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October 31, 2025 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 31 October 2025

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General Debate

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CJames

Where are the rentamob protesting the massacres and genocide going on in Africa? Why no march across the Harbour Bridge or along the motorway? After all, the attackers are colonisers supported by foreign money with victims are at the bottom of the identity politics pyramid – black women and children. Darfur and Nigeria are just the latest sites of something that has been going on all this century.
There is very little about it in MSM. Why no nightly “news” updates, no doorstopping of politicians with gotcha questions about it, nor any celebrities crying to camera about how bad it is? Why hasn’t Greta started a flotilla? Could it be because the victims are Christians and the murderers are Islamists like the Janjaweed and RSF that are doing the ethnic cleansing? The religion of “peace” doesn’t seem to be very peaceful. How unusual – not.
I will take groups like the university activists & Greens seriously when they protest these killings. Maybe they could take to wearing conspicuous crucifixes. Until then, they are just performative virtue signalling white noise. Do they make headphones that cancel out their whining?
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October 31, 2025 8:02am
- Mike
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  Is there anything stopping you from organizing such a protest? I wish more people would follow your example of acting to raise awareness of all the world’s injustices.
  
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  October 31, 2025 8:07am
  - I remember when
    
    Protests about the African wars would be more relevant than those about Gaza.
    Gaza is an external conflict with Israel but many of the African conflicts are internal.
    The African conflicts appear to fall into two main categories – tribal or religious.
    Being internal, the refugees from the conflicts often flee over borders and this helps increase the problems experienced in Europe.
    A peaceful Africa would allow economic progress where, at present, destruction of assets is occuring.
    A stable Africa would benefit both Africans and the rest of the world.
    
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    October 31, 2025 9:18am
    - JeffW
      
      Tribal conflicts. Something to look forward to as we move down this path in “Aotearoa”.
      
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      October 31, 2025 9:48am
      - kowtow
        
        Already happening in the Maori party .
        
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        October 31, 2025 11:23am
  - Blog-aholic
    
    Sardonicism not your thing Mike?
    
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    October 31, 2025 9:36am
  - Kevin
    
    This is an honest non disrespectful question- is ‘minding your own business’ not also a thing with value? Does it have no value to you? Somebody or some group quietly applying themselves to their own problems.
    
    ‘Raising awareness’ you see as an unmixed blessing? with no cost? ( to you)
    
    Others may suspect other reasons but I said this is a respectful question. There are individuals who live only to annoy, it seems.
    
    How do you make obvious you aren’t one of these? Is a question that should matter to you if you are different.
    
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    October 31, 2025 12:57pm
  - wilderbeast
    
    [Mod – debate the topics, not the person]
    
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    October 31, 2025 3:04pm
- Wandering Star
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  Equally, October 7th dominated the news for weeks and months, eliciting much sympathy despite all of the other carnage of a similar nature happening around the world in places few know about.
  
  Are you saying there should have been less focus on the plight of Israelis at that time, and more focus on other unfortunate victims in the world dealing with their own such events?
  
  Somehow I doubt very much that’s what you’re saying. You don’t mind the focus of exclusive sympathy when it comes your way, but you would much prefer the focus of condemnation were spread around more evenly when it follows, right?
  
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  October 31, 2025 8:09am
  - CJames
    
    October 7th was a mass murder organised by an group that the protesters want recognised as a government, Gaza was not a genocide, but Darfur is. Even blind Freddie can tell the difference.
    
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    October 31, 2025 9:01am
    - R
      
      ‘even blind Freddy’……..but not the likes of NZ Marxist activists. Sad really!.
      
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      October 31, 2025 9:15am
      - My-Gumboot
        
        Blind rent a crowd. The first protest I saw was a about a week after Oct 7, in Garden Place Hamilton. there were about 50 of them. I counted 38 Palestinian flags. Every one was brand new, could see the fold marks, straight out of the packet from Temu. I guess Minto Protest and Riot and March Ltd. brought them in bulk, with express shipping. Or maybe had them on hand just in case.
        
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        October 31, 2025 10:13am
    - Ra Henare
      
      Can I respectfully suggest that the Israeli (and US) propaganda machine swung in to action to keep the pot boiling.
      
      Neither party in the Sudan (and many other conflicts,) dont have anything remotely near the propaganda machine of Israel/US.
      
      Hence Palestine/Israel conflict makes it easy for News editors to cut and paste.
      
      PS. To emphasise the point.
      IDF were promoting Babies burnt in ovens or beheaded and pregnant women being disembowelled in very short order after the start of the attack. Both by the way debunked by many independent news sources.
      
      On October 11, 2023, President Joe Biden addressed Jewish community leaders at the White House, referencing these reports in stark terms: “I never really thought that I would see and have confirmed pictures of terrorists beheading children.”
      
      Hours after Biden’s remarks, the White House issued a clarification through a National Security Council official: Neither Biden nor the administration had seen any such photos or confirmed reports of beheaded children.
      
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      October 31, 2025 3:37pm
- G152
  
  Selective morality may explain it
  
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  October 31, 2025 8:11am
- kowtow
  
  I see some of them turned up in Oamaru and ( allegedly) assaulted an innocent worker .
  
  ‘One of the protesters allegedly grabbed an office worker by the arm and pushed her out of the way, he said.’
  
  https://www.odt.co.nz/regions/north-otago/woman-allegedly-shoved-protesters
  
  And they probably were “rentamob”, the arrested woman came from Dunedin . The good folk of Oamaru having better things to do than cause trouble for all and sundry.
  
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  October 31, 2025 8:13am
  - Ghost
    
    must be some serious B.O. there for man to being wearing a mask…..
    
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    October 31, 2025 8:43am
    - rouppe
      
      Flew up to Auckland last week. Still a few with masks on flights.
      
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      October 31, 2025 9:31am
- mandk
  
  Muslims are slaughtering Christians in Nigeria, but my understanding is that the killing in Darfur involves ethnic Arab Muslims slaughtering ethnic African Muslims.
  
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  October 31, 2025 9:24am
  - Mike
    
    So which situation concerns you more, and what should we do together to help draw attention to it?
    
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    October 31, 2025 10:28am
  - Don Beckett
    
    There are also Christians being killed there. I know a priest who was there about 7 years ago who told me, and it’s the same conflict now.
    
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    October 31, 2025 11:19am
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  Greta knows the way. Same as before, but hard a starboard off Cyprus, down through Port Said & the Suez Canal through the Red Sea to Port Sudan.
  
  Or, if she’s feeling adventurous, up the Nile she goes, though I don’t know whether you can get past the dam at Ashwan, these days. Watch out for the allegories, Greta!
  
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  October 31, 2025 9:41am
- MCōs
  
  Here’s a mob you can get right in behind
  https://x.com/partisan_12/status/1983905776486981712?s=61
  
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  October 31, 2025 10:09am
  - Mike
    
    Excellent. Let’s write to the US president and ask him to stop arms sales to the UAE. Concerned Kiwibloggers can boycott Emirates and Etihad.
    
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    October 31, 2025 10:31am
- imalwaysright
  
  We should get our own house in order before we start adopting causes on behalf of people who couldn’t give a toss about us, if they even knew about us.
  
  There seems to be a passtime where the ‘aware’ among us get on the internet, see who supports what, and jump on their coat tails.
  
  Then comes the endless competition to see who can come up with the most obscure facts and opinions with which to fuel their new found area of ‘expertise’.
  
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  October 31, 2025 10:09am
- rjay
  
  The attached link is graphic but demonstrates what CJ is describing.
  https://gellerreport.com/2025/10/jihad-in-sudan.html/?fbclid=IwVERDUANwtKZleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHiH9x7hgX52116e3u4_sDgpoSvlUvIWeksYzqzrFaMK_hfwbOn-unNphGXI5_aem_GKp5Bdi9yiw_rbP2hlwo7g#comments
  
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  October 31, 2025 10:16am
- leoj
  
  All it proves is: the MSM media are largely anti-Jew,
  thanks to university professors.
  
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  October 31, 2025 10:52am
- KH
  
  CJames could also ask why there are so many posts here advocating for Israel. There are heaps. But they too don’t mention Africa.
  
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  October 31, 2025 12:06pm
- Waipuk
  
  Because the organisers hate Jews. But wrap it in anti Israel blar blar blar which the useful idiots lap up.
  
  When they say river to the sea they mean it plus the rest of the world to.
  
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  October 31, 2025 12:06pm
- Notsofast
  
  After the 2000 comes the 460 in the maternity hospital.
  You can read it in the Daily Mail.
  
  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15241379/Maternity-hospital-massacre-leaves-460-dead-Fresh-horror-Sudan-patients-staff-butchered-2-000-civilians-executed-two-days.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490&ito=social-twitter_mailonline
  
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  October 31, 2025 12:35pm
- Dougal10
  
  They are just mugs getting paid by muslim petro chem money and dont realise it.
  
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  October 31, 2025 2:27pm
  - kiwimike
    
    Rubbish
    Why do Muslims kill non muslims, the World over.?
    Jihad to lead to Sharia Law…..
    
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    October 31, 2025 4:54pm
    - Dougal10
      
      The rent a mob protesters is what my comment is about .
      
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      October 31, 2025 8:28pm
- Jake Dee
  
  Claiming that people who are protesting XYZ are illegitimate because they aren’t also protesting ABC isn’t a rational argument unless you can also include a rock solid scale to measure XYZ against ABC. And make it a scale that works for everyone every where.
  Plenty of people are demanding we respect Israel’s “right to exist” and have nothing to say about Kurdistan, Somaliland, North or South Sudan, Transnistria etc. etc.
  Nobody (of influence) cares about them.
  
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  October 31, 2025 5:38pm
Cassandra

“To say that the policy is a little light on detail seriously undervalues the words ‘little’, ‘light’, and ‘detail’.” Chris Trotter analyses Labour’s Future Fund.

Applies to Labour and its version of a capital gains tax too. And everything else for that matter. Mind you, Labour’s woefully inadequate policies are far better than its execution. As Trotter points out, of the 100,000 Kiwibuild target they were only 97,000 short.
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October 31, 2025 8:04am
- Mike
  
  The number of voters motivated to cast their ballot on any details of policy would be vanishingly small. The days of detailed manifestos and ticking off commitments ended forty years ago.
  
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  October 31, 2025 8:11am
  - In Vino Veritas
    
    “The days of detailed manifestos and ticking off commitments ended forty years ago”. Not so sure Mike. I’d suggest that there are plenty of voters who vote for commitments to take from one group and give them something for nothing. So they keep an eye out for those commitments. For instance, why do you think that the Labour Party CGT as announced has any support at all?
    
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    October 31, 2025 9:21am
    - Mike
      
      As many have pointed out, it’s a pretty insubstantial proposal.
      
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      October 31, 2025 10:32am
      - AitchW
        
        Mike, and Hipkins couldn’t even answer questions on the details of this insubstantial proposal on Q&A this morning.
        He doesn’t know the details of his own flagship election policy.
        He’s not up to the job of PM.
        
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        November 2, 2025 1:40pm
  - NZer In Exile
    
    “The days of detailed manifestos and ticking off commitments ended forty years ago”.
    
    I guess that’s when the corruption and sleaze really started to take hold.
    
    Just trust Lab/Grn/TPM to “look after” you?
    That’s what all the cool kids do these days?
    
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    November 2, 2025 1:08pm
- Cassandra
  
  And as a journalist commented: “Is it possible that Labour has actually saved Luxon’s skin by sending voters back to National by just being predictable money grabbers, and then incompetent at explaining it?”.
  
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  October 31, 2025 8:25am
  - kowtow
    
    The scary thing isn’t so much Labour , but those swing voters and how they flit about .
    
    Then policy is designed to appeal to those very morons.
    
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    October 31, 2025 8:37am
  - R
    
    Well we know from recent experiences of Labour government, that they are incompetent.
    
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    October 31, 2025 9:18am
    - Paulus
      
      But not so as many thay we know of being strong Labour supporters are intelligent highly paid women in senior jobs and that includes Teachers.
      
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      October 31, 2025 3:06pm
      - Dougal10
        
        My teacher is further to the right than me
        
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        October 31, 2025 8:30pm
  - Simon
    
    Cap gains tax would raise such a pittance compared to other taxes. Barely cover say what National hand out to Maori capo organisations each year. Around a billion pa compared to 120 billion in other taxes
    
    Cap gain tax is a game. The National Labour axis of dancing monkeys performing circus tricks for the rubes.
    
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    October 31, 2025 9:45am
    - Paulus
      
      To run a new CGT Department will cost more than what theywill receive even over time, as there will be many loopholes found.
      
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      October 31, 2025 3:07pm
  - leoj
    
    The fact that the country has people prepared to vote Labour is a major worry.
    
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    October 31, 2025 10:54am
- lastmanstanding
  
  Watch the legal cases if Labour gets to enact a CGT. They will turn on at least 2 matters the definition of valuation and a capital gain. The lawyers will argue despite the wording that a gain must include the impact of inflation as this is a fact in any calculation of a gain. They will argue that ignoring inflation is contrary to any definition. The Courts being mostly of the Left will turn down their claims however they may uphold the claim expecially if they are impacted by the law.
  Its going to be popcorn time.
  
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  October 31, 2025 8:59am
  - Ian Boag
    
    Imagine I earn $100k. Inflation for the year is 5%, so I negotiate a 5% increase to $105k. This increase will be taxed at my marginal rate. Surely – because it is all due to inflation – it should not be taxed at all – so my tax bill should be the same as when I was getting $100k.
    
    Don’t fret – I think this argument is nonsense too 🙂
    
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    October 31, 2025 9:04am
    - alloytoo
      
      It’s not that $5K shouldn’t be taxed at all it’s that the $5K shouldn’t be taxed at a higher rate.
      
      Of course a “Fair” tax would have everyone being taxed at the same rate.
      
      Taxes should fair shouldn’t they?
      
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      October 31, 2025 9:24am
      - rjay
        
        The value of the dollars received in tax has also declined so no need to inflation adjust. The effect is nil. Where it does matter is when one moves from one tax bracket to another due to inflation. In that case your average tax rate has increased in real terms.
        
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        October 31, 2025 10:19am
    - Tom Hunter
      
      Congratulations Ian, you’ve just discovered fiscal drag and how it garners billions of extra tax for NZ governments without having to have any nasty fights about tax rates.
      
      BTW, other nations, like the US, adjust their income tax annually to allow for inflation. Since you’re keen for us to copy other nations with a CGT you’ll also be keen on this as well?
      
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      October 31, 2025 9:26am
    - Spam
      
      You should negotiate an increase that also includes the effect of the incremental taxation.
      
      The argument isn’t nonsense. Like your ignoring-not-ignoring taxation, it has a simple remedy.
      
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      October 31, 2025 10:09am
    - In Vino Veritas
      
      Brilliant Ian, conflate capital (a person) with income generated from the capital (person). Of course the value of an asset goes up with the increase in the value of the income (that is already taxed) from that asset. Perhaps we should tax people as capital|asset. If their income goes up, their value goes up and the change in value is taxable (as well as the income they generate). Be fair and all…….
      
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      October 31, 2025 10:27am
      - Ian Boag
        
        Me I just think a buck is a buck is a buck. All this talk of “double taxation” and “CG is not income” puts me in mind of angels on pinheads and makes my head hurt. We just have to agree to differ on whether a CG is income.
        
        Our PM supposedly trousered $600k of gain on some properties last year. Good on him – it’s perfectly legal. It wasn’t even income ….
        
        There is a reasonable argument for taxing CGs at a lower rate than other forms of income. For practical reasons, the CGT is levied when the gain is crystallised. Given that it has been accruing over time, then hits the taxpayer’s income in one hit – which would put much of it into 39% – it would have been taxed less if the tax had been collected as it accrued. That is not feasible, so it makes sense to recognise this with a lower rate. Aus calls this a “discount”, Canada calls it an “inclusion rate”. 39% discounted to 28% is about a 30% “discount” (Oz) or 70% “inclusion rate” (Canada).
        
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        October 31, 2025 11:52am
    - rockape
      
      The error in your argument is that your salary increase should match those items included in the inflation index. The cost of those items included in inflation figures is much less than what you earn. My wife is a nurse and me retired. She saves around $5500 per month, that saving isn’t affected by inflation. Inflation is only on some of the items she spends on.
      In her case inflation of 3% would be covered by a 1% increase in her salary.
      
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      October 31, 2025 10:33am
    - In Vino Veritas
      
      Ian, on your comment “For practical reasons, the CGT is levied when the gain is crystallised”. Yes, at the moment, but given the avaricious nature of left leaning Governments, it’s only a matter of time before they introduce CGT on unrealised gains. And of course, they will deny losses (or at least ring fence them to a future gain) on capital.
      I somehow doubt that explanations around double taxation and government created asset price inflation hurt your head that much. I suspect you have a very good understanding, but just want more tax collected. How do you feel about reducing Government expenditure to fit the tax income they currently collect? Make people more responsible for their own affairs rather than have other pay for them? There must be some Government spending that you feel should be borne by the individuals currently receiving it.
      
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      October 31, 2025 1:04pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        There must be some Government spending that you feel should be borne by the individuals currently receiving it
        
        Income testing/abating the old age benefit would save a couple of billion …. dead easy to administer (IRD/MSD in each other’s pockets now) and would not cause much of an uproar. Asset testing would be a good idea too – the Australians manage it – but it’s a bit hard. Public sympathy for oldies with over $100k (say) of income – who lost their pension – might not amount to much ….
        
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        October 31, 2025 2:00pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        but just want more tax collected
        
        Me – I just think that all income should be included in the income tax pot. CGs are income.
        
        The rate-setting bit is a decision for the government of the day. Gummint will set the rates at a level that pays the cost of running the place – spread across the tax base.
        
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        October 31, 2025 4:18pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        it’s only a matter of time before they introduce CGT on unrealised gains
        
        No jurisdiction anywhere does this, but I suppose we could “lead the world” here after “following it from a distance” forever. Not to mention how estimating the accrued gains would be quite hard.
        
        The dreaded slippery slope – look how GST went from 10% -> 12.5% -> 15%. Done by a National gummint even.
        
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        October 31, 2025 8:21pm
      - Dougal10
        
        When local farmland went to 22k a ha under cindys rule and now it back to its earning potential of about 15k , it will never go back to 22 in my lifetime it would be nice to use that value and claim a capital loss like the mugs who actually bought at that price
        
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        October 31, 2025 8:36pm
  - Simon
    
    Rubbish. With tax the courts side with the Wellington Clown Show nearly 100% of the time.
    
    Further the IRD write tax legislation. National very happy for IRD to carry out this function as it frees up time for National to parade around like clowns not get bogged down in boring detail which directly effects the lives of ordinary people.
    
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    October 31, 2025 9:50am
  - R
    
    Hopefully should Labour ever gain an opportunity in the dim distance of time, to impliment such a potential disaster, the Learned Judges may have gained some economic literacy.
    
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    October 31, 2025 11:38am
    - Paulus
      
      Never, as long as they can get out of it !
      
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      October 31, 2025 3:08pm
- KH
  
  Capital Gains tax or not. Not a vast issue.
  The big issue about this is that it presumes more tax, more government, and more government employees is a good thing.
  That’s the attitude that’s the problem.
  
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  October 31, 2025 12:10pm
  - Jack5
    
    However, in NZ taxation, we’re lucky we don’t have a federal system.
    
    Forty-one of America’s 50 states plus the capital’s District of Columbia, impose income tax in addition to Federal income tax. Most also have capital gains tax.
    
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    October 31, 2025 12:51pm
  - Tom Hunter
    
    Yep. Look at what’s happening in Britain… as Reeves hires two new researchers to her Council of Economic Advisers…David Sturrock and Emily Fry:
    
    Fry:
    – Extend the freeze of personal tax thresholds by two more years
    – Raise inheritance Tax and Capital Gains Tax.
    – Reforms to these taxes could raise around £20 billion.
    – Align marginal CGT rates for shares with those on dividends, levy CGT on death and departure from the UK.
    – Hike rental income and dividend tax rates.
    – Greatly reduce the VAT registration threshold.
    
    Sturrock:
    – End the IHT relief for AIM-listed shares
    – Levy CGT on death.
    – Bring defined-contribution pension pots into IHT.
    – Levy employee NICs on private pension income.
    – Reduce the cap on the 25% tax-free pension lump sum.
    
    Once a tax is introduced it’s easy to just keep increasing it. Same will happen here. We no longer even have the fiscal headroom to make the argument on new taxes that Douglas made with GST in 1987, that the revenue would enable income taxes to be reduced. You’ll notice that National has not dared to scrap the 39% at $180k band that Labour introduced, despite scrapping with Clark and Cullen years ago about the 39% rate. In fact National have not even made the argument.
    
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    October 31, 2025 12:54pm
- Ra Henare
  
  I dont know why we get excited about Capital Gains tax, etc etc
  
  This is the same Chris Hipkins that dreamt up 100,000 new homes.
  
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  October 31, 2025 3:40pm
artemisia

Hey big spender, time to walk out of the joint.

The Public Service Commission 2025 Annual Report was released this week. At 126 pages it is way too long and life’s too short.

But on the plus side the only photo is a small one of the boss, the report is mostly in English, and Sir Brian’s intro fits on a single page. (Compare and contrast with other annual reports, public and private.)

Two snippets from this intro hopefully indicate hard decisions are not far away. Small number of words, huge promises.

The Public Service has become fragmented, which creates inefficiency and duplication
and
… key decisions centralised to unlock system-wide benefits, and a digital-first approach – including the use of AI – to drive smarter, faster service delivery.
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October 31, 2025 8:07am
- Grumpy Silver Top
  
  I’m crossing everything, fingers, toes, legs, eyes in hopes the recommendations are adopted with immediate effect.
  
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  October 31, 2025 8:11am
- Mike
  
  “History repeats, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce”
  The SSC, later PSC, became functionally useless from 1988, when an allegedly over centralized system was broken up into supposedly more functional and efficient organizations.
  Good luck, Sir Brian, you have an outside runner’s chance of becoming a great public servant in the tradion that has seemed dead for decades.
  
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  October 31, 2025 8:18am
- rouppe
  
  …a digital-first approach – including the use of AI – to drive smarter, faster service delivery
  
  It looks like AI might be the trigger, but driving smarter and faster service delivery by using a digital first approach could have been done 20 years ago.
  
  At the risk of repeating myself, it hasn’t happened because all organisations see their IT departments as a cost, not a capability. Just someone to put a laptop on the desk and provide access to Office 365, not someone to unlock performance and productivity for their main business operations.
  
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  October 31, 2025 9:39am
  - Mike
    
    Government agencies have been incentivized for decades to adopt incompatible systems – in everything, not just IT.
    
    7 2
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    October 31, 2025 10:34am
  - waikatosinger
    
    Many businesses were saved by heroic IT departments during covid. Those with less heroic IT departments often suffered and failed. Now some of those people are being scrapped because managers with dollar signs in their eyes think they can all be replaced by AI.
    
    That will prove to be a mistake. If anything AI makes the job of IT even more complicated. Who owns the AI? What data does it have access to? What does it send back to base? Who has control of your data which is now stored “in the cloud” (on other people’s hardware). You need a skillful IT department to navigate these issues.
    
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    October 31, 2025 11:03am
    - artemisia
      
      Agree, but baby steps. A lot of the public service is rules based, much set by legislation. And the Ministry for Less Regulation is making changes. Start there, because the changes are happening anyway.
      
      Just an idea.
      
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      October 31, 2025 11:50am
  - Ra Henare
    
    Shame that Sir Bryan has not contracted the bright young minds from Mr Musks DODGE team.
    
    Not only wasteful spending but stupid and useless regulations.
    
    My favourite. Why is it a condition for a building permit to enforce double glazing!!!
    
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    October 31, 2025 3:44pm
- Simon
  
  including the use of AI
  
  If implemented correctly AI will see legions of useless govt jobs disestablished. Can stop third world mass immigration now. There will be plenty of petrol shop jobs ex government employees can trans into.
  
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  October 31, 2025 9:53am
  - R
    
    Will we still be allowed to buy petrol, and for what. The internal combustion engine will probably also be banned.
    
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    October 31, 2025 11:47am
  - Taieri
    
    AI will see legions of useless govt jobs disestablished
    ———–
    
    Not a chance…
    
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    October 31, 2025 12:36pm
  - Ra Henare
    
    Just a brief tour of Government IT (read AI) projects will see that my Grandchildren will reach retirement age before anything is actually working.
    
    The Novopay system, New Zealand’s teachers’ payroll project, is one of the country’s most significant IT failures. Initially budgeted at $30 million, the project’s cost escalated dramatically, with an additional $45 million spent within two years to fix systemic issues, bringing the total cost to at least $75 million
    project started 2005. In 2018 recommend project be scrapped as too many faults
    
    Joint Border Management System (JBMS), a project to merge Customs and the Ministry for Primary Industries
    
    Education Resourcing System (ERS), which was originally budgeted at $17.4 million but is now estimated to cost $63.9 million
    
    I am sure there are many others.
    
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    October 31, 2025 3:52pm
    - NeverMindTheBollocks
      
      INCIS
      
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      October 31, 2025 4:34pm
- Paulus
  
  But DEI remains everywhere.
  
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  October 31, 2025 3:09pm
Ron Jeremy

Close of the white baiting season for anyone not Maori . Maori have till end of November to carry on fishing . Two tier society . Thought the species were in decline due to habitat destruction and over fishing . Blame the farmer not the overfishing. Love this country but we should all be equal .
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October 31, 2025 8:13am
- Simon
  
  Wrong. National consider Maori have special rights.
  
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  October 31, 2025 9:54am
- leoj
  
  Sincerely hope that maori fatigue is growing.
  Maori wonderfulness and special treatment due to 1/128th blood, is a travesty, promoted by the National faction of the coalition government.
  
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  October 31, 2025 10:59am
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  How did the Maoris catch whitebait before modern nets? They were skilful weavers, but those little tuckers will pass through pretty small holes.
  
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  October 31, 2025 4:36pm
- NZer In Exile
  
  Ron Jeremey: “Love this country but we should all be equal.”
  
  Bend over Ron.
  
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  November 2, 2025 1:11pm
David Garrett

Prince Andrew – the man who paid 12 million pounds to a woman he never met – is now to become plain old Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor
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October 31, 2025 8:20am
- Flossie
  
  Quite right too. Maybe he should go and live in another country too.
  
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  October 31, 2025 8:30am
  - Jethrod
    
    Perhaps he should do penance in an African country similar to what CJames describes in the leading article.
    
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    October 31, 2025 8:41am
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    Nowhere’s further than NZ. And, it’s still the 50s there, plenty of Royalists surely.
    
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    October 31, 2025 4:39pm
- Cassandra
  
  The Prince of Montecito might like to take note. King William V will expect a major change in behaviour. An apology would be a start and his missus might like to tone things down too.
  
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  October 31, 2025 8:40am
  - Biscuit
    
    It’s been a bad week here, David. You may have noticed that my Liverpool FC heroes have chosen to go on a horrific losing stretch – but this news brightens my mood ADMIRABLY.
    
    17 2
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    October 31, 2025 8:49am
    - Libertarians are right
      
      In their defense, it’s unfair that the other teams have depth. They should only be allowed to spend money on their starters.
      
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      October 31, 2025 9:05am
      - NeverMindTheBollocks
        
        “In their defence” – fair enough, at the moment Liverpool don’t actually have a functioning defence.
        
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        October 31, 2025 4:40pm
  - Jethrod
    
    Yes, Meghan Mountbatten-Windsor- Spencer doesn’t quite cut it!
    
    5 1
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    October 31, 2025 10:03am
  - kiwimike
    
    William should make them both Mr & Mrs…..
    
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    October 31, 2025 5:01pm
- kowtow
  
  I reckon te media’s obsession with the current plight of the Saxe Coburg und Gotha family is a perfect distraction for them to run from the disastrous policies of the Labour govt there.
  
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  October 31, 2025 8:40am
- Dudley Quaffquaff
  
  Andrew’s behaviour has been sleazy and utterly unworthy of his status. He’s shown very poor judgement and a thoroughly reprehensible sense of entitlement.
  
  On the other hand. He has not been accused of, let alone been proven through due process to have committed, any actual crime. Further persecution of him is not an adequate substitute for, or a good reason to allow ourselves to be distracted from, identifying and prosecuting those who did commit actual crimes here, notably trafficking and having sex with actual minors. Release the files.
  
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  October 31, 2025 8:41am
- kowtow
  
  Bingo.
  
  Leading “news” item on NZME radio right now.
  
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  October 31, 2025 9:02am
- rouppe
  
  I wonder whether he miscalculated (again) by insisting on two separate houses for himself and his ex as a condition of leaving Royal Lodge.
  
  The result being the King (with a little help from William) saying “you’ve got to be [expletive] kidding me. You can [expletive] right off, we are now publicly banishing you”.
  
  If this move includes cutting off all royal funding, how on earth is Andrew going to get by, when he’s essentially become societal nuclear waste.
  
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  October 31, 2025 9:44am
  - Taieri
    
    how on earth is Andrew going to get by
    ——-
    
    Sign up for the dole…?
    
    2 0
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    October 31, 2025 10:48am
    - kowtow
      
      Like quite a few other UK fly boys , go to China and train their military ?
      
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      October 31, 2025 12:46pm
  - R
    
    He could go to night school for an employable education, and then join the hoipoloi in ‘job search’.
    
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    October 31, 2025 11:49am
    - kowtow
      
      Job search ?
      In the UK they don’t even bother . ‘Worklessness” , by all accounts is a massive problem there.
      
      2 1
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      October 31, 2025 12:47pm
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    Become a parking warden. He couldn’t become any more unpopular than he already is.
    
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    October 31, 2025 5:51pm
  - Ghost
    
    Best career path for him is to become an author. I’m sure many wealthy people will pay him to not name them… but that comes with the risk of committing suicide…..
    
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    October 31, 2025 5:55pm
- Simon
  
  Prince Andrew eh? He is still more popular than the Starmer led Labo govt
  
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  October 31, 2025 9:56am
- septic skeptic
  
  New version of the old rhyme:
  
  The banned old Duke of York
  He borrowed twelve million quid
  And he gave it to someone he never met
  For something he never did!
  
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  October 31, 2025 11:52am
- Ra Henare
  
  A contrarian view.
  
  and yet no proof provided AFAK.???
  
  Just one woman’s testimony and lots of assumptions.
  (Nice little earner for her and her legal team)
  
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  October 31, 2025 3:57pm
  - septic skeptic
    
    Watch the infamous interview carefully. If you can read people at all you will be convinced Andy Windsor is guilty.
    
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    October 31, 2025 5:12pm
    - Ra Henare
      
      or overly nervous, tinged with arrogance.
      
      Luckily that is why we have judge and jury to hear all the evidence.
      
      Rather than wishfull thinkers thinking they can read body language accuratly.
      
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      October 31, 2025 7:40pm
    - R
      
      No more guilty than the consortium woman. Oldest story in the world. Nearly as old as the ‘Oldest trade’
      
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      October 31, 2025 8:15pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  Perhaps former Prince Andrew should ask for his money back
  
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  October 31, 2025 4:37pm
Swifty

Still waiting for a mainstream news media piece on the abuse on social media of righties, Luxon and Seymour, especially.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360862635/online-hate-and-gendered-abuse-high-cost-leadership-young-women

The personal attacks I’ve seen on ‘X’ of late towards them both are extreme, often racist, sexist, frequently vile and far away from legitimate political debate.

What’s also quite illuminating too is that some of the worst I’ve seen have been posted under real authenticated accounts – those of well-known unionists, past MPs, other fairly well known lefty figures.

But they bitch and moan about the abuse directed towards Ardern etc.

Hypocrites.
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October 31, 2025 8:22am
- Libertarians are right
  
  Wait until you see the abuse Karen Chhour got from the Left.
  
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  October 31, 2025 9:58am
  - Swifty
    
    I’ve seen it.
    
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    October 31, 2025 12:36pm
- sirknz
  
  From the articel “Lal didn’t go to the police, saying that was largely due to the mental effort and strength required to do so.”.
  
  She didn’t go to the police because this is probably a fake hate campaign and this would be detrimental to her re-election campaign.
  
  I’m just curious as to why it is only brown females who seem to receive this online abuse and only ever announced around election season…
  
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  October 31, 2025 11:06am
  - Ghost
    
    Nicola Willis has talked about the abuse she gets. A few non Maori females have. We all know politicians on all sides recieve abuse and threats, it needs to stop
    
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    October 31, 2025 11:17am
Paulus

Hallelujah, or it must be Halloween perhaps.
The new Mayor of Wellington yesterday at his crowning at the Marae – with Wellington soon to be called Poneke we are being told by the media, that one of the first things he would do is ……” Gaining Control of the Finances”.
Wow or other expletives !!
Isn’t he the never elected, until now, the man who as a Minister spent $1.9 billion on Mental Health witth no new beds ?
And no explanation as to where the money went and who got it.
Am sure it’s Halloween isn’t it or is that just a ficticious fallacy as this will be.
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October 31, 2025 8:29am
- kowtow
  
  Interesting.
  Swearing in.How long has that been happening at a marae.
  Surely it should be done in a city hall.
  
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  October 31, 2025 8:44am
- Yvette
  
  As a transliteration: The name is a Māori ‘Poneke’ is a “corruption” of the colonial name “Port Nicholson” or “Port Nick”.
  
  Pō nekeneke meaning: The name may also come from the words pō (night) and nekeneke (to move). This is thought to relate to the movement of the Te Āti Awa people during the night after they were displaced by European settlers.
  
  Surely neither are culturally appropriate … to non-Maori
  
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  October 31, 2025 9:11am
- imalwaysright
  
  It only takes a Little to lose a lot.
  
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  October 31, 2025 9:49am
- rouppe
  
  The proof of the pudding will be in the eating.
  
  I did think it was an interesting move (if I heard correctly) to appoint the deputy mayor and others for only 18 months of the term.
  
  Basically giving the council 18 months to prove their worth. Though of course what “worth” means to Little is yet to be seen.
  
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  October 31, 2025 9:50am
- Ghost
  
  You can see where the $1.9 billion went here
  
  https://www.mhwc.govt.nz/assets/Reports/Budget-investment/MHA-Budget-investment-report-August-2024.pdf
  
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  October 31, 2025 10:08am
- KH
  
  Yes there was new money spent on mental health. Yes it was not spent of beds. It was spent on very useful other things.
  Look up the Access and Choice Programme. One of the more sensible spends in the area.
  
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  October 31, 2025 12:16pm
  - Jack5
    
    In mental health, first look after the really ill, such as schizophrenics.
    
    Our mental hospitals are over-full. We’re short of beds, and of psych. nurses, clinical psychologiss and psychiatrists.
    
    Yet $445 million over four years has been made available to the Access and Choice programme.
    
    This was part of part of a $1.9 billion in a government mental wellbeing package from the Wellbeing Budget 2019 under Ardern’s Mis-Government.
    
    So that’s where much of the fabled $2 billion to save our mental health system ended up.
    
    Jobs for tens of thousands to help people “feel well”.
    
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    October 31, 2025 1:10pm
    - Paulus
      
      I would love a simply analysis of Ethnicity of these in the Mental Health area ?
      
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      October 31, 2025 3:13pm
Chuck Bird

I wonder how much climate change alarmism is a factor in youth suicide in NZ.
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October 31, 2025 8:29am
- imalwaysright
  
  I wonder how much daily ideological programming by sub academic teachers is a factor in youth suicide.
  
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  October 31, 2025 8:38am
- Philview
  
  A young man I have met and I thought of as a fairly impressive young man has made a mistake that brought himself to the attention of the country’s media this week. He isn’t going to jail for that mistake and yet the media didn’t show a jot of compassion for his mental wellbeing by showing his face in their publications.
  
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  October 31, 2025 1:25pm
Mod88

Who ??? in the National Cabinet knifed Andrew Bayley. Who was most threatened by him to engineer such a Hit Job going by the revelations from the esteemed Barry Soper esq.
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October 31, 2025 8:30am
- kowtow
  
  The fact that some faceless , unelected bureaucrats can engineer a coup against a minister of the Crown is truely frightening.
  
  Talk about the ‘principles of democracy’.
  
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  October 31, 2025 8:47am
  - Quail
    
    KT,
    Bureaucracy rules NZ .
    The same old set or team whatever party thinks they are in power.
    And it grows and grows.
    Get used to it ,that is where the real power in NZ is this century !
    
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    October 31, 2025 3:46pm
- Observer of Life
  
  I don’t know what’s going on with Bayly. But if he’s out – YAY! He’s an arrogant pr*ck who is smug and unapproachable, IMHO.
  
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  October 31, 2025 9:19am
  - Positan
    
    Observer, I refute your allegation entirely.
    
    Baseless spite has no place in politics despite its wide employment by the Left, who have little in the way of natural talent anyway.
    
    Frankly, your IMHO ain’t worth nothing.
    
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    October 31, 2025 11:25am
  - nigel2010
    
    I don’t know if you have ever met the man with your comments, i used to reside in Pukekohe and met with Andrew he was always friendly and approachable unlike labours Gwendoline Keel who was arrogant unapproachable and basically stuck up
    
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    October 31, 2025 12:50pm
Albie

I am alarmed it is Oct 31 and we are only going to get to a high of 18 degrees here in “Tamaki Makaurau!”
Don’t think the kids have a lot to worry about apart from deranged adults feeding them climate catastrophe nonsense.
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October 31, 2025 8:47am
- kowtow
  
  Given the date the problem today will be the ‘celebration” of tat made in China , marketted unrelentingly and sold via the Warehouse.
  
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  October 31, 2025 11:30am
Yvette

Capital Gains Tax
The Prime Minister [then Jacinda Ardern] has shocked New Zealand by ruling out a capital gains tax not just before the next election, but while she is Prime Minister.
• “Under my leadership, we will no longer campaign for, or implement a capital gains tax – not because I don’t believe in it, but because I don’t believe New Zealand does.”
Ardern said the Government simply didn’t have the mandate to implement such a tax, as so many Kiwis were against one.
“I have always been clear that we would not be able to proceed unless we were able to form a consensus – that has not happened under this Government.”
In the past, its leader Winston Peters has been dead against such a tax.
• But Ardern was adamant that the NZ First did not bully Labour into not adopting the tax.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/pm-jacinda-ardern-has-ruled-out-implementing-a-capital-gains-tax-while-she-is-at-the-helm-of-labour/IQ4FD7CLYKKLU6YAH2H2S4MDSE/

Ardern has gone – but Hipkins and Winston aren’t
__________
Note also, this Ardernian decision was arrived at after a “national conversation” in which Ardern never stated what her Government’s side of the conversation was.
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October 31, 2025 9:11am
Chuck Bird

From the CO2 Coalition

Witch Hunts and Climate

https://myemail.constantcontact.com/Witch-Hunts-and-Climate.html?soid=1101509381788&aid=g6jKtMKYiZU
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October 31, 2025 9:18am
Chuck Bird

Methane Science Accord

If you are interested in the truth about climate change then come along and see Professor Happer in December. No one has a better resume, he is completely independent, not influenced by anyone.
As a prelude, this podcast is a fantastic listen on climate science, politics and psychology.
This quote was one of my favourites.
“Politicians have less of a reputation so they wish to co-opt the reputation of science.”

https://www.facebook.com/methanescienceaccord
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October 31, 2025 9:22am
- Master Mariner
  
  Yep and the Master Manipulator has changed Tack as well.
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HHi5IGlVyQ&t=68s
  
  Donald Trump mocks Bill Gates after billionaire’s humiliating backflip on climate change.
  This really will leave either Germany or UK to the race to the Bottom with this Blind Un Scientific Ideology.
  
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  October 31, 2025 9:30am
  - rouppe
    
    I reckon…
    
    Bill Gates and others saw an opportunity to make loads of money from climate hysteria. And he has.
    
    He now sees an opportunity to make loads more money from a switch to climate adaptation.
    
    And he probably will.
    
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    October 31, 2025 9:53am
    - kowtow
      
      Indeed, as with all scams;
      
      cui bono.
      
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      October 31, 2025 12:49pm
    - All_on_Red
      
      Nah, hes switching to make lotsa money out of AI
      But AI needs energy. Lots and lots of energy.
      Which under the current regime of decarbonisation is far too expensive.
      Hence his change
      
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      October 31, 2025 1:30pm
Master Mariner

Sound Familiar,
The ongoing debacle over the Spirit of Tasmania ferries
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-rqleCuD6U

On the Maritime theme, It appears to the to the International Dismay of Leaving “We Own This” HMNZ Manawanui on the Seabed and Calling it a “Tourist Destination”.
This will not end well !
Not from a International reputational and Enviromental perspect what so ever.
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October 31, 2025 9:24am
- Taieri
  
  It appears to the to the International Dismay of Leaving “We Own This” HMNZ Manawanui on the Seabed and Calling it a “Tourist Destination”.
  ———–
  
  Anyone knows what’s happened to the Manawanui Captain-ess and her illustrious navigation officers? Was there any disciplinary action?
  
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  October 31, 2025 10:06am
  - Master Mariner
    
    Flown the Coup back to the UK with Partner.
    
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    October 31, 2025 12:08pm
  - imalwaysright
    
    Miss Navigation 2024
    
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    October 31, 2025 2:16pm
- Jack5
  
  No news of any court-martial of the captain of HMNZS Manawanui.
  
  It will soon be a year and a month since the debacle.
  
  China didn’t built its first steel ship until 1955, now can build a frigate in four months.
  
  Surely NZ in a year could establish a captain’s role — if any — in a ship wreck.
  
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  October 31, 2025 10:35am
  - kowtow
    
    ‘China didn’t built its first steel ship until 1955, now can build a frigate in four months.’
    
    yep and at this very moment the brains and ‘top’ commentators of NZ , Soper and McKay on NZME mocking Trump .
    
    The only statesman who is doing anything about the massive decline in the west’s capabilities .
    
    Laugh away morons.
    
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    October 31, 2025 12:59pm
I remember when

Yesterday the statement was made the “Netball is a dying sport.”
Like most sport at present things like cost, weekend work and officials to run it means netball probably has had a decline in participation.
However, a visit to netball courts on a Saturday would probably surprise most.
At the club level there is a steady supply of participants of varying age, size and fitness enjoying the game.
They are probably totally overlooked by Netball NZ except when they need their money.
At grassroots level Netball is one of, if not the healthiest sport.
If we add in the players who play Netball, of a slightly different format, on a casual basis at commercial courts during the week, even more are involved.

There are none so blind as those who do not see.
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October 31, 2025 9:38am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  At grassroots level Netball is one of, if not the healthiest sport.
  
  Apart from the numerous knee and ankle injuries.
  
  Netball involves high speed, deceleration, twisting and pivoting. Because of this knee injuries are relatively common.
  https://www.drbenjaminhewitt.com.au/netball-knee-injuries/
  
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  October 31, 2025 10:41am
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    Women’s football is riven with knee injuries, significantly more so than their male counterparts (so unfair!).
    
    My guess is that netball has had this problem since forever, but not noticed it as there’s been no male comparator.
    
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    October 31, 2025 4:47pm
    - Jake Dee
      
      “significantly more so than their male counterparts”
      the male counterparts to netball are basketball and the various types of football.
      They’re all riven with knee injuries. The length of a professional footballers career is basically measured by the strength of their knees and a larger mass travelling at higher speeds is going to be wrecked faster.
      Modern knee surgery was driven by sports medicine and surgeons working with professional athletes.
      
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      October 31, 2025 5:52pm
- R
  
  Do not WANT to see! Fixed it for yu
  
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  October 31, 2025 11:57am
- MCōs
  
  A couple of years ago South Canterbury cancelled a shield challenge, I think with Hawkes Bay, because it was too expensive. I notice a return AirNZ ticket is $400+, although I expect they could wrangle a discount.
  In the meantime I read a dozen backroom people from NZR are traveling to Europe with the ABs. Dress it up however you like it’s a junket – unless of course they’re paying their own way.
  
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  October 31, 2025 3:39pm
  - greybeard
    
    There will also be a dozen or so maori “cultural ambassadors” there at NZ’s expense to try to convince the Europeans that NZ only has one culture: our overwhelming British ancestry and history will of course be ignored. Just more ugly hakas.
    
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    October 31, 2025 4:11pm
imalwaysright

The BSA, and NZ , should be thanking Sean Plunket on the Platform for defining ‘Tikanga’ as Mumbo Jumbo.

Mumbo Jumbo is a West African term that refers to a male tribal character who would dress up in native garb in order to resolve disputes.

Seems near enough Sean, that’s basically what Tikanga seems to be.
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October 31, 2025 9:53am
Nikola Donatello

How predictable.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/360870573/maori-children-denied-nz-citizenship-under-outdated-law-waitangi-tribunal-finds

So children of Maori descent should have a right to New Zealand citizenship, regardless of their place of birth or parents’ citizenship? Because the Treaty demands that?

So that means that New Zealand would have two classes of citizenship by descent. One for Maori and one for everyone else?

How do these people think that is going to be acceptable?
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October 31, 2025 10:39am
- Blog-aholic
  
  Can the Tribunal point to the part of either version where it says it demands this? No? Thought not. Tribunals use by date approaches rapidly.
  
  15 0
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  October 31, 2025 11:07am
- rouppe
  
  They don’t care what other people think
  
  13 0
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  October 31, 2025 11:13am
- KH
  
  All the judgements they make are predictable. So why do we need the Waitangi Tribunal ?
  Delete it.
  
  10 0
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  October 31, 2025 12:19pm
  - AitchW
    
    Every decision it hands down erodes its credibility.
    Has it ever ruled against a referral from Maori?
    
    9 0
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    October 31, 2025 12:48pm
- Swifty
  
  The Waitangi Tribunal wishes even more racial discrimination in New Zealand society?
  
  Why am I not surprised?
  
  The Treaty agreed Maori would become British subjects, the same as any other British subjects.
  
  No more, no less.
  
  14 0
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  October 31, 2025 12:22pm
  - Nikola Donatello
    
    Yeah but that is the problem. Many Maori and the Tribunal, insist that Maori never ceded sovereignty. Rather as a sovereign people they entered into a Partnership with the Crown.
    
    Unless this view is firmly rejected by the Government via legislation, New Zealand will forever be plagued by what we see in this Waitangi Tribunal decision. Forever.
    
    I simply cannot understand why the National Party thinks that everything is fine. I don’t understand why Chris Luxon said there is “nothing to like” in the Treaty Principles Bill.
    
    AFAIK Chris Luxon thinks that Maori are in a partnership with the Crown, but that Maori are not sovereign. Can he explain exactly what that means?
    
    I am changing my mind about a constitution. New Zealand needs a written constitution that references and gives a definitive interpretation of the Treaty. Unless we do so we will become an increasingly unstable nation. Maori will take us back to tribal rule one step at a time.
    
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    October 31, 2025 12:40pm
    - Swifty
      
      Some people think the way to solve the injustices from historic racial discrimination is to create new injustices from racial discrimination.
      
      Two wrongs make a right I guess, for some.
      
      6 1
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      October 31, 2025 1:46pm
  - Swifty
    
    “Following an urgent inquiry, the tribunal determined application of the Citizenship Act 1977 breached the Treaty’s principles of partnership and good government by “prioritising birth over whakapapa” and limiting citizenship by descent to one generation, “forcing Māori to choose between pursuing opportunities overseas and the right of their tamariki to return to their whenua”.
    
    Only Maori? What about others whose families have been here a good 150-175 years, or more in come cases?
    
    Do they not belong to this land? They’ve got no other home to go to. This is the only home they know.
    
    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/waitangi-tribunal-calls-for-extension-to-citizenship-rights-for-maori-rules-legislation-breaches-te-tiriti-o-waitangi/NI47XWIEAJDWBHWHCMYOHDRTQ4/
    
    11 0
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    October 31, 2025 12:47pm
    - NeverMindTheBollocks
      
      Once any immigrant leaves here, the next generation but one don’t really belong here anymore. Applies to all immigrants, regardless of ancestry.
      
      3 0
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      October 31, 2025 4:49pm
    - Nikola Donatello
      
      “Do they not belong to this land? They’ve got no other home to go to. This is the only home they know.”
      
      That is not what this case is about. It is about granting citizenship to people of Maori ethnicity who do not currently qualify for citizenship.
      
      For example woman A is an Australian citizen of Maori descent who is born in Australia to a mother and father who were dual New Zealand Australian citizens. Woman A was never registered as a New Zealand citizen. She is solely an Australian citizen.
      
      Now Woman A marries a USA citizen. They move to the United States and have a baby boy. BABY B. Baby B is a USA citizen.
      
      Baby B is of Maori descent. However in no way does he qualify for New Zealand citizenship. He was born in the United States to an American father and and Australian mother.
      
      The Waitangi Tribunal want Baby B to qualify for New Zealand citizenship.
      
      5 0
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      October 31, 2025 5:13pm
      - Swifty
        
        Yes, I’ve got you, but my point was is it right to extend this privilege to one set of New Zealanders (based purely on their lineage) and not also bestowed that privilege on the rest?
        
        Even though many of ‘the rest’ may also have been here for up to two centuries, and know no other home.
        
        Forgive me if my wording was opaque.
        
        4 0
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        October 31, 2025 6:02pm
      - Nikola Donatello
        
        Thanks I understand your point.
        
        2 0
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        October 31, 2025 6:43pm
- NoFax
  
  Predictable, of course. You know what else is predictable: the National-led government won’t do anything. That’s good in that they won’t expand citizenship to these foreigners, but also they won’t do anything in regard to the Tribunal.
  
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  October 31, 2025 1:09pm
Maggy Wassilieff

Lines are being drawn in the battle for control of Te Pati Maori:

https://www.teaonews.co.nz/2025/10/31/iwi-chairs-call-for-hui-with-te-pati-maori-amid-party-turmoil/

https://newsroom.co.nz/2025/10/31/founding-member-of-te-pati-maori-calls-for-john-tamiheres-resignation/
11 0
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October 31, 2025 10:59am
- PurplePen
  
  “Iwi Chairs seek tikanga-based hui with Te Pāti Māori to defuse internal rifts”.
  
  Tautology. I would have thought any Maori “hui” is by it’s nature tikanga, ie. maori custom.
  
  6 0
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  October 31, 2025 11:45am
- Ghost
  
  Im going to put a change a leadership on the top of my popcorn wish list
  
  3 0
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  October 31, 2025 12:40pm
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    Any particular party?
    
    3 0
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    October 31, 2025 4:50pm
- AitchW
  
  Are they tribal lines?
  Or is it Kingitanga vs the rest?
  I could do my own research, but who has the energy?
  I’m sure someone closer to the action than I will know!
  
  4 0
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  October 31, 2025 12:45pm
- greybeard
  
  Do you know if pre-European maori used the word “pati” at all ? And if they did, what did it mean to them ?
  
  4 0
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  October 31, 2025 3:59pm
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    according to Dictionary of the Maori Language:
    pāti = shallow (water)
    
    patī = splash, break wind (fart)
    
    pati = try to obtain by flattery, coaxing.
    
    4 0
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    October 31, 2025 5:20pm
    - Swifty
      
      The Farty Party?
      
      2 0
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      October 31, 2025 5:59pm
      - Ghost
        
        diverticulitis suffers finally have a second party, that and the green blowhards
        
        1 0
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        October 31, 2025 6:05pm
Philview

There is a paywalled article in the UK’s Daily Telegraph claiming Jacinda Ardern is on the short list to be the UN’s next Secretary General. Jacinda Ardern is apparently in Scotland at the moment promoting her new movie. For someone who claims to be humble she does a lot of self promotion.
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October 31, 2025 11:20am
- Ghost
  
  There is no short list, the only publicly declared people are
  
  David Choquehuanca
  Michelle Bachelet
  
  She won’t get a position, Helen Clark used up our turn for a long time
  
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  October 31, 2025 11:27am
  - Philview
    
    This website puts her on the list of ‘rumoured’ candidates. Perhaps her supporters are putting it out there to see if there is support for it.
    
    https://1for8billion.org/candidates-and-speculation
    
    4 4
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    October 31, 2025 12:37pm
    - Ghost
      
      If you want I can bring up websites that claim the earth is flat. Btw, the 1 for 8 billion campaign got its seed funding from one of George Soros’s funds
      
      The next United Nations secretary general will come from the GRULAC, it’s their regions turn.
      
      Whoops two others are confirmed
      
      Rebeca Grynspan
      Rafael Grossi
      
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      October 31, 2025 12:57pm
  - R
    
    Helen Clark was never Secretary General. She was basically another seat warmer in an obscure office. Despite what our media wanted you to believe.
    
    9 2
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    October 31, 2025 3:04pm
    - Ghost
      
      Did anyone say Helen was? Helen was Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, one of the top rolls at the UN. NZ won’t have any other people in a top roll for a long time. The job was far from being a seat warmer.
      
      1 1
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      October 31, 2025 3:17pm
      - Nikola Donatello
        
        role
        
        4 1
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        October 31, 2025 5:17pm
    - Nikola Donatello
      
      It was hardly an obscure office. It was the second to top job at the UN. The current salary is $US 235,000.
      
      2 0
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      October 31, 2025 5:20pm
  - Jake Dee
    
    Agreed, Jacinda has no leverage and no independent power base to lobby for her.
    
    0 0
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    October 31, 2025 5:55pm
- R
  
  All she ever did, was SELF PROMOTION. She had no natural skills to rely on, other than seducing the MSM with funding bribe
  
  14 1
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  October 31, 2025 12:00pm
  - AitchW
    
    Don’t forget she had a baby while PM.
    
    11 0
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    October 31, 2025 12:44pm
- Swifty
  
  Realistically, what chance would she, or anyone, have with no UN experience at all?
  
  I suppose you can’t dismiss it entirely, but would they really give the top job to a complete newcomer? A total novice?
  
  7 1
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  October 31, 2025 12:24pm
  - Nikola Donatello
    
    No. There is serious competition for the job. Never going to happen. Although if I am wrong, I don’t care. Jacinda and the UN deserve each other.
    
    7 0
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    October 31, 2025 5:04pm
- mandk
  
  Ardern is way too much of a lightweight to be considered seriously.
  
  The UN is dysfunctional at the moment, and I can’t see someone whose main talent is to preach kindness being able even to start fixing it.
  
  9 1
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  October 31, 2025 3:11pm
Swifty

Clever Japanese:

https://x.com/osint613/status/1983989637367660831?s=46

They don’t take no sh’ite.
5 0
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October 31, 2025 1:43pm
Swifty

The PPTA just hates the idea of parents having choices in the education of their children:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/360870634/former-free-speech-union-boss-heads-charter-school-build-western-civilisation

The PPTA wants to retain the state monopoly on education at all costs – far easier to control and manipulate a single state monopoly rather than hundreds of private providers – especially where those private providers are making your state schools look bad.
12 0
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October 31, 2025 1:52pm
- Rumblestrip
  
  Two absolutely astounding sentences in that article:
  
  The school drew criticism from the teacher’s union which questioned why the Government went out of its way to fund a school, it said, was targeted at students already likely to succeed.
  
  While others in the education sector were intrigued when Ayling introduced the school, in an email and newspaper column, by discussing slavery, colonisation and other dreary realities.
  
  Setting aside for a moment the appalling, sloppy sentence structure and “teacher’s union” (which teacher?), we have:
  
  * A teachers’ union openly annoyed that funding was going to academically gifted students, as if that was a waste. Better to let the smart kids languish in mediocrity, I suppose.
  
  * A news article describing slavery and colonisation as “dreary realities.” (Really, Glenn McConnell? “Dreary?”)
  
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  October 31, 2025 5:14pm
Swifty

Labour doesn’t give a toss about taxpayers or taxpayer money:

https://x.com/suitandtie9999/status/1984042650778137071?s=46

They’ll promise anything to be back in power.

(Although I do note that Deborah Russell doesn’t look too convinced. I see real reluctance and hesitancy in her face. I think she knows she’s bullshitting and hopes we don’t see it.)
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October 31, 2025 2:12pm
Jack5

The Herald headline writers don’t seem to be up with their own newspaper’s coverage. About October 5, the newspaper reported that that among 100 “rising stars” in a selection of Time Magazei was Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, of the Maori Party.

Coverage today by Joseph Los’e of presentation of the award to Maipi-Clarke, is treated, it seems to me, as though inclusion of the MP in the list was new information. The headline over the Los’e report :

Time 100 Next Award: Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke recognised in New York for influential leadership

As reported on Kiwiblog three weeks ago, others in the Time 100 up-and-comers included Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt.

If repetition’s good enough for the Herald, here again on Kiwiblog is the Time list:

https://time.com/collections/time100-next-2025/

The write-up on Maipi-Clarke is by a former Democrat United States Secretary of the Interior, Debra Anne Haaland, who held that post from 2021 to 2025. It oversees Government including the Bureau of Land Management, the United States Geological Survey, the National Park Service, andthe Bureau of Indian Affairs. Haaland’s mother is a Luna Pueblo Indian (her father was Norwegian), and she was one of the first two American-Indian women elected to Congress. Haaland, who is in her sixties, will run for the governorship of New Mexico next year.
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October 31, 2025 2:40pm
- mandk
  
  “Influential leadership”
  
  How? What influence? What leadership?
  
  All she did was perform a stupid stunt in Parliament.
  She displayed bad manners and changed nothing.
  
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  October 31, 2025 3:17pm
- Conservatarian
  
  “influential leadership” = wears Che Guevara style beret in campaign billboard
  
  “influential leadership” = lies about a home invasion by an elderly white man.
  
  9 1
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  October 31, 2025 3:37pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  Any relation to Erling?
  
  1 0
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  October 31, 2025 4:54pm
Conservatarian

Stat of the day:

Average weight of a woman in the US: 146 pounds
Average weight of a woman in the US receiving SNAP benefits: 211 pounds

SNAP = food stamps = obese welfare queens exercising their human right to taxpayer funded Coca Cola and M&Ms

It is now just over 24 hours until this boondoggle ends.
6 2
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October 31, 2025 3:35pm
- Ghost
  
  So your facts have come from a comedian….
  
  1 2
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  October 31, 2025 4:27pm
  - Conservatarian
    
    “Comedians aren’t allowed to notice things and provide statistics about them”
    
    2 1
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    October 31, 2025 7:22pm
    - Ghost
      
      There are no such statistics. You are welcome to go find them and put them here. Your fact of the day is a comedian pulling numbers out of thin air
      
      The average weight of a woman in the USA is 171.8 pounds you can find that on the latest cdc page Here
      
      There are no average numbers for anyone on snaps.
      
      1 2
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      October 31, 2025 7:50pm
      - Conservatarian
        
        You’ll have to address your concerns to Adam Carolla, not me. I imagine he is reporting some statistics that he obtained freely on the world wide web but which you were simply unable to find.
        
        1 2
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        October 31, 2025 8:41pm
      - Ghost
        
        You are the one that is on here posting about it, and no, he didn’t get the figures from the internet, because a simple search will show you those figures that you are posting don’t exist. I’ve even given you the offical figures from the cdc on the average weight of the American woman. So again, if you can find those figures you are welcome to post them here, hint, ChatGPT, Gemini and grok all confirm no such figures exist, that there is no average weight for a woman on snap. Now, while there is some research that shows a connection between obesity and snap programs, there is no research that gives the figures you have, which is wrong as I have given the cdc figures. There is no research that gives the average weight of those on snap.
        
        2 0
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        October 31, 2025 9:02pm
- Nikola Donatello
  
  There is nothing unusual about that. There is a strong correlation betwen obesity and income levels in New Zealand. I am sure that it is so for at least all the Anglo countries in the OECD.
  
  In other words you are drawing attention to an entrenched relationship beteen obesity and deprivation.
  
  3 0
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  October 31, 2025 5:01pm
  - Christopher Thomson
    
    There is no obesity in the face of genuine deprivation.
    
    1 1
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    October 31, 2025 7:02pm
  - Conservatarian
    
    or an entrenched relationship between bad choices and negative outcomes
    
    2 1
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    October 31, 2025 7:24pm
Ghost

I hope this trick or treat house gives out good candy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GXeq-UFN_M
3 0
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October 31, 2025 3:42pm
Conservatarian

EDIT: Average weight of a woman NOT receiving SNAP benefits: 146 pounds.

Stats per Adam Carolla
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October 31, 2025 3:43pm
Nikola Donatello

Honestly, we are doomed.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/360872181/te-pati-maori-mp-collects-time-magazine-award
4 0
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October 31, 2025 4:58pm
Ghost

Good, there were too many experts that knew what caused this fire…. So the driver just drove off…

CCTV footage of the Whangārei Hospital carpark blaze that damaged 28 vehicles has been released by Health NZ to quash “ongoing speculation and misinformation”.

Article
4 0
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October 31, 2025 5:25pm
- Fender
  
  something not right with that drivers behavior, unless he was sitting with the engine running it was a good few minutes before smoke appeared and exhaust pipes are not that hot. I wonder whether he threw a cigarette butt out. His whole demeanor is extremely questionable and I hope they have interviewed him. It had an arson feel to it, rather than a panicked exit.
  
  1 1
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  October 31, 2025 8:23pm
Swifty

“If Labour get a boost in the polls after the CGT announcement they should push the boat out a little further & announce a new policy of confiscating properties from landlords & redistributing those houses to renters.”

https://x.com/liquid_times/status/1984051053692907989?s=46

Yep. This is Labour and the Green’s core constituency.

We are just playthings in their great social experiments – so they can feel good about themselves.
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October 31, 2025 5:38pm
- AitchW
  
  To be fair, liquid_times is quite rabidly pro-Labour.
  
  2 0
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  October 31, 2025 7:56pm

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