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March 8, 2026 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 08 March 2026

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Cassandra

The disastrous strike in the Iranian school: the school was adjacent to a Revolutionary Guard naval base. It looks like it was a targeting error. Initially it was thought to have been an Iranian air defence mishap but a US error now seems more likely.

Given that in war human error or mechanical failure are not uncommon, having a school next to a likely target doesn’t seem very sensible.
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March 8, 2026 8:01am
- Dudley Quaffquaff
  
  “What was she wearing?”
  
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  March 8, 2026 8:12am
- Inandout
  
  Cass, rather like having a terrorist outfit under a hospital.
  
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  March 8, 2026 8:35am
  - AitchW
    
    Or in a UNRWA building.
    
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    March 8, 2026 1:56pm
- CJames
  
  It is still all speculation. Who did the “investigation” into the source of the school deaths? From what I have read, it is the Iranians or a news agency who are allowed to opeate in Iran. Hardly unbiased sources. Remember the Israelis killing everyone in a Gaza hospital carpark? How did that turn out?
  Regardless, the deaths of the schoolgirls is tragic. But nowhere near comparable to all the young people machine gunned down in streets of Iranian cities for protesting. Then the females arrested were killed afterwards but raped first. The evil theocracy cares nothing about the lives of females unless they can be used for propaganda.
  
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  March 8, 2026 8:40am
  - Dudley Quaffquaff
    
    Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
    Yeah, the US media aren’t looking like much of a podium of truth at the moment either.
    
    Thing is, if you’re going to make the case for war based on the other side being bad guys – you need also to establish that you are any better, and that your intervention is likely to be an effective way of making them better. The US does not have a case for either of those. For example, which side are you talking about when you mention an evil theocracy that cares nothing about the lives of females unless they can be used for propaganda? Which side are you talking about when you mention people being gunned down in the streets for protesting? Which precedents indicate that military intervention by the US is an effective way of establishing good governance in other countries?
    
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    March 8, 2026 9:02am
    - David George
      
      Dudley:
      “if you’re going to make the case for war based on the other side being bad guys”
      Are you serious?
      
      Alex Phillips (AKA ThatAlexWoman):
      
      “I have just seen the unedited footage of the October 7th attacks. Please read:
      
      What I saw was young men chopping off heads, shooting everything in sight, slaughtering little crying kids calling for their mummy, throwing grenades inside houses and cars and shelters, maiming bodies, playing with them, setting humans on fire, looking like it’s the happiest day of their life.
      
      They call their relatives to celebrate how many they have killed. The parents back in Gaza are thrilled. They cheer and ask for more.
      “Bring back some heads for the people to play with” – asks a commander. The savages wilfully oblige, using flick knives to remove the skulls from slaughtered bodies like butchers carving up a carcass.
      
      “Bring some home for the people so we can crucify them in the square” the Hamas leaders order.
      The mangled, blood soaked bodies of hostages were paraded through the streets. The Gazan crowds cheered and filmed, celebrating or coming to spit on the terrified youngsters in the back of pick ups.
      
      The young Hamas brutes with their ecstatic grins, taking selfies, shouting Allahu Akbar, looked like so many of the young men in dinghies. Trendy clothes, modern phones. Energy and conviction.
      
      The first wave of attackers on October 7th were Hamas soldiers.
      The second, amateur conscripts.
      
      The third, Gazan civilians delighted to join in.
      
      What even are these monsters.
      
      I am forever changed, seeing what I have seen. And it isn’t fake. It’s footage Hamas shot themselves.
      
      Israel must live with that right next door.
      
      I fear we now have it, in hotels and houses around the country.”
      
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      March 8, 2026 10:29am
      - kowtow
        
        Yep , the Mullahs funded and encouraged all that .
        
        May they burn in hell.
        
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        March 8, 2026 10:45am
      - Notsofast
        
        These young men were hand crafted by the religion of Islam. The blame lies totally with the religion.
        If it takes a village to raise a child it starts with the village.
        Go the pro Palestine psychos.
        
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        March 8, 2026 12:40pm
      - Dudley Quaffquaff
        
        That gave Israel good reason to invade Gaza, and I’ve been supportive of their action there.
        
        Iran, however, has not done any of that to the US; and nor can the US claim, as Israel can for Gaza, that they’ve done a great deal to be helpful and supportive to Iran.
        
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        March 8, 2026 1:12pm
      - Wandering Star
        
        So you’re still citing people who claim they’ve watched footage that has otherwise not been released to the wider world in order to allow people to make up their own minds and to dispel questions as to both its content and its very existence?
        
        This “just trust us, bro” type of evidence will remain highly dubious unless and until there’s good reason to believe it’s not.
        
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        March 8, 2026 1:38pm
      - imalwaysright
        
        “If it takes a village to raise a child it starts with the village.”
        
        That’s Marxism robbing the cradle.
        
        It takes one, preferably two, good parents to raise a child.
        
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        March 8, 2026 2:04pm
      - David George
        
        Wandering: “not been released to the wider world”.
        
        It was released “to the wider world”, just not adequately disseminated.
        Journalists and politicians in NZ were invited to a viewing similar to the one Alex saw.
        Few even bothered to turn up, Sean Plunkett did:
        https://theplatform.kiwi/podcasts/episode/sean-plunket-on-hamas-brutality-the-israeli-response
        
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        March 8, 2026 2:37pm
      - Wandering Star
        
        Yeah, but that’s just Sean Plunket talking, and it’s behind a paywall. In a court of law, this would be inadmissible hearsay because, we are told, there is better, more direct evidence than someone’s statement. Let’s see that, instead.
        
        I’ll believe anything if I see the evidence for myself, but I have not seen this claimed evidence, and I suspect that you haven’t either, which by definition means you have mere faith in the claims, not knowledge thereof.
        
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        March 8, 2026 2:43pm
  - Cassandra
    
    It’s a US preliminary report. Note “preliminary”. Source is Reuters.
    
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    March 8, 2026 9:15am
    - Dudley Quaffquaff
      
      “Preliminary”? This is the most technologically sophisticated military in the world. They know exactly what happened, and they have done from the moment it happened
      
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      March 8, 2026 9:45am
  - Drone
    
    Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
    CJames every time I hear about the cruelty of the “evil” Iranians it reads more like a Hollywood movie, filmed using AI against a green screen. Barely believable and reported on Entertainment Tonight. How many Palestinians, Lebanese, Iraqis, Iranians, Syrians have died or been mutilated by Israeli and American carpet bombing so that Netanyahu and Trump can remain in power, and Trump can build a holiday resort on the mediterranean coast.
    
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    March 8, 2026 9:23am
    - Jack5
      
      More drivel about “carpet bombing”.
      
      This is from Britannica’s AI:
      
      ‘Some military strategists characterize “carpet bombing” as an emotional term that does not describe any actual military strategy.’
      
      It goes on to note that Article 51 of Geneva Protocol I prohibits bombardment that treats a number of clearly separated and distinct military objectives located within a city as a single military target.
      
      It’s pretty clear that the Americans and Israelis with their precision-targeted weapons do the opposite of that.
      
      From Gaza, it’s clear that Third World armies deliberately use sites they think will be either or both:
      
      – Protected by Western reluctance to target sites beside and endangering schools, hospitals and lilke.
      
      – Will create propaganda fuel in the West if these sites are accidentally or inevitably are hit.
      
      The Geneva Convention hasn’t caught up with latest war tactics and strategy.
      
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      March 8, 2026 9:52am
      - Drone
        
        It’s interesting Jack5 that you are happy to quote the Geneva Protocol, in relation to denying the atrocities the US Israeli forces are dishing out in the Middle East, I feel certain that Israel led by the criminal Netanyahu don’t actually accept that the Geneva Convention or Protocol applies to them…
        
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        March 8, 2026 7:13pm
    - Don Beckett
      
      Please provide your evidence for “carpet bombing”.
      You can’t, because there is none. All attacks are targeted – not random.
      Unless of course, you are referring to the Iranian rocket & drone attacks on their Arab state neighbors.
      
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      March 8, 2026 10:21am
      - RichardX
        
        Have you seen the before and after satellite images of Gaza?
        
        https://brilliantmaps.com/google-earth-begun-gaza-after-war/
        
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        March 8, 2026 10:24am
      - AitchW
        
        RichardX, that’s what happens when you hide under schools, hospitals and UNRWA compounds. They become legitimate targets. Then when you burrow miles of tunnels under civilian homes they are prone to be collateral damage.
        Hamas did this, not Israel.
        
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        March 8, 2026 3:18pm
      - RichardX
        
        Justification for the destruction does not equate to the destruction not happening.
        
        DB wanted evidence and it was provided.
        
        It looks like DB may have missed the reference to “Trump can build a holiday resort on the mediterranean coast.” and thought Drone was referring to Iran and not Gaza but then again, maybe DB thinks Iran is on the Mediterranean.
        
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        March 8, 2026 6:57pm
    - Wandering Star
      
      Anyone who unironically uses the word “evil” when discussing a political event demonstrates their inability to think very deeply and their susceptibility to propaganda. The Good Guys take on The Bad Guys only on the pages of comic books and, as you say, Hollywood movies, and people really need to grow up if they want to understand what goes on in the world.
      
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      March 8, 2026 10:23am
    - kowtow
      
      Only the Americans and IDF don’t carpet bomb and had the Mullahs respected the “international rules based order” and kept their Islamic occupation within Iranian borders instead of trying to create a Mullah Empire streching from Iran across Iraq to Syria and Lebanon in order to surround and destroy Israel , I suspect they’d still be free now to hang homosexuals and to beat and torture non compliant dressing women across that sad land .
      
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      March 8, 2026 10:49am
    - In Vino Veritas
      
      Deaths or mutilations from carpet bombing to keep Trump and Netenyahu in power? That would be none Drone. Zero. There answered your question for you.
      
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      March 8, 2026 3:13pm
  - Gary Benner
    
    And what is missing in the reporting is the aspect of “intent”. The mad mullah regime has espoused intent (and proven action) to do all sorts of bad things as mentioned elsewhere here, but I doubt that the USA/Israel have had any intent to kill innocent kids at a school.
    
    Every battle has collateral damage, but until the facts are clear, we need to treat this with skepticsm – remember the claim Israel bombed that hospital in Gaza – an incident that turned out to be due to a failed Hamas rocket!
    
    PR (false or otherwise) is just another weapon during a war.
    
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    March 8, 2026 10:24am
  - CJames
    
    Here is the CBC analysis of the bombing from satellite photos
    https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/iran-school-bombing-investigation-9.7114994
    and here is Al Jazeera.
    https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/iran-school-bombing-investigation-9.7114994
    Seems the school used to be troop barracks but it changed to a school about 10 years ago.
    
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    March 8, 2026 4:49pm
- imalwaysright
  
  “…having a school next to a likely target doesn’t seem very sensible.”
  
  Burnham, Waiouru, and Trentham Camps have schools on site or next door.
  
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  March 8, 2026 9:03am
  - Jack5
    
    The Army would shift or close these schools pretty smartly if, say, the Cook Islands, high on undersea mineral rights and Chinese loans, was/were able to buy missiles and attack NZ.
    
    In the Middle East, schools are sited next to strategic sites as shields and worst-case propganda tools. This is done by the likes of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
    
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    March 8, 2026 10:08am
  - Gary Benner
    
    But they are not actively involved in a war. If they were, you would remove the families and kids.
    
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    March 8, 2026 10:26am
    - septic skeptic
      
      That attack on the school was pretty much the opening salvo. Look for some other excuse for the victim blaming.
      
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      March 8, 2026 10:42am
  - Cassandra
    
    None are likely targets. The Iranian one was an active naval base. Devonport and Ohakea are targets. Neither have schools.
    
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    March 8, 2026 10:29am
    - imalwaysright
      
      There’s a school 200m from Devonport. That qualifies as danger close even for a mortar.
      
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      March 8, 2026 10:40am
    - Taieri
      
      Devonport and Ohakea are targets. Neither have schools
      ————
      
      Stanley Bay School is not very far from the Naval Base.
      
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      March 8, 2026 10:40am
    - kowtow
      
      I don’t think our naval bases would be worth targetting , nothing happens in them , apart from karakia and poi twirling lessons.
      
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      March 8, 2026 10:51am
      - NeverMindTheBollocks
        
        No need for any enemy to target our navy. Just give the keys to our diversity hires and we’ll sink the ships ourselves.
        
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        March 8, 2026 4:19pm
    - igm
      
      Ohakea actually once had a school to serve the base children and surrounding farmers’ families, of which I was one. Was quite interesting as NAC flew out of there at the same time. Voodoos were the first to break sound barrier and our horses went mad, along with broken windows and other collateral damages, etc.
      
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      March 8, 2026 12:34pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  The US needs to own its mistakes, if it was their fault. Bad stuff happens in wartime; no need to make excuses.
  
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  March 8, 2026 9:04am
  - Gary Benner
    
    Let’s get the facts right first – remember how Hamas use PR as a weapon.
    
    And don’t forget allowing kids to be housed right next to an active military target puts the major responsibility back on the Mullah regime.
    
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    March 8, 2026 10:29am
    - septic skeptic
      
      No, it doesn’t. Putting a facility underneath a school or hospital is different to the literally thousands of cases where a facility may be in an urban environment and next door to one.
      
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      March 8, 2026 10:46am
    - Wandering Star
      
      The fact that you seem to think that only others use PR as a weapon means you are condemned to a hopeless confusion.
      
      PR is ubiquitous in the information age. Products are sold using PR, and so are ideas and worldviews. You too are awash with PR manipulating you and informing your opinions, which helps explain your otherwise inexplicable deep attachment to the interests of the Jewish state (as I assume you’re not Jewish yourself – if you are, then that is a sufficient, if not necessary, explanation for your attachment).
      
      Think about it: why should a (presumably) non-Jewish individual living in New Zealand care one way or another about Israel or Israel’s geostrategic goals, absent a PR campaign to manipulate you into supporting it?
      
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      March 8, 2026 12:31pm
  - Wandering Star
    
    Admitting error (or worse) in this case is fraught. It’s important to maintain an air of moral perfection when what you are doing (or more accurately, the public pretext for what you’re doing) is framed as a selfless moral act intended only to free the oppressed peoples of a foreign land (as if this has ever been a motivation for any military campaign, ever), not something you’ve been waiting for half a century to do since the day your puppet lost power in Iran. On the bright side, they have certainly “freed” those school girls from the Iranian regime, haven’t they – but I doubt they’d have the brass neck to frame it this way.
    
    This is even more true of the Israelis, who will never admit any error they make, nor the key role they play stirring up antipathy towards them, nor will they admit their apparent indifference to whatever deaths or casualties they inflict on members of an outgroup, so long as its in service of their ingroup aims. Then they have the chutzpah to call themselves “the world’s most moral army.”
    
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    March 8, 2026 10:32am
    - David Garrett
      
      WS: I am very glad I went back to yesterday’s General debate and found what you wrote about David Irving – what you said there goes a long way to explaining your virulent anti-semitism.
      
      For commenters not familiar with Irving, he is an “interesting” historian – although academic historians say he a “historical writer” rather than a historian. He is “self trained”, i.e. doesn’t have the PhD or Masters which the leading historians all have. Those who WS consists of writing “pop history”.
      
      Despite that lack of formal qualification, Irving was once well respected – in part as WS notes – because he only used primary sources – i.e. actual military and other other documents created at the time, rather than just quoting from others’ work as mainstream historians often do.
      
      The high point of his career came about 40 years ago when he proved that the so called “Hitler Diaries” were forgeries, after several historians – including Sir Hugh-Trevor Roper, highly regarded hitherto – had declared them genuine.
      
      It was all pretty much downhill for Irving from then on. He began by minimising the holocaust, saying the number of deaths were greatly exaggerated, and largely caused by disease rather than gassing.
      
      His position now is that there were no extermination camps, and no gas chambers – despite the myriad of evidence from survivors and the allied troops who liberated Auschwitz, Belsen, and all the other hell holes.
      
      So to be clear for us WS – one very simple question: Do you believe the Germans killed millions of Jews and others in extermination camps or not?
      
      Its a very simple Yes or No question: please don’t offer red herrings or obfuscate as Irving does regarding actual numbers, or (correct) references to a lot of the camps in Poland having been re-created after their destruction at the end of the war.
      
      Did the holocaust happen or not?
      
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      March 8, 2026 11:39am
      - David Garrett
        
        And one other thing…I forgot that I had also read The Destruction of Dresden.
        
        There, Irving used Goebbels’ strategy of simply adding a nought to the estimate of 25,000 casualties, and claiming there were 250,000. Current estimates are between 20 and 25,000.
        
        Oh, and those “pop historians” Like Sir Max Hastings you deride so much now pretty much all agree that while Dresden was a legitimate target, its destruction that late in the War was not justified. I have an email from Hastings saying exactly that.
        
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        March 8, 2026 11:46am
      - David Garrett
        
        Don’t just reflexively hit the downtick button old boy…have the courage of your convictions, and say that you agree with Irving…or not.
        
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        March 8, 2026 11:57am
      - Wandering Star
        
        Yes, David. I agree with David Irving, and I disagree with you.
        
        Now what? Are you going to impotently call me a name (again)? Perhaps you’d like to see me burned at the stake, or sent into exile?
        
        The mere fact that you’ve fallen into the trap of freaking out about someone disagreeing with an official narrative, as if it’s a religious heresy, says it all.
        
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        March 8, 2026 1:41pm
      - Jack5
        
        This is Kurt Vonnegut’s report (about 3500 words) of, what it was like, as an American prisoner of war, to be on the receiving end of the Dresden bombing . It’s from the biography of Vonnegut by Charles J. Shields:
        
        https://www.thehistoryreader.com/historical-figures/kurt-vonnegut-dresden-bombings/
        
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        March 8, 2026 2:13pm
- lastmanstanding
  
  Trump is scheduled to visit China early April. I suspect he will want Iran sorted by then. This is why he said it would take 3 to 4 weeks. China buys 13% of its oil from Iran. Trump will want to do a deal over this and the oil China buys from Venezuela.
  
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  March 8, 2026 9:22am
  - Wandering Star
    
    “This is why he said it would take 3 to 4 weeks.”
    
    What does “it” mean though? I don’t think even Trump knows. I suspect there will be nothing quick and clean about this, and that it will drag on for months, perhaps years, and Iran will descend into a state of civil war or other form of social and political fracturing.
    
    Nonetheless, despite this outcome clearly being much worse for the Iranians than the former state of affairs, for the Judeo-Americans chaos and disorder in these places is preferrable to a cohesive state that could stand in their way.
    
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    March 8, 2026 10:39am
    - David Garrett
      
      WS: So let’s be clear: you think a civil war would be worse than having a regime which routinely murders tens of thousands of its citizens? I would have said one is as bad as the other – except that a civil war often has a favorable outcome after all the bloodshed.
      
      The Iranian regime has made it clear that it is never going to tolerate any dissent, and will just keep on killing civilians to remain in power.
      
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      March 8, 2026 11:42am
      - Wandering Star
        
        ” So let’s be clear: you think a civil war would be worse than having a regime which routinely murders tens of thousands of its citizens?”
        
        Yes, that’s what I think.
        
        Moreover, “routinely” murders “tens of thousands”? – David, these claims are highly dubious and devoid of any firm foundation, sounding suspiciously like the usual kind of outlandish atrocity propaganda that always substitutes for a legitimate just cause preceding the regular Judeo-American military interventions.
        
        Think of the rich history of this kind of nonsense: babies on the sharp end of Hun bayonets in WW1; babies being tossed out of incubators pre-1990 Gulf War; beheaded babies in ovens pre-2023 Gaza invasion, and so on.
        
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        March 8, 2026 1:57pm
- Taieri
  
  Given that in war human error or mechanical failure are not uncommon, having a school next to a likely target doesn’t seem very sensible.
  —————-
  
  About as sensible as having the main naval base in the middle of NZ biggest city?
  
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  March 8, 2026 10:33am
  - Cassandra
    
    Very good point. Fortunately NZ is a long way from almost all potential action. Although I do remember the Russian scare. I was just a youngster then, of course………………….
    
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    March 8, 2026 2:24pm
    - kowtow
      
      Russian scare of 1885 ?
      
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      March 8, 2026 3:28pm
      - Cassandra
        
        About 1900-02 as I recall.
        
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        March 8, 2026 4:41pm
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  I thought it was announced that Israel fired that shot
  
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  March 8, 2026 2:28pm
Philview

The Iranian regime is so vile it probably positions girls’ schools around military infrastructure for a time such as this.
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March 8, 2026 8:16am
- david in Aus
  
  There are schools in military bases to cater to military families. Look at US bases, they do that too.
  
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  March 8, 2026 10:30am
  - Charlotte Wells
    
    And get their folks the hell outa there as soon as it turns to shit.
    
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    March 8, 2026 3:33pm
    - david in Aus
      
      I understand that this was a surprise attack. There was supposedly negotiation on a ‘possible’ deal.
      
      This is more like Japan’s Pearl Harbour attack. Than Britain’s declaration of war on Nazi Germany.
      
      I don’t think even the Iranians would deliberately put their children in harm’s way. Political prisoner, definitely, but not the children of their military staff.
      
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      March 9, 2026 12:24am
KKNZ2025

Not as insensible & cruel as not identifying your target, when you declared the war.

Imagine the global howls of outrage if Iranian forces did that.
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March 8, 2026 8:18am
- David George
  
  There’s no “if” about it. Iran has sent missiles and drones into civilian targets, hotels and apartments included, throughout the Middle East.
  They’ve been answered, not only with “howls of outrage”, but a united determination to see them destroyed. German PM Merz, despite initial hesitation, has come out 100% in support of the efforts to destroy the Islamic regime, as have the Arab gulf states.
  
  The US and Israelis have been remarkably successful in limiting civilian casualties
  The monstrous Islamic regime, for propaganda purposes and as fodder for their useful idiots, would prefer a much higher civilian death toll.
  
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  March 8, 2026 10:04am
  - Drone
    
    I’m not sure David George which American news feed you’re quoting when saying the bombardment by American and Israeli forces in Iran and Lebanon are successfully limiting civilian casualties and like Trump I’m pretty sure they’re not telling the true story…
    
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    March 8, 2026 10:55am
  - Wandering Star
    
    “Iran has sent missiles and drones into civilian targets, hotels and apartments included, throughout the Middle East.”
    
    Evidence David? Other than the IDF or the Pentagon making an unevidenced claim?
    
    “The monstrous Islamic regime, for propaganda purposes and as fodder for their useful idiots, would prefer a much higher civilian death toll.”
    
    How on earth would you know what they’d “prefer”? Netanyahu or another IDF general told you so?
    
    Don’t you realise that when you use emotive terms like “monstrous” and repeat the taking points favoured by “your” side, its actually an indication that you are a propagandised “useful idiot” for the attacking forces? Of course you don’t, that’s a rhetorical question.
    
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    March 8, 2026 10:56am
  - Dudley Quaffquaff
    
    And now the US has destroyed an desalination plant, affecting water supply to several villages
    
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    March 8, 2026 1:15pm
- kowtow
  
  Like Oct 7 and/or the Houthi pirates attacking shipping.
  
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  March 8, 2026 10:53am
Paulus

Did Al Jezeera do the Investigation perhaps ?
Will we ever know bui the media will tell us !
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March 8, 2026 8:54am
NeverMindTheBollocks

RNZ news has just featured a Pom living in Dunedin bemoaning the end of the clean car discount, on climate change grounds.

Before I accept a word from her, she needs to provide a complete account of her own emissions profile. How many trips back to the UK? Does she travel by air? Or bike?

I cannot abide the “you must change your life, but I can’t (won’t)” types.
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March 8, 2026 9:09am
- artemisia
  
  Very good point, though for certain sure the journalist asked the questions, but unfortunately lost the bit of paper the answers were on. //
  
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  March 8, 2026 9:58am
- kowtow
  
  ‘she needs to provide a complete account of her own emissions profile’
  
  Bit rude to talk about ladies farting , innit.
  
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  March 8, 2026 10:54am
- rouppe
  
  There was a British couple at our ante-natal classes 20-odd years ago. We became acquainted with them but they were at the weird end of the spectrum.
  
  A few years later they proudly proclaimed their “green” credentials. I sat there and thought:
  1. You flew here from Britain.
  2. The first car you bought was a BMW, imported from Europe.
  3. You traded that in (ie not removed from circulation) and bought something Korean.
  4. You’re covered from head to toe in man made fibres.
  5. You built a house which contained large quantities of concrete
  
  I pretty much walked away from contact with them after that
  
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  March 8, 2026 2:13pm
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  How is the discount required anymore now the cost of these cars has halved
  
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  March 8, 2026 2:29pm
Jack5

A Stuff report about a police software stuff-up included comments from a “chief victims adviser” – Ruth Money.

Ruth Money, the current Chief Victims Adviser, took the post in February last year. She followed Kim McGregor, who was chief victims adviser for nine years. Money has a page at the Government web site, and on it says:

“My role, as Chief Victims Advisor, is to amplify the voice of victims and advise the Government as to what is needed – to provide a voice for those who struggle to be heard …

How does she do this?

A Net search told me NZ’s police have about 170 victim advisers.

Do cops provide the bashed, the robbed, the burgled with an adviser’s cellphone number, or to they arrange a meeting at the police station?

An article in Stuff’s Post says in the brief bit outside the paywall that Money was previously a “marketing guru”.

In announcing Money’s appointment, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith said:

““The advice provided by Ms Money over the next two years will be essential in ensuring there are 20,000 fewer victims of violent crime by 2029, while keeping the needs of victims at the forefront of our justice system.”

How are Goldie and Ms Money going with this?

What do the lawyers who follow Kiwiblog think about her role and that of victims advisers generally?

Ms Money’s page at Parliament:

https://chiefvictimsadvisor.justice.govt.nz/biography/

Goldie on her appointment to the post in February last year:

https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/ruth-money-appointed-chief-victims-advisor

Do lawyer-bloggers here at Kiwiblog have opinions on the role and its value?

PS: Goldie and Parliament spell “adviser” with the American version “advisor”. Perhaps Mr Peters should have made British English the country’s third official language.
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March 8, 2026 9:19am
- pdm
  
  Jack
  
  Grandson recently had the number plates stolen off his car in Hastings.
  
  The plates were recovered off another car in Napier and I understand arrests were made. When the plates were returned to our Grandson he was offered the support of a Victims Support Councillor which he declined.
  
  Would the role of someone like Ruth Money be to organise and coordinate these Victim Support People?
  
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  March 8, 2026 9:47am
  - AitchW
    
    Victim Support are volunteers.
    Perhaps we could pay them instead of some of the myriad of iwi liaison officers….
    
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    March 8, 2026 10:10am
  - Gravelroad
    
    A few years ago, a friend had their ride-on lawn mower stolen.
    A while later a couple of sympathetic people turned up to talk about it. Friend eagerly thought they were coming to say they had retrieved the mower.
    But no, it was to offer victim support – “how are you feeling/coping “ etc.
    Friend never got mower back.
    
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    March 8, 2026 10:37am
    - MCōs
      
      Obviously those are not at the extreme end of people who might benefit from a counseling service.
      Way back in 1971 a young electrician who worked for the MOW I barely knew told me he’d just that afternoon run over and killed a toddler who’d crawled under his van in the driveway of a house he’d been doing some work.
      The guy was a mess, but he had no support as I expect the parents were, but he’d been left to cope on his own
      I’d have thought that’s where victim support would step in these days,
      
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      March 8, 2026 11:05am
    - pdm
      
      gravel – Victim Support have been around for years.
      
      I remember them contacting us when we had a 5litre petrol container (it would not have been full) nicked from our carport in Waipawa in the early 1990’s.
      
      We advised them we were okay and they probably had more badly affected victims they should spend their time with.
      
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      March 8, 2026 11:42am
- sirknz
  
  “Perhaps Mr Peters should have made British English the country’s third official language”
  
  Too ‘focused’ on the election.
  
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  March 8, 2026 9:51am
- kowtow
  
  Once upon a time the local MP was the ‘chief victims adviser’
  
  Now though lefty MPs are particularly chief crim apologists .
  
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  March 8, 2026 10:56am
david in Aus

A very interesting analysis by an Iran expert. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3TVxgh-R-c&t=1388s
The Iranian regime can survive war, but it cannot survive surrender. Their society is configured for this situation. This is existential for them. So they need to inflict so much pain that there is deterrence.
Iran cannot win militarily, however, they cannot control the geography (hitting neighbors) and the length of the war. It is very easy to close off the Straits of Hormuz with low-tech drones.
As a worker on an oil tanker is the prospect of burning to death worth the salary?
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March 8, 2026 9:21am
- Taieri
  
  As a worker on an oil tanker is the prospect of burning to death worth the salary?
  —————
  
  Workers on a several hundred ships currently trapped in/around Hormuz and wider Persian Gulf had no say on the matter. They didn’t have an insight into the mind (or what passes for it) of the Great Vandal. They just do their jobs and if it wasn’t for them a big chunk of the world couldn’t function properly. And that includes our own little paradise.
  
  Disclaimer: I’d worked in the Abu Safah Oil Field in Saudi Arabia in the now long forgotten past. I’ve also transited the Hormuz Strait on ships many times. Not on the tankers though – general cargo ships and offshore vessels.
  
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  March 8, 2026 10:31am
- Gussy
  
  Interesting video, thanks David.
  Worth a listen, notwithstanding the relative bias of the Iran expert Trita Parsi and his Soros-funded Quincy Institute.
  
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  March 8, 2026 11:16am
peterwn

“Why do high earners get the pension? – Ask Susan”
Wrong person. This is something only Winston Peters can explain.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/588947/why-do-high-earners-get-the-pension-ask-susan
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March 8, 2026 9:35am
- KKNZ2025
  
  Because they pay for their own & a few others besides…
  
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  March 8, 2026 9:44am
  - Wandering Star
    
    I think it’s really just a sense of entitlement, despite a lifetime of protestations against “socialism” on blogs like this. In other words, they are unprincipled hypocrites.
    
    Sure, they should take their taxpayer-funded top-up, but perhaps they would be wise to shut up about how much they denounce the kind of socialism that manifests in their top-up.
    
    Despite all of their “free market” and “individualism” rhetoric, at the end of the day they’re as susceptible to the lure of entitlements paid out from state coffers as everyone else.
    
    Think of the “socialistic” envy and jealousy they would experience if they had to forego their unneeded free stuff – quite horrific to even contemplate.
    
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    March 8, 2026 11:03am
    - In Vino Veritas
      
      I get the pension WS. And I don’t blink when it arrives. And nor am I a hypocrite. I am getting back some of what I have had taken from me.
      
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      March 8, 2026 6:15pm
- Dudley Quaffquaff
  
  Because means testing it is more trouble than it’s worth. In Australia the primary home isn’t included among the assets to be means tested against, so Australians approaching retirement put all their money into an expensive home and leave themselves looking asset poor. Little saving of public money, distorted housing market.
  
  There are better ways to reduce the cost, of which the simplest is to raise the age of eligibility to receive it.
  
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  March 8, 2026 9:53am
  - peterwn
    
    And that also requires Winston’s blessing which will not happen any time soon.
    
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    March 8, 2026 12:11pm
  - Taieri
    
    the simplest is to raise the age of eligibility to receive it
    ——–
    
    A far better way is to design and implement a compulsory, contributory retirement savings scheme. As in the vast majority of developed countries.
    
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    March 8, 2026 1:46pm
  - Ian Boag
    
    means testing it is more trouble than it’s worth
    
    Income testing is a breeze. MSD/IRD share data so that MSD can suitably abate beneficiary income. Except for the age benefit.
    
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    March 8, 2026 2:09pm
- In Vino Veritas
  
  The question is easy to answer Peter. It because it is “universal”. That is the way it was set up. As much as I think Peters is a charlatan, I’m not sure he had anything to do with the creation of National Superannuation when it come into being in 1977.
  And it appears to me that you are correct that “Ask Susan” is the wrong person. As far as I can see, she is a journalist who has an interest in money.
  
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  March 8, 2026 9:56am
- Ghost
  
  it is interesting to look back and realise we were the first country in the world to have a means tested pension.
  
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  March 8, 2026 10:01am
  - Jack5
    
    We followed Germany by nine years with old-age pensions. According to the history site linked to below, the NZ pension initially was for:
    
    ” … elderly men and women with few assets who were ‘of good moral character’ and had been leading a ‘sober and reputable life’ for at least the previous five years.”
    
    https://nzhistory.govt.nz/old-age-pensions-act-passes-into-law
    
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    March 8, 2026 10:25am
    - Ghost
      
      Germany’s insurance backed scheme was not means tested. denmark was the first, i forgot them, we were the second
      
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      March 8, 2026 10:40am
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  “Why do higher earners get the pension”?
  
  Um – because they’ve done their time, like low earners who have likewise done their time ?
  
  The point of the article, of course, is that it assumes that high earners don’t need the money. Leaving aside the fact that high earners are not necessarily wealthy (Lefties often confuse income with assets), it’s a truism that high earners have contributed more than low earners.
  
  To save Ian Boag the trouble, the form of contribution is not to an individual savings account. However, it is made to the Consolidated Fund, from which governments of various stripes have made investments of varying quality in NZ’s future. That’s outside my control.
  
  The social contract is that at 65, the State will pay me Super. I’ve done my part, and I will hold the State to its part. Whether I blow it all down at the track will be my choice (actually, I’ll probably just go on working and Super will in effect just be a tax rebate – I’ll still be a net tax payer).
  
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  March 8, 2026 10:04am
  - Wandering Star
    
    It’s about need, not about how much someone has contributed over the years. Look, I get it, you feel entitled to free stuff, so just admit that you are as envious, jealous and resentful as any “socialist” whom you have ever scornfully assigned those adjectives.
    
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    March 8, 2026 11:10am
    - AitchW
      
      National Super is not paid automatically, you need to apply for it. If you feel it’s such a drain on the taxpayer you can always not make the application.
      
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      March 8, 2026 3:27pm
      - Wandering Star
        
        By the time I’m of an age where I can apply for super, there probably won’t be any money left in the kitty to pay it. It will have already been hoovered up by rich entitled Boomers who make an exception to their otherwise frequent disavowal of all things socialist.
        
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        March 8, 2026 4:43pm
    - AitchW
      
      It’s not about need. It’s about the cast iron guarantee from the government that every New Zealander will be entitled, upon reaching the age of 65 to a no strings pension.
      Perhaps the pension should be means tested. Any party campaigning on that will be slaughtered on election day.
      Perhaps you can suggest a better system that the voters of NZ will accept?
      
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      March 8, 2026 3:33pm
      - Wandering Star
        
        “It’s about the cast iron guarantee from the government that every New Zealander will be entitled, upon reaching the age of 65 to a no strings pension.”
        
        “Cast iron guarantee”? What planet are you on? Who pays for this “guarantee” – other people, that’s who. What’s the refrain about “other people’s money” we hear so often when denouncing other forms of socialism besides your pension?
        
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        March 8, 2026 4:46pm
  - Dougal10
    
    Hi earners don’t really get the pension , they really only get a bit of a tax rebate due to their age. Most high earners will be major taxpayers until they die or the retirement care has pillaged everything.
    
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    March 8, 2026 11:38am
  - Paulus
    
    New Zealand Super is taxed !
    
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    March 8, 2026 1:57pm
  - Ian Boag
    
    And of course from the cashflow point of view, the monies involved are ponied up by the generation following us. One way or another they won’t get what we get. Nice of them.
    
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    March 8, 2026 2:13pm
    - In Vino Veritas
      
      Not so sure about your statement regarding monies being ponied up by the following generation Ian. I have paid an uncommon amount of tax that would easily cover my, my wife, my kids and my siblings and their families. And it would cover all the services I and my family use if they were pay to use. So enough of the next generation stuff. Thanks.
      
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      March 8, 2026 3:19pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        I have paid an uncommon amount of tax
        
        Sob. Me too. It’s all gone – spent by whoever was in government at the time running the country at the time. They didn’t put any aside to cover your family group.
        
        Today’s pensions (the money has to come from somewhere) are funded by today’s taxpayers – and as you correctly pointed out – not on any sort of individually tagged (“I paid $x”) basis. SO what you have paid is irrelevant – your taxes went into a big pot used to run the place and helped to fund the (universal) pensions of people outside your whanau.
        
        And of course the taxpayer:pensioner ratio is gradually going south and that is not going to change.
        
        I find it hard to figure that paying comfortable oldies a handout should be more important than juicing the health system a bit …. or fixing some roads … or whatever. I take the pension because I can, but paying it to me is not particularly sensible use of government funds. What I do with it is my business. If that makes me a hypocrite, so be it.
        
        Too bad about Piggy’s contract – he meant well and all that. 50 years on one could argue that times have changed …. He wanted to get elected and it worked – the biggest election bribe ever pulled in NZ history – planted an economic time bomb that is ticking quite loudly now.
        
        Income testing is a breeze – asset testing on the face of it looks harder although the Australians manage it without any great uproar. I read their rules the other day and they don’t seem all that hard to follow.
        
        If you want to create a structure that gets around it, then you can go for it – but as the total savings are under $20k/year the setup and running costs of the fiddle might not stack up all that well.
        
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        March 8, 2026 6:10pm
      - In Vino Veritas
        
        Ian, I reckon we’ve had this conversation before!! It is not my problem that the money has “gone”, it is the problem of the people that were given it, how about they give it back?
        The taxpayer|pensioner ratio should be at its worst now with the last of the boomers retiring. Unless of course taxpayers are reducing, which wouldn’t surprise me I guess. In terms of boomers, there’ll be a good few pegging it over the next 10 years.
        
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        March 8, 2026 6:21pm
- kowtow
  
  Why do duffers who’ve never worked get pensions.
  
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  March 8, 2026 10:58am
  - Wandering Star
    
    Because it’s an “entitlement,” remember. Accordingly, they’re entitled to it, just as people who’ve worked their whole lives and don’t need a pension have the same entitlement. That is the argument here, is it not?
    
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    March 8, 2026 4:49pm
    - In Vino Veritas
      
      Pity they didn’t keep the “good moral character” requirement in the legislation WS, then those people wouldn’t have got the pension. Nor would socialists.
      
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      March 8, 2026 6:22pm
    - Ian Boag
      
      Pretty much. Some (shock horror) see it as a “benefit” – paid to today’s recipients and funded by today’s taxpayers. Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and all that.
      
      I don’t know (open to be informed) if there are any other handouts that qualify as an “entitlement” whatever that is.
      
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      March 8, 2026 6:27pm
imalwaysright

Trump has restricted funding to the International Court of Justice in The Hague and their credit cards have been cancelled.

One of the judges is on Q&A telling Tame she can’t book Ubers, hotel rooms, and theatre tickets….
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March 8, 2026 9:48am
- imalwaysright
  
  Sorry, that should be International Criminal Court.
  
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  March 8, 2026 11:00am
- Wandering Star
  
  Punishment for calling out Israel, I guess. Best President the Israelis have ever had.
  
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  March 8, 2026 11:11am
Maggy Wassilieff

Dame Jacinda Ardern has been appointed to a role at LawZero, protecting us from nasty AI disinformation.

https://lawzero.org/en/news/rt-hon-dame-jacinda-ardern-former-prime-minister-new-zealand-joins-lawzeros-global-advisory
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March 8, 2026 9:51am
- In Vino Veritas
  
  Brilliant, good for her. They obviously want a pretty face to front the business, rather than a sharp mind.
  
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  March 8, 2026 10:00am
  - Ian
    
    Is she still a pretty face. Last I saw, she looked rather gaunt…
    
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    March 8, 2026 5:32pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  Protecting us from AI disinformation?
  
  Lefties hate competition!
  
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  March 8, 2026 10:07am
- Boy Geoff
  
  Great to see experts being fully utilized
  
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  March 8, 2026 10:23am
- JackRabbit
  
  From what I can read, she is there to blow sunshine up our derrieres about the benefits of AI, and to silence any opposition to AI.
  
  I see the Gates Foundation is a major sponsor. Their sponsorship of the WHO, GAVI, and other Big Pharma “initiatives” has really helped the world. //
  
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  March 8, 2026 10:27am
- Don Beckett
  
  I wonder what gems of wisdom are going to sally forth from her ‘Empty tank’ ?
  Maybe that should be, empty head.
  
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  March 8, 2026 10:27am
  - imalwaysright
    
    She’s the world leader in artificial intelligence…
    
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    March 8, 2026 11:35am
    - Jack5
      
      Yeah, poster Imalwaysright, that would be right.😂
      
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      March 8, 2026 3:21pm
- rouppe
  
  I wonder if they’ll install a special podium
  
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  March 8, 2026 10:29am
  - Ghost
    
    it will be ai created….
    
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    March 8, 2026 10:51am
- kowtow
  
  Here we go again.
  All image , no substance.
  
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  March 8, 2026 11:30am
- Dougal10
  
  Still accepting lefty payoffs is that lass.
  
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  March 8, 2026 11:42am
- R
  
  Obviously no credible candidates applies!
  
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  March 8, 2026 12:02pm
- imalwaysright
  
  If we had had AI as PM, instead of Ardern, we wouldn’t be in the crap that we are in.
  
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  March 8, 2026 4:01pm
- Master Mariner
  
  Interesting,
  Another fruitloop is WEF Yuval Noah Harari.
  He is a strong advocate for Eugenics.
  In 2016 at the Davos Forum, Harari was the originator of the idea that, as a result of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, “humanity will be divided between a superelite of improved humans and a mass of ‘useless people'” and that “power is in the hands of those who control the algorithms”.[30] He returned to the theme in an October 2017 interview with People’s Daily Online to which he said:[31]
  She is in good company//
  
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  March 8, 2026 9:08pm
Gulag1917

Timeline of talks Iran and the US.

Feb 6, 2026: Indirect talks resume in Muscat, Oman, described as a “good start”.
Feb 17-26, 2026: Multiple rounds of negotiations occur in Geneva. Iran reports a “historic opportunity” for a deal.
Feb 20, 2026: President Trump issues a 10-day deadline for a final agreement.
Feb 27, 2026: Oman reports a “breakthrough” where Iran agrees to stop stockpiling enriched uranium and allow IAEA verification.
Feb 28, 2026: Despite reports of progress, the U.S. and Israel launch major, coordinated strikes on Iran, targeting nuclear sites and leadership, breaking the diplomatic process
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March 8, 2026 10:08am
- RichardX
  
  Thomas Massie, a republican congressman from Kentucky, has an interesting theory on that.
  
  See if you can guess what it is from the link.
  
  https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-iran-epstein-files-massie-b2930178.html
  
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  March 8, 2026 11:19am
- Wandering Star
  
  Performative stuff just to make the inevitable attacks on Iran look justifiable to people who can’t think. Even if the US and Iran wanted a deal, Israel would veto it anyway.
  
  Rubio initially came out and said the US led the attacks after Israel had informed them that Israel was going to attack with or without the US, meaning that US forces in the region would be under more threat than if the US attacked as well. Effectively, Israel forced the US’s hand to attack.
  
  “We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action, we knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties and perhaps even higher those killed, and then we would all be here answering questions about why we knew that and didn’t act.”
  
  https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2026/03/secretary-of-state-marco-rubio-remarks-to-press-6
  
  Of course, Rubio has since been desperately walking back his quite unambiguous initial statements, given how badly they paint the Israelis.
  
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  March 8, 2026 11:20am
- Notsofast
  
  Witkoff sounds convincing in his interview saying the Iranians flatly refused to surrender their 10,000 kg of 60% enriched uranium.
  
  Here is the interview, straight from the horse’s mouth.
  
  31 minutes:
  
  https://x.com/i/status/2029274100946866391
  
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  March 8, 2026 12:47pm
  - Gulag1917
    
    Trump gave them 10 days to do the deal but struck before that
    Trump the liar.
    
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    March 8, 2026 6:51pm
NeverMindTheBollocks

Wellington City Council is struggling to find expenses to cut, to keep the rates bill down.

Meanwhile, yesterday was the Pride Parade, today is the Newtown Festival, and the three week International Festival of the Arts is two weeks into its three week run.

I’d suggest that Council looks hard at its approach to the services it requires (is all of that traffic management really required?); at its grants programme; and so on.

My view is that Wellington is fiddling while the City drowns in its own excrement.
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March 8, 2026 10:28am
- kowtow
  
  Seriously , anyone with even a modicum of common sense could save these councils ( and central govt) millions , billions even.
  
  Drop all the climate stuff and staff .
  Drop all the Maori ( indeed “community” ) engagement stuff and staff . That’s what councillors are elected to do .
  Drop all the DEI stuff and staff.
  
  Drop all the “arts” , “community” , events , stuff and staff .
  Drop the anti car , pro cycling stuff and staff and interfering with infrastructure , parking , etc
  
  When pricing and installing infrastructure , do it right the first time ( even if that costs more ) then you don’t need to keep coming back and fixing it every time it rains.( and blaming your cheapness on climate change)
  
  Get back to managing rivers like they used to . Saves a fortune on bridges , roads , culverts everytime it rains.
  
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  March 8, 2026 11:08am
  - MCōs
    
    When I cycled around Wellington about 20-40yrs ago there was little emphasis on the things you complain about.
    Also there seems to have been little thought given to subterranean pipe maintenance judging by the inordinate amount of failures now.
    Wellington is an old city by NZ standards and so is the infrastructure
    Frank Kitts, who was an uncle of my first wife, told me councilors didn’t want to spend money on stuff that couldn’t be seen because it would push up the rates.
    They’d rather kick the can down the road.
    
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    March 8, 2026 4:05pm
- R
  
  Excrement? …is that another term for INCOMPETENCE!
  
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  March 8, 2026 12:04pm
- Apteryx
  
  Totally right. The council is a gold sponsor of the pride parade and a major sponsor of the Newtown festival.
  
  Let people parade their sexual preferences on their own dime. I don’t go to work to earn money to pay rates for that sort of stuff. The Newtown festival can find corporate sponsorship.
  
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  March 8, 2026 1:13pm
Swifty

Leading and veteran Democratic strategist James Carville provides his expert reasoned commentary on current events:

https://x.com/ericldaugh/status/2030322155653579013?s=46

He puts across the Dem position most succinctly and summaries the best of Dem arguments against Trump.

(Caution language)
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March 8, 2026 10:28am
David George

Starmer has said he was finally thinking of sending UK aircraft carriers.

“Donald Trump told Sir Keir Starmer that the US does not need Britain to send its aircraft carriers to the Middle East.

The US president said he “will remember” the lack of British support at the beginning of his war against Iran, referring to Britain as “our once great ally”.

Writing on Truth Social on Saturday evening, Mr Trump said: “The United Kingdom, our once Great Ally, maybe the Greatest of them all, is finally giving serious thought to sending two aircraft carriers to the Middle East.

“That’s OK, Prime Minister Starmer, we don’t need them any longer – But we will remember. We don’t need people that join Wars after we’ve already won!”

Classic Trump.
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March 8, 2026 10:36am
- Wandering Star
  
  Typical arrogant and ignorant comment from Trump.
  
  When Israel is allegedly America’s Greatest Ally, or really the other way around, who needs anyone else?
  
  Britain would be wise to stay out of this impending mess, just like many other European states appear to be doing.
  
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  March 8, 2026 10:44am
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    Pretty sure he is referring to major conflicts like the world wars, have you not seen footage of Churchill and Truman
    
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    March 8, 2026 2:36pm
    - Wandering Star
      
      Oh yes, the word wars. Particularly the second one, in which Churchill’s unnecessary war he declared on Germany finished off what was left of the British Empire, and handed it to Truman and his successors. Did you realise that Britain didn’t finally pay off its war debts until 2006?
      
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      March 8, 2026 2:50pm
      - KKNZ2025
        
        “…Churchill’s unnecessary war he declared on Germany…”
        
        Are you OK?
        
        3 0
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        March 8, 2026 6:45pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        It also helped the decline caused by the lack of skilled labour (plus a whole lot of obsolete kit) to run British industry during the war.
        
        Try “The Audit of War” by Corelli Barnett, A good read even if it is a book that you have to pay for ….
        
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        March 8, 2026 7:26pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        Treasury told Winston the country could only afford a short war. Winston said it would be a long one. Britain ran totally out of money sometime in 1941. Lend Lease came along just in time. Without the US involvement Britain would have had the snowball in hell chance.
        
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        March 8, 2026 8:41pm
- kowtow
  
  Talking of Starmer etc
  
  Open to those who know.
  
  HMS Dragon has a dragon festooned on its bow (?) Is this a new thing .I’ve never seen that on an RN vessel before.
  
  Thing is , strikes me that one of the huge number of Admiralty staff types had a great “marketting” idea , not . All image and no substance .
  
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  March 8, 2026 11:29am
  - fightingtemeraire
    
    First one. I think that it was done in the builder’s yard. Think it looks v good actually.
    
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    March 8, 2026 4:03pm
- imalwaysright
  
  Apparently the English Channel now has a ‘Give Way To Dinghys’ rule and they were waiting for a break in the traffic…
  
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  March 8, 2026 11:40am
- Northshoredoc
  
  Classic malignant narcissist.
  
  5 10
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  March 8, 2026 12:38pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  USA 1917
  USA 1941
  
  Just saying.
  
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  March 8, 2026 1:35pm
westernScientist

Patrick Boyle on the state of the UK economy, a lot of transferable issues and warnings for NZ. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3neJOdknqc
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March 8, 2026 10:53am
Swifty

Swapping a few messages this morning with mates about the demise of Dilworth Karaka of the Herbs.

What a mark he, and they, made in areas wider than just the NZ music scene.

I never met him but we had a few mates in common.

One of those was Duncan McFarlane, a Wellington local identity who was good mates with Dilworth.

I have been sent through this NBR article today from a friend, authored by Nevil Gibson.

https://www.nbr.co.nz/book-review/when-bank-robbers-ruled-the-roost/

In it he notes that Duncan had never been jailed for any of his exploits. I can personally attest to the inaccuracy of this statement as I was banged up with him in Crawford in 1991, and where his cell was plastered with pictures of the Herbs and Dilworth.

Anyway, RIP to Dilworth Karaka. What a legacy he’s left.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TuJ8PP1Icfw
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March 8, 2026 11:19am
Gussy

The BBC are at it again! It’s bloody pathological:

‘BBC altered Hegseth speech on Iran war’, translating the targeting of the regime, as targeting the Iranian people.

Source (likely paywalled):
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/03/06/bbc-altered-hegseth-speech-on-iran-war/
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March 8, 2026 11:27am
Swifty

Should Hindi be funded and taught in New Zealand schools?

https://x.com/the_salty_one_/status/2030362264784793600?s=46
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March 8, 2026 11:28am
- Jack5
  
  You could teach a language as a secondary or foreign language, or teach in a language – make it the main language of teaching.
  
  The problem with the Indian languages mentioned is that they have totally different alphabets and characters from English and most Western languages. Like Japanese and Chinese they aren’t easy to learn.
  
  Our big education deficiences are in maths and the other STEM subjects.
  
  Indian languages should be well down the list of possible subjects. What we value more in India’s culture is its great tradition in mathematics. That’s what we want.
  
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  March 8, 2026 3:05pm
Swifty

Trump releases a new music track:

https://x.com/joncovering/status/2030335522627846354?s=46

😃
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March 8, 2026 11:41am
Swifty

The US and Israel are in for it now – the Iranian military have unleashed the Magic Carpet Martyrs Brigade.

https://x.com/wcdispatch/status/2030338669714813228?s=46

Abracadabra MFers!

😁
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March 8, 2026 12:18pm
greybeard

https://www.stuff.co.nz/world-news/360948195/british-couple-jailed-iran-live-fear-us-bombs-after-guards-flee

Amazing that in this “notorious prison” the inmates have such easy access to telephones !
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March 8, 2026 1:15pm
- Inandout
  
  grey, stuff is involved so don’t expect any accounts that are in any way pro Trump. Yes sounds like one of those Florida prisons where Epstein enjoyed minimal supervision.
  
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  March 8, 2026 1:48pm
  - MCōs
    
    Stuff is not involved — they didn’t have anything to do with these people’s unfortunate situation
    The story is reproduced from The Telegraph and is carried by a number of UK newspapers.
    Maybe the prisoners over there are allowed phones, I don’t know, maybe they slipped a few rial to someone.
    These people are in a terrible situation, not helped by the UK’s belated lining up behind Trump.
    Mind you they were naive to go into Iran in the first place no matter how many visas they had.
    
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    March 8, 2026 2:41pm
Jack5

Race relations in Britain simmer on …

A portrait in a London museum of Beeston Long, governor of the Bank of England from 1806 to 1808, has been half-covered in cloth as a protest to mark Long’s link with slavery in the West Indies two centuries ago.

Lang also headed a firm of merchants that traded with Jamaica. In June 2020 the Bank of England apologised for Long’s involvement in the slave trade (West Indian plantations until 1834 used slave labour).

Long’s portrait is displayed in London Museum Docklands. He had led the London Docks Company, which built and the docks at Wapping.

The Long-portrait protest follows the 2020 removal of a statue outside London’s West India docks of Robert Milligan, a Scots plantation owner and partner in a slave-trading firm. This was at the height of Black Lives Matter protests. The removal was ordered by Tower Hamlets council.

Similarly, National Museum Cardiff took down a painting of Waterloo hero and colonial governor, General Thomas Picton, in 2021 as part of a project to “decolonise” the art work. Picton owned slaves in Trinidad, and was defendant in a court case over his alleged cruelty (the case seems never to have been concluded). Picton was killed by a musket ball in 1815 at Waterloo. Jack Hawkins played Picton in the 1970 film “Waterloo”.
Oh dear, Picton in NZ’s South island, was named after him in a patriotic burst that also brought NZ the names Nelson, Marlborough, and Wellington, British heroes all.

The Telegraph says the Long-portrait protest in London Museum Docklands is part of a project to “reclaim the histories of colonised Caribbean nations”, and celebrate the influence of the “Windrush Generation”.

This centres on the arrival in the UK in 1948 of the ship Empire Windrush with a thousand or so passengers who began a migration to the UK from the Caribbean.

The Telegraph says the UK Labour Government of Clement Attlee strongly opposed the arrival of the Empire Windrush itself in 1948, and hoped to divert the ship and its Caribbean passengers to Africa. By 1971, Caribbean arrivals constituted around 0.5 per cent of the population of the UK.

Here’s a link to the Telegraph article, but I suspect it’s paywalled.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/03/07/museum-covers-up-slave-trader-portrait-reclaim-history/
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March 8, 2026 1:49pm
- rouppe
  
  I wonder when we’ll hear an apology from each iwi for the slaving they did on other iwi. //
  
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  March 8, 2026 2:47pm
MCōs

My wife thinks we’re all a bit too nonchalant about the developing global situation here in NZ and she’s off to the Asian supermarket for some panic shopping this afternoon
The airfares from Bangkok to London have already doubled she tells me and some petrol stations are out of fuel.
Either it’s a serious situation or someone is pulling their legs
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March 8, 2026 1:53pm
- rouppe
  
  Thank goodness I’ve already paid for my airfares to Europe later this year.
  
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  March 8, 2026 2:48pm
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    I hope you’re travelling via the US
    
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    March 8, 2026 4:30pm
- MCōs
  
  She’s back again with, among other essential supplies, some frozen durian.
  
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  March 8, 2026 3:40pm
- graham
  
  How much toilet paper did she buy?
  
  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-51731422
  
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  March 8, 2026 7:08pm
pb

Why did the US Navy torpedo an unarmed ship then flee? A thousand years of battle morality thrown out with the new rentlords of America.
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March 8, 2026 1:57pm
- Jack5
  
  More than two and a half thousand Allied merchant ships were sunk in World War 2, mostly by U-boats.
  More than 36,000 British merchant seamen died, a casualty rate of 25 per cent.
  
  What battle morality are you talking about, PB?
  
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  March 8, 2026 2:24pm
  - Wandering Star
    
    The US has declared war on Iran, not the other way around.
    
    By contrast, those merchant ships were supplying Britain who had declared war on Germany, not the other way around. Germany was sinking ships directly aiding the war effort of a hostile belligerent.
    
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    March 8, 2026 2:58pm
    - Charlotte Wells
      
      “The US has declared war on Iran,”
      
      Previously you have claimed that Trump committed a crime by killing the head of state.
      
      “killing a head of state is generally considered an act of war or a major violation of international law. It constitutes a severe infringement on state sovereignty and a violation of the prohibition on the use of force, often justifying a direct, large-scale military response ”
      
      Do you agree?
      
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      March 8, 2026 4:41pm
  - kowtow
    
    Yes what is this “battle morality” , be it at sea or on land .
    
    Have these people not heard of the Lanconia Incident or that the Red Cross was created after 1859 as a result of the literally tens of thousands of wounded left on the battlefield of Solferino with no one giving a damn.
    
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    March 8, 2026 3:42pm
  - fightingtemeraire
    
    As a percentage the MN had the second highest casualty rate of all the British services.
    
    The highest was Bomber Command with around 50%.
    
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    March 8, 2026 3:59pm
    - Wandering Star
      
      If we consider the number of civilians Bomber Command incinerated with high explosives and incendiary devices, it’s harder to feel too bad about their own casualties.
      
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      March 8, 2026 4:54pm
- Don Beckett
  
  What was the ship, and what county’s flag did it fly?
  Is this what you are referring to?
  “According to reports from March 2026, a U.S. Navy submarine sank the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena with a torpedo in the Indian Ocean. Iran alleged the ship was “unarmed,” “unloaded,” and returning from a, ceremonial exercise. This event, which occurred on March 4, 2026, marked the first time a US sub engaged a ship since World War ”
  Frigate – Mmmm – sounds like a warship to me.
  
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  March 8, 2026 2:41pm
  - Charlotte Wells
    
    The frigate had other offensive capability even if it was unarmed. I take the claims it was unarmed with a pinch of salt.
    
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    March 8, 2026 4:46pm
- rouppe
  
  Doesn’t seem too different to bombing warships tied up at Pearl Harbor, or sinking warships that were resupplying in WW2, or bombing the USS Cole, or sinking the General Belgrano as it was fleeing the area.
  
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  March 8, 2026 2:53pm
- MCōs
  
  The US Secretary of War claimed that IRIS Dena was the first ship sunk by torpedoes since WWII, except it wasn’t.
  The General Belgrano was sunk by the Royal Navy killing 323. About the same number were rescued by Argentinian and Korean vessels.
  The Sun came up with the endearing headline Gotcha, which didn’t go down well with the people who don’t normally read that rag.
  The INS Khukri was also sunk by torpedo in 1971
  The ROKS Cheonan was similarly sunk in 2010
  
  For what it’s worth.
  I doubt if Mr Hegseth knows or gives a shit
  
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  March 8, 2026 3:21pm
  - AitchW
    
    I think they said that it was the first ship sunk by torpedos by America since WW2.
    The extra two words make all the difference in the world.
    
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    March 8, 2026 3:35pm
  - Charlotte Wells
    
    The statement was the first US one.
    
    The full remarks make it clear he was referring to US action only.
    
    Yes, I did ask that myself then caught up with the full speech.
    
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    March 8, 2026 3:41pm
- CJames
  
  An unarmed frigate, really?
  
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  March 8, 2026 6:07pm
Charlotte Wells

Here’s a question for all those who comment that have military service.

If you were being sent into harms way would you prefer the Starmer or the Trump governments to be committing you to a war zone?
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March 8, 2026 4:47pm
Hugh Jarse

Looks like the de facto Leader of the Opposition, Helen Clark has cornered opinion on the Iran war. She is the only one appearing in the media making comment and in the process doing a great job of raising her parties identity and branding. Great strategy by Labour and Te Media Party but may be damaging Hipkins ?.
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March 8, 2026 7:07pm

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