General Debate 24 August 2026

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Southern Raider

On the weekend we first had a policemen critically injured by two teenagers driving a stolen car

Then two young girls violently assaulted and robbed by a large group of teenagers

Teenagers aren’t stupid. They know the rules and they know the justice system and especially Youth Court are weak and will let them off almost anything
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August 24, 2026 8:31am
Yvette

Sorry about the length, but feel the depth,
or scroll on by

■ Act leader David Seymour made it clear he would not bring back the Treaty Principles Bill but said what it stood for – ‘equal legal rights in a democratic society’ – would be given life in another form

Act is also taking aim at recent Supreme Court decisions, which Seymour said had “widely expanded the use of tikanga in law” in the Peter Ellis case and “pushed the line further than Parliament ever legislated” in Smith v Fonterra and the Marine and Coastal Area Act cases.
https://newsroom.co.nz/2026/08/24/act-takes-aim-at-supreme-court-activism-and-treaty-clauses/?

The court case which wasn’t, but is one ACT could concentrate on –

The charges against Te Wehi Ratana for the 2023 vandalism of Te Papa’s Treaty of Waitangi exhibition were dismissed in March 2026 because the Crown Solicitor determined it was no longer in the “public interest” to proceed to a jury trial.

The Incident (December 2023): Activist Te Wehi Ratana, alongside the Māori protest group Te Waka Hourua, entered Te Papa Tongarewa museum. They used an angle grinder and spray paint to deface the large English-text panel of the Treaty of Waitangi exhibit, claiming it misled the public.

Ratana was charged with intentional damage to an art installation and obstructing a police officer.

Shortly before the scheduled jury trial, Ratana’s defense lawyer presented the Crown with a draft of their expert witness evidence.

Public Interest Ruling:
After reviewing this evidence and engaging in discussions, the Crown Solicitor decided to withdraw the case. While prosecutors believed they had enough evidence to prove the crimes occurred, they ruled that taking the highly political, high-profile case through a full jury trial was not in the public interest.

Judicial Dismissal:
Rather than just letting the Crown “withdraw” the case (which would leave the door open to refile charges later), the Wellington District Court Judge officially dismissed the charges completely to bring a permanent end to the matter.

________________

The Tikanga Statement
Te Wehi Ratana’s uncle, Te Ururoa Flavell submitted an official “statement of tikanga” (Māori customary values and practices) to the defence.

The Core Argument
His evidence connected traditional tikanga directly to the protest. It reframed the defacing of the exhibit not as random vandalism, but as a culturally justified challenge against institutional misinformation regarding Te Tiriti o Waitangi (The Treaty of Waitangi).
[to determine the validity of that would ‘tikanga’ and the ‘Treaty’ need to be ‘put on trial’]?

The Impact
When the defence lawyer passed this draft evidence to the Crown, it altered the course of the legal battle. After reviewing Flavell’s expert framework, the Crown Solicitor determined that taking the case to a full jury trial was no longer in the public interest, leading to the total dismissal of the charges.

The case was most likely dismissed [dropped forever] because tikanga may have lead to a “not guilty” verdict.
If accurate: not a good precedent to set?
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August 24, 2026 8:38am
- Nikola Donatello
  
  It is just horrifying. But why has the Government not legislated to kill this?
  
  What happens if I get beaten up because I look at a large Maori man the wrong way? How long before tikanga is mounted as a defence?
  
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  August 24, 2026 8:43am
  - Inandout
    
    KD, until Luxon realises that there is a large untapped catchment out there which shudders at the special treatment they see given to all things Maori, well he deserves to lose.
    
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    August 24, 2026 8:49am
    - pdm
      
      The interesting thing will be whether the ACT polling will jump given they are the only Party that is remotely serious about trying to solve the problem.
      
      I cannot help but think there is going to be no improvement while `the ditherer’ Paul Goldsmith holds the Justice Portfolio.
      
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      August 24, 2026 9:20am
  - R
    
    Seems to me that on many occasions ‘tokanga’ is already a defence excuse; and appears to be accepted by a percentage of Judges.
    
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    August 24, 2026 9:17am
  - Simon
    
    “But why has the Government not legislated to kill this?”
    
    Lol. Keep voting National
    
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    August 24, 2026 9:22am
  - Yvette
    
    Nikola Donatello – How long before tikanga is mounted as a defence?
    
    Nikola, it is assumed that a tikanga defence has been the case in this case, Ratana / te Papa, which has been ‘dismissed’ – apparently a legal definition meaning the case may never be bought again.
    
    So might tikanga – not allowing mokopuna to suffer – be a legitimate defence for stealing to feed your children? Robbin’ hood?
    
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    August 24, 2026 9:25am
- lastmanstanding
  
  The NZ Initiative say if 11% of Nat supporters in safe Nat seats give their Party vote to ACT or NZF the Coalition would retain Government. I would go further and suggest ACT and NZF supporters in those seats do likewise. This would make the task that much easier. As a long time resident of East Coast Bays since MMP I have always split my vote electorate Nats and Party ACT. I suggest Nat/ACT/NZF supporters spread the word.
  
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  August 24, 2026 9:06am
  - pdm
    
    I have done the same in Tukituki in every election but one since 1996. The exception was 2014 when I made the mistake of Party Voting National to prevent a change of Government.
    
    I definitely did not expect John Key to step down before the 2017 election when I voted that way.
    
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    August 24, 2026 9:23am
- imalwaysright
  
  It won’t be long before ‘Maori’ activists walk into the Supreme Court and evict and replace the sitting judges by reason of tikanga.
  
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  August 24, 2026 9:12am
Maggy Wassilieff

Rodney Hide is well over listening to the single source of truth:

In New Zealand the mainstream press amplified the overseas consensus rather than scrutinising it. Sceptics were framed as threats to public
health. Legitimate questions about transparency were treated as heresy.

https://www.brashandmitchell.com/post/rodney-hide-the-single-source-of-truth-collapses
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August 24, 2026 8:45am
- Simon
  
  Sorry it’s rubbish. 4 or 5 yrs too late.
  
  Timing matters. Some public figures at the time may have considered the Covid response to be insane. But they kept quiet.
  
  National party were totally on board with the craziness, deeply jealous that Ardern got 50 % of the vote in 2020. When if it weren’t for Peters in 2017 National could been head of the entire Covid circus.
  
  National deeply jealous of Ardern during the Covid years.
  
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  August 24, 2026 8:55am
- mike
  
  Still banging that drum, is he?
  
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  August 24, 2026 8:56am
  - imalwaysright
    
    Would you prefer dumb compliance?
    
    A fourth term Ardern Regime perhaps?
    
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    August 24, 2026 9:01am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    It’s only 6 days since Dr David Morens admitted his role in concealing evidence about USA’s funding of Bat research at the Wuhan lab.
    
    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/19/former-fauci-covid-adviser-pleads-guilty
    
    Perhaps you are no longer concerned about the single point of truth, but I’m a fan of discovering why so many of us jumped on the Covid bandwagon.
    
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    August 24, 2026 9:05am
    - mike
      
      The exact origins of the virus might never be known, and in any event were irrelevant to the NZ response.
      
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      August 24, 2026 9:14am
      - Ian Boag
        
        And there were some moderately (!) spectacular photos out of Italy and the US …. hard to ignore at the time even if the hindsight-prophets can now tell us how they knew better even then 🙂
        
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        August 24, 2026 9:21am
  - I remember when
    
    It’s called drumming it in.
    
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    August 24, 2026 9:29am
kowtow

Headline today that some 19% of pupils leave school with no qualifications under NCEA.
I recall the activists managed to get NCEA introduced a genertion ago because some 20% of pupils left school with no qualifications because it was then exam based .

How many billions of dollars was wasted on that particular “progressive” boondoggle and now in fixing something that wasn’t broken.
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August 24, 2026 8:46am
Simon

NZ with its “infrastructure pressures”. Direct result of low wage immigration.
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August 24, 2026 8:50am
Tomtoddy

I keep wondering what influences voters and leads to their determining which party to support. Part of the answer is obvious, but part is a little trickier to understand.

There is something called the NZ Election Study that has been researching voter issues for several decades. I have no idea of its accuracy and freedom from bias. It shows that the 6.00pm TV News is still the biggest overall influence on voters who are deciding who to support, but for low income, less educated voters it is much more important.

For the lower income, less educated voters the exposure, exposure, exposure aspect is much greater BUT only if it is not immediately and clearly linked to negativity. So, if the headline with his picture is “PM makes yet another gaffe at public meeting” the effect is negative but if the headline is “Christopher Luxon was speaking to a large audience in Tauranga today where he outlined the party policy on taxation issue. His comments included some remarks described later as ‘misspeaking’ then the influence could be positive – just exposure. The way that same facts are presented is critical to some lower class voters.

That accords with Opportunity’s mysterious rise. TVNZ gave them exposure but put the critical analysis deeper into its presentations where lower class voters never go. TVNZ claims balance but knows how to ensure the ‘balance’ can be used to suit its bias.
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August 24, 2026 8:58am
Nūhaka Native

4-headed Hydra on the cards.

The media darlings, also known as TOP, hold the balance of power in the latest RNZ-Reid poll, squeezing in on a plausible 5.3 per cent. Raising the prospect of a four-party left-wing coalition after November, with Te Pati Māori also in a pivotal position, a recipe, some would say, for total chaos.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/politics_election-2026/1094006/national-s-pain-is-no-gain-for-labour-in-latest-rnz-reid-research-poll
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August 24, 2026 9:11am
- Ian Boag
  
  3 heads, 4 heads – who cares? Oh for the good old days when 35% of the vote got over 50% of the seats and a sensible (?) benign dictatorship. If one could call Piggy “benign” ….
  
  And the problem for those who want to go back is that NZF, ACT would disappear. Probably the Greens too.
  
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  August 24, 2026 9:28am
I remember when

The horror when your side turns on you: The Spectator.

Among the Facebook comments on this Arday article.

“When Sir Edmund Hillary was climbing up Mt Everest he passed Jason Arday on the way down.”
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August 24, 2026 9:23am
Im Right

Watch TOPs poll rise stall and fall over the next month or so.
The media hyped them up, and some probing interviewing along with more digging into their policies has found it’s not as rosy as the voters believed.
They plan to cut thousands of govt workers as the UBI will require less govt employees to administer the current plethora of welfare payments available.
This is a big red flag to the left and as such the TOP shine has tarnished somewhat.
Then it was found out the TOP board could veto the party’s parliament MPs policy (this has been quickly changed and removed from their party constitution).
Also, if there was a new party with the popularity TOP has enjoyed, but had prior links to partners/MPs of the right wing, how long do you think the headlines would have been front and centre of the news cycle? …weeks!
But seemingly TOPs links to the Labour party isn’t that newsworthy.
Go figure….
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August 24, 2026 9:23am
Colville

I have been leaving a few comments on Stuffed TOP article..

I have found out thru trial and error (and a fake account) that you can use “Aunty” and “Helen” together 🙂

I saw another comment say you cant use “tinfoil and hat” together !
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August 24, 2026 9:26am
Ghost

WTF. Truly some sick people out there.

At Port Aventura World’s Caribe Aquatic Park on the Costa Dorada this week, lifeguards evacuated both the adult and children’s pools after detecting human faeces in the water.

The incident, reported on a Tuesday afternoon and allegedly repeated the next day, left the popular resort’s aquatic areas shut for the remainder of the day under strict health protocols.

In recent years, Foreign Instagram & TikTok users have taken it upon themselves to try and get public pools to close by defecating in the water.

Article
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August 24, 2026 9:27am
- Ian Boag
  
  I think it happens more often than we realise.
  
  Years ago we were at a hotel in Vegas when there was a code brown and the pool was drained. Given the relative size of the pool and the turds might have been a bit OTT.
  
  May have been a kid. I was at a pool in Sydney when one happened near closing time. Staff scooped it out 🙂
  
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  August 24, 2026 9:33am
pdm

Is this guy right?

` No you missed the boat where Parliament is a whole right? As a whole it is the job of the Executive branch ONLY to make laws. Parliament as a WHOLE debates and passes Bills.
Government get that sovereignty from whom? The people, evidenced in the right to vote? The Crown? Who is the Crown?
Read Halsburys Law on Parliaments sovereignty in NZ buddy’

I am debating with him on Facebook and I say Parliament is the sole writer and passer of laws in New Zealand and that the role of the courts is to administer and apply them.
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August 24, 2026 9:34am

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