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July 29, 2026 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 29 July 2026

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Scott

Two stories posted day before yesterday on Powerline shows us everything that is wrong with the west today.

The first story is yet another Muslim in civilised France who gets told by Allah to stab people and he duly obliges by stabbing and severely wounding 3 women:

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2026/07/a-terrorist-in-paris.php

This kind of attack was totally preventable. Just don’t allow thousands and thousands of military age young men from Muslim countries to come into your country. They don’t assimilate and many of them will hate you.

The second story was not violent but in my mind, no less disturbing :

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2026/07/delusional-britain.php

A young woman was awarded the British citizen award. She received the award for her work in empowering woman.
Nothing says empowering woman like having to hide under the full burqua so all we can see are your eyes!

That this is real and not a parody tells you all you need to know about liberal Britain surrendering to Islam.

People we need to make sure this doesn’t happen here. Let’s not sell out this country to people who won’t assimilate and quite frankly, despise us. 🤔
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July 29, 2026 8:02am
- R
  
  Agree Scott, particularly your last sentence, but would have included the clause..don’t want to work, but prefer the easy option benefits lifestyle. This last is applicable to people who are driven by the activist AGENDA, developed from the consequences of the Kirk governments DOMESTIC PURPOSES BENEFIT.
  
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  July 29, 2026 9:56am
- David Garrett
  
  Scott: as few as ten years ago this would satire…and I fully agree with you on the Islamic menace here
  
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  July 29, 2026 10:50am
- imalwaysright
  
  Saw a vid today where, post the Muslim man using a car to murder and injure Pride gatherers in Germany, a female participant said her first thought was:
  
  ‘please let it be a young white far right male, don’t let it be a Muslim man’.
  
  That is an example of an indoctrinated psyche.
  
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  July 29, 2026 11:03am
  - BananaLlama
    
    Irony that the leader of the AFD is a lesbian but like the story about Ani O’Brien yesterday she is the wrong kind of lesbian.
    It wont be long until they start calling these Islamists “Far Right” to justify their bigotry.
    
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    July 29, 2026 12:57pm
  - NothingLeft
    
    the woman is just as much an unhinged religious nutjob as the perp. So lost in wanting to appear virtuous for her peers that she’s lost all connection to practical reality.
    
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    July 29, 2026 1:09pm
- Ra Henare
  
  It would be nice to understand that Islamist and Muslims are not the same thing.
  
  Briefly
  Muslims are a religious faith. (25% of the world’s population—2 billion adherents.) The vast majority are peace-loving citizens of all the countries they live in.
  
  Islamism is a political ideology that wants Sharia law to be dominant in society. And contains a number of religious nutjobs.
  
  Keeping in mind that all religions have “”nutjobs.”
  
  I would give you examples, but I don’t want to raise the blood pressure of KBers who would get enraged at the information that religious nutjobs kill people because of the nutjobs’ beliefs.
  
  Ie God told them to do it.
  Lookup up Peter William Sutcliffe as an example.
  
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  July 29, 2026 2:30pm
  - Gussy
    
    Not many non-muslim islamists, so it’s not an absolute category error.
    
    You raise valid points though Ra.
    
    There’s also valid concern that many place religion above other cultural identities i.e. Muslim first, then, perhaps much further down, Kiwi.
    
    This may, increasingly cause societal issues and also explain a relatively subdued response to Islamism within the Muslim community.
    
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    July 29, 2026 7:08pm
- Skottowe
  
  “….people who….. quite frankly, despise us.”
  
  We already live here with a significant subset of the population which despises those of us who aren’t Maori.
  
  I worked many years in the healthcare sector. I encountered this attitude as long ago as the 1970s.
  
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  July 29, 2026 3:53pm
Cassandra

UK PM Andy Burnham: “From today, Britain will value the hard hat every bit as much as the graduation cap.”

It’s part of a speech about getting young Britons “off the couch” and into technical training.

I know only what I read about Burnham (and he comes across as a spendthrift of OPM, like most lefties) but if he can do this then he’d get my praise.

The UK needs electricians, technicians and IT whizzes rather more than art historians or communication degrees. So does New Zealand.

And Burnham does himself no harm in my eyes with his strong support for Zelensky and Ukraine.
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July 29, 2026 8:12am
- artemisia
  
  Perhaps not that simple, Cassandra, and yes I have mentioned this here before. Young family member left school, signed up for a Polytech trades foundation course of about 6 months. More than 20 started, 4 completed and went on to apprenticeships, ours among them.
  
  Thing is some (most, ours thought) were NEETs sent by WINZ. A couple did not last a week. Assuming they were selected by WINZ and agreed to attend, so why did they drop out. Is that a usual drop out rate? Does anyone know? What needs to change to keep them off the sofa?
  
  Our small tradie business has taken on some of these NEETs. Most didn’t last a trial period, so we do have an idea of failure reasons. A couple took the opportunity and went on to apprenticeships, one now an LBP, one his own small painting business.
  
  We no longer take NEETs on, wrong risk / reward. Do have one on Jobseeker doing a few hours a week. OK but not more than OK.
  
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  July 29, 2026 8:41am
  - pdm
    
    I don’t recall ever hearing that Shane Jones’ “nephs” ever got off the sofas so assume they are still lounging there while others work.
    
    Time to implement work for the dole even if it is only picking up rubbish on roadsides.
    
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    July 29, 2026 8:59am
    - Jethrod
      
      Good luck with that, imagine the chorus of outrage from Chloe, Marama and Clippy et al!
      Though a damn good idea.
      
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      July 29, 2026 9:33am
      - R
        
        Jethro, you forgot to include the activist media outrage.
        
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        July 29, 2026 9:58am
    - artemisia
      
      A common issue with NEETs in our tradie business was turning up impaired, or more usually not turning up at all. I have no answer as time spent chasing up is expensive and usually a failure. I imagine for WINZ it is much cheaper to just pay them to stay on the sofa. Sad.
      
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      July 29, 2026 10:10am
      - R
        
        How many of the WINZ staff ‘came of the sofa’ during the Ardern era make work schemes. I have met some genuine capable WINZ staff, not many though.
        
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        July 29, 2026 10:53am
    - David George
      
      A few years ago I was talking with the head of Ngapuhi Fisheries, she was in charge of administering the treaty allocation they were gifted. I had previously assumed that there was a fleet of fishing boats manned by the “nephs” and that they were learning valuable, transferrable, work skills as had been touted prior.
      
      There was nothing of the sort, they were simply clipping the ticket on quota allocations to foreign fishers with most of that money eaten up by a sprawling, self serving admin. Cui Bono?
      
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      July 29, 2026 12:04pm
      - Taieri
        
        Cui Bono?
        ———-
        
        A good point. Sealord, one of the largest NZ fishing companies is half owned by Maori interests, with the other half owned by Japanese Nissui Corporation.
        Another fishing company Aurora Fisheries of Timaru, has until very recently been using an old Japanese built trawler Tomi Maru. While this vessel was NZ registered, her crew was all Asian.
        But to be fair, an acquaintance, who was an operation manager for one of NZ fishing companies, told me that it is very difficult to source good NZ crews, due to drug use problems.
        
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        July 29, 2026 12:25pm
      - Maggy Wassilieff
        
        Indeed…
        At the time of the fisheries settlements there was much talk of how this would be the means for Maori to create jobs for their people.
        
        I even remember Ken Mair declaring that he’d be setting up a training school for fishing crew in Wanganui (perhaps in conjunction with Wanganui Trawlers), but it looks like that was all hot air for the kids looking for jobs.
        
        Of course, he made sure that he got his time at the fisheries trough,
        https://www.nzherald.co.nz/whanganui-chronicle/news/mair-new-director-for-iwi-asset-trust/VZVTTQQZ3CZJEVAY5XZVRYLVDU/
        
        while slave-labourers worked the NZ quota for Iwi owners.
        
        “It is a national scandal that Maori, given settlement quota for the purpose of bringing young Maori into the business of fishing, are now given a preferential right to use Third World foreign labour to harvest those very resources,” Talley said.
        
        https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/8982068/Iwi-exemption-threatens-NZ-fisheries-Talley
        
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        July 29, 2026 1:34pm
      - Countrygirl
        
        A few years ago I was talking to people from the local iwi who owned kiwifruit orchards. The iwi had built houses for the workers. I remarked how great an initiative to provide jobs for the members, but sadly they told me the young ones didn’t want to work, they were happier going to Auckland to be waiters in coffee shops. So they had to employ Indian gangs.
        
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        July 29, 2026 8:27pm
  - cmm (semi-retired edition)
    
    “Thing is some (most, ours thought) were NEETs sent by WINZ. ”
    
    That was exactly my son’s experience when doing a polytech course. He was the last one to sign up before the class was full. Two weeks later classes started and less than 60% turned up at all. After a month they were down to a handful.
    
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    July 29, 2026 9:01am
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      Yep,
      the drop-out rate of polytech courses is very high….about a third drop out in their first year.
      
      https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/129482274/one-in-three-firstyear-polytech-students-quit-in-the-first-12-months
      
      Some courses never produced graduates.
      , but on 51 courses, at least half of all students quit.
      
      On some courses, zero learners were retained.
      
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      July 29, 2026 9:28am
      - cmm (semi-retired edition)
        
        It seems to vary quite a bit.
        
        One of my sons did two courses through polytech. First a mechanical engineering degree, secondly an electrician course.
        The drop out rate for the ME degree course was low. Most of the students were foreigners, many of whom already had degrees and wanted a “conversion” to an English speaking country’s qualifications.
        
        The electricians’ course is the one that had all the NEETS and the drop out rate was well over 50%.
        
        Apparently the drop out rate for the automotive courses is far lower (boys like to play with their toys).
        
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        July 29, 2026 9:36am
      - imalwaysright
        
        I wonder if they dropped out because they had to listen in class and write an answer that made sense.
        The Teenager Kindergartens that we euphemistically refer to as secondary schools seem to require neither.
        
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        July 29, 2026 11:47am
    - cmm (semi-retired edition)
      
      The worst part of that is the WINZ-NEETS fucked it up for everyone.
      They were late (if they did turn up). They were disruptive. The class was “full” because they took places of students that actually might have done the whole course.
      
      Scum, the lot of them.
      
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      July 29, 2026 9:30am
      - R
        
        Poorly parented scum is the problem. They have no doubt inherited their parental attitudes. Parents are our mentors in the development of our attitudes and personalities.
        
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        July 29, 2026 10:01am
      - imalwaysright
        
        R
        
        Yes, bad parents are a major problem for any child, but teachers should by now have the skills to deal with this.
        
        It appears that many teachers decide fairly quickly who they consider worthy of their time and relegate the rest to the educational scrap heap.
        
        Like any job, the value of the employee is in them doing the difficult tasks…the easy stuff is called easy for a reason.
        
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        July 29, 2026 11:54am
    - David Garrett
      
      Cmm: remind me what NEET stands for again…Not in Education… or Training…what does the second E stand for?
      
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      July 29, 2026 10:56am
      - gravedodger
        
        Not in Education, Employment 0r Training,
        Applied to 15 to 24 yo with a “Play Station” and on Welfare
        
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        July 29, 2026 11:46am
  - Ra Henare
    
    Unfortunately modern western society hasn’t learned to STOP REWARDING bad behavior.
    
    Ie the bad behavior of many on a benefit not meeting their obligations.
    
    Sadly it’s not only society (stupid anti smacking law IMHO) but also individual parents whose little Johnny can do no wrong, and he has learned to manipulate his parents into overlooking his continued transgressions.
    
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    July 29, 2026 2:36pm
- Southern Raider
  
  The issue in NZ is no politician has the guts to kick off the difficult conversations around any topic including youth unemployment.
  
  The media was chirping away in the last week about some Uni graduates who can’t find their first jobs.
  
  The issues are structural and go beyond just degrees people are doing.
  – teenagers can’t get part time work these days due to companies being scared of H&S implications. Even charity shops won’t take teenage volunteers under 16 because of H&S
  – aligned to above when was the last time you saw a parent taking their kid to work with them in the holidays? Every second delivery driver and warehouse worker used to have their teenager in tow
  – minimum wages have killed opportunities for youth. Why should a teenager or student get paid the adult wage when they don’t have the same costs. Cut the youth wage to $10/hour and the adult wage to $15/hour if your living at home and see how that changes how businesses employ young people
  
  And of course we have “accredited work Visa’s” which have removed pretty much every part time youth and entry level roll across fast food and supermarkets because somehow low skilled foreign workers are able to get Visas for these entry level jobs.
  
  But no political party will want to discuss the above.
  
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  July 29, 2026 8:47am
  - R
    
    The ‘low skilled foreign workers’ are the only ones prepared to take low level employment. Such employment is below the imagined Dignity of the unemployed NZers.
    
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    July 29, 2026 10:57am
    - OlderChas
      
      Yep – because the educational BS has told them all their school lives that we won’t let you fail anything in case you feel hurt by it, we will give you NCEA credits for picking up rubbish in the playground, you’ll get into university with all your NCEA marks, and a university qualification will get you a high paying job as soon as you graduate.
      Or – even better – you might get a job with a political party and become Prime Minister!
      Now why would any ambitious bright young person take up and entry level job after a 13-14 year build up like that?
      
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      July 29, 2026 5:47pm
  - alphabeatrium
    
    I agree with all these points, but also the roles available to young and relatively unskilled people are in decline. I first worked delivering papers as a youngster; now basically obsolete. I then worked at a supermarket checkout when a bit older; also becoming obsolete. On a longer timescale, farms used to require a lot more labour, but not so much now. I’m not a luddite, I recognise that these efficiencies improve our productivity as a nation and make us better off, and shift labour needs elsewhere. But that “elsewhere” isn’t entry-level manual labour that can be done by a 15 year old.
    
    Lowering the minimum wage would help a lot.
    
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    July 29, 2026 3:42pm
    - Ian Boag
      
      You forgot milk runs …
      
      In Hawkes Bay where I spent my youth, there were jobs in the season picking beans (no more), tomatoes (ditto), strawberries and raspberries (ugh) and fruit. Now mechanised or done by hard workings RSEs.
      
      Lowering the minimum wage will not bring any of the jobs you you mention back into existence. I doubt that there is a similar amount of casual gardening or lawn mowing work around these days. It would be good if you could give some examples of the kind of entry-level jobs that coukd be magicked up by lowering the minimum wage …. ? This is an honest question – I can’t bring anything much to mind.
      
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      July 29, 2026 5:05pm
      - artemisia
        
        Lower wages for some basic hospo jobs might keep some employers out of liquidation and a few young people off the dole queue. Wages have to be a significant cost and some jobs are pretty basic.
        
        Hospitality was one of the most vulnerable sectors, Lacey said. There have been just over 3000 liquidations recorded in the last year, up 14 percent on a year earlier.
        
        https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/648421/more-than-400-000-people-behind-on-payments-hospo-liquidations-up-51-percent
        
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        July 29, 2026 6:10pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        Hospo is pretty sick right now. Possibly not something with a lot of potential. There are a lot of non-beginner people looking for work with not much joy ….
        
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        July 29, 2026 6:14pm
    - R
      
      50 years ago there was every indication that the future years were going yo require some measurable level of academic knowledge. Then along ca me Lange and cohorts who promised that so Ling as one had a univesity degree we would have an educated country. No appreciation of the practical skills required to make a country productive and wealthy. Guess what, there are elements of the opposition pretenders to the throne who still think lime that. 105 days to the Election.
      
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      July 29, 2026 7:15pm
- cmm (semi-retired edition)
  
  The big issue though is that the lefties, who support Burnham etc, are incapable of practical occupations. They want the blue-hair jobs.
  
  Burnham might just put a rope around his own neck.
  
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  July 29, 2026 9:14am
  - EssenX
    
    You raise an interesting point I have been thinking: how long until Burnham gets burned by his own party?
    
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    July 29, 2026 10:00am
- Dudley Quaffquaff
  
  OK, but what’s the actual policy? What is “Britain” in this context and how is it going to “value” hard hats? Is the proposal that employers should be forced to take on more trade-trained people, or that they should be forced to pay them more, than they otherwise would? Or that young people are to be forced (how?) to become skilled in trades that they wouldn’t otherwise be interested in?
  
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  July 29, 2026 9:14am
  - R
    
    The absence of a generous WELFARE BENEFIT would soon focus their minds on the advantages of any skills training, and the associated motivation to succeed.
    
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    July 29, 2026 11:03am
- imalwaysright
  
  Burnham is the political undertaker who will bury the UK.
  
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  July 29, 2026 11:06am
- Skottowe
  
  Recently, I dreamed that Andy Burnham had resigned. Normally, my dreams are just plain weird, but I do wonder if this one was prescient.
  
  “And Burnham does himself no harm…. with his strong support for Zelensky and Ukraine.”
  
  This Zelensky? And this Ukraine?
  
  https://t.me/truth_as_power/4400
  
  We have extended family connections to that part of the world. I’d previously seen this sort of thing, on Telegram and elsewhere. I doubt that anyone could justify the awfulness of those people.
  
  I also have family in the UK. Aside from the occasional slip on their part, we’re careful to stay away from their Russophobia. Of course they cannot explain it. I find it as puzzling now as I ever did, though I must say I’ve never heard anything from them as foul as the contents of that thread.
  
  No excuses, no whataboutism.
  
  But, just in case anybody does try it, I can do no better than to reiterate the Ming dynasty emperors’ view: “Civilisation was coterminous with the boundaries of the Chinese Empire “. People can disagree all they like; however, there’s no other way to characterise those quoted above than as barbarians.
  
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  July 29, 2026 4:16pm
- mogg
  
  You forgot to mention that parents will receive a subsidy/benefit of up to $10,000 nz pa. if their child takes up an apprenticeship. As of yetThe new scheme is unfunded. Also he will be adding a new tax for workers to pay for social care.
  
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  July 29, 2026 4:39pm
  - OlderChas
    
    Will the $10,000 only be given if the child gains the qualification and gets paid work using it? Or just for getting the kid to turn up for day one of the apprenticeship?
    
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    July 29, 2026 5:54pm
mike

US conservatives abandon ‘abstinence-only’ programmes in favour of encouraging teen pregnancies.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/22/us/politics/teen-pregnancy-prevention-trump.html
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July 29, 2026 8:25am
- Cassandra
  
  I recall Tariana Turia encouraging the same approach.
  
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  July 29, 2026 8:38am
  - R
    
    The Kirk government Domestic Purposes Benefit of the 1970’s era. Another SOCIALIST LABOUR failed policy which is still holding the country back, now under a different title.
    
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    July 29, 2026 11:06am
    - TripeWryter
      
      R:
      I for one am very grateful for the domestic purposes benefit.
      It enabled me to bring up my children after their mother decided she wanted to do something else, somewhere else, with someone else.
      I complied with all requirements.
      I always thought it a pity that the bureaucracy that made sure I stuck to the rules seemed incapable of finding the former Mrs TripeWryter – even though she was easily findable – and extracting from her some money to help in the upbringing of her children.
      It’s easy to blame the DPB, which was really a tool enacted to help solo parents bring up their children.
      
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      July 29, 2026 12:22pm
    - Ian Boag
      
      Domestic Purposes Benefit of the 1970’s era
      
      If it was a failed policy you’d figure some other gummint might have got rid of it. They’ve only had 50 years to do it …. 🙂
      
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      July 29, 2026 1:12pm
      - slijmbal
        
        @IB
        
        “If it was a failed policy you’d figure some other gummint might have got rid of it.”
        
        That’s a huge assumption. Policies are created, changed and dropped for all sorts of reasons and frequently politics and votes trump common sense.
        
        The DPB came from admirable reasons as many wives were trapped in loveless marriages, for instance. The issue is the current implementation has, for instance, made fatherhood optional and being a professional single parent a career choice, which are clearly negatives. Few think some sort of welfare isn’t required but many welfare policies suffer from huge scope creep over the base intents.
        
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        July 29, 2026 3:28pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        Not that it keeps me awake at night but not sure what I said to earn downticks. Other than just being me I guess. I was just telling it how it is …. not preaching for it being a good or bad idea
        
        50 years.
        
        Policy has been left largely unchanged. Not because no government noticed – more likely various governments have seen it as sensible and/or untouchable.
        
        50 years of a failed policy would have been dumped by someone .. so your view is a bit out in right field
        
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        July 29, 2026 6:17pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        If you want to know the numbers …https://chatgpt.com/share/6a69a2ec-3640-83ec-b3c8-1f6009388492
        
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        July 29, 2026 6:54pm
- Nukuleka
  
  Ah, that preoccupation you have, mike, with teen girls and their sexual habits. Naughty boy.
  
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  July 29, 2026 8:54am
  - mike
    
    Just a hobby.
    
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    July 29, 2026 9:18am
    - rouppe
      
      Just come back from Rotherham, have you?
      
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      July 29, 2026 9:37am
Yvette

The Greens also propose “devolving resources and decision-making to hapū and iwi” within the immigration system and working towards a Māori Education Authority governing and funding Māori-medium and kaupapa Māori education.

Other proposals include entrenching the Māori electoral seats, applying Māori data and AI governance frameworks throughout the public sector, and giving iwi and hapū partnership roles in government decision-making.

The party would also empower the Waitangi Tribunal to make binding recommendations returning Crown and private land, while exploring a right-of-first-refusal process enabling private land to be returned to iwi, hapū or whānau when it is offered for sale.
https://centrist.nz/for-all-of-us-greens-propose-citizenship-and-public-powers-based-on-whakapapa/?

What exactly does “devolving decision making within the immigration system” mean?
The Maori Seats were established for reasons (individual land ownership qualifications to vote) which no longer exist?
And how would a Māori Education Authority compare to a Maori Health Authority in terms of societal division?

“It’s not easy being Green” – Kermit the Frog’
Surely life would be easier to not be Green at all.
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July 29, 2026 8:25am
- keepcalmcarryon
  
  Far far more sinister is the first right of private land sales to iwi. That is literally Zimbabwe.
  
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  July 29, 2026 9:01am
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    You spelt “racist” wrong!
    
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    July 29, 2026 3:56pm
  - rouppe
    
    What does “devolving resources and decision-making to hapū and iwi” mean?
    
    Up at Turoa skiing at the moment. Riding up the chair with a bloke got to talking.
    
    He lives here.
    
    So I asked him “do you think Ohakune is being successful in transitioning to a summer destination as well as winter?”
    
    First thing he said: “There is so much potential for mountain biking but it’s blocked by the iwi unless they get a payment”.
    
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    July 29, 2026 5:13pm
    - R
      
      Sums up the NZ economic problem exactly. Racist blackmail.
      
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      July 29, 2026 7:27pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  You can bet your bottom dollar that the first Maori-led immigration policy would be that anyone with a scrap of Maori blood, no matter how many generations distant, would be entitled to an Aotearoan passport. Other ethnicities would not be accorded the same right.
  
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  July 29, 2026 9:14am
  - pdm
    
    Bollocks I would not be an applicant.
    
    I only want a New Zealand Passport but, if I cannot get one of them I am (as far as I am aware) still entitled to a British Passport by virtue of my father being born in Scotland.
    
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    July 29, 2026 10:37am
    - ISeeRed
      
      Same. Get a British one before you lose the right forever.
      
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      July 29, 2026 10:51am
- Damocles11
  
  If you’re a Maori activist you’ll be thinking; “Who needs the radical Te Pati Maori when we have the even more radical Green Party”.
  
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  July 29, 2026 10:00am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  The party would also empower the Waitangi Tribunal to make binding recommendations returning Crown and private land,….
  
  Crown Land comprises about 44% of NZ.
  It is land administered for the benefit of all NZers.
  
  Not all of it is publicly accessible, but currently NZers have access to 66% of Crown-held lands.
  
  https://www.odt.co.nz/news/report-measures-nzs-public-outdoor-access-wldjl3wg
  
  This is land that the Greens and Te Pāti Maori want transferred to local iwi and hapu.
  
  Tamihere said the party wanted all “full and final” settlements abolished along with the “large natural groupings” approach to recognising mana whenua groups. Conservation land would be returned to whānau, hapū and iwi Māori.
  
  https://www.teaonews.co.nz/2020/09/29/maori-party-launches-radical-25-year-plan/
  
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  July 29, 2026 10:36am
  - Raphael
    
    There is the persistant myth that somehow Iwi are automatically better at Conservation than anyone else.
    But their track record remains abysmal.
    
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    July 29, 2026 10:50am
    - alphabeatrium
      
      The moa, native geese, adzebills, ducks and rails would concur…
      
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      July 29, 2026 3:46pm
    - Quail
      
      Raphael,
      The problem Iwi now have in managing extra conservation lands is that their management corporations have been largely taken over by other ethnicities (European,English,Irish etc ).
      So they are now very short of their ancestral knowledge and skills.
      Indeed they are just like other land managers.
      
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      July 29, 2026 6:08pm
  - Ian Boag
    
    Yawn. Dreams are free ….
    
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    July 29, 2026 5:13pm
- imalwaysright
  
  Co-governance is a misnomer in the context of Maori-White participation.
  
  There will be no “Co” anything, no “partnership”, no flipping a coin to break a deadlock…..
  
  It will be Maori Governance.
  
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  July 29, 2026 11:12am
  - Pope Punctilious II
    
    Correct, “co-governance” has always been a euphemism.
    
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    July 29, 2026 7:45pm
Im Right

The green party are no different to the maori party, they suffer terribly with ‘white guilt’, I cannot recall a maori party policy/statement they have disagreed with.
This is a big problem for Labour, they were kicked out due to co governance and 3 waters, He Puapau was not even allowed to be seen by the public as it would have shocked the non maori population I have no doubt.
Labour have basically 2 maori parties to their left, panic will be setting in.
The only consolidation is that Labour treat the greens like a red headed step child, as they know they have nowhere else to go, and get crumbs as a result, portfolios outside government.
Maori party and the greens should amalgamate as in paper they are basically the same.
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July 29, 2026 8:44am
- nz_aj
  
  Similarly TOP party policy.
  
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  July 29, 2026 1:46pm
Tomtoddy

Recent visits to the hydro dam systems in the South Island confirmed what a great asset they are for energy generation but as a playground, tourist facility and landscape improvement. How absurdly insane and short-sighted has been the green ideology that stopped more from being built.

Then I came north and looked in disgust at the huge, ugly monstrosities blighting the hills not moving, subsidised but unable to produce electricity when it is most needed.

Why have we let the country get to a point where we need more generation, have rivers that could have been harnessed, more community assets that could have been built, have natural gas potential under-explored, have Cook Strait cables that are soon to be stuffed, nuclear out of our financial reach and political parties claiming we need to build even more useless, intermittent generation?

Is it too late to fast track some of the existing hydro potential?
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July 29, 2026 8:50am
- pdm
  
  Sorry TT downtick by mistake.
  
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  July 29, 2026 9:01am
- Jack5
  
  How much NZ hydro potential is untapped?
  
  How much water falls on the catchments of potential hydro-dam rivers? How much snow?
  
  Our mountains don’t match hydro-power rich Norways in favourable, deep, dam-mable valleys.
  
  Geothermal has potential, but much more the CSG gas that could be fracked from the billions of tons of NZ coal reserves, as they do in Queensland, which will likely be a source of our imported LNG?
  
  If our coal and its CSG remain untouchable because of Green prejudices, thermal generation iṡ already providing a fifth or so of our power, and could provide more.
  
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  July 29, 2026 9:34am
  - cmm (semi-retired edition)
    
    It isn’t just the amount of water, but the fall too.
    The same water can be run through many turbines extracting as you go.
    We see that in the Benmore/Aviemore/Waitaki chain along the Waitaki River. Lake Waitaki is still 200m above sea level, so that’s still 200 metres of head that can be harvested (ie. approx 2x the output of Benmore which operates with about 90m head).
    
    Of course there is more to it than that,…
    
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    July 29, 2026 9:59am
  - cmm (semi-retired edition)
    
    Jack, the biggest energy reserves we have are the lignite deposits in Southland.
    
    There is enough coal there to provide ALL NZ’s energy needs for over 300 years.
    
    By ALL, I mean:
    * Create all the electricity we need (many times over).
    * Use coal to liquid fuel technology to make all the diesel, petrol and jet fuel we need – and spare for export.
    * All the chemical feedstocks such as methanol for plastic production, fertizers, etc etc for our own industry and export.
    
    We are energy rich. We’re just choosing to not dig it up.
    
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    July 29, 2026 10:05am
    - David Garrett
      
      cmm: and we have both the Green Party and greenies generally who are implacably determined to keep it in the ground
      
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      July 29, 2026 11:04am
      - R
        
        ‘in the ground’; as does the Labour Party quietly! They don’t want to frighten their brethren, remember the undisclosed Te PuaPua policy.
        
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        July 29, 2026 11:21am
    - Quail
      
      CMM,
      Worse than that ,there are no known plans or intent in place to start rebuilding energy generation.
      Hydro, Tidal , Solar , Wind , Geo thermal, lignite and coal on shore .
      Who knows what is off shore?
      There is a choice —- make it
      But no one in NZ has the courage to make a plan and go for it.
      If they don’t try they don’t lose. So they keep doing nothing.
      The last one to give it a go was Muldoon and he really achieved!
      NZ needs strong leadership now!
      Where is it?
      
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      July 29, 2026 8:01pm
  - gravedodger
    
    Westpower has final consent for the Run of River scheme on the Waitaha in conjunction with some of native genetics.
    It captures water that falls rapidly around a Horseshoe feature that was initially opposed by the miniscule number of people who actually may have known where the site for development was located, likely much less than one percent of one percent of the Population!
    
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    July 29, 2026 11:56am
    - Ian Boag
      
      I think it’s good for about 20 MW. The country runs on something like 5000 MW most days. So for all that every little helps, this one would really not move the dial ….
      
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      July 29, 2026 1:15pm
      - keepcalmcarryon
        
        Maybe a half a data Centre
        
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        July 29, 2026 1:29pm
- H. Upmann
  
  Then again there is always the option to go mini – https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/us-firm-unveils-game-changing-small-nuclear-reactor
  
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  July 29, 2026 9:38am
  - jonno1
    
    I agree that two or three 300MWe SMRs would be ideal for NZ, but for a residential ADMD of around 3kWe that’s more like 100,000 households’ base load for each.
    
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    July 29, 2026 5:58pm
- imalwaysright
  
  This is why control of infrastructure should be taken away from politicians.
  
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  July 29, 2026 11:17am
- nz_aj
  
  The original Project Aqua damming the river mouth was 500MW. But building more hydo or wind is just making the dry year problem worse, as wind is also low in a dry year. We need to build more Goethermal, fossil fuel or nuclear to ensure supply during winter peak.
  
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  July 29, 2026 1:51pm
NeverMindTheBollocks

A number of iwi want Central North Island Councils to be reorganised along iwi boundaries, to better control the new Council decisions.

Though they didn’t say that last bit out loud.

http://www.rnz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/818541/iwi-proposal-would-reshape-councils-around-mountains-and-rivers
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July 29, 2026 8:50am
- OlderChas
  
  Surely traditional iwi boundaries changed every time another iwi came in to yours and ate the survivors?
  
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  July 29, 2026 6:20pm
Southern Raider

Teachers with blurred out faces on the news last night complaining the new education syllabus is harmful and too complicated for students.

I think the issue is squarely at the competency (or lack of) of our union protected low performing teachers.
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July 29, 2026 8:51am
- cmm (semi-retired edition)
  
  ” too complicated for students”
  
  Sounds like projection…
  
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  July 29, 2026 9:46am
  - Master Mariner
    
    Carl Jung nailed it 100 plus years ago.
    Once you see it you cant un see it.
    
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    July 29, 2026 12:08pm
  - OlderChas
    
    Yep – I don’t think it is the students that it is too complicated for !
    
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    July 29, 2026 6:21pm
- Taieri
  
  too complicated for students
  ————–
  
  Perhaps it’s too complicated for teachers…
  
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  July 29, 2026 9:49am
  - imalwaysright
    
    NZ must be the only country in the world where some teacher graduates are incapable of gaining a secondary level maths and/or science certificate.
    
    The blind leading the blind.
    
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    July 29, 2026 2:26pm
- Philview
  
  I recall the Helen Clark Labour Government reforms and shift away from teaching facts to teaching children how to use the internet. We would go to parent teacher meetings and hear about “student led learning”. It might suit some children but my own didn’t have a clue how to navigate through this process. I remember a young female teacher saying it wasn’t working for the boys so she just focused on the girls. We ended up having to pay a fortune on private tutors for maths. I remember a letter coming home from school complaining that students were learning outdated teaching methods in maths from personal tutors and parents. The outdated methods actually made sense to the children.
  
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  July 29, 2026 10:01am
  - David Garrett
    
    Phil: That last sentence is almost Orwellian…all teachers should be concerned about is what the kids have learned…HOW that was achieved should be totally irrelevant.
    
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    July 29, 2026 11:08am
  - R
    
    ‘made sense to the children’, but didn’t promote the ‘dumbing down’ AGENDA of the education activists
    
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    July 29, 2026 11:25am
- Damocles11
  
  Jack Tame’s other half ‘reporting’ (leading the charge) on behalf of the radicalised labourite teachers.
  
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  July 29, 2026 10:03am
- EssenX
  
  The new syllabus, based on Singapore’s as I understand it, is hard. It’s going to be a big jump for a lot of students and hard work for the teachers to get them to meet the standard. It’s a wonderful world we live in where the teachers think that’s a bad thing and the media repeats it.
  
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  July 29, 2026 10:03am
  - Southern Raider
    
    Personally I have more faith in our students being able to adapt than a lot of the current teachers.
    
    There seems to be several different types of teachers
    – competent in their subject matter and can teach eg get the concepts understood. These are the ones we want
    – competent in their subject matter but cant actually teach to save themselves. A lot of maths teachers are in this camp
    – not competent in all areas but can teach. Should be restricted to only areas they are good at
    – not competent and can’t teach. Probably the most vocal union members and should be gotten rid of first.
    
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    July 29, 2026 10:20am
- R
  
  Complicated….for the teachers, or the students?
  
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  July 29, 2026 10:49am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  “Students will be harmed” – Flashed across our screens by TVNZ last night.
  
  https://www.1news.co.nz/2026/07/28/students-will-be-harmed-teachers-react-to-governments-new-curriculum/
  
  Well, exactly how many students will be harmed?
  2 students or 98% of them?
  The item was evidence free, and why should I place any faith in the opinion of a teacher who won’t front up to the public with solid reasons for her view.
  
  Personally I thrived on knowledge-based learning and loathed touch-feely, open-ended, expressionist shite.
  
  I get that you can’t please all students all the time, but I’m damn glad that I had teachers who corrected my poor grammar and marked me low when I couldn’t get my sums correct.
  
  There’s something rather tragic when I see 14 year-olds struggling to read little books written at a reading level of 8 years old, or try to explain to a Year 9 pupil why 27 minus 18 is not 11.
  
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  July 29, 2026 11:11am
- imalwaysright
  
  “…the new education syllabus is harmful…”
  
  Can’t be any more harmful than the harm done by the current teacher cohort.
  
  School leavers at our local college openly declare that they can’t wait to qualify for the dole.
  
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  July 29, 2026 11:21am
- AitchW
  
  They clearly have a very low opinion of their students. I dare them to sit in front of individual parents and say that. Lazy, indoctrinated, and well overpaid.
  
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  July 29, 2026 4:47pm
NeverMindTheBollocks

Here’s today’s episode of recent migrants exploiting other recent migrants. In a surprise to no one, all of those involved come from India.

At what point does Immigration acknowledge that these are neither isolated cases nor systemic but are cultural practices?

http://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/808413/thames-four-square-owner-forced-migrant-workers-to-pay-120-000-to-secure-jobs
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July 29, 2026 8:54am
- Southern Raider
  
  It’s absolutely rampant and Govts won’t do anything about it.
  
  Supermarkets, bottle shops, vape stores and fast food outlets are just a Ponzi scheme based around work Visa’s for cash.
  
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  July 29, 2026 10:21am
  - Raphael
    
    And there is no valid reason I can see for any of those to be accredited employers. (Maybe for a specialist in their head office, but not for the local shops)
    
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    July 29, 2026 10:55am
    - EssenX
      
      Is there any evidence that these roles in these shops are accredited?
      
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      July 29, 2026 11:18am
      - Raphael
        
        To be able to hire the workers on a work visa, the shops need to be accredited. (There was an outcry a few months ago at vape shops and fastfood joints being on the accredited list.)
        
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        July 29, 2026 3:12pm
  - Philview
    
    I like the Indians I have dealings with but I do wonder about certain things. For example there has been a massive influx to staff the crews who work on power/telephone lines. It may well have been reported in the media but there must have been a recruitment drive to attract thousands for this work around the country. I live in a fairly rural location and at first it was an odd sight to see van loads of Indians show up to work on a pylon.
    
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    July 29, 2026 11:05am
    - Taieri
      
      My fibre optic connection was installed by an Indian technician. It work,s but wiring could have been done better esthetically.
      
      Had a new heat pump installed recently, also by Indian technicians. An excellent and very professional job in every respect.
      
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      July 29, 2026 12:13pm
  - kowtow
    
    Mortgage fraud has exploded in NZ.
    
    “There’s been a significant lift there, including active cases before the courts,” she said.
    
    The FMA dealt with about one mortgage fraud complaint a year prior to 2023, which increased to seven in 2024 and 21 in 2025.’
    
    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/815373/significant-lift-in-mortgage-fraud-fma
    
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    July 29, 2026 12:48pm
- R
  
  Introduce the THIRD WORLD into the community, you will get THIRD WORLD STANDARDS and practices. Thank you not, Labour.
  
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  July 29, 2026 11:32am
- Bobba Fret
  
  Hopefully Foodstuffs have terminated them being able to own a Four Square now.
  
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  July 29, 2026 1:16pm
lastmanstanding

I say the Political Elite lack common sense and imagination. Take the Anti-Smacking Bill as but one example. 90% of citizens knew it was a dumb idea and wouldnt fix the problem of violence against children and death. And it didnt. We still have child violence and child deaths. Politicans see every problem as a nail that requires a hammer. They react to problems in a very narrow way rather than thinking through the issues and applying yes common sense. It wont change because they hard wired to do so.
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July 29, 2026 9:02am
- Inandout
  
  last, I think Key dumped the referendum papers supporting smacking. The rest is history.
  
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  July 29, 2026 9:16am
  - imalwaysright
    
    Remember the recent Select Committee on Seymour’s Treaty Principles Bill.
    
    They classed thousands of similar submissions as a single submission.
    
    I know it wasn’t a vote or a referendum, but they did, I think, say that most submissions were against the Bill…
    
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    July 29, 2026 11:26am
    - OlderChas
      
      And from what I saw – nearly every person who served on that committee was against it too. Witness the disgusting behaviour of Maori Party’s Ferris when he sat on it (whilst working from home).
      The Select Committee process – on that particular Bill – was a farce.
      
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      July 29, 2026 6:33pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  All social engineering policies such as this one should have a fixed term review built into them. If after (say) five years the outcomes have not moved in the direction the policy proponents claimed then the legislation should be automatically reversed.
  
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  July 29, 2026 9:17am
- cmm (semi-retired edition)
  
  Why should the political elite care if they still get the votes?
  
  “We still have child violence and child deaths”, ah, yes, but those are now caused by colonialism.
  
  There is no motivation to fix problems. If you fix a problem then there is nothing to milk.
  
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  July 29, 2026 9:40am
Yvette

Many Ngāpuhi hapū view sovereignty as a non-negotiable red line, pointing to the 2014 Waitangi Tribunal finding that northern chiefs did not cede sovereignty in 1840. They demand an explicit clause stating they remain a sovereign nation alongside the Crown.  
Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith maintains that ultimate sovereignty rests with the New Zealand Parliament and democratic public. The government rejects “agree-to-disagree” language as a fundamental constitutional change, arguing a final settlement cannot coexist with an entity that rejects state authority.

Indeed, if Ngāpuhi is negotiating with the Government, surely that means “ultimate sovereignty rests with the New Zealand Parliament and democratic public” – but does that just add to the untenable mess that is New Zealand’s so-called sacred founding document?

The English as an Official New Zealand Language Bill seems utterly unnecessary, simply because it is.

Surely there is a similar but more motivated case for legislation that confirms that the New Zealand Government governs, all citizens have equal responsibilities and rights, and that the Government is secular and favours no religious world view above others.
– a Government statement which need not mention the Treaty, although the fucking mess that is the Treaty prompts such a legal affirmation.

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” – Albert Einstein (who had nothing to do with the Treaty of Waitangi)
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July 29, 2026 9:14am
- cmm (semi-retired edition)
  
  It is obvious that if they had not ceded sovereignty then the crown would owe them nothing. No WINZ, no schools, no medical services etc. They could have all those in their own parallel universe.
  
  We’ve had this bullshit going on for over 180 years. It needs to stop.
  
  Things have changed. We cannot keep referring back to some 1840s text to guide our path in the future. If we do then we’re doomed to be stuck in history.
  
  To do so is as foolish as those Christian extremists who look to the old testament for hints on how to do modern engineering.
  
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  July 29, 2026 9:26am
  - mike
    
    Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
    We cannot keep referring back to some 1840s text to guide our path
    
    Why not?
    Much older texts retain constitutional significance.
    
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    July 29, 2026 9:49am
    - Cassandra
      
      Not all, mike, and the Treaty is one of them. It has served its purpose, NZ was colonised relatively peacefully, now time to bin it.
      
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      July 29, 2026 10:41am
      - imalwaysright
        
        Yes, the Treaty served its one and only purpose the moment the final signature was written.
        No one was forced to sign it.
        
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        July 29, 2026 11:30am
      - Jethrod
        
        That’s right Cass, I see Parliament is considering reviewing legislation that was enacted in the 60’s and is no longer fit for purpose.
        There is no reason why policy that was adopted in the 1840’s shouldn’t face the same review.
        All it needs is several people with large cojons to make the running, a bit like DG did with 3 Strikes!
        Not implying a condition on DG!
        
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        July 29, 2026 1:03pm
      - Steve Otto N Shore
        
        Mike has gone all ‘quiet’
        
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        July 29, 2026 4:22pm
- Nūhaka Native
  
  David Lange summed it up very well about 25 years ago.
  
  He made the point that the Treaty of Waitangi isn’t a “founding document” that settles sovereignty, because the English and Māori texts assert opposite things, and calling it a “partnership between races” (as the Court of Appeal once did) is misguided; it’s plainly not a partnership in that sense.
  
  He wrote:
  “Here I come to the dangers posed by the increasing entrenchment of the treaty in statute. The treaty itself contains no principles which can usefully guide government or courts. It is a bald agreement, anchored in its time and place, and the public interest in it is the same as the public interest in enforcing any properly-made agreement. To go further than that is to acknowledge the existence of undemocratic forms of rights, entitlements, or sovereignty.”
  
  No wonder his legacy (other than the Nuclear Free moment) is not so popular in Labour these days.
  https://www.brucejesson.com/david-lange-2000/
  
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  July 29, 2026 9:58am
  - EssenX
    
    A lot of people in Labour at that time would not be popular with today’s Labourites.
    
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    July 29, 2026 11:20am
  - R
    
    If Lange really believed this statement attributed him, why didn’t he educate the rest of his government (he was the minister of education) and put the Treaty nonsense to rest??
    OR he could have resigned his appointment, and explained that he resigned because the rest of his government wouldn’t accept a TRUTH
    
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    July 29, 2026 11:38am
  - Jethrod
    
    Probably the best thing Lange ever said, apart from his smell of uranium.
    
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    July 29, 2026 1:05pm
  - AitchW
    
    Lange’s erudition was admirable. A great many of our current crop of MPs would do well to emulate him.
    (“Defund da Police” springs to mind.)
    
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    July 29, 2026 4:50pm
- Quail
  
  Yvette,
  As you have said, “ that the NZ Government governs, all citizens should have equal responsibility and rights” etc”
  Absolute correct and must be addressed hopefully sooner rather than later.
  The big question is who among the existing politicians will create the much needed legislation? ACT has tried but needs more support.
  This issue should be an election winner!
  
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  July 29, 2026 10:06am
- Charlotte Wells
  
  I fully support the ngaphui claim to an independent nation.
  
  Just so long as every person so claiming can irrefutably confirm and prove they are 100% ngaphui decent.
  
  Anything less than 100% invalids any claim.
  
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  July 29, 2026 4:56pm
cmm (semi-retired edition)

Just got my rates bill in Christchurch: 4.4% up.

Yes I know that isn’t too bad compared to many other places, but these people really need to learn to keep it to the target 3% inflation rate.
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July 29, 2026 9:19am
- MCōs
  
  The increase in council expenditure is not caused by the same items that are used to measure the official inflation rate.
  Furthermore
  Rates are a reflection of the council’s valuation of your property.
  My rates went down about 10% last year because a new valuation lowered my house value from an inflated figure the time before.
  Btw
  There’s no rates in Bangkok.
  
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  July 29, 2026 10:54am
  - Quail
    
    Mcos,
    FYI
    Councils have their own measure of inflation, not the CPI.
    Pretty handy for them!
    
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    July 29, 2026 1:05pm
  - Graeme Hall
    
    Aren’t council rates a reflection of the relative valuation of your property compared to others?
    
    Council determines how much citizens money it can help itself to next year without a bloody revolt then apportions that amount among the properties based on relative property valuations.
    
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    July 29, 2026 3:52pm
  - KKNZ2025
    
    Property value has nothing to do with council expenditure, water consumption etc its just another Marxist theft.
    
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    July 29, 2026 5:25pm
- nova
  
  Nice for some, our house in Christchurch is up over 7%. 15 years ago, at a previous house, the rates were $1400 and now they are $4400. So the rates have tripled in that time. Christchurch used to be much cheaper than Auckland and is now more expensive.
  
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  July 29, 2026 1:12pm
  - MCōs
    
    New library, stadium, Hagley Oval, earthquake damage . . . .
    
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    July 29, 2026 7:40pm
Bevan

NZ Herald reporting that TOP will get >5% based on their poll of polls.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/election-2026-opportunity-party-will-get-into-parliament-latest-poll-of-poll-forecasts/premium/6EKG3CWZGNHLXFL5IICUGPRDEM/

What I do find interesting is they never reported the Roy Morgan poll which showed the National vote improving, but more than happy to include the RM poll where it suits their narrative.
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July 29, 2026 10:02am
Jack5

Are MP’s honing their interview technique ahead of the general election, 105 days away?

Paul Goldsmith, Media and Communications Minister, late yesterday as the South Island settled into a freeze, spoke about the homeless. He had sympathy — for the shopkeepers whose doors shelter some homeless people.

The Government was taking back the streets from these fuckers who just would not book into hotels, Goldsmith seemed to imply.

My AI says the fine they will be subject to for blocking public access (at night?) would be $1000.

I think Goldsmith talked on TV of a $200 fine.

Most street sleepers folk have no cash or assets except maybe a dirty blanket and a pinched shopping cart.

Many or most of them would be snug in mental hospitals, if, first, there had not been the populist, ignorant campaigns against them; and, second, if the present and recent governments had ignored psych hospitals’ desperate overcrowding and starved them off desperately needed investment.

Goldsmith’s TV NZ appointments

Separtely from this, Goldsmith recently announced two new directors for TVNZ: (Ms) Keren Blakely, a senior PriceWaterhouseCoopers executive accountant; and Mandy Pattinson, who has a law degree and a wide background in Australasian TV.

Goldsmith’s focus is on making TVNZ profitable (it’s not if you discount State deals), rather than addressing TVNZ’s Lefist bias.

Keren Blakely’s background:

https://people.equilar.com/bio/person/keren-blakey-pwc-holding-corp/61871066

Mandy Pattinson’s background:

https://www.nineforbrands.com.au/profile/mandy-pattinson/
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July 29, 2026 10:07am
- Gravelroad
  
  “Most street sleepers folk have no cash or assets except maybe a dirty blanket and a pinched shopping cart.”
  Are you saying that people living on the streets do not qualify for, or have access to, social welfare benefits and payments?
  Is that correct?
  
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  July 29, 2026 10:42am
  - Jack5
    
    Mostly they’re too intellectually or socially retarded to collect and manage it. They don’t have bank accounts!
    
    Often they are schizophrenics, who in another NZ era would be in hospitals. Others are intellectually retarded, or suffering from mental conditions that don’t allow them to function like most people.
    
    Rational people don’t choose to be street sleepers. Their irrationality isn’t a matter of self-choice.
    
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    July 29, 2026 10:51am
    - Graeme Hall
      
      Drug addiction makes people into street sleepers. They often have nowhere to stay because they cannot be trusted not to steal from friends to support their habit.
      
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      July 29, 2026 3:59pm
  - artemisia
    
    There is access to welfare benefits, possibly with help. There is, or used to be, a Street People bank account run by a Wellington charity. Benefits paid into it. We took on a homeless couple as tenants who paid their rent through that account until rent was directed from WINZ.
    
    The tenancy lasted a couple of years. They moved on and we gave them a decent reference, though in the early days quite a lot more support than usual was needed from us.
    
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    July 29, 2026 10:57am
    - Jack5
      
      Good on you Artemisia!
      
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      July 29, 2026 10:59am
    - Gravelroad
      
      It is widely alleged that “street sleepers” spend their days and nights taking illegal drugs, drinking alcohol and maybe smoking cigarettes.
      Just wondering how they fund these habits if they have no cash – or access to money generally?
      
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      July 29, 2026 11:06am
      - David Garrett
        
        Gravel: By begging
        
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        July 29, 2026 11:15am
      - Hugh Jarse
        
        And in Wellington as I have observed, drug dealing, if you watch in the mornings you see the distributor dropping their little bags off which they on sell during the day. They don’t try particularly hard to hide it.
        
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        July 29, 2026 12:25pm
- MCōs
  
  There’s a bloke I see every day asleep or shambling around down at the local shops.
  What he does for food I don’t know, but I expect there are people who look out for him. He doesn’t look like a rocket scientist, but maybe he just couldn’t cope in the normal world one day.
  Who are we to judge
  
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  July 29, 2026 11:10am
  - Taieri
    
    Who are we to judge
    ————
    
    Indeed. Somebody said that the difference between a drinker and an alcoholic is just one drink.
    
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    July 29, 2026 11:59am
- R
  
  Perhaps Goldsmith is changing the TVNZ culture via the back door.
  
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  July 29, 2026 11:42am
Yvette

He Puapau was not even allowed to be seen by the public as it would have shocked the non maori population I have no doubt – Im Right [above, 8:44]

Māori Development Minister Willie Jackson delayed submitting the draft He Puapua response plan to Cabinet because he stated he was not comfortable with about 20 percent of what the advisory group proposed. He asked the governance group to revise those sections so the policy would be acceptable to his Cabinet colleagues.

Willie Jackson is delaying taking a draft United Nations’ Declaration Plan to Cabinet because he knows ministers won’t support it.

The completed draft plan was scheduled to go before Cabinet for approval this month so the rest of New Zealand could then be consulted on the proposed recommendations. Māori were consulted first and the feedback received from the 70 hui across the country was used to inform the proposals. … “Language is everything and, in my view, we have to be very careful about this because this is a government response to the declaration” – Willie Jackson
https://newsroom.co.nz/2022/06/29/jackson-not-comfortable-with-co-governance-draft/

This is a position where, after selected Maori elite had responded, one man: Willie Jackson assumed editorship over that response, asking for his own reservations to he exercised.
This is a man who has ranted over the “tyranny of the majority”, while he exercised a “tyranny of the minority” – which is more insidious than what David Seymour and ACT were accused of.
While they were damned for suggesting changes to the Treaty principles, Willie Jackson and the Labour Coalition were doing exactly the same thing – even although National in 2010 in accepting UNDRIP had stipulated the Treaty would define the extent of New Zealand’s engagement with UNDRIP. Anything else goes beyond the Treaty

There are two alternatives in the upcoming Election
• a vote for a coalition which will advance UNDRIP
• or vote for a coalition that won’t
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July 29, 2026 10:17am
- DimChappie
  
  “Or a vote for a coalition that won’t” – the ruling Coalition which just inserted a clause affirming UNDRIP in the India FTA. Those saying it was put in secretly by some unknown bureaucrat are lying. Every word in that agreement was discussed at length by both teams, hence the Indian disclaimer about indigenous people.
  
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  July 29, 2026 3:56pm
Damocles11

The MSM are trying ever so hard to get TOP into Parliament. It’s media contrived ‘Jacindamania’ all over again, this time on behalf of another young female leader. Airbrushed photo’s and friendly softball interviews. “Is TOP centrist? We ask their leader Qiulae Wong.” Yeah, she’s not going to sing from her own song sheet, is she. 🥴
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July 29, 2026 10:19am
- Philview
  
  Are there voters out there not really bothered which side of the fence Opportunity will align to after the election? Per the discussion on the Platform Opportunity are picking up younger support who must lean left.
  
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  July 29, 2026 11:13am
  - Nigel Kearney
    
    Yes there are voters that ignorant and plenty of them. Welcome to MMP. Have a nice day (if not an economically successful one).
    
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    July 29, 2026 11:56am
    - Ian Boag
      
      Blooddy MMP. Brought Greens, ACT, NZF into parliament. Life was simpler when there was just Labour and National and you didn’t even need to have the most votes to get elected ….
      
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      July 29, 2026 1:21pm
      - Swifty
        
        Bring back FPP!
        
        3 3
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        July 29, 2026 6:10pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        Showing your age. Anyone who has seen an FPP election is nearly 50. Give it 20 years or so and quite a few ex-FPP voters will be dead or dotty. We need to keep having referenda because two is not enough .. :=)
        
        In support of your idead you could point people at the last UK election where 30-odd% of the vote got 60-odd% of the parliament. Great idea …. if you think ACT/NZF are useful they would not be there with seats in an FPP parliament … ditto for the Greens. National would not bother gifting a seat to ACT because it would just turn into one (that they would have taken anyway) not five …
        
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        July 29, 2026 6:28pm
      - Quail
        
        IB,
        You forget Social Credit and a Green Party!
        
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        July 29, 2026 6:33pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        I think you mean “Values” …. 🙂
        
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        July 29, 2026 6:38pm
  - Quail
    
    As someone posted yesterday “TOP equals Tax Old People.”
    The fact that these people and their crazy ideas get anywhere the levers of power is down to one thing,
    The democratic disaster that is MMP!
    
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    July 29, 2026 1:13pm
    - Ian Boag
      
      democratic disaster that is MMP
      
      We need to be like the UK where 35% of the vote got 65% of the seats because Farage split the right vote. Democracy in action. Conservative voters there beef about it but aren’t willing to look at PR. Bob Jones did something similar here in 1984 even though he won no seats. He didn’t seem all that worried …
      
      I’ll stick with “a vote is a vote is a vote regardless of where it is cast”. Perhaps you might explain why MMP is undemocratic? All ears ….
      
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      July 29, 2026 6:34pm
- nz_aj
  
  TOP policy (not what Gareth Morgan says in interviews, and doesn’t get corrected on) is all left wing to communist. It’s nothing like centrist, and there’s nothing right wing.
  TOP don’t have a flat taxes policy, it’s progressive like now. Plus more new tax. And UBI
  
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  July 29, 2026 1:59pm
- KKNZ2025
  
  Another “pretty communist”
  
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  July 29, 2026 5:21pm
Jack5

Filed too late last night to be noticed …

Ahoy personal computer playmates!

An excellent 22 minute video on how you can run your own AI on your own PC or laptop, even if it doesn’t have a graphics card!

It’s graphic-card technology that seems to power the AI industry — in vast centres, but also in home computers. It’s the technology that’s made little PC games video-card maker NVidia into one of the world’s biggest companies, with a current sharemarket value of $NZ8.1 trillion (8,100,000,000,000 NZ dollars!).

But this video shows how to use the technology on a PC – or laptop – without a video card; that is, with just integrated video. Specifically the video is about running Gemma 4 AI models in LM studio. Open Source (free) stuff.

https://youtu.be/U6_ZbW97-GY?si=yDWz8tjPBynhp_Su
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July 29, 2026 10:45am
Pope Punctilious II

Good work by Health Minister Simeon Brown, countering ideological capture of the Medical Council by appointing two people who don’t subscribe to progressive moral theology.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/361012647/second-free-speech-union-figure-appointed-regulate-doctors-after-meeting-minister
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July 29, 2026 10:49am
rouppe

NZ First candidate George Ngatai on “what is a woman”.

“a female that know where to shop for clothes and shoes and chocolates”

Good grief.
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July 29, 2026 11:23am
- Ian
  
  Perhaps he is being a bit tongue in cheek. At least the Cambridge dictionary still defines precisely what a female is….
  
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  July 29, 2026 2:03pm
- Nūhaka Native
  
  George Ngatai probably needs some media training. But what he wrote in his Facebook post is clearly meant as a joke.
  
  In the Stuff article, they can’t even give the actual wording of the Definitions of Woman and Man Amendment Bill correctly.
  
  The Bill simply says:
  
  13AMeaning of woman or female
  
  In any legislation, regardless of gender identity,—
  (a)
  woman means an adult human biological female; and
  (b)
  female means a human biological female.
  13BMeaning of man or male
  
  In any legislation, regardless of gender identity,—
  (a)
  man means an adult human biological male; and
  (b)
  male means a human biological male.
  
  https://www.legislation.govt.nz/bill/members/2026/296/en/latest/#LMS1587316
  
  A pretty reasonable thing to state in law in my opinion.
  
  Meanwhile, in Australia, businesses that want to cater for female only clients (for pretty good reasons) get sued by misogynistic voyeurs.
  
  What world do you want to live in?
  
  https://7news.com.au/news/gold-coast-pole-dancing-studio-queens-of-pole-sued-for-30000-over-transgender-woman-ban-c-22636293
  
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  July 29, 2026 3:42pm
Ghost

God meta are painful to deal with. Over 2 weeks to get access back to a hacked account. Encrypted messages, supposedly secured with a pin all deleted. Group chats, secured with a pin deleted.
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July 29, 2026 11:58am
Maggy Wassilieff

Why hide your talents under a ~~burka~~ bushell?

https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/361012390/green-candidate-uses-bikini-baddies-and-buff-bros-encourage-voting
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July 29, 2026 4:13pm
- AitchW
  
  The lady in the first photo seems to be a walking ad for breast augmentation…..
  Pretty basic stuff from the Greens, not sure how it fits with their feminist ideals.
  
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  July 29, 2026 4:56pm
Swifty

Scummy behaviour from the PSA.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/politics/830007/public-service-boss-tells-union-to-pull-change-the-government-postcards-from-workplaces

No surprise there.
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July 29, 2026 6:05pm

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