General Debate 09 September 2026

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Scott

This from the Daily Mail recently – “More than 60,000 arrested in ‘chilling curb of free speech’ as report exposes social media policing” :

https://mol.im/a/16108341 via https://dailym.ai/android

In the last 5 years in the UK over 60,000 people have been arrested over their social media posts. Sometimes 6 police officers will appear at the door to arrest someone over their social media posts.

The police have become incredibly zealous about speech crimes and thought crimes while generally not attending to actual crimes like theft and burglary.

As people have noted in the article’s comments, the UK now has no free speech while also having out of control crimes of theft and violence. In China by contrast they have no free speech but they also have low crime and safe streets. In the UK they have the worst of both worlds, you can’t speak freely and you have unsafe streets.

Hopefully in the UK the govt will fall and they’ll have an election to try and sort out the mess the country is in.

Here in NZ we have to guard our freedom of speech, so no hate speech laws. And we have to make sure the police fight actual crime and not just thought crime like the UK police.
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September 9, 2026 8:01am
- cmm (semi-retired edition)
  
  Well you only get what you vote for.
  
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  September 9, 2026 8:16am
- Ian Boag
  
  In a population of about 60m, 12,000 arrests/year for one category of offense is not a lot. I found a figure (bot) that last year the total number of arrests in England and Wales was 750,000. That did not include Scotland and Ulster so the total will probably give a million a fright. That 750,000 figure is about half of what it was in 2008.
  
  So 12,000 is a bit over 1% of the total. “Incredibly zealous”. I suppose ….
  
  Keep up the good work. 🙂
  
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  September 9, 2026 8:21am
  - imalwaysright
    
    One is too many.
    
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    September 9, 2026 8:24am
    - David Garrett
      
      Exactly. And it is outrageous that they often come and arrest people for “hate crime” late at night.
      
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      September 9, 2026 8:31am
  - slightlyrighty
    
    https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gz1qy30v5o
    
    Not when stuff like this happens…
    
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    September 9, 2026 8:39am
    - Ian Boag
      
      One in a million …. Deplorable. Representative of widespread repression.
      
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      September 9, 2026 8:47am
David Garrett

Good morning from the Kingdom. It’s warm and sunny this morning…nights still pleasantly cool
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September 9, 2026 8:11am
- Cassandra
  
  Same here, comparatively. Spring!
  
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  September 9, 2026 8:13am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  You might be interested in this latest article on Sir Keith Park
  
  https://www.brashandmitchell.com/post/john-mclean-a-salute-to-the-greatest-new-zealander
  
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  September 9, 2026 8:14am
  - David Garrett
    
    Maggy: Interesting…but I note the author doesn’t agree with the widely held view – which I share – that removing Park from operations at the end of the BoB was outrageous. Both he and Dowding were victims of shameless politicking by Leigh-Mallory supported by Bader, who stubbornly stuck to his “Big Wing” theory even when it was proved to be rubbish.
    
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    September 9, 2026 8:42am
imalwaysright

Here’s another cop who won’t see the inside of a jail cell:

Whanganui police officer Peter Gray accused of tipping off drug suppliers – NZ Herald https://share.google/Orqn9UiQru02TikzD
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September 9, 2026 8:11am
cmm (semi-retired edition)

A few people here, including myself, have suggested that maybe NZ needs vocational educational pathways along the lines of the Swiss VET system.

The UK are now adopting some of this to try to overcome their NEET disaster. They’re going to start VET vocational options from Year 10 (14 to 15 years old).

I personally think this could be a good way to keep kids engaged in education rather than letting them drop out and then try to lure them back into a trades programme when they’re 18 or 19.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj4k2djd5qpo
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September 9, 2026 8:15am
- Ian Boag
  
  Days of yore. One went to High School and got sorted into streams – Trades, General or Professional. For girls “Trades” was “Commercial”. A lot of the Trades/Commercial streams left at 15 – some of them even got apprenticeships. Generally there was only one 5th form (year 11) class for this stream. I suppose we could learn from that.
  
  Entrance to a trade depends on getting an apprenticeship which depends on how current tradies are feeling today …..
  
  So I’m not sure how this would all work. So I asked the bot to explain the Swiss system. It is pretty comprehensive. The bot did identify what would be a key problem here in NZ ..
  
  whether NZ employers will actually supply enough training places.
  
  Never mind whether an employer is providing “good”, “average” or “mediocre” training. And of course right now, there doesn’t seem to be a surplus of employers looking for apprentices and I don’t see how the VET system would move that needle ….
  
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  September 9, 2026 8:41am
Maggy Wassilieff

Latest PISA results for NZ pupils.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/education/1308226/nz-sitting-below-group-of-world-leaders-when-it-comes-to-reading-science-and-maths

I do wonder how representative they are of 15 year-olds.
The Education Ministry said New Zealand’s sample was skewed toward higher-achieving students, meaning the country’s average scores might be inflated by 10-15 points.

Do schools just select their top class to sit the PISA tests?
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September 9, 2026 8:19am

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