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October 12, 2025 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 12 October 2025

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Yvette

Te Pāti Māori must walk away from aspiration to govern.
Ruling itself out of any government would leave the party free to maintain its mana and independence, de-fang the centre-right’s attack lines and bring the focus of the election campaign back to the Government’s performance – Peter Dunne
https://newsroom.co.nz/2025/10/09/te-pati-maori-must-walk-away-from-any-aspiration-to-govern/

Précis: Peter Dunne suggests that by positioning itself as a potential coalition partner or government party, the party risks diluting its identity and alienating its base. Instead, the piece contends, Te Pāti Māori would better serve Māori aspirations by remaining an independent force, unencumbered by the compromises of power.

This call comes amid internal tensions, leadership criticisms, and public scrutiny. Te Pāti Māori recently attempted a “reset” to present a more disciplined and policy-focused image, but speeches and responses to questions were viewed as vague, or walked away from. Relations with the media, accusations of authoritarian internal dynamics, and disagreements with allied groups (such as Toitū Te Tiriti, which has severed ties) have intensified pressure on the party’s direction.

In sum: the article calls for Te Pāti Māori to step back from conventional political power plays and instead reassert its role as a distinct, principled movement.
_________

And as the Maori Pati defines itself, by its very existence : a “principled movement” beyond the bounds of the Treaty.

Dunne does touch on: “Party president John Tamihere has long been resentful of his treatment when he was an MP and minister during the Clark years. A sense of utu against today’s Labour cannot be ruled out, his friendship with senior Labour MP Willie Jackson notwithstanding”
But what Peter Dunne doesn’t mention is any assessment of pressure Willie Jackson and the Maori Caucus along with Nania Mahuta put on Jacinda Ardern to get UNDRIP as far as He Puapua, the plan to change the Maori / Crown relationship in ways far beyond the mis- and dis-information spread about any aims of ACTs Treaty Principles Bill.

Willie Jackson’s actions are still there to be executed the first chance any dopey electors give them or probably worse: if John Tamihere and Willie Jackson re-unite, if ever they were apart.
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October 12, 2025 8:02am
- Simon
  
  Peter Dunne must know NZ is already a massive redistribution welfare state, overseen by bloated ineffective govt departments, funded by over taxation and now out of control govt borrowing.
  
  Add Maorification and its unstainable & unworkable, its a train wreck.
  
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  October 12, 2025 10:09am
  - Ian Boag
    
    a massive redistribution welfare state
    
    and the single largest redistribution welfare item is …. 🙂
    
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    October 12, 2025 10:30am
    - R
      
      is…….NOT superannuation as you are implying, BUT the welfare trough that the unmotivated are living in!
      
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      October 12, 2025 10:48am
    - JeffW
      
      The DBP (or whatever it is called now), and the lifetime costs of unwanted kids who do not contribute in any good way to society, and their kids, and so on.
      
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      October 12, 2025 11:50am
      - Pope Punctilious II
        
        Yes the unrestricted DPB has been an incredibly destructive policy, the gateway to intergenerational welfare.
        
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        October 12, 2025 5:36pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        The non-tested universal pension should get a mention. The DPB equivalent is something like $2.5 bn. The pension is something like $25 bn going up “naturally” by about $1.5 bn/year. If the pension was abated away for anyone with pretax earnings of $100k, that would save something north of $1bn.
        
        Go figure.
        
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        October 12, 2025 5:44pm
    - NeverMindTheBollocks
      
      The DPB. Once on that, it seems to run for many, many years. The children of that family also incur extra costs. Thanks to the effect of inter generational poverty, whole families seem to spend their life on the dole.
      
      By contrast, Super is only paid until death. Much more limited.
      
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      October 12, 2025 5:55pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        DPB. Once on that, it seems to run for many, many years .. Super is only paid until death
        
        Whatever – this year, sole parent benefit will cost about $2.5bn – Super about $25bn. Go figure.
        
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        October 12, 2025 6:19pm
      - Quail
        
        NMTB,
        What about including Working for families, and the inherent subsidies to business that is part of WFF?
        (Don’t tell the US about that!)
        The problem is NZ has had several governments in a row creating a spend that can’t be afforded !
        
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        October 12, 2025 7:52pm
    - tavita
      
      Ian I accept your general point, but the cost of NZ super was around $20 billion but this is the gross cost -a good proportion of that is clawed back in taxation, particularly from those who still work, who effectively pay tax on the entire pension at the maximum, or near the maximum rate. The cost of the non-age related benefits was $14 billion and much of this is not taxed so nothing clawed back.
      
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      October 12, 2025 10:43pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        a good proportion of that is clawed back
        
        You can tell us how good a proportion … ?
        
        Numbers (be they ever so rough) are always better than vague statements. 🙂
        
        This started out as a whinge about the Sole Parent Benefit, but I suppose if the numbers for that don’t stack up one can always shift the goalposts a bit.
        
        Here’s an estimate that says tax clawback might be 10-12% which will leave the 2025 Super cost at $20bn net. Give or take a bit …
        
        https://chatgpt.com/share/68ec0b5b-17a8-800d-b59d-408d5bfa0d0d
        
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        October 13, 2025 9:04am
- PurplePen
  
  “Instead, the piece contends, Te Pāti Māori would better serve Māori aspirations by remaining an independent force”
  
  Some Maori. Not all. They represent merely a minority of the Maori collective.
  
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  October 12, 2025 12:19pm
David Garrett

First Sunday back in the Kingdom for me after almost a month in NZ…Very pleasant cool morning up here…23 currently
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October 12, 2025 8:06am
- Ipanema69
  
  DG, You appear to have found peace and a purpose in life in the Kingdom. Best of Luck to you.
  
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  October 12, 2025 8:23am
  - David Garrett
    
    Ipa: Thank you for those kind words…Yes, I do enjoy it up here for the most part…Sundays are a struggle. And for various reasons, practising law up here is often fun, whereas down in Outer-roa it’s just a job.
    I can’t deny it’s also pleasant to be thought of as a respected member of the inner bar here, whereas down there i am largely unemployable and something of a pariah.
    
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    October 12, 2025 10:19am
    - Albie
      
      Just curious David, can you see the sea or is it a short walk from your house?
      The reason I ask is that we have recently been fortunate enough to buy a place 100m from the sea with a nice view. Apparently there was a long term study in the US that came to the conclusion that people who live by the sea on average live 12 months longer than those living inland , even by lakes and rivers . My wife quoted it to me and if you are interested I will track it down.
      
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      October 12, 2025 10:32am
      - David Garrett
        
        Albie: What a fascinating study! But sadly No, my apartment has no sea view…I do however travel along the coast road most days, checking out the new touristas…but I dont pay so much attention to the white gals these days…I prefer the brown ones!
        
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        October 12, 2025 11:41am
    - Nikola Donatello
      
      Just an idle question if things get too dire here, is it relatively easy to obtain residence in Tonga?
      
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      October 12, 2025 11:06am
      - imalwaysright
        
        I bet if Tonga had been offered the same deal as the Treaty of Waitangi in the day they would have signed it.
        
        Many countries would have, it was a great deal.
        
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        October 12, 2025 11:16am
      - David Garrett
        
        Nikola: I’m afraid the short answer is NO…there is actually no permanent t residency here – I have to renew my visa every three years.
        
        To obtain a business visa you need to be able to establish a business which employs Tongans…and which is NOT one of the areas of business reserved for Tongans: farming, fishing, grocery retailing, even car hire…
        
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        October 12, 2025 11:24am
- lastmanstanding
  
  I fear we will have a Labour/Green/ Maori Party after the 26 election. I dont think there is enough time for the economy to turn around. As I have posted before IMHO at least 80% vote with their hip pocket and if their hip pocket is not in good shape they vote the current Government out regardless of policy.
  And on that note I suspect Labour will annouce a CGT in a few weeks. It will have carve outs for Kiwisaver, modest direct share investment and the family home up to 5 million. The bach and residential investment property will be captured. But heres the rub. The 5M wont be indexed link. Governments of all colours dont do that, Think income tax rates. So on the basis of the last 50 years in 10 years the 5M will be effectively 2.5M and in 20 years 1.25M. Nats/ACT wont repeal what will be a money earner after all they can say wasnt us that implemented the CGT. Always remember the sole agenda of ALL Governments is to relieve you of your earned cash.
  
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  October 12, 2025 9:26am
  - Pope Punctilious II
    
    A CGT will be the least of our worries if Labour forms a government with Rainbow Party and TPM. It’s the prospect of an ethnostate that we should be worried about.
    
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    October 12, 2025 9:44am
  - R
    
    Not ALL governments, ONLY the MARXIST ideological parties who join together in govt. The conservative parties are mor inclined to responsible development of the country for the benefit of all citizens
    
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    October 12, 2025 10:17am
  - Handyman
    
    In theory, an inflation adjusted capital gains tax should not yield much revenue in a shrinking economy.
    Anyone predicting high CGT revenue in New Zealand is actually talking about wealth redistribution, not taxing wealth creation.
    
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    October 12, 2025 10:48am
    - artemisia
      
      A wealth tax would be simpler and provide revenue for the government of the day to spend now.
      
      Plenty of examples in other countries to copy. Or take advice from the Green Party. No need to reinvent wheels.
      
      One slight problem, surely easy to overcome by copying those overseas examples. Capital flight.
      
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      October 12, 2025 5:21pm
      - Grizz
        
        You can get creative with taxes – wealth, CGT, Inheritance etc. However you have to offset them by reductions in income tax. The aim is to not collect more revenue. Sadly those advocating them want the revenue to fund their vanity projects, without reducing income taxes.
        
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        October 12, 2025 11:15pm
  - nathie
    
    Let’s not forget that “Enough time for the economy to turn around” is also an absurd Left-wing Labour /MSM construct.
    
    It took the 2008-2017 (and the earlier 1990-1999) National Govt 2-3 terms before the economy turned around (and in both cases the incoming Labour Govt’s i.e. 1999 and 2017 inherited the “turned-around” economy then blew it up big time). Rinse and repeat.
    
    If we go back to Labour 1984-1990 they couldn’t turn it around at all – despite still promising day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year that they will!
    
    So let’s not fall into this crafted “trap” that the current National Coalition has “failed” because it couldn’t turn the economy around within 1-2 years of taking office!
    
    It’s left-wing (and Hooten type) BS!
    
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    October 12, 2025 10:58am
  - Nikola Donatello
    
    What I do not understand. I have heard Chris Hipkins assert that a capital gains tax will moderate house price inflation. I am no expert but I can forsee adverse effects.
    
    Firstly if owner occupied housing is exempt, investment will pile into such housing, increasing prices.
    
    On the other hand, investment in rental housing will be less profitable, restricting supply of such housing.
    
    I am not convinced of the argument for a capital gains tax. It is just another source of money for the next ethno communist government to waste. But that aside if a government wanted to tax capital gains, it would be best to have zero exemptions like GST. I might go for that if there was a constitution that put limits on government spending. So no.
    
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    October 12, 2025 11:13am
    - artemisia
      
      Labour’s CGT policy had lots of exemptions. Some specific like the bach or small business selling up. Some not mentioned like the boat, the classic car, the Rothko, the gold bars and the tiara. And IIRC no capital losses, and rate set a marginal tax rate.
      
      Also if CGT only kicks in upon sale, only the desperate will sell.
      
      So rentals will be a key target. If owners sell up, or decide not to build new, and social housing does not have massive OPM tipped in, the market will set rents.
      
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      October 12, 2025 11:28am
    - Ian Boag
      
      I don’t understand either. Capital gains are income. We tax income.
      
      For pragmatic reasons – like the rest of the world – the family home would be a carveout. Realistically – rest of the world again – the rate for a CGT would likely be in the range 15-20%. The sky would not fall in.
      
      As far as effect on real estate prices is concerned, I’m not foolish enough to make predictions. Canada, Australia, USA and all those other commie countries still have the sky firmly in place …
      
      Bracing for downtick blizzard 🙂
      
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      October 12, 2025 11:29am
      - Wandering Star
        
        I think a fair compromise is no CGT payable, but also no pension benefit receivable if buying and selling residential property outside of the “main home” category.
        
        Think of it: keeping the state out of our affairs in two different ways, and completely consistent with small government KB ideology.
        
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        October 12, 2025 12:03pm
      - ISeeRed
        
        Canada, Australia, USA and all those other commie countries still have the sky firmly in place
        
        That’s the main reason to oppose the proposed CGT. These countries had it already and it didn’t stop the housing affordability crisis there. And since when did another tax solve a problem governments created in the first place? Here’s what might actually help:
        
        1. Make Kiwisaver for retirement only. Allowing people to cash it in for house deposits drives up demand and prices.
        2. Reduce immigration by 90%. Allowing hundreds of hundreds of foreigners in drives up demand and rents.
        3. Further incentivise and also reform councils to free up land for housing developments and similar measures
        
        In short, reduce demand, increase supply!
        
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        October 12, 2025 12:17pm
      - Pineapple Lumps
        
        Will losses in value result in a tax refund?
        
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        October 12, 2025 12:21pm
      - Eastlander
        
        We don’t tax capital gains.
        
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        October 12, 2025 12:31pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        I think the norm elsewhere is that losses are deductible but ringfenced against gains
        
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        October 12, 2025 12:49pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        The rationale for a CGT of something like 20% with a personal home carveout is not that it would be done to change investor behaviour. It won’t. CG is income and a buck is a buck is a buck ….
        
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        October 12, 2025 12:58pm
      - In Vino Veritas
        
        Even Robin Oliver (x of the IRD) as a member of the last Tax Working Group conceded that taxing capital gains was a double taxation Ian. “Taxing capital gains by itself results in double taxation – tax on the gain in the value of the property then tax on the income generated by the property leading to the capital gain”.
        I’m sure that depending on their political leaning, many would find that acceptable. Until the time comes that they have to pay.
        
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        October 12, 2025 3:53pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        @InVino
        
        I acquire some funds legitimately – either tax paid earnings or inheritance or gift to name some possibilities. I buy some wine using tax-paid $ – there is excise – double taxation? I use tax-paid funds to buy a car – GST – double taxation? I invest the tax-paid funds in a term deposit – the interest is taxed – double taxation?
        
        If you acquire an asset using legitimately acquired funds and you later sell it for more than you paid for it, the capital gain is income. Where the original funds came from is irrelevant.
        
        Income is normally taxed. The nature of CG income means taxing it is a bit different – the tax is levied when the gain is crystallised and it seems a bit unreasonable to tax it at a marginal rate that looks like it all happened in one year. Although standing that one on its head, you have had the use of the tax money interest free for the period of the investment. Cullen was in favour of using the marginal rate – personally I go with the discount thing like other countries do.
        
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        October 12, 2025 5:19pm
      - Quail
        
        CGT is tax on inflation,
        A brief visit to Milton Friedman’s work explains just how Governments use inflation as a tax to redistribute wealth from those who earned it to those who covet it.
        This Government is no different.
        
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        October 12, 2025 9:07pm
    - Hugh Jarse
      
      And once they have given away or spent the additional tax money generated by CGT whats next ?. We know that the last thing a left government will do is live within its means, once they have spent the CGT tax income they will be looking for another source.
      
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      October 12, 2025 3:50pm
      - slijmbal
        
        The problem with a CGT is that there is no such thing as a standard CGT – they are crafted very differently in different countries. They can have all sorts of unintended (or perhaps intended) consequences. They can be a tax on inflation, reduce liquidity, change investment behaviour etc but can also, in theory, add an element of fairness to those who have substantial gain in wealth if they have substantial assets.
        
        Because they can affect high asset family businesses like farms there are often carve outs to prevent them having to be sold. Ditto the family home.
        
        All of this typically leads to overly complex and expensive to run tax regimes with plenty of loopholes and ‘lumpy’ and unreliable tax revenue, which history shows collects much less than they are initially forecast because behaviour changes and governments lie.
        
        Ironically, introducing CGT on properties does not curb property prices and ‘may’ have a slight inflationary effect, Australia being a case in point. Other policies such as land restrictions swamp any CGT effects. We know this because it has been seen and measured many times.
        
        Australia has one of the better designed CGTs but even theirs is expensive and relatively complex to administer compared to other tax revenues for individuals.
        
        After all that CGT collects typically ~2-4% of tax revenue. Truly rich people don’t need to dispose of assets. A CGT predominantly hits middle and upper middle class like all the current taxes. They don’t actually fix the unfairness problem. Of course, in theory, a wealth tax should but again doesn’t as it causes wealth flight and other negative effects on the economy as capital is a requirement.
        
        So, a CGT sounds good as a sound bite but won’t really do what it is claimed to do by the likes of Hipkins and over complicate what is a relatively simple tax regime in NZ. Yes – it’s unfair but life’s unfair.
        
        BTW our pension savings approach is highly punitive from a tax perspective. Arguably, the most punitive in the developed world. Australia’s is substantially less so. A CGT would reduce savings rates further.
        
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        October 12, 2025 10:09pm
    - In Vino Veritas
      
      Nikola, the unfortunate Hipkins has been desperately inept in pretty much everything he’s done in politics to date. Of course he would say that CGT would moderate house price inflation. He hasn’t yet noticed that house prices have dropped dramatically and we do not have a full blown CGT on housing in NZ. There is no surprise there.
      
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      October 12, 2025 3:58pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        I don’t see that a CGT levied at about 15-20% on realised gains would make much difference to the price of anything. If it did – and noone really knows if it would – so what? Offshore experience would suggest that it wouldn’t make any measurable difference.
        
        And of course the waters would be muddied by the fact that if a CGT came in tomorrow that’s when the clock would start. So if the next week you sell an asset that you bought 10 years ago, the 20% or so CGT would be charged on how much the value has gone up in a week, not since you bought it. Might not be a lot .. 🙂 Or you could take the Oz approach which is that the clock only starts for the next buyer …
        
        This is really just about bringing currently untaxed income into the same general tax classification as wages, salaries, interest, dividends etc etc.
        
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        October 12, 2025 5:24pm
  - Philview
    
    The problem for Labour is that Iwi will be exempt from CGT. Are they going to want to debate that during the campaign or keep their plans hidden until after the election?
    
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    October 12, 2025 12:45pm
    - Burtland
      
      a true entho state where the chosen race pay no tax
      
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      October 12, 2025 1:49pm
    - Ian Boag
      
      Iwi are not totally exempt from tax. Ask ChatGPT about it – for some activities they have a lower Maori Authority tax rate, for charitable stuff it is of course zero and for some other stuff it is “normal”.
      
      If CG is accepted as income I guess the same rules would apply ie the tax rate would be whatever the particular organisation was paying,
      
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      October 12, 2025 2:22pm
      - Philview
        
        The last Labour Government’s Tax Working Group reported that Iwi would be exempt from Capital Gains Tax. Treasury also reported that the Crown would have no power to impose a Capital Gains on a Treaty Partner. This will be a divisive debate and probably the reason Jacinda Ardern didn’t want to have it.
        
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        October 12, 2025 4:03pm
      - Dougal10
        
        They often don’t pay rates as well.
        
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        October 12, 2025 4:18pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        Not that simple …
        
        https://chatgpt.com/share/68eb257a-640c-800d-8ad7-45a9b5f297a5
        
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        October 12, 2025 4:50pm
  - slightlyrighty
    
    NZ First has long described itself as saving NZ from Extremist views and keeping coalitions in the centre.
    
    If NZ First can prevent TPM from being in Government by going into coalition with a Centre-Left party, they might just do that.
    
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    October 12, 2025 1:04pm
  - Paulus
    
    What said is important but once again it is failed in longer term history but correct in fact.
    It has been the depth of the women of New Zealand who for some time have elected a Government, and it is continuing with the media fed crap by women for women.
    
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    October 12, 2025 1:33pm
  - Pope Punctilious II
    
    Despite the dead weight of Luxon and Willis, I think the coalition will narrowly win the 2026 election. The opposition parties have a lot of dead weight of their own, and I imagine ACT and NZF will remind voters of the grim realities implied by a potential left-wing government involving TMP and the Rainbow Party.
    
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    October 12, 2025 6:09pm
- lastmanstanding
  
  On the subject of the RBNZ. They are moving out of their Queen St Auckland offices costing 1M in rent pa to swanky new offices at the bottom of town with sea views for $3M rent pa plus a $15M fitout. The new offices have capacity for 250 staff. At present they have 162 staff.
  This is yet another example of a Government agency sticking 2 fingers to the hard working taxpayer. I dont care if Willis says she has no control over them. WTF were they thinking about ( this happened under Orr so we know).
  The RBNZ like the Government and all its agencies should be setting the example and showing fiscal restraint not spending like the drunken sailors that they are. As I have posted governance in NZ at all levels and all sectors is pathetic and this is another example.
  
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  October 12, 2025 9:38am
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    The RBNZ are currently headquartered in a very nice building at 2 The Terrace, across the road from Treasury at 1 The Terrace and opposite the Beehive.
    
    I find it hard to believe that they are contemplating a shift to Auckland, unless the new Governor thinks that there aren’t enough flights out that will take her home.
    
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    October 12, 2025 10:27am
    - Nikola Donatello
      
      It would only have taken you 15 seconds to confirm that the bank has offices in Wellington and Auckland. As Adrian Orr bloated the place to 660 staff it is fair to assume that the Auckland presence is substantial.
      
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      October 12, 2025 11:52am
      - NeverMindTheBollocks
        
        Well aware of that, Nikola. But, some of us live in hope that Orr’s headcount is a high tide mark. And, there’s nothing wrong with the RBNZ having an office in Auckland, since one of its jobs is to regulate the banks, who have pretty much all moved their head offices to Auckland. But, given the new office costs provided by the commentator, plus the arrival of a foreigner as head of the outfit, plus the predilection of many such with the wherewithal to take their holidays at home, it’s not unreasonable to speculate that said new offices may be due to her preference for proximity to our major international airport.
        
        Of course, the new Auckland offices may be a hangover from Orr’s day.
        
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        October 12, 2025 1:08pm
  - Foxfour
    
    The Lease for the swanky office space at 205 Queen St – The ANZ Bank twin towers.
    The replacement building lease is hardly swanky, just next to Britomart Station
    
    Any new lease will be much higher than the old lease, and even if they had stayed in Swanky Queen would have been much the same say $3mill pa
    Current A grade Auckland leases ( often including fit out contribution) are around $550 psm p.a
    
    RBNZ say in OIA release that they have signed for 4,807.1 m2 which comes to $2.6 mill pa
    
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    October 12, 2025 11:16am
Cassandra

Hamit Coskun set fire to a Koran outside the Turkish embassy in London and was then attacked with a knife by an outraged Moslem. Subsequently the attacker was given a suspended sentence for assault and Hamit was found guilty of “racially aggravated public disorder”. With the help of the Free Speech Union Hamit appealed and his conviction has been overturned.

The next news item is likely to be a report of Hamit’s murder but he has helped to establish an important legal precept, that freedom of speech includes the right to offend.
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October 12, 2025 8:06am
- Sacha
  
  Don’t people CHOOSE to be offended?
  I generally avoid people whose actions/statements ‘offend’ me.
  
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  October 12, 2025 9:27am
  - PurplePen
    
    Ricky Gervais on being offended says just because you’re offended doesn’t make you right. It’s less than 60 seconds
    
    https://youtube.com/shorts/FWE1ZMP2HRg
    
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    October 12, 2025 12:31pm
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    Sacha – correct – offence can never be given, only taken.
    
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    October 12, 2025 1:09pm
- In Vino Veritas
  
  I’m surprised he was even convicted under that charge. Last time I looked, Islam isn’t a race. OK, I’ve looked. The charge was a public order charge. More specifically, a religiously aggravated public order offence of using disorderly behaviour within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress” and that he was motivated by “hostility towards members of a religious group, namely followers of Islam”. Of course there is no such law in the Public Order Act nor the Crime and Disorder Act. Laughably, whilst Coskun received a fine, the man who slashed him with a knife received a suspended jail sentence. It appears that it is OK to attempt to kill someone if you are “defending your religion”.
  
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  October 12, 2025 10:03am
  - Foxfour
    
    That wrong , its in the Public Order Act. Sec 29C
    “Using threatening words or behaviour with the intent to stir up religious hatred is an offense.
    
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    October 12, 2025 11:43am
    - Foxfour
      
      Plus the part thats left out
      “shouting “fuck Islam” and “Islam is religion of terrorism” while burning the holy book in February.
      
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      October 12, 2025 11:58am
    - PurplePen
      
      Who decides the topic in hand is a religion or valid or recognized belief. Is there a statutory register of beliefs that one can be subject to offensive acts.
      
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      October 12, 2025 12:33pm
      - Foxfour
        
        A Judge. Thats what courts do.
        Are you saying referring to a global religion by name wasnt enough
        
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        October 12, 2025 5:00pm
    - In Vino Veritas
      
      Sorry fox, my bad, didn’t explain it well enough. The PO Act does in fact have a specific law, but that law does not cover what he did, and what he was charged for. You cannot be charged under it for just insulting someone or their religion. So the guy can insult people and religion as much as he likes.
      
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      October 12, 2025 4:05pm
- Pope Punctilious II
  
  It’s a shocker that the attacker wasn’t charged the attempted murder.
  
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  October 12, 2025 10:13am
- kowtow
  
  In disturbing news from the Continent democracy under threat due to threats to political campaigning in Holland and Belgium.
  
  The “diversity dividend” in action.
  
  As far as I can see , very little in our legacy media about this huge threat to our hard fought for freedoms ,way of life and order in society.
  
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  October 12, 2025 10:33am
- PurplePen
  
  And if he had burnt the Bible or the Torah etc would there have been the same reaction from followers from those religions. So the crime comes down to the person from a religion not being able to exert self-control and because of that the person that did the burning becomes the criminal. Madness. Shouldn’t the crime be the Imam that has incited their own followers to violence and violent reactions to free speech such as the reaction to cartoons, Rushdi, etc.
  
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  October 12, 2025 12:28pm
Chuck Bird

[Mod – stop posting the same message in different posts]
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October 12, 2025 8:07am
- Pineapple Lumps
  
  Chuck, I understand you are happy about the results for Waikato District council and the rejection of Māori wards. What did you think of the Hamilton city result?
  
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  October 12, 2025 8:26am
  - Chuck Bird
    
    I think it is a good result except for the continuation of the Maori wards, but that is what the people voted for.
    
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    October 12, 2025 8:48am
    - I remember when
      
      Looking at the results to date for the continuation of Maori wards, it proves what we already knew.
      In some cases they will be retained, looking at the North Island map, largely where it was a reasonable expectation they would be.
      Rotorua, East Coast, Gisborne, etc.
      However, the results proved how little need there was for them in the first place, as Maori candidates had little reason to doubt their prospects of being elected without Maori wards.
      Or did all those who voted in favour of retaining Maori wards do so because -while they agreed their Council needed Maori input but weren’t prepared to vote for Maori themselves?
      
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      October 12, 2025 11:05am
    - Foxfour
      
      Did you know before there were maori seats there were special classes of europeans also got seats of their own
      1)Auckland Settlements electorate – which was only for fencible settlers on their townships around Auckland. Howick, Panmure, Otahuhu and Onehunga
      2) Goldfields electorate for those often itinerate having mining licenses in South Island, 2 versionjs of that
      
      It was the special class of european seats that give the idea for maori seats
      
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      October 12, 2025 12:08pm
      - ISeeRed
        
        Are you seriously suggesting something that ended in the 19th century justifies institutional racism in the 21st century?
        
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        October 12, 2025 12:28pm
      - Pineapple Lumps
        
        Regardless of your tenuous historical equivalence, race based seats are impossible to setup to provide equal representation on the basis race. They are divisive, based on an ethos of us and them, 1st 300 years of arrivals more important than everyone else. They are a cancer that infects our political system. No better example than TPM!
        
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        October 12, 2025 12:29pm
      - Jack5
        
        Fox4’s …. before there were maori [sic] seats there were special classes of europeans [sic] also got seats of their own …
        
        The voting for miners was for any British subject who held a miner’s licence, and there were Maori miners.
        
        The reason most Maori couldn’t take part in early elections was that you had to meet minimum private property ownership requirements to vote, and Maori land was overwhelmingly communally owned.
        
        Still, a hundred Maori voted in New Zealand’s first election, in 1852.
        
        Gold miners were given votes because the Government was scared uprisings in the Australian goldfields, like the 1854 Eureka stockade, would be repeated in NZ.
        
        The NZ Encyclopedia records that in 1870 there were only 41,500 registered electors in all of New Zealand, but 20,000 miners were also eligible to vote.
        
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        October 12, 2025 2:58pm
Maggy Wassilieff

Two thirds of voters don’t want Maori wards

For too long, the Left has tried to impose its vision of “co-governance” everywhere from council chambers to dog park under the thin disguise of “representation.” But these wards were never about democracy. They were about ideology, identity politics, and guaranteeing seats for a select group regardless of competence or accountability. A seat reserved by ancestry is, by definition, not democratic.

https://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2025/10/steven-gaskell-democracy-strikes-back.html#more
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October 12, 2025 8:13am
- Eastlander
  
  The actual people of Wellington rejected them too, we were simply outnumbered by the excrement that collected in the toilet bowl this city has been allowed to become.
  
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  October 12, 2025 8:18am
  - I remember when
    
    Mistakenly referred to as Servants.
    
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    October 12, 2025 11:12am
    - Eastlander
      
      At least here we don’t compound the misnomer by calling them ‘civil’.
      
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      October 12, 2025 1:55pm
- Philview
  
  I have only had a quick look at the News so far but didn’t notice much reporting on the referendums.
  
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  October 12, 2025 8:19am
  - graham
    
    One News mentioned it very briefly last night but then moved on quickly. Almost as if they really didn’t want to acknowledge it.
    
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    October 12, 2025 2:33pm
- cmm
  
  But the other third include the bulk of civil servants who know best.
  
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  October 12, 2025 8:20am
  - Pope Punctilious II
    
    “the bulk of” meaning 90%.
    
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    October 12, 2025 8:33am
- Notsofast
  
  “A seat reserved by ancestry is, by definition, not democratic”
  
  Cassandra recently pointed out a specific case where 1/32nd maori dna gains access, with mediocre academic prowess, to hotly contested medical school places, and the subsequent wealth that more or less guarantees.
  
  I assume therefore that all decision making by maori for the common citizenry is possible with this blood quantum.
  Fair assumption?
  I know Winston recently cited 1/512 as a figure too.
  There are other cases in sport and so on one hears about.
  This is so obviously unsustainable for an equitable community the discussion should be happening by now.
  
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  October 12, 2025 8:35am
  - Foxfour
    
    Its not mediocre academic results that gain access to medical school. Theres special entry also for those pakeha from rural schools not just Maori.
    
    They still have to have A grades, just not the A+ grades that the standard entry requires
    
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    October 12, 2025 11:36am
    - Jack5
      
      The Maori and Pacific Admission Scheme (MAPAS) provides special entry for Maori and Pacific students into Auckland and Otago university medical programs. It allocates 30 per cent of places in the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences to these groups.
      
      Students who live in rural areas are favoured under separate schemes, with no racial criteria. Presumably these will be replaced for medical students when the third medical school in Hamilton opens. It’s supposed to be designed partly to help supply GP’s for rural areas.
      
      Refugees in NZ have another special entry scheme.
      
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      October 12, 2025 1:45pm
      - Foxfour
        
        Otago is not part of UA Mapas
        
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        October 12, 2025 5:06pm
      - Jack5
        
        Otago University has special entry to its medical programmes for what it calls the “Maori Equity Group”, but you know that Fox4 (re your post at 5.06). These applicants need to verify their Maori ancestry.
        
        Otago also has an “NZ resident indigenous Pacific Origins” equity group, with entry to medical courses for not only Pacific nations with official ties to NZ such as the Cook Islands and Western Samoa, but also to territories including Rapanui (Easter Island) – part of Chile, Tonga, New Caledonia – a colony of France, the Hawaii, a state of the USA.
        
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        October 12, 2025 8:26pm
    - wsk12345
      
      Dont lie. I peraonally know someone who got into med sxhool with a 67% average in year 13. Maori. I would call that about. B-. I similarly know a girl from a low income family who got mid 70s – she got in on the quota and dropped out after the first semester. It was too hard and she didn’t have the discipline.
      
      As for conflating rural and refugee quotas with maori and PI, that is misleading. Something like 40% of places are for the special people whereas the rural/low income/ refugee categories could be counted on your fingers.
      
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      October 12, 2025 4:00pm
      - Foxfour
        
        In 2026, there are up to 73 places allocated for the RRAS in the MBChB program for domestic students. UA
        
        Your claims don’t match the facts. I would go so far to call it all lies , especially when its ‘ I know a maori…’
        
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        October 13, 2025 6:56am
- Pineapple Lumps
  
  It is great that maori wards were put up for vote this election, although I am surprised at the number of places that voted for them. Particularly the urban-rural divide which has some cities in support.
  
  As an Auckland ratepayer I am less pleased that the special roles for maori in the Auckland council committees etc have not been given the same opportunity for ratepayers to decide. So the current government can be commended for the courage to put wards to the vote but will they ever have the spine to tackle the special roles in NZs largest city?
  
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  October 12, 2025 8:42am
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    Spot on. What I think is not well understood by many New Zealanders is that Maori Ward candidates don’t have to come from local iwi, and in fact don’t even have to be Maori (if anyone of the pakeha persuasion is up for a laugh then there are 25 Maori Wards left & available in the 2028 poll), though voters must be on the Maori roll.
    
    Anyway, what this means is that the Maori Ward candidates may come from anywhere in the country, and have little or no connection with the Council area. Tory Whanau’s family roots, for example, are in Patea. There are any number of Wellingtonians of all stripes who have longer history with Wellington. I suspect that this is one of the reasons for yesterday’s wipeout; her opponent has local iwi roots. Certainly, it can’t just be her incompetence; Andrew Little’s success says otherwise. I digress.
    
    In Wellington we have two unelected local iwi appointees who have roles purely and simply because their ancestors invaded and murdered the people living in Wellington in the 1820s.
    
    Neither of these people stood in 2025 as candidates for the Maori Ward.
    
    The only reason for non Maoris to vote to keep Maori Wards is white guilt indoctrination. It’s certainly not a requirement of the Treaty of Waitangi.
    
    http://www.votelocal.co.nz/maori-wards-and-constituencies/
    
    https://wellington.govt.nz/news-and-events/news-and-information/our-wellington/2023/07/meet-our-mana-whenua-representatives
    
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    October 12, 2025 9:24am
- Gravelroad
  
  Not surprised that the continuation of the Maori wards in many areas has not found support.
  From the get-go, separatist representation idealogy of this nature assumes that the people involved cannot get elected in any other way.
  I’ve had a family member who was a three term elected on a local council.
  He had to work for hard and consistently for it. He had to get out there and campaign – win people over with knowledge and character.
  He couldn’t just say “vote for me because I am special and deserve it”.
  The Maori ward concept sent a signal that the powers-that-be believe some people are incapable of being elected because of their race.
  That is demeaning to them, and reinforces the victim mentality.
  However, if there is a change of government next year, I fully expect that separate Maori wards for local governance will become mandatory.
  
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  October 12, 2025 8:48am
  - Nikola Donatello
    
    “The Maori ward concept sent a signal that the powers-that-be believe some people are incapable of being elected because of their race.”
    
    That is not the rationale for Maori wards.
    
    The rationale is the Treaty as a Partnership. At least in some Councils this is reflected in co governance. In turn that requires guaranteed Maori representation.
    
    Some councils are also entering into memoranda of understanding to underpin Co governance with iwi.
    
    To be honest, Maori wards are the biggest concern. Indeed I expect that some the councils that have lost their Maori wards to accelerate their march to co governance using the MOU model.
    
    Honestly, the vast majority of folk have no idea what is going on.
    
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    October 12, 2025 9:00am
    - Nikola Donatello
      
      Edit
      
      “To be honest, Maori wards are NOT the biggest concern.”
      
      Just a final thought. Giving people a choice on Maori wards is classic National on Treaty issues. They give the appearance of doing something useful. However Councils and Iwi and the public service will just find other ways to achieve their objectives.
      
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      October 12, 2025 9:11am
      - Gravelroad
        
        Ok, fair enough.
        Perhaps the Maori wards are not the biggest concern for some.
        But, this referendum process has been the only opportunity that the residents and ratepayers out here have been granted to voice their views – in a binding and private way.
        The opinions of the silent majority.
        Politicians and activists don’t care about what non- Maori in the provinces think, of course, but at least some have now have had a say.
        
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        October 12, 2025 10:01am
      - Quail
        
        ND,
        Agree.
        The Maori ward vote has given a National patina of actually doing something . Actually just a Clayton’s effort that fooled no one.
        What it should do is tell National their opposition to the ACT treaty bill was unacceptable to most New Zealanders
        Another great opportunity lost!
        
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        October 12, 2025 10:41am
      - Scott
        
        Sadly Masterton has voted to keep the local Maori ward. It’s such a shame. If you are a white person voting for a Maori ward it’s not in your interest. It’s like a turkey voting for Christmas.
        
        But we have many people for whom virtue signalling is the most important thing. I voted for the Maori ward. I am a good person.
        
        I say if a Maori person wants to get on the council then fine. Just campaign and get people to vote for you. The same way as everybody else. 😎
        
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        October 12, 2025 11:13am
  - R
    
    If people are incapable of being elected; this implies that appointed ward members are seen as incompetent by an astute voting public, maybe not so astute public ?
    
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    October 12, 2025 12:09pm
- PurplePen
  
  2022 Maori, presumably, voted in the Wellington Maori ward. Hardly representative given there are more than 20,000 Maori governed by the Wellington council. (Google stats). It’s a sham. Sham representation. Whomever has the most mates wins.
  
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  October 12, 2025 12:41pm
  - Foxfour
    
    Majority of votes is a majority even its its 30% of those eligible
    Your claims sound like hate democracy
    
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    October 13, 2025 7:05am
- Jake Dee
  
  There’s a couple of other good points mentioned by Steven Gaskell, first this is leftist ideology and identity politics. I think that’s important to keep in mind.
  Steven Gaskell doesn’t mention this but I will, the co-governance movement is a leftist trojan horse, not authentic Maori culture.
  The other good point Steven Gaskell makes is that we now have a sociological experiment in place,
  “For the handful of councils clinging to Māori wards congratulations, you’ve volunteered for an experiment in political sociology.”
  Now Steven isn’t very optimistic abound the outcomes for the councils that have retained Māori wards, and neither am I, but control for population, economics and geography and in 5 10 years we will have some hard data.
  Leftists can’t argue against hard data, can they? Can they?
  
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  October 12, 2025 1:02pm
  - PurplePen
    
    Two ironies. One of the Northland councils after they had introduced a Maori ward ended up going from having two Maori councillors to having only one.
    
    The other councils that have a high Maori population don’t need a Maori ward yet some of them voted to retain one.
    
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    October 12, 2025 4:49pm
- Paulus
  
  If I understand Seymour has has inferred this morning that the vote against Maori Wards is a full indication of the need to totally disestablish, by Parliament, of these local Maori unvoted Council seats.
  Maori can stand and get in as a Councillors anyway, as there are many now, which in turn under ACT, with my vote, should go forward to the abolition of all Parliamentary Maori Seats, which are no longer appropriate as there are no Maori any more.
  My National 50 year votes will go to ACT with this in mind.
  
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  October 12, 2025 1:45pm
- Foxfour
  
  Have you counted the votes for and against?
  
  Many smaller rural councils were against, but bigger urban areas for
  
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  October 12, 2025 5:02pm
Ipanema69

I would like to point out to all newly elected mayors and councillors that your CEO (who should be called a town clerk) derives all of his/her delegated authority from you.

The election of a new council requires that these delegated authorities be renewed.

If you truly wish to effectuate change I would think long and hard about what powers and financial authorities you wish to delegate.

Additionally there is no reason to grant authority delegations for any specific time period. You can if necessary limit authorities to say a three month period. This forces management to come back to you periodically to renew delegations.
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October 12, 2025 8:22am
- Paulus
  
  Council staff throughout New Zealand are construed with the fact that they are there after three years of a Councillor, and are firmly entrenched as jobs for the girls and boys anyway – so what is just three years of great pay, outside lobby groups, and no responsibility as that is loaded to the Councillors as whitewashers ?
  Remember no Mayor or Councillors has any jurisdiction of any staff whatsoever.
  That is the sole CEO who is all things.
  
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  October 12, 2025 1:50pm
Pineapple Lumps

Randomly channel surfing last night and came across “I’m not racist, but” a NZ produced, Stacey Morrison presented program. I didn’t watch for long, but learnt a lot…

1. Racism is not the same as prejudice or bias
2. Racism can only exist when there is a power imbalance, therefore a minority cannot exhibit racism
3. Reverse racism is not racism. Using the word reverse shows that where the power sits.
4. NZ was colonised by white supremacists

So I didn’t watch for long but can now understand why in these peoples minds it is fine to hate white New Zealanders. They are the majority so basically it is fair crack at them by any other minority.

Here we go again, paying taxes to fund minority activists to spread their message of hatred and division. It makes me sick.
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October 12, 2025 8:23am
- Conservatarian
  
  congrats Pineapple Lumps, you are now part way towards your degree from the University of Auckland. Please make sure the university receives your cheque for $5k by the end of the week.
  
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  October 12, 2025 8:33am
  - Pineapple Lumps
    
    Thanks for pointing this out Conservatarian, the cheque is in the mail.
    
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    October 12, 2025 12:31pm
    - Don Beckett
      
      One of the three biggest lies. 🙂
      
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      October 12, 2025 1:03pm
  - PurplePen
    
    Welcome to the University of virtue, a leading employer of unemployed activists. This is Auckland Uni. Less than a minute
    
    https://www.instagram.com/reel/DPicGGODE_q/
    
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    October 12, 2025 12:47pm
- Philview
  
  Power imbalance sounds like the neo Marxist definition of racism.
  
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  October 12, 2025 8:35am
- NK
  
  It was possibly the worst piece of State propaganda I have ever witnessed on our TV screens outside of the Covid and the vaccine debacle. It practically told us we are all racists. It was an exercise in programming and conditioning I’ve never seen before. Funded by the State. Shown on State TV. An absolute disgrace all round.
  
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  October 12, 2025 8:39am
  - Wandering Star
    
    “It practically told us we are all racists.”
    
    I wonder, as a first principle, what exactly is wrong with being racist? What is wrong with believing, as I do, that the human species is divisible into sub-species (i.e. races) and that these sub-species differ from each other in sometimes completely obvious ways that go much deeper than outer skin tone, and that it is these differences that account for inequality between races?
    
    By this definition, I am racist. But so what? Also by this definition, most human beings throughout the history of humanity have also been racist, favouring, as they have, their own in all sorts of contexts, most obviously in selecting a mate. Again, so what?
    
    It is quite obvious from reading the comments here that even though commenters are not “lefties” they have nonetheless adopted and internalised the leftist concept of “racism” to the point it has become ingrained. In other words, their moral compass is an essentially leftist one, and their thoughts and behaviour are determined accordingly.
    
    “Racism” is nothing more than a revolutionary leftist political term formulated around the early 20th century and used to disarm White people, disempower them politically, and ultimately, lower their status in deference to non-White people.
    
    Moreover, just listen to the rhetoric used: “White” is completely and openly synonymous with “racist,” so unless you can change your ethnicity, a White person is, on this formula, inexorably racist. Accordingly, any acceptance of “racism” as the pinnacle of moral evil is also an acceptance that just being White is the pinnacle of immorality.
    
    If Whiteness and racism are inseparable, then to be “anti-racist” is just to be “anti-White.” Accordingly, any “anti-racist” White who goes out of their way to repudiate “racism” is, by definition, repudiating themselves.
    
    Are you starting to get it yet?
    
    So, if to be racist is just to be White and to recognise the differences of others, what is the best response a White person can provide to accusations or suggestions of being “racist”? Something along the lines of “Sure I am, but so what?” With such a response, the poisonous language is at once stripped of all power to achieve its desired ends.
    
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    October 12, 2025 10:45am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  It does appear that folks view events through quite different lenses:
  
  Kerre Woodham writes of TPM’s continual breaches of Parliament’s protocols
  https://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2025/10/kerre-woodham-te-pati-maori-and-their.html
  
  Waatea News informs us that TPM’s behaviour defines a new era of hope for Parliament
  
  In Oriini Kaipara, many see more than a politician. They see a bridge – between te ao Māori and the halls of power, between history and future, between identity and policy. Her swearing-in was more than procedural; it was a moment of renewal, expectation, and possibility for Aotearoa.
  
  https://waateanews.com/2025/10/10/new-te-pati-maori-tamaki-mp-your-swearing-into-parliament-what-was-that-like/
  
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  October 12, 2025 8:40am
  - David Garrett
    
    Maggy: A good piece by Kerry Woodham (it seems from the footer that she also still uses her name from a marrige)…the bigger question is what is Big Gerry going to do about about on-going contempts by the Maoris? Fuck all is my guess
    
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    October 12, 2025 9:14am
    - pdm
      
      [Mod – deleted, use proper names]
      
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      October 12, 2025 9:36am
      - imalwaysright
        
        Gerry is becoming the Ring Master in his own circus.
        
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        October 12, 2025 10:21am
      - Jethrod
        
        So can a vote of no-confidence be made against a Speaker? If so, what would that do to the Coalition?
        
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        October 12, 2025 10:41am
      - Positan
        
        pdm – In my book Brownlee is already “dog tucker.” He has had countless opportunities to endorse the actual and expected demands of what the rational part of the electorate wanted to see from the parliamentary system – and has failed monumentally.
        
        To allow spoken Maori to be used in NZ’s highest and most signal law-making forum, where many don’t understand it (let alone the watchers and listeners outside the Chamber) is a monumental travesty and nonsense.
        
        To allow the wearing of tea-towels and cowboy hats, and to permit the wearing of bare feet lowers all the mana of parliament.
        
        After the unstructured excesses of Mallard, when so much was expected of the next Speaker, Brownlee’s “efforts” and performance have been utterly dismal.
        
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        October 12, 2025 11:16am
      - pdm
        
        [Mod – deleted. You’ve been asked multiple times now to stop with nicknames]
        
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        October 12, 2025 12:43pm
      - Jack5
        
        There ought to be some Kiwiblog follower who was in Gerry Brownlee’s woodwork class at St Bede’s.
        
        What was he like in those days?
        
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        October 12, 2025 9:33pm
  - Nikola Donatello
    
    David Lange said this in the year 2000. He will be chuckling “I told you so”.
    
    “Democratic government can accommodate Maori political aspiration in many ways… What it cannot do is acknowledge the existence of a separate sovereignty. As soon as it does that, it isn’t a democracy. We can have a democratic form of government or we can have indigenous sovereignty. They can’t coexist and we can’t have them both.”
    
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    October 12, 2025 9:15am
    - Pope Punctilious II
      
      Yes. Contrast this statement by Lange and Helen Clark’s rejection’s rejection of UNDRIP with Key’s and Luxon’s willingness to appease activists. A reminder that the National Party is part of the problem in this country – and no small part.
      
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      October 12, 2025 9:57am
    - Foxfour
      
      In the same lecture Lange also said
      “The treaty cannot be any kind of founding document, as it is sometimes said to be. It does not resolve the question of sovereignty, if only because one version of it claims one form of sovereignty and the other version claims the opposite. The court of appeal once, absurdly, described it as a partnership between races, but it obviously is not. The signatories are, on one side, a distinctive group of people, and on the other, a government which established itself in New Zealand and whose successors represent all of us, whether we are descendants of the signatories or not. The treaty cannot even resolve the argument among Maori themselves in which one side maintains that that you’re a Maori if you identify as such, and the other claims that it’s your links to traditional forms of association which define you as Maori.”
      
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      October 12, 2025 11:32am
      - R
        
        Probably one of the few sensible comments Lange made.
        
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        October 12, 2025 12:14pm
      - Jake Dee
        
        No document CAN resolve sovereignty, be it a constitution a treaty or anything else.
        The parties that signed TOW had whatever sovereignty they possessed determined by something else prior to it.
        Anything that constraints the sovereign IS the sovereign.
        
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        October 12, 2025 1:13pm
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    One could be forgiven for wondering just how neutral Ms Kaipara’s journalism might have been, back before she was elected MP.
    
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    October 12, 2025 1:13pm
- Pope Punctilious II
  
  “therefore a minority can’t be racist”. OK, so the SA apartheid regime’s off the hook then?
  
  As for the power imbalance crap, there’s more than one kind of power. Maori activists milk the power of white guilt for all its worth. And women (supposedly oppressed by men in the West) have a lot of soft power, as evidenced by lighter sentences than men for the same offense, and the existence of a special ministry for women, women-only scholarships etc.
  
  What Morrison really means is that only white people can be racist.
  
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  October 12, 2025 8:42am
- Pope Punctilious II
  
  Is a link to this program available? What channel?
  
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  October 12, 2025 8:45am
  - Yvette
    
    https://www.tvnz.co.nz/shows/im-not-racist-but
    
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    October 12, 2025 9:44am
  - DimChappie
    
    Here is a link to it at TVNZ on Demand. You need to sign up but it’s easy and free:
    
    https://www.tvnz.co.nz/shows/im-not-racist-but
    
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    October 12, 2025 9:55am
  - Pineapple Lumps
    
    TVNZ channel One
    
    I’m Not Racist But…
    SATURDAY 11 OCTOBER 8PM
    
    Join Stacey Morrison and Tāmati Rimene-Sproat for a provocative and powerful live TV special unpacking bias and racism in Aotearoa with experiments, kōrero, and humour.
    
    Holding up a mirror to Aotearoa, Stacey and Tāmati explore the many ways racism shows up in daily life. It’s confronting, it’s uncomfortable, but it’s also an invitation: to listen, to question, and to take the conversation further.
    
    Made with the support from Te Māngai Pāho
    
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    October 12, 2025 10:04am
- cmm
  
  Whew! Thanks. Great to know it is impossible for me to bea racist.
  I am in in a minority in so many ways:
  * Male: less than 50%, therefore a minority.
  * A very small % of NZers are taller than 190cm, therefore a minority.
  * About 1% of NZers are fluent Afrikaans speakers, therefore a minority.
  …
  
  Of course the tune will change as soon as Maori and PI are the majority.
  
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  October 12, 2025 8:49am
  - Taieri
    
    I am in in a minority in so many ways
    ————–
    
    I think I can beat you. I’m the only person in NZ with my surname. How’s that for being the minority?
    
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    October 12, 2025 9:46am
    - pdm
      
      Taieri.
      
      Interesting.
      
      A few weeks ago I did a search of all of the latest Electoral Rolls looking for the whereabouts of an old work colleague from the mid 1960’s.
      
      I found him on the Whangarei Roll hence the need to search them all. He was the only one with his surname, a reasonably common one but, not Smith or Jones, with the Christian Names James Ernest on the latest available rolls.
      
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      October 12, 2025 12:51pm
    - Jethrod
      
      I did a search of the Maori rolls recently for my surname. It is a very Scottish name and therefore I was quite surprised to find 4 persons over the 7 rolls. It would be difficult to get a maori-ised version too.
      I wonder how I could track who connected up with whom?
      
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      October 12, 2025 3:24pm
  - Paulus
    
    Those from the called India Sub Continent are almost as many here already as Maori, so watch this space, as they are now well entrenched as business people with substantial assetts available and their own family contacts.
    
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    October 12, 2025 1:57pm
  - GJM
    
    The smallest minority is the individual – it comes back to the measuring criteria.
    Since I am an individual and hence a minority, anyone who doesn’t like me is racist, and I demand compensation.
    
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    October 12, 2025 5:29pm
- artemisia
  
  Well PL, there is the option – don’t get mad, get even. And the corollary – in the country of the blind, the one eyed man is king.
  
  Of course, getting even depends on choices, but not a bad idea for households to build a very decent rainy day fund that allows a range of choices. Including the old shall I stay or shall I go.
  
  Choices make a real difference.
  
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  October 12, 2025 8:51am
  - Pineapple Lumps
    
    Artemisia – you are correct, we have choices and it is definitely on the cards for me to go. The thing with going is it helps the activists achieve their goals and the place you go to likely has similar activism occurring too.
    
    Is there a choice where we can push back effectively on this activism? What could that look like? Is there a way to get NZers so enraptured by unity that the whingers don’t get taken seriously?
    
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    October 12, 2025 9:01am
- Warren Murray
  
  That’s a technical definition. But it loses it’s potency as the minority gains special rights which tilts the ‘power imbalance’.
  
  Perhaps the best example is apartheid era South Africa. The minority held the power and because the whites were the minority does that mean the policy wasn’t racist? Of course not.
  
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  October 12, 2025 9:04am
- rouppe
  
  The gangs of thugs going around acting like fascists call themselves anti- fascists.
  The groups exhibiting the greatest traits of racism say they can’t be racist because they’re a minority.
  
  It’s a strategy in order to absolve themselves from any responsibility for their actions.
  
  It’s deliberate. It’s been used throughout history, from witch burning to cross burning.
  
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  October 12, 2025 9:55am
- Ghost
  
  I’ve just finished watching it, it’s not that bad, nothing like what people think it will be about
  
  https://www.tvnz.co.nz/shows/im-not-racist-but/episodes/s1-e1
  
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  October 12, 2025 10:54am
  - imalwaysright
    
    What was their conclusion?
    Did they mention contacting the Platform for an interview and then not turning up?
    
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    October 12, 2025 12:42pm
- PurplePen
  
  Is it racism only if the more powerful race says or does not nice things about the less powerful race. Or if the powerful says or does nice things specifically in relation to the less powerful race is that also racism.
  
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  October 12, 2025 12:54pm
- Skottowe
  
  “Racism is not the same as prejudice or bias”
  What people think and say isn’t racism. Our views and opinions don’t materially alter the circumstances of other citizens. It’s governments which can be racist, and they do it by implementing laws and/or societal arrangements which discriminate, either in favour of, or against, particular groups in society. The Maori electoral system is a priori racist. And there’s no getting round that.
  
  I didn’t watch that doco. It was obvious from the start what it would be about. I feel no guilt for being white: I was born that way. Like all of us, I have no control over my skin colour, which, in any event, is merely an extrinsic characteristic.
  
  Non-Maori citizens should firmly reject claims that they’re racist: it’s a nonsensical accusation. The same applies to Maori of course. They can hate us all they like, but that isn’t racism. If one wishes to characterise the Maori view of pakeha, it’d be accurate to call it resentment and animus, driven by feelings of inferiority. Western culture is superior, and they know it full well.
  
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  October 12, 2025 12:56pm
- Tom Hunter
  
  Yep. I was astounded when I first encountered that argument at varsity in the 1980’s. I dismissed it as academic wank but it’s become a mainstream belief on the Left.
  
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  October 12, 2025 3:26pm
NeverMindTheBollocks

The good news for Wellington ratepayers is that they won’t in due course need to commission a portrait of Mayor Andrew Little.

They can just buy this one – https://www.nzherald.co.nz/whanganui-chronicle/news/naked-little-portrait-what-the-artist-was-thinking/PC3D2774PD6BSJBZLLJEJL2IOQ//

[Mod – please dont shorten herald links, it kills the link]
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October 12, 2025 8:27am
David Garrett

Pineapple: Yes…interestingly none of the best dictionaries declare that a minority cannot by definition be racist…a lot of these leftie luvvies would do well to consult a decent dictionary before beginning work on their novel/play/doco
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October 12, 2025 8:33am
- RockyJ
  
  “A minority cannot be racist” unless it is a white minority, as in South Africa. Critical race theory is dangerous because the idea you cannot be racist towards a group enables you to justify the worst kind of inhumanity against them.
  
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  October 12, 2025 8:40am
  - imalwaysright
    
    To paraphrase Orwell:
    Brown skin good, White skin bad.
    
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    October 12, 2025 10:25am
  - MCōs
    
    The dictionary on my phone has a definition for Racist that I’ve always ascribed to
    a person who believes in racism, the doctrine that one’s own racial group is superior or that a particular racial group is inferior to the others.
    I have a number of main stream dictionaries at home dating back to the 19th century. I’ll have a look later and see if the meaning has changed over the years
    
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    October 12, 2025 1:18pm
    - Jack5
      
      The word “racist” is more recent than you might think.
      
      For example the 1973 version of the authoritative two-volume Shorter Oxford Dictionary doesn’t mention it at all.
      
      Etymology sites attribute the word “racism” to Trotsky in 1927 writing about emerging Nazism. Presumably Trotsky used the word in Russian, расизм, which sounds pretty much the same.
      
      Racism existed for millennia before that. Think of ancient countries’ enslavement of defeated peoples.
      
      Racism’s in the DNA of everyone. If you descend from northern or central Europeans, about 40 to 50 per cent of your DNA goes back to the Yamnaya nomads of the Russian Steppes.
      
      The Yamnaya cannot have given equal-citizen status to the people in the land lands they swept into about 5,000 years ago. No indigenous-language protection either. Most European languages descend from their tongue.
      
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      October 12, 2025 2:16pm
    - MCōs
      
      My 1240 page 1898 edition of Chambers doesn’t have the word at all!
      My 1981 Concise Oxford defines racism as theory that human abilities are determined by race
      
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      October 12, 2025 2:45pm
- Pineapple Lumps
  
  David, the thought police require you to hand in that dictionary. It has been superseded now and in the new one you will find the correct definitions.
  
  Reframing language is from the classic lefty playbook. Other examples include the change to the definition of vaccine to now include mRNA treatments which did not meet the prior definition. Defining oneself as a ‘kind and empathetic’ leader yet refusing to meet with people your legislation had put out of their jobs. And of course we can’t forget ‘trans-women are women’.
  
  No doubt you and other contributors can think of others.
  
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  October 12, 2025 8:51am
  - mandk
    
    Don’t forget “genocide” which only applies when Israelis are taking action against people who want to kill every single Jew.
    
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    October 12, 2025 9:17am
    - Wandering Star
      
      Oh God, not the “our opponents really want to do to us the thing we are actually doing to them right now” Orwellian defence.
      
      And since Pineapple Lumps has requested a few examples of “leftist” reframing of reality by the use of language, how about also a “right to defend” actually being a right to attack at will, or “the world’s most moral army” actually acting in a completely immoral fashion?
      
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      October 12, 2025 11:00am
      - mandk
        
        It’s not the Israelis claiming the Palestinians want to kill them all. It’s the Palestinians who freely say that.
        
        Your Jew hatred is poisoning you.
        
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        October 12, 2025 2:19pm
  - Swifty
    
    Indigenous.
    
    Genocide.
    
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    October 12, 2025 9:48am
    - Paulus
      
      And also defined as Aboriginal (not just Australia).
      
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      October 12, 2025 1:59pm
JJ56

Headline in Stuff this morning:

“He’s gay. She’s straight. They’re happily married”

Who cares?
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October 12, 2025 8:34am
- pdm
  
  JJ56 – they ran that headline yesterday as well.
  
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  October 12, 2025 9:40am
- David Garrett
  
  Jj: Yes indeed…as i have said here a number of times Stuff now publishes stories which even as few as ten years ago would have been published in the Women’s Weekly, and even maybe not there.
  
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  October 12, 2025 9:41am
- MCōs
  
  Sunday is rife with ‘human interest’ stories and opinion pieces in the Herald and Stuff; I suspect because their normal army of reporters have the day off and they use these prepared articles to fill the gaps between the advertisements.
  
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  October 12, 2025 9:50am
- R
  
  Married…!…for how long?
  
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  October 12, 2025 10:33am
- PurplePen
  
  No one says you need to be anything except human to get married under the eyes of the state. So who cares. Religions, they have all sorts of different rules and conditions.
  
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  October 12, 2025 12:56pm
- Jake Dee
  
  Check back on that “marriage” in 20-30 years for an update.
  
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  October 12, 2025 1:16pm
sungsamning

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15182451/Trump-DOGE-mass-layoffs-federal-government.html
The DOGE Bites.

Donald Trump began his promised mass purge of federal workers Friday, as more than 4,100 people were laid off as the government shutdown rolls on.
The president previewed the pink slips in a press conference in the Oval Office earlier Friday, blaming them and the shutdown on the Democrats.
‘It’ll be a lot and it’ll be Democrat-oriented because we figure they started this thing. It’ll be a lot of people, all because of the Democrats,’ Trump said.
It’s the biggest set of firings in government since Elon Musk’s DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) purge early in Trump’s second term.
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October 12, 2025 8:46am
Hugh Jarse

I saw a bit of it, it looked like a reach around by a bunch of carefully selected hand wringers. But more importantly, that Maori media power couple, Scotty and Stacey Morrison made another cool $600k out of pandering to white liberal guilt.
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October 12, 2025 8:46am
sungsamning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTYvJps8pUo
Is The Liberal Party About To Collapse?
In this video we discuss if the Liberal Party is collapsing, why they’ve been struggling over the past few months and what this means for the Australian Political landscape.
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October 12, 2025 8:46am
- Dougal10
  
  The liberal party is currently a disaster , the victorian branchs dont like each other depending which part of the city you come from and nsw is not much better they bully on how long you have been part of the party machine not on whether you are electable or not.
  
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  October 12, 2025 4:39pm
Philview

I saw the headline that Robert Sarkies wants Brooke van Velden to see his Pike River movie. It is already sounds like a Labour Party lovefest. Jacinda Ardern playing herself as it seems there is no actor capable of representing her unique talents on screen. I will not be watching it. I have sympathy for the families but the left wing politicisation of the tragedy never ends.
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October 12, 2025 8:51am
- Pineapple Lumps
  
  Philview- 100% correct
  
  Little and co used this tragedy and the empathy of NZ to relentlessly attack the government of the time. In effect it was dirty politics.
  
  In power they spent more taxpayer money, fruitlessly, and dragged out the hope of the dead man’s families.
  
  Another example of doing evil while proclaiming to be doing good.
  
  Brooke et al should leave this well alone.
  
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  October 12, 2025 10:09am
  - Jethrod
    
    Another failed expedition by Angry.
    
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    October 12, 2025 10:47am
  - Prince
    
    Talking about dirty politics, Ray Chung sent his ill-advised email early 2023.
    It was released by an unnamed councillor to the media mid 2025, just as the election campaign got underway.
    Had the email come from a left-wing politician against a right-wing candidate, there would have been serious and appropriate questions asked about who held it back to cause maximum damage.
    But the media looks after their own, and the question was barely asked.
    
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    October 12, 2025 10:53am
    - Eastlander
      
      By Apanowicz, who is now out on his ear.
      
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      October 12, 2025 1:58pm
- MCōs
  
  This tragedy has been politically pretty much from day one when PM Key made a reckless promise to the families before knowing what he was actually talking about
  Winston, of course, wanted a dollar each way
  “New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has previously pledged to re-enter the mine, even volunteering to go in himself.
  But he said he would not be signing the latest agreement as the families deserved better than “a PR stunt”.”
  And so it went on
  https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/337248/parties-pledge-to-re-enter-pike-river
  
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  October 12, 2025 12:15pm
- kowtow
  
  ‘Jacinda Ardern playing herself’
  
  On a serious note , i love how these socialists come across all support the hard working men of the labouring classes and yet do their utmost to shut down their industries and export all the manufacturing/ primary industry jobs to Asia.
  
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  October 12, 2025 1:43pm
  - Paulus
    
    Many would have Ardern back in Labour politics tomorrow – the women want her as they can only get what they want with her, and more.
    
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    October 12, 2025 2:02pm
NeverMindTheBollocks

Two e-scooter accidents in Auckland that have led to critically injured riders.

I’m all for personal choice but that has to come with personal responsibility, which seems to be less in evidence than in former times.

Which means a national framework is required, that might include policies around how fast the things are allowed to go, whether they should be able to use cycleways, footpaths or roads, whether riders should have to pass some sort of competency test, and whether e-scooter rental companies should have their ACC levies assessed based on the medical costs associated with the outcome of their renter’s behaviour.

I note that one of the two accidents occurred between 1am and 2am, the time of day when nothing good happens. Perhaps Police should be breath testing e-scooter riders.

http://www.1news.co.nz/2025/10/11/auckland-e-scooter-rider-critically-injured-in-collision-with-car/
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October 12, 2025 9:00am
- PurplePen
  
  I’ve always disliked intensely local authorities and NZTA allowing escooters on footpaths. A pedestrian getting hit by a 70 to 100kg body moving at the speed they move isn’t going to fare well. I’ve had a few near misses. And there’s no need for it. All the local authorities couldn’t jump on the band wagon of allowing them fast enough as they didn’t want to be seen as the kill-joy or be seen as not modern. The reality is they’re a mode of transport that’s used by an exceptional few. If they had be banned outright as they are in Paris it wouldn’t have made the slightest difference in attracting tourists or residents or made life less bearable.
  
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  October 12, 2025 1:01pm
- OlderChas
  
  NMTB – I suggest putting some sort of alcohol lock on them. Mrs Older immediately said ewwww – how many mouths go around the mouthpiece?
  No idea how to make it work, but should be looked at by those capable.
  Also – I’ve seen some scooters zipping along at scary speeds. Are they too fast?
  
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  October 12, 2025 2:00pm
Nikola Donatello

You will know more than me. However AFAIK it is the Privileges Committee and all MPs who need to “do something”. Her ridiculous performance with the eye rolling warrants her being suspended for the rest of the year. Yes that would make her a martyr but better than doing nothing.
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October 12, 2025 9:21am
- Flossie
  
  It’s all been said before, and recently by Mr Brownlee, that everyone who goes onto a marae respects the rules and protocols there.
  Really, is it too much to ask everyone to respect the rules and protocols of our parliament?
  
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  October 12, 2025 9:56am
  - Pineapple Lumps
    
    If marae tikanga is the line, then Kaipara’s haka was nothing compared to the respect shown at Waitangi!
    
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    October 12, 2025 10:11am
  - R
    
    Yes, BUT it is not the desired MAORI parliament. Big difference
    
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    October 12, 2025 10:37am
  - Nikola Donatello
    
    On your last question, I think that the Maori Party holds parliament in contempt. IIRC they have talked about having their own separate parliament.
    
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    October 12, 2025 11:18am
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      Indeed they did:
      
      We now begin the process of establishing our own Parliament. Our people will design what this looks like for us, nobody else.
      
      https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA2405/S00212/te-pati-maori-declaration-of-political-independence.htm
      
      However I don’t know how much success they’ve had with advancing their cause.
      
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      October 12, 2025 11:41am
      - Swifty
        
        Just an email address harvesting exercise.
        
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        October 12, 2025 11:53am
      - BananaLlama
        
        Must be nice to have the Maori party speak on behalf of all Maori and tell them what government they will have. It must go down really well with everyone they consider to be Maori.
        
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        October 12, 2025 12:55pm
      - NeverMindTheBollocks
        
        I guess the participants in such a parliament would have to fund said parliament.
        
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        October 12, 2025 1:17pm
      - graham
        
        “However I don’t know how much success they’ve had with advancing their cause.”
        
        Given the article was well over a year ago and we’ve heard nothing since, I’d say … probably, not much.
        
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        October 12, 2025 2:30pm
      - Boy Geoff
        
        Who sets the benefit levels to ensure that citizens live in a life of dignity?
        
        1 0
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        October 12, 2025 3:38pm
      - PurplePen
        
        Fill yer boots. It’s sort of what article 2 of the treaty says. The chief has jurisdiction over his people on his land. I’m assuming all chiefs are only ever men. Section 71 of the NZ Constitution Act 1852 said as much … it was a temporary arrangement.
        
        71. And Whereas it may be expedient that the laws, customs, and usages of the aboriginal or native inhabitants of New Zealand, so far as they are not repugnant to the general principles of humanity, should for the present be maintained for the government of themselves, in all their relations to and dealings with each other, and that particular districts should be set apart within which such laws, customs, or usages should be so observed:
        
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        October 12, 2025 4:54pm
Boy Geoff

Interesting to see some of the local luvvies jumping onto the international sites that have been ridiculing Kaiapara’s maiden appearance in the House. “But she’s doing something cultural, but she’s doing something cultural!”
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October 12, 2025 9:34am
- PurplePen
  
  What does that mean “doing something cultural”. What then is something that’s not cultural for any human from any race. In any case it doesn’t make it right. Cannibalism and slavery at one point or another were “cultural”.
  
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  October 12, 2025 4:57pm
G152

The Maori who are so upset are not Maori but like many of us are a culmination of tribes from many sources.
But we are all out of Africa and are one
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October 12, 2025 9:36am
Swifty

I find myself a little interested in Kaipara’s pukana the other day – the one clearly directed at Brownlee before he exited the chamber.

https://x.com/celina101010/status/1976841539826729398?s=46

I asked Grok for the purpose of pukana:

“Pūkana is a traditional Māori facial expression used in cultural performances like haka and waiata, characterized by intense, wide-eyed stares, dilated eyes, and often a protruding tongue. Its purpose is multifaceted:
• Cultural Expression: Pūkana conveys emotion, intensity, and passion, enhancing the storytelling and spiritual connection in performances. It embodies the energy and wairua (spirit) of the performer.
• Intimidation and Challenge: In haka, pūkana is used to intimidate opponents or assert dominance, historically in warfare and today in ceremonial or competitive contexts.
• Communication: It emphasizes key moments in the performance, signaling defiance, strength, or emphasis to the audience or opponents.
• Gender Variations: Men often use pūkana with a protruding tongue to appear fierce, while women may focus on wide eyes and raised eyebrows to express emotion or beauty.”

She has been elected to represent New Zealanders in our Parliament. Is this the relationship she wishes to have with her parliamentary colleagues and especially our Speaker – one based on intimidation, challenge, dominance and defiance?

Perhaps I’m reading too much into it but, regardless of historical and cultural context, in 2025 it doesn’t look a collegial gesture to me at all. It looks quite threatening actually.

And will others be able to get away with threatening or defiant facial expressions to the Speaker in future or is it just Maori who will be accorded this privilege?
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October 12, 2025 10:32am
- Paulus
  
  Perhaps we need a Maori Speaker and see what reaction comes forth ?
  
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  October 12, 2025 2:09pm
  - G152
    
    The last labour lot had a maori Speaker
    
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    October 12, 2025 3:16pm
  - lifesgood
    
    Bring back Lockwood Smith. What an excellent speaker he was. Brownlee is hopeless.
    
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    October 12, 2025 4:36pm
wilderbeast

Have to say it makes me laugh how throughout the year the MSM present us with one existential threat after the other, including the threat of the “wrong” candidates winning in our local body elections. Because when the results roll in on a Saturday and they’re all off for the weekend we have to wait til Monday to get any sort of comprehensive reporting on this most pressing of issues. Kind of like how they’ve lionised the Gaza genocide lot but don’t seem much interested in Trump’s ceasefire…..why should we take them seriously?
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October 12, 2025 11:00am
Yvette

Māori wards, candidates voted down across Taranaki – RNZ
Ardern’s kindness legacy? – not only division, but division in some places and not in others:
divided division
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October 12, 2025 11:06am
- Boy Geoff
  
  Ardern told us that democracy needs to become more sophisticated
  
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  October 12, 2025 3:02pm
Nikola Donatello

Just a thought. What would cause the majority of voters in a city to look at Andrew Little’s lifetime of failure, coupled with anger management problems, and think “Yes make that man our mayor”?

It is evidence of almost unbelievable stupidity.
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October 12, 2025 11:16am
- Foxfour
  
  The best All black coaches are the ones that didnt have the best 1st class careers.
  
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  October 12, 2025 11:33am
  - MCōs
    
    Sounds like something Yoda would say
    
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    October 12, 2025 11:41am
    - Foxfour
      
      Its largely true
      
      When was the last captain who become a coach
      Brian Lochore ?
      https://www.rugbydatabase.co.nz/team/coach-list.php?teamId=3
      
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      October 12, 2025 12:14pm
  - pdm
    
    Not sure about that.
    
    Sir Fred Allen, historically the pinnacle of All Black Coaches Captained the All Blacks in 6 tests after the war years when not many tours or tests happened.
    
    Greatest coach in my lifetime.
    
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    October 12, 2025 12:57pm
    - Foxfour
      
      Fred Allen was 17 coaches ago.
      It seems like 2 out of say last 20 coaches , so not generally true but can happen , as I said
      Also 2 head coaches John Mitchell and Graham Henry never played for All Blacks at all.
      Thats because its suitability and track record as a coach
      
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      October 13, 2025 7:11am
      - Boy Geoff
        
        Actually you’re wrong Fox, John Michell did play for the All Blacks (although not at test level).
        
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        October 13, 2025 7:38am
- Eastlander
  
  The average person doesn’t have thoughts in any sense that you would recognize. Talk to one if ye doubt.
  
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  October 12, 2025 1:03pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  Just to play the devil’s advocate, perhaps Andrew has learned from his experience. We can only hope so.
  
  It’s also worth considering the alternative to Andrew. Karl Tiefenbacher seems like he has his head switched on, but Mayor would have been his first Council gig. Wellingtonians tried that last time with Tory, ‘nuff said. A term on Council won’t do Karl any harm.
  
  Ray Chung was undoubtedly the victim of a Lefty hit job, but you’d still have to question his political judgement. Again, another term as Councillor might help him burnish his credentials.
  
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  October 12, 2025 1:25pm
  - Eastlander
    
    I like your cautious optimism even though I think it’s utterly mad. Little who has no relevant experience and doesn’t seem to have bothered to learn anything about the job will get bamboozled and steamrolled by the council staff. They’ll just have to work a bit harder than with Whanau since he’s not an outright vegetable and will generally show up to meetings.
    
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    October 12, 2025 2:07pm
  - MCōs
    
    Ray Chung most certainly was not the victim of Lefty hit job.
    He shots himself in both feet by spreading salacious gossip about the mayor passed on by his neighbour
    After that he never stood a chance
    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/wellington/how-ray-chungs-once-promising-mayoral-bid-collapsed-in-a-landslide-defeat/YLNJ23ZAAND5XEOLQNRCA2BTQ4/
    
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    October 12, 2025 9:38pm
    - Eastlander
      
      I realise that reading comprehension is not your strong suit but what part of ‘Whanau chose to publicise rumours about her own ridiculous private life’ was difficult for you to understand?
      
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      October 12, 2025 11:13pm
- Paulus
  
  Andy congatulations this is the first time you have ever won an Election in your life !
  
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  October 12, 2025 2:11pm
  - Ian Boag
    
    And he did it so convincingly. Where were all your thinkalike mates who didn’t bother to get behind Ray Chung or whoever ….
    
    5 6
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    October 12, 2025 2:51pm
    - Foxfour
      
      ” His father was a devout National Party supporter and Little recalls delivering National pamphlets under his father’s direction when he was younger.’
      
      Little won his case when Earl Hagaman sued.
      
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      October 12, 2025 5:10pm
- lifesgood
  
  That’s Wellington for ya. Low collective IQ.
  
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  October 12, 2025 4:37pm
leoj

Those mayors and councillors whose district/region voted to remove maori wards yet instituted them without a vote from its citizens, must now resign.

Previous council voting records must be revisited to discover which councillors were in favour of maori wards. They are all guilty of completely misreading the room.

Being so out of touch can only mean resignation.
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October 12, 2025 11:36am
Maggy Wassilieff

Slowly, slowly.. the climate emergency unwinds

https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/360851892/government-halves-methane-reduction-target-farmers-celebrate
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October 12, 2025 12:16pm
- Bullion
  
  Just burying head in the sand stuff – though don’t worry because we will just have to pay for it elsewhere with higher ets and/or more spent overseas to offset.
  
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  October 12, 2025 2:33pm
- Nikola Donatello
  
  But how does it work in practice? These things remain the same..
  
  The UNFCCC methodology for calculating emissions.
  
  New Zealand’s Paris Agreement commitment
  
  The Zero Carbon Act.
  
  So…
  
  If farmers have a softer emissions target, then either
  
  Other sectors will need to have harsher targets.. Or
  
  The government will need to buy more emissions units on the open market.
  
  … I’m not saying that it is a bad thing. But it seems to have some adverse side effects. As usual no journalist is capable or asking these questions.
  
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  October 12, 2025 3:25pm
  - Bullion
    
    Journalists are capable asking these questions – even wondering what the regulatory impact statement will say for everyone that is not a farmer (if it is even that detailed) and noting this announcement on a Sunday when scientists might not be as readily available to offer critique.
    
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    October 12, 2025 5:52pm
  - Foxfour
    
    We have discussed this before Nikola
    The taxpayer pays more for the farmers ’emissions’, as Jenny Shipley allowed farms to be counted back in the Kyoto treaty.
    To me eating grass is zero or low ’emissions’, but then its not science but theology that is behind the Carbon religion.
    
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    October 13, 2025 7:15am
- greybeard
  
  Forget the “net-zero emissions” target: what NZ needs is a “net-zero Swarbrick” target.
  ASAP.
  
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  October 12, 2025 4:29pm
  - Nikola Donatello
    
    Well it would be nice to forget about it but parliament passsed a law committing us to net zero, using a methodology approved by the UN. Only one MP voted against the Bill.
    
    Now that we can’t meet the commitments, everyone is dodging reality. Well everyone in the National Party. Except Chloe who is losing her shit.
    
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    October 12, 2025 4:37pm
    - Foxfour
      
      Well said Nikola.
      
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      October 12, 2025 5:12pm
    - greybeard
      
      Do you really believe that all of the members who voted for the Bill actually knew what it was, what it said, and that they understood it ?
      
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      October 12, 2025 7:23pm
      - Foxfour
        
        It went through a long committee process over a number of years. Thats their job to legislate.
        national party I remember was unanimous as it was ‘whipped’ but must have discussed it in depth in caucus from those with expert knowledge .
        Even John Key went on the stage at Paris in 2016 and committed NZ to 30% less by 2030.
        Are you saying HE didnt know what he was talking about ?
        
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        October 13, 2025 7:20am
- PurplePen
  
  $USD 2 trillion on clean energy. $1 trillion on fossil fuels. Thats the global energy investment for 2024. 2 trillion to prevent man-made future climate change. Yet after spending trillions, we’ve moved from about 82% fossil fuels to about 81.5%. At that rate we might get from 81.5% fossil fuels down to 70% by 2040. A complete transition would take decades, perhaps a century or more. That same trillions on clean energy could lift billions out of poverty now, making them resilient to climate changes regardless of cause. A wealthier Bangladesh can build sea walls whether sea level rises from anthropogenic or natural causes. A wealthier population can afford air conditioning, relocate if needed, adapt agriculture. The adaptation becomes cause-agnostic. A very poor cost-benefit ratio for clean energy adds significantly to energy costs, harming the poor the most.
  
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  October 12, 2025 5:02pm
Swifty

A must see Maori view on current events:

https://x.com/rotovegas_taane/status/1977118977471267233?s=46

What’s the bet his views are fairly widely-held within Maoridom, but of course not by the activist fringe who stand to gain from being professional victims.
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October 12, 2025 12:17pm
- Eastlander
  
  A bet you’d lose so keep the amount small. All the Maori electorates went for TPM or labour, and while the turnout wasn’t the highest you can be pretty confident that the non-voters weren’t piously abstaining in protest at the excesses of the activists.
  
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  October 12, 2025 2:16pm
- Don Beckett
  
  Yes, probably 90% of Maori who I know would give the man a big thumbs up. He’s dead right.
  
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  October 12, 2025 3:58pm
Yvette

Since, with local government elections, there is talk of democracy and rights, and the Treaty of Waitangi is regarded as the Founding Document of the Nation, although it is an exclusive Agreement between Maori and the then Crown, what covers the now roughly 80 percent of the nation who are neither Maori or Crown and, as an aside, how does anyone derive “partnership, protection, and participation” from a document that doesn’t specifically mention any of those?
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October 12, 2025 1:02pm
- Paulus
  
  Why is it called the Founding Document of the Nation.
  What crap for whoever invented that expresion, sound good but not true anyway, only for Maori currently.
  
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  October 12, 2025 2:12pm
  - AitchW
    
    You could reasonably argue that the 1931 Statute of Westminster is our founding document. But that might be a little esoteric..
    
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    October 12, 2025 5:29pm
surfing

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/dashcam-footage-shows-driver-make-dangerous-overtake-on-state-highway-2-near-paeroa/7RGFLML34BDNRB6IEGNQNDZTEU/

If I’m judge, loss of license for 10 years, and some jail time for attempted murder.

But, I am fed up with campervans toddling along at 60-80kph, refusing to allow other drivers to pass. Having a lovely holiday is no excuse to break the law.

Also, SH2 Tauranga to Auckland is appalling. there are 4 passing lanes in the 160 odd km of road, and infinite roadworks too. This is a road with heavy traffic levels.
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October 12, 2025 1:18pm
- Hugh Jarse
  
  Passing lanes are great for slow and incompetent drivers to speed up thereby preventing other motorists getting past them without exceeding the speed limit and falling foul of plods cameras at the end of the passing lane.
  
  2 1
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  October 12, 2025 9:54pm
Jake Dee

No great revelations or original insights in this, but worth watching and commenting on.

“New Zealand is running out of New Zealanders”
Economics Explained (2.79M subscribers)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_VUBpALcVE
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October 12, 2025 2:01pm
- Jack5
  
  A good video, Jake.
  
  About 11 minutes in it touches on a report from Australia already mentioned once or twice in Kiwiblog. It stated that approaching 50 per cent of New Zealand residents seeking Australian citizenship were not born in New Zealand.
  
  So NZis a back door to Australia for smart folk in the Third World.
  
  Did I wrongly imagine an unspoken conclusion in the video that abolishing visa-free movement from NZ to Australia might benefit New Zealand?
  
  On labour in agriculture, the video overlooked NZ’s flourishing horticulture, though that will likely soon become far more mechanised. Present jobs are mainly fairly unskilled and filled by temporary labour from the Third World.
  
  An interesting mention was Australia’s 3 per cent stamp duty, which is a bit like a capital gains tax.
  
  My understanding is that when the British colonies in Australia, plus New Zealand, held a conference on forming a nation, New Zealand was reluctant to be part of the federation.
  
  This was said to be because NZ politicians and civil servants grizzled about ensuing Tasman sea travel, though the trips would have been shorter than those of West Australians.
  
  Meanwhile, perhaps NZ should emulate the UK’s offshore Channel Islands and become an international tax haven. That might help us.
  
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  October 12, 2025 9:06pm
mandk

I see Rawiri Waititi was wearing a jacket in the House the other day that had “Māori didn’t cede sovereignty” inscribed on it.

I’d be happy to go along with that idea, as long as we can agree that the Crown didn’t enter into a partnership with Māori.

If we accept both those positions, we could then agree that the Treaty is null and void.
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October 12, 2025 2:24pm
Swifty

I’ve been seeing online many claims of ‘Atlas’ funding millions of dollars into the effort to remove Maori wards:

https://x.com/joe_trinder/status/1977048525277217159?s=46

Is there any evidence of this or are these the evidence-free ravings of some rather special people?
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October 12, 2025 4:26pm
Boy Geoff

Fantastic to see Nandor put a positive left spin on the Maori ward votes yesterday and then promptly shut down anyone who might ‘disagree’ with him. How very Green
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October 12, 2025 6:54pm
MCōs

Great speech by Tony Benn
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DLHbnICsUGj/?igsh=MTh4YWxrbHhoN3g2aQ==
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October 12, 2025 9:26pm

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