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December 7, 2025 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 07 December 2025

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General Debate

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Cassandra

The Trump Administration has published its National Security Strategy: “Continental Europe has been losing share of global GDP—down from 25 percent in 1990 to 14 percent today—partly owing to national and transnational regulations that undermine creativity and industriousness.

But this economic decline is eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilizational erasure. The larger issues facing Europe include activities of the European Union and other transnational bodies that undermine political liberty and sovereignty, migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating strife, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence.

Should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less. As such, it is far from obvious whether certain European countries will have economies and militaries strong enough to remain reliable allies. Many of these nations are currently doubling down on their present path. We want Europe to remain European, to regain its civilizational self-confidence, and to abandon its failed focus on regulatory suffocation.” National Security Strategy of the United States of America.

This is an interesting document. It will be dismissed by some because of its provenance but it actually makes for sobering reading. A major shift in emphasis is to security of the homeland – the Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine” with the expectation that allies will pay their fair share, particularly Europe. And, of course, everyone in this part of the world.
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December 7, 2025 8:02am
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  One reason for Europe’s relative decline is that it’s outsourced a lot of its manufacturing to China.
  
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  December 7, 2025 8:25am
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  Empires come and Empires go. No doubt the Romans, the Aztecs and the Incas, to name but three, at the peak of their power never thought that their future could ever be anything but secure. A study of history tells you otherwise. It’s a shame that we don’t teach it.
  
  Put another way, “this time it’s different” is one of humanity’s blind spots.
  
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  December 7, 2025 8:39am
  - Don Beckett
    
    And what was the force that changed the trajectory of those civilisations ?
    Christianity.
    
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    December 7, 2025 12:08pm
    - Christopher Thomson
      
      Nope, it was failing to stop the barbarian invasion.
      
      The barbarians destroy the empire.
      
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      December 7, 2025 2:39pm
    - Don Beckett
      
      Mmmm………I would be keen to be corrected on which or what the ‘force’ was that changed the direction of those cultures.
      I’m always open to learning . 🙂
      
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      December 7, 2025 5:35pm
      - Mike
        
        Well, you can ascribe the destruction of the American empires to Christianity if you wish. Celerbrating mass slaughter and subjugation in the name of the Prince of Peace might seem odd to some. But perhaps such conduct is only bad if the conquerers are Huns, Arabs, Mongols or other heathens.
        
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        December 7, 2025 5:46pm
  - Graeme Hall
    
    The Romans were aware how insecure their future was. When the General Scipio Aemilianus destroyed Carthage at the end of the 3rd Punic war 146BCE he wept because if Rome’s great enemy Carthage could be destroyed so completely then it was possible in time even Rome could meet the same fate.
    
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    December 7, 2025 2:49pm
Kevin

I’m genuinely curious why the above from Cassandra got two downticks ( so far) as only response ( so far)

Is it the source?
The juju word, current Presidents name?
Is it the transmitter?
Is it the content? (Please explain why you think it’s wrong. And/or the chance that if true does not apply to NZ. )

Would love it if the down ticker says they don’t like it because they think of themselves as ‘NZ European’ category, and nobody likes being called ugly as well as dumb – which would be like piling Pelion on Ossa. This would make me laugh a lot.

Reasons, downtickers.
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December 7, 2025 8:21am
- Cassandra
  
  I note, Kevin, that you’ve got lots of downticks and no comments. But a green tick from me. It’s a pity there’s so little debate on General Debate.
  
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  December 7, 2025 10:18am
  - Mike
    
    It’s not really a debating forum.
    
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    December 7, 2025 10:20am
    - Fender
      
      Agreed, unless you are someone who has been here for years any comment you make can take hours in moderation or get deleted at a whim so that the whole point is so far out of context with the discussion the debate part can’t happen
      There are plenty of new names that only appear once or twice and that would be because of how frustrating this blog is to a newcomer
      The echo chamber is real and defensively guarded which is why 98% of posts are from probably 25 names
      
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      December 7, 2025 12:29pm
      - artemisia
        
        You can request moderation bypass from the blog host. I did. EZ. YMMV. (Does anyone say that any more?)
        
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        December 7, 2025 5:18pm
      - Albie
        
        Fender- I happen to agree with you. I tune in most days and enjoy the debate . I probably spend too much time on the site now that I have recently retired!
        Very occasionally I post a comment and I am often surprised at the time it takes for the moderators to release my post. So long in fact that usually the time has long passed for my comment to make any meaningful-or not contribution to the topic.
        I understand that if you don’t use a pseudonym you are fast tracked, but with the social media trolling we have today I have only the utmost admiration for David G. and the others who post by their given names.
        
        [Mod – you don’t have to use your real name to bypass moderation, just give your details to DPF]
        
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        December 7, 2025 5:18pm
  - Kevin
    
    There’s enough. The slap and run downtickers prob know they couldn’t go any distance. Big hat, no cattle.
    The kind who roar for higher taxes and cheat on theirs.
    The sort who steal from Wellington women’s clothing shops and call for the end to capitalism.
    The ilk who lord it over their employees denying them labour rights as per the law, suborn the supine board of the tax funded business Mommy gave, to fire an honest chairman, while being high up in the ‘Labour’ party.
    The paid media who knew all this and never said a word.
    
    Not as despicable as the people in that party, those media, that board who know and do nothing. But bad enough.
    
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    December 7, 2025 11:22am
- peterwn
  
  You would need a psychiatrist to try and help explain this. It may be a neurological issue – a few people here hit the downtick box as a reflex action.
  
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  December 7, 2025 10:20am
  - Wandering Star
    
    I agree Peter. It’s a purely emotional thing and I think it makes people feel better to downtick a comment rather than actually cogently address it. This behaviour is not a “left” thing, it’s just how many people tend to react when new, compelling ideas are presented in a convincing fashion.
    
    I’m not holding myself out as a martyr, and people can do as they please, but I get heavily downvoted frequently just because I say things that go against cherished dogma. It doesn’t dissuade me though, as I know they will come around eventually given the weight of facts. If it takes years to break down ossified dogmas, then I’m in it for the long haul.
    
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    December 7, 2025 10:48am
    - Cassandra
      
      I’m glad you’re resilient, Wanderer, because you’re in for disappointment and downticks, not because of anything other than plainly being wrong.
      
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      December 7, 2025 1:23pm
      - Wandering Star
        
        Well, I look forward to your and others’ future attempts to demonstrate why I’m plainly wrong then. Maybe 2026 could be your year.
        
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        December 7, 2025 1:26pm
      - Christopher Thomson
        
        “Well, I look forward to your and others’ future attempts to demonstrate why I’m plainly wrong then. Maybe 2026 could be your year.”
        
        You certainly haven’t learnt anything for all the times you’ve been proven wrong this year so I doubt you will get any wiser in 2026.
        
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        December 7, 2025 2:45pm
      - Scott
        
        Cassandra – I agree with you. I do think people earn their downticks when they are Hitler adjacent and their explanation for everything comes down to a vast Jewish conspiracy.
        
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        December 7, 2025 3:18pm
    - Jake Dee
      
      The structure of the forum needs to be improved. [ Mod – thanks – take it up with DPF ]
      
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      December 7, 2025 4:03pm
    - Aquarius
      
      If you ever pass an intelligent comment
      I will immediately uptick……
      
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      December 7, 2025 5:27pm
- R
  
  Reasons Kevin! more upticks now. I’ve noticed that some people on KB don’t like being confronted with a TRUTH, particularly so early in the morning
  
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  December 7, 2025 11:07am
  - Fender
    
    Are ticks even remotely needed
    You can discuss things without needing a dopamine hit surely, alot of times I have commented and due to moderation its hours later and I have never looked back to even see what comments if any followed
    Possibly a views counter would be better than judgement by ticks
    They just seem irrelevant to me
    
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    December 7, 2025 12:35pm
    - Jake Dee
      
      if the mod is deleting comments [ Mod – read very carefully – if you have a problem with moderation – take it up with DPF. You have been told this. A potential holiday awaits you …. ]
      
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      December 7, 2025 4:08pm
Chuck Bird

One thing that really concerned me, listening to Dr Happer, was the effect on children and young adults. Many are saying they will not have children as the world is going to be a terrible place in a few decades.

This is coming from school teachers and should be stopped. I have written to Minister Stanford and Associate Education Minister Seymour on this issue. I await with interest their replies.
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December 7, 2025 8:23am
- David Garrett
  
  Oh Chuck my friend…surely you dont believe ministers actually read most letters like yours, much less draft the replies?
  
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  December 7, 2025 8:49am
  - Chuck Bird
    
    I got a polite reply the same day from Luxon’s office. If they ignore Groundswell and the Methane Science Accord, they would be pretty stupid. I told him if went to a meeting, he would have the opportunity to tell farmers why they should vote for National instead of Act.
    
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    December 7, 2025 1:16pm
- kowtow
  
  ‘Many are saying they will not have children as the world is going to be a terrible place in a few decades.’
  
  That’s a good thing.
  
  If adults are so thick and mentally unbalanced that they “believe in” man made global warming to the extent they won’t have children then by not having children the gene pool is actually being improved.
  
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  December 7, 2025 10:26am
  - Christopher Thomson
    
    That reminds me of the day my 16 year old daughter got home from school the day Trump was first elected to be president.
    
    The number of wailing females predicting doom, gloom, and nuclear war within days was staggering.
    
    So much emotion and so little critical thinking.
    
    Unsurprising that the Greens want to give them the vote.
    
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    December 7, 2025 2:51pm
- peterwn
  
  People have predicted that the world was becoming a terrible place to live for centuries. George Orwell made that prediction in 1948. Yet the people of the world have overcome these grim predictions and the world has mostly become a better place to live. People who say that the world is becoming more terrible are philosophically opposed to things that would make the world even better for many people. Nuclear energy and genetic engineering are two examples.
  
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  December 7, 2025 10:26am
  - Wandering Star
    
    When you say “better” you are apparently referring to developments of a materialistic nature. When do we admit that human beings can have all the material advantage they like (which is never enough), but the material will meet the requirements of that essential part of us, which is the immaterial, or the spirit.
    
    As a wise man once wrote:
    
    “We can gather all the Conferences of the world, gather by herds the Heads of State, the economic experts and the champions of all the techniques. They will weigh. They will decree. But, essentially, they will fail because they will ignore the obvious. The disease of the century is not in the body. The body is sick because the soul is sick. This is what is essential, whatever it may take to cure. The real, the great revolution to be made is there. Spiritual revolution.”
    
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    December 7, 2025 10:39am
    - peterwn
      
      I am reminded of a Green Party hoarding some years ago depicting an Adam and Eve (before they ate the apple) paradise that would await you if you voted Green. Right back to basics – no materialism.
      
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      December 7, 2025 12:37pm
      - Wandering Star
        
        I don’t mean materialism in an acquisitive sense, I mean materialism in a metaphysical sense, although the focus on the former is linked to the imbedded presupposition of the latter, characteristic of modernity. The feeling of pointlessness and hopelessness that has become so widespread in modernity is a perfectly natural consequence of a belief in an exclusively mechanistic material worldview, because all is necessarily pointless and hopeless in such a worldview, and this is the root of the disenchanted nihilism of our age.
        
        Science (which is, broadly, systematic empirical observation) has its value, but it also has its definite limits, notwithstanding that, ironically, it makes wholly unscientific claims about the nature of reality, viz “all that can be known can in principle be known by science” which is a proposition that can clearly never be verified by any experiment or any logical deduction, so it fails on its own criteria.
        
        Further, “science is the best route to knowledge” or “knowledge is better than mere belief or intuition” are value statements, and values can have no place in materialistic mechanism. You can’t observe an immaterial value under a microscope, so their is no way to avoid non-materialism if you want morality or values.
        
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        December 7, 2025 1:48pm
    - Mike
      
      Cute Nazi quote.
      
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      December 7, 2025 1:44pm
      - Mike
        
        A quote from a bona fide Nazi, to be exact.
        
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        December 7, 2025 5:51pm
  - Fender
    
    Intelligence plays a part too , people like orwell who thought,
    A dumb or simple person is possibly happier than an intelligent person with their lot
    How many people are happier by not following politics at all , especially world politics
    If you didn’t know about Ukraine or Gaza would life be similar or better
    
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    December 7, 2025 12:41pm
    - Cassandra
      
      Better. My simple rellies are not interested or informed but happy, sort of, with their dull lives.
      
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      December 7, 2025 1:27pm
      - Wandering Star
        
        Dull lives, you say? Things rarely get much more
        exhilarating than the cut and thrust of a good General Debate, do they? Think how uninformed they are too.
        
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        December 7, 2025 2:07pm
      - Don Beckett
        
        Ignorance is bliss. 🙂
        
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        December 7, 2025 3:06pm
      - Don Beckett
        
        “Ignorance Is Bliss”, a phrase coined by English poet Thomas Gray in his 1742 “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College”
        “If Ignorance is Bliss, ’tis Folly to be wise”.
        A philosophy adopted by an increasing number of souls in our world. 🙂
        
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        December 7, 2025 5:39pm
    - peterwn
      
      And one of the things that the government in 1984 did was to keep the proles (proletariats) happy particularly keeping them entertained with cheap mind numbing entertainment (known as prolefeed).
      
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      December 7, 2025 10:29pm
- R
  
  World will only be a terrible place if people continue to expect someone else to do the work to provide the unmotivated with a lifestyle. Perhaps if more educated woman were to throw off the feminist mantra, and have children, instead of the present my career is important agenda. Motherhood is a CAREER, and a very honorable one, more so than a lot of the so-called careers. None of us would be here on KB had it not been for MOTHER. Check this weekends herald lifestyle section for an example of a career mother.
  
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  December 7, 2025 11:14am
  - peterwn
    
    And another great example of a career mum – Nicola Willis.
    
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    December 7, 2025 12:45pm
    - Wandering Star
      
      But think how much of a better mother she’d have been if she had raised her kids, then sought a career. The idea of a “career mum” is an inherent compromise, both for the career and the children. The advent of the “career mum” concept is not something we should laud, but something we should see as a symptom of a degraded society.
      
      Women have only a relatively small window to perform their primary biological function (having and rearing children, and thus perpetuating society and her bloodline), and when that is done, they can spend all the time they like doing far less important things like being a politician.
      
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      December 7, 2025 2:19pm
    - NeverMindTheBollocks
      
      Nicola + nanny, IIRC
      
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      December 7, 2025 5:15pm
  - wsk12345
    
    Perhaps the fathers could stay home and do all the mundane bullshit for a change? I never particularly desired a career but earned good money and no way was i staying home with a screaming child or two doing endless loads of laundry and trying to pretend thar it’s fun going to the park or the pool with a two year old.
    
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    December 7, 2025 4:47pm
    - R
      
      Wsk…..you have a real personal problem……Attitude?….. Go seek some help
      
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      December 7, 2025 8:08pm
- Pineapple Lumps
  
  Fretting only leads to evil. Just look at the Covid response and climate change and one sees a great deal of fear mongering. The fretting caused by this has led to a great deal of evil already. I’m not surprised if some of that evil is disillusioned young people, suicide and the pursuit of futureless lifestyles.
  
  The book of Revelations, the final book of the New Testament , tells of the 2nd coming of Christ and foretells the end of the world. But for Christians this is not a book of fear and trepidation. It is the final chapter in the greatest love story ever written. God is the supreme being and evil will be expunged from the new creation that will come. So while the book of Revelation contains some dark events — it is actually a tale of hope and encouragement.
  
  The climate doomsayers strip away the hope of some of our impressionable young people.
  
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  December 7, 2025 12:08pm
artemisia

Greens critical of government’s traffic-light system for beneficiaries

There’s a surprise. Mr Menendez March said….”The only thing the traffic light has told us is that most beneficiaries are complying with their obligations… it doesn’t actually solve any problems.”

But what is does do is make it clear that there are responsibilities on both parties. And nearly 13,000 actual sanctions were issued in the September quarter. Perhaps Mr Mr Menendez March has followed up with MSD to find out how many of the nearly 13,000 that quarter met their responsibilities as a result of the sanctions. Or whether meeting responsibilities is not important for the Green Party.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/581079/greens-critical-of-government-s-traffic-light-system-for-beneficiaries
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December 7, 2025 8:30am
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  If you don’t measure it, you can’t manage it.
  
  But I wouldn’t expect a failed cinema projectionist to understand that.
  
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  December 7, 2025 8:40am
  - peterwn
    
    16mm?
    
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    December 7, 2025 12:44pm
- Nikola Donatello
  
  The stupidity of the Green position is that as a beneficiary it takes little effort to meet your obligations. The people who are sanctioned seriously set out to antagonise.
  
  Disclosure. Two years ago I received a job seeker benefit for four months while I was looking for a job. I told WINZ that I would accept any job that I was physically capable of doing. I honestly found the WINZ staff friendly and as helpful as they could be. They were of no help at all in finding me a job. However once they were satisfied that I was seriously seeking work they left me alone. I was grateful for the financial help I received.
  
  To repeat, if you are sanctioned I would suggest that you are a moron and / or you set out to seriously mess them around.
  
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  December 7, 2025 8:47am
  - sirknz
    
    My niece was on Jobseeker and I asked her how hard it was to meet the requirements, she said it was really easy. Apply for some jobs, turn up to any interviews that were arranged, do a couple of courses. She could meet most of her obligations each week on any given Monday.
    
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    December 7, 2025 8:53am
    - rouppe
      
      Is she applying for those jobs and turning up for those interview with the intent of actually working for any of them?
      
      Or doing what happened in the 90’s where you’d left school at 15 then applied for an engineers job, or a pilot, or something to tick the box and go back to the couch.
      
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      December 7, 2025 9:30am
    - R
      
      Any given Monday! But was she actually interestd in a work placement?
      
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      December 7, 2025 9:33am
    - Swifty
      
      And I notice the left is still lying their faces off over this, with even the Labour party claiming people will be denied a benefit if they don’t find a job.
      
      A complete, unvarnished, out and out, naked lie.
      
      But on social media their supporters just lap it up.
      
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      December 7, 2025 9:41am
      - Fender
        
        You have to realise alot of those social media posts are deliberately controversial to get clicks
        Stirring the pot with things like tikanga comments and everybody joins in and you think , bloody hell this country is heading for a war
        Just remember the posts are deliberately trying to get you to respond, your being played
        
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        December 7, 2025 2:55pm
      - Mike
        
        Many people enjoy getting outraged, judging by their comments on this blog. While often describing the objects of their hate as ‘snowflakes’. Hilarious.
        
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        December 7, 2025 5:57pm
    - PurplePen
      
      Even easier. friends have a business and get emails from job applicants when they’re hiring. they’ll get emails that have no CV and the bare minimum of information about the applicant. Turns out they’re from those on job seeker that wish to remain there by sending in screenshots of jobs they’ve applied for, even better when they get a reply saying “not suitable”.
      
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      December 7, 2025 2:46pm
- Swifty
  
  Honestly, who listens to that gentleman.
  
  He’s wrong about everything.
  
  If he had his way the country would be a basket case, in quick time, and because he’s so lacking in basic integrity* he’d be quick to blame everyone but himself.
  
  (*The Jones affair.)
  
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  December 7, 2025 8:53am
  - Nikola Donatello
    
    It is the Greens generally. Do a thought experiment and imagine the Greens in a position where all their policies were implemented. The country would be a weird mix of Laos, Belarus, Fiji and Papua New Guinea. The National motto would be “Organic Agrarian Socialism with Treaty Characteristics”.
    
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    December 7, 2025 9:55am
  - pdm
    
    Didn’t Mendez-March used to known as `The MP for Tijuana’?
    
    That moniker seems to have vanished lately.
    
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    December 7, 2025 10:08am
    - R
      
      Trump wouldn’t fund him.
      
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      December 7, 2025 11:19am
      - peterwn
        
        Tijuana is not in the USA, but is so damn close for all practical purposes (you can get there from San Diego by light rail and and a short bus ride).
        
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        December 7, 2025 12:39pm
- Handyman
  
  Greens? Obligations? Are you serious?
  The official green party position is Universal Basic Income. Everyone is entitled to a living income, whether by choice or being a victim, without any duties or responsibilities. Sanctions have no meaning for green party members.
  
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  December 7, 2025 9:18am
  - PurplePen
    
    Interestingly article 3 of the ToW said they’d have the “same rights and duties as British citizens”. The duties part is always glossed over.
    
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    December 7, 2025 2:49pm
- rouppe
  
  Power said she had heard from the front-line that staff and clients appreciated the transparency of the system’s colour arrangements to better understand what was expected of them.
  
  Do they have the mental age of 4 year olds? Oh, orange, NOW I understand…
  
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  December 7, 2025 9:28am
- peterwn
  
  Of course the Greens would say this – the left wing rely on state dependency for their supporters. If people no longer depend on the state for support, they might turn around and support ACT, heaven forbid.
  
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  December 7, 2025 10:30am
  - R
    
    support ACT, heaven forbid? They could do a lot worse and support Labor!
    
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    December 7, 2025 11:21am
Ra Henare

Interesting to see that Jacinda Arden has appeared on the Graham Norton TV show in the UK. promoting her Doco.

Very very very rare rare for a Poly to turn up on a celebrity chat show. Following in the footsteps of Hillary Clinton promoting her books

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002n2bp

One wonders what the cost of lobbying to get on the show was.
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December 7, 2025 8:37am
- MCōs
  
  The question should be do the guests get paid – after all who’d watch the show if he interviewed a bunch of nobodies?
  All the guests on his show are there to push a book or a movie or some sort of exposure. The guests on his show don’t get paid.
  
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  December 7, 2025 9:54am
- Burtland
  
  the price of manufactured celebrity
  
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  December 7, 2025 10:14am
- peterwn
  
  If you are publishing a book in NZ you would hire a PR person to procure its review on a 9 to noon slot on the National Programme.
  
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  December 7, 2025 10:32am
- Scooter
  
  I think this will hopefully be the last of Jacinda’s shameless worldwide (strangely not in NZ) self promotion. She’s done the book and film plus one for her target audience children (and adults with an intellect of children). She is running out of Universities to hide in and books or media to appear in. But she does have $20mill of Belinda Gates to spend doing some good so maybe she should spend less time on putting herself out there and more on better causes and being kind.
  
  https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/518279/who-is-getting-part-of-melinda-french-gates-1-billion-in-donations-to-support-women-and-girls&ved=2ahUKEwiu68fsoqqRAxXcgf0HHYADGoEQFnoECHgQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3Lt64yuAk0BDmOlK-FMd_f
  
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  December 7, 2025 2:03pm
- PurplePen
  
  I’d watch it if I’d accidentally invested poison and needed to induce vomiting.
  
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  December 7, 2025 2:50pm
- Christopher Thomson
  
  Hillary and Chelsea have been on there.
  
  Arnie too.
  
  Don’t know of any others.
  
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  December 7, 2025 2:54pm
sungsamning

https://nypost.com/2025/12/06/us-news/stephen-miller-calls-minnesota-welfare-scam-with-somali-migrants-single-greatest-theft-of-taxpayer-dollars/
Stephen Miller calls billion-dollar Minnesota welfare scam ‘single greatest theft of taxpayer dollars’ with dozens of Somali migrants convicted.
The welfare fraud scam engulfing Minnesota’s Somali community is “the single greatest theft of taxpayer dollars through welfare fraud in American history,” White House Deputy Chief of Staff for policy Stephen Miller declared.

Miller, who also serves as a homeland security advisor to President Trump, said the fraud operation apparently carried out by numerous Somali migrants in the state will “rock the core of Minnesota politics and American politics.”

“We believe that we have only scratched the very top of the surface of how deep this goes,” he said in an appearance with Sean Hannity on Fox.
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December 7, 2025 8:38am
- artemisia
  
  I sort of followed this. It is clear with hindsight that some of the fraud was at least suspected years ago. Have to wonder what stopped the follow up. Maybe that is in part of what lies beneath that Stephen Miller was referring to.
  
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  December 7, 2025 9:28am
  - kowtow
    
    Like the rape gangs in the UK , the authorities will have looked the other way, for many reasons .
    
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    December 7, 2025 10:28am
    - sungsamning
      
      Yes, that’s right. So would the fake news.
      
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      December 7, 2025 1:38pm
  - sungsamning
    
    Asking questions would have been considered ‘raycist’ when Biden was resident. Now it isn’t.
    
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    December 7, 2025 1:37pm
- peterwn
  
  Another Twin Cities problem – like the murder of that police officer a few years ago that kicked off the ‘Defund the Police’ campaign.
  
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  December 7, 2025 10:35am
  - peterwn
    
    Oops – I meant the murder of a black person by a police officer.
    
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    December 7, 2025 11:10am
    - kowtow
      
      That was a political show trial.
      
      10 2
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      December 7, 2025 12:24pm
    - Handyman
      
      The autopsy showed the life-long violent crim died of a drug overdose. The main symptom is the inability to breathe properly. Either way he was going to die that day.
      
      The jury were faced with impossible pressure. Their houses would have been burned to the ground; plenty were.
      
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      December 7, 2025 3:14pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  It’s the same basic problem that we have in NZ. Immigrants from selected cultures do not respect the high trust culture that we have here. Rules are something to be got around, if it’s possible and profitable. Hence the driver licencing rorts, the “pay for your job” scams, the increase in false invoice frauds … I could go on. As an aside, it would be interesting to know the ethnic breakdown associated with the increase in IRD PAYE & GST debt defaults.
  
  Underpinning all this is that not all cultures the same, and not all are a good fit with what we have, or had, in NZ.
  
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  December 7, 2025 12:12pm
- Fender
  
  To be fair compared to the white collar fraud, the shorting of mortgages, insider trading etc it is still small change
  White collar criminals just get away with it more
  
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  December 7, 2025 3:00pm
- Graeme Hall
  
  Senator John Kennedy gives a well constructed speech outlining the frauds created by several people of Somalian descent in Minnesota, assisted by many other people of Somalian descent in Minnesota. Don’t be fooled by Senator Kennedy’s strong Tennessee accent. He has a Masters degree from Oxford, UK.
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xaZR2niNZo
  
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  December 7, 2025 3:19pm
sungsamning

https://pjmedia.com/sarah-anderson/2025/12/04/maduros-ex-insider-turns-snitch-and-sends-trump-an-explosive-letter-n4946687
Maduro’s Ex-Insider Turns Snitch, Sends Trump an Explosive Letter.
On Tuesday, Marco Rubio sat down for an interview with Sean Hannity. As you can imagine, Venezuela was a hot topic. Hannity asked if we’re on the verge of conflict.

Rubio responded by saying, “No… what the President has authorized is a counter-drug mission in the region.” He then went on to explain that Nicolás Maduro’s regime is not a legitimate government, but a narco-terrorist organization. Oh, and it’s providing terrorist organizations from the Middle East with a safe space here in our own backyard as well.
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December 7, 2025 8:38am
Yvette

Tikanga and the Law?
Te Pāti Māori focuses on tikanga response after Kapa-Kingi allegations.
…
He said the party would not be drawn into public confrontation. “What we don’t do is what Pākehā parties do. What we don’t do is go to Pākehā media to have our kōrero,” he told Waatea.
…
Tamihere emphasised that Te Pāti Māori is a tikanga-based movement guided by ancestral wisdom. “There is a tikanga-based solution to every problem in the Māori world,” he said.
“Our ancestral intelligence gives us the opportunity to work through issues in a way that doesn’t look for heads on platters – that’s Pākehātanga.”
…
Tamihere says the party is united and forward-looking: “What matters is what our people believe, not what the white media says. We’re fully moving forward.”
https://www.facebook.com/waateanews/posts/te-pāti-māori-focuses-on-tikanga-response-after-kapa-kingi-allegationste-pāti-mā/1402732648520115/

But here te Pati is, currently bound by ‘white’ court of law which their member Kapa-Kingi voluntarily engaged.

Of greater consideration however may be the process of ’tikanga’ which is to be introduced to the law of the land, and the proceedings of Parliament.
“In what form” is another question. Dating from when and of which iwi, and in what detailed written form that can even be studied and considered.
And the John Tamihere version?
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December 7, 2025 8:42am
- Gravelroad
  
  : “What matters is what our people believe, not what the white media says. We’re fully moving forward.”
  That’s hilarious.
  Who tells their people “what to believe”?
  That would be the great leader Mr Tamihere, I presume.
  Don’t let the Whanau make up their own minds about anything, eh?
  Just do as you are told, brothers.
  
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  December 7, 2025 9:40am
  - R
    
    Also Labour’s policy.
    
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    December 7, 2025 11:22am
  - Paulus
    
    Continues to make Tamihere a real unsupervised Nutter !
    
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    December 7, 2025 11:33am
- graham
  
  There was discussion some days ago about the word ‘Pakeha’ and whether people are comfortable with being called Pakeha, or identifying as Pakeha.
  
  Irrespective of the actual meaning of the word ‘Pakeha’ (which people seem to disagree on), I suspect many people, myself included, are uncomfortable with it because so often it is weaponised and used in a derogatory manner, as John Tamihere demonstrates.
  
  “What we don’t do is what Pākehā parties do. What we don’t do is go to Pākehā media to have our kōrero,” he told Waatea.
  
  “Our ancestral intelligence gives us the opportunity to work through issues in a way that doesn’t look for heads on platters – that’s Pākehātanga.”
  
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  December 7, 2025 9:46am
  - PurplePen
    
    An alternative is to claim and own the term with pride. pretty much what the gay community did with the term gay and queer. That was before the rest of the letters of the alphabet hijacked us mind you.
    
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    December 7, 2025 2:56pm
  - Graeme Hall
    
    “Our ancestral intelligence..” said the man of mainly Irish descent.
    
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    December 7, 2025 3:26pm
- Unity
  
  They make out that they are so touchy feely but when you think of the state of the country when Britain took over, he’s obviously living in dream land. When the musket wars took hold in the early 1800’s where certain Maori tribes were marauding up and down the country killing and eating each other, what is that called? They were in danger of extinction and were saved by being introduced to living in a civilisted way. To hear them talk today people would think they lived in a bed of roses – not about them being, in many cases, a violent Stone Age culture.
  
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  December 7, 2025 10:57am
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  “ Our ancestral intelligence gives us the opportunity to work through issues in a way that doesn’t look for heads on platters”
  
  Only in the sense that old time Māoris didn’t have what we would consider to be platters.
  
  In fact, dispute resolution that involved eating the content of your opponent’s head was EXACTLY part of Maori culture at the time.
  
  A graphic example of accusing your opponent of that which you yourself are guilty of.
  
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  December 7, 2025 12:17pm
BarryB

I see the most common item purchased at IKEA yesterday was a ‘Billy” bookcase. Made of weetbix wood covered with printed paper. Its essentially junk. I guess some of them are already just a heap of broken bits in a corner.
Its a telling comment on the aspirations of many of our citizens that they buy this ribbish.
They are in the $50-$100 range. I saw a solid rimu bookcase on a local second hand shop in Hamilton a few days ago for $40………..
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December 7, 2025 9:01am
- Gravelroad
  
  Yeah, but that will be too old fashioned, or just old, or too heavy to cart back home.
  Not so easy to chop up for fire fuel in winter.
  
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  December 7, 2025 9:43am
- Northshoredoc
  
  It is depressing Barry.
  
  We live in infantilised times.
  
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  December 7, 2025 9:51am
- fightingtemeraire
  
  I am looking for an armchair and have two options.
  
  One a flat pack from Ikea or one from Briscoes.
  
  I want to see before I buy but cannot do either unless I go to Akl/
  
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  December 7, 2025 11:55am
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    Get yourself down to your local auction house FT, and look for something solid to come along.
    
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    December 7, 2025 12:20pm
- Jake Dee
  
  How many people can be supplied with furniture from a second hand shop in Hamilton?
  Most people understand the price point equation and the trade offs between quality, quantity availability and price.
  I choose not to look down my nose and sneer at the way other people furnish their homes.
  
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  December 7, 2025 12:07pm
Scooter

It’s a shame and not a surprise that the MUMA/Willie Jackson details are only being reported now. So expect it to be buried over Xmas. But then maybe that’s the plan for it to be front and centre in election year. Plus with the cluster that is going on in TPM (it’s all very incestuous) it’s almost like the stars are aligning.
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December 7, 2025 9:11am
- Cassandra
  
  One can only hope so. I’m happy for Maoris who want their own tribal entities to run their lives collectively, as long as I don’t pay for it. But I don’t want them anywhere near my life. They are, on the whole, poor managers and we’ve enough problems already without bringing their cumbersome, aggressive and inefficient way of doing things into the governance of the wider community.
  
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  December 7, 2025 9:29am
  - Scooter
    
    Cassandra that’s the problem, we the tax payers are paying for it, MUMA are tax payer funded. If what is going on in MUMA with Willie Jackson and his wife and TPM and all their nepotism, if Maori ever get control of NZ then the country is well and truly stuffed. It will be run by a few elites and their rellies.
    
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    December 7, 2025 9:53am
  - Mike
    
    Maoris, huh? Make good soldiers but not officer material?
    
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    December 7, 2025 10:18am
    - Cassandra
      
      You do write a load of rubbish at times. There are plenty of NZers of Maori descent who are first class people. Lots of good officers: Poananga x 2; Des & Bob Smith; the Battalion COs and OCs; Gardiner; Mataparae; Kiwi; Matthews. But there’s a long list of grifters too.
      
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      December 7, 2025 1:38pm
      - Mike
        
        But on the whole poor managers, cumbersome and inefficient?
        Cool story, bro.
        Now do Chinese, Indians, Africans and Latinos.
        
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        December 7, 2025 1:52pm
    - NZer In Exile
      
      Don’t worry about the predictable strawman trolling from you know who. It’s a cheap “look over there” diversionary stunt.
      Real issue here? Democratic control for the majority regardless of racial heritage, vs autocratic and/or mates based control based on racial/tribal heritage.
      
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      December 7, 2025 2:31pm
  - Taieri
    
    They are, on the whole, poor managers
    ————
    
    They are, as shown by the sorry saga of Te Kāika health organization in Dunedin.
    A mum is the chairwoman of the board (consisting of two members, including herself), her son is the CEO and her daughter is one of the managers. In the meantime doctors and other staff are leaving in droves.
    
    Unfortunately, relevant articles in the ODT are paywalled.
    
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    December 7, 2025 10:57am
- KKNZ2025
  
  AFAIK the MSM have never mentioned it yet?
  
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  December 7, 2025 9:51am
- Yvette
  
  Scooter – Stars (Willie and John) aligning … again?
  
  More ‘tikanga’?
  To question if, while John Tamihere follows his version of tikanga, is Willie Jackson following another individual version as well ? –
  
  Willie Jackson Accused of Bullying, Union-Busting and Cronyism to Protect His Missus
  Matt McCarten, once one of Labour’s closest allies, has laid a formal complaint with Speaker Gerry Brownlee alleging that Willie Jackson MP used his political muscle to:
  • Orchestrate the sacking of the long-serving chair of Manukau Urban Māori Authority (MUMA) after an independent review found serious bullying by the CEO – Jackson’s wife, Tania Rangiheuea.
  • Personally threaten the chair with loss of his $70,000 stipend and then engineer his removal.
  • Hand-pick three new board members who are either Labour Party activists or his own staff.
  • Issue trespass notices against McCarten and every union representative to block collective bargaining.
  • Coordinate intimidation of staff and deploy top-tier law firms to silence the sacked chair with High Court action. Labour leader Chris Hipkins was informed on 5 September 2025 and did nothing. The Chief Whip reportedly said it was “not a matter for the party”.
  https://goodoil.news/exclusive-willie-jackson-accused-of-bullying-union-busting-and-cronyism-to-protect-his-missus/
  ___________
  
  Rt Hon Chris Hipkins MP
  Leader of the Labour Party
  Parliament House Wellington 6160
  
  Sent by email: [email protected]
  cc: Hon Willie Jackson MP; Chris Bramwell, Chief of Staff
  
  Kia ora Chris,
  
  Bullying Cover Up by Hon Willie Jackson MP
  
  We need your help.
  Willie has put himself at serious risk that will impact his political role. He has become very stubborn and refuses to listen to sensible advice. My assessment is he will only listen to you.
  
  1. Summary
  a) Willie orchestrated the removal of the Chair of the Manukau Urban Mãori Authority board earlier this year to cover up serious allegations of bullying against his wife Tania Rangiheuea. Other senior Labour Party members have participated in the cover […]
  
  Nga mihi,
  Matt McCarten
  
  Letter-to-Chris-Hipkins .pdf
  ___________
  
  Former Labour power broker Matt McCarten has laid a formal complaint with Speaker Gerry Brownlee, alleging Jackson pressured and threatened MUMA’s long-serving board chair after an independent review recommended Rangiheuea’s removal.
  
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  December 7, 2025 10:34am
Positan

From Cam Slater’s and Michael Laws’ interviews with Matt McCarten I learned that the Willie Jackson/MUMA incident actually occurred some months ago.

If this disgraceful, employee-harming affair had centred on an MP from National/ACT/NZFirst, members of Opposition parties – Willie Jackson himself at the forefront – would have been howling their affront and indignation, and (according to gender) screeching and bellowing that the MP concerned be subject to all manner of punitive onslaughts, before being disgracefully sanctioned and dismissed from parliament – irrespective of any pleas of innocence.

But what a difference there is when the National/ACT/NZFirst coalition has the ammunition and the “goods” on someone as thoroughly disliked and unadmired as Willie Jackson. Not only does that crowd say nothing, leak nothing to the press or even whisper about it in their own circles … let alone, bellow their totally-justified condemnation to the world.

SO PLEASE, will any Nat/ACT/NZF MP stand up and tell us all WHY THEY HAVEN’T DONE SO !!!!!

If they won’t or don’t, they’ll have me believing they really are as spineless as the comments in so many blogs are so constantly portraying them to be.
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December 7, 2025 9:19am
- Ghost
  
  What exactly do you want the MP’s to do? Matt made a question of privilege complaint to the speaker, it is before the speaker.
  
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  December 7, 2025 10:50am
  - Positan
    
    Ghost, my point was made pretty clear in the lines, “the incident actually occurred some months ago.”
    
    How long do you think this has been able to be contained? Matt’s complaint to the Speaker was only made last week.
    
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    December 7, 2025 4:02pm
    - Ghost
      
      Again, what exactly do you expect the mp’s to do? Do you actually think that they knew about this before a complaint was made to the speaker, and if you do then can you provide evidence of that. Or is this just attack the mp’s for doing nothing without evidence that actually knew anything was going on.
      
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      December 7, 2025 5:50pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  What makes you think, Positan, that no Coalition MPs have not spoken to the media, only to be ignored?
  
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  December 7, 2025 12:23pm
  - Positan
    
    NMTB: Given the absolute seriousness of Jackson’s actions, do you not think an MP whose “representations” had been ignored by the media would not have floated his/her “distress” on social media?
    
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    December 7, 2025 4:06pm
Souvlaki

The Herald , bereft of any journalists of note within in its own stable, frequently re-publishes articles from the UK Telegraph.
Somehow , I doubt they will be giving prominence to this eviscerating appraisal of the attempt to sanctify Ardern. It is paywalled, but the headline says it all…
“Jacinda Ardern’s airbrushed documentary is a shamelless act of self promotion”🤣

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/aa17267c527cbb1a
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December 7, 2025 9:37am
- alex Masterley
  
  The writer of the article really didn’t mince or waste words in the review.
  I wish our local journos could write like that…
  
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  December 7, 2025 9:53am
  - Burtland
    
    local ‘journalists’ cant see the monster
    
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    December 7, 2025 10:27am
  - R
    
    Such reporting would require journalistic skill; and would be biting the hand that feeds.
    
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    December 7, 2025 11:25am
- Northshoredoc
  
  ‘……Most of the footage is seemingly shot by her partner, Clarke Gayford, and the result feels less like a political documentary and more like stumbling across somebody’s unguarded home videos and realising, with horror, that they want you to watch all of them. Whether this unprecedented access reveals the true Ardern or simply the version she’s spent years wafting under our noses is anybody’s guess.
  
  ……In the end, Prime Minister is compelling, but not because it unmasks Jacinda Ardern. Quite the opposite. It shows how determined she is to curate every frame of her legend, right down to the home movies. Admirers will be transported; critics will develop a nervous tic. And the rest of us will ponder whether the world truly needed two hours of Jacinda’s domestic cinema. Spoiler: probably not.’
  
  Lol – you couldn’t pay me enough to sit through this kind of tripe about Ardern.
  
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  December 7, 2025 9:54am
- Yvette
  
  Jacinda Ardern’s airbrushed documentary is a shameless act of self-promotion
  Kara Kennedy [the Telegraph UK] –
  But the documentary presents the backlash as something that happened to her, and doesn’t even try to answer the question of why most of the country ended up hating her and so believing that she should be behind bars. The fury, the protests, the sinking polls; the creeping sense among New Zealanders that perhaps being governed by a kindly primary-school teacher wasn’t actually the utopian experience international commentators insisted it was – it all comes across as one-sided, which makes the whole thing play like a PR video rather than a genuine examination of her premiership.
  
  By the time she resigns in January 2023, the film has fully embraced the narrative that New Zealand didn’t deserve her. The poor dears. They failed to appreciate the gift they’d been given. In the end, Prime Minister is compelling, but not because it unmasks Jacinda Ardern. Quite the opposite. It shows how determined she is to curate every frame of her legend, right down to the home movies. Admirers will be transported; critics will develop a nervous tic. And the rest of us will ponder whether the world truly needed two hours of Jacinda’s domestic cinema. Spoiler: probably not.
  [two out of 5 stars]
  
  Tim Stanley –
  Jacinda Ardern’s virtue-signalling memoir is like one long therapy session
  In A Different Kind of Power, the former New Zealand leader advocates for empathy in politics. Shame she shows so little for her critics
  [one out of 5 stars]
  
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  December 7, 2025 11:31am
  - mandk
    
    Ardern clearly hasn’t come to recognised that she was dumped because New Zealanders had tumbled to the fact that she was (and remains) a self-aggrandising fake.
    
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    December 7, 2025 1:39pm
- nathie
  
  Some juicy bits for your Sunday morning brunch:
  
  “Where the whole thing begins to wobble is in her decline. The Covid era – those suffocating lockdowns that had half the country cheering and the other half sharpening pitchforks – is presented as a tragic misunderstanding between a saintly leader and her inexplicably ungrateful flock. She confides that she takes sleeping pills to avoid thinking about her critics. But the documentary presents the backlash as something that happened to her, and doesn’t even try to answer the question of why most of the country ended up hating her and so believing that she should be behind bars. The fury, the protests, the sinking polls; the creeping sense among New Zealanders that perhaps being governed by a kindly primary-school teacher wasn’t actually the utopian experience international commentators insisted it was – it all comes across as one-sided, which makes the whole thing play like a PR video rather than a genuine examination of her premiership.”
  
  Sometimes reloading the page displays the article (or try again later on).
  
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  December 7, 2025 11:34am
- fightingtemeraire
  
  V V few in support of JA in the comments section.
  
  11 1
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  December 7, 2025 11:57am
  - Jake Dee
    
    I don’t hate her, in fact I have difficultly in regarding here as a genuine human person, as mandk said ” a self-aggrandising fake” but she’s also the legitimate product of a social class up to it’s eyeballs in fakery.
    She’s almost its perfect representative.
    Her whole life story and career arc are steeped in the paper thin morality but ocean deep bullshittery of the Western Professional Managerial Class.
    Leaving the Mormon church, claiming that it wasn’t gay enough, but most likely because it wasn’t going to be her ladder to power and fame.
    Bachelor of Communication Studies in politics and public relations, an academic discipline for which I have less respect for than juggling circus performances and stage illusions, and a discipline for which the Chinese Communist Party at least has the dignity and self awareness to call The Propaganda Department.
    Researcher and apprentice to Helen Clarke in Wellington and that international master of fakery and spin Tony Blair in London.
    President of the International Union of Socialist Youth in 2008.
    Selected, attended and graduated from the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Forum of Young Global Leaders in 2014, that’s Klaus Schwab’s gang.
    Participated in the 2017 Woman’s march against Donald Trump while a sitting New Zealand MP.
    It’s greasy pole climbing without any moral backbone from beginning to end and all through the middle, no ambition but the ambition for power.
    Yes she is appalling, but the true child of an appalling class, and a class that the whole Western world has to take responsibility for.
    Rant ends.
    
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    December 7, 2025 4:47pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  It’s funny: looking at her now compared to how she was several years ago, she appears not only glossed up but also several years younger.
  
  She also seems to have taken elocution lessons.
  
  It’s like she’s a different person.
  
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  December 7, 2025 12:28pm
  - geoff3012
    
    Shes done something with her teeth.
    
    2 2
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    December 7, 2025 3:55pm
- jacthecat
  
  I liked this comment:
  ‘Saw her a few years back at a conference. She came across as bubbly, bright and decent. But she was a worse than useless prime minister, who made policy on the hoof and couldn’t control her caucus, especially the Māori radicals.
  However, she was better than the fool who replaced her as leader, Chris Hipkins. He was responsible for a COVID quarantine policy which let holidaymakers come and go, but made people with dying relatives undergo a lottery system if they wanted to see them.
  
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  December 7, 2025 12:47pm
- Philview
  
  I didn’t hate her but did hate the free pass she got from much of the media. For someone who claims to be an awkward shy person she certainly loves to promote herself.
  
  14 2
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  December 7, 2025 1:35pm
- PurplePen
  
  Some of them more than 200 comments are clever.
  
  1 1
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  December 7, 2025 3:11pm
Jack5

A tribute to Simon Bridges?

Ardern on Simon Bridges in the Graham Norton TV interview being celebrated by her fans: “I could have punched him in the face”.

At least Ardern didn’t stab Bridges in the back like the National crazy fringe.
17 1
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December 7, 2025 10:05am
- mandk
  
  Imagine if Bridges had said the same thing about her.
  
  The lefty outrage would never cease.
  
  17 3
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  December 7, 2025 1:35pm
  - Don Beckett
    
    She didn’t like Simon – he always got the better of her in any debate or discussion. Wonder why? – could it be something to do with ‘intelligence level’ ?
    
    11 3
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    December 7, 2025 3:14pm
- lifesgood
  
  She is and always has been a disgrace. It says a lot about the people who voted for her.
  
  3 3
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  December 7, 2025 1:56pm
MCōs

What an excruciating cricket game at Hagley Oval yesterday. Two ordinary batters up against two bowlers playing their second test matches plus two part time spinners on a pitch with no turn.
So many players are injured; I wonder who will get the call up to bowl in next test? Maybe we should check the ethnicity of some of those Aussie fast bowlers that seem to come out of the woodwork over there.
12 1
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December 7, 2025 10:13am
- In Vino Veritas
  
  The wickets over there encourage genuinely quick bowling MCos. Here, you can be medium-fast and accurate, and the pitches will do the rest. On a flatish test wicket, that won’t do.
  Kyle Jamieson is playing at the moment, and Ben Sears has started playing club cricket in Melbourne (and has shaken up a few grade cricketers over there) so who knows?
  
  7 0
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  December 7, 2025 11:02am
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  Ahem! Message to the selectors: my mobile is on.
  
  6 0
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  December 7, 2025 12:29pm
  - MCōs
    
    You reckon you’re better than Amelia Kerr?
    
    3 1
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    December 7, 2025 2:47pm
Hugh Jarse

Q & A this morning. Costers last stand LOL
13 1
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December 7, 2025 10:30am
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  Good on him for fronting up; and him without a book or film to promote.
  
  8 0
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  December 7, 2025 12:30pm
  - Hugh Jarse
    
    Can’t say I saw anything noble about his appearance and what he had to say. Just trying to make himself look less useless and spray the dirt a bit. Atypical narcissist in my opinion, but good to hear he sleeps well at night.
    
    7 0
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    December 7, 2025 3:11pm
- kowtow
  
  And Tame as S*itting Bull.
  
  6 2
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  December 7, 2025 1:03pm
rouppe

I didn’t think it would take long for the media to take a negative angle on the FIFA Peace Prize thing, artificial as it was.

Would they have said the same thing if Biden had been the recipient?
8 5
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December 7, 2025 12:46pm
- mandk
  
  FIFA would never have invited Biden.
  
  He’s so ga ga, he would have thought the draw was a bingo tournament.
  
  6 4
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  December 7, 2025 1:32pm
- MCōs
  
  I thought the football people awarded someone not even remotely connected to the game some sort of peace prize was utterly absurd – everyone knows why they did it except the actual recipient.
  https://x.com/dennisgoris/status/1997339667507630313?s=61
  
  3 4
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  December 7, 2025 4:12pm
  - rouppe
    
    Well he’s remotely connected because the usa is hosting most of the tournament, and he is president of the usa…
    
    3 0
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    December 7, 2025 8:02pm
- MCōs
  
  There has been twenty two football world cups.
  Has there ever been such a pitiful display of arse licking even by the notoriously corrupt standards of FIFA?
  
  4 4
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  December 7, 2025 4:39pm
  - Mike
    
    FIFA runs on corruption.This current farce is just the latest. Not sure about the first world cip, but Mussolini certainly corrupted the second.
    
    2 3
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    December 7, 2025 4:54pm
NeverMindTheBollocks

I haven’t seen Maggie W recently. I hope she’s ok.

[Mod – Maggy’s post]
8 1
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December 7, 2025 1:05pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  Tx Mod, good to know
  
  9 0
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  December 7, 2025 1:40pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  I’m fine txs….
  just back from Oz….
  Too much of a hassle reading KB & commenting when I’m reduced to my cellphone.
  
  14 0
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  December 7, 2025 3:54pm
Ian

Some comment yesterday on Te Kaika, a Maori charitable trust health hub in Dunedin and as reported in the ODT. Should have been a great thing, but has degenerated. In essence currently under investigation by the DIA citing poor governance, nepotism (family comprise the board), lack of reports/accountability and suspect loans to board members and senior staff. Not a small outfit – $14 million revenue. In addition a senior counsellor has been convicted of stalking and intimidation issues. Turned up at the complainants house with gang members driving Te Kaika’s work vehicle. In court the trust tried and failed to get name suppression for this person. They used trust money to pay for a lawyer to apply for this suppression. This counsellor then moved north on bail and got a job at another Maori health organisation with a glowing reference from Te Kaika – said new employer dismissed him once they found out about the background. This counsellor also obtained a motor bike licence from a dodgy Westport NZTA issuer (cash for licence) that gang members were aware of. Besides this despicable person, another of Te Kaika’s doctors was in court at the same time for tax evasion of $140,000. What a wonderful organisation. ODT articles were paywalled, but there are work arounds.
9 0
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December 7, 2025 2:05pm
fightingtemeraire

Here’
GG position is up for grabs about 6 month after the election.
Labour wins and appoints JA as GG!!!
3 2
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December 7, 2025 2:21pm
- rouppe
  
  Meh…
  
  She’s gone on and on about being a republican, why would she agree to become King Charles’ lackey?
  
  1 1
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  December 7, 2025 8:06pm
NZer In Exile

NZ Govt’s apologetics for paying billions in tithes to the climate change religion questioned over at Watt’s Up With That:

“Claim: Rejecting Emissions Targets Undermines the International Rules Based Order”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/12/05/claim-rejecting-emissions-targets-undermines-the-international-rules-based-order/
2 2
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December 7, 2025 2:24pm
Inandout

ITV are made to look ridiculous over the Farage comment when he was a teenager. Little wonder the UK media are seen as foolish and low.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHMpd7VJ7U0
3 2
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December 7, 2025 5:12pm
- Mike
  
  Is Fsrage still denying his racist comments?
  
  1 9
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  December 7, 2025 6:05pm

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