General Debate 16 September 2026

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Yvette

Ani O’Brien: What will Hipkins have to give away to become Prime Minister?

Te Pāti Māori has released a programme that goes far beyond vague references to “partnership” or “co-governance”. Its Te Tiriti Entrenchment policy includes a $220 million Mātike Mai Fund over 4 years to resource Māori-led constitutional transformation, an independent Te Tiriti Commission capable of investigating Crown breaches and issuing compliance orders, and making Waitangi Tribunal recommendations binding on the Crown.

It has made the policy a bottom line for post-election negotiations. And yet Hipkins has already said no to a central part of it. Asked whether there was any scenario in which he would allow the proposed Te Tiriti Commission to overrule Cabinet decisions, his answer was simply “No.” His position is that Parliament must remain the final decision making body and that constitutional change cannot simply be imposed like they are demanding. Good, but if it is a “bottom line” TPM will walk away from negotiations at this point.

If Labour and the Greens can govern without TPM, Rawiri Waititi can declare all the bottom lines he likes, but he is out of luck. But if Hipkins’ potential coalition is sitting on 59 seats and Te Pāti Māori controls the votes that get him to 61, Hipkins may be willing to make concessions.
https://www.brashandmitchell.com/post/ani-o-brien-what-will-hipkins-have-to-give-away-to-become-prime-minister

1 – Why entrench the Treaty if you have a policy to change it – a policy that “includes a $220 million Mātike Mai Fund over 4 years to resource Māori-led constitutional transformation, an independent Te Tiriti Commission capable of investigating Crown breaches and issuing compliance orders” ?

2 – Should this TPM policy, “a bottom line for post-election negotiations,” allow such “Māori-led constitutional transformation” to be used by Hipkins to make concessions to place him and his party in power? Will he subjugate the nation and its so-called founding document to such a defilement of mana?

3 – Hōiho hikoi – Protesters on horses are outside Parliament to bring attention to their petition. Thousands support petition against proposed amendments to Treaty references in legislation.
A Ngāti Kahungunu petition calling for a halt on government plans to amend references to Te Tiriti o Waitangi in legislation has attracted more than 20,000 signatures.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/te-ao-maori/1326196/thousands-support-petition-against-proposed-amendments-to-treaty-references-in-legislation

But then, I guess a protest, against what the Maori Party hope to do with the Treaty, can be expressed in only a few weeks time by not voting for them, or any party that may form a coalition with them.
And you don’t need a horse to do that.
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September 16, 2026 8:01am
- Swifty
  
  Hipkins will dig the grave of the Labour Party if he agrees to anything even remotely resembling that. The bulk of NZers would just never support it.
  
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  September 16, 2026 8:06am
- pdm
  
  It was a horsefloatkoi.
  
  It is utter bullshit that they rode from Waimarama (about 25ks from Hastings on the coast) to Wellington 325ks away in the time available. Had they even tried there would be a trail of dead and distressed horses along they way.
  
  TV and other cameras dictated when they climbed aboard the horses and rode a few ks.
  
  I also understand they are home now – how did that happen on horseback?
  
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  September 16, 2026 8:14am
- Paulus
  
  But you can take a Horse to Water but you cannot make him/her drink !
  Sorry Part Maori neither can you, but am told horsemeat good to eat now in New Zealand.
  
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  September 16, 2026 8:38am
Swifty

My god:

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/rotorua-triple-murder-details-of-justin-jeffries-grisly-mallet-attacks-revealed/3YKAM7J6SJAT7IYHZAQVQMUAV4/

I’m speechless.
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September 16, 2026 8:03am
- Positan
  
  Where’s the death penalty when it’s patently needed?
  
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  September 16, 2026 8:35am
  - Paulus
    
    But Maori would be excluded anyway !
    
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    September 16, 2026 8:39am
Positan

The volume of comments on Maori language week yesterday showed the real extent of the anti-feeling. Surely it’s way past time to stop all the gratuitous PC-pandering that is surging to so many determinably-suspect and completely phoney “Maori” interests – NOT TO OVERLOOK the gravy-train they ceaselessly rort and extort?

To listen to TV news, you hear, especially in sports-related interviews, the appalling pronunciation and grotesquely stunted diction of Maori-ised English, and its all but total disregard for proper usage and conjunction. You would think that for a country once upheld as educated and verbally articulate, an English Language Week is not only desperately needed – but manifestly and absolutely demanded!

To listen to the verbal contortions of our poor-speaking masses and those media presenters who come across as wallowing sanctimoniously to pronounce “Maori” the PC-way deemed by today’s ultra-uninformed to be the “proper” pronunciations of the moment – as contrasted with pronunciations recorded by the missionaries who took it down first-hand at the time. It’s saddening and sickening that we’ve fallen so deeply for such a egregious con-job for as long as we have.

Remember when “Taupo” used to be pronounced “Taupo” – but when Tau Henare told us his name was pronounced “Toe”, our PC news-nerds immediately shifted to “Toepo.” Tau’s casual “ignorance” shouldn’t ever have become a defining factor in pronunciation. “Taupo” began as “Ta-u-po” (which Google translates as either “Good night” or “his head”) – and doesn’t come even close to “Toepo.”

I fear for our yet-to-be-born generations of mis-educated offspring. What sort of virtue-signalling, PC-exploited, ignorant wimps will they become?

So many of TV’s female “sports” and “weather” announcers have proved patently unable to articulate even the most elemental of English vowel sounds – like “el” as in “elsewhere”. For years they’ve pronounced it as “owswhere.” Listen any night, you can hear it. That decline has been continuing for years – but I’ve never heard any university-educated, media-type even attempt to contest it, let alone address the issue.

Similarly with “contribute” and “distribute”, words of equal syllabilic emphasis that are constantly falsely rendered as “CON tri BUTE” and “DIS tri BUTE” while our half-pie educationalists howl over any government demand for improvement, while steadfastly sittting on their thumbs.

Politicos daily fall back on juvenile expressions like “fantastic” or use “absolutely” as an answer when they mean “yes.” To judge from the numbers of spacers like “um” or “aah” in all their soundbites, grammar and articulation didn’t feature highly in their upbringing.

And yet, for those millions of us who don’t speak, nor even remotely wish to speak Maori – we’re assailed with the gargling ugliness of (to us) a meaning-devoid language when all we want is to be able to understand what is communicated in the news or advertisements in language we understand.

Under Labour, Willie Jackson provided $80million to establish Maori television and I understand there are also now some 20 Maori radio stations. So why does nearly 50% of TV’s news and adverts impose so much of the Maori angle on the rest of us? We’re fed up with frequent coverage of disfigured faces and bare-bummed haka-ing which passed every acceptable limit a long time back.

I’m proud of my own culture and the thousands of years of progress that upholds its development.

But comparatively, if Maori development over the 500-odd years they were here before colonisation can be contrasted against the cultural and engineering mega-achievements of Europe, the Americas and Asia over the same period – any Maori score-card would shape up as pretty ho-hum. Their capacity to carry water was limited and they hadn’t even learned how boil it – so wouldn’t you think that, having been dragged by colonisaation from times akin to a late stone-age existence that Maori would be enormously grateful for the cascade of privileges they’ve since been accorded and enjoyed?

Well, to guess from their current returning-to-intimidatory-facial-disfiguration fetishes, and from observing the threatened violence expressed in their haka and “challenges”, I can only imagine that, as a race, they actually pine for a return to the savagery of their pre-19th century existence.

Odd really when, outside all the exclusively-Maori-only benefits they enjoy over the rest of us, you conside that the percentage of Maori who’re dependent on government welfare and handouts is far higher than any other New Zealand racial grouping.

All the millions of Treaty “settlements” conferred by the NZ taxpayer don’t seem to have trickled down from iwi “administrators” to the really needy at the bottom of the pile. They’re still upheld by the Kiwi taxpayer.

If their own cannot look after their own – why indeed should it be an issue for the rest of us?

So where’s the justification for snowing us – the couldn’t-care-less, non-Maori – with taking any sort of interest in their “language?”
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September 16, 2026 8:06am
- pdm
  
  Actually Positan I have no problem with a Maori Language week once a year.
  
  But when The Pom Dan Corbettt thinks he can do an introduction to the weather in Maori it is an insult to Maori and to all viewers who just want to know what the weather will be where they live the next day.
  
  Give it a break Dan you are bloody hopeless and an embarrassment to everyone.
  
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  September 16, 2026 8:19am
  - Gravelroad
    
    Except pdm, I suspect that as an employee of TVNZ,
    Mr Corbett will be contractually obliged to give Maori weather reports, whether he likes it or not.
    
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    September 16, 2026 8:43am
- Ra Henare
  
  Further to my comment on using AI.
  
  Positans 804 words can easily be reduced to a readable 200 words
  
  The author argues that:
  
  Linguistic Decline: The increasing use of Māori pronunciation and terminology in media, alongside what they view as a decline in proper English grammar and pronunciation among broadcasters, is unnecessary and unappealing to non-Māori speakers.
  
  Funding and Representation: Substantial government funding for Māori television and radio is criticized as disproportionate, with the author objecting to frequent media coverage of cultural elements like the haka and facial moko.
  
  Cultural and Historical Comparison: The author disparages pre-colonial Māori history by contrasting it unfavorably with global technological advancements, claiming Māori should be more grateful for the impacts of colonization.
  
  Socioeconomic Arguments: The text questions the effectiveness of Treaty of Waitangi settlements, claiming that funds do not reach those most in need and pointing to higher rates of government welfare dependence.
  
  Ultimately, the author contends that non-Māori citizens are unfairly pressured to engage with a language and culture they have no interest in adopting, calling for an end to what they describe as “PC-pandering.”
  
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  September 16, 2026 8:22am
- Gravelroad
  
  @ Positan- I just ignore it.
  And I won’t be intimidated, brainwashed or shamed into learning a language that I do not need or wish to learn
  I get it that state employees putting to use a different way of “communicating” will give them the opportunity for extra privileges, entitlements and money.
  But it is of no use to me.
  And it is regrettable that those in charge of pushing the Maori language have seen fit to dilute its authenticity by inserting English references.
  
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  September 16, 2026 8:24am
Cassandra

Some people aren’t very bright. The Sussexes enrolled their children at a school a 30 minute drive from their house. That was during the school holidays. When school started the trip became an hour, with frequent holdups and therefore a security risk.

Nobody thought this through? Harry didn’t know that traffic increases during term time?

His mother once admitted that she was “ as thick as a brick” which seems to be an inherited trait.
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September 16, 2026 8:09am
- David Garrett
  
  Cass: IIRC the late princess said she was “as thick as two short planks”….same same of course.
  
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  September 16, 2026 8:24am
  - Cassandra
    
    You are correct DG. Plank, not brick.
    
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    September 16, 2026 8:37am
David Garrett

Good morning from the Kingdom for the last time in a while…looking forward to returning to Outer Rower today…not looking forward to the weather down there
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September 16, 2026 8:13am
Ra Henare

I read Kiwiblog nearly every day.
Why? the same reason I read news sites that allow comments

Maybe I will learn something?
A post only gives a shadow of an opinion.
Comments can add nuance or further information.
I accept that I will read loads of rants and will need to do lots of scrolling

AI is a blessing to me. For example, I got AI to analysis and summarize Alywn’s long-winded post about education to initially 500 words, then 300 words.
I also use AI to analyse and summarise in a few hundred words, long form interviews which can run to 2 plus hours. If the result looks interesting, then I can watch the whole interview.

It’s good to see that moderators have acknowledged that AI is just as helpful now as Google was years ago.

I see that many commenters seem to poo poo AI.
Let’s hope they catch up with the rest of the world soon for using it to research and summarise items.
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September 16, 2026 8:17am
- greybeard
  
  If you don’t read the original text because it is too long and use AI to reduce the size then how on earth do you know that the AI version is a true reflection of the original ?
  
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  September 16, 2026 8:40am
Ghost

what an arrogant piece of shit. Stop trying to put your name on a memorial for JFK.

President Donald Trump said the board of the Kennedy Center voted Tuesday to shut down the building for “safety reasons,” coming shortly after a federal judge again ruled that the performing arts center was legally prohibited from adding Trump’s name.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump said the board of the Kennedy Center agreed “almost unanimously, to close the Building for Safety reasons, and so that it can begin the process of Reconstruction.” The closing will take place immediately, he said.

However, Trump said, the renovation project “cannot begin until such time as the D.C. Circuit rules on the Board’s approved name. If the ruling is a negative one, which it should not be, and is not overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Reconstruction and the Renovation of The Kennedy Center will not take place.”

Article
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September 16, 2026 8:20am
- mike
  
  Some rare good news from the supreme court – nixing Trump’s executive order to the postal service to wreck mail-in voting.
  
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  September 16, 2026 8:41am

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