From my own teaching days I recall that these started at the conclusion of the teaching day and went into the early evening. At my grandson’s Catholic secondary school they are held during the day, and pupils stay at home because no classes are taught that day. Considering most parents work I’m not sure how this benefits working parents.
    
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    August 27, 2025 10:07am
    - pdm
      
      Our most recent experience is with a grandson living with us.
      
      We went in the evening to Napier Boys High School.
      
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      August 27, 2025 1:24pm
  - imalwaysright
    
    Apparently teachers are entitled to Family Violence Leave.
    
    That’s gobsmacking, if violence is happening at home to the extent that it is allowed for in a collective employment agreement then NZ may be beyond help.
    https://www.ppta.org.nz/collective-agreements/secondary-teachers-collective-agreement-stca/part-6-leave#leave-calcs-6.11
    
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    August 27, 2025 10:53am
    - Ghost
      
      Any employee is eligible to 10 days family violence leave
      
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      August 27, 2025 11:15am
      - imalwaysright
        
        Unbelievable. What a sad indictment on our country.
        
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        August 27, 2025 11:55am
      - NZer In Exile
        
        Companies playing the woke compliance game and the public service in Aus (well at least in the Soviet Socialist Republic of Victoria) offer the same (as well as free sanitary products for the apparently incredibly impoverished female waifs therein). In reality the vast majority of the partner bashing happens with the lower classes and the less educated (as much as lefties desperately want us to believe it’s just as much dastardly capitalist men in suits). And of course the lavishly paid and perked public servants can afford sanitary products along with their yearly Europe holidays and luxury eating out.
        
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        August 27, 2025 5:57pm
  - lifesgood
    
    I worked as an administrator of a high school. I saw what happened first hand on Teacher Only Days. Yes, they would have a general meeting of all staff, or faculties, first thing then they would be free to go to departmental meetings around morning tea time. Most departments decided they didn’t need a meeting so would either head off home for the rest of the day or go out for lunch. I have to admit I did join them on a couple of occasions so I know what I’m talking about, I remember jolly afternoons at yum char or in the pub. Seriously there was never a care for working parents. The unions fought for these days off and they will be kicking and screaming if they get taken away, as they should be.
    
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    August 27, 2025 11:00am
  - reubee
    
    … and then there are the schools that claim to be open 5-15 minutes longer each day so they can take a 3rd week off adjacent to one of the holidays.
    Thus getting cheaper airfares/accomodation for their holidays both for staff and parents. (but having to default any sports fixtures that week as they don’t have enough players!)
    
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    August 27, 2025 2:27pm
- RoboRob
  
  The principals union is simply lying about this when they claim it doesn’t happen and that if it does its a tiny number of schools. BS. All the schools my kids have gone to have regulary gamed the system. On average my kids would loose ~5 days a year (on top of the existing teachers only days scam).
  
  Stupid shit like moving parent teacher interviews from the evening to only during the day and then shutting the school. A win win for teachers, instead of extra work for them, they get two lazy half days (high school). Then there are the first and last days, where an assembly is run for maybe 2hrs and then the kids go home. The first week of school where they start yr 9 on Tuesday, 9&10 Wednesday, public holday thursday and full school Friday. No learning done that week.
  
  This year an office receptionist died so the school was closed for a day. Sure, but catch the lost day up? Give up one of the teacher only days that are cunningly scheduled just before long weekends? Nope.
  
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  August 27, 2025 9:49am
  - balanced
    
    No need to get worked up, Stanford has it under control….
    
    “She said it was important teachers had teacher-only days to go through that (new) curriculum before teaching it to students.
    
    “We are trying to keep them to an absolute minimum but my message to parents is during those times, those teachers are looking at the new curriculum, the year-by-year, knowledge-rich curriculum that is now internationally benchmarked … they will be unpacking it all on those days.”
    
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    August 27, 2025 10:30am
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      If a teacher needs extra time to understand a new curriculum, then I wonder how the hell they ever graduated from ~~kindergarten~~ their Teacher Training course.
      
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      August 27, 2025 12:33pm
      - balanced
        
        Stanford is rolling out a whole new education system.
        
        In any quality organisation, training is provided for substantial changes.
        
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        August 27, 2025 12:41pm
      - rouppe
        
        @balanced
        
        Reading and writing had been around for, I don’t know, 5000 years?
        
        Whole new education system? Come on.
        
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        August 27, 2025 2:35pm
      - balanced
        
        I’m not sure nz parents will agree with you rouppe…
        
        “Just 22 percent of Year 3 children, 30 percent of Year 6 children and 23 percent of Year 8s were doing maths at the expected level.
        
        And in writing 41 percent of Year 3s, 33 percent of Year 6 children and 24 percent of Year 8s were at the level expected of their age group.”
        
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        August 27, 2025 4:10pm
- Blog-aholic
  
  By law schools in NZ are required to be open for 394 half days and it seems some are a few weeks short of this legal requirement. That means simply that those teachers in those schools are being paid for no work and getting longer holidays and that seems to be to be a little fraudulent….might be wrong but here we are.
  
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  August 27, 2025 9:59am
- wilderbeast
  
  Agreeing with much of the sentiment here. I have one college age child and one primary school. The amount of teachers only days, strike days etc is ridiculous. As has been pointed out parent / teacher interviews are also scheduled on school days, so more learning time lost. The entitlement of the teacher’s unions knows no bounds and it is extremely aggravating to read in school newsletters that the “teachers appreciate parent support in taking strike action etc” – they shouldn’t assume that!! Most working parents are having their four weeks annual leave whittled right back taking time off to accommodate teachers days off, not a problem for the teachers though, 12 weeks a year and counting!! It’s become piss take. We make jokes about the French, glide time era NZ etc but things are just as bad here right now.
  
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  August 27, 2025 2:26pm
Observant Octagenarian

My financial adviser had these recent observations from the UK. In 2024 the top 10 % of income earners paid 58% of total income tax revenue, the top 50% of earners paid 90.1%. At the lower end, the bottom 50% of earners paid 9.9% with the bottom 10% of earners paying 0.4% of income tax revenue.
Does anyone know where the NZ figures for Incomes and Income tax revenue can be found?
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August 27, 2025 8:04am
- john1234
  
  These have been published here and with similar impact.
  
  https://www.treasury.govt.nz/information-and-services/financial-management-and-advice/revenue-expenditure/revenue-effects-tax-changes/who-pays-income-tax
  
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  August 27, 2025 9:41am
  - spryte
    
    From 2023, very similar results. As a proportion of income tax paid:
    Bottom 50% of tax payers = 8%, top 50% = 92%.
    Top 12 % of taxpayers = 50%, other 88% = 50%.
    Top 5% of taxpayers = 66%.
    But the rich don’t pay enough.
    
    https://www.ird.govt.nz/about-us/tax-statistics/revenue-refunds/income-distribution/tax-on-taxable-income-datasets
    
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    August 27, 2025 12:26pm
    - NothingLeft
      
      Indeed. I feel strongly inclined to leave with my kids – I can do my job anywhere with internet, saving myself $100’s k a year of tax being used to support things that appall me. I don’t think NZ has any economic future given woeful quality of school leavers and soon-to-be electorally dominant vote-myself-rich demographics – as well as the Neo-racist brownistocracy being forced on us by the insane marxist blob. NZ will be on fast track to New-Venezueland within a decade, with no hope of me getting any benefit from all the shit (healthcare, infrastructure and superannuation) I am being forced to pay for.
      
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      August 27, 2025 2:31pm
      - spryte
        
        Where are you thinking about? Serious question as I have been looking but, as with most things, there are always trade-offs in every country.
        
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        August 27, 2025 4:58pm
    - Bobba Fret
      
      Yes it always amuses me when the likes of Chloe Swarbrick and other say the rich are not paying their fair share.
      
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      August 27, 2025 3:40pm
- Ehlana
  
  I don’t know that these are collected and published regularly. The last one I can find is from 2020 (https://www.treasury.govt.nz/information-and-services/financial-management-and-advice/revenue-expenditure/revenue-effects-tax-changes/who-pays-income-tax).
  Back then, our bottom 16% paid 1%, our top 5% paid 55%.
  
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  August 27, 2025 9:41am
  - cmm
    
    “‘ Back then, our bottom 16% paid 1%, our top 5% paid 55%.”
    
    But those bottom 16% are also getting all sorts of hand outs like WFF etc, so if we take that into account they are unlikely to be paying 1%.
    
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    August 27, 2025 10:22am
    - kiwimike
      
      yep CMN, DPF showed us.
      it was 90% paid by 167,000 taxpayers earning +$120k a yr allowing for WFF.
      
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      August 27, 2025 6:48pm
- RoboRob
  
  No, but In the US the figures are apparently even more extreme, with the top earners paying the vast majority of the tax and the bottom ~40% paying net zero (tax less government subsidies).
  
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  August 27, 2025 9:43am
  - Wandering Star
    
    There’s a great difference between the “top earners” and the most wealthy. One of the main reasons the most wealthy achieve that status is by structuring their affairs to avoid paying any tax.
    
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    August 27, 2025 1:41pm
    - kiwimike
      
      those that can.
      most can’t
      
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      August 27, 2025 6:49pm
    - NeverMindTheBollocks
      
      A high income and high wealth are quite different things. In accounting terms, one is P&L and the other is Balance Sheet.
      
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      August 27, 2025 7:34pm
- MCōs
  
  Income tax is less than half of the tax income exceeded by GST, customs and company tax.
  https://www.interest.co.nz/public-policy/128067/budget-202425-summary-tax-collections
  
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  August 27, 2025 9:49am
  - kiwimike
    
    Income is for individuals.
    but all the figures above do not take WFF into account.
    the figures for the top 5% become startling.
    
    DPF covered this a few years ago from treasury.
    
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    August 27, 2025 10:23am
balanced

The latest banking sector review came up with similar recommendations as the previous com com review.

That is 18 months the Luxon government has left the banks extracting their super profits from Kiwis wallets….WHY?

Nicola Willis who is reportedly in charge of banking reform sponsored retrospective legislation preventing banks paying back the hundreds of millions the stole from Kiwis in overcharged fees and interest. WHY?

Willis promoting lowering capital adequacy (reading off the a4 notes once again) without telling kiwis they now cover the entire risk of under capitalized banks, is irresponsible. Failed banks now get their capital injections direct from savers accounts. WHY?

Kent Duston from the Banking Reform Coalition said a fair risk-return on shareholders’ capital invested in ANZ, Westpac, ASB and BNZ would be 5.5%.
“They are typically making between 11% and 12%, so they are twice as profitable as they should be,”

WE KNOW WHY, NOW PLS FIX IT ASAP!
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August 27, 2025 8:06am
- RoboRob
  
  The banking, supermarket, petrol company investigations are just politics and a total waste of money, as is the grocery commisioner.
  
  IF the the banks are making excessive profit then one of the very many smaller banks could cut in and steal their customers right? Kiwibank? The fact that they aren’t might just indicate the banking sector is actually competitive. There is no banking monopoly in NZ and people are free to choose from a ton of options.
  
  It was STUPID of Willis to spend so much time and focus on supermarket and bank investigations. Sure its popular but when you dont deliver the goods you then get a backlash.
  
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  August 27, 2025 9:39am
  - balanced
    
    As always. To save me time and you more embarrassment, I encourage you to read and try to understand my comments before you criticize.
    
    “a fair risk-return on shareholders’ capital invested in ANZ, Westpac, ASB and BNZ would be 5.5%.
    “They are typically making between 11% and 12%, so they are twice as profitable as they should be,”
    
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    August 27, 2025 10:07am
    - RoboRob
      
      Hey, I tried to be polite. I dont care what ‘Kent Duston from the Banking Reform Coalition’ thinks the appropriate level of profit is. IF people are getting ripped off the market allows them to go to a cheaper competitor. There is no bank monopoly.
      
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      August 27, 2025 10:30am
      - balanced
        
        Quite right, there is no bank monopoly and once again if you read and try to understand my comment you will realize I never said there is.
        
        There is no need to articulate you don’t care about facts…. it is quite evident.
        
        As always I encourage you to read and try to understand the subjects you are comenting on. The commerce commission and the latest banking review both identified barriers to entry into NZs banking industry and both reports identified methods for fixing them
        
        The government just needs to crack on and implement them.
        
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        August 27, 2025 10:47am
      - RoboRob
        
        @Balanced
        
        I would encourage you to be clearer when making your point. A few days ago we were debating Nicola Willis and her performance. I mentioned that borrowing was up, you countered with numbers of consultants were down. Eventually I discoverred that you dont actually mind increased borrowing above that of Labour so long as it is spent on things you consider important, in this case apparently infrastrucuture (which I would argue hasn’t actually been spent yet!). Fine if thats you view, Willis is doing a good job if thats your perspective. It didn’t relate at all to my original post where I talk about National promising to balance the budget and cut the size of government.
        
        In this case re read your initial post. You attack the government for not finding anyting new from previous reviews, going easy on banks on overcharged fees, not reducing bank profits and you end by quoting someone who claims to know what bank profits should be.
        
        You now claim your issue is ‘barriers to entry into NZs banking industry and both reports identified methods for fixing them’. Not that you mentioned that in your initial post. You seem to imply that 18mths wasted on another review (which I already said was stupid) has left NZers paying to much. You do realise that barriers to entry is about encouraging competition, which would normally reduce prices where there is a lack of competition? However you then accept my point that there is already plenty of competition.
        
        I wont bother posting on this again, but I hope you understand my confusion with your posts.
        
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        August 27, 2025 12:03pm
      - balanced
        
        Robo. We’re making progress, you’ve actually read my posts this time.
        
        Now let’s see if I can help you understand them
        
        – Borrowing and investing in a downturn is an accepted and proven keynesian strategy.
        
        – Taking the opportunity to increase nzs productivity thru infrastructure construction is wise.
        
        – Surely you would credit the ministers building the infrastructure and not the minister managing the books?
        
        – Willis job is to manage the numbers and my criticism is when asked, she doesn’t know any of the numbers. An accountant who can’t remember numbers would soon be sacked for many very good reasons.
        
        – you do realize my constant criticism of banks is their cartel behaviour? Allowing new non cartel aligned banks into the nz market by reducing barriers to entry will end the cartel induced super profits!
        
        – now you’re reading my posts you can go back thru and see im largely supportive of Luxons change program and change management except a lack of action on the nz cartels. Wasting time on another report when the solutions are already identified ls questionable.
        
        Luxons team has hired sir Brian roche to reduce the size of government in a controlled and measured manner. Slash and burn reductions cause more problems than they solve.
        
        – my criticism of the bank cartel certainly doesn’t suggest acceptance there is plenty of competition?
        
        Hope you read and understand this post.
        
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        August 27, 2025 1:16pm
      - wsk12345
        
        What are you on about re “the bank cartel”. There are heaps of other banks you can borrow from or save with such as Heartland, TSB, cooperative bank,….it’s a bit like power companies. People complain endlessly about paying too much but are too lazy to switch- that’s the issue, not some cartel.
        
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        August 27, 2025 2:43pm
      - balanced
        
        “nz banks are typically making between 11% and 12%, so they are twice as profitable as they should be,”
        
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        August 27, 2025 4:14pm
    - All_on_Red
      
      ‘ “a fair risk-return on shareholders’ capital invested in ANZ, Westpac, ASB and BNZ would be 5.5%.“
      Lol- what an Authoritarian telling people how much they can make
      Bet he lurves Communism too
      
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      August 27, 2025 12:59pm
  - Nigel Kearney
    
    Unfortunately it is harmful and dishonest but not stupid. Blaming banks, supermarkets, or Fonterra for costs actually caused by government, is likely a successful tactic.
    
    Of course the government owned Kiwibank would charge less and take customers off the other banks, if it was possible to do so and make a reasonable profit.
    
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    August 27, 2025 10:19am
    - balanced
      
      It is definitely the governents fault that nz is ridden with cartels.
      
      Therefore, the government can fix it.
      
      So why aren’t they?
      
      Wasn’t John Key appointed the chair of ANZ when he left parliament?
      
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      August 27, 2025 10:37am
      - Quail
        
        Who is largely responsible for the inflation that is decimating earnings of everyone including the banks?
        It is Governments continued deficit budgeting and ever increasing spending.
        And it appears that the Reserve Bank is totally complicit in these actions.
        In other words spending money they don’t have, using the credit and tax generated by the struggling populace.
        In the process devaluing NZs currency
        Is there a good future for NZ?
        Not without responsible Government!
        
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        August 27, 2025 11:31am
      - All_on_Red
        
        ‘Cartels’
        Oh dear, for such a small country we are served by many Banks
        And this beat up on Supermarkets shows how out of touch our politicians are…
        If you want the cost of food to go down then reduce energy costs
        
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        August 27, 2025 1:03pm
      - balanced
        
        Red
        
        You do realize using industry standards to measure performance is a long used and successful methodology?
        
        It is evident the irony of blaming one cartel for the behaviour of another, is lost on you.
        
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        August 27, 2025 1:23pm
      - All_on_Red
        
        You ‘do realise’ that the very Regulatory burden you crow about actually stops new entrants and more competition occurring..]
        And woosh, as my point about having soo many MAJOR banks here in our tinpot little Agrarian economy with a side gig in tourism, goes above your head. Its actually pretty amazing we are served so well.
        
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        August 27, 2025 3:34pm
      - balanced
        
        Red. You do realize the amount of banks is of no advantage if they are allowed to engage in cartel behavior.
        
        Capitalism requires sensible rules and an arbiter to work well.
        
        I’m listening to Willis talking about changing the commerce act to combat cartels right now…. which is promising.
        
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        August 27, 2025 4:23pm
      - Jack5
        
        Twenty-seven banks are registered with the Reserve Bank to operate in NZ. These include five of the world’s ten biggest banks.
        
        Meanwhile the banking cartel the Lefties talk about seems to consist of the Aussie trading banks, which are smaller fish in the banking world.
        
        On the two national supermarket chains, according to RNZ today, Nicola Willis “continues to not completely rule out restructuring the existing duopoly.”
        
        Is Willis talking socialist-communist crap? Does she want to nationalise the supermarket chains?
        
        One NZ supermarket chain comprises two groups of co-operatives; the other is Australian owned.
        
        If Red Radio is correct, Williṡ seems to be hinting at some sort of nationalisation of an Australian company.
        
        However, that might suit Woolworths. It had to write down the value of its NZ supermarket chain by hundreds of millions after taking it over. I bet it wished it hadn’t bought it.
        
        https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/571228/watch-new-supermarkets-to-be-fast-tracked-in-bid-to-boost-competition
        
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        August 27, 2025 9:16pm
      - balanced
        
        There must be a reasonable following on kb for banks and supermarkets to bother peddling their bs here.
        
        The Kiwi branches of the aussie banks are making super profits compared to their aussie branches.
        
        How can that be in a much smaller market?
        
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        August 28, 2025 3:43am
  - AitchW
    
    Could it not be argued that it Nicola Willis is spending half her time on improving competition between supermarkets then the Groceries Commissioner is effectively redundant?
    I mean, what is he doing?
    
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    August 27, 2025 12:32pm
    - balanced
      
      I’d take the grocery commissioner over Willis any day, and give him the power to go in all guns blazing.
      
      “Requiring major grocery retailers to open wholesale offerings so other grocery retailers have direct access to a range of wholesale groceries at competitive prices
      A Grocery Supply Code to address the imbalance in power between retailers and suppliers (consultation closed on 5 July)
      Banning restrictive land agreements that locked new entrants out the best locations for new supermarkets
      Establishing a dispute resolution scheme for suppliers and wholesale customers of the major grocery retailers
      Unit pricing, so people know what they’re paying for”
      
      “Pierre brings more than 25 years’ experience in the grocery sector, having held roles such as Chair of the Food and Grocery Council of New Zealand and has been recognised as an advocate for consumer value and transparency.
      
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      August 27, 2025 3:13pm
- zulumonster
  
  Slight correction on this statement: “retrospective legislation preventing banks paying back the hundreds of millions the stole from Kiwis in overcharged fees and interest. ”
  There was no money stolen, the banks errors were around disclosure. There have been penalties paid, but the current law allows for disproportionate penalties to be applied, whereby the custoemrs would be entitled to refund of interest and fees when they had not been financially impacted in the first place.
  There is a definite need to discuss the efficacy of the proposed bill, but claiming hundreds of millions were stolen from bank customers makes the rest of your argument look weak.
  
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  August 27, 2025 11:11am
  - balanced
    
    Does it? Here bit of reading for you…
    
    ANZ and ASB had failed to properly disclose key information to borrowers under the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act (CCCFA). The breach, which reportedly affected around 170,000 customers, led to significant overcharges in interest and fees.
    
    https://b2bnews.co.nz/news/banking-on-loopholes-how-a-law-change-could-let-anz-and-asb-off-the-hook/
    
    The Government is rewriting the law half-way through an active legal case to benefit two powerful Australian-owned banks –
    
    https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO2506/S00091/please-explain-the-proponents-of-the-retrospective-law-change-need-to-front-up.htm
    
    ASB and ANZ have rejected an offer to settle a class action suit against them, for about $300 million
    
    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/567961/what-you-need-to-know-about-a-150-000-customer-banking-class-action
    
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    August 27, 2025 12:38pm
    - rouppe
      
      I used to work at a bank in their IT division.
      
      I was team leader of a middleware team. For non-IT, you have the front end system, and all the customer data is stored on a database. Middleware is the communications layer between the two.
      
      We did an upgrade between the loans system (credit cards are a debt product) and the database. In that protocol was a flag to instruct our print partner to include or not appropriate documentation booklets along with the card mailed to the customer. New customers get them (welcome, here’s how your credit card works etc) or not (usually for reissues).
      
      When it went to production, snafu, the lending system always set the flag to no. It was discovered when the printing partner contacted us and said “why are print volumes down so much”.
      
      The bank self reported and were required to refund all affected customers any interest they paid, plus I think it was $7 million penalty.
      
      Because people who applied for a credit card apparently might not have known they would be required to pay interest on charges to the card.
      
      I mean yes, we were at fault. But if you don’t know there are interest charges on a credit card what sort if moron are you? I thought it was ott. Maybe the fine, or the refund, but not both.
      
      The point being, no one had anything stolen from them.
      
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      August 27, 2025 2:59pm
      - balanced
        
        Steal….. to take (the property of another or others) without permission or right,
        
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        August 28, 2025 8:47am
NeverMindTheBollocks

Parking adjacent to popular football and dog walking fields has been removed for a cycle way. People respond by driving across the cycleway to park on the berm, churning up the grass.

Surely the logical solution is for part of the berm to be sealed. Of course, that would mean that cyclists would have to give way to parking motorists, which would appear to be beyond Bike Auckland and their lickspittles at Auckland Transport.

http://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/571156/auckland-transport-struggles-to-stop-illegal-carparking-on-new-meola-rd-bike-path
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August 27, 2025 8:08am
- alex Masterley
  
  Anyone with half a brain could have seen that parking on the berm would happen in that area. Parking is at a premium simply because Western Springs is a successfull sports club with strong local input.
  The punters at Greater Auckland will have a collective spaz over this..
  And AT will be playing whack a mole as the bollards they put in will be shoved out of the way for parking needing constant replacement.
  
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  August 27, 2025 9:46am
  - R
    
    Half a brain is not a requirement for employment at Auck Transport, the only requirement was DEI justification. The present coalition is working hard at trying to remove this well embedded nonsense from NZ legislation. It is going to be a long haul before traditional old normality descends upon most public governance, and also some private enterprises
    
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    August 27, 2025 12:18pm
  - sirknz
    
    Punters at Greater Auckland? From what I can tell it is one guy with a blog who just wants car drivers to be as miserable as Greens supporters.
    
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    August 27, 2025 1:30pm
- nz_aj
  
  People used to park on the grass before too, especially around the dog park. Difference now is the cycleway gets used as a car access road, and covered in mud and debris. And being at the bottom of hills both ways, its dangerous for bikes, plus the head ons.
  I haven’t seen anyone park there lately thou.
  
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  August 27, 2025 7:26pm
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    Perhaps cyclists just need to be, you know, considerate of other road users? Slowing up or even coming to a halt from time to time, to accomodate cars being parked? Like other road users have to?
    
    Just a thought.
    
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    August 27, 2025 7:40pm
    - R
      
      You’re expecting a bit much from the entitled tight lycra clad brigade. Consideration for others!!!
      
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      August 27, 2025 8:58pm
Yvette

Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke on Parliament’s steps addressing the reputedly te Pati Maori organised Hikoi Iwi –

“We’ve seen our people run, cook, pōwhiri, usher, drive, walk, traffic control, police, Māori warden, banner holders, ringawera, videographers, all ages, and all different races coming together for te Tiriti o Waitangi.”
She called for the Māori in the crowd to switch to the Māori electoral roll.
“If every single Māori person registered on the Māori roll, we would have 20 automatic Māori seats in Parliament.”
Currently, there are only seven Māori seats in the House of Representatives.
https://www.teaonews.co.nz/2024/11/19/i-ripped-that-in-half-and-chucked-it-away-hana-rawhiti-delivers-speech-after-world-shaking-haka/.

Even with a very generous scenario of ALL those claiming Maori descent (800,000) being on the Maori roll –
Maximum Māori electorates would be about 12 — not 20.
That’s an increase of 5 seats (from the current 7).
Far from the “20 seats” claim — more like half of that figure.

However, from 8 August 2025, being the date of the Gazetting of the notice of names and boundaries contained in the REPORT OF THE REPRESENTATION COMMISSION 2025 – report to the Governor-General of New Zealand pursuant to section 40 of the Electoral Act 1993 –

72. The Māori electorates had seen some growth in population since the last boundary
review. However, because of the relatively strong rates of growth in the South Island
general electoral population, the number of Māori electorates remains at seven. – page 23

Duration of the electorate boundaries
96. The boundaries described in this report will be used for the next general election. – page 26
https://elections.nz/assets/pagecomponent-file-files/REPORT-OF-THE-REPRESENTATION-COMMISSION-2025-WEB.pdf

Yvette can make mistakes. Check important information
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August 27, 2025 8:14am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Check important information
  
  The Maori Population as of 21 Nov 2024 was 903,500.
  
  The under 18 year olds comprise at least 30% of the Maori Population.
  
  So, at the most, around 600,000 folk could register on the Maori Roll.
  
  The quota for Maori electorate seats hovers around 72,000
  
  So, assuming all Maori voters register on the Maori Roll, they’d be eligible for 600,000/72,000 = 8 seats.
  
  Even if the day arises when there are 1,000,000 on the Maori Roll (as Rawiri Waititi advocates), there’d only be 14 seats available.
  
  “We are now 20 percent of the population – we are a million people in this country. That should translate into 19 to 20 seats. We should be determining who the government is every election – that’s the strategy. Everybody on the Māori roll.”
  
  https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/534863/more-than-3000-join-maori-electoral-roll-after-treaty-hikoi
  
  Let’s just assume that maths isn’t Te Pati Maori’s strong point.
  
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  August 27, 2025 10:25am
  - Yvette
    
    Thank you, Maggie.
    A main point I think I found, was that regardless of the math rabbit-hole, the part that deserves more checking, is that the gazetted Report apparently sets the present 7 seats as the number of Maori particular seats that will be contended in the 2026 Election … despite what Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke or President John Tamihere may claim.
    
    Let’s just assume that maths isn’t Te Pati Maori’s strong point
    John Tamihere is apparently earning a ‘salary’ considerably greater than that of Christopher Luxon, so something is adding up for him.
    
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    August 27, 2025 10:47am
    - Boy Geoff
      
      Their people might end up thinking that they were misrepresented to…
      
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      August 27, 2025 11:00am
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      Touché.
      
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      August 27, 2025 12:35pm
  - Dave
    
    “We should be determining who the government is every election – that’s the strategy.”
    
    Fair enough too. Only someone insufficiently decolonized or paranoid – me, for instance – might think that his goal is the tyranny of the minority.
    
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    August 27, 2025 1:46pm
    - Quail
      
      Dave,
      “ We should be determining who the government is every election- that’s the strategy “
      Utterly impossible with MMP.
      It absolutely is the tyranny of the minorities!
      
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      August 27, 2025 6:25pm
  - Paulus
    
    Please advise where did you get these figures from please, as am suspect as usual.
    
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    August 27, 2025 2:51pm
    - Yvette
      
      Paulus
      Figures are from Electoral Commission, last census and giving the most favourable vote possible for te Pati Maori – all Maori on the Maori Roll and all voting, which obviously will not happen.
      You should inquire as to where Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke got her figures from.
      
      But they do not matter now if the Report to the Governor General signals that Maori Electorates will remain at seven for the 2026 Election.
      
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      August 27, 2025 3:24pm
    - Steve Todd
      
      @Paulus @ 2:51PM
      
      Maggy’s figures are not just suspect, they’re plain wrong. She refers to 600,000 people on the Māori roll, divided by the Māori electorate quota of 72,000 (a population figure).
      
      I hate to say this, because I like reading Maggy’s and Yvette’s comments, but today, neither of them quite hit the mark.
      
      Allow me to refer you to https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2024/11/general_debate_26_november_2024.html/comment-page-1#comment-3649579, particularly from the paragraph commencing, “Now, what if all Māori were registered on the Māori roll, […]”, for some accurate figures.
      
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      August 27, 2025 4:31pm
      - Maggy Wassilieff
        
        Read what I wrote carefully….
        
        . I wanted to show that Rawiri Waititi’s assertion that if all million Maori transferred to the Maori Roll it would translate to 19-20 seats was nonsense by:
        
        (a) Reporting latest estimate of Maori population
        https://www.stats.govt.nz/information-releases/maori-population-estimates-mean-year-ended-31-december-2024-2023-base/
        
        The Maori Population has a very young base…..about 30-33% are UNDER voting age
        
        (b) Providing a guestimate of the % of Maori who were 18 yrs or older……around 600,000
        https://figure.nz/chart/l603h5T7qZf4dC8Y
        (I’ve had to guess the proportion from the 15-19 year class)…
        
        I didn’t say there were 600,000 on the Maori Roll now…
        I tried to show that that is around the maximum number that
        could be eligible when Maori Population reaches 1 million.
        
        Waititi didn’t consider the current age structure of the Maori Population.
        
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        August 27, 2025 7:43pm
      - Steve Todd
        
        @Maggy Wassilieff @ 7.43PM
        
        Read what I wrote carefully….
        
        Do you seriously think I didn’t do that?
        
        You are conflating enrolment figures with population figures.
        
        I’m very disappointed that you clearly have not read (or at least acknowledged having read) the links I put up.
        
        I’ll just leave it at that.
        
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        August 27, 2025 9:02pm
- Steve Todd
  
  I had a crack at this last November, when the latest figures were released.
  
  Based on those figures, if all Māori transferred to the Māori roll, there would be 16 Māori electorates, not 20, for a total of 78 electorates. (See https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2024/11/general_debate_26_november_2024.html/comment-page-1#comment-3649579.)
  
  It should be noted, though, that a mass transfer of those Māori currently on the General roll, to the Māori roll, would mean that the number of South Island General electorates (16), would need to be reviewed, probably down to 14.
  
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  August 27, 2025 11:28am
NeverMindTheBollocks

Shell Lane (The Terrace) bike rack report:

At 8.26am, just the one lonely bike today.

A cool, calm, dry morning in the Capital, absolutely stonking. Any cyclist not out and about today is unworthy of the name.
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August 27, 2025 8:26am
- Bobba Fret
  
  How are the new flash toilets with the lights show going?
  Hopefully they get more usage.
  
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  August 27, 2025 3:46pm
Tauhei Notts

An old mate of mine died recently at Whangamata. At 85 he lived a good life. An anecdote he told me about 40+ years ago; he, his neighbour and the neighbour’s 10 year old lad were at Rugby Park, Hamilton on 25th July 1981. They were in the standing room behind the goalposts at the river end of the ground. The police saw the young lad and suggested to my mate that they shift as that was a dangerous place to be. Being obedient gentlemen they moved. Then sometime later the protesters broke through at their former spot and invaded the rugby pitch. He was convinced that the police knew that the ground was to be invaded and where it was to be invaded. That scepticism stayed with him for the rest of his life.
That sort of story never made any of the historical records of that dreadful day.
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August 27, 2025 8:28am
- pdm
  
  An interesting theory TN.
  
  mrspdm’s cousin was a new Police Recruit at the time of the tour. He was not at Hamilton but, was on the streets of Wellington in support of `Meurant’s Red Squad’.
  
  He was of the view that a lot of Police were sympathetic to the protestors so your friend could well be right.
  
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  August 27, 2025 8:40am
  - David Garrett
    
    Pdm: Those “sympathetic” police are very unlikely to have been in Meurant’s Red Squad.
    
    I remember at the time it emerged that said squad had compliled a chant to fire them up before “action”…it was: “EAT more, ROOT more, SINK MORE PISS!”
    
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    August 27, 2025 9:19am
    - Tom Hunter
      
      ROOT more, EAT more, DRINK more piss…. RED Squad!
      
      For more tales of that day you can ask me or commentator Rouppe, both at the varsity at the time and in Bryant Hall, managed by John Denny, one of the main tour protest organisers in Hamilton. 🙂
      
      Although we both have commented on it before at KB in years past.
      
      They were exciting days.
      
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      August 27, 2025 9:34am
      - David Garrett
        
        Tom: I was genuinely ambivalent about the tour, mainly because I had and still have no interest in rugby. But I accompanied an old lady – well she was old to me then – on the march in Palmerston North in order to protect my friend if necessary.
        
        We formed up outside the local RSA – I have no idea if that was a deliberate decision on the part of the march organizers. I remember being hugely shocked by the heckles from half pissed RSA members – mostly women – outside who shouted out things like “How would ya like ya daughters to be fucked by a black?”
        
        From memory there were at least half dozen such hecklers, maybe a dozen. I have never forgotten that evening. It was probably the first time I had realized there really was an ugly side to New Zealand society.
        
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        August 27, 2025 10:01am
      - rouppe
        
        That prick, John Denny, set me up big time.
        
        I was so naive, I believed him, being a minister of the cloth and all, that the nasty rugby louts were going to wreck “our home” (Bryant Hall) and “we” needed to defend it.
        
        When the time came, I got pummelled, and he had disappeared from the residence.
        
        The Police, while it took some time, did come and put a skirmish line between Bryant Hall and the angry mob. Thank goodness since I was on the ground floor facing Knighton Rd at the time.
        
        But that was the beginning of the awakening for me, of how some use others for their political ends. It was only afterwards that I realised he was front and centre in the anti-tour movement. Which is his right, but he had completely discarded his duty of care for the residents.
        
        Like I say, I was naive.
        
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        August 27, 2025 12:35pm
      - Manu-Rau
        
        Tom H, I was across the road on StudVille at the time. I remember John Denny inviting a group of Bryant tenants to house-sit for him on the evening of 25 July. A couple of car loads of pro-tour chaps turned up abd gate-crashed the ensuing party. It appeared that Denny knew they were coming, so set the students up as a blood offering. He was a pr*ck.
        
        I also remember someone betraying John Minto’s whereabouts that evening as well, resulting in Minto getting visited and being dealt to: indeed, I know who passed the information on.
        
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        August 27, 2025 1:25pm
      - rouppe
        
        Manu: that was me. I was an idiot. House sitting my arse. The fact he’d disappeared from the house showed him for the coward he was.
        
        It was more than a couple of car loads, I’m sure it was in the order of 50 or more by the end of the night. But then I did get knocked out…
        
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        August 27, 2025 4:18pm
    - NeverMindTheBollocks
      
      Agreed. I met the Red Squad in Newtown one sunny afternoon in 1981. Suffice to say, their brutality in clearing peaceful protesters upset my previous feelings of goodwill to the forces of the law.
      
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      August 27, 2025 9:39am
      - imalwaysright
        
        A Red squad and a Blue squad would be handy these days to hassle the gangs.
        
        Our current police officers look physically vulnerable due to slack recruitment standards.
        
        We need some six foot plus thugs in uniform who hate gangs, not five foot plus blonde females with pony tails who believe that their voice is their best weapon.
        
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        August 27, 2025 10:15am
    - David George
      
      I liked that they rereferred to their riot batons as “Minto Bars”.
      
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      August 27, 2025 11:17am
    - pdm
      
      Agreed DG.
      
      Relative was a new recruit at the time so I doubt he would have been mixing with Meurants crew either. As I said he was in a support role – behind the lines to some extent but, required to `front up’ to protesters when needed.
      
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      August 27, 2025 1:50pm
- Gravelroad
  
  The point of protesting publically is to get attention for your cause – any way, any time, any place.
  The people involved are usually loud-mouths so it wouldn’t be surprising to me that the Police would have known about the plans to invade the ground and use spectators as protest collateral.
  If your friend and his son had stayed where they were and then been injured by protesters pushing through their area, would they have blamed police for not being aware and warning them?
  Perhaps I am reading this wrong, but I don’t know what the police did wrong here?
  
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  August 27, 2025 8:52am
  - David Garrett
    
    Gravel: I think the point being made is that police had infiltrated the protesters’ ranks so knew a lot of what was being planned.
    
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    August 27, 2025 9:21am
    - Dudley Quaffquaff
      
      Yes, but is that supposed to be a bad thing?
      
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      August 27, 2025 9:35am
    - wisteria
      
      The protesters were so ‘smart’ that they thought they were the purveyors of truth. They really were idealogically driven and common sense did not enter there thinking.
      
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      August 27, 2025 9:38am
      - Gussy Fink-Nottle
        
        And here’s some actual truth:
        During these protests, 1 Rand could buy you 1 US Dollar (more-or-less).
        Today, you’ll need about 18 of ’em.
        
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        August 27, 2025 1:19pm
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    Bear in mind that in 1981, the country was split more or less 50:50 between pro and anti tour factions, with few in between. Say what you like about loud mouthed protest leaders, there’s no doubt that at that time they were widely supported within the general populace.
    
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    August 27, 2025 1:42pm
- MCōs
  
  After the Hamilton fiasco the game at Timaru was cancelled because the police didn’t think the ground could be secured.
  I went down there from Wellington about that time to see my parents. Not only was my father disgusted with the way NZRU had sent a team to SA without Maori, but he thought the 1981 tour should never have happened and he loathed Muldoon.
  However down in Timaru that was very much a minority view – as we found out when we went down to the family business for a cup of tea! All my cousins had tickets to the game and they were spitting tacks.
  Dad kept quiet!
  
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  August 27, 2025 9:18am
  - David Garrett
    
    MCos: I am no expert, but I dont think the NZRU sent exclusively white teams after about 1965 or so; maybe a few years later.
    
    I do remember Holyoake declaring at one point “No Maoris, no tour”.
    
    Older readers will be able to tell us when exactly that was.
    
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    August 27, 2025 9:25am
    - RoboRob
      
      I just wish would apply the same logic to ourselves and get rid of the racist ‘Maori All Blacks’. Surely if segregation was wrong for SA to have an all white team, the same is true for an all Maori team?
      
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      August 27, 2025 9:32am
      - Phronesis
        
        Ah but people will say that Maori are a minority so it’s OK. But of course white people are a minority in South Africa as well.
        
        I do wonder if all those who took some pride in protesting back then, and like to believe they made a difference, still believe that SA is better off now than it would have been under apartheid. The average person in SA is objectively worse off now and it’s hard to claim that race divisions are bad when NZ itself has become increasingly racially organised.
        
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        August 27, 2025 10:21am
      - Paulus
        
        But we can leave the sucessful Lady Maori All Blacks can’t we ?
        
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        August 27, 2025 2:53pm
    - pdm
      
      1970 team included Brian Williams, Buff Milner, Blair Furlong, Sid Going making up the Maori/coloured contingent.
      
      DG the Springboks toured NZ in 1965.
      
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      August 27, 2025 1:57pm
Observant Octagenarian

From The Listener’s Danyl McLauchlan in this weeks edition:
Arden found herself trying to run the country with cabinet ministers you wouldn’t hire to mow your lawns or paint a fence … and … instead of a serious policy agenda, a handful of implausible promises – such as Kiwibuild’s 100,000 homes.
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August 27, 2025 8:33am
- Pope Punctilious II
  
  Brutally honest. McLauchlan is of very few actual journalists in this country.
  
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  August 27, 2025 9:22am
- Simon
  
  “Danyl McLauchlan in this weeks edition” Ardern and cabinet have been gone for yrs so its now safe to write about them now in this left wing paper. But they coudnt say this at the time.
  
  Why do people read such garbage.
  
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  August 27, 2025 9:22am
  - imalwaysright
    
    “Ardern and cabinet have been gone for yrs so its now safe…”
    
    That’s how it works here. Don’t forget the economists, treasury , human rights lawyers, judiciary, Opposition, most of the public… who kept themselves well in step with the régime as the jackboots were stamped in unison.
    
    Now we get their unbridled brave criticisms of the regime ad nauseum.
    
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    August 27, 2025 11:09am
  - David Garrett
    
    Simon: Until recently, I had been a Listener reader for as long as I can remember. No more – the almost total left wing bias has finally become too much. Asid e from a very occasional letter the editor, it is now just a left wing rag.
    
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    August 27, 2025 11:24am
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      Grief, you are so tolerant.
      
      I gave up on the Listener when they stopped publishing Ian Gordon’s “Language” column…sometime in the late 1980s or so.
      
      Nowadays the ‘The Listener” seems to resemble a collective version of those articles that used to run in the “Readers’ Digest”…. “I am Joe’s brain/kidney/ big toe”….or….”How to improve your IQ/EQ/Chutzpah/memory…..etc.
      
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      August 27, 2025 12:46pm
      - Simon Arnold
        
        Now the BBC’s namesake was another matter, if only for the crossword. Perhaps folding in the early 90s was its saving grace.
        
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        August 27, 2025 2:40pm
- alex Masterley
  
  Frankly I wouldnt have employed Ms Ardern as a baby sittter let alone paint a fence…
  
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  August 27, 2025 9:51am
  - mandk
    
    If you did hire her as a babysitter, she would probably make a captain’s call to unplug the freezer and switch off the heating in the baby’s room because the electricity was thermally generated.
    
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    August 27, 2025 10:59am
  - Paulus
    
    It has been suggested that she was a great Party Girl when she was in London.
    But we cannot say that !
    
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    August 27, 2025 2:55pm
- Philview
  
  It is disturbing that Labour’s pool of talent is even worse now, but they could be back in Government next year.
  
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  August 27, 2025 11:04am
  - R
    
    If the electorate is stupid enough to elect another Labour led coalition, the pool of real talent in the country will evaporate overnight to Aust and similar places. Chippie will then seem like an intellectual
    
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    August 27, 2025 3:39pm
Pope Punctilious II

Sir Brian Roche ponders “absorbing” some of the demographic ministries into other larger organizations: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/571152/commissioner-won-t-rule-out-absorbing-ministries-for-women-pacific-peoples-into-larger-organisations
Come on Sir Brian, be bold as a lion. They don’t need “absorbing” – they need disappearing completely.
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August 27, 2025 8:41am
- redeye
  
  I just listened to Willis and Sepuloni debating this subject on RNZ. The irony of 2 of the most powerful women in the country (both deputy leaders of the 2 major parties) arguing about the need for women to have their own special ministry was completely lost.
  
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  August 27, 2025 9:23am
  - OlderChas
    
    We should get some children to debate disestablishing the Childrens’ Commission too. I saw the Commissioner again on one of the news channels. Her whole presentation is so patronising and “simpering” that it makes me cringe.
    
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    August 27, 2025 11:22am
  - Swifty
    
    Line up 50 average New Zealanders and ask them what tangible difference the Women’s Ministry has made to women’s lives in the last five years and you’ll get 50 blank faces.
    
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    August 27, 2025 12:16pm
    - MCōs
      
      There’s about sixty ministries and I doubt if anyone here could stipulate the responsibilities of half of them.
      I’m a Senior, but I have little idea what the Minister for Seniors, Casey Costello, does, if anything.
      The Minister for Children is Karen Chhour who resurrected the hapless boot camp operation. She has quite a responsible job, in my opinion, not helped by everyone thinking they know better than her because their kids are perfect
      
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      August 27, 2025 1:51pm
    - sirknz
      
      51 if you include the person asking the question.
      
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      August 27, 2025 2:42pm
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    You’re right. We should ask the Governor Gen – wait. No, how about the Head of the Supreme Cou. Hang on, what about the Head of the Army?
    
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    August 27, 2025 1:47pm
  - Paulus
    
    As there are less men in New Zealand than women why cannot we have a Ministry of Men’s Affairs ?
    
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    August 27, 2025 2:57pm
    - NeverMindTheBollocks
      
      Fewer
      
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      August 27, 2025 7:48pm
    - Keith White
      
      Why do NZ men die on average 5.6 years earlier than NZ women?
      
      (Apart from “because we want to” as my father in law used to say…).
      
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      August 27, 2025 8:31pm
- Simon
  
  AI would gut public sector jobs, which are mainly welfare for the middle class, that is non-jobs.
  
  1 in 4 work for the govt.
  
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  August 27, 2025 9:26am
  - Phronesis
    
    Will not would. But it does kind of assume that people who aren’t doing anything productive will lose their “jobs”. It’s really not clear that that is the case.
    
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    August 27, 2025 10:25am
    - Paulus
      
      Did we not hear earlier that there are currently some 10,000 Public Service jobs being advertised – assume in Wellington.
      
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      August 27, 2025 2:59pm
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    Not really. Perhaps among the head office workers. But there are plenty of public sector employers where AI won’t make a dent in the numbers anytime soon. Police, nurses, DOC rangers, Crown Law – it’s a long list. Which is not to say that AI won’t change aspects of their jobs, but the jobs will remain.
    
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    August 27, 2025 1:50pm
    - Paulus
      
      Not until AI is fully in Maori !
      
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      August 27, 2025 3:01pm
- RoboRob
  
  I suspect absorbing is code for ‘disappearing’. We would want to upset specific interest groups or appear racist.
  
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  August 27, 2025 9:30am
  - Pope Punctilious II
    
    Let’s hope so! But I’m not optimistic, as Sir Brian said these ministries would retain their “brands” even if they were absorbed. I’m at a loss to understand why any ministry needs a “brand”.
    
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    August 27, 2025 11:09am
- sirknz
  
  WINZ should be able to take them all at roughly half their average salaries…
  
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  August 27, 2025 9:49am
NothingLeft

Scottish tweens being pestered by lecherous migrants pull knife and hatchet to scare them off – and are of course arrested because they are clearly the problem in this incident, not the rapey migrants:

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/scottish-girl-arrested-using-knife-and-axe-ward-migrant-stalker

Can’t see how UK and Europe can hang together much longer without a complete break down in rule of law and fall of govts. Its anarcho-tyranny where the stasi-esque police operate only to defend interests of the 10% of population far left ‘blob’, and most definitely those of public they are in principle supposed to be defending.
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August 27, 2025 8:58am
- sirknz
  
  From what I saw of this, the immigrants were unable to speak or understand english when the police got involved, despite being able to during the video.
  
  Civil unrest is coming to the West, politicians should probably be looking at the best interests of their voters as should the blobs in the various public sectors in these countries.
  
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  August 27, 2025 9:52am
- Simon
  
  On 26th August, Great Yarmouth MP Rupert Lowe said that the Rape Gang Inquiry report has found that Pakistani Muslim rape gangs have been operating in as many as 85 areas across the United Kingdom.
  
  The report highlights that although the survivors have their own unique stories of abuse and torment they were subjected to, however, “patterns of targeted exploitation by predominantly Pakistani males, combined with gross negligence from public bodies, are identifiable.”
  
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  August 27, 2025 10:15am
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    On the basis of that report, many heads must roll.
    
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    August 27, 2025 1:52pm
    - sirknz
      
      Actual heads should be rolling for this.
      
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      August 27, 2025 2:45pm
Ghost

Virginia Giuffre’s book is going to be released soon. Might be a few high powered people getting nervous

“Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice” is scheduled for release Oct. 21, the publisher confirmed to The Associated Press. Giuffre, who died by suicide in April at age 41, had been working on ‘Nobody’s Girl’ with author-journalist Amy Wallace and had completed the manuscript for the 400-page book, according to Knopf. The publisher’s statement includes an email from Giuffre to Wallace a few weeks before her death, saying that it was her ‘heartfelt wish’ the memoir be released ‘regardless’ of her circumstances.

‘The content of this book is crucial, as it aims to shed light on the systemic failures that allow the trafficking of vulnerable individuals across borders’, the email reads. ‘It is imperative that the truth is understood and that the issues surrounding this topic are addressed, both for the sake of justice and awareness’.”

Article
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August 27, 2025 9:09am
- Gravelroad
  
  And of course, every allegation made in this book will be the absolute truth.
  No questions asked. Or able to be answered.
  
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  August 27, 2025 9:30am
  - MCōs
    
    The book’s not out yet and we’re already getting into the realm of allegations about allegations that we don’t know about yet . . .
    What we do know was that G Maxwell let all sorts of people off the hook the other day and was immediately moved to a less spartan prison
    
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    August 27, 2025 11:05am
    - Ghost
      
      Yeah, all that is known is it goes further into Prince Andrew, and as expected Trump is not mentioned in it
      
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      August 27, 2025 11:07am
      - NZer In Exile
        
        As many have suggested on other blogs, the Dems have been sitting on the Epstein files for years. If there was any verifiable dirt on Trump in them they sure as hell would have used them!
        
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        August 27, 2025 6:06pm
      - Ghost
        
        Giuffre has always said and gave sworn testimony that she never saw Trump with any of epstiens girls. The dems would never release the files, too many high ranking dems and donors suspected of being in them. It will be interesting though because I expect the left will buy up the book looking for trump
        
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        August 27, 2025 6:13pm
    - David Garrett
      
      MCos: Yes…and after having been interviewed by
      Trump’s former lawyer FFS! Surely even your die-hard MAGA supporter can see that that is totally inappropriate.
      
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      August 27, 2025 11:27am
      - All_on_Red
        
        ‘ that is totally inappropriate.’
        It’s a CONSPIRACY!
        Epsteins Lawyer has said he asked Epstein about Trump and he said Epstein said Trump wasn’t involved in any wrong doing
        So there’s that
        
        Trump met Epstein through Ghislaine
        He knew her Father Robert Maxwell very well and they would often have drinks together
        Sometimes on Roberts yacht called “ Lady Ghislaine” (of course)
        Ghislaine was very active socially in NY and her and Trump were often at the same events
        
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        August 27, 2025 1:10pm
- Flossie
  
  Some will regard the allegations in the book as The Truth.
  
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  August 27, 2025 9:58am
- lifesgood
  
  Can’t stand the idea of girls being trafficked or abused but I have to say that the much published photo of Virginia with Prince Andrew show a girl who is very happy, not at all downtrodden or scared or anything of that nature. Why would she look so thrilled to be in that photo? And while I’m at it I have no time for Prince Andrew, he seems like an entitled creep. And surely if he was looking for a bit on the side there would have been plenty of dozy women keen.
  
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  August 27, 2025 11:10am
  - David Garrett
    
    lifesgood: The crucial word there is girl. I think Ms Guiffre was 17 at the time?
    
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    August 27, 2025 11:59am
    - NeverMindTheBollocks
      
      Which would be completely legal in NZ
      
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      August 27, 2025 1:53pm
      - MCōs
        
        The legal age to provide commercial sexual services in New Zealand is eighteen
        In America providing commercial sexual services is illegal in 49 states
        I expect we’ll find out, but I suspect that money would either have changed hands or the handsome prince forced himself on Miss G, possibly with the smirking Mr E looking over his shoulder
        
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        August 27, 2025 2:45pm
- Philview
  
  It is laughable that the NZ media discuss this when they fully supported Helen Clark’s decision to legalise the trafficking of vulnerable women for prostitution in New Zealand. A few years ago New Zealand was put on a Slavery Watch register by the US Government who were concerned about the amount of women being trafficked in New Zealand to work in brothels.
  
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  August 27, 2025 11:12am
  - MCōs
    
    New Zealand has not been placed on a specific “Slavery Watch register” by the US government because there is none.
    The US Dept of State has produced this country specific report
    https://www.state.gov/reports/2024-trafficking-in-persons-report/new-zealand/
    
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    August 27, 2025 3:07pm
- Paulus
  
  Of course, like Epstein, as she was the only one of the many playgirls, she has now tragically committed suicide before the release of her book.
  Will the other girls start legal movements as the speciaist Lawyers must be getting poor !
  Wonder what and who else she names in it and whether it will now be published.
  Bad Smells in the state of the Epstein era.
  
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  August 27, 2025 3:06pm
In Vino Veritas

In response to MCos post yesterday replying to mine on Palestine.
MCos stated “Whereas there may not have been a state of Palestine pre WWII there most certainly wasn’t a state of Israel either”.
Quite right MCos (it depends how far back in history you want to go, never the less, we are dealing with the Balfour Declaration and after here). Neither was there, at the time of the Mandate, a state of Syria or Lebanon. Nor Jordan. The British Mandate of Palestine included all of the land of modern day Israel and Jordan. Even if you accept that there was an area of land called Palestine (created by the Mandate), Jordan would be included in that. No one has argued that “Palestinians” already have a homeland, it is called Jordan. After all, Jordan consists of 78% of the land area of the British Mandate. No Arab country attacked Jordan after it’s independence or recognition as a State. Yet in 1948, having accepted Jordan as a State in 1946, Lebanon, Syria (who by the way, had been French Mandate countries and Syria was not called Syria), Egypt and Saudi attacked Israel. And today we have fighting for a “Palestinian State”. It could be argued that there are already two Palestinian states, Israel and Jordan.
My view is that the wars involving Israel have nothing to do with land, place names or statehood. They are religious. And the world should look at them that way.
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August 27, 2025 9:27am
- David George
  
  Absolutely VV.
  Islamic supremacists can’t bear the thought of a non Islamist state next door – or anywhere come to that.
  The claim that they are fighting for justice and freedom is just an excuse, they don’t believe in those principles even for their own people
  
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  August 27, 2025 11:25am
- David Garrett
  
  In vino: You are wrong – Jordan was an entirely different entity under the mandate over Palestine. It was called then Trans-Jordan. I don’t know if the area so labeled was more or less than modern day Jordan.
  
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  August 27, 2025 11:29am
  - In Vino Veritas
    
    I don’t believe I am David. The San Remo map of the British Mandate of Palestine (that was adopted by the League of Nations) was roughly 121,000 sq. km. The British Mandate was split in 1921 into areas east of the Jordan river (Emirate of Trans-Jordan, later in 1946 the Hashemite Kingdom of Trans-Jordan and even later, in 1949 the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan) and areas west of the Jordan River remained the British Mandate of Palestine. As an aside, the area of Trans-Jordan was closed to Jewish settlement when the Mandate was split.
    I reiterate, if the whole area was considered the British Mandate of Palestine, those that believe that Palestine actually existed and use that as their argument for a Palestinian State, surely that State exists today in the form of Jordan?
    
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    August 27, 2025 12:17pm
RoboRob

Emailed Tama Potaka a few days ago with respect to when Te Puni Kōkiris ‘Independent review into alleged inappropriate use of Whānau Ora funds’ that will be released to public in mid August, will actually be released.

No response. Lucky we have such good people representing us. FYI my email was the following….

Dear Mr Potaka

On 27th June you initiated what you described as an urgent investigation into the potential misuse of Whanau Ora funds. According to TPK the review was complete last month and in their posession. It was to be released publicly in mid August.

https://www.tpk.govt.nz/en/mo-te-puni-kokiri/our-stories-and-media/independent-review-into-alleged-inappropriate-use-

The independent reviewer completed the review, as scheduled, in July 2025 and Te Puni Kōkiri has received the report (subject to natural justice step). As is standard process for a review of this nature, those covered by the review have been provided with the opportunity to comment. The findings will be released publicly in mid-August once this has occurred.

When do you expect this review to become public?

Thanks
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August 27, 2025 9:28am
- Ghost
  
  Stop being so impatient and wait. The report was finished. Those involved have a right of reply to what was in it. It will get released when the process is finished
  
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  August 27, 2025 10:00am
  - RoboRob
    
    Read what TPK said. They said ‘As is standard process for a review of this nature, those covered by the review have been provided with the opportunity to comment. The findings will be released publicly in mid-August once this has occurred.’.
    
    Potaka said it was Urgent. I’m not being impatient, I am holding him to his words. Besides, all he needs to do is reply and say ‘Consultation with those involved is taking much longer then expected, I expect it will take another few weeks’. See that wasn’t hard. Not replying to a polite question is just rude. I simply asked when he expected it to be released.
    
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    August 27, 2025 10:24am
    - Ghost
      
      Just wait, it will get released when it’s gone through the process. Complaining days after day that it’s not released yet wont accomplish anything, you aren’t holding anyone to account. The report is done, they had a right to reply which they would drag out, then those replies are considered. It will get released when it’s gone through all the processes, time frames change.
      
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      August 27, 2025 10:33am
    - pdm
      
      Potaka originally said, somewhat rashly at QT.
      
      `I will have the answers in a week’
      
      That was before the enquiry was called.
      
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      August 27, 2025 2:03pm
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    Tricky. The next Friday before a public holiday weekend is not until October.
    
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    August 27, 2025 1:56pm
- Gravelroad
  
  The MP here (National) has two personal work email addresses.
  One goes straight to parliament.
  The other goes to the local electoral office.
  I have found that sending to the parliament address is seldom, if ever, answered.
  Sending to the local office is answered. It might not be by the MP him or herself. It will likely be a message written by an electorate office worker “on behalf”.
  If it is an invitation to a meeting, for example, the MP usually then turns up,or at least has an apology noted.
  
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  August 27, 2025 10:17am
- imalwaysright
  
  RR
  It may be worth it to CC your email to Potakas opposite numbers in the Opposition.
  Might give him a bit of encouragement to hurry up.
  
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  August 27, 2025 10:26am
I remember when

Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce take relationship to new heights: The Athletic.
“Taylor Swift announced the couple’s engagement via Instagram Tuesday afternoon, and the post accrued over 1 million likes in 9 minutes.”

Who said we don’t get advised about the important, really serious news?
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August 27, 2025 9:30am
- Flossie
  
  That exciting bit of…news? appeared to be the headline in most the news sites I look at! How lovely for the pair of them, but most of us don’t give a rat’s patooti.
  
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  August 27, 2025 10:10am
  - MCōs
    
    I’ll take a wild stab here and surmise that news wasn’t directed at everyone
    
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    August 27, 2025 11:11am
    - NeverMindTheBollocks
      
      Just those 1 000 000 who liked it within 9 minutes, then
      
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      August 27, 2025 1:57pm
- Tom Hunter
  
  My fave response so far is the graph at the link
  Successful Taylor Swift Relations
  All Other Presidents – zero
  Donald J Trump – one.
  
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  August 27, 2025 3:51pm
BeaB

We are told by a union rep morning that there are no schools trying to game the system when it comes to schools being open for learning. Ha ha.
The PPTA doesn’t think the ‘edict’ should come down from ‘on high’. Who do they think should decide these things? The teachers or the funders?
How many senior high school kids are going on six weeks exam leave soon after Term 4 begins? Some of them have only one exam. Some have none!
What will all those teachers be doing then?
With so much time off you would think they could do enough planning and prep to ensure every child in the country is a successful learner!
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August 27, 2025 9:32am
cmm

Should Willis and National really “accept blame” for 177 Wellington businesses closing down?

Many, perhaps the majority, only existed because of artificial stimulation of Wellington by adding a bunch of pointless government workers.

Fixing that was of course going to cause a bunch of businesses that feed off them to shut down (coffee shops, lunch places, …).

The thing that these high level bullet points miss is that the artificial stimulation of Wellington via the taxpayer’s wallet does not come for free. It only happens by taxing other parts of the country more and putting more stress on other businesses.

Getting rid of surplus government workers and these artificially stimulated businesses will be better for the country overall.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/wellington/wellington-economy-shrinks-as-177-businesses-shut-in-a-year-does-nicola-willis-accept-some-blame/XP6XPCJBHVBJDHBODSX4G6UBNI/
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August 27, 2025 10:38am
- Interested Party
  
  However the number of government employees hasn’t reduced. I believe the Wellington downturn is due to the working from home culture (especially post covid) and a general economic downturn
  
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  August 27, 2025 11:29am
  - Ford Prefect
    
    I agree. The amount of workers actually in Wellington has reduced, and the government said they were going to get them back in the office. They have caved to the workers and have let most continue to work from home. If they were more strict they would have also shed a lot of entitled workers at the same time
    
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    August 27, 2025 11:46am
  - cmm
    
    Good point. I suppose they’re all just “working from home”.
    
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    August 27, 2025 12:12pm
- fightingtemeraire
  
  How many are coffee shops, cafes etc and how many have closed owing to WCC parking/cycleways etc/
  
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  August 27, 2025 11:53am
  - greybeard
    
    You are on to it: A city map showing the last 12 months of WCC roadworks etc, with flags showing the locations of the businesses which have closed down would be enlightening !
    
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    August 27, 2025 1:53pm
- Eastlander
  
  https://wellington.scoop.co.nz/?p=173498
  
  The cost of a liquor license renewal has gone from $2300 to $5700. I’d say things like this are having more impact than the miniscule public sector cuts. And labour has furiously rejected any attempt to reign in local authorities.
  
  Perhaps someone with a herald subscription could indicate whether WCC is mentioned at all in this article.
  
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  August 27, 2025 11:54am
  - cmm
    
    While that is gouging, $3400 a year, less than $10 a day, is not really going to change the viability of any company.
    If your business is so marginal that $3k is make or break then you’re dead anyway.
    
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    August 27, 2025 12:30pm
    - Eastlander
      
      It’s one of a number of things, combine that with rent, decreased patronage because the city is less accessible, and WCC’s policy of opposing every license renewal… even operators who aren’t treading water have to be asking ‘why here?’. Why put up with the city’s bullshit when you could close up and try your luck somewhere else?
      
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      August 27, 2025 12:37pm
- greybeard
  
  I have never owned a business so don’t know what is involved day-by-day in running one, or keeping it running.
  
  However I bet that many of those 177 businesses which have closed down in the last 12 months were not viable anyway: many would have been started by well-meaning people who saw self-employment as a virtue, but who never had the business background, financial resources or experience to make it work.
  Others would have invested in the wrong location, the wrong product, the wrong staff.
  There would have been little or no room in their models for reduction in income because of various conditions.
  The reasons for business failure are legion.
  It is all too easy to blame the closure of 177 businesses in Wellington on the actions or policies of the current government : that is nothing more than a politically-driven knee-jerk.
  
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  August 27, 2025 7:06pm
Maggy Wassilieff

How many senior high school kids are going on six weeks exam leave soon after Term 4 begins?

This is such a farce, and indicates how limited our school curriculum now is.

I remember my teachers presenting new information right up to a couple of days before exams started and usually the last couple of classes were spent going through past exam papers.
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August 27, 2025 10:47am
- Ghost
  
  I remember exam leave, by exam time we were all very sunburnt from long days at the beach…..
  
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  August 27, 2025 10:52am
- rjay
  
  If your teachers were still presenting new information days prior to exams then they were letting the pupils down. Revision of information covered up to 8 months earlier, exam techniques, exam practice etc should all be the programme as exams get closer.
  
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  August 27, 2025 11:07am
  - MCōs
    
    Either way it didn’t do me much good once I got to the sixth form
    
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    August 27, 2025 3:15pm
Maggy Wassilieff

Choose NZ universities if you want A grades and an easy pass on your assignments

https://pointofordernz.wordpress.com/2025/08/27/top-grades-soar-at-nz-universities-new-report-finds/#more-41644
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August 27, 2025 10:56am
- cmm
  
  Of course if the number of As has been nudged up, then this is likely indicative of even more nudging lower down the ranks.
  
  How many fails have been nudged to passes?
  
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  August 27, 2025 11:20am
- Inandout
  
  Maggy, not a good look for those employers who want a solidly educated job seeker with a work ethic.
  
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  August 27, 2025 11:21am
cmm

I read something interesting on Linked In.

This was posted by an engineer in Nigeria, but is equally applicable here:

“In Switzerland, graduates are not praying for jobs.

Most of them already had employment contracts since they were in SS1.

At age 15, Swiss teenagers start apprenticeships. The VET model

3–4 days a week, they work in real companies.
1–2 days a week, they study in vocational schools.
Industry training centres sharpen their hands-on skills.

By the time they finish secondary school, they are not just holding certificates, they are holding experience, wages, and respect in the labour market.

This is why Switzerland’s youth unemployment is one of the lowest in the world (<5%).

Now let's be honest about our country.
We try to push most of our youths through university gates.
We neglect skills, apprenticeships, and employer partnerships.
We graduate millions each year, yet too many line up in unemployment queues.
"

If we want to build our young people and the economy in general, then this would seem to be a good approach.

I have often promoted the idea of more trade-oriented schools etc. and I think this makes a lot of sense.
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August 27, 2025 11:00am
- Reg Perrin
  
  With the demise of ITO’s the on-job training model is going to suffer. this will now fall under polytecs who don’t really understand the model.
  While some of the training will be taken up by private training orgs they will focus on the profitable areas, which will mean training for smaller industries like poultry, etc will fall away.
  ITO’s didn’t lose money and supported their industries well
  
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  August 27, 2025 11:16am
- imalwaysright
  
  Whakatane has been short of tradesmen for years. They pay for them to come from Rotorua and Tauranga.
  They have high maori youth unemployment yet they spend tens of millions on a Wananga (cost ?) and a meeting house in Taneatua (over $20M).
  
  No thought about starting a trades school to teach the youth a trade.
  
  Instead they have a meeting house which is useless and a Wananga that will give them a degree that no employer trusts. (They gave someone a PhD in passing down recipes orally).
  
  And the nephews are still on the couch.
  
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  August 27, 2025 11:43am
  - Jethrod
    
    Is that runanga where the old infant school was?
    
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    August 27, 2025 6:04pm
- Swifty
  
  That should be New Zealand’s ambition – the lowest youth unemployment in the world.
  
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  August 27, 2025 12:08pm
  - cmm
    
    Employment is easy to create. Just do what they did in the Great Depression and what Cindy and Robbo talked of: shovel ready jobs. Just give people a pointless, manual job.
    
    If you want to employ even more, then take away the shovels and wheelbarrows and give then a spoon and a bucket.
    
    But what is far harder to create is meaningful employment where people actually add value.
    
    For that, I think we really need to have more vocational options – starting earlier.
    
    Currently kids have to be 17 or so before they can go to polytech. By then they have disengaged from the school system and are well down the path to delinquency.
    
    Rather allow them to get into vocational schooling at age 13 or so – before they have dropped out.
    
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    August 27, 2025 12:35pm
cmm

I’ve never been in detention barracks (DB), but I did briefly visit DB twice in South Africa twice during my time in the SA Army.

Those in SA DB were getting up at 5am, shower and prepare for inspection at 5.30, first PT session at 6am (expected to be formed up in a squad by 5.55. Brutal.

It looks like the modern NZ DB is a lot milder – more in line with Basics.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/what-life-at-burnham-military-camps-detention-centre-will-look-like-for-attempted-spy/VGUKU7ETZ5EHVFEK3YCCDFV2JA/
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August 27, 2025 11:17am
Ghost

It is interesting to see more and more coming out. Before Trump took office, Trump Junior did a show on ufos. Mark Rubio appeared in the UFO doco “The Age of Disclosure”. A few of Trump’s administration have come forward expressing interest, including the vice president.

Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, 2013

One of the most hotly debated encounters of an unidentified submerged object came in April 2013, when an infrared surveillance camera operated by U.S. Customs and Border Protection captured something extraordinary over Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. A small spherical object flew inland from the ocean, crossed the airport, and then returned to sea—where it maneuvered in ways that appeared to defy physics.

USS Omaha, 2019

It began as a blip. In July 2019, an infrared camera aboard the USS Omaha captured something that defied explanation: a spherical object moving swiftly over the Pacific before dropping into the ocean—again, no splash, no wake, no debris. The footage, later verified by Pentagon officials, stunned observers. The object didn’t resemble any known drone, missile, or aircraft. And its disappearance beneath the waves raised new questions about transmedium tech.

Navy Officer Says Underwater UFOs Are Legitimate Threats. The Evidence Is Hard to Ignore.
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August 27, 2025 12:05pm
- MCōs
  
  In America they regularly see UFOs
  In Thailand they regularly see ghosts.
  Everyone likes to have some explanation for what they don’t understand and vengeance of the Lord is another old favourite
  
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  August 27, 2025 3:53pm
  - Ghost
    
    Thailand have their own ufo reports. I don’t know of a country that doesn’t.
    
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    August 27, 2025 4:23pm
    - MCōs
      
      I asked the resident expert and it seems you’re right.
      
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      August 27, 2025 5:45pm
cmm

Data centres, particularly AI data centres, are power hogs that make money for the people using them for training etc, but are little value to others.

As an example, look at the new Shackelford County data centre “campus” being built in Texas with 10 data centres.
The total power consumption is about 1.4GW (almost as much as the whole of South Island’s off-peak power consumption during winter).

While it might sound impressive to some to be on the data centre wave, it is really doing the low value work and does not get much return for the amount of power being used.

https://vantage-dc.com/data-center-locations/north-america/shackelford-county-tx
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August 27, 2025 1:07pm
- imalwaysright
  
  Its hard to understand why NZ, facing an energy crisis and seeing industry close because of it, permit data centres to operate here.
  
  Note that these data centres seem to get past the RMA etc with more ease than say a company that wants to mine the seabed outside the 12 mile limit for iron and other metals that will employ many kiwis. Trans-Tasman Resources Limited.
  
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  August 27, 2025 1:30pm
  - cmm
    
    I really don’t think we have a current energy shortage, but there will be one in the future if we are not careful.
    
    This winter we didn’t even reach 80% of our reliable generation capacity.
    
    But we do have a lot of energy resources available that need to be developed in time. If we choose to go into the future energy-starved then it is only of our own choosing.
    
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    August 27, 2025 3:35pm
    - MCōs
      
      I heard an interesting Detail podcast this morning re the coming demise of natural gas and in this case how it was effecting the horticulture industry.
      Chap said when he started it was plentiful and cheap. Now it’s scarce and expensive.
      The alternative wasn’t solar or wind, but thermal, which is plentiful and cheap. Trouble is it doesn’t travel and his hothouse business would have to relocate over to where the thermal activity is.
      
      5 0
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      August 27, 2025 4:11pm
      - cmm
        
        Coal.
        
        2 0
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        August 27, 2025 5:40pm
  - Keith White
    
    Wait till someone decides to hold the data centre’s data hostage for a ransom…
    
    2 1
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    August 27, 2025 8:37pm
- Simon Arnold
  
  ” … it is really doing the low value work and does not get much return for the amount of power being used.”
  
  I have to say that in my line of work Perplexity.AI performs very high value work, particularly if you take into account the time saved. The cost of the electricity used is minor, and ironically AI is also assisting with technological solutions to the energy demands of supercomputers.
  
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  August 27, 2025 3:04pm
  - cmm
    
    You don’t seem to understand when energy is used and when value is created.
    
    The bulk of AI energy is back end grinding when the AI is being trained. This uses the bulk of the power and can happen, essentially, offline – far away where data centres and energy is cheap. This is a race to the bottom.
    
    The inference end of AI is when the trained models are then used in the field. This is the higher value end of AI and also does not need nearly as much power (many orders of magnitude difference).
    
    I work a bit with low end embedded AI like TinyML. TinyML needs a pretty grunty PC – preferably with a sturdy GPU and will still take many minutes to hours to train a model.
    
    But once the model is trained, it can run on a tiny battery-powered microcontroller in a few milliseconds (eg. on an Arduino or such).
    
    Using the trained models is not where the power is used – it is in the training.
    
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    August 27, 2025 3:41pm
    - Simon Arnold
      
      You are a brave person. Before commemting did you ask TinyML “how can AI reduce the energy demands of training AI models”?
      
      2 1
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      August 27, 2025 6:13pm
rjay

Carmel and Chloe will be singing the governments praises from the roof top for this impressive achievement.
https://www.stats.govt.nz/news/gender-pay-gap-narrows-to-lowest-on-record/
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August 27, 2025 1:11pm
Inandout

If you have been to Ayers Rock lately and taken videos from your mobile expect a bill. They are learning from our Maori claimants.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irf0jb4YhVI
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August 27, 2025 1:52pm
- Observant Octagenarian
  
  It’s actually the influence of the United Nations Declaration of Indigenous Peoples.
  NZ is part of this too (thanks John Key) as is Australia and Canada.
  
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  August 27, 2025 4:43pm
cmm

Willis has a “plan” to cut grocery prices: hoping more players will enter the market and increase competition.

Hmmm. With over 100 fleeing NZ every day, is there really the business confidence to attract competition?
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August 27, 2025 3:43pm
- MCōs
  
  Every few months whatever government is in power has another crack at getting blood out of that particular stone.
  
  4 1
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  August 27, 2025 4:17pm
- Ghost
  
  Still no sign of the iwi supermarket……. Guess that was a few million tax payers money down the drain
  
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  August 27, 2025 5:16pm
  - Swifty
    
    I’ve seen an interview in the last 24 hours with Kaipara and Henare – an Iwi supermarket is back on when they next get into power, so they say.
    
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    August 27, 2025 7:55pm
Ghost

Hmmm

RNZ have an article up about Women candidates speak out on local body election hoarding vandalism

In the article it talks about one candidate

First-time candidate Malaina Taufa, who is of Samoan and Niuean descent and married to a Tongan, said the vandalism was crushing.

Another part it talks about another candidate

Independent Howick candidate Bo Burns, a palagi woman

Hmmmmm
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August 27, 2025 4:22pm
Chuck Bird

The ICC has indicted the heads of Israel and Russia. When will they indict Ali Khamenei?

World Leaders Indicted by the International Criminal Court

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/world-leaders-indicted-by-the-international-criminal-court/
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August 27, 2025 4:23pm
NZer In Exile

Can anybody give me a rational reason for Maori (IE racial heritage based) electoral seats existing today?
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August 27, 2025 5:38pm
- Ghost
  
  I don’t think any mp wants to deal with the backlash that will come from that. Which is why I don’t think it will happen until Māori are ready.
  
  I asked grok what could happen, and I’d agree with its answer, I’d go further and say the unrest would be like we’ve never seen before. Riots. To be honest I’m surprised the leader of a small party in NZ hasn’t been assaulted or killed yet
  
  Potential Backlash
  
  Backlash would likely be intense, drawing from recent events like the 2024-2025 protests against the Treaty Principles Bill and budget cuts seen as “anti-Māori.” Māori seats are symbolically tied to the Treaty, and their abolition could be viewed as colonial erasure.
  
  Mass Protests and Hīkoi: Expect nationwide marches, similar to the 40,000-strong hīkoi in November 2024, with occupations of Parliament grounds. Disruptive haka in the House could lead to more suspensions.
  Political and Electoral Repercussions: Te Pāti Māori and Labour could gain votes; coalition parties might lose Māori support. X sentiment shows non-Māori frustration with “radical” MPs, but Māori could boycott elections or demand referendums.
  
  Legal and International Pressure: Waitangi Tribunal claims, High Court injunctions, and UN scrutiny on indigenous rights (as with past reforms). The Attorney-General’s 2025 warning highlights disenfranchisement risks.
  
  Social Division: Heightened racism accusations, with X posts labeling it “apartheid” reversal or “racist” retention. Could lead to economic boycotts or strikes.
  Violence or Escalation: While protests have been mostly peaceful, historical hīkoi (e.g., 2004 foreshore) show potential for escalation if met with force.
  
  In essence, backlash could mirror or exceed recent unrest, potentially destabilizing the government and deepening divisions, though some see it as a step toward equality.
  
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  August 27, 2025 5:51pm
  - NZer In Exile
    
    So essentially the Nats are worried about a “backlash” from people addicted to an irrational, divisive and racist anachronism which is absolutely tearing the country apart.
    
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    August 27, 2025 6:17pm
  - Steve Todd
    
    Absolutely spot on, Ghost. I have previously said that the Māori seats will not be abolished until Māori say they [can] go.
    
    Without at least Māori acquiescence, there is only one way the Māori seats can be disestablished without Māori consent. That is by a binding referendum at a general election, a referendum whereby the majority decides the fate of the minority.
    
    Really?! We all know it’s never going to happen.
    
    I know it grinds the gears of many commenters here, but the simple fact of the matter is, unless something unforeseen and dramatic happens, the Māori seats are not going anywhere, at least until well after the bicentenary of the Treaty of Waitangi in 2040.
    
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    August 27, 2025 6:21pm
greybeard

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360803996/6000-vs-160000-how-underpaid-are-legal-aid-providers
Just as well Legal Aid Providers are not paid by weight……………
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August 27, 2025 6:04pm
Swifty

Our government is worse than Nazi Germany and is a fascist regime that needs to be removed.

https://x.com/suitandtie9999/status/1960560178534941052?s=46

I did not know that.

//
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August 27, 2025 6:12pm
- Ghost
  
  Yes John, tell us why immunisation numbers have dropped, and dropped under the labour government that you supported. Could it be, I don’t know, that the forced vaccination of the public damaged public trust.
  
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  August 27, 2025 6:18pm
  - NZer In Exile
    
    Vaccination under duress, with a fairly crappy vaccination product, probably didn’t help.
    
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    August 27, 2025 6:46pm
- Tom Hunter
  
  There are many possible responses to that. This is mine…
  
  God save the queen.
  The fascist regime.
  They made you a moron.
  
  Marvellous stuff. TPM should form a band and John Tamahere can sing it.
  
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  August 27, 2025 6:20pm
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    That’s an uptick from me. Naturally.
    
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    August 27, 2025 8:00pm
    - Swifty
      
      I saw them in Oz in ‘96, Brisbane I think.
      
      Bloody great night.
      
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      August 27, 2025 9:39pm
- Keith White
  
  JT’s compulsion to be Ray Sis is undeniable, and clearly irresistible for him.
  
  2 1
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  August 27, 2025 8:39pm
Graeme Hall

“Better that we should die on our feet rather than live on our knees” was spoken by François-Noël Gracchus Babeuf in his defence of the Conspiracy of Equals in April 1797.

Not these these days. The consequence of social welfare & handouts has created an entitled group willing to threaten violence and live off others’ efforts rather than stand on their own feet.
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August 27, 2025 6:13pm
Swifty

Roger Partridge on RNZ:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ri0VE5oHyek&pp=ugUHEgVlbi1HQg%3D%3D

I thought this comment is well considered:

“RNZ presenters in 2025.(This list is not exhaustive) : KEEP – Jim Mora ( Always excellent ). Kathryn Ryan ( Well informed and fair). The Country Life presenters (No noticeable problems) Corin Dann ( Was a bit woke, but has worked very hard to lift his game and now does a good job). Peter Mcilwaine / Vicki McKay ( Nice and harmless). The newsreaders ( They don’t write the crap they sometimes have to read). Phil O’Brien / Simon Morris ( Entertaining and professional, no bias.) Wallace Chapman ( Funny, oddball and entertaining, tries hard to be fair ).

PUT ON NOTICE – Nathan Rarere ( Woke and often loud about it, but very creative and entertaining). Ingrid Hipkiss ( Generally very good, but shows occasional, subtle bias). Lisa Owen ( Excellent interrogator but inclined to the left. Some people may find her abrasive). Mediawatch presenters ( Inclined to wokeness, but not beyond salvation) The Detail presenters ( Interesting subject matter but slanted towards the woke).

FIRE – Susie Ferguson / Mihingarangi Forbes ( Fire with extreme prejudice). Jesse Mulligan ( Affable, but far too woke). Charlotte Cook / Tuwhenuaroa Natanahira ( Woke beyond belief. Got to go). Emile Donovan ( A late night Jesse Mulligan). Paddy Gower ( Don’t even need to explain).

ON A LIGHTER NOTE – Replace the board, sack the CEO with extreme prejudice ( This decline has happened on his watch ) and go through the editorial staff with a fine-toothed comb and a blowtorch. That’s where the real cull needs to happen.”
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August 27, 2025 7:53pm
NeverMindTheBollocks

Keep: Mark Rodgers, Nashville Babylon
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August 27, 2025 8:02pm

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