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December 27, 2025 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 27 December 2025

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General Debate

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Mike

The Trump-class battleship has not received the attention due to such a huge leap in naval capabilities. Full specifications are not yet available, but it is expected that the majestic gold-plated dreadnought will:
– have a radar which detects praise only
– fire missiles, then sue the ocean
– claim it won every naval battle it never fought
– have the captain fired weekly
– not float unless escorted by applause
– have a hull rated ‘conceptually strong’
– never sink unless the water is rigged
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December 27, 2025 8:01am
- Dougal10
  
  ?? Are you trying to divert attention away from the fact that government owned tv in nz is going all out propaganda for the labour party over the holiday break
  
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  December 27, 2025 8:40am
  - Mike
    
    No.
    
    7 21
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    December 27, 2025 9:33am
  - SoloView
    
    @ Dougal10
    
    ?? Are you trying to divert attention away from the fact that Trump can say unhinged things at times.
    
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    December 27, 2025 9:38am
  - Don Beckett
    
    I think this is one of Mike’s best comments ever –
    Very ‘Babylon Bee-ish’. 🙂
    
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    December 27, 2025 10:48am
    - Mike
      
      Not original, I’m afraid.
      
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      December 27, 2025 11:51am
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  An uptick from me – it’s the Silly Season, after all.
  
  Still, joking aside, in the age of drone warfare, reverting to battleships is a counter intuitive move. Does Donald Trump know something that the rest of us don’t?
  
  Go on, Mike. You know you want to.
  
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  December 27, 2025 8:42am
  - Mike
    
    Did you mean to ask: does Donald Trump know something?
    
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    December 27, 2025 9:34am
  - Cassandra
    
    Trump didn’t design this. They are designed to be part of a fleet with superior air defence. I see France is building a new nuclear powered aircraft carrier.
    
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    December 27, 2025 9:55am
    - Mike
      
      Um, it hasn’t been designed and probably never will be, let alone built.
      
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      December 27, 2025 10:07am
      - Cassandra
        
        It has been and will, in some form or another.
        
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        December 27, 2025 2:20pm
    - kowtow
      
      France . yep .
      
      China continues to pump them out.
      
      India , would you believe has a huge naval building plan including a nuclear powered carrier. This from a country whose populace largely misses out on a modern sewerage system.
      
      Meanwhile Britain can’t stop a dinghy invasion .
      
      And yet all the great and the good blither on , not about those country’s leaders but of Trump .
      
      It really is deranged.
      
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      December 27, 2025 10:08am
      - NZer In Exile
        
        Meanwhile (suicidal-woke-insanity captured) Britain ~~can’t~~ won’t stop a dinghy invasion .
        
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        December 27, 2025 5:49pm
    - nz_aj
      
      Clearly a larger platform and power source is needed for rail guns and lasers, not to mention the 120 missle launch tubes. Won’t fit in a mere destroyer.
      Keep in mind the proposed “battleship” is significantly smaller than the previous generation.
      
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      December 27, 2025 4:42pm
- Vidar
  
  Will it also churn out AI slop like you just did?
  
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  December 27, 2025 9:05am
  - Mike
    
    More likely than it delivering firepower.
    
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    December 27, 2025 9:35am
- All_on_Red
  
  You forgot;
  -full service McDonalds
  -State of the Art Gaydar
  -Plank- for the haters and losers
  -Golden Trump figurehead- for good fortune
  -Rosie O’Donnell seeking missile
  https://babylonbee.com/news/check-out-these-amazing-features-on-the-new-trump-class-battleship
  
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  December 27, 2025 9:18am
  - Mike
    
    Good on you. It’s obviously a ‘concept of a plan’ that’s meant to be taken ‘seriously but not literally’.
    
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    December 27, 2025 9:37am
- G152
  
  You got it in one
  
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  December 27, 2025 9:25am
- Cassandra
  
  Very droll, Mike. We need a joke occasionally!
  
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  December 27, 2025 9:52am
  - Mike
    
    It’s a rare day that I don’t LOL at something on Kiwiblog.
    
    4 10
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    December 27, 2025 10:24am
    - NZer In Exile
      
      Gosh. You must be an intellectual and cultural legend.
      
      1 1
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      December 27, 2025 6:13pm
  - Nukuleka
    
    Mike is the joke that keeps on giving.
    
    23 2
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    December 27, 2025 10:27am
- Gussy Fink-Nottle
  
  And she will never fire a shot in anger – her very existence will induce her enemies to weep in anguish, scuppering their own derelict hulks in a sea of bitter tears.
  
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  December 27, 2025 10:42am
- leoj
  
  Here’s the difference Mike.
  
  If you showed this to Trump he would laugh and enjoy the joke.
  
  If you did the same or similar about Obama, leftists like you would be up in arms, offended and indignant.
  
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  December 27, 2025 11:45am
  - Mike
    
    So, if I ridiculed Obama, I would be up in arms?
    
    Let’s try, I found this gem:
    
    Obama, eager to take over the perfect health care system and replace it with a crappy government plan, passed a 2700 page bill through the Congress without anyone reading it so he could stop funding cancer patients, kill old people, ration care, provide more debt for any remaining humans after this monstrosity to pay off, give free birth control to slutty teens so they can kill more children, and so Obama can kill Medicare, despite it being a socialist plan of LBJ. It was also designed to kill anyone with a mental or physical handicap, and to pull the plug on Granny for the final time.
    
    Now I’ve really upset myself.
    
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    December 27, 2025 12:18pm
- pb
  
  The only way to get this done is to give the contract to China.
  
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  December 27, 2025 5:56pm
Yvette

• Loyalty and betrayal: Inside the struggle between Matt McCarten and Willie Jackson
Herald premium

December 16, 2025
• Lies, lies and more lies as leftie joins with a cadre of right wingers to bring down a Maori organisation
On letters to politicians claiming interference by Willie Jackson:
“Its another tactic – when youre looking to get a cash deal you try and bully people to do what you want – ironic?”
https://waateanews.com/2025/12/16/lies-lies-and-more-lies-as-leftie-joins-with-a-cadre-of-right-wingers-to-bring-down-a-maori-organisation/
_______

• McCarten has apparently lodged a formal complaint with the Speaker of the House, Gerry Brownlee, concerning the conduct of Willie Jackson in relation to these issues.
• There is an Official Information Act request on record, seeking communications about Jackson’s involvement in the MUMA situation — which indicates the matter is entering formal scrutiny channels – as much as MSM can be said to be such

There is no public legal finding, no court judgment, and no authoritative investigation outcome confirming that: Jackson dismissed staff, wielded parliamentary privilege to cover misconduct, or acted unlawfully.

All of these remain allegations circulating online and via political commentators or bloggers rather than confirmed MSM investigative reporting.

And there is no investigative reporting confirming that investigative reporting is still practiced in mainstream media.
But it may not be over until the Speaker has spoken.

Pity is if “news” rests on the speed of the Speaker process there may not be too much new about it.
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December 27, 2025 8:40am
- pdm
  
  Given that Taxpayers money is involved this seems a matter that the Auditor General and maybe the Attorney General should be getting off their posteriors and actively investigating.
  
  20 2
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  December 27, 2025 9:26am
  - david
    
    Surely the sums involved makes it a case for the Serious Fraud Office to take up.
    
    17 1
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    December 27, 2025 9:33am
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    Perhaps she is looking
    
    6 1
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    December 27, 2025 9:51am
  - sirknz
    
    Actively investigating something coming to light that close to the Christmas break?
    
    Do you think backroom public sector employees are diligent about protecting taxpayer money or something?
    
    13 2
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    December 27, 2025 11:24am
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  Let’s not forget Aron Gilmore and the kill at all cost media vitriolic attacks until he was gone. Key should have said he’s been a dick and apologised, and that’s the end of it.
  
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  December 27, 2025 9:54am
- pb
  
  The weak ones are frightened of taking action and being called racist.
  
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  December 27, 2025 5:58pm
NeverMindTheBollocks

Israel has become the first country to formally recognise the self-declared Republic of Somaliland. Somaliland is described as a breakaway province of Somalia, but the reality is more complex. Somaliland faces the Gulf of Aden whereas Somalia looks out on to the Indian Ocean. Somaliland was colonised by the British: Somalia by the Italians. Although the two colonies were joined on liberation in 1960, Somaliland has been de facto independent since 1991 – ie the two have been longer apart than together. Perhaps most importantly, Somaliland is generally peaceful, unlike the hell-hole that is Mogadishu.

The UN is in a cleft stick. On the one hand their principles support the right for self determination. On the other hand, their member states are very touchy about territorial integrity.

The reality is that just about every country in Africa (and more than a few in Europe – think Spain and Catalonia & the Basque country; France and Gascony etc) are against self determination being applied to them (the peaceful break up of Czechoslovakia was a notable achievement).

So, don’t expect too many countries to join Israel in recognising Somaliland any time soon.

http://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g417md05go
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December 27, 2025 8:41am
- kowtow
  
  ‘liberation in 1960’
  
  How’s that worked out for you.
  
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  December 27, 2025 10:15am
- Wandering Star
  
  Nice of Israel to take the lead to recognise the right to self-determination and propose closer relations with a predominantly Muslim area situated just across from Yemen at the opening to the Red Sea, while stubbornly refusing the same right to an area with similar demographic features on their border, albeit one which harms Israel’s strategic aims rather than advancing them. Such a noble and selfless act of diplomacy towards a people with a patholicgical and irreconcilable historical hatred of Jews.
  
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  December 27, 2025 10:38am
- pb
  
  So Wikileaks founder Assange is suing the Nobel Prize committee for faking its award to Maria Corina Machado. It is starting explain why Pirate Trump has the US Navy stealing ships. Maria Corina Machado is a Neocon darling.
  
  America, as the main belligerent against Russia, is about to take the biggest L in the last few years. It needs some distractions. Perhaps they’ll jump back on the bomb Iran train.
  
  The EU has 100’s of billions in loans to Ukraine that are about to blow up. So their only way out is WAR. War, after all, is very profitable for banks owed 100’s of billions. Hence the chicken hawks like Macron, Starmer, blackrock Merx are trying to whip their people into war frenzy.
  
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  December 27, 2025 6:07pm
Jethrod

You missed out:-
– funded by tariffs on trade
4 5
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December 27, 2025 8:55am
fightingtemeraire

Trump should remember the words of Nelson.

“What I want is more frigates” or words to that effect. Frigates and Destroyers are the backbone of Navies. They can go anywhere and turn up when least expected.
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December 27, 2025 8:56am
- G152
  
  Capital ships require large numbers of escorts.
  Is Trump building a fleet or his ego
  
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  December 27, 2025 9:31am
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  And you a ship of the line man. Hang your head in shame!
  
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  December 27, 2025 9:34am
- MCōs
  
  Times have changed since Nelson’s day.
  
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  December 27, 2025 9:46am
  - fightingtemeraire
    
    No.
    
    Destroyers and frigates and also corvettes are the backbone of any navy. You can have one anywhere you need it. A capital Ship needs escorts, supply vessels etc and then you have to get them where you need them Destroyers, frigates can operate independently and be there very quickly.
    
    It was the small ships that were most useful in Wars. The Capital ships ok for bombarding a landing beach.
    
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    December 27, 2025 9:52am
  - Cassandra
    
    The USN is also building a new type of frigate based on a cutter design. First one due in 2028.
    
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    December 27, 2025 9:58am
    - fightingtemeraire
      
      They cancelled the intended replacement as it went massively over budget owing to them trying to shove in modifications to the Italian design.
      
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      December 27, 2025 12:43pm
      - Cassandra
        
        Which is why they’ve moved to the cutter.
        
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        December 27, 2025 2:23pm
      - Mike
        
        Interesting that the USN has announced this at the very same time that the President says he’s building ‘battleships’. I wonder if he was shown a picture and got a bit confused.
        
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        December 27, 2025 3:28pm
  - KKNZ2025
    
    Exhibit A: air power
    
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    December 27, 2025 10:12am
- cmm
  
  As MCos says, things have changed.
  
  No doubt Nelson would have asked for a few planes and cruise missiles etc if they had been available to him.
  
  “They can go anywhere and turn up when least expected.”
  Not any more. Satellites from various countries know where every frigate is. All the time.
  A frigate can be taken out from a few thousand km away by a missile swarm. It is virtually impossible to get from A to B without spending a week or more going through BRICS-controlled waters – a long time to be vunerable.
  
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  December 27, 2025 10:25am
- MCōs
  
  I’d be most surprised if any ship could turn up unexpectedly anywhere anymore. (Except an Interislander 😩)
  
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  December 27, 2025 11:26am
  - keepcalmcarryon
    
    Or a NZ Navy vessel on a tropical reef.
    
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    December 27, 2025 6:29pm
- coge
  
  Frigates were used to locate the enemy. Unlikely to just stumble across them otherwise.
  
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  December 27, 2025 4:49pm
- NothingLeft
  
  It’s not clear that large mobile military assets have any future. It would require a quantum leap in defensive tech.
  
  Laser defensive shoot down of smaller drones might work, and a variety of scaled Phalanx type close-in=weapons support (computer controlled machine guns), but those laser systems will be big juicy targets costing 10’s of millions, and still vulnerable to large fast Atacms aor Khinzal type ballistic missiles with ablative coatings.
  
  A $10 billion aircraft carrier or a smaller Battleship isn’t going to survive attack by a few dozen $3million dollar missiles. And nuclear tipped anti-ship or sub weapons would have no surivability
  
  At the moment the future looks to be small subs (defnse through obscurity), and deep underground drone bases with war prosecuted by high volume low cost drone platforms – few military personnel anywhere near front lines.
  
  The next offensive leap to worry about is orbital constellations of laser weapons capable of disabling all vehicles and lighting millions of fires in a country in a day, wrecking all power, transport and comms infrastructure and sending them back to the 17th century overnight. This tech is buildable now, and so probably being planned, or even flown by China and USA.
  
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  December 27, 2025 7:25pm
Yvette

The people who have feasted at the table of Maori failure will be exposed.
– John Tamihere, MP Hauraki, Maiden Speech, 10 February 2000

Yes! – even if it takes quarter of a century or so
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December 27, 2025 9:25am
mogg

With Bazball cricket we are well into the third innings on first day of Boxing Day test at MCG.
Wear your baseball cap backwards and put your feet up on the nearest chair like the cool dudes.
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December 27, 2025 11:11am
- Toes on the nose
  
  Can’t decide who I like less,, McCullum or Stokes. The baggie greens are toying with them.
  
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  December 27, 2025 4:37pm
  - Tony Stuart
    
    The Baggy Greens were soundly beaten…
    
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    December 28, 2025 7:21am
MCōs

This is an interesting article and puts forward the obvious hypothesis that Israel under the leadership of Netanyahu wants America to be involved with them in a never ending war with Iran.
https://aje.io/1o456k
Of course America has just inflamed Venezuela and Nigeria and still can’t resolve the Ukraine question
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December 27, 2025 11:16am
- Wandering Star
  
  Of course. Iran, like all of the other Middle Eastern nations the US has militarily engaged over the last 30 or 40 years, poses no significant threat at all to the US. However, Iran is Israel’s largest competitor for dominance in the Middle East. It’s not an open question as to whether Israel uses the US to advance Israel’s interests in the region, simply because Israel is incapable of doing so without the US’s military, economic and diplomatic support. To help get the American public on board, a situation is painted wherein Israel’s and the US’s interests are one and the same thing – which is obviously not the case, and in fact these interests are divergent and incompatible in most respects.
  
  That’s the dynamic and that’s how it’s sold. The only open question is whether or not this arrangement is a good thing or a bad thing. Clearly it’s very good for Israel, but how it’s good for the US is unclear.
  
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  December 27, 2025 11:25am
- kowtow
  
  “Never ending war”
  
  No country wants that .
  
  That’s really , really stupid.
  
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  December 27, 2025 12:21pm
  - Wandering Star
    
    It makes perfect sense. If Iran and Israel were to ever reach a potentially lasting peace agreement (which Trump tore up in his first term), Israel would not be able to use the pretext it has used for at least 20 years of “Iran’s imminent aquisition of nuclear weapons” to attack and otherwise undermine Iran, or rather the non-compliant Iranian regime. Similarly, peace with its neighbours would remove the ambiguity required for Israel to launch attacks as it sees fit against its “hostile” neighbours. A state of perpetual uncertainty and simmering conflict is the aim.
    
    Of course, it is conceivable that Israel would eventually want peace in the region, but only when it has completely solidified its regional hegemony by negating all sources of opposition. Until then, it doesn’t want the constraints on behaviour which attend peace accords. Hence, they need to be able to roll out the line that all of their neighbours are hostile and that they must defend themselves by attacking said neighbours when they like.
    
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    December 27, 2025 12:50pm
  - pb
    
    banks do though.
    
    0 1
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    December 27, 2025 6:08pm
greybeard

Is it my imagination or do a lot of the contributions on this blog have the distinct whiff of AI-generated matter ?
Either that or a couple of the contributors have been taking crash courses in spelling and grammar. And general knowledge. And in some cases expert knowledge.
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December 27, 2025 1:40pm
- Cassandra
  
  I think it’s your imagination but an interesting hypothesis. Certainly the spelling and punctuation have improved. Proofreading?
  
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  December 27, 2025 2:25pm
- artemisia
  
  Hard to know for sure, greybeard, but agree there seem to be posts that look rational and reasonable at first look but somehow have an odd underlying nuance. I note the poster/s and skip….
  
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  December 27, 2025 4:19pm
  - Wandering Star
    
    Do the posts look reasonable and rational at first look – because they are – but then it turns out on reflection that they don’t align with your preferred conclusions on a given topic? I’ve notice quite a bit of this behaviour. I will monitor the situation for improvement in the coming days and will report in due course.
    
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    December 27, 2025 4:34pm
- AitchW
  
  I suspect that the spectre of being corrected by one of our resident pedants is sufficient to encourage some contributors to double check spelling and grammar before posting.
  
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  December 27, 2025 6:09pm
- Ra Henare
  
  and what is the problem with that?
  I dont remember outrage when commenters used Google to fact find and quote
  
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  December 28, 2025 1:06am
NeverMindTheBollocks

It’s been reported on Facebook (DIOR) that Police have busted a Mexican drug cartel importing a large quantity of meth into NZ via a shipping container of scrap metal. Three Mexicans have been taken into custody.

I look forward to comment from the Green’s spokesman for Mexico.
14 3
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December 27, 2025 3:14pm
- artemisia
  
  174kg. Huge. Herald today, paywalled. Good catch, well done Police and Customs.
  
  10 1
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  December 27, 2025 4:12pm
- Albie
  
  Don’t hold your breath. That snivelling little toe rag has far too many important social justice issues to angst over than his fellow countrymen getting busted for drug dealing.
  
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  December 27, 2025 4:13pm
- AitchW
  
  A Green MP working over the Christmas holiday? Mate, you’re dreaming!
  
  3 1
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  December 27, 2025 6:12pm

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