About
Contact
Advertise

Facebook
Twitter

September 1, 2025 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 01 September 2025

Like this:

Like Loading…

Email
Facebook
Twitter
Comment214

Uncategorized
General Debate

Comments (214)

Login to comment or vote

Cassandra

China has one overwhelming advantage, its 75% monopoly of the rare earth mineral industry. Europe is heavily committed to getting this from China, a strategic disadvantage which has finally dawned on all those international affairs “experts” who have dominated world affairs. You know, the people who brought us Net Zero.

Extracting these rare and essential elements is a tricky business – difficult, expensive and polluting. The region near the main Inner Mongolian plant has a significantly higher incidence of cancer than the rest of China.

There’s now a scramble to find reliable sources of these minerals. A kilometre deep mine in Sweden, another in Lapland etc. but the really good news is that it’s highly likely that the best option by far is, you guessed it, the Lucky Country.
32 2
Log in to Reply
Report
September 1, 2025 8:01am
- rouppe
  
  I think that’s why Russia wants that Eastern Ukraine region. I read that it has a lot of mineral wealth there.
  
  18 4
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 8:04am
  - cmm
    
    Yes Ukraine has some minerals, but an inconsequential amount compared to what Russia has.
    
    The main reason for the war is that the Eastern part is Russian speaking and those people have been wanting to rejoin Russia for decades.
    
    18 10
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 9:23am
    - NothingLeft
      
      The main reason for the war is that Stalin and Peter-the-Great loving megalomaniac Putin wanted to re form what he viewed as the Russian empire with him as Tsar – with conflicts in Georgia, Chechnya to shore up the southern flank and then on to Ukraine in west. He used his operatives to manufacture a conflict in Eastern Ukraine and Crimea the same as CIA used to do and infiltrated Russian military with Russian armaments to act as his goons and ‘freedom fighters’
      
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_green_men_(Russo-Ukrainian_War)
      
      Putin’s war has entirely wrecked the region’s he claimed to be liberating and there has been a massive loss of population in occupied regions, especially in the large fraction of ethnic ukrainians – press-ganged meat for his assaults and with near total lack of employment as well as to escape the ongoing predations of the out-of-control animals of the Russian military and carpet baggers supported by Kremlin mafia. Critical large scale irrigation and extractive industry infrastructure is destroyed and gone so farming in these regions is down to a small shadow of its past. Their local economies are trashed for decades to come.
      
      15 7
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 1, 2025 10:37am
    - Burtland
      
      the whole of ex-soviet russia is russian speaking, it was part of soviet colonisation – when russia invaded, millions of Ukrainians fled, not to russia, but europe
      
      who would want to live in russia – its a mafia petrostate that puts its criminal class through a meat grinder – its an old persons wet dream from an indoctrinated childhood
      
      and now we’re doing the same to our kids here
      
      15 1
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 1, 2025 10:57am
- Simon
  
  China’s advantage it’s not run by National.
  
  6 18
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 8:06am
  - AitchW
    
    Yup because Ardern, Robertson, Orr, and Hipkins did such a sterling job when they were in charge…
    
    28 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 9:23am
- artemisia
  
  New Zealand has this enormous seabed. Rare earth minerals have been reported in preliminary results in Taranaki and Chatham Rise. Neither projects have yet been permitted to proceed. Rather likely there are many more such deposits, though whether worth recovering who knows.
  
  What we do know is that seabed mining prospects are quietly progressing elsewhere, with a bit of help from China.
  
  32 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 8:08am
  - pdm
    
    arti, arti, arti.
    
    You are just being be silly now.
    
    Did you not see at the end of last week or on Saturdays One News that you cannot even take a grain of sand from our beaches now.
    
    Let alone doing what you propose.
    
    32 2
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 8:22am
    - Burtland
      
      once maori get control of the foreshore, sea bed, rivers, lakes, national parks – that is, the next change of government – anything is possible
      
      the tribal oligarchy will see to that
      
      20 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 1, 2025 11:10am
  - imalwaysright
    
    Correct. Trans-Tasman Resources has been trying to get permission to mine ironsand from the seabed off the west coast of the NI. About 20 miles offshore.
    They report many trace metals and minerals as extremely valuable.
    
    Last year they organised a public meeting as part of their application process. They notified Iwi who didn’t reply.
    MBIE found out and unilaterally contacted 36 Iwi who subsequently attended at a cost of $10,000 per Iwi, funded by TTR, and now the objections are rolling in.
    Ngarewa Packer is now leading the charge apparently with the support of MBIE.
    
    This is an example of why New Zealand is poor.
    
    45 2
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 8:38am
    - cmm
      
      HTF does it cost $10k to get an iwi to turn up at a meeting?
      
      Gold plated helicopters?
      
      24 2
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 1, 2025 9:24am
      - imalwaysright
        
        Gold plated gravy train.
        The gold plated helicopters never took off…
        
        24 2
        Report
        September 1, 2025 9:37am
      - RoboRob
        
        Flights, 5 star accomodation, high end food and drinks for a few days. Maybe some sight seeing. Try and make the Iwi representatives feel good about you before asking for a ‘favour’. I assume Iwi send somewhere between 2-10 people. There aloso might have been some Koha.
        
        15 0
        Report
        September 1, 2025 9:46am
      - alwyn.a
        
        I think that Ms Packer had dreams of being a model when she was young and adopted Linda Evangelista’s celebrated phrase that “We don’t wake up for less than $10,000 a day.”
        If it was good enough for a super-model it’s good enough for Ngarewa.
        
        13 0
        Report
        September 1, 2025 9:55am
      - imalwaysright
        
        Robo, cmm, maybe I should have said fee rather than cost.
        Apparently the $10K is a standardised payment, I’m not sure if its MBIE policy or Iwi policy.
        
        11 0
        Report
        September 1, 2025 10:33am
      - pdm
        
        Given that MBIE reports to about 7 or 8 Minister there must be one with the balls to knock that on the head.
        
        Shouldn’t there?
        
        Oh they are all National Ministers – now I understand the problem.
        
        6 3
        Report
        September 1, 2025 12:51pm
      - Steve Todd
        
        @alwyn.a @ 9:55AM
        
        … Linda Evangelista’s celebrated phrase that “We don’t wake up for less than $10,000 a day.”
        
        Ah, no, alwyn, I’m pretty sure that was Naomi Campbell — and it was, “I don’t get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day.”
        
        2 0
        Report
        September 1, 2025 7:15pm
    - Eastlander
      
      Projects of this should be granted consent through Act of Parliament, objectors be damned.
      
      11 1
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 1, 2025 10:10am
      - imalwaysright
        
        John Key promised that the consent would be a formality because it wasn’t governed by the RMA legislation, but by EEZ legislation, which is relatively immune from the concerns of “neighbours”.
        So, the application seems to have been initiated under the assumption that it was congruent with government policy.
        
        You are right Eastlander, it would have been simpler to pass an act.
        
        This government could do so but they seem to reason that when Labour get back in they will reverse the legislation.
        
        If that is this governments reasoning then we should question whether they are running the country or merely babysitting it till mummy and daddy Labour get home.
        
        12 1
        Report
        September 1, 2025 10:47am
      - Paulus
        
        But the Waitangi Tribunal, being the top Parliament in New Zealand, will not allow it even for an increasing price leading to a non event.
        
        15 1
        Report
        September 1, 2025 11:08am
      - Eastlander
        
        Silly of them to worry about that, the contemporary labour party is not known for vigour – the more unfavourable legislation has been passed the longer it will take for them to pull their thumbs out of their backsides and repeal all of it.
        
        Assuming they get back in, which is not as likely as they seem to think.
        
        8 0
        Report
        September 1, 2025 11:52am
  - Inandout
    
    art, the sad part of these untapped riches is that NZ will remain a wee South Pacific backwater knowing we could be wealthy beyond our wildest dreams as is Norway. At present our economy is in a pit and retailers are simply closing their doors because there is no money being spent. Oh and I add, Norway has no treaty to cobble government decisions.
    
    34 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 8:38am
    - cmm
      
      We won’t even open up the highly viable, and highly accessible, Southland lignite fields which could provide all the energy requirements of NZ for over 300 years – including electricity, diesel, petrol and jet fuel.
      
      Good luck getting people to try to open up mineral deposits in 2000m of water.
      
      23 1
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 1, 2025 9:30am
      - artemisia
        
        Chatham Rise project is to extract phosphate fert. Other minerals would be byproducts of the process.
        
        12 0
        Report
        September 1, 2025 9:38am
    - David Garrett
      
      Inand: Norway is the shining example of how best to exploit a natural resource – oil and gas. When I started in the North Sea 50 years ago “the Norskis” were considered a somewhat backward people. My Swedish girlfriend used to tell Norwegian jokes, much as Brits tell Irish jokes. No-one is laughing at them now.
      
      21 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 1, 2025 10:01am
    - Quail
      
      I, plus others.
      The reasons for NZ s failure to compete can be laid squarely at the doors of over regulation , a lack of respect for individual property rights and the adoption of MMP.
      The much maligned Government’s of Muldoon’s and Douglas all achieved something and created a prosperity for a lot of New Zealanders.(NZ is still relying on the remaining think big projects, particularly energy )
      Since the advent of MMP rampant socialism (RMA etc )including loss of individuals rights has ensured that the well off are now the ever growing bureaucracy while productive NZ is struggling.
      Now all elected Governments are similar and weak!
      
      17 2
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 1, 2025 10:40am
      - Graeme Hall
        
        I was right with you until you mentioned Muldoon. A self styled dictator who made an incredible mess of our economy because he knew best – Finance Minister & PM. Our own version of a Corporal Fascist.
        
        7 6
        Report
        September 1, 2025 11:27am
      - I remember when
        
        MMP ensures diversity.
        So much diversity that consensus is unlikely.
        
        12 1
        Report
        September 1, 2025 11:46am
    - Burtland
      
      if you keep indoctrinating school kids with communism nothing will change
      
      13 3
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 1, 2025 11:15am
  - Ian Boag
    
    Seabed mining stuff is progressing so quietly that noone in the world is actually doing it yet. There is of course talk about untold riches to be extracted but it’s still apparently in the works.
    
    In the words of chatGPT ….
    
    No commercial seabed mining happening at present—only exploratory permits and trials.
    
    The industry is poised precariously between regulatory gridlock, environmental caution, geopolitical jockeying, and shifting market viability.
    
    Coming Real Soon Now …. Go figure.
    
    5 16
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 8:57am
    - Cassandra
      
      You’re ever the optimist, Ian.
      
      12 2
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 1, 2025 9:04am
      - Ian Boag
        
        Realist?
        
        5 11
        Report
        September 1, 2025 9:56am
    - imalwaysright
      
      Here’s Leighton Smith talking to the CEO of Trans-Tasman Resources.
      He cites jobs and services income to Taranaki of at least $250M annually.
      NZ is its own worst enemy.
      
      https://open.spotify.com/episode/4fLNqdnVDJ3jVo2y38JmF2?si=MIPTlvRAQ_KQr-g0VuoZnA
      
      24 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 1, 2025 9:17am
      - cmm
        
        $250M? Pah! Robbo created income of tens of BILLIONS without even getting out of bed.
        
        I am rather skeptical of numbers produced by politicians and their ilk, but he’s probably not too far from the truth with the 250M.
        
        We choose to be poor.
        
        17 2
        Report
        September 1, 2025 9:33am
      - artemisia
        
        If the Trans Tasman project does go ahead, the recruiters for highly paid jobs will have a not-so-little list of risky hires.
        
        7 0
        Report
        September 1, 2025 9:34am
    - cmm
      
      Masses of seabed mining happens – depending on how you choose to define it.
      
      There certainly are challenges working in very deep water which prevent a lot of potential deposits from being commercially viable.
      
      7 3
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 1, 2025 9:27am
      - Ian Boag
        
        Masses? Tell me more?
        
        5 4
        Report
        September 1, 2025 9:57am
      - cmm
        
        Gold mining off Alaska.
        Diamond mining off South Africa
        Gas and oil extraction the world over
        Sands and gravels for construction in various places…
        
        10 1
        Report
        September 1, 2025 11:32am
      - I remember when
        
        I understand they are still extracting gold from West Coast South Island beaches.
        
        2 0
        Report
        September 1, 2025 12:21pm
      - JohnRidd
        
        West Coast sand is really interesting. The Southern Alps rivers put sand into the sea. The sea currents carry that sand north and around the top of the South Island. This process has been making Farewell Spit longer. The lighthouse used to be on the end of the spit but it is now a long way from the end. The sand is then carried around the end of the spit into Golden Bay which is slowly filling up. (Thousands of years,but.)
        
        Eventually, Collingwood will no longer be a coastal town. Sand could be sustainably extracted from Golden Bay.
        
        It could be argued that extracting sand could create channels that would allow stranded whales escape routes to deeper water.
        
        4 0
        Report
        September 1, 2025 7:04pm
    - Eastlander
      
      ‘Chat GPT’ – you know, anyone who wants to talk to an LLM can do it without your help.
      
      4 1
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 1, 2025 10:01am
    - Spam
      
      If people want to invest their own money (or their investors money), then let them take that risk.
      
      4 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 1, 2025 10:05am
  - NZer In Exile
    
    NZ’s well entrenched obstructionist grifting complex will make sure that wealth can never be realised (except maybe until it’s gifted by the same idiots to the descendants of former neolithic settlers, because identitarian cultism is to be celebrated).
    
    2 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 1:58pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  Rare earths are neither earth nor rare. They’re a mix of minerals that are relatively plentiful. The US has had a number of mines in the past that can be reopened.
  
  The problem is that extracting & refining them is a grubby business, which is why the West stopped doing it. Lucky for us cellphone users and EV drivers, the Chinese have taken up the slack.
  
  13 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 9:22am
  - Ian Boag
    
    US mines closed because China kicked the floor out of the price and the US mine became totally uneconomic. Could be opened again with no regard for the price but it would take some years. More than just flicking a switch apparently.
    
    Quite a lot of these ores dug up elsewhere get sent to China for refining. The cost thing and the fact that the Chinese attitude to the incredibly polluting processing is reasonably permissive.
    
    Source “The Rare Metals War” by Guillaume Pitron. Unfortunately it’s a book that you might have to pay for. Takes more than 15 minutes to read and digest 🙁
    
    9 2
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 10:16am
    - I remember when
      
      “Takes more than 15 minutes to read.”
      
      What, no abridged version?
      
      2 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 1, 2025 12:24pm
      - Jethrod
        
        Read the title….. that says it all.
        
        4 0
        Report
        September 1, 2025 1:00pm
- Philview
  
  I listened to a podcast last week where a China expert discussed Taiwan’s dominance in the manufacture of computer chips. I think he said 90% of advanced chips come out of Taiwan. He painted a grim picture of the damage to the global economy if China invades and also the repercussions for global shipping. It surprises me that the world has allowed Taiwan to dominate this market. Surely the US will do something about that to protect their industries.
  
  7 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 9:51am
  - Spam
    
    Intel and TSMC are both building foundries in other parts of the world: Ireland and in the US for example.
    
    8 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 10:09am
  - Ian Boag
    
    The high-end chips are made using lithography machines from the Netherlands. Noone else has caught up with it (yet anyway). As I understand it, the Dutchies have a kill switch for the gear …. so it might not be too much use if captured.
    
    6 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 10:11am
    - Burtland
      
      the chinese will have this licked within 10 years
      
      they have produced “1.4 to 1.5 million engineering graduates annually over the past decade” and their best are trained in the US – they’ve come to dominate cars batteries phones and electronics – chip making is just a small extension
      
      the dutchies will sell them the tech if offered enough dosh – they bought Li battery tech
      
      6 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 1, 2025 11:29am
NeverMindTheBollocks

As far as I can see, there’s nothing in the rules stopping an Auckland Maori on the General roll to flick across to the Maori roll for the current by-election, then flicking back to the General roll afterwards.

The same would be true in reverse for a midterm by-election in a General seat.

Doesn’t seem very fair to me.

https://vote.nz/maori-electoral-option/about-the-option/about/what-is-the-maori-electoral-option/
21 1
Log in to Reply
Report
September 1, 2025 8:02am
- alwyn.a
  
  There is a three month limit on the change. You can’t make the change in the the three months before a General Election or a by-election if the change would put you into the electorate having the by-election.
  I don’t think that anyone could have made a transfer if they will be in this Maori Electorate after the time that the date of the by-election was announced.
  It is very near the beginning of your link.
  
  8 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 10:02am
- Paulus
  
  Of course it’s fair after all it is Maori, so that they can do whatever they want with nothing to stop them.
  
  11 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 11:13am
- Steve Todd
  
  @NeverMindTheBollocks @ 8:02AM
  
  Bolly: With regard to by-elections, Māori cannot exercise the Māori option during a by-election period, which means “the period beginning on the date on which the notice of vacancy is published and ending on polling day for the by-election.” See section 78C(6) of the Electoral Act 1993, here, https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1993/0087/latest/LMS829463.html#LMS829463.
  
  The Notice of Vacancy in respect of the Tāmaki-Makaurau by-election was published on Wednesday 9 July (see https://elections.nz/guidance-and-rules/candidate-hub/key-information-and-dates/key-dates-for-the-tamaki-makaurau-by-election/).
  
  3 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 4:29pm
NeverMindTheBollocks

Transpower made a $107m net profit, with $120m going to the government as a dividend. It’s a regulated monopoly. Why is it allowed to gouge users?

Remember this, the next time you hear politicians crying crocodile tears about electricity prices.

https://www.transpower.co.nz/news/transpower-announces-full-year-results-and-releases-integrated-report
12 3
Log in to Reply
Report
September 1, 2025 8:02am
- RoboRob
  
  WTF are they paying a dividend for? The govt legislated to allow Transpower to increase their prices so they could fund much needed infrastructure improvements. So why are they not spending that $120m on infrastructure?
  
  12 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 9:49am
  - peterwn
    
    It is a commercial outfit and the shareholders expect a dividend. If Transpower and the Gentailers are forbidden to pay dividends, they will stop investing and the whole electricity risk falls back on the Government where it was in the pre Rogernomics days.
    
    7 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 10:53am
    - RoboRob
      
      I thought they were 100% government owned?
      
      6 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 1, 2025 11:28am
    - Graeme Hall
      
      Do not swallow the Kool-aid. Transpower is a pseudo-commercial public monopoly with one shareholder who needs to take a bloody good look at how it (mis)functions. Transpower used to have the highest paid staff in the public service. They were no better at managing a power network than any other group of electrical engineering graduates.
      
      11 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 1, 2025 11:49am
    - I remember when
      
      ‘the shareholders expect a dividend.”
      
      Not necessarily, many prefer an increase in share value by profits being reinvested in the business.
      
      8 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 1, 2025 12:32pm
- Dave
  
  I’d much rather have the money than give it to the government, likewise businesses I guess, but without other numbers it’s a bit hard to comprehend this, so here are 2 genuine questions for better informed KB readers (I’m a financial ignoramus) who are welcome to school me.
  
  Transpower, according to the link, has five billion in assets and a revenue of 986 million.
  
  There are nearly 2 million households, according to the Internet – I don’t know how many businesses – not all of whom use Transpower’s electricity.
  
  Is $120m gouging?
  
  How much productive/better off would the economy and individuals be if the $120m were removed from electricity charges?
  
  8 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 10:04am
- wsk12345
  
  It’s called a return on investment. Quite normal and doesn’t disappear just because the Crown is the owner. Reflects that the govt has competing uses for the billions tied up in Transpower
  
  8 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 10:30am
  - RoboRob
    
    When a business makes a return, profi, they have a number of options of what to do with it. Generally they pay a dividend to owners OR re invest in the business.
    
    Since Transpower are supposed to be in the process of a large upgrade to invfrastructure I am stunned they payed a dividend rather then re investing it. Makes a mockery of the reported need for additional funding for infrastructure investment.
    
    12 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 10:59am
Scott

There have been at least five trans identified shooters involved in mass killings since 2018. This is according to Andy Ngo who is an actual reporter who actually investigates things.

https://www.ngocomment.com/p/why-are-there-so-many-trans-mass

Ngo talks about the factors involved including the effect on the mind of the powerful drugs used in transition operations.

I think the whole trans thing is a bad idea. It’s essentially a denial of our basic male and female nature. The idea that you are born the wrong sex is a strange idea to say the least? We’ve never thought that before?

Andy Ngo also mentions the rise of trans ideology that claims trans people are oppressed and the subsequent rise of violent Antifa like organisations in the trans space.

I would add the access in America to guns. The most recent shooter had an arsenal of semi automatic weapons and ammunition. Which seems to me to be a really bad idea.

One would hope that one day sanity will return and we will treat trans thinking as the mental health issue it actually is rather than affirming what is an obvious delusion. If gender affirming care is a good thing then how come we have multiple incidents of individuals who have received such care who want nothing more than to buy guns and kill people, including children?

Maybe gender affirming care is a really bad idea? Maybe gender affirming care turns some people from confused individuals into murderers?
13 8
Log in to Reply
Report
September 1, 2025 8:03am
- David Garrett
  
  Scott: in the trans space..
  
  What exactly is the trans space? Is that the same as the “trans community”?
  
  6 3
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 9:35am
  - Scott
    
    David – I’ve used the word “space”. I normally don’t but I’m perhaps influenced by younger people who use the word a lot?
    I don’t like the phrase “trans community”
    They don’t seem to have a community? It’s like “the LGBT community”. In actual fact there is no community. The L don’t have anything to do with the G. The L and the G think the B are kidding themselves and they are really L or G. And the T don’t like anybody. 🤔
    
    15 5
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 11:12am
  - peterwn
    
    Trans space now includes space that was traditionally occupied only by real biological women.
    
    8 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 12:46pm
- Notsofast
  
  It is of course not reported that school counselors will lose their practicing licence and thus their livelihood if they advise their mentally unstable patients that they inhabit their true body.
  It is a quiet but epic medical scandal that has led to over 1000 gay children being sterilized and losing all sexual function.
  
  The adults are doing this to the children
  
  11 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 11:58am
- Notsofast
  
  Here is the evidence for my above post.
  
  https://youtu.be/9BHdEIsS_zk?si=Elm6L1uIlNUgn93l
  
  3 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 12:04pm
- Keith White
  
  For all the recurrent publicity that these people are mentally ill, the shooters seem to be never mentally ill enough for them to try and carry out their massacres in places bristling with guns.
  
  Gun free zones like schools and churches are exactly the places that signal to the evil that this is a good place to kill people because they won’t be stopped.
  
  In all my travels I have yet to see or hear of a mass shooting carried out in places where the masses have guns.
  
  Even that evil psychiatrist who shot up soldiers on a US military base make sure that he did so in places on the base where soldiers were unable to carry arms.
  
  Political and business figures including here in NZ have armed security because they consider that even the most arrange wannabe Gavrilo Princip imitator is either going to be put off or shot down before they succeed in killing “the principal”. But the powers that be are entirely happy for the rest of us to go unarmed and vulnerable.
  
  As the American saying goes – “God made men and women both big and small, young and old. Colt made them all equal.”
  
  11 2
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 12:53pm
  - Northshoredoc
    
    Which business figures in NZ have armed security?
    
    I think you’ve been watching too much Netflix Keith.
    
    1 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 2, 2025 8:13am
Yvette

Under a Centrist headline _
Why is TPM borrowing South Africa’s Julius ‘Kill the Boer’ Malema’s symbols?
When Te Pāti Māori (TPM) candidate Oriini Kaipara appeared at an election debate in Auckland’s Tamaki Makaurau electorate wearing the red beret of South African firebrand Julius Malema and a South African flag pinned to her cloak, it raised eyebrows. Malema is notorious for the chant “Kill the Boer, kill the farmer,” linking him to brutal farm attacks. To many, it was an alarming choice of symbolism.

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters publicly questioned why no journalist had pressed Kaipara on the beret and flag. His social media posts drew thousands of reactions, showing how sharply the imagery cut through with voters. …

South Africa is one of the most violent societies on earth, with 75 murders a day in 2023. Farm attacks in particular are notorious for their cruelty. Against that backdrop, for many, it looks reckless for a New Zealand candidate to borrow the symbols of Malema and his movement.
Whether TPM meant solidarity or provocation, the choice of beret and flag forces voters to ask what kind of politics they are being offered by candidates in the running.
Centrist approached Oriini Kaipara and Te Pāti Māori for comment but received no response. [1]

That is a less-alarming excerpt from the Centrist

And a few days ago kiwiblog host David Farrar posted –
“Tamihere says NZ Govt is “worse than Nazi Germany”
“This is worse than Nazi Germany, this is a fascist regime that has to be removed,” Tamihere said. [2]

“That which we hate in others” often reflects qualities we dislike in ourselves, a psychological concept known as projection.
Reversing Tamihere’s projection, his reference to Nazi Germany should remind people that “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing”. Or for them to not attach importance to what is happening.

_______________
[1] https://centrist.nz/why-is-tpm-borrowing-south-africas-julius-kill-the-boer-malemas-symbols/?
[2] https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2025/08/tamihere_says_nz_govt_is_worse_than_nazi_germany.html#google_vignette
23 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 1, 2025 8:04am
- cmm
  
  At first I thought she was just dressing up Che Guevara style, like a good little Comrade, but if she is also adorning herself with SA flags etc that is disturbing.
  
  Malema: “We are not calling for the slaughtering of white people. At least for now.”
  
  How long before we start hearing that from TPM?
  
  19 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 9:40am
  - Yvette
    
    Cmm, perhaps a matter only of syntax –
    https://x.com/AfricanHub_/status/1888594622038880361?
    
    7 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 10:22am
    - cmm
      
      The disturbing thing for us is that relatively few people in South Africa support the EFF, but there is considerable TPM support here.
      
      EFF have around 10% support overall. Perhaps 12% amongst their target audience (black South Africans).
      
      In NZ, TPM have a far larger % of support amongst the target audience:
      * Over 70% of Maori women aged 18-50 support TPM in the most recent Roy Morgan poll.
      * TPM won 6 of 7 Maori roll seats in the last election.
      * TPM support has increased by over 50% since the last election.
      
      9 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 1, 2025 12:53pm
      - Sir Henry Morgan
        
        It’s a worry but no surprise.
        
        We’ve now had decades of an education system that essentially teaches “whitey bad, everyone else good”. It started in tertiary education and gradually filtered down from there. Most white people are too gutless to even discuss race except in the context of bowing and scraping to atone for their whiteness, so I can’t see anything changing.
        
        0 0
        Report
        September 1, 2025 11:54pm
      - kiwimike
        
        stop calling them TPM.
        They are the Maori Party
        
        0 0
        Report
        September 2, 2025 7:34am
  - imalwaysright
    
    Isn’t it the job of the SIS to protect us from fascists ?
    
    I get the impression that the SIS see the rise of fascism in the name of Maori as a FEATURE of “Aotearoa” rather than an existential threat to the democracy of New Zealand.
    
    13 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 10:51am
  - I remember when
    
    cmm.
    If the media had done their jobs while the problems of the Treaty were still in their infancy, debate, discussion, maybe even reason, might have reduced the bitterness.
    Yes, the debate would have been long and sometimes heated, but many of the areas of contention would not have advanced to their present state.
    MMP has allowed a third opinion (maybe even a fourth and a fifth), rather than two parties debating their positions in Parliament.
    
    7 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 12:49pm
    - cmm
      
      Wishing for the media to do their job is a fool’s errand.
      
      5 1
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 1, 2025 4:54pm
- rouppe
  
  The maori party are the fascists.
  
  They’re ethno-nationalist.
  They’re racist.
  Their leader at least believes they are genetically superior.
  
  Those are all the founding beliefs of the second fascist regime the world saw.
  
  23 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 10:29am
  - Graeme Hall
    
    Their leader at least believes they are genetically superior.
    
    “Overcompensation” by those who clearly lack signs of an advanced intelligence, aspiration or educational achievement.
    
    As for superior physical genetics you only have to visit a Medical waiting room in a high density beneficiary area to wonder.
    
    13 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 11:41am
    - I remember when
      
      He doesn’t believe that they are genetically superior, he is just listening to see if the echo tells him a lie.
      Maybe he believes they are indigenously superior,which the indigenous communities of the world may agree.
      
      4 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 1, 2025 12:57pm
  - Paulus
    
    Of coure many of the Maori Party are superior they have the Moko to prove it !
    
    5 2
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 2:24pm
    - igm
      
      They also have obesity and scribble to show superiority.
      
      0 1
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 1, 2025 6:55pm
- Keith White
  
  She knows exactly what she is doing, she just wants temporary deniability.
  
  6 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 12:53pm
Tauhei Notts

Today’s the Day if you are a thoroughbred stallion.
14 1
Log in to Reply
Report
September 1, 2025 8:05am
- pdm
  
  TN I think you are a month late.
  
  Horses birthdays are the 1 August.
  
  11 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 8:23am
  - Grumpy Silver Top
    
    Gestation is 11 months.
    
    8 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 9:28am
  - Tauhei Notts
    
    I hope this is not too boring BUT;
    Several years ago the Australian bloodstock industry noticed that the number of foals born 29th-31st July could be counted on the fingers of the left hand. But the number of foals born 1st- 2nd August was huge.
    Those statistics seemed unreal.
    In those days a foal born in July became one year old just a few days later on 1st August.
    Something had to be done, so the rule was passed that a thoroughbred stallion could not serve a mare in the period 1st June to 31st August. Mares serviced prior to June would be bred to Northern Hemisphere time. N.Z. followed suit. Foals born with a gestation period of less than 334 days (most unusual) could be born in July.
    So today is the Day for a thoroughbred stallion.
    The Aussies have a long history of changing the rules to suit themselves.
    Consider this;
    In 1787 Governor Phillip wrote that the death penalty should be limited to murder and sodomy, BUT that no man be executed in the penal Colony. Instead he wished that he would want to confine a criminal till an opportunity offered of delivering him as a prisoner to the natives of New Zealand, and let them eat him. The dread of this will operate much stronger than the fear of death.
    
    11 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 10:58am
Nikola Donatello

Not sure that this is a good idea.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/360808388/regional-airlines-welcome-30m-government-support-packagep

These subsidies tend to become entrenched. The airlines become ever more dependent on subsidies over time, not less.

Remember the ridiculous decision by Wellington Council to subsidise Singapore Airlines to fly to Wellington?

To take an example, this decision means that we are all subsidising every passenger who flies to Kaitaia. Most people in Kaitaia are dirt poor. They don’t fly anywhere. So we are subsidising a few higher income people in Kaitaia or near Kaitaia to travel to Auckland. Otherwise they would need to drive 90 minutes to the nearest airport in Kerikeri.

To stick with Kaitaia, I can see an argument to subsidise the airport to maintain airport facilities for medical evacuations and civil defence functions. But subsidising airlines, no.

This decision is undoubtedly a Shane Jones decision. I am going to lodge an OIA request for the Treasury advice. Just for amusement.
29 1
Log in to Reply
Report
September 1, 2025 8:06am
- cmm
  
  Subsidies are easy with “free” taxpayer money.
  
  Very likely this will result in something as absurd as Cindy’s train set to Hamilton. It would be cheaper to fly the people by helicopter rather than implement the absurd “solution” they have.
  
  PS: National, the “sensible people”, still allow this to continue.
  
  22 2
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 8:25am
  - RoboRob
    
    They have to follow proper procedure and the the ‘trial’ finish. Is the official response. In the meantime they keep flushing money down the drain, although as they own KiwiRail you could just see it as a back door subsidy.
    
    8 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 9:07am
  - R
    
    Cmm,….have you ever politically tried to remove an entrenched populist ‘publicly funded right’
    
    9 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 10:21am
    - cmm
      
      There are so few people that use the damn train that taking it away is unlikely to cause any backlash.
      
      As has been pointed out multiple times, there are many ways to provide people with “free” or subsidized transport that would be far cheaper and produce less CO2 than putting on trains.
      
      We could give each regular train user:
      * A new Suzuki Swift – replaced with a new replacement every 150,000km.
      * Pay all their servicing costs.
      * Pay all their fuel costs.
      * Pay for parking in Auckland.
      
      And it would cost less and generate less CO2 than the train.
      
      We could even fly them in helicopters.
      
      5 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 1, 2025 4:59pm
  - Keith White
    
    National is just the slightly more freshly-lipsticked part of the Uniparty Political Pigfarm.
    
    6 3
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 12:54pm
- Flossie
  
  If you live anywhere on the Coromadel Peninsula your trip to the nearest airport is probably longer than 90 minutes. However those of us (more correctly, most of us) who choose to live in more remote areas accept there are drawbacks as well as benefits.
  
  21 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 8:59am
- Mod88
  
  Get the Taxpayer out of Air NZ and the Regional Airlines will compete quite successfully I suspect.
  
  6 2
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 10:19am
balanced

Anyone doubting Nicola Willis’ “fixing” the supermarket cartel should listen to Tim Beveridge interview Ernie Newman.

https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/the-weekend-collective/politics-central/ernie-newman-express-lane-isnt-enough-to-end-the-duopoly/

Like the cerebrally challenged Ardern, Willis is fooling most of the NZ public by feigning empathy for our plight.

Don’t be fooled, and equally as importantly, question why the finance minister isn’t solving the overpriced nz supermarket cartel.
9 7
Log in to Reply
Report
September 1, 2025 8:06am
- AitchW
  
  I’ve seen lots and lots of people complaining that the supermarkets are making “exces profits” and that they are putting enourmous mark ups on groceries. But I’m yet to see any real, compelling evidence of these mark ups.
  I do wonder if the problem isn’t that the suppliers have been forced to increase prices due to Labour party policies like a minimum wage of almost $25 an hour pushing up labour costs?
  
  24 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 8:43am
  - Ghost
    
    $5.25 for a packet of Tim Tams…. Ne t week they will be on special for just over $3. Griffin’s Squiggles $5.25.
    
    3 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 9:11am
    - balanced
      
      Consumer.org
      “The Grocery Commissioner’s report shows big increases in margins up to last year, and equally big margins expected in the future. These are companies with huge, unjustified profits, so I would be skeptical of the line Woolworths is pushing.”
      
      3 2
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 1, 2025 9:21am
      - RoboRob
        
        The Grocery Commissioner also said there is no easy fix and he will be unable to make changes to food prices. So if you believe him that we are getting ripped off then why do you choose to not believe him about the governments abilities?
        
        7 0
        Report
        September 1, 2025 9:52am
      - balanced
        
        [Mod – debate the topics without the snide little remarks]
        
        The grocery Commission says…..
        ” We work to ensure that New Zealand consumers benefit from more competitive prices”
        
        And of course undoing an industry which has created a few wealthy people at the expense of the rest of the population for so many decades isn’t going to be easy.
        
        BUT if you listen to Ernie Newman in the link i posted, you will discover, IT CAN BE DONE!
        
        2 3
        Report
        September 1, 2025 10:50am
      - RoboRob
        
        @Balanced
        
        It is a pity you are incapable of reasoned discussion and feel the need resort to snide insults at the start of every post. I am also surprised the mods allow you to essentially post these remarks at the start of each reply to me.
        
        6 1
        Report
        September 1, 2025 10:56am
      - balanced
        
        My remarks are valid and considered debating tenets.
        
        1. Please read my posts before criticizing them.
        
        2. Please debate with facts.
        
        0 9
        Report
        September 1, 2025 1:25pm
  - R
    
    ‘pushing up minimum wages’…..which are the benchmarked baseline for all wages and some salaries. Economics 101.
    
    4 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 10:24am
  - rouppe
    
    So just for context, I saw NZ Envy apples in a supermarket in Thailand.
    
    They were 99 baht. Which is about $5.
    
    Each.
    
    8 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 10:32am
    - cmm
      
      Well in Thailand those would be considered rather exotic imported fruit. No wonder they are expensive.
      
      My son is currently working on the East coast of Mexico. He hasn’t seen an apple or cabbage in months. But he does get avocados, watermelon, mangoes, bananas and papaya (pawpaw) for very little. Coconuts are free (they fall out of the tree at the AirBnB if the wind is strong enough).
      
      3 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 1, 2025 5:14pm
  - Paulus
    
    Twenty years ago, as a client wanting to see how my fruity was being packed etc, I worked in the local packhouse, and we got $6 50 an hour and a bonus of $0.50 an hour for a good run,
    
    5 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 11:19am
- RoboRob
  
  ‘Don’t be fooled, and equally as importantly, question why the finance minister isn’t solving the overpriced nz supermarket cartel.’
  
  I’m not fooled. I have called this since the supermarket investigation started. Willis was NEVER ‘fixing’ supermarket pricing. It was alway politics, just like bank and petrol company investigations.
  
  The difference between you and I is that you believe it can be ‘fixed’ by the government. I think we are two small for three major players in the market. My proof for this is that nobody wants to enter the market. If they did Willis would have had them lined up when she made her announcement. No its not becuase of consenting and paper work. Yes the changes help but they dont fix the underlying issue, we dont have enough customers.
  
  Costco MAY become a major player, but that was their decision and independant of the government.
  
  11 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 9:12am
  - artemisia
    
    The food supply market has a huge number of players, not just supermarkets. Consumers have plenty of choices.
    
    I read a while back that #3 is My Food Bag, which is just one of the meal kit suppliers. Those suppliers do add value to basic commodities as is often suggested as a way forward for New Zealand raw materials.
    
    6 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 9:29am
  - balanced
    
    Robo. Thanks for reading my post and offering constructive arguments. It’s great progress!
    
    I agree willis was never fixing the supermarket cartel but not because it can’t be fixed…. IT CAN!
    
    Like all facets of life, including capitalism, the government’s role is to set and enforce the rules which benefit the country, not the select few who sit atop the cartels.
    
    An excellent example of a government setting rules to benefit a country rather than a select few is Norwegian oil.
    
    “Thanks to the state involvement in the petroleum industry, Norway has experienced an economic surplus every year since the first oil started pumping.”
    
    The nz government created the conditions which allowed the big business cartels to form. Listen to Ernie Newman and you’ll discover how the government can reverse their huge mistake!
    
    It’s incredible that 2 of our dimmer politicians have been able to fool so many voters that they’re solving a problem when they so obviously aren’t.
    
    The next question is what is/was those politicians motivation for lying to and fleecing Kiwis?
    
    1 7
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 9:45am
    - Jack5
      
      Poster Balance’s …Listen to Ernie Newman ,,,
      
      On cartels?😃
      
      Ernie’s background includes being executive of manufacturers’ protectionist groups.
      
      Then he ran TUANZ – the Telecommunications Users Association of NZ. It was actually the outfit of telecommunications providers, not telecommunications customers in homes and businesses.
      
      Still Ernie at one stage was on the Grocery Industry Council. Perhaps he knows the tricks of the trade.
      
      6 1
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 1, 2025 11:12am
      - balanced
        
        Thanks for that Jack
        
        Ernie has an excellent background to comment on the supermarket cartel fixes.
        
        He broke up telecom and there is no evidence our competitive telecommunications industry is operating like the supermarket cartels.
        
        0 2
        Report
        September 1, 2025 1:30pm
      - Jack5
        
        Ernie Newman didn’t break up Telecom.
        
        Telecom was split from the Post Office in 1997 and sold to Verizon (formerly Bell Atlantic) and Ameritech in 1990. In 1991, Telecom listed on the NZ Stock Exchange., and on the New York Stock Exchange and the Australian Stock Exchange.
        
        Ernie got into telecommunications as chief executive of TUANZ in 1999.
        
        He never had anything near the political clout of folk like Roderick Deane, Telecom’s chairman.
        
        6 0
        Report
        September 1, 2025 2:58pm
    - R
      
      Wasn’t aware that the opposition political were trying to solve any problems!
      
      1 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 1, 2025 11:44am
Simon

More than 60% of Gen Z in US support Hamas over Israel: survey https://trib.al/zuhwOLk

From NYpost. Sounds about right.
5 5
Log in to Reply
Report
September 1, 2025 8:09am
- MCōs
  
  The NY Post might like to publish the don’t knows because I’m sure not every they asked has a full grip on the situation and instead of Israel/Hamas what about Israel/Palestinians
  Maybe ask Palestinians what they think of Hamas?
  
  4 3
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 10:14am
  - Keith White
    
    Palestinians have long not been willing to say what they really think of Hamas because that risked their painful death by Hamas – that’s not my opinion, that’s their reported opinion.
    
    8 2
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 12:56pm
- NZer In Exile
  
  I think the subversive measures apparently implanted in the West decades ago by the Soviet Union (“active measures” in Soviet speak) described by Yuri Besmenov have run their full course and we now see the results.
  
  4 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 2:08pm
Cassandra

UK Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch is set to announce that she’ll delete the entirety of the party’s current 12-page energy policy (a gradual withdrawal from oil) and replace it with a single instruction to “maximise the extraction of our oil and gas”. Sounds like Shane Jones.

It’s pretty meaningless in that the Conservatives are coming third right now, they change leaders every month or so and the next election is three years away, but it is a toe in the water. I detect that climate hysteria is ebbing – very slowly.
29 1
Log in to Reply
Report
September 1, 2025 8:13am
- David Garrett
  
  Cass: I also see some encouraging signs…and as more and more dire predictions fail to come to pass surely more and more people will be saying “Now hold on a minute here”
  
  17 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 8:31am
- imalwaysright
  
  That’s a gift to Reform and the other parties.
  If it polls well, which it probably will, the others will adopt it and neutralise KB.
  
  8 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 8:49am
Nikola Donatello

I can’t see this ending well.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/world-news/360808468/israel-reportedly-plans-detain-greta-thunberg-and-activists-new-gaza-flotilla-terrorist-level

Greta is going to try to sail to Gaza. Again. I’m not sure that she is suited for an Israeli prison. I do like her new hairstyle.
15 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 1, 2025 8:14am
- john1234
  
  Let her into Gaza.
  But not out.
  
  19 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 8:18am
  - Cassandra
    
    Israeli ministers are drawing up plans to detain Greta Thunberg in “terrorist-level conditions” after the Swedish activist left Spain on Sunday on the largest flotilla yet bound for Gaza. In The Telegraph this morning.
    
    8 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 9:18am
    - artemisia
      
      Israel has released thousands of prisoners to Gaza in hostage swaps. Plenty of prison capacity these days. Probably not many en suite single cells.
      
      7 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 1, 2025 9:23am
    - imalwaysright
      
      C
      If that were true then it begs the question as to why some half witted Swedish woman child would be in the purview of Israeli politicians.
      
      Wouldn’t they, logically, let her play out her fantasy and quietly tow them out of the conflict zone?
      
      Why “draw up plans” ?
      
      She’s an autistic Swede, she’s not Bonaparte…
      
      6 2
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 1, 2025 12:35pm
- pdm
  
  Any chance Chloe, The Mex and that Doyle chappie might be joining her?
  
  Perhaps Debbie from the Maori Party too – as a bonus – because she is pretty keen on supporting Gaza and by extension Hamas.
  
  27 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 8:27am
- cmm
  
  No doubt they will have a tin on baked beans and a first aid kit on board so that they can claim they were turned back while bringing vital food and supplies.
  
  Anyone wanting to send aid can do it the proper way and it will get through.
  
  17 2
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 8:34am
- David Garrett
  
  Nikola: This is just pure theatre by the lot of them…they all know very well they are not going to be allowed to deliver their tiny token of food aid…I wonder who is funding this nonsense? Who is paying the crew of the ship and for its fuel?
  
  24 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 8:39am
  - Jethrod
    
    Oh it will be lovely darling, this time of the year in the Med!
    
    14 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 8:41am
  - GJM
    
    Boat fuel? But climate change!
    The Swedish [Mod – use correct names] seems to have forgotten about that one, yet it must be a much larger issue than Gaza. Compare 2m Islamic terrorist supporters vs the entire planet and population
    
    10 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 8:51am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Volunteer crews..
    
    https://globalsumudflotilla.org/
    
    7 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 8:55am
    - David Garrett
      
      Maggy: Good morning…and who’s paying for the fuel?
      
      6 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 1, 2025 9:38am
      - cmm
        
        Isn’t it a sailing boat? That’s what they used last time.
        
        Lots of celebrities sitting around in comfort with a bare minimum of stuff on board to claim they were bringing aid.
        
        If they really had been bringing aid, the cabin would have been full of boxes etc.
        
        If they really do want to send aid then do it the proper way – put it on a truck and send it.
        
        These people are deliberately doing things against the rules to get the optics they want – “aid” being turned back.
        
        10 1
        Report
        September 1, 2025 9:48am
      - Nikola Donatello
        
        David… Greta has her very own Foundation.
        
        https://thegretathunbergfoundation.org/
        
        The cost of this trip to Gaza will be small beer for her.
        
        7 0
        Report
        September 1, 2025 9:49am
      - Ehlana
        
        They don’t need fuel David. They are sailing to Gaza. And, presumably, when the wind drops, rowing.
        The last thing Greta is going to inflict on the poor people of Gaza is the polluting products of the evil oil industry. I’m sure there are no plastics among their supplies either.
        
        They may, of course, be carrying supplies of chopped wood and peat for burning. Winter is coming, after all.
        
        7 0
        Report
        September 1, 2025 9:56am
    - Jack5
      
      The participant crews: from the Maghreb Sumud Flotilla (formerly the Sumud Convoy — North Africa based); the Freedom Flotilla Coalition — “Aotearoa New Zealand” is listed as one of the members; Global Movement to Gaza (seems to be the same group as the Fredom Flotilla Coalition); and the Sumud Nusantara (Malaysia based).
      
      A chance for NZ Green MPs to volunteer. Better for the whole of NZ if all the Greens sail.
      
      4 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 1, 2025 11:43am
      - I remember when
        
        Marama has already been on such a flotilla – I suspect she isn’t as keen as she once was.
        Better beating a drum from a distance, than being part of the flotilla band.
        
        4 0
        Report
        September 1, 2025 1:15pm
  - Nikola Donatello
    
    I doubt that money is an issue. Greta still mesmerises many.
    
    8 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 9:24am
    - JackRabbit
      
      A puppet never mesmerises those who pull the strings. The puppet does not control the puppeteer.
      
      Greta is the puppet of those who finance her.
      
      9 1
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 1, 2025 10:31am
- Clyde
  
  Slam the stupid thing in jail, or deliver her to Hamas. Like others have hinted – follow the money. Who is funding this airhead and her mates?
  
  17 3
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 8:42am
  - Inandout
    
    Clyde, may I offer a possible source of funding. The same source who finances BLM, Antifa, pro Palestine and a number of demo groups around the world. A rather unattractive looking billionnaire domiciled in Europe and savvy enough to know what money can buy.
    
    8 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 9:18am
    - cmm
      
      Don’t forget your wallet.
      
      4 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 1, 2025 5:17pm
  - JackRabbit
    
    “Who is funding this airhead and her mates?”
    
    The usual one world govt types, through a myriad of shell companies.
    
    7 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 10:32am
- G152
  
  Setting themselves up for victimhood.
  If the Israelis have a no entry policy the protesters vessels stand a pretty good chance of being sunk at sea with a loss of life…….
  
  4 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 9:09am
- AitchW
  
  They’ll be stopped, detained (“kidnapped”) possibly questioned, (“interrogated and beaten”), fed (“starved”) and put on the next flight back to whence they came.
  No doubt they’ll all biff their cellphones into the sea and they’ll have prerecorded videos (“if you’re seeing this I’ve been abducted”) ready to go before they do.
  All very predictable and boring.
  But the media will fall over themselves to report their interminable whining about how they were abused….
  Let them get into Gaza I say, then they’ll find out what abduction and abuse really is!
  
  12 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 9:21am
- Handyman
  
  Hold her as a hostage for the remaining ten live Israelis.
  Not going to happen of course but the hypocrisy would be overflowing.
  
  7 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 11:01am
- fightingtemeraire
  
  I hope the Israelis put her in a cinema and tie her hands to the arms so she cannot cover her eyes and ears and play the film of the October assault with the sound turned up.
  
  6 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 12:06pm
Pepe Lopez

Today Cabinet will quite likely approve Golden Visa holders will be allowed to purchase property in New Zealand on top of that the Overseas Investment Office monthly approvals of prime land sales to overseas buyers is tracking on as usual selling good land to plant trees. Also the OIO approved Alliance to sell interests by advertising directly overseas by passing New Zealand. We will own nothing and be….Happy?
8 1
Log in to Reply
Report
September 1, 2025 8:23am
- Jack5
  
  National seems almost desperate to get property prices rising, and importing buyers is one way.
  
  Another approach would be to think of ways of restraining house prices so that young people would again prioritise raising families.
  
  When opportunity arose to buy residency in NZ first arose the goal was stated to be to get more entrepreneurial type people into the country. There’s no pretence of that now.
  
  The shonkiness of the old million dollar entry scheme was illustrated in a murder trial in Christchurch — the case of a Chinese woman who murdered her husband. It emerged he had been able to borrow the million dollars for entry from family and friends in China, and was under pressure to repay it when the killing occurred.
  
  8 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 11:50am
- Keith White
  
  One of the quite a few good things about working as a ER clinician for decades, and during medical school, working for a funeral director to pay the rent – is that I and others like me learn very early on in life that you actually don’t really own anything.
  
  It’s a bit like we used to say back in the day – “you don’t buy beer, you just rent it”.
  
  Everything we think we own is temporary.
  
  Everything we think we’ve done has or will be rendered irrelevant by events outside our control, or historic by time, or both.
  
  Relationships that work well have the best Return On Investment of any investment ever; Love not Cash is the most priceless memory; and not one single person of all those I have attended in extremis or as it turned out in their last hours of life gasped their dying wish as “I really wanted to have gotten EBITDA back up above 10% before I died”.
  
  8 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 1:02pm
  - cmm
    
    Yes you can own stuff, but you are correct that you can’t take it with you.
    
    Sure, build relationships if you want – nothing wrong with that – but don’t expect others to come subsidise your material comforts.
    
    3 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 5:20pm
NeverMindTheBollocks

Shell Lane (The Terrace) bike rack report:

At 8.35am, no fewer than three bikes today – perhaps it’s the effect of Spring!

A cool, calm, dry morning in the Capital. The rain has blown away and it’s ideal for cycling.
15 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 1, 2025 8:35am
- G152
  
  Still no bikes at Frankton station
  
  10 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 9:11am
Scooter

I wonder if Oriini Kaipara will be replaced after the train wreck of the Q&A interview. Not only did she endorse Peeni Henare as future Prime Minister she also said Hana Maipi-Clarke was her pick as most influential politician. No mention of her partys leaders.
20 1
Log in to Reply
Report
September 1, 2025 8:37am
- pdm
  
  I watched it too Scooter.
  
  All she will add to Parliament is becoming one more activis/agitator in the Maori Party rabble.
  
  My recollection is Maipi-Clark was the MP she most admired rather than most influential.
  
  She also wants Peeni Henare as Prime Minister.
  
  All in all a strange lass who made Henare look a real class act.
  
  9 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 1:10pm
  - Scooter
    
    Even stranger is her face, very gaunt looking. One might wonder, or maybe politics is just very stressful?
    
    4 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 6:26pm
Gravelroad

One of the inmates here was helping at an annual fundraising event during the weekend – catering for about 50 people.
They got the same food order from same supermarket as last year, but cut it back a bit due to fewer people expected this time.
The cost was $300 more than last time – for less food.
It wasn’t real fancy stuff, either. Just average.
16 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 1, 2025 8:51am
MCōs

President Trump with his ham handed attempts to bully India has had the effect of patching up relations between India and the Chinese who are meeting now along with Putin, Kim Jung Un, and the presidents of Vietnam, Iran and Belarus and others.
President Prabowo Subianto of Indonesia would have been there except he has trouble at home.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy must be fuming. The prospect of peace in Ukraine is slip sliding away.
Ukraine existing in the long term as a sovereign nation must be a prospect
Putin is looking stronger every day.
Except he’s increasingly dependent on foreign powers much less ham handed than Trump . . . .
4 16
Log in to Reply
Report
September 1, 2025 9:12am
- JackRabbit
  
  The people pulling Volodymyr Zelensky’s strings don’t want peace. There is money in war, and an even bigger bounty precious minerals in the Ukraine.
  
  The Ukraine is being used for money laundering for the truck loads of money sent there.
  
  Zelensky knows that if the war ends, he will no longer be useful to his puppeteers. And a risk if he talks.
  
  8 4
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 10:37am
- NothingLeft
  
  “Putin is looking stronger every day”
  
  Be interesting to see how Russia survives the winter with only a fraction of it’s current diesel or petrol production (they’re currently losing several refineries, storage facilities and pipelines per week to ukrainian attacks), with massively reduced oil and gas exports yielding much diminished income, with most industries in dire shit financially, and with a terrible harvest bought on by a combination of lack of money, labor, equipment and bad weather.
  
  And Ukraine with long range 1 tonne warhead Flamingos ramping up to an anticipated 7 per day by years end, while Russian air defense nears exhaustion making most major infrastructure in Russia vulnerable.
  
  7 4
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 10:47am
john1234

“Putin is looking stronger every day” … Not sure about that.
3500 precision guided long range munitions have been released by USA to be shipped to Ukraine, paid for by the Europeans.
Ukraine is now able to target Russia’s oil infrastructure leading to fuel shortages across southern Russia.
Russia’s 3 day SMO now over three years and a million casualties. Their conventional military force is decimated and they are using human meatwave attacks using motorcycles, scooters and golf carts.
8 9
Log in to Reply
Report
September 1, 2025 9:33am
- Littletramp
  
  Apparently these munitions need to be launched from the air, and Ukraine has no air force capable.
  Trump has sold them another harbour bridge.
  
  2 7
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 9:55am
  - NothingLeft
    
    Ukraine has a few dozen fighters Migs, Sukois, F16s and Mirages in service.
    
    7 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 10:53am
    - Swifty
      
      I’ve been curious as to why I’ve seen no reportage of aerial attacks, using aircraft, from either side – or perhaps I’ve just missed it.
      
      Any ideas?
      
      3 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 1, 2025 12:31pm
      - NothingLeft
        
        Russia launches about 100ish glide bombs a day on ukrainian targets from fighter bombers, Ukraine maybe 5-10. Both sides keep their planes 20+km to their side of the border due to ever present danger of AA missiles, MANPADS etc.
        
        6 0
        Report
        September 1, 2025 1:24pm
      - Swifty
        
        Thanks NothingLeft.
        
        3 0
        Report
        September 1, 2025 2:11pm
- MCōs
  
  Maybe so, but they keep making inroads apparently
  https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2025/03/24/a-lot-more-russian-troops-are-attacking-in-compact-cars-vans-and-golf-carts/
  
  3 3
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 9:59am
  - NothingLeft
    
    At current rates of territory gains (a few km² per day for ~800 dead) Russia will take something like 4 more years and 2 million more casualties just to take the whole of the Zaphorzhia, Luhansk, Donbas and Kherson oblasts they have declared are theirs. That’s not going to happen as Ukraine are rapidly increasing their long range attack drone production to wreck Russian infrastructure/economy
    
    6 5
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 10:56am
Crafty

Verify Johnson is the master at only telling part of the story:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360806964/national-has-lost-small-business-vote-and-thats-ominous

Absolutely no mention of the amount of debt we have thanks to her Labour government, no mention of the massive inflation that had to be bought under control. All her articles are completely one sided with no mention of anything the past government did to get us here. Just leftist propaganda
21 4
Log in to Reply
Report
September 1, 2025 9:38am
- Mod88
  
  Was it not Deborah Russell of the Labour Party who said if small business’ can’t hack it, tough. Verity should never have been released from “The Bunker”.
  
  12 3
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 10:24am
- Eastlander
  
  The leftoids I knew were very confident going into 2014 as well.
  
  7 3
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 10:26am
- Gravelroad
  
  I feel sorry for the column writer.
  She wants to go back to her previous government’s Covid policies when she never had it so good with handouts and subsidies to keep her business going.
  As pastoral farmers, we got told this on numerous occasions by people just like Ms Johnson when the production incentives (subsidies) were discontinued by Mr Douglas and his gleeful Labour Party.
  People just got really stuck into farmers and their families. They enjoyed every minute of the pile-on and outright hatred directed at us for accepting production subsidies as per the policy of the government at the time.
  They liked it even more when farmers and their businesses failed and communities collapsed.
  They said “serves you right you bludgers. No one needs you.”
  
  18 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 10:37am
- rouppe
  
  She is majorly bitter that her burlesque show had to close.
  
  I always found it odd that the person so vociferous about how awful men are, starts a business that relies on displaying female flesh.
  
  17 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 10:45am
- Philview
  
  A couple of weeks ago Verity was comparing Jacinda Ardern to Winston Churchill so she gets a bit enthused. I think there is a place for her on lifestyle topics but not sure why Stuff see benefit in political opinion fluff pieces from her. I go into Stuff less and less so perhaps their target market is the young lefties and not those of us wanting thoughtful analysis.
  
  12 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 11:20am
- AitchW
  
  Ms Johnson is, in my experience , completely wrong. And you can’t get wronger than that.
  Small business are terrified by the prospect of a Labour/Green/Maori government. We will be hit with god knows how many new taxes and levies, along with new regulations and a minimum wage closer to $30 than $25 which will simply ratchet up wages and prices.
  Add to that the inevitable huge increase in the public service requiring even more borrowing and interest rates will sky rocket again.
  Go away Ms Johnson.
  
  12 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 12:00pm
  - Paulus
    
    But will small often, ex overseas owners, actually vote next time or we get Labour led lot by default ?
    
    5 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 2:34pm
- Swifty
  
  Lefties specialise in blaming the doctor and not the disease.
  
  6 2
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 12:29pm
- Pineapple Lumps
  
  Verity is not very good at being honest but she is funny.
  
  When she writes ‘our long term marriage is over’ I just can’t help laughing at the absurdity of that statement. At no time has she ever had a long-term marriage to the National Party. That she would frame that as an inclusive statement is just absurd.
  
  Also when she talks about the stimulus after the GFC the items she lists are currently in play – lowering interest rates, incentives to spend.
  
  What Verity is failing to see is that the hurt to our economy is biting so hard that very few NZers have any discretionary money to spend. And those that do are looking to reduce debt rather than buy luxury items. We are only going to get better by becoming more productive. The good year for the primary sector is a start but unfortunately other export sectors are suffering because of the effects of the Trump tariffs.
  
  What she is saying though is true – National will get the blame at next years election if too many people are still hurting financially. Unfortunately that will really mean jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire if the productivity destroying triad of envy is elected.
  
  9 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 1:38pm
surfing

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/the-country/news/rotorua-okere-falls-rabbit-plague-raises-confusion-over-pest-control/MMC6T5YVTVAP3HGOWRWVCRDU2A/

Rotorua: Okere Falls ‘rabbit plague’ raises confusion over pest control

This is a load of BS. As soon as I read the title I knew the culprit behind this, which they do not divulge until the very very end of the story.

Telling the landowner it is his responsibility to control the rabbits, even though the source of the problem is on the neighbouring land is just BS from the authorities.

Authorities too scared to take on the real cause of the problem.

Same applies to noxious weeds, how many farmers live adjacent to ‘certain’ owners who let their land run wild.
9 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 1, 2025 10:30am
- Swifty
  
  I read that.
  
  I’m a little surprised some of their young fullas aren’t out there most weekends cleaning them up for the pot.
  
  I know I wouldn’t need to be asked twice.
  
  5 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 12:26pm
Nikola Donatello

This is an extract from a job ad for a senior public servant vacancy at the Ministry of Education.

“Te Pae Aronui was established within Te Mahau to provide the education sector with support and services that are more locally responsive, more accessible, and integrated.

It is the place where everything Te Tāhuhu does for ākonga can come together. We gather insights, regulate, have service design and delivery functions, understand ākonga, whānau, communities and businesses – and use that to shape and influence the direction of education in Aotearoa New Zealand.

As part of Te Mahau, we work with whānau, hāpu, iwi, early learning…. ”

And it goes on and on….

Surely the Minister sees these. Why does she not say ” STOP or else “? ☹️
19 2
Log in to Reply
Report
September 1, 2025 11:10am
Paulus

She cannot stop it because she has no job control over any Public Service staff her at any Ministry and they would take no notice as at now awaiting the return of the Left-wing Government next year.
And let’s face it I cannot, like 98% of the country, understand virtually a word of this advert.
We are told there are currently just under 10,000 vacancies awaiting filling.
Well done Roche !
14 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 1, 2025 11:30am
mandk

According to Bing Translator on my laptop:
Te Pae Aronui translates as The Great Horizon
Te Mahau translates as The Porch
Te Tāhuhu translates as The Back

I can’t imagine how much taxpayers’ money was spent dreaming up this gobbledeygook, but the use of buzz words like these are obviously in intended to discriminate against people who are not fluent in Te Reo.

I also wonder how many Māori actually understand what the words are meant to convey.

Maybe you have to be the right sort of Māori to get the job.
14 1
Log in to Reply
Report
September 1, 2025 11:39am
Ghost

High winds at Auckland Airport caused delays to departing and arriving flights on Sunday evening. Air New Zealand said 58 of its flights had been cancelled.

Passengers took to social media to report hours of delays in disembarking and retrieving baggage as the conditions forced ground crews to stand down.

One person described a four-hour delay on departing Wellington only to be held on the tarmac for over an hour on arriving in Auckland.

“We got delayed four hours in Welly and only just landed now. IM SO DONE. I’m still at the airport waiting for our baggage. I’m this close to murder.”

Article

You got there, you are alive. A little bit of bad weather delayed things, there are worse things that could happen.
12 1
Log in to Reply
Report
September 1, 2025 12:10pm
Ghost

This actually surprised. Labour and Greens, the champions of rights for women apparently and they didn’t fix this

Fish & Game New Zealand’s family fishing licences are receiving a long-overdue update to ensure both adults have equal fishing rights, Hunting and Fishing Minister James Meager has announced.
From the 2025/26 angling season, both adults will be able to fish independently and have voting rights in Fish & Game elections.

A historic anomaly in the licensing system means the second adult on the licence, often a woman, currently cannot fish without being accompanied by the primary holder or their children, nor stand or vote in elections.

Press Release
7 3
Log in to Reply
Report
September 1, 2025 12:13pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  I had to laugh. One of the Topp Twins was fronting the TVNZ story, which was framed as being unfair to fisherwives who are apparently seldom the licence holder (read: the less keen fisherperson in the family), The reporter didn’t have the balls to ask which one of the wife and wife in that Topp relationship was the primary licence holder.
  
  3 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 7:25pm
Swifty

Sell Maggy, and move back to civilisation!

https://www.stuff.co.nz/home-property/360808328/all-time-high-how-one-nzs-smallest-cities-ended-soaring-housing-prices

😃
4 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 1, 2025 12:22pm
- pdm
  
  swifty – just googled the house we bought in late 1977 (paid $42,000 we think)and sold (for $48,000 again we think) in mid 1981 in Te Hapara, Gisborne
  
  Shows as being sold prior to auction (auction date 15 Sept) for about $680,000 (indicative) as actual sale price is not shown.
  Full quarter acre section and major alterations done including a swimming pool added so does not seem out of kilter.
  
  6 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 1:19pm
  - Swifty
    
    And back then the average salary would have been around $10,000?
    
    4 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 2:08pm
    - pdm
      
      Not sure what I was on Swifty – was with BNZ and our 4th child was born during that period in Gisborne.
      
      4 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 1, 2025 3:21pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  And does civilization have warmth, ducklings, car parks, a decent library, a fabulous public pool,,,,with empty lanes, great airport, and super-dooper eye professionals?
  
  There’s NOTHING I miss…… (ok, perhaps a Vietnamese restaurant or 3) .
  
  Anyway, there’s something odd about those soaring house prices…. Quite a lot of the top-end stuff in Gizzy hasn’t sold all year…and some folks seem to be dropping their prices by thousands of $$$$.
  
  It must be all the doer-uppers that are being flipped after a kitchen-bathroom refit and a splash of paint that’s raised the median price.
  
  There’s no more houses going for anything under $400,000 now.
  
  6 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 4:17pm
Swifty

“Te Pati Maori aims to unite, not divide!”

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/te-pati-maori-aims-to-unite-not-divide-says-co-leader-the-front-page/6LRQ7CJAIBHSPHYCFKZMC3WUOM/

When I was a young fella there was a joke about the three greatest lies ever told. The first one was “the cheque is in the mail…” The other two are too rude to print.

Ngarewa-Packer has just invented the fourth.
14 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 1, 2025 12:42pm
- Keith White
  
  These aren’t rude but mos. def. are lies:
  
  “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
  
  “We are raising taxes but be assured that we will spend the money wisely.”
  
  “If you vote for me I will still respect you.”
  
  “My campaign is not about me, it’s about you.”
  
  9 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 1:06pm
  - NZer In Exile
    
    Don’t forget “I’m special. I offer you kindness”.
    
    Next minute:
    
    No you can’t get home to be with your dying parent. Yes DJ comrades, just push past that queue of people waiting to get home to dying parents and jump on in!
    
    10 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 2:29pm
- Crafty
  
  Sickening comment by TPM! Do they think kiwis are stupid? Saying we’re guests in our own country, calling people white supremicists who want to exterminate Maori for fulfilling what they were voted in on. They really are delusional, never has there been a party even remotely as divisive as this current TPM shambles of a party.
  
  14 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 2:46pm
  - surfing
    
    Te Pati Maori don’t know the difference between equal rights and equality.
    
    Even their definition of equality is warped, more akin to the Animal Farm version of equality — everyone is equal except some (ie Maori) are more equal than others.
    
    6 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 3:59pm
  - cmm
    
    No they are not stupid at all. Do you really think they are trying to convince you? Do you really think you are their intended audience?
    
    They talk like this because that is what their intended audience (envious, entitled Maori voters) wants to hear. And clearly it is resonating.
    
    70% of Maori women aged 18 to 50 support TPM according to the last Roy Morgan poll. Their popularity has increased from 3.5% of the vote to 5% of the vote.
    
    Now I know there are some bleeding heart white-guilt types that do donate their party vote to Maori, but the vast majority of their support base is Maori. The more they can radicalize Maori, the more votes they will get. They are looking rather likely to sweep 7 out of 7 Maori Roll electorate seats in the next election.
    
    No doubt we can expect some high-jinks a month or two before the next elections to bolster support.
    
    10 2
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 4:51pm
- Ghost
  
  Hmmm, listen to Debbie, or do anything else. Damn, looks like anything else wins,
  
  8 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 3:03pm
cmm

So people “need” a household income of $125k to live comfortably. Wow. Apparently only 1 in 10 NZers earn enough to live comfortably.

Clearly people have an inflated expectation of comfort. Having lived in Africa and seeing people living comfortable lives in a mud hut with no car, no cell phone and having to walk 3km to get a load of firewood (carried on their heads) and water only 1km away in a stream, I really find the NZ idea of “comfort” rather perplexing.

Still, if that is what people are expecting, no wonder they are leaving our shores for the 40% extra pay in Australia or wherever.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/money/360809088/are-you-earning-enough-live-comfortably-what-numbers-say
6 5
Log in to Reply
Report
September 1, 2025 4:44pm
- Ian Boag
  
  Obviously (you say so) $125k is an OTT number compared to a comfortable life in an African mud hut with a 1km walk for water and firewood on your head and yadda yadd yadda.
  
  You are an intelligent/numerate sort of person, so I am sure there is a more realistic number someplace in your view of things? Care to share it? You will have carefully worked it out, so of course you could maybe show us all a rough summary of how you arrive at it. Would be valuable and interesting.
  
  3 2
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 8:03pm
  - Ian Boag
    
    Cmon cmm. You have a habit of making sense … 🙂
    
    0 2
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 8:28pm
- MCōs
  
  NZ is not a country in Africa.
  
  0 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 8:54pm
Swifty

A brief and excellent recent interview with Seymour:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FexGX9fRkJY

Hipkins and the Ethno-Separatist Party (and Tamihere) get caned.
5 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 1, 2025 4:51pm
Swifty

Among the very few policies that Labour have announced, one is to restore the Fair Pay Agreements. The purpose of which is to significantly raise the wages of people who succeed in establishing fair pay agreements for their industries.

The respective unions are salivating at the thought of huge wage increases across all manner of industries including cleaning, security, hospitality, retail, care and support, transport, health and education.

Employers will be forced to fund these wage increases irrespective of their ability to pay and in the absence of any productivity increases – and will undoubtedly pass these increased costs on to their customers through higher prices for goods and services.

It will literally fuel a wage and price spiral.

This will see ordinary New Zealand families the length and breadth of the country paying more and more for their shopping and family expenses to fund these ‘fair pay’ wage increases.

How then, pray tell, do nearly 40% of New Zealanders (if this poll is reflective) think Labour will be better at managing the cost of living crisis? Their stated policies will make the crisis significantly worse! Even a blind monkey can see it.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/571612/labour-increases-lead-over-national-on-handling-cost-of-living-ipsos-poll-finds
9 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 1, 2025 5:21pm
- Pineapple Lumps
  
  Labour policy:
  
  1. Let’s lift up the bottom incomes through minimum wage and benefit increases.
  2. Let’s knock back everyone else with asset taxes/envy taxes etc.
  3. Let’s print money and spend it on short-term vote buying that will not improve the productivity of the country.
  4. Let’s make it harder, more expensive, less productive for industry, car drivers, farmers etc
  5. Let’s give other peoples money away to create racial, social and moral division of our society.
  6. Ultimately let’s have policies that destroy the individual, family, entrepreneurial, self-motivated, elements of society so that everyone is dependent on Labour/State for an increasingly impoverished existence.
  7. Let’s partner with the extreme activist far-left elements of the political spectrum so that we have power.
  
  9 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 6:31pm
  - Swifty
    
    Beautiful.
    
    2 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 6:42pm
- Pineapple Lumps
  
  A quick poll on Stuff today asked if people thought Labour would do a better job of managing the economy. 40% voted yes, 60% voted no. So the Stuff poll was less positive about Labour than IPSOS. I never trust these survey results and interpretation pushed by the biased media. I still have hope that NZers are smarter than the media would have us believe.
  
  7 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 1, 2025 6:53pm
  - GJM
    
    Given how far left the stuff readership is, that is a damming result for labour.
    
    4 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 1, 2025 8:20pm

Add a Comment Cancel reply

Login to comment or vote

« Update on Barbie’s Bill

Quigley’s resignation »

Donations

You can now donate to Kiwiblog

Exclusive content from DPF on Patreon

Become a Patron!

Never miss a post

Email Address

Join 13K other subscribers

Highlights

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

Links

National gets Winstoned
No Right Turn
Alan Greenspan, 1926-2026: 'The Undertaker' passes away
Not PC
John Raine: Canary in a Climate World - When Political and Media Narratives Depart from Scientific Evidence
Breaking Views
The tobacco black market in NZ in 2025
Utopia
TVNZ Poll Shock: Winners, Losers + Predictions
The Daily Blog
Daily review 24/06/2026
The Standard
Word of the day
Hompaddock
Free Speech is in Trouble in Europe
No Minister
The mistakes that sealed Keir Starmer’s fate
Point of Order
NRL Predictions for Round 17
Stats Chat
Media Link: “A View from Afar” on Systemic Change.
Kiwipolitico
Alex Berenson on Fatherhood Manifesto, Marijuana & Biden’s COVID
Bob McCoskrie's McBlog
People Power
NZCPR
Levies as end-runs around the Generic Tax Policy Process
Offsetting Behaviour
A central banker’s fiction
Croaking Cassandra
THE WORKING FROM HOME RACKET BY PUBLIC SERVANTS
No Punches Pulled (Bob Jones)
The Accidental Engagement
Imperator Fish
Legal Beagle: Election '23: The Special Votes
Public Address
Get Vaccinated Tomorrow Or Shut Your Pie Hole
Cactus Kate
Making this movie might have been a mistake
Liam Hehir
Why I am retiring from political blogging
Kiwi FireWalker

[email protected]

PO Box 12270, Thorndon, Wellington 6144

Facebook
Twitter
FourSquare
Instagram
LinkedIn
Google+

Archives
Disclosure Statement
Editorial Policy
Privacy Policy
Complaints Policy
Comments Policy

Design by cre8d

%d

Share this:

Like this: