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July 28, 2015 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 28 July 2015

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General Debate

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Reid

Sewel’s “issues” make it difficult for Cameron to rort the numbers.

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

Sewel’s comments could not have come at a more unhelpful time as the Prime Minister prepares to publish his Dissolution Honours List. He is expected to ennoble at least 35 new Conservatives amid fears he does not have enough support in the upper house to win battles on Europe and welfare.

He is likely to give peerages to loyal politicians, including David Willetts and William Hague – as well as controversially ennobling placemen who helped run Downing Street and push the Tories over the winning line in the election.

This would create a large Conservative voting bloc to pass more of the party’s policies through the Lords.

Which is of course precisely why the House of Lords was invented in the first place.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3175460/Time-derail-gravy-train-Fury-cost-freeloading-peers-size-Lords-edges-1-000.html

Lord help us if we ever plump for an Upper Chamber here. Immensely stupid idea, almost as dumb as an Executive Branch, in a country the size of a small international city.

So naturally I fully expect the NZ sheeple enthusiastically to vote for one, other or even both by around say, 2025. Why don’t you diary that Richard II, and we’ll see what happens, shall we?
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July 28, 2015 7:04pm
mikenmild

Hey dirty, you are welcome to start a petition for such a referendum. No one is stopping you.
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July 28, 2015 7:08pm
Reid

I think you will find it was Helen Clark who killed the F-16 deal.

Really?

It was offered under Bolger’s watch.

He didn’t accept it.

Hulun killed it off, but in my mileage, Bolger killed it by failing to accept it and lock Hulun in.
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July 28, 2015 7:09pm
stigie

I think it was this woman Reid !

https://treatygate.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/eye-patch-helen-clark.jpg
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July 28, 2015 7:13pm
Reid

I’m blind!

It’s all coming back. It’s horrible.

The memories.

How come ACC don’t cover these trauma incidents.

I saw Hulun and…

…I just don’t want to talk about it anymore.

That’s probably why ACC has been doing so well. She’s not here anymore.
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July 28, 2015 7:14pm
Pete George

Irony of the day?

Chris Hipkins ‏@chrishipkins

The National govt have become deeply cynical and more concerned about their own prospects than those of everyday NZers. #nzqt

National have to avoid appearing to cynical if they want to hold onto power, but Labour are battling that bogey in Opposition.
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July 28, 2015 7:15pm
SPC

Bolger was replaced by Shipley, December 1997 to December 1999,

http://www.beehive.govt.nz/feature/review-f16-aircraft-royal-new-zealand-airforce
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July 28, 2015 7:19pm
Pete George

In the meantime, from the non-cynical Labour Party:

Mr Little said while thousands of New Zealanders wanted a change of flag, they did not believe it was the right time.

“This is not a poor reflection on New Zealanders, many of whom would like something different. Many of them want a change to the national anthem too, because they are sick of singing a dirge every time you turn up to a festive occasion. Most of them sing along to the Australian national anthem before they sing along to our own.”

http://www.odt.co.nz/news/politics/350620/national-anthem-dirge-little

So can we expect a choice of flag and a choice of anthem when Little makes it big?
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July 28, 2015 7:24pm
Reid

I think some miss the point.

F-16’s were offered while Bolger was PM. Yes?

If that’s the case, then Bolger should have used 5 seconds of thinking time, called the POTUS and thanked him, and put the wheels in motion.

Time has proven that would have been a much much wiser decision.

For it would not only have check-mated the evil Hulun in her hell-bent mission to de-fang NZ defense of all pointy things, it would have given us a rallying point in the early days of Hulun’s reign, in that we weren’t only losing old Sky Hawks, we were losing state of the art etc. If we’d have kept them we’d have retained significant first-world capability.

And so on and on and on and on and on.

Bolger didn’t say yes in the first 5 mins for reasons that have never been explained. Ever.

I refuse to believe the NZDF would not have embraced the offer.

They’re not fools and that would have been one of their most memorable ever follies, if they had done so, which I don’t believe, in private or public, they would ever have done.

I remind everyone, the documentary Yes Minister explains how politicians get reports which gives them the answers they want.
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July 28, 2015 7:29pm
SPC

The decision to lease to buy the F16’s was made in Dec 1998.

But the incoming government managed to get out of the deal made. The only way to lock in any deal was to pay for the F16’s before Labour became government.

But the savings from leasing to buy were too attractive to pass up etc and in any case paying for planes years before receiving them and while still operating Skyhawks would have been less than credible.
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July 28, 2015 7:56pm
Reid

But the incoming government managed to get out of the deal made. The only way to lock in any deal was to pay for the F16’s before Labour became government.

If Bolger had wanted to, he could have changed the terms. He prevaricated on purpose. Why?

Also, why do you think the US offered the deal in the first place?

Could it be they had a clue what Hulun was thinking of?
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July 28, 2015 8:22pm
nasska

Reid

It may have been the pending elections that caused Bolger to be less than determined to accept the US offer. From about the end of our involvement in Vietnam it has become harder & harder to sell defence spending to the electorate, however good the deal.
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July 28, 2015 8:37pm
SPC

Bolger was in no position to decide anything. Shipley was PM from Dec 1997, and the process to examine the offer and respond to it was not completed until Dec 1998.
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July 28, 2015 8:42pm
Odakyu-sen

F16s?

If NZ had bought them, I am sure we wouldn’t have any anti-Western immigrants (and their pull-tab-and-radicalize-in-30-seconds offspring) in NZ today…

//
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July 28, 2015 8:43pm
Reid

It may have been the pending elections that caused Bolger to be less than determined to accept the US offer.

Nah don’t buy it nasska.

He didn’t care about his re-election. Apart from anything else, he knew he was history and Shipley would be moving on him.

He had a chance to do something for the country. Regardless of what the best thing for his own skin was. And he didn’t take it.

It’s an interesting question as to why, isn’t it.

Bolger was in no position to decide anything. Shipley was PM from Dec 1997, and the process to examine the offer and respond to it was not completed until Dec 1998.

SPC when you outline your analysis like that, you remind me very much of Pete George.
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July 28, 2015 8:51pm
deadrightkev

Bolger and Shipley were two more hopeless vision challenged National prime ministers.

During their tenures as “leaders” we went backwards economically and racially. Its not that they did anything really bad, because the fact is, they did nothing to continue the path NZ was on after Roger Douglas created the vision for them to follow.

Now look at NZ. It is still the same failure under Key.

NZ is screwed.
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July 28, 2015 8:54pm
Reid

NZ is screwed.

Why do you think I keep calling everyone sheeple?

If they gave a single sign once in a while their heads weren’t full of concrete, I’d stop calling them that.

But they don’t.
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July 28, 2015 8:57pm
mikenmild

I’m pretty sure that the F-16 offer didn’t even materialise until after Bolger was off the scene.
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July 28, 2015 9:00pm
Reid

Well you’re quite wrong mm.

But that’s not unusual, is it.

In fact I’m struggling to recall the last time you were right about anything.
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July 28, 2015 9:01pm
mikenmild

I’m pretty sure you are wrong, Reid. The 1997 Defence Review still spoke of upgrading the Skyhawks and the F-16 offer came fairly suddenly in 1998.
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July 28, 2015 9:14pm
SPC

Reid, check my 7.19 link.

In 1997 the Defence plan was to upgrade the Skyhawks, there was no plan to replace them with F16’s until 1998.
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July 28, 2015 9:15pm
SPC

The USA offer was made in July 1998.

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/new-zealand-f-16-lease-deal-decision-imminent-45060/
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July 28, 2015 9:53pm
Jack5

David Fisher in the Hooerald today on the Head Hunter criminal gang:

In the pantheon of Kiwi crime, no single gang commands respect or conveys menace the way the Head Hunters do.

They started in Glen Innes at the tail end of the 1960s and exist now as a controlled and focused organisation firmly embedded in our society.

Criminals and similar trash don’t command respect. They might be notorious, but they don’t command respect.

Here’s an Oxford Dictionary definition of “respect”:

A feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements.

Criminals, especially drug dealing gangs, don’t qualify.
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July 28, 2015 9:57pm
Manolo

Invasion! http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/immigration-surge-continues-30000-expected-u.n.-demands-empathy-over-enforcement/article/2569020

This year’s “surge” of illegal immigrant children and teens is continuing at last year’s historic pace, with about 30,000 expected to reach the United States, according to humanitarian groups.
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July 28, 2015 10:08pm
Manolo

Tourism in France: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3177135/Summer-trouble-Holidaymakers-face-chaos-amid-warnings-severe-threats-fresh-forest-fires-south-France-10-000-tourists-forced-flee-flames-engulfed-campsites.html

More than 2,000 migrants tried to force their way into the Channel Tunnel overnight, according to operator Eurotunnel, as more than 5,000 people camp out around Calais waiting for an opportunity to enter the UK.
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July 29, 2015 7:01am
Mark Craig

Hey there right wingers ,I know it’s late but I am sure that in the morning you will all be lining up to tell us how the good old USA is going to pay back $ 16 trillion or so of debt.NZ $120 billion ,don’t be shy now step up to the plate and let us know or just forever STFU .Globalisation ! Bah
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July 30, 2015 12:04am
Mark Craig

Are we entitled to take no response as an admission of abject failure .You need to know I intend to hold you to account here .Fuckwits .!
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July 30, 2015 12:08am

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