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August 31, 2025 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 31 August 2025

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General Debate

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David Garrett

Good morning from the Kingdom…despite being woken up at 5am by competing church bells – half of them could be culled and even the Tongans wouldn’t notice – a very pleasant 23C up here.
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August 31, 2025 8:08am
- Dougal10
  
  I’ll raise your 23⁰ and give you an inch of snow and currently -2⁰ ,bit of a shock from 14⁰ yesterday
  
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  August 31, 2025 8:34am
- Cassandra
  
  You’re lucky to be n Tonga, David, so you don’t have to listen to or read about the Maori court case asking a judge to declare that closing down the racist Maori Health Authority was illegal. Yet another left/right divide with the losers using the Courts to overturn the election. Unwittingly aided and abetted by National which will do anything it can to avoid another car koi. Personally I’d welcome it – with a whiff of grapeshot. Metaphorically of course!
  
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  August 31, 2025 8:47am
  - David Garrett
    
    Cass: Yes…I’m certainly glad to have somewhere else to live and work…I guess church bells are a relatively small price to pay!
    
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    August 31, 2025 9:00am
  - artemisia
    
    Seems that the High Court is being asked to rule that closing the Maori Health Authority is inconsistent with ToW principles, whatever they may be nowadays. Despite the functions being transferred, not folded. Seems a stretch but judges these days ….
    
    Of course if it is decided the Waitangi Tribunal should consider such an application the no doubt substantial cultural and legal costs will support the gravy train, so there’s that.
    
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    August 31, 2025 9:20am
    - Prince
      
      …and the concept of elections and democracy can be scrapped.
      
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      August 31, 2025 9:54am
    - Hugh Jarse
      
      Anyone have any doubt which way the court will go on this ?
      
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      August 31, 2025 10:21am
    - RoboRob
      
      Well since NZF and National decided we don’t need to define the treaty principles, I guess the high court can define them whichever way they want so they get the outcome the desire. What a good idea to let the courts / Waitangi tribunal define the principles.
      
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      August 31, 2025 11:23am
      - R
        
        The Treaty of Waitangi has since its inception and signing contained three very clear principles. In fact that is all the treaty really is…THREE PRINCIPLES. May not be so obvious to those educated since the advent of ‘Tomorrows Schools’ policies in the 1980,s.
        
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        August 31, 2025 11:42am
      - kiwimike
        
        then neither of them can be held accountable for a decision.
        
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        September 1, 2025 6:39am
    - Paulus
      
      The Waitangi Tribunal is not our Highest Parliament yet despite what many called Maori wish to think.
      Again what is a Maori now – only part and smidgens of a former one we are expected to follow.
      Am tired of the continual media telling us what to do and think about it.
      We will see next Election when the current triumvirate get the Media party led boot and Maori finally suceed in forming leadership roles, both the Parliament and with it the new permanant Upper House finally in which only Maori will be spoken and everything agreed according to the Treaty and their interpretation.
      
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      August 31, 2025 2:01pm
  - redeye
    
    Metservice is currently running a satisfaction survey. There’s a link on their page. It asks questions about how happy we are with their products. The final question. Are you of Maori descent?
    I can’t work out the relevance of this unless they value the answers more if your a specific race.
    
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    August 31, 2025 9:22am
    - artemisia
      
      Metservice considering adding maramataka to its services? Taxpayer funded of course and a tick in the woke box.
      
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      August 31, 2025 9:40am
    - pdm
      
      Is there a link to the survey?
      
      Do they allow comments?
      
      Found the link:
      https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Q126W9YG7B6S
      
      Might be worth doing if we can add our collective `two bobs’ worth to the answers.
      
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      August 31, 2025 10:03am
      - pdm
        
        Survey completed and I added the following in the comments allowed at the end.
        
        `Why do you want to know if I am of Maori descent?
        That is irrelevant to the survey and nothing more than virtue signalling tokenism.
        
        For your information I am a New Zealander and that is all that should matter.’
        
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        August 31, 2025 10:09am
      - Nikola Donatello
        
        “For your information I am a New Zealander and that is all that should matter.’”
        
        The problem is that the Government promotes the idea that there is a partnership between Maori and the Crown. Inevitably that becomes a nation of two peoples. Maori and everyone else.
        
        Just look at a job ad for any government job. A willingness to embrace te ao Maori and Partnership is a prerequisite for getting a job. Incredibly, this requirement has been supercharged under the current government.
        
        Local councils, especially in Northland are operating Co governance arrangements with local Iwi.
        
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        August 31, 2025 11:34am
      - pdm
        
        Not sure if I reported a comment.
        
        mods if I did it was an accident.
        
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        August 31, 2025 12:32pm
    - Ghost
      
      Don’t waste your time. I was part of a group a few years ago, metservice spent about 3 weeks throwing ideas at us, asking for feedback, they ignored everything and just did what they wanted.
      
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      August 31, 2025 10:54am
      - Paulus
        
        Sounds like current normal New Zealand practice by Government Departments.
        Say yes, we have looked, had meetings to hear what you have to say, and talked about, and this is what has been agreed
        
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        August 31, 2025 2:05pm
      - NZer In Exile
        
        “Consultation” (wink wink, nudge nudge) completed. Tick.
        
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        August 31, 2025 5:49pm
    - Grumpy Silver Top
      
      I have just done the survey and didn’t answer the final question and added a “this is irrelevant” comment.
      Happily, they hadn’t made that question”required”.
      
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      August 31, 2025 12:13pm
- Ghost
  
  We had the fire siren going late last night, early this morning, with the added bonus of it setting all the dogs off….
  
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  August 31, 2025 9:39am
- Scott
  
  David –
  Or you could be grateful that the country you CHOOSE to live in is Christian?
  
  They could have stayed with their old ways? You would be less likely to be invited for lunch rather than be the lunch. Or they could become atheist or agnostic and no one goes to church and everyone drinks all day Sunday? Which I doubt would be an improvement?
  
  What you are unlikely to hear is the Muslim call to prayer blaring over the speakers which I’m sure you can be grateful for.
  
  Why not accept the country that you choose to live in rather than want to change the very thing that makes it the country you choose to live in? 🤔
  
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  August 31, 2025 9:46am
  - David Garrett
    
    Scott: Give it up man! I rejected the Sky Fairy 40 odd years ago, and I am not about to take up obeisance to it now, no matter where I live.
    
    And of course I am “grateful” to be able to live and work here. That doesn’t mean I have to buy into their customs – many of which are in reality palangi customs from the 1860’s. Whatever is the opposite of “turning in one’s grave”, the missionaries must be doing it here.
    
    Do you think young women should have their bed linen examined for blood on the morning after their wedding night? What about my ex wife going hungry as a child so her Mum wouldn’t be shamed as the person giving least to the church the following Sunday? Is it OK for the Minister to be in bed with his concubine at 4am so long as he’s preaching fire and brimstone from the pulpit an hour later? And on and on.
    
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    August 31, 2025 10:14am
    - David Garrett
      
      Gosh…seven people – thus far – believe in 1860’s fire and brimstone religion.
      
      As for Scott’s naivete about the “Christian country”, I well remember one of my well educated Tongan clients telling me, back in the day: “David, there are many religious people in Tonga, but not many Christians”. As true today as it was 25 years ago.
      
      I think our sometime commenter Nukuleka might just agree with that sentiment.
      
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      August 31, 2025 11:21am
      - Don Beckett
        
        That’s not my experience with Tongan people I have met.
        
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        August 31, 2025 1:22pm
    - Scott
      
      [Mod – give the weekly preaching to David a break]
      
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      August 31, 2025 11:30am
      - AitchW
        
        A tick for the mod, not the sanctimonious lecture.
        
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        August 31, 2025 1:59pm
    - cmm
      
      No doubt many a young bride takes a pin with her to her wedding bed.
      
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      August 31, 2025 1:58pm
hookerphil

Good morning from South Canterbury to the sound of rain on this last day of winter. A winter so bad have had only 5ml of rain this month and 17.5 m in the month before.
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August 31, 2025 8:18am
- MCōs
  
  Timaru is one of the driest places in NZ
  
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  August 31, 2025 10:06am
- NZer In Exile
  
  Much water falling elsewhere in the Sth Island? Could some water from the wet areas be donated/shipped/piped to the more dry areas?
  
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  August 31, 2025 5:56pm
Cassandra

Engineers John Raine and Bryan Leyland argue that, on the basis that CO2 has been unduly demonised, a more nuanced approach for New Zealand is needed where Net Zero is abandoned, our electricity generation system includes medium-term gas-fired (or coal if gas is unavailable) and small nuclear plants to ensure base load capacity, and our future transport needs are met with a mix of fossil fuel and electrical energy as appropriate.

They also say that a parliamentary cross-party accord is urgently needed. Without a unified policy NZ is doomed to high electricity prices, shortages and blackouts.

The problem is that asking the Labour Party to agree to this is a bit like asking the Pope to say that there’s no Heaven. Blind belief overwhelms reason. Although in Labour’s case there’s a tiny element of politics too – the Green vote would skyrocket if it abandons the Captain’s Call.

Voters need to make it clear to our politicians that they are welcome to shoot themselves in the foot but when it comes to maintaining an adequate standard of living for the rest of us then common sense triumphs over flawed ideology.
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August 31, 2025 8:33am
- R
  
  ‘common sense triumphs’……….NOT in NZ it doesn’t. Marxist ideology is paramount in many minds.
  
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  August 31, 2025 9:13am
- Colville
  
  Probably the biggest threat we have short term is losing gas to heat water. So much domestic water is used at peak times (before work and after dinner) and very few modern houses have storage cylinders or place to put a 180 litre cylinder so all use gas califont instantaneous systems.
  We will end up importing LNG from Oz and feeding the gas trunk line. The cost will be brutal.
  Industry who rely on bulk hot water has alternative options to some extent with solid fuel options but it’s a massive step backwards in ease and cost.
  The idea of Watties or any hospital running their hot water system on electricity is laughable.
  
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  August 31, 2025 9:15am
  - David Garrett
    
    Colville: Do Watties still have a factory in NZ these days? The huge one in my home town – Gisborne – was closed down many years ago.
    
    As for gas…in addition to Australia, I guess we also have the option of “town gas” made from coal. That was the gas source for every decent sized town in NZ prior to Kapuni being discovered in 1959, and Maui a decade later.
    
    What is certain is that the NZ natural gas industry is dead as a dodo. Hipkins has ensured that by declaring that he will reverse the present governments reversal of the Captain’s call. Not that that would have prompted any interest from overseas explorers.
    
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    August 31, 2025 10:08am
    - pdm
      
      Watties are still a big outfit and employer in Central Hastings. They take up a whole block along the railway line from St Aubyn Street to Frederick St and flanked by the Railway and Nelson Street.
      
      I think they also have a couple of other smaller blocks around town.
      
      Now owned by Heinz and known as Heinz Wattie.
      
      We live in about 100/150 yards from our nearest point of the main factory. Very quiet operators no noise problems whatsoever.
      
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      August 31, 2025 10:15am
      - David Garrett
        
        pdm: Do you happen to know why they shut their Gisborne operation down? I suspect it was distance from markets and an unreliable rail link?
        
        Watties peaches are still the best! You can’t get them up here, so every time I return from NZ there are 10 cans of them in my suitcase.
        
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        August 31, 2025 10:22am
      - pdm
        
        DG no idea re Watties Gisborne Factory.
        
        I wonder if they sold to Cedenco?
        
        Maggy W may know.
        
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        August 31, 2025 11:27am
      - wsk12345
        
        I would guess they couldnt get staff. Low cost of living in such a nice climate = why work when the taxpayer will pay you to sit on your arse?
        
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        August 31, 2025 11:46am
      - AitchW
        
        Wsk and quite possibly drug testing too…..
        
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        August 31, 2025 2:00pm
      - gravedodger
        
        I understand there is a marked reduction in all hort plantings in Hawkes Bay this year, golden queen peaches unable to be contracted?
        
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        August 31, 2025 2:07pm
    - Colville
      
      DG.
      I know we have different views on the future of gas supply here but I remain confident it will happen one day.
      The reason is simple and as old as time. Money.
      When voters are hurting enough they will vote for change.
      
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      August 31, 2025 10:28am
      - David Garrett
        
        Colville: I think you may be right – eventually. But I would bet money on there being no oil and gas exploration in NZ during my lifetime – and I plan to be around for a while yet.
        
        Do you really think a foreign explorer would return here knowing that Hipkins – or his successor – will shut down the industry again as soon as they return to power? And their return to power is inevitable.
        
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        August 31, 2025 11:17am
      - Colville
        
        DG
        When people are forced to spend $20k additional on a house to get a hot water cylinder it will happen.
        And if you think that’s a joke… 2 sq meters of additional building times two which is two hot water cupboards is $20k without the additional plumbing costs.
        There is a reason they don’t have hw cupboards any more.
        
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        August 31, 2025 2:53pm
- Simon Arnold
  
  We’ve got a long way to go with geothermal for base load before nuclear comes into the frame. I should add a bit more system-scale storage wouldn’t go amiss eg low cost pumped hydro (not Onslow).
  
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  August 31, 2025 9:29am
  - cmm
    
    Yup we can easily develop another 1000 to 2000MW of geothermal. Geothermal is cheap to build and operate and, better yet, requires no fuel and is fully dispatchable.
    It makes no sense to develop nukes or more gas or coal generation until we’ve opened up more geothermal.
    
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    August 31, 2025 9:48am
    - CJames
      
      The published prices for both Ngawha and Ngatamariki station extensions were about $5/MW. That means to replace just one of the Huntly units would be $2.5B. Closer to $3.5B if it is one of your mythical new fields. Which of the gentailers has that type of money around for a capital spend?
      Geothermal isn’t fully dispatchable. It is fantastic base load generation but very hard to load follow meeting dispatch changes.
      
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      August 31, 2025 12:27pm
      - Paulus
        
        What abouit Koha – has this been factored ?
        
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        August 31, 2025 2:07pm
  - Ian Boag
    
    Interesting. If this stuff is just waiting to be tapped, where is it and why has it not been tapped?
    
    Please don’t get started about the potential wonders of supercritical geothermal. It’s a bit like fusion power – for the last umpty years it has been just a few years. Generators all around the world have been working on it for years with not a lot to show for it. The problems are well understood – it’s real hot and real acidic and real high pressure down the bottom of the hole. Not really close to solution.
    
    Our hydro system is basically run-of-the-river with not a lot of storage. If there was any useful amount of relatively cheap pumped hydro it would have been taken up long ago. Pumped hydro has another problem related to how much is paid for the pumping power – commonsense says that wind power in the middle of the night should be essentially free but that’s not how the NZ system works.
    
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    August 31, 2025 10:09am
    - Spam
      
      I believe that a couple of operators had some expensive drilling failures. This is something that the oil & gas industry could help them with improving.
      
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      August 31, 2025 10:18am
      - David Garrett
        
        Spam: The techniques for drilling a geothermal well are essentially exactly the same as for drilling an oil well. Well control might require different techniques; I don’t know enough about geo-thermal to comment sensibly.
        
        “Expensive drilling failures” can occur whenever man is trying to drill a hole a couple of miles into the earth – whether the target is gas and oil or steam.
        
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        August 31, 2025 10:56am
      - Jack5
        
        Further to Ian Boag’s comment on pumped hydro …
        
        We’re short of water for power generational already, so where is the water going to come from in the years that it will take to build up a big pump-storage reserve?
        
        Contact Energy is already talking of buggering Lake Hawea in what seems a desperate scheme for more water storage for Contact’s dams on the Clutha River.
        
        Michael Laws in his video on Friday exposed the Contact plan for Hawea:
        
        https://youtu.be/ECHna4jEebQ?si=U-8UTGJwbgAjG4Jv
        
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        August 31, 2025 12:17pm
      - CJames
        
        Michael got a fair bit wrong in his rant on Friday. I was looking at sending a correction to him but there was nowhere to respond.
        
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        August 31, 2025 12:29pm
    - David Garrett
      
      Ian B: it’s real hot and real acidic and real high pressure
      
      What part of the US are you from?
      
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      August 31, 2025 10:25am
      - Ian Boag
        
        DG – would “really hot” etc be more acceptable ? 🙂
        
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        August 31, 2025 12:37pm
      - David Garrett
        
        Ian: You’ve got it! When i have nothing else to do i sometimes watch American cop shows. Their grammar is most amusing:
        
        “Get of the car slowly real quick”…said without any awareness of that statement being an oxymoron. That said, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be correcting a man with a high school education who is also carrying a Glock!
        
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        August 31, 2025 12:57pm
    - David George
      
      The geothermal field at Ngawha (near Kaikohe in Northland) was initially explored about 45 years ago. They reckoned it was good for over 500 megawatts output. The high mineral content made it unusable until Israeli company Ormat developed their closed system heat exchanger technology. https://ngawhageneration.co.nz/tell-me-about/how-it-works
      It has now been partially developed and generates enough for all of upper Northlands power needs.
      
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      August 31, 2025 10:49am
      - CJames
        
        It is significantly less than 100MW and even then, there are field operational problems as it may be oversized.
        https://ngawhageneration.co.nz/tell-me-about/ng%C4%81wh%C4%81-generation/who-we-are
        
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        August 31, 2025 11:21am
      - David George
        
        That link doesn’t say that “it may be oversized” but that the field is being closely monitored. The initial (1980?) estimate was that Ngawha had a production capacity in excess of 500 MW, the current 82MW is to be expanded by another 32 MW and that has already been consented subject to assessment.
        
        Excerpt: “The Ngāwhā geothermal field is the only high temperature geothermal resource in New Zealand, outside the Taupo Volcanic Zone.
        
        The geothermal field is understood to be between 20 and 40 square kilometres in area and is characterised by porous layers of rock beginning at about 600 metres below the surface which are saturated with water and heated from below.
        
        The reservoir is sealed above by layers of solid caprock, which is a harder or more resistant rock type overlying a weaker or less resistant rock type. The caprock allows considerable pressure and temperature to develop as the water is heated up to 230°C in the centre of the field.”
        
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        August 31, 2025 1:01pm
      - CJames
        
        David, I think you better tell Top Energy of their mistake as they say the combined output of the existing plant is 25MW and they added 32MW. Read the link I posted from them
        A lot of geothermal fields were sized MW thermal not MWe. Big difference
        
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        August 31, 2025 1:20pm
    - CJames
      
      Ian
      I agree with you 100%.
      To answer Spam – O&G have no experience drilling hot volcanics. The technology had diverged
      
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      August 31, 2025 10:55am
      - David Garrett
        
        CJ: See my comment above. What different techniques are used to control geo-thermal steam, as opposed to oil and gas? I am genuinely interested.
        
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        August 31, 2025 10:58am
      - CJames
        
        David
        I am trying to do a dump of what I remember from the tales of woe in the daily reports so a bit disjointed.
        The bits have to be a significantly different design. Why they used roller bits so long as drag bits had a very short life. Still had to run the manets a lot to recover disintegrations. They are now into carbides and PCDs.
        The temperatures give downhole motors a hard life especially if you lose circulation and everything heats up near instantly. Massive BoPs because of large casing sizes 13 3/8″ common as main casing.
        More problems getting circulation returns with the wells having to be kept from self-discharging. Casing cementing more tricky. A lot of not even lightweight returns so backflushing the annulus. Casing collapse on heating up not uncommon
        
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        August 31, 2025 11:17am
      - David Garrett
        
        CJ: Thanks for that…you are obviously very knowledgeable on geothermal … but I’m not sure that casing size is relevant. On the platform i spent most of my time in the North Sea 13″ 3/8 casing was the intermediate casing string. We began with 18″5/8 casing inside a 30 inch conductor.
        I visited a mate who was a mud engineer on a geothermal well being drilled near Taupo some years ago.
        
        They were using foam rather than drilling mud. How do you control pressure in a well using foam?
        
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        August 31, 2025 12:33pm
      - CJames
        
        David.
        The casing strings run from the surface – some wells have up to seven strings. Only the slotted liner terminates downhole.
        Most geothermal fields, especially those that are exploited, are underpressured with regards a hydrostatic head. Hot water is less dense than cold and the fields have had drawdown.. That means if you want to get chips back to the surface, you need higher pressures otherwise drilling debris goes out in formation blocking permeability (geothermal wells are invariably slotted liner from casing shoe to TD so may have 2km of open hole). By using foam, you can lift the chips with something that makes wellbore pressure a lot closer to formation pressure. getting the balance right is critical but sometimes they drill underbalanced with the discharge blowing formation out. Getting measurements while drilling isn’t easy because of temperatures.
        Why the BoPs need to have materials that handle the heat and they have cooling towers for the mud. Generally mud is used for drilling down to casing shoe but they switch to water if they have big losses.
        Drilling isn’t my area so only have engineers’ understanding than deep technical knowledge.
        
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        August 31, 2025 1:08pm
    - Simon Arnold
      
      Ian Boag if you look at https://www.nzgeothermal.org.nz/geothermal-in-nz/what-is-geothermal/ ‘electricity generation’ you will see around 200 MW-e capacity being planned for the rest of this decade, or around 20% growth.
      
      I think you misunderstand what the supercritical resource is. This doesn’t refer to things like magma, it is water in its supercritical state >374C >22 MPa which is relatively benign. I can sell you an industrial plant that creates those kinds of conditions to make biocrude out of organic wastes https://circlianordic.com/. Magma is typical 2-3X as extreme temp. The challanges lies in finding these reserves of supercritical water and accessing them.
      
      [https://www.openstar.tech/ would have a different view on fusion – talking next decade]
      
      For pumped hydro try https://www.mbie.govt.nz/dmsdocument/28349-identifying-potential-sites-for-large-scale-pumped-hydroelectric-energy-storage-phes-in-new-zealand-september-2021
      
      The thing about storage is there are various different requirements for a stable electricity system and hydro does perform an important role, and pumped storage can enhance that, but I’ve gone on too long. Another day.
      
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      August 31, 2025 1:00pm
      - CJames
        
        No Simon, because the fluid has heavy salt loadings, superciticality is greater than 400°. You can’t use pure water physical properties. It also has very high levels of chemicals dissolved in it that are not good – arsenic, mercury, antimony and like. It even dissolves gold so what can contain it?
        The fluid that has been accidentally drilled into has been very low pH and the wells have discharged hydrogen chloride gas so it is not even relatively benign.
        Magma is not that hard to deal with relative to that fluid, at least on a batch process. Look at conditions in a steel ladle
        
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        August 31, 2025 1:16pm
      - Simon Arnold
        
        Dissolved minerals will impact on these but not significantly. It’s where to drill to find the stuff in NZ, how best to extract, and how to handle.
        
        Work todate is primarily based on modelling, but it looks reasonably bullish https://www.geothermalnextgeneration.com/knowledge
        
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        August 31, 2025 3:27pm
      - CJames
        
        Simon
        There is nothing in your link about what materials can be used to replace steel for drilling wells and containing the fluids. Talking to a driller who had some involvement, they were talking of ceramic casings. Only problem was they can’t make it. Sound familiar?
        There are wells in the Philippines and Iceland that discharged similar fluids for a short while before they got emergency abandonments. They gave very scary moments for the drillers as components dissolved and failed.
        
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        August 31, 2025 4:06pm
      - Simon Arnold
        
        CJames try https://pangea.stanford.edu/ERE/db/GeoConf/papers/SGW/2022/Sugama.pdf
        The thing about Iceland and Phillipines as comparitors is our geology is different and the suprrcritical conditions are closer to the surface and more distant from the magma.
        There does seem to be an issue with getting the fluids to the surface before they leave the supercritical state and start precipiting out the minerals etc and blocking the well 🙂
        
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        August 31, 2025 4:38pm
      - CJames
        
        Really Simon? You need to stop reading puff piece papers and step into the real world. Having a cement that might work is a long way from having a well. What are you going to case it with? How will it cope with the thermal stresses?
        You know nothing about the deeper fluid under the NZ fields and neither do the modellers. And even if they did, there are no materials that can handle the stuff they speculate is there. That is the reality.
        Pinning NZs energy future on something we haven’t discovered, let alone safely brought to the surface is only one step up from powering it on unicorn farts
        
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        August 31, 2025 5:23pm
      - CJames
        
        Simon
        It would also help if you actually read and understood the papers you posted links to. Google is not a substitute for knowledge.
        What was the geothermal fluid they tested the cement in? Oh, that’s right they didn’t.
        
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        August 31, 2025 5:30pm
      - Simon Arnold
        
        CJames, not that use to doing mission oriented applied directed research then?
        
        And do me the courtesy of reading what I write before being rude about me “Work todate is primarily based on modelling, … “
        
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        August 31, 2025 6:37pm
    - cmm
      
      Pumped hydro is inefficient. The double handling of pumping then regeneration is only about 75% efficient. Much better to use the power directly.
      Since we have hydro running all the time, it makes far more sense to just throttle back on hydro generation.
      
      Pump storage makes a lot of sense in many areas, but makes zero sense in NZ.
      
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      August 31, 2025 2:03pm
      - Simon Arnold
        
        As I noted there are various reasons why storage is needed in an electricity system. As battery storage goes 75-80% round trip efficency isn’t bad, and it gives a place for the water to go from a generation plant if it would otherwise be spilled.
        
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        August 31, 2025 4:17pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        Pumped hydro is inefficient
        
        Of course – it just means that tonight you can bank some water for tomorrow’s peak. 75% using “spare” power to pump the stuff up – eg wind in the middle of the night – makes some sense. There’s enough pumped hydro in the world to wonder if everyone is wrong ….
        
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        August 31, 2025 6:45pm
      - Simon Arnold
        
        Actually Ian the general reason for why we aren’t doing stuff yet is because there are still cheaper ways to solve the problem. Cometh the time.
        
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        August 31, 2025 7:00pm
    - NZer In Exile
      
      Boag “Please don’t get started about the potential wonders of supercritical geothermal.”
      
      Is this like the (again, failed) “too easy” “hot rocks” technology touted by the likes of Aus climate commission genius and (failed ) climate fortune teller Tim Flannery? Or are you talking about proven and existing geothermal generation currently used in NZ?
      
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      August 31, 2025 6:01pm
- Simon
  
  Since man made climate fraud has become more widely known in the general population the more the people in power have become fanatical about it.
  
  Man made climate change was supposed to bring great harm to the world around 10 or 20 yrs ago. It hasnt of course happened. As a way of compensation the political class seek to harm living standards instead. Look at the weirdos now going on about the fraud. Do they know how crazy they are?
  
  The power grid will never be secure while the climate nuts are in charge. It would be like asking Kim Jong Un to open up the N Korea borders. Its the same deal.
  
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  August 31, 2025 9:35am
- Handyman
  
  Logically, the price of domestic gas should track up to the cost of imported LPG, leaving local gas for industrial users eg methanex and urea plants.
  
  Gas math for my house:
  $700 per year for connection fee.
  $70 per year for cooktop. (per Consumer mag)
  $300 per year for space heating.
  (I have electric water heating and an additional electric hear pump.)
  
  Bottled (imported) LPG would be 2.5 – 3 times the cost of piped so $1,100.
  For me it won’t cost any more to move to imported bottled LPG.
  Save my gas allocation to make electricity.
  
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  August 31, 2025 12:15pm
  - Jack5
    
    Why does New Zealand ignore the potential of its coal-seam gas? We have plenty, as the Pike River disaster demonstrated so dramatically.
    
    Queensland is doing so well from CSG that it’s converting some into LPG for exports.
    
    So NZ, ignoring its own CSG potential may end up buying CSG from Queensland.
    
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    August 31, 2025 12:37pm
    - NZer In Exile
      
      Because in NZ there is a critical mass of climate alarmists so anything coal is “of the devil”?
      
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      August 31, 2025 7:14pm
Gravelroad

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360803136/dry-bland-tasteless-nearly-10-free-school-lunches-returned-and-thrown-away
Internal polling not going so well at Labour/Green Party HQ?
So let’s manufacture a new school lunch beat-up.
Jeez, how terrible, nearly 10% of food chucked out – same as just about every other food outlet whether at home, work, cafe, restaurant or the supermarket.
Here’s an idea: how about air freighting all the school lunches to feed the starving children in Gaza?
Or not good enough for them either?
This feee school lunch idea has run its course. It is just anti government activism now.
Our kids are being manipulated politically – same as kids in Gaza.
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August 31, 2025 8:34am
- 2ic
  
  The “nearly 10% of free school lunches returned and thrown away” headline is just a negative spin on over 90% consumed, which sounds like an outstanding success to me.
  
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  August 31, 2025 8:52am
  - David Garrett
    
    2i: Remind me – good parents CAN opt out of this communist initiative and make their own lunches for their kids can’t they?
    
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    August 31, 2025 9:05am
    - wairarapapaul
      
      That’s probably where the 10% comes from. Kids bringing their own food to school.
      
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      August 31, 2025 9:21am
    - Nikola Donatello
      
      You beat me to it. I think the answer is yes, but I suspect that it is now discouraged in some schools. Children like to fit in. So if their mates have the provided lunches, they will want that too.
      
      New Zealand operated happily for generations on a combination of children bringing their lunches and buying their lunches from school based services run by mums and volunteers selling pies, sandwiches, and fruit.
      
      Now we have this mess.
      
      The rationale I hear is that many parents are either too poor or too dysfunctional to provide their children with a packed lunch. So the state needs to come to the rescue. Of course the reverse could apply. Parents know that the state will provide their children with a free lunch so they can spend that money on something else.
      
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      August 31, 2025 9:21am
    - cmm
      
      I heard bringing your own is allowed, but highly discouraged.
      
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      August 31, 2025 9:51am
      - David Garrett
        
        cmm: Well if my kids were still at school they wouldn’t be on the list for receiving charity lunches.
        
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        August 31, 2025 10:27am
      - MCōs
        
        You probably wouldn’t have sent your kids to a low decile school in the first place
        When I went to school mother found out I was partial to cheese and marmite sandwiches with fish & chips on Friday. We also had free socialist milk specially warmed up in the Timaru sun.
        I went to boarding school for a few years and coincidentally lost a lot of weight. Sometimes the mashed potatoes was so thin you could read a newspaper though the stuff. Occasionally we were served curried hard boiled eggs that nobody ate. I think they must have put it in the freezer because a week we’d get it again.
        We ate huge piles of bread!
        Good old St Bedes
        
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        August 31, 2025 11:03am
    - 2ic
      
      @David Garrett
      It’s extraordinary reading through the article – schools admitting they ordered enough meals to cover their entire roll without even gauging interest! The don’t even seem to realise how stupid this makes them look:
      
      “At the start of the year, Palfrey’s school was receiving 279 lunches a day to cover the entire roll, but returning anywhere between 190 and 220. After surveying students and whānau, the school reduced its order to 127 lunches.”
      
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      August 31, 2025 10:08am
      - Paulus
        
        But surely enough are ordered so the Teachers do not go hungry, with enougn to take home for tea, and for whanau !
        
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        August 31, 2025 10:41am
      - I remember when
        
        2ic:
        Indicative of their ability to control expenses in other areas?
        
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        August 31, 2025 12:00pm
    - R
      
      Good parents DO provide their children lunches. The problem is that schools discourage such, some actively; due to the ‘feelz’ nonsense which is endemic in our society.
      
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      August 31, 2025 10:37am
- MCōs
  
  Your throwaway line about kids in Gaza would indicate you, like me have never known real hunger.
  My father was captured by the Germanys in Greece in wwii along with a lot of other Kiwis. They were sent by train across Europe and eventually arrived in Austria and he told me he’d never been so hungry in his life.
  One day we were watching a kids lolly scramble. He said he hated them because it reminded him of his mates fighting over scraps of food on that journey
  I’m reminded of that when I see clips of people in Gaza fighting over aerial aid drops or the few trucks with aid.
  
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  August 31, 2025 9:08am
  - Colville
    
    MCos.
    The only tool the Germans had that worked to stop prisoners of war from escaping was near starvation. Keep them so hungry they stayed in bed. The Italian POW camps were like hotels in comparison.
    
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    August 31, 2025 9:20am
    - otago-man
      
      Not true Colville, my father was in Campo PG57 in Grippignano, Italy a camp run by the sadist Vittorio Calcaterra, later he was taken to Stalag 18a in Austria where he fared much better but still poorly, please read the Australians account of Campo PG57 https://www.awm.gov.au/visit/exhibitions/stolenyears/ww2/italy/story2
      
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      August 31, 2025 10:42am
      - Tom Hunter
        
        Interesting. My Dad was at PG52 near Chiavari in 1941/42 before getting shipped north to another Italian POW camp, and ultimately to Germany.
        
        PG52 seems to have been about as pleasant as a POW camp can get. In fact the only reason that the camp’s records survived the war is due to the Commandant hiding them when Italy collapsed and the Germans turned up to take over.
        
        I read of one Aussie (???) POW, visiting in the 2000’s who discovered the old fellow was still alive, being invited to dinner by his two sons when he visited the place, and being shown the records. When the old guy died a few years later they were donated to the museum at the local Italian military base.
        
        I’d had a trip to Italy planned for a year before I realised that in our drive up what is now called “The Italian Riveria”, we’d be passing right through Chiavari on our way to Portofino, and I decided that there was no way in hell I wasn’t going to stop there and find Dad’s records.
        
        Anyway, won’t cut and paste the rest of the story, but you can read it here in a post I did when I got back home, The Strangeness of History
        
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        August 31, 2025 2:17pm
      - Tom Hunter
        
        Heh. Just re-read my old post and discovered that in December 1942 Dad was shifted to…..PG57. I know he escaped at least once from that, by hiding in the empty tank of a water truck??!!!
        
        Can’t recall him saying anything bad about it but he didn’t try and escape from PG52 so…. 🙂
        
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        August 31, 2025 5:56pm
    - MCōs
      
      When the Jews arrived at the concentration camps the (same) Germans took all their clothes and shaved their heads to discourage them from running away.
      Most of the surrounding population loathed them as much as anyone so they obviously couldn’t blend in.
      
      When I was young there were all these books and stories about allied POWs who had escaped during wwii. I asked Dad why he didn’t try and escape. He was on a farm most of the time. He said there was no point; there was nowhere to go. They couldn’t speak much German and they had NZ Army clothes.
      One day some guys appeared down the road who’d done a runner from the farm next door so they put them up for the night. Next day they were rounded up and taken away.
      About twenty years later Dad went back to one of the farms where he was a prisoner and they welcomed him like a long lost son . . .
      
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      August 31, 2025 11:26am
  - Eastlander
    
    Perhaps would-be ‘decolonisers’ in New Zealand should think about that and realise how much they have to lose. Bloody-handed Gazans meanwhile, may look for sympathy elsewhere.
    
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    August 31, 2025 9:24am
  - David Garrett
    
    MCos: I hope your father had a long and happy life post war – he certainly deserved it.
    
    But re those supposedly starving in Gaza …have you noticed two things in those now cliched shots of people waving empty pots and pans? Firstly all the vessels are large – but I guess that makes sense if the fittest member of a family is sent to get food for the rest.
    
    But secondly, all the said pots and pans look new! Or at least “hospital clean”. I wonder how they manage that, when water supplies must be very unreliable, and drinking it would presumably take precedence over using it to wash pots and pans. Could it be that those pots and pans are props? Surely not.
    
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    August 31, 2025 9:29am
    - R
      
      Naughty, naughty David, you will start people questioning the integrity of MSM reporting, and worse still, people may start thinking for themselves
      
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      August 31, 2025 10:42am
    - Wandering Star
      
      Are you saying that it’s possible to fake, overplay, or deliberately distort using the mass media a humanitarian crisis and ethnic cleansing for political reasons and to elicit sympathy?
      
      [Mod – just give it a rest, you’ve carried your beef with David over on every account. Give it up or you won’t be here much longer]
      
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      August 31, 2025 10:42am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    My Dad spent 4 years in a POW camp in what is now Poland. He said one of the first survival lessons his group of prisoners learnt was to allocate just one man to be the Hut cook… or the food dispenser.
    
    Yes, that one chap might get a crust of bread extra, but he dished out everything else evenly.
    
    If it was a situation where each man was for himself, then some would grab more and one or two would miss out.
    
    I can’t understand why some leading folk haven’t come to the fore at each food hand-out at Gaza to organise the hungry folks into queues or a system that ensures even the weakest members get a food portion.
    
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    August 31, 2025 9:48am
    - mogg
      
      Have you read ‘A Woman In Berlin’ Very interesting insight into how German women survived during and after the Russian takeover.
      
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      August 31, 2025 10:59am
    - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
      
      Because they are not white Europeans from a northern High-Trust culture.
      
      Muslim Arabs come from one of the lowest trust cultures on the planet (second only to most African cultures).
      
      The idea of pulling together and sharing is totally alien to them. Bugger the hindmost, the biggest and best armed always take the bulk of whatever resource is available.
      
      This is the “diversity” that we have been welcoming into our society for the last 40 years.
      
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      August 31, 2025 11:08am
    - Sparrow
      
      Maggie Your story reminds me of a very tough German businessman I met in Australia many years ago. After a few drinks he regaled us with stories about his time in a Russian prisoner of war camp. He was asked how he had survived. His job was to ladel out the food to the other prisoners. What was left in the large bowl was his meal. Every night he would take the ladel back to his barracks and shave it down with a piece of wood. So there was a little more left in the bowl for him each day. That’s how he survived tough bastard no concern for the others. He was like this in business took no prisoners.
      
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      August 31, 2025 12:05pm
- Spam
  
  Wow. Our girls make their own lunch, and often throw ~10% (or more) of what they chose out. An apple that is a bit floury, the crusts of a sandwich, a cracker that is a bit stale.
  
  I didn’t realize it was really David Seymour’s fault!
  
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  August 31, 2025 9:18am
- imalwaysright
  
  They should reduce the number of lunches supplied by 20% and create a perception of value.
  
  They should also reduce the size of the lunches to discourage waste.
  
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  August 31, 2025 9:40am
  - Gravelroad
    
    I genuinely would rather see the school lunches (or something similar) sent to the children of Gaza.
    The free lunches here are evidently not valued by the recipients and the whole concept has been politicised to an extent that the programme has lost purpose, relevance and integrity.
    That the media here chose to run the “nearly 10%” ridiculous story (as above) is an indication that the school lunch programme has more to do with party politics than anything else.
    
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    August 31, 2025 10:18am
    - AitchW
      
      You may as well send cash to Hamas. They steal most of the food aid sent into Gaza to sell to the “starving” families.
      
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      August 31, 2025 11:20am
- KiWombat
  
  Over 50 years ago I used to bring home about 10% of the food in my lunchbox, same with my own child – and now grandchildren.
  
  They always seem to reject crumbed cutlets now, and aren’t too keen on pottles of yoghurt – really very little change since WWII !
  
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  August 31, 2025 10:23am
cas

I got the book The Unlikely Doctor out of the library and thought it might be interesting to read how a guy changed his life after time in gangs and in prison. I didn’t get far into it when I came across a para which said mutton birds were very salty and very oily but delicacies and then ‘It’s nly since the introduction of capitalistic food production that people of Aotearoa New Zealand, and my people in particular, have suffered hypertension, type 2 diabetes and renal failure’. No mention of personal responsibility.

So I just flicked through a few pages and yes he campaigned for the Maori Party and was an activist back in the day. So I suspect the book is tinged with government bad, Maori disadvantaged stuff. No matter, I have other books to read on this wet Sunday.
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August 31, 2025 8:46am
- Cassandra
  
  Light the fire with it.
  
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  August 31, 2025 10:29am
- Swifty
  
  “…. and my people in particular, have suffered hypertension, type 2 diabetes and renal failure.”
  
  And also living twice as long and lifestyles pre-contact Maori could not have even dreamed of.
  
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  August 31, 2025 11:45am
- Grumpy Silver Top
  
  As if they lived long enough to feel the effects of hypertension, type 2 diabetes and renal failure!
  Or even had the tiniest inkling of what they were!
  
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  August 31, 2025 12:22pm
Southern Raider

Today I understand is when large pro Australia protests will be conducted in all major Australian cities

However unlike the week long build up to the pro Palestinian bridge work by major Australian news outlets you wouldn’t know as they don’t seem to want to report on it

Once again the media is showing their true radical left leanings in selective journalism, but worse than just reporting for one side they actively promote radical left events to get then attendance up

I hope big crowds come out today, but suspect ANTIFA and Pro Pals will be there to disrupt and cause mayhem
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August 31, 2025 9:32am
- Paulus
  
  Lot’sa Muslims, and supporters, in Australia today ~!
  
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  August 31, 2025 10:44am
- Ghost
  
  Here are some links for you
  
  News.com
  
  7news Live blog
  
  Guardians live coverage
  
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  August 31, 2025 10:47am
  - Southern Raider
    
    Sydney Morning Herald and The Age which are the biggest media in Sydney and Melbourne have nothing
    
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    August 31, 2025 11:03am
    - Ghost
      
      It’s 9am in Sydney, the protests start at 12pm.
      
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      August 31, 2025 11:19am
      - Southern Raider
        
        I realise that. You’re completely missing the point and diverting the topic.
        
        I’m not talking about reporting on what happens once they start, but that they will be happening. The Pro Pal bridge walk was number one in Australian media for the week leading up to the actual event.
        
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        August 31, 2025 12:14pm
      - Ghost
        
        I’ve been reading about it the last few days on Australian news sites.
        
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        August 31, 2025 12:27pm
Maggy Wassilieff

Talking of bells….

The decision by the Ministry for Culture & Heritage to “fire” the Wellington Carillion player seems gob-smackingly nuts.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/top/571418/govt-spends-10m-to-fix-national-war-memorial-bells-fires-only-person-who-can-play

I don’t ever recall any Wellingtonian objecting to the bells as they could often be heard during the week.
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August 31, 2025 9:36am
- imalwaysright
  
  The bell ringer seemed to lead the builders and engineers through the method of renovation.
  
  They should have made him project manager, I get the impression he could probably do the job for far less than $10M, which seems to be the default minimum cost of even the most basic of public works.
  
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  August 31, 2025 9:51am
- Prince
  
  Here’s a few more ministerial bureaucrats we can sack and get a better service.
  
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  August 31, 2025 10:03am
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  I used to hear them when I was at school, and always regarded the sound as part of the local colour.
  
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  August 31, 2025 1:21pm
Ghost

A 13yo Melbourne boy sparked widespread anger when he escaped a murder conviction because of his age. He is now accused of a sickening new act

Article

44 prior charge and he escaped the murder
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August 31, 2025 9:54am
- Swifty
  
  Failed multiculturalism.
  
  African violence in Melbourne has reached epidemic levels. This is just the latest case.
  
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  August 31, 2025 11:09am
  - David Garrett
    
    Swifty: Yes…and coming soon to a town or city near you, as we let more and more people whose culture is entirely incompatible with ours into the country
    
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    August 31, 2025 1:30pm
  - NZer In Exile
    
    It’s a variety of lowlife sub-cultures cheered on or ignored by the far left who have infested nearly all institutions.
    The lefties in Melbourne (Melbourne is a mecca for hard left idiots) generally are in hard denial that it’s an issue.
    
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    August 31, 2025 6:08pm
cmm

Does anyone know if the United Tribes ruffians camping illegally in Sumner have moved on?
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August 31, 2025 9:56am
- imalwaysright
  
  Mallard will be back soon.
  
  If Luxon is looking for a job for him, Trevor is certainly qualified…
  
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  August 31, 2025 11:00am
  - JackRabbit
    
    In a just world that job would be Grounds Keeper at Parliament, and maintaining the flowers on the graves of those that died from the vaccines. All on minimum wage, for 3 years.
    
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    August 31, 2025 12:31pm
- Max Mansplain
  
  I was wondering who they were and what the flag was. They did move on from the car park by the lifesaving club on Friday.
  
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  August 31, 2025 11:58am
Quail

From August 29 Northland Regional Council.
Land use infringement notices under the RMA will become more costly from 4 September.
Previous fines that ranged from $ 300 to $ 1000 now range from $ 600 to $ 4000.
These apply to mostly to Rural residents.

The reason given for the increases is “ Central Government has significantly increased the penalties involved”

So this is the long promised RMA reforms for rural NZ.?
Rural NZ has largely been bought to its knees by ever increasing Council plan regulation .
They have voted for generations for much promised reform .
This is what they get from this Government
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August 31, 2025 10:23am
- Ghost
  
  The next phase, which is passed next year is the full replacement of the RMA. They just passed the latest changes. Resource Management (Consenting and Other System Changes) Amendment Act 2025
  
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  August 31, 2025 11:03am
  - Quail
    
    Ghost,
    So nothing pre-election , but all will be good post election?
    National stretching their credibility yet again.
    They have been promising something similar for decades and many elections past .
    There is now much cynicism about any delivery, and certainly no actual relief , just more regulation and costs. See my previous post!
    
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    August 31, 2025 1:52pm
    - Ghost
      
      So far they have passed two large changes
      
      Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Act 2024
      Resource Management (Consenting and Other System Changes) Amendment Act 2025
      
      The last phase will be introduced this year and passed next year after going through the select committees, will be passed before the election.
      
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      August 31, 2025 3:31pm
      - Quail
        
        Yes Ghost, but :
        Mr Luxon is on record this term saying the Coalition Government are not going to address anything except the Built environment in the RMA.
        The promise for Natural environment legislation action was no change.
        (Even that is incorrect with the huge increases in fines for those who may err in an environmental sense.)
        If National are serious about improving productivity they must free up the regulation that is choking use of natural environment by those who bought it , own it and pay rates on it.
        Luxon has said they won’t!
        
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        August 31, 2025 4:39pm
      - Ghost
        
        Farmers are happy with what is being done
        
        https://www.ruralnewsgroup.co.nz/dairy-news/dairy-general-news/farmers-hail-changes-rma https://fedfarm.org.nz/FFPublic/FFPublic/Media-Releases/2025/Property-rights-returning-to-farmers.aspx
        
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        August 31, 2025 4:52pm
    - Quail
      
      To respond to the comment below by Ghost that “farmers are happy with what is being done”,
      This is absolutely not correct.
      The fact is that the huge decline in the numbers relating, in particular, to pastoral farming and farmers , plus productivity actually tells the true story.
      Oh and a quick glance at the exchange rate and its direction might help you.
      
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      August 31, 2025 7:49pm
- kiwimike
  
  this National, ACT & NZF Government.
  
  there fixed it for you.
  
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  September 1, 2025 7:24am
Fender

There was talk yesterday of ANZ profit being down
The last few times I have flown out of the country, on return we have ended up missing connecting flights domestically and have been put up in hotels with food taxis etc for sometimes more than one day
Considering the lines at the desk and people commenting on the shuttle bus its very common
No wonder there is no profit
They need to get the domestic service operation back to being reliable
Things like a niece leaving keri for aus getting a text at 8pm the night of her early next morning flight to Auckland has been cancelled with no reason means a rushed drive down by family to Auckland
Events like this are just so common in the regions its beyond embarrassing
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August 31, 2025 10:23am
- David Garrett
  
  Fender: For a moment there, I thought you were telling us the ANZ bank wasn’t making a profit!
  
  But re Air NZ, when I last returned to Tonga – or rather attempted to – the flight was turned back about 90 minutes out because they couldn’t be sure of getting the aircraft off the ground before the holy Sunday closed the country down at midnight Saturday. I’m sure the Rev. Scott who lectured me above would approve.
  
  I ended up – along with 37 others -being put up in an airport hotel for three nights . I have no idea how many other passengers were similarly accommodated at other hotels. I have it on reliable authority that the whole debacle cost Air NZ several hundred thousand dollars.
  
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  August 31, 2025 11:06am
imalwaysright

Heard Winston talking to Plunket on the Platform a while ago.
Apparently Mallard is coming back only two months before his term was due to end.
Maybe Trevor didn’t want to do another Irish winter ?
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August 31, 2025 11:04am
- Dougal10
  
  I heard he could have had a 4 year term , but the previous 2 terms had ended at 3 years , so this is where the confusion lies.
  
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  August 31, 2025 4:23pm
Swifty

Tikanga in Parliament:

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/571591/the-house-tikanga-for-parliament

And once again not one single mention of the benefits to the man and woman in the street.

Will we get better lawmaking? More efficient lawmaking? Faster lawmaking? Will our freedoms and liberties be better protected and enhanced? Will our governments be held to higher levels of accountability? Will Parliament cost less to run?

No, none of these basic questions are even asked let alone answered, but still all the folk involved in the RNZ piece thinks more tikanga ‘Is just the right thing to do’.

For whom I wonder?
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August 31, 2025 11:43am
Swifty

Oriini Kaipara puts her massive foot in her massive mouth:

https://x.com/kiwilivesmatter/status/1961921447720571290?s=46

I don’t think she realised she committed the exact same sin she lambasts whitey for.

I’m actually starting to think she’s not very clever.

(And good on Jack Tame.)
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August 31, 2025 11:54am
- Ghost
  
  Meanwhile, going through her head and showing in her face
  
  “Shit, Jack, why you asking me this crap, I thought we were friends”
  
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  August 31, 2025 12:01pm
- Eastlander
  
  So from that we can infer her own blood quantum. Not sure all of her fellow TMP members would make that cut.
  
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  August 31, 2025 12:18pm
- artemisia
  
  Hey it was a joke. Well it is now, but did not look like one originally. Not sure why a completely unrelated pic of hammers in a sack just popped into my mind.
  
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  August 31, 2025 12:46pm
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Hey it was a joke
    
    I don’t think so…
    
    She seemed pretty invested in the notion that she is 100% Maori … even though she knows she has European Forebears.
    
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/13/a-dna-test-showed-im-100-maori-many-thought-there-were-none-of-us-left
    
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    August 31, 2025 1:40pm
- imalwaysright
  
  The Maori race has passed the point of regeneration, there will never be another full blooded Maori.
  
  That should have been the end of the Treaty business as from now on descendants of Maori will progressively be of increasingly settler heritage.
  
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  August 31, 2025 2:50pm
  - Dougal10
    
    Well a lot of the new settlers are tongan and indian so thats going to help mix up the dna
    
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    August 31, 2025 4:28pm
- Hugh Jarse
  
  What is wrong with her, she looked and came across terribly ?
  
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  August 31, 2025 5:59pm
Jack5

Scores of thousands of New Zealanders have read the war novels of Sven Hassel.

The series sold 53 million copies world wide.

New Zealanders were mentioned in the novel about Cassino.

I vaguely recall Hassel’s suggestions New Zealanders were too heavily built to be “truly great” infantry, and that they spent too much time time idle in foxholes behind cover-smoke pots.

Revenge! In an 8min 39sec YouTube video put up today by British historian Mark Felton.

Hassen, real name, Borge Pedersen, was a Danish traitor who did fight in the German Army on the Eastern Front. He was transferred from an armoured unit to a penal battalion.

Eventually on leave, he deserted and ended up back in Denmark in a German auxiliary police unit fighting the Danish Resistance.

After his true identity was revealed as novel sales boomed, Hassel-Pedersen moved to Spain where he died aged 95 in 2012.

The video:

https://youtu.be/-HUjOVhM8PE?si=Ab9mTBLPP–xu0uh
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August 31, 2025 11:58am
- Keith White
  
  I remember reading ‘Blitzfreeze’ as a teen. I thought, that level of ‘cold’ was highly exaggerated.
  
  Then I had an assignment that lasted through 2 Russian winters. Yikes. (And we had power, heating, warm clothes and boots and scarves and chapkas and no-one shooting at us…).
  
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  August 31, 2025 1:07pm
Jack5

NZ-India free trade deal? Really?

A free-trade agreement between NZ and India will be confirmed before the general election next year, says Trade Minister Todd McClay.

A key question is will India open up to dairy imports from NZ — our biggest export product.

The Wall Street Journal in the last week said of trade negotiations with India, clouded by Trump lifting tariff on Indian exports to the US to 50 per cent:

“Agriculture, including dairy, is a major sticking point in U.S.-India trade negotiations. India has an average tariff of 39% on imported farm goods—among the highest in the world. It protects its large but inefficient dairy industry with both high tariffs and nontariff barriers.”

The WSJ says no other major economy’s farmers have as much political clout as they do in India.

India is NZ’s 25th biggest export market, mainly in foresty and agriculture products. World Bank figures in 2023 showed 44 per cent of India’s work force — more than a quarter of a billion people — make their living from agriculture.

India’s the world’s biggest producer of milk with about 240 million tons a year, and the farm herd size still averages about four cows.

The newspaper quotes a Singapore trade economist, Amitendu Palit, as saying that in 2019 India walked out of negotiations to join the 15-nation Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, a free-trade agreement, in part out of fear of being swamped by dairy products from Australia and New Zealand.
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August 31, 2025 12:40pm
Swifty

Power to the Redheads!

https://www.stuff.co.nz/culture/360808240/red-letter-day-redheads-festival-celebrates-their-flaming-locks

😄
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August 31, 2025 1:25pm
- Jack5
  
  Did the festival folk catch up with Russian redheads?
  
  They’re in Udmurtia, where the ratio of red hair is higher than in Ireland or Scotland.
  
  Red-haired folk up for a fight?
  
  Hmm, the capital of Udmurtia is sort of a home of Kalashnikov rifles (second link below):
  
  Russian red-haired folk:
  
  https://youtube.com/shorts/pPW0HfSIF-k?si=bD9oAP_iQJoAgbkB
  
  Home of redheads — and of AK rifles:
  
  https://www.visitmuseums.ru/en/museum-911ca763-f127-40aa-b00a-449e8c6486c0.html
  
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  August 31, 2025 5:12pm
- Tom Hunter
  
  I’d love to go but they’d probably require visual proof and there’s only one way that can happen nowadays. 😆😇
  
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  August 31, 2025 5:41pm
Swifty

Ooopsie!

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/economy/labours-barbara-edmonds-admits-error-as-she-challenges-nicola-willis-to-be-honest-about-reserve-bank-saga/KGZQALMV4RHLHBGNQ23T5R7CPY/

I think Edmonds should be spending more time developing policy rather than taking failed potshots at Willis – I mean with an election just a year away does anyone have a clue what Labour’s policies are?

Or how they will manage the racist, terrorist loving Maori Party or the economic lunatics that are the Greens?
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August 31, 2025 1:40pm
Chuck Bird

Did anyone see The Outsiders on Sky Oz this morning how many killings involved transgender types? It is a lot to take into account, considering the percentage of them in the population.
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August 31, 2025 1:42pm
- NZer In Exile
  
  It’s on YT. If your rig is heavily fortified against big tech tracking and other assorted crapware you may be able to watch it using the site invidious dot io.
  
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  August 31, 2025 7:59pm
Swifty

Henare on crime and gang patches:

https://x.com/suitandtie9999/status/1961940554641781216?s=46

Vacuous, meaningless babble which leaves us none the wiser.

Crime skyrocketed under the last Labour government and were yet to hear one single word of contrition or regret.

Or even a single sign of introspection.

No, just the same old Labour. Tired and out of any ideas except growing the state.
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August 31, 2025 2:21pm
Mod88

IPSOS Quarterly Poll is out – here’s the next Govt.

In total, Labour is seen as most capable on 14 of the top 20 issues, including healthcare, housing, education, and immigration.

The Greens keep on top of climate change and environmental pollution/water concerns, while Te Pāti Māori is still seen most able handling Māori issues
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August 31, 2025 6:10pm
- NZer In Exile
  
  Here’s the link to the report:
  https://www.ipsos.com/en-nz/ipsos-new-zealand-issues-monitor-june-2025
  
  PDF link at bottom right of that page.
  
  According to that PDF:
  
  PARTY MOST CAPABLE OF MANAGING TOP 5 ISSUES
  National:
  The economy
  Crime / law and order
  
  Labour:
  Inflation / Cost of living
  Healthcare / Hospitals
  Housing / price of housing
  (Good luck with that)!!!!
  
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  August 31, 2025 8:50pm

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