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September 20, 2020 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 20 September 2020

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General Debate

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Sigmund Freud

Why does Dr Ashley Bloomfield appear to have the same level of virological expertise as a Medieval plague doctor?
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September 20, 2020 8:01am
- Ruawai
  
  Ashley is all spin, when asked about the measles report he said it is the same as the early release and they are acting on recommendations. Not admitting the M of H had failings.
  
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  September 20, 2020 8:47am
  - CJames
    
    Dr Bloomfield is probably just being a loyal public servant. If the reason for a lot of the failings were ministerial decisions or inactions, he can’t say that, no matter what he privately thinks. And this is despite Ministers thinking loyalty only goes one way.
    
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    September 20, 2020 12:04pm
    - Catgurl13
      
      He does seem to back the Princess when she’s getting hammered on the podium.
      
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      September 20, 2020 12:08pm
      - Steve Todd
        
        Of course he does! If you were in his position, wouldn’t you?
        
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        September 20, 2020 3:10pm
- RW Capitalist
  
  On the Labour list, election 2023?
  
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  September 20, 2020 11:18am
  - Prince
    
    Unlikely. Would you take the paycut and risk ?
    
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    September 20, 2020 11:28am
    - RW Capitalist
      
      Good point
      
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      September 20, 2020 12:37pm
    - RW Capitalist
      
      Only people like John Key and DJT take a pay cut into politics and leadership.
      
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      September 20, 2020 1:12pm
Mr_Blobby

I wonder what covid nonsense we will sufer this week.

Another lockdown?

More fear mongering!

More controls on personal freedoms and privacy?

How did we become such a nation of scared little sheeple.
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September 20, 2020 8:05am
- Ruawai
  
  My prediction is Auckland to level 1.957 and the rest of NZ to level 1.234
  
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  September 20, 2020 8:48am
  - rouppe
    
    Those numbers have to much precision for them to understand
    
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    September 20, 2020 10:58am
- mark15
  
  The internet.
  
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  September 20, 2020 8:49am
- Harriet
  
  “Hi Ho Hi Ho it’s off to Covid we go.”
  
  – Snowflake and the Cabinet Dwarfs. 😎
  
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  September 20, 2020 8:51am
- Brian McDonald
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  Speaking for yourself there Mr Bloddy Level 4, 3, and 2.5 workers aren’t scared sheeple, that term is reserved little internet thingees peeping over their desktops.
  
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  September 20, 2020 9:25am
  - Classic Liberal
    
    So you didn’t spend 6 weeks unable to even go for a swim or drive beyond your suburb because big state said so and police chief promised you’d be taken into custody for breaking the new authoritarian rules?
    
    Rules didn’t apply to you?
    
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    September 20, 2020 9:30am
    - mikenmildagain
      
      Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
      Normal people abide with the Covid restrictions because they consent to appropriate public health measures. Do you really think that people practice social distancing, etc, because they are afraid of their own government?
      
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      September 20, 2020 10:31am
      - rouppe
        
        Have you not seen the police action in Melbourne?
        
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        September 20, 2020 10:59am
      - Harriet
        
        LOL Milky.
        
        Christians in the west historically and wilfully abide by the law, and now that you have less of them you have more police officers, and more laws.
        
        This is your future – you can’t have it both ways. 😎
        
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        September 20, 2020 11:03am
      - Benedict Yu
        
        ” you really think that people practice social distancing, etc, because they are afraid of their own government?”
        
        Yeah that would be me. I find this government terrifying.
        
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        September 20, 2020 11:08am
      - Classic Liberal
        
        Both. Some were scared of covid. Some now have reduced fear of covid but have seen how people out of line with govt directives can be treated. When govt chooses.
        
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        September 20, 2020 11:10am
      - herb1
        
        So based on Arderns little selfie this week , your saying she’s abnormal?
        
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        September 20, 2020 11:13am
      - Suze Wainwright
        
        Well, we were told we could put a teddy bear in our front window – so yeah, Kapai with me…
        
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        September 20, 2020 11:21am
      - RW Capitalist
        
        To answer your question….Y E S
        Same reason they don’t, by and large, break other laws.
        If they had followed the 2017 pandemic response plan and shown people that.
        1. Covid19 would never have arrived on NZ shores
        2. even if it did it would have been in PROPER managed isolation, in military camps.
        3. Our economy would not have been in nearly as big a mess.
        What Ardern has done successfully
        Blamed a disease for the result of the govt.s incompetence.
        Their actions on this have been the reason for the economic mess
        1. It was happening BEFORE Covid19
        2. The 2017 pandemic response plan, showed their was already an alternate plan and method to theirs, in dealing with this.
        
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        September 20, 2020 11:27am
      - Steve Todd
        
        @Benedict Yu @ 11:08AM
        
        Oh, you poor snowflake. Fortunately for you, you have two bolt holes you can scarper to.
        
        As I’ve asked you to do before, please let us know when you’re leaving, so we can all wish you luck, and a fond farewell.
        
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        September 20, 2020 3:19pm
    - RW Capitalist
      
      “police chief promised you’d be taken into custody for breaking the new authoritarian rules?”
      
      In the first meeting with the police chief
      police chief said the army were just a phone call away (martial law) and you’d be taken into custody for breaking the new authoritarian rules?
      
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      September 20, 2020 11:21am
      - Ruahine
        
        I am more scared of this government than I am of Covid. Covid can easily be dealt with using commonsense.
        
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        September 20, 2020 1:06pm
    - Brian McDonald
      
      Not when I was working in level 3. And plenty were working in level 4.
      
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      September 20, 2020 1:51pm
- Odakyu-sen
  
  Fear is a useful tool for controlling people. They tend to listen to authority when they are scared. If they listen to you, then it is easier to control them.
  
  News items that stoke the fires of fear are to be given front-page coverage. These would include:
  – The death of any member of an “oppressed” group WITH Covid-19. (The age and co-morbidities will not be freely disclosed.)
  – The death of any high-profile figure.
  – Positive detection of Covid-19 in any person aged under 40, especially minors (whom the public percieve to be more vulnerable when they are actually the most resistant group).
  – Any story of people escaping from quarantine
  – Stories of “supermarket clean-ups”
  – Photos of mask-wearing
  
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  September 20, 2020 9:45am
  - Paulus
    
    Fear is not going to slow down or go away when Cindy gets three more years on her own terms.
    How dreadful it will be is anyone’s guess, even hers but power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, eh Cindy – yes all yours !
    
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    September 20, 2020 10:38am
  - RW Capitalist
    
    “Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception.”
    ― Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince
    “Men are driven by two principal impulses, either by love or by fear.”
    ― Niccolò Machiavelli, The Discourses
    
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    September 20, 2020 11:32am
- Inandout
  
  Mr B, many are sheep like, but an increasing number are bucking the system. I have noted in cafes it is the obviously well heeled luvvies who studiously use their phones to ‘sign in’, and are often adorned with designer masks. Others just walk in or merely point their mobiles at the sign. With the better weather arriving rules will be thrown to the wind, despite what our leader has in store for our voting booths.
  
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  September 20, 2020 10:25am
  - RW Capitalist
    
    Was in countdown the other day.
    Over the intercom
    They requested customers
    wear masks
    …..there were ZERO mask wearers in the shop
    Social distance
    …….people were conducting themselves in a manner familiar to me for 20 yrs
    Use the APP
    …..saw 1 person use the APP
    I was there maybe 3/4 of an hour
    This has been true for most of the lockdown even lvl3
    
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    September 20, 2020 11:38am
- Sir Cullen's Sidekick
  
  Blobby – Jaffas are happy with the lockdown. Haven’t you seen the Auckand Central opinion poll? Labour is so far ahead of National in party and electorate vote. I think Labour is in for a massive victory.
  
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  September 20, 2020 11:31am
  - KevO'Brien
    
    Auckland Central? The Princess Street Branch has been notorious for years. Thankfully juveniles are not the only voters.
    
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    September 20, 2020 12:18pm
2ic

You will have all seen the photos of Ardern breaking her own social-distancing ‘rules’ while campaigning over the last couple of days.

In response, a spokesperson for Ardern has said:

“There are a number of handshakes and hugs she unfortunately has to decline and best endeavours are made to keep separated when people ask for photos, but often members of the public will come very close to the prime minister which is difficult to control.”

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/122824985/election-2020-david-seymour-criticises-jacinda-arderns-lack-of-social-distancing-in-selfie-while-on-the-campaign-trail

So “members of the public will come very close to the prime minister which is difficult to control”? Do they seriously expect us to believe the Prime Minister hasn’t got security with her when out campaigning?

And I loved this headline on Newshub:

“Jacinda Ardern says public ‘difficult to control’…”
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/09/jacinda-ardern-says-public-difficult-to-control-after-being-accused-of-breaking-distancing-rules.html

I don’t think Newshub realises how close they are to what really drives Ardern!
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September 20, 2020 8:06am
- pdm
  
  “Jacinda Ardern says public ‘difficult to control’…”
  
  No matter how much she insists that they obey her many instructions.
  
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  September 20, 2020 8:48am
  - Komata
    
    2ic@0806 and pdm@0848
    
    I believe that the key word in her statement is the last one: ‘Control’.
    
    On that basis, the following article on ‘Narcissistic Personality Disorder’ might be both relevant and useful:
    
    Overview
    
    Narcissistic personality disorder — one of several types of personality disorders — is a mental condition in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for excessive attention and admiration, troubled relationships, and a lack of empathy for others. But behind this mask of extreme confidence lies a fragile self-esteem that’s vulnerable to the slightest criticism.
    
    A narcissistic personality disorder causes problems in many areas of life, such as relationships, work, school or financial affairs. People with narcissistic personality disorder may be generally unhappy and disappointed when they’re not given the special favors or admiration they believe they deserve. They may find their relationships unfulfilling, and others may not enjoy being around them.
    
    Symptoms … abridged.
    [Mod. Note: I’m sure those interested can follow your link K ]
    _______________
    
    (1) [n.a.], ‘Narcissistic Personality Disorder’ [online], The Mayo Clinic, https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/narcissistic-personality-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20366662 [ accessed 20 September 2020]
    
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    September 20, 2020 10:16am
    - mikenmildagain
      
      Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
      Seems to me that very many public figures could be fitted to those symptoms.
      I’m not sure that it is necessary to make an amateur diagnosis of a psychological disorder when it would be more straightforward to simply state that you dislike x because of y reason.
      
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      September 20, 2020 10:29am
      - JackRabbit
        
        “Seems to me that very many public figures could be fitted to those symptoms”
        
        And certain trolls on KB. There is nothing amateur about a correct analysis.
        
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        September 20, 2020 12:30pm
    - Komata
      
      Umm, Mod
      
      Concerning your removal of the ‘Symptoms’ list that I had placed within the article I quoted, and a similar list that jackrabbit posted @ 1224, which you permitted to stand without comment:
      
      As I believe it met the site’s criteria in all respects, and in the absence of any explanation (and so that I and others can know for future reference), I would be interested in learning your criteria for this action; why one (‘my’) list was removed yet another allowed to stand.
      
      What was your decision based-upon?
      
      Length of the article? Number of characters within the article? Source? Personal whim? The breakage of some as-yet-undisclosed rule?
      
      On the assumption that this post meets whatever personal criteria you operate under and will in fact be ‘permitted’ to be posted within the thread, I would be interested in your reply.
      
      Thank you.
      
      Mod. Note: I can’t believe you consider your ‘cut & paste’ from the link published is equivalent to jr’s post – which was all his work. For most here, TL:DR is the appropriate response, and I stand by my comment that those interested could click the link anyway. Be offended – I DON’t CARE.
      
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      September 20, 2020 2:29pm
      - Komata
        
        Mod
        
        Your reply is extremely clear, informative and revealing.
        
        Thank you.
        
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        September 20, 2020 7:29pm
  - JackRabbit
    
    “Jacinda Ardern says public ‘difficult to control’…”
    
    Typical Narcissism 101 respones:
    1) Always blame someone else, preferably the victim. (remember the Labour Party rape victims?)
    2) Always give reasons why it wasn’t their fault.
    3) Deny, Deny, Deny, even if there is photographic evidence – which in this case there is.
    
    Typical everyday example: Stay at home wife is caught banging the young guy in the house next door.
    
    Response:
    “He made me do it. I’m innocent in all this.” She is caught wearing a see through blouse, no bra, crotchless panties, in HIS house. Young buck’s wrists tied to the headboard with fluffy handcuffs and she is on top riding him. “He made me do it. He wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
    
    Jacinda is the one taking selfie, grinning from ear to ear. I don’t see body guards intervening. I don’t see her with a hand up yelling “stay back”. I see Jacinda initiating the contact.
    
    “They made me do it. Can’t you see the gun to my head? Can’t you see my bodyguards dead on the ground? Can’t you see the crowd holding me, forcing me to take the selfie?”
    
    Shameless Hussy.
    
    Mates have got the photo and printed it to put in their wallet, in case they are stopped by someone for breaking social distancing or failing to use the app.
    “Jacinda has endorsed my behaviour.”
    
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    September 20, 2020 12:24pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Always somebody else’s fault
  
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  September 20, 2020 8:49am
  - Tony Stuart
    
    Indeed. She’s incapable of accepting responsibility when things go wrong. Like a spoiled child, it’s always some other bugger’s fault.
    
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    September 20, 2020 9:03am
    - Harlequin
      
      A common trait of those afflicted by Narcistic Personality Disorder.
      
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      September 20, 2020 9:35am
      - RW Capitalist
        
        and the leader of the Labour party, that said before chosen, that she did not want the leadership.
        Doesn’t appear to be the case now.
        
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        September 20, 2020 11:42am
      - Steve Otto(North Shore)
        
        RWC, she wanted that leadership badly. She is a control freak. Saying she did not want it is yet another fucking lie
        
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        September 20, 2020 1:34pm
      - RW Capitalist
        
        Similar to
        A refusal of praise is a desire to be praised twice.”
        
        ― François de La Rochefoucauld, Maxims
        
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        September 20, 2020 3:15pm
    - Gravelroad
      
      But but, it’s just soooo taxing being a world wide style icon, influencer and comrade.
      I can’t help it if the fans want to get close to me to touch the hem of my skirt.
      I have to make myself available to thrill my people – at least for a few more weeks until after my covid election.
      
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      September 20, 2020 9:37am
    - RW Capitalist
      
      “Like a spoiled child, it’s always some other bugger’s fault.”
      Like a spoiled child, she lies to you, you know she is lying, she knows you know she is lying.
      But she still lies.
      
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      September 20, 2020 11:41am
- Ruawai
  
  JA is holding someone else’s phone to take the selfie so she did this intentionally.
  
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  September 20, 2020 8:51am
- Greg Ettridge
  
  Very simple, can’t control the crowd, she should set the example and wear a mask at all times.
  Of course this will never happen, we may all spend summer sitting on a beach with a mask on, but the mask is just another tool in the enforcer “scare everyone“ arsenal.
  
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  September 20, 2020 8:56am
  - Swifty
    
    Can’t control the crowd?
    
    Well then, don’t go near crowds! Problem solved!
    
    (There will be the small problem of no photo ops though.)
    
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    September 20, 2020 12:30pm
- fisho
  
  Her DPS minders are pretty fucking useless then eh! I’m sure they would see it a different way though.
  Once again, Cindy throwing someone else under the bus. She has no shame or sense of culpability, guess that comes with being mollycoddled your entire life.
  
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  September 20, 2020 9:32am
- redeye
  
  The Labour party spinner wont give rats arse about the hypocrisy. The overriding message was, she’s so popular people just flock to her. It’s been their strategy all along. They have no competence to flog.
  And this will continue while journalists and bloggers (including this blog) continue to talk about her stratospheric polling.
  It’s the self fulling prophecy strategy they’re banking on.
  
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  September 20, 2020 9:41am
  - JackRabbit
    
    Given the damage to the economy, and loss of lives as a result of lockdown, and as a result of medical help denied during lockdown, the ultimate Karmic justice would be getting a “one in a million” irreversible Covid-19 infection. Probably from all that public contact.
    
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    September 20, 2020 12:45pm
    - Classic Liberal
      
      St Jacinda dying of covid? That would mean permanent lockdown for all of Nz!! We’d be expected to die in grief and fear.
      
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      September 20, 2020 2:34pm
- Max
  
  Always blames other people or situations, if the PM can’t control a ‘small crowd’, why do people think she can govern and manage New Zealand.
  
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  September 20, 2020 9:52am
- Sacha
  
  Where were her security people?
  Were they under orders to keep out of sight, or did they have the day off?
  
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  September 20, 2020 10:11am
- rouppe
  
  Well the key is she didn’t even try. Those breathless fans would have stood on one leg and barked like a seals if she’d just asked nicely
  
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  September 20, 2020 11:02am
  - Swifty
    
    Of course they would have.
    
    But it’s not about unruly crowds is it – it’s about her being caught clearly flouting the very rules she requires others to follow and now reaching for any excuse that shifts responsibility from her and to others.
    
    It’s what you expect from young children. Not an adult constantly talking about her leadership skills.
    
    How many times have we heard her say “Look at me, I’m doing leadership!”?
    
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    September 20, 2020 12:35pm
- Benedict Yu
  
  That is hilarious. She has between two and four highly trained and armed protective officers with her at all times. Of course she can make people keep their distance.
  
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  September 20, 2020 11:10am
- Sir Cullen's Sidekick
  
  If one baby touches aunty Collins it is breaking L2 rules. If many people surround Cindy, IT IS PEOPLE POWER. Move on will ya?
  
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  September 20, 2020 11:33am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  ‘Public hard to control’ my left tit. It was not even her cellphone, she was doing the group selfie for someone else – and promoting herself.
  Another fucking lie
  
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  September 20, 2020 1:31pm
Jimmy White

If the US senate ask the President for a recommendation he must give them one.
They are then trusted to select that recommendation or not.
In 2016 Obama sent this tweet “ Reminder: It’s the Senate’s job to fairly consider Supreme Court nominees.“
He also said “ When there is a vacancy on the SCOTUS, the President is to nominate someone, the Senate is to consider that nomination… There’s no unwritten law that says that it can only be done on off-years. That’s not in the Constitution text.”
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September 20, 2020 8:10am
- All_on_Red
  
  Even RBG said, ‘the President doesn’t stop being the President in his last year’.
  Iirc, they’ve already held Hearings for Amy Barrett.
  Hard to forget all that anti Catholic bigotry coming from the Democrats.
  
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  September 20, 2020 8:53am
- Harriet
  
  Also — the Supreme Court seats are called “The seats of the Constitution.”
  Those elected to those seats are there for the Constitution ITSELF – and NOTHING ELSE.
  
  While the Senate and the House and those that fill those seats are the ‘seats for the citizenry’.
  
  Just sayin so people see the difference in what is expected of those roles.
  
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  September 20, 2020 8:58am
- Critical Thinker
  
  Joe Biden in 2016: “I would go forward with the confirmation process as chairman. Even a few months before a presidential election… just as the Constitution requires.”
  
  https://t.co/mK2i8A2gXn
  
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  September 20, 2020 9:34am
- Fletch
  
  Yep, here is Obama saying just that –
  
  https://twitter.com/CalebJHull/status/1307325966314864651
  
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  September 20, 2020 10:54am
- RW Capitalist
  
  CNN trying to say, this is the same as when the Senate did not consider Obama’s recommendation in 2016.
  Except for one thing
  The Senate was 100% certain that Obama would not be the next president (end of 2nd term).
  It was entirely uncertain as to who the next president would be, at the time everyone was saying Clinton.
  This is not the case here Trump could be the next president and as it is in US political history the incumbent usually gets a 2nd term
  
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  September 20, 2020 11:50am
  - Benedict Yu
    
    The Senate blocked Obama’a nominee in 2016 because they could do so. In 2020 the Senate will ratify Trump’s nominee because they can. Pretty simple.
    
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    September 20, 2020 2:09pm
    - RW Capitalist
      
      agreed
      
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      September 20, 2020 3:19pm
    - RW Capitalist
      
      Except they don’t/ didn’t want a guarantee an exiting president, to influence the next presidency.
      
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      September 20, 2020 3:21pm
wimpston peeeders

would you employ someone in a monday-friday job if you knew that they were going to take 42 days off per year (possibly more if they milk it) and expect you to pay for it?

That would be 8 1/2 weeks every year paid to sit at home or go on holiday!!
That will be labours new normal of stat days (inc matariki), annual leave and increased sick leave.
add to that their promise for $20 minimum wage after election and $21 in 2021 and a full time minimum wage worker will cost a business just over 7k a year to have days off!!!

add to that lil things like acc that gets paid as a %of staff pay, buereavement leave and a few other exceptions and a worker can inflict alot of strain on a business.

imo if theyre guna extend sick days they should reduce annual leave, besides sick leave accumulates to 15days in 20 years of working I think I would have struggled to have used 10 days and same with many of my family and mates.
all this does is enable the shittier bludger types a loophole to exploit at the expense of their employer… I predict an epidemic of monday or fridayitis taking hold of nz. cull them from your workforce now before cindy and little make it illegal to fire them.
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September 20, 2020 8:10am
- amospicton
  
  Just more evidence of the government’s ideologically driven plan to tax our way out of the mire they’ve created. Redistribution. We desperately need to grow the pie and that means we need to encourage the creation of jobs not create impediments to doing so.
  
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  September 20, 2020 8:50am
- Sir Cullen's Sidekick
  
  I want the businesses to suffer and close, because majority of the business people in a survey voted Labour is better than National. Let them suffer. They deserve it. I have no sympathy for these clowns. They deserve to wither and close.
  
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  September 20, 2020 11:35am
- lifesgood
  
  I worked in a high school. Most of the teachers ensured they used up their sick leave every year whether they needed it or not. They live the sweet life, 12 weeks holiday a year and then the sick leave, all on full pay. I never have had and never will have any sympathy for them
  
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  September 20, 2020 11:52am
  - MCos
    
    Which high school was that?
    
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    September 20, 2020 12:22pm
    - JackRabbit
      
      Probably all of them.
      
      8 3
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      September 20, 2020 1:02pm
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Yep,
    it was common practice in some Departments, especially from teachers who were not preparing pupils for exams.
    
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    September 20, 2020 2:13pm
- WaynelSexton
  
  Good time to be Chinese, Indian, etc because we all know their family own business won’t be following these laws.
  
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  September 20, 2020 12:30pm
- MCos
  
  I worked in Thailand where there are 30 days statutory sick days leave and 9 days annual leave.
  Plus a lot of public holidays.
  Guys were also entitled to ‘monk leave’, but I’m not sure how that worked.
  The effect was that people took more sick days on flimsy excuses, but it stopped people coming to work with colds & flu & spreading it round.
  The main problem was that by its nature a sick day isn’t planned and the gap left by an essential worker has to be papered over.
  
  When I started work for the MOW back in 1967 sick leave used to accumulate to a maximum of six months. Also if you were absent crook on Friday & Monday it counted as four days. Don’t know what happened at Easter. There’s a conundrum. If you were crook on Thursday & Tuesday that would be six days and if you only had five one would have to be another type of leave which would mean you’d only take one.
  
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  September 20, 2020 12:47pm
- artemisia
  
  We have arranged our small tradie business to have no permie staff. We use subcontractors, mainly other small businesses but sometimes individuals – all on invoice basis – depending on type and quantity of work. The subbies rates cover all their costs and we take a margin for project management etc.
  
  So much simpler than having employees, and if the subbies don’t perform easy to engage others instead.
  
  Obviously doesn’t work for all businesses but am always surprised more don’t do it. There are a lot of small businesses out there, many sole traders.
  
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  September 20, 2020 1:21pm
  - Jules99
    
    Yes, I do that too. I’ve managed staff before – the worst part of my job. Now I don’t have to.
    
    5 0
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    September 20, 2020 1:43pm
- Benedict Yu
  
  Let’s face it incentives matter. If you run a business you are only going to stop work if you have influenza or literally can’t get out of bed. Or you are recovering from surgery. If you are a public servant, you will take four or five mental health days a year. Because your colleagues and probably your boss are modelling that behavior.
  
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  September 20, 2020 2:16pm
- RW Capitalist
  
  So people have choice….
  10 sick days and 365 days off per yr…called unemployment
  or
  lower taxes…ie more in the hand wages (and still have a job.)
  
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  September 20, 2020 3:23pm
MT_Tinman

I have a problem.

The latest iteration of a medical problem I have suffered for the last three years is that I can no longer eat meat – can’t swallow it.

I can’t eat leafy vegetables either so it’s not all bad.

My problem is the worry that the next stage of this becoming vegetarian will mean I turn into a Green voter.

I can only hope that at least one of the referenda on offer this election gets a positive vote.

😉
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September 20, 2020 8:11am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  You’ve got quite a few options to explore before you devote your life to the Green Party….
  
  You could become 7th Day Adventist or a Jain.
  
  If you prefer Hinduism or Buddhism, you could join one of the strict sects… or if you have a few spare hours in your day, why not lead a revival of Manichaeism?
  
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  September 20, 2020 9:03am
- Jimmy White
  
  MT be assured that unless you are given a lobotomy you should have no fear of voting Green.
  A few years back I had a similar problem to you (could not eat meat). My better half took advantage of the Blender to give me Steak and gravy Smoothies.
  
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  September 20, 2020 9:04am
- Swifty
  
  Can you eat it pureed?
  
  How about mince?
  
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  September 20, 2020 9:19am
  - MT_Tinman
    
    No, and no but thanks for asking.
    
    5 0
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    September 20, 2020 11:30am
    - Swifty
      
      Sorry to hear that.
      
      Go well.
      
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      September 20, 2020 12:55pm
- Loddenthinks
  
  I’m sorry to hear of your health problems. No risk of you becoming a Green voter, no matter how many veges you eat. Go well.
  
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  September 20, 2020 10:12am
- RW Capitalist
  
  Smoke dope…it won’t fix it, but you won’t care.
  
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  September 20, 2020 11:51am
Swifty

With recent Labour and Green policy announcements in mind I think this quote from Milton Freidman is very appropriate:

“The most harm of all is done when power is in the hands of people who are absolutely persuaded of the purity of their intentions.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYeYPcougmA
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September 20, 2020 8:11am
- David George
  
  “Of course, my socialist colleagues and I weren’t out to hurt anyone – quite the reverse. We were out to improve things – but we were going to start with other people. I came to see the temptation in this logic, the obvious flaw, the danger – but could also see that it did not exclusively characterize socialism. Anyone who was out to change the world by changing others was to be regarded with suspicion. The temptations of such a position were too great to be resisted.”
  ― Jordan B. Peterson, Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief
  
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  September 20, 2020 8:52am
  - JackRabbit
    
    It is positively encouraging to learn that a number of Canterbury Uni students taking business courses, have taken to reading Jordan Peterson.
    
    When asked what motivated them to do so, one young buck answered: “We have to do educate ourselves and do something to stop the advance of communism from Labour.”
    
    When asked what party would they vote for, the answer was ACT.
    
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    September 20, 2020 1:09pm
- mikenmildagain
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  Ok, so vote for someone with impure intentions?
  
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  September 20, 2020 9:34am
  - Matt Long
    
    They all have impure intentions, the real sickos believe all their intentions are unquestionably good. And kind.
    
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    September 20, 2020 10:28am
  - Classic Liberal
    
    Someone who knows their own limits and shortcomings and realises that power and wealth is best in the hands of the populace with limited state control.
    
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    September 20, 2020 10:33am
    - mikenmildagain
      
      You aren’t addressing the Friedman quotation.
      
      3 12
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      September 20, 2020 10:48am
    - Classic Liberal
      
      Yes, I was. A sensible person understands that their own abilities are limited, including their ability to have totally pure intentions let alone the skills needed to realise decent aims.
      
      And that therefore power and wealth should not be centralised in their hands.
      
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      September 20, 2020 11:58am
      - Swifty
        
        Yes, this was the wider context from which his quote was drawn.
        
        That and “the road to ruin is paved with good intentions…”
        
        5 1
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        September 20, 2020 12:44pm
  - herb1
    
    I think the best thing is to vote for people with intelligence and capability Mike, but you’re unlikely to change your voting intentions are you
    
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    September 20, 2020 11:46am
  - KevO'Brien
    
    Can you swear that Labour are pure and not tainted by personal ambition to modify this country into another (sure to fail) communist state?
    They have made a serious start without mandate. Who’s going to rule? Who’s going to the gulags? Who’s to be left as workers? Who’s going to enjoy the batches at Waiheke? As a modest swamp dweller can you be sure of your position?
    
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    September 20, 2020 12:31pm
- Classic Liberal
  
  Our dear leader sang this song on stage with her adoring iusy crowd. Yes, she thinks she is pure intentions incarnate.
  
  |: Nations (peoples) hear the signal!
  On to the last fight!
  The Internationale
  Fights for human right(s)! 😐
  
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  September 20, 2020 9:37am
  - Inandout
    
    C L, one glimmer of hope is she is reaching the age of maturity and will give her socialist toys away. She has child and a partner to consider, not the Internationale. One lives in hope anyway.
    
    10 6
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    September 20, 2020 10:33am
    - JackRabbit
      
      If things don’t go her way, she will implode. She can’t take failure and invalidation.
      
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      September 20, 2020 1:12pm
Happychappy

Jacinda Ardern says public difficult to control after being accused of breaking distancing rules. Is there anything this Prime Minister will not stop to, to blame others for her failings and should have taken lessons from all those families that she stopped from attending at loved one’s funerals before deciding to break rules that she has been prepared to use with the full force of the law to stop them from breaking the rules.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/09/jacinda-ardern-says-public-difficult-to-control-after-being-accused-of-breaking-distancing-rules.html
It sounds and looks like there is rules for for the public in this Country and different rules for those that make and enforce them.
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September 20, 2020 8:11am
- Tomtoddy
  
  It was “self inflicted” and deliberate. Blaming the rest of us for being difficult to control is gross deceit and hypocrisy. She is the one who took the camera, moved herself into position, encouraged the people around her to get in close.
  
  I am so furious over this as I try and help two grandchildren deal with unemployment because of her demands for businesses to close and people to social distance. What an arrogant airhead.
  
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  September 20, 2020 9:00am
  - Sir Cullen's Sidekick
    
    But majority of business think Labour is better than National in an opinion poll. So let them close if they can’t handle the heat. I am happy for them to go bankrupt and close. They deserve it.
    
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    September 20, 2020 11:38am
    - KevO'Brien
      
      Self deceit leads to wailing on election night.
      
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      September 20, 2020 12:32pm
wimpston peeeders

OMFG last night went and caught up with a couple on a farm just down the road, they dont bother watching tv news etc and just have social media to “keep them updated” I was stunned when they started raving on about how good jacinda is because shes giving everyone tax cuts and her end of life bill is really good… backup WTF!!! I corrected them but refused to accept that those were national and acts doing and not jacinda, the response was nope its all jacinda and the little chubby old bitch (collins) would be bad news if elected.

wow just wow, How fucking dumb does the internet make ppl? and even worse is that sort of disinformation is allowed to be access and spread by anyone.

SCS go hard with your leaked poll data or whatever you have today, the sheeple are fucked and totally deserve ardern.
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September 20, 2020 8:20am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  If they are farming folk, they must be living in a fog of denial… are they unaware of the following that will be coming their way if Labour/Greens get back into power:
  *Wealth tax of 2% each year
  *Methane Tax for animals
  *Water charge (negotiated with iwi)
  *Fertiliser levy
  *Required to have zero-till paddocks
  *Charge for Dissolved Inorganic Nitrogen (DIN) runoff?
  
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  September 20, 2020 9:17am
  - wimpston peeeders
    
    theyre farm managers so paye workers so dont understand the full implications of it, tried explaining that greens want the ag portfolio and how that would affect them etc but nope facebook and other sites have told them the “truth” first time in a while ive experienced that amount of delussion, the cindydust last week must have been very strong as not that long ago (month at most) they despised cindy and had alot of hatefull things to say.
    
    nutha dude there shook hands with my mate on a 1k bet over who would win the election, one of those boys will be sad in a few weeks time.
    
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    September 20, 2020 9:48am
    - Classic Liberal
      
      Interesting that they had such a quick and extreme change. What did it?
      
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      September 20, 2020 10:35am
    - Inandout
      
      WP, that sounds better, workers on a farm. As Maggy has pointed to all those onerous costs a farmer has to endure, so they would have to be brain dead to worship Labour.
      
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      September 20, 2020 10:38am
  - KiWombat
    
    – – – and they are shortly about to start policing the 10% gradient rule on our paddocks – good luck with that one !
    
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    September 20, 2020 10:16am
- Classic Liberal
  
  WP, would the msm make them any more informed? Those seem strongly CoL biased.
  
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  September 20, 2020 9:45am
  - wimpston peeeders
    
    even msm dont say the cindy created end of life bill and giving tax cuts.
    
    thats the crap theyve been fed and believe just complete fakenews, the sheeple effect I guess
    
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    September 20, 2020 10:26am
- Harriet
  
  “….. the sheeple are fucked and totally deserve ardern….”
  
  If they are that dumb – yep they are – then Collins can take a chunk of the dumb as all fuck voting base:
  
  “We are looking at introducing death taxes for Rich Pricks – those who die with over $500,000 – at a death tax rate of 50%. We will make them give you half of their money.
  While all other taxes in your lifetime will be between 0% and 5%. You will be wealthy and you don’t have to work more than you currently do.
  We in National believe you should all keep your money as you deserve to, and rich people should give EVERYBODY more of their wealth – once they have all fucked off and died. Their kids will get half the money and you will get the other half, Eric Watson will give you all $5,000,000,000.00.
  
  I too am on your side – I’m a Minarchist just like Jacinda. ACT can eat shit. 😎 ”
  
  They wouldn’t know the fucken difference between Marxism and Minarchism – but it sounds the same and that’s all that matters to ’em.
  
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  September 20, 2020 10:18am
  - Classic Liberal
    
    Where is this proposed death tax? Greens or actual Labour?
    
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    September 20, 2020 10:46am
    - Harriet
      
      It’s mine.
      
      Given a large chunk of voters are dumb and fall for the rich prick/poverdy/1% have 50% of the wealth —– of course they will vote to ‘get more money’ as they always have.
      It won’t get passed the first reading. But that’s not the goal.
      
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      September 20, 2020 11:34am
- Loddenthinks
  
  Watch The Social Dilemma on Netflix if you get a chance. It’ll explain this phenomenon quite well, but nothing explains (or fixes) stupid.
  
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  September 20, 2020 10:25am
- 70andstilllearning
  
  Not only social media wp.
  Just watched unscheduled session of Ques Time in the House on One.
  Part 1)
  wannabe leftie back bencher vs Paul Goldsmith – antagonistic, opinionated & interrupted response style questioning.
  
  Part 2)
  wlbb plus Robbo – fawning, responses respectfully listened to without interruption (with appropriate head nodding), followed by next pre-scripted patsy question.
  Funniest part was when wlbb opened his mouth to ask next patsy, then realized Robbo was just pausing and he was left hanging on camera with mouth open but no sound coming out for a moment.
  
  Would be pure comedy if it wasn’t all so obviously manipulative and pathetic.
  
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  September 20, 2020 10:31am
- Sir Cullen's Sidekick
  
  Excellent Peeeeders, now you realise my pain.
  
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  September 20, 2020 11:39am
I remember when

Should tax rates, for the rich and businesses, include some sort of discount more the number of FT positions they provide?
Obviously, there are potential difficulties to measuring and perhaps added costs, but it would mean reductions in staff numbers could be measured carefully in times of recession.
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September 20, 2020 8:31am
- Harriet
  
  NO.
  
  You have to define a working week to start with – say 40hrs – but once you have the government involved they will push to reduce that definition/hours so as to have more people ’employed’. Business will go with that as they will get the additional tax break for the further increase in employees.
  While everybody employed gets less pay – and topped up with WFF payments.
  
  Most people go to work for dignity and money — and your proposition is the ‘equal sharing of misery’ — like it currently is with WFF payments — undignified serfdom instead of meaningful employment!
  
  It’s all about merit! 😎
  
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  September 20, 2020 9:42am
- Classic Liberal
  
  Much too complicated. Lower tax rates overall should promote people to spend more in all sorts of small local businesses without being a big employer.
  
  Lower taxes for big employers would further advantage a huge warehouse type markets over small owner operated stores with a few staff. The latter promote a better community, give more local jobs and help more people take responsibility for their own business.
  
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  September 20, 2020 9:55am
  - chukar
    
    Sources of income are the driver.
    Look at working for families ,the recipients think that it is just another subsidy for businesses, the businesses are too scared they may have to pay more and become uncompetitive.
    
    Where does this leave lower tax rates when Government is orchestrating incomes anyway?
    
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    September 20, 2020 8:00pm
Tauhei Notts

8.32 a.m. and no posts here. How will you people get on here when the clocks are advanced?
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September 20, 2020 8:33am
- Sir Cullen's Sidekick
  
  May be Sheeple haven’t finished their morning prayers to Cindy??
  
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  September 20, 2020 11:42am
  - KevO'Brien
    
    The more the adoration of Ardern the quicker her downfall.
    
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    September 20, 2020 12:37pm
riffer

Is it just me, or does it seem a little crass to have politicians arguing over Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s replacement before she’s even in the ground?
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September 20, 2020 8:33am
- MarkF
  
  To be fair they were probably arguing before she was even dead! Just saying.
  
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  September 20, 2020 8:35am
- mikenmildagain
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  Yes, but ‘crass’ is a little understated for a polity like the US…
  
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  September 20, 2020 8:36am
  - Jimmy White
    
    Mike, hear we go again. You make ‘crass’ statements without backing them up with facts. You attack the man not the policy, because you have no argument, and down tick everyone on principle.
    
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    September 20, 2020 9:17am
    - mikenmildagain
      
      Who said I was attacking a man?
      
      4 19
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      September 20, 2020 10:25am
      - Jimmy White
        
        It was a ‘Ad hominem’ but you would not understand that word, to many letters
        
        12 4
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        September 20, 2020 11:04am
      - RichardX
        
        I suggest Jimmy White look up the definition of polity….but it may have too many letters
        
        5 3
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        September 20, 2020 11:48am
      - Harriet
        
        [mod: deleted. An entire comment devoted to abusing a commenter without making any other points, gratuitous abuse.]
        
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        September 20, 2020 1:12pm
    - Harriet
      
      [mod: deleted. An entire comment devoted to abusing a commenter without making any other points, gratuitous abuse.]
      
      Look what I was replying to:
      
      “….I suggest Jimmy White look up the definition of polity….but it may have too many letters….”
      
      Given that DPF wouldn’t sign up a hypocrite as a moderator – you having an off day ?
      
      All is forgiven! 😎
      
      Seriously — I didn’t think it was abuse as I don’t do that, on the nose maybe.
      
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      September 20, 2020 1:52pm
      - Harriet
        
        It is your call and i’m not disagreeing. Cheers have a good day. Thanks for doing the job too.
        
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        September 20, 2020 2:00pm
  - MCos
    
    Crass is Donald Trump’s middle name.
    
    6 26
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    September 20, 2020 9:45am
    - Jimmy White
      
      Pot calling the kettle me thinks
      
      12 4
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      September 20, 2020 11:05am
    - Classic Liberal
      
      And? At least he doesn’t hide it and actually gets things done.
      
      10 2
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      September 20, 2020 11:15am
    - Critical Thinker
      
      Yeah nah
      
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVbh0IL9R4M
      
      3 3
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      September 20, 2020 11:18am
      - RW Capitalist
        
        Ambushed on the tarmac, impossible to prepare a statement, that was incredibly presidential.
        Other words
        respectful
        pleasant
        polite
        cordial
        All things they say he is not, but people who have known him privately for years, say he has always been.
        Attack him, however, and he fights back.
        
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        September 20, 2020 12:01pm
  - herb1
    
    on this I agree with you Mike, having watched the actions and reactions of the Democrats and supporters since Trumps election
    
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    September 20, 2020 11:54am
- mark15
  
  Ask the COL.They had sorted the problem Brenton Tarrant created the day he did it.
  
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  September 20, 2020 8:54am
  - RW Capitalist
    
    Yes their gun control measures were incredibly effective
    More shooting crimes since than before.
    
    4 0
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    September 20, 2020 12:03pm
  - GJM
    
    They had the “solution” sorted 2 years before Tarrent had his day out, just they couldn’t find a reason to implement it. Tarrent provided that. It has been Police, Labour and Greens poljcy for ages to ban semi auto rifles (and all guns j due course). Tarrent Madeira happen, and allowed them to do even more at once than they dreamed possible.
    
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    September 20, 2020 7:03pm
- Inandout
  
  riffer, if a monarch dies the next in line is announced instantly e.g. ‘The King is dead, long live xx’. SCOTUS must have a majority vote, either way, and interestingly Kavanaugh has been described as centre right, not extreme right as his deluded critics have described him. A SCOTUS hung vote would be intolerable.
  
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  September 20, 2020 10:55am
  - Flossie
    
    The line of succession of a monarchy is predetermined. It’s not subject to selection.
    
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    September 20, 2020 7:26pm
Dave Mann

I’ve also been watching a lot of Douglas Murray’s podcasts on YouTube, as well as other commenters who are documenting the self loathing that has gripped us here in the West. There are many examples, but here with Joe Rogan, I think he hits the nail on the head in ways that we simply cannot ignore:

https://youtu.be/t7uqHosIj4s

Murray very forcefully catalogues the parlous state of Western civilisation as evidenced by the atomisation of our culture through identity politics and the awwokening of our institutions and our corporate structures. This atomisation has been building steam over the last twenty years and it seems obvious that we are now witnessing the actual end of Western civilisation.

Dominant civilisations are forged in the inevitable conflict for primacy with other competing systems and, although Murray doesn’t actually say this in so many words here, I think the West has been dealt the death blow by China, A blow from which we are unlikely ever to recover.

While Western civilisation has been consuming itself with doubt, invented guilt for its past and the fictions of racism and gender/identity politics, China has been growing in self-confidence and cohesiveness. This of course not only expresses itself economically, but also culturally and, more lately, militarily as seen in their expansion in the South China Sea as well as their political and economic expansion in the Pacific and the developing world.

And now, in a brilliant master stroke, China has achieved the coup de grace. Covid-19.

China unleashed this fake ‘plague’ on the world and then stood back and watched as our doubt ridden, incoherent, fragmented culture has literally folded like a wet tissue paper under the weight of our own irrational fear.

To spur the process along China has marshalled the forces of disinformation – largely through the subversion of our digital information systems – using Artificial Intelligence and faked up doomsday ‘modelling’ to feed the chaos by successfully subverting our media and our panic driven social media systems.

In one fell swoop and without a shot being fired in the conventional warfare sense, China has dealt Western civilisation the ultimate blow…. and we are so stupefied by fear of this largely imaginary ‘pandemic’ that we haven’t even recognised it yet. Worse still, we don’t even know that we are defeated.

The prize is not the West per se. China isn’t interested in taking over America or Europe. They are quite content to leave the West to cannibalise itself in civil war (USA) and buckle under the weight of Islam (Europe). No, their prize is the developing world which contains 85% of the world’s natural resources and its population. As far as China is concerned, the West can go fuck itself – and we are happily obliging them.

It’s brilliant. This will go down in history as being one of the most efficient and devastating wars of all time. It’s not pretty being on the losing side, but you have to admire the Chinese for the way they have carried this off.
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September 20, 2020 8:33am
- Ruahine
  
  Agree DM.
  All aided and abetted by the Communist dominated WHO and their sycophants and ex-employees such as Bloomfield and now Helen Clark has been appointed to do a cover up of origins of the Wuhan Flu.
  
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  September 20, 2020 9:00am
- marcw
  
  China’s tactic has always been to play the long game. I think even they may be suprised at the current rate of descent into self-destruction by the West.
  
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  September 20, 2020 12:02pm
  - IC5000
    
    China’s only ally is North Korea. How is that playing the long game?
    
    1 6
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    September 20, 2020 3:32pm
    - marcw
      
      “their prize is the developing world which contains 85% of the world’s natural resources and its population.”
      
      Comprehension is not one of your strong points. Sorry I can’t help you there.
      
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      September 20, 2020 3:49pm
- WaynelSexton
  
  China really has the Soviet Union to thank for doing the subverting that caused us to give up Christianity and import the third world.
  Yari Bezmenov explains how they subverted the West in this classic video
  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9TviIuXPSE&t=2319s
  
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  September 20, 2020 2:38pm
oldpark

National Party Campaign Launch today Sunday 20 09 2020 . Live on Nationals Facebook page as well National Party Website . Tune in at that time .You will be glad you did.
Will be a good opportunity to watch and hear a genuine Professional Politician in Judith Collins.
She is more interested in the future and well being of Five Million NZs and the basics of life .
Even that is under threat as massive unemployment and the lack of income to keep their families as the panic unilateral decision of an Amateur type of apprentice Politician ruthlessley shut down the Nation of NZ . Using the Coronavirus “Fear Factor” to control and dominate the hearts and minds of Five Million NZs .
Yes the Control Freak Ardern is still using the Coronavirus “Fear Factor” as her running mate to get elected and continue the crucifiction of NZs economy. Ardern is more interested in the Social Engineering of NZ. in the play book image of Karl Marx.
We can be sure Judith Collins will break the shackles and stranglehold of the disaster that will happen to NZ and NZs if Ardern with her “Narcissistic Personality Disorder” gets to control their futures . Let us not hear the Lament “We Told You So”.
Better to do “Two Ticks Blue” now rather than to sample the Trainwreck up ahead when Ardern with her Coronavirus “Fear Factor” aboard frightens the living crap out NZ Sheeple for their votes.
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September 20, 2020 8:34am
- Loddenthinks
  
  What time?
  
  8 1
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  September 20, 2020 10:46am
  - oldpark
    
    National Party Campaign Launch today Sunday at 2.00pm 20 09 2020. Will be streamed live on National Party Web Site as well as National Party Page on Facebook . Make it a Big day out for how you might vote for NZs families and the well being of Five Million NZs over the next Three Years..
    
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    September 20, 2020 11:00am
- oldpark
  
  At 2.00pm today Sunday . Don’t be late . Take time to make time . You will be glad you did.
  
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  September 20, 2020 11:03am
- KevO'Brien
  
  ☑️☑️Proven, reliable, progress☑️☑️
  
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  September 20, 2020 12:40pm
fernglas

Lionel Shriver, writing in the Spectator, about having a video removed from Youtube for having the temerity to question perceived wisdom. (She pointed out that the vast majority of adverse outcomes to Covid-19 were due to obesity)

“Outside rare contrary voices like mine, silenced in August, we continue to be fed a steady diet of Covid hysteria, which amounts to government-sponsored terrorism. After all, what is terrorism? The instillation of pervasive social fear to achieve political ends. Sounds like this administration’s Covid strategy in a nutshell. Good gracious, and I thought governments were meant to protect us from terrorism.”
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September 20, 2020 8:36am
- oldpark
  
  Hello didn’t you know” Truth” is the new Hate Speech . WTF .
  
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  September 20, 2020 8:55am
- Classic Liberal
  
  Styx has a talk re this: Ignore the preachers of hate and fear:
  
  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=e-6NUpZDBgQ
  
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  September 20, 2020 10:14am
Suze Wainwright

I guess an irony in Cindy’s social distance breaching selfie the other day was that it was probably only for a maximum of a dozen students (where it was obviously meant to give the impression of 100s & 1000s of adoring fans).

Surely Labour’s PR team could have arranged for those dozen to wear masks and stand 2 meters apart while surrounding her. It would have made for more correct politics…
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September 20, 2020 8:41am
Tomtoddy

I am no engineer but it seems strange to me that a medium sized truck hitting a beam on the harbour bridge could put the whole original structure at risk. Am I missing something or is the structure just that vulnerable?

One thing is that there should have a second crossing long before now.
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September 20, 2020 8:47am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  The nippon clipons might fall off
  
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  September 20, 2020 8:52am
  - Loddenthinks
    
    Au contraire mon brave. It’s the central structure itself that has been compromised. All 4 central lanes are closed, and the Nippon Clipons are the only lanes open.
    
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    September 20, 2020 10:54am
- wimpston peeeders
  
  fear my friend, they need to worry us constantly to keep us in line with perpetual fear.
  covids wearing thin so now they get to scare jaffas that their bridge might disapear now, probably give goff the support he needs to build nzs most expensive bridge aswell.
  
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  September 20, 2020 8:55am
  - IC5000
    
    > fear my friend, they need to worry us constantly to keep us in line with perpetual fear.
    
    Is this similar to the perpetual fear being peddled here that Labour will usher in a Stalinism dictatorship or is that a different perpetual fear?
    
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    September 20, 2020 3:34pm
- the deity formerly known as nigel6888
  
  Wait till the first cyclist gets blown off the $300m “skypath” oh how we will thank Cindy for that “investment”
  
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  September 20, 2020 8:56am
  - Paulus
    
    There will be no Skypath in the foreseeable future (good) now that very expensive repairs are needed.
    Come back in 10 years and cyclists can still be shouting and costs are unobtainable.
    
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    September 20, 2020 10:57am
- MarkF
  
  It looks to me to be a triangulating bracing member (for rigidity/stability), still important but not the main load-bearing members. What surprises me is that it doesn’t look that complicated to fix. If this were Japan it would have probably been fixed overnight.
  
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  September 20, 2020 9:00am
  - sooty
    
    Don’t worry Phil Twyfords onto it!
    
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    September 20, 2020 9:48am
    - alex Masterley
      
      That being the case then the Harbour Bridge is screwed.
      
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      September 20, 2020 10:28am
      - Harriet
        
        Ya nut — it’s bolted ! 😎
        
        11 1
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        September 20, 2020 11:09am
      - Steve Otto(North Shore)
        
        Harriet, riveted actually – well most of it
        
        3 1
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        September 20, 2020 1:37pm
  - Loddenthinks
    
    And if it was China they’d have built a tunnel or other second crossing 20 years ago!
    
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    September 20, 2020 11:08am
    - Harriet
      
      Given half of Auckland is Chinese they should have the job half completed! 😎
      
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      September 20, 2020 11:12am
    - Classic Liberal
      
      And quadrupled the population. Be careful what you wish for…
      
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      September 20, 2020 11:16am
  - rangitoto
    
    Here it will probably take months just to get RMA approval.
    
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    September 20, 2020 11:40am
    - Tall Man
      
      Years.
      
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      September 20, 2020 1:10pm
      - Steve Otto(North Shore)
        
        Decades
        
        4 1
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        September 20, 2020 1:37pm
  - Brian McDonald
    
    It down because past the broken bolt holes because of the load, may not be as simple as it looks and they will have to check other such nearby supports for cracks, stress or movement. I’m sure they will be considering propping either side of the damage in some temporary measure as they have indicated but they have to do that within the allowable width. I’m sure they have smart engineers there.
    
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    September 20, 2020 7:34pm
- the deity formerly known as nigel6888
  
  Also, the second crossing got caught up in nimbly politics. Hence a bloody stupid tunnel, and rail, instead of a far more sensible bridge…. visual blight tho! Enjoy the 7 hour commute auckland
  
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  September 20, 2020 9:00am
  - fernglas
    
    I like a good bridge. They can be aesthetically pleasing, practical and cheaper than tunnels. Let’s face it, the Waitemata is far from the world’s most beautiful harbour
    
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    September 20, 2020 10:46am
    - Harriet
      
      “….I like a good bridge. They can be aesthetically pleasing….”
      
      We’ve noticed — you’ve been sold plenty of ’em!
      
      And besides that – Bridges has a wife! 😎
      
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      September 20, 2020 11:46am
- Hollyfield
  
  I too am not an engineer, maybe there’s some kind of physics “magic” to explain this, but I don’t understand:
  it’s described as a load bearing strut
  it’s on the main bridge, so the 4 centre lanes are closed for safety
  the four clip-on lanes are open because “the clip-ons are not connected to the main structure, which meant they can be used without concern.” (General manager transport services at the Transport Agency, Brett Gliddon)
  
  How are the clip-ons attached to the bridge if not the main structure? Are they floating across the harbour?
  
  Surely if the clip-ons are safe, the rest of the bridge, which the clip-ons are attached to, should also be safe? And if the main bridge is not safe, how can the clip-ons be safe?
  
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  September 20, 2020 9:33am
  - freemark
    
    The clip ons are connected to the concrete piers, independently of the truss bridge. The level of the box girder relative to the original bridge dropped considerably when we put 100’s of tonnes of strengthening steel in and on them. Any truss/beam/arch triangulated structure relies to some degree on all of it’s members and connections – some connections more than others. So yes the integrity of the bridge has been compromised by this damage. I don’t have the calcs to know by how much, but repairing it is prudent if not essential.
    
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    September 20, 2020 10:54am
    - Hollyfield
      
      Thank you freemark. That now makes sense about what the clip-ons are clipped on to.
      
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      September 20, 2020 1:11pm
- KiWombat
  
  After 60+ years the Auckland Harbour Bridge is closing in fast on it’s “Use By” date.
  
  I have various pieces of steel lying around paddocks that I have placed there over the last 25 years, and some are now unrecognizable. Auckland Council seems to find money to finance fisting contests, but not to even think about a new dam or harbour crossing.
  
  Time for change there as well !
  
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  September 20, 2020 10:14am
- RW Capitalist
  
  A couple of things
  Are they copying something, except in Christie’s case, the supreme court overturned the fraud case, here…with Goff and Ardern…I’m not so sure.
  
  1. The Fort Lee lane closure scandal, also known as the George Washington Bridge lane closure scandal or Bridgegate,[1][2] is a U.S. political scandal in which a staff member and political appointees of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie colluded to create traffic jams in Fort Lee, New Jersey, by closing lanes at the main toll plaza[3][4] for the upper level of the George Washington Bridge.[5]
  
  2. What takes so long? They built the Empire State building in 1 year.
  
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  September 20, 2020 12:09pm
- RW Capitalist
  
  re 2nd crossing?
  We are emulating the Italians?
  
  The Strait of Messina Bridge is a long-planned suspension bridge across the Strait of Messina, a narrow section of water between the eastern tip of Sicily and the southern tip of mainland Italy, specifically between north Messina’s Torre Faro[1][2] and Villa San Giovanni.[3]
  
  While the bridge has been proposed since ancient times, a detailed plan was made in the 1990s for a suspension bridge. The project was cancelled in 2006, under Prime Minister Romano Prodi.[4] However, on 6 March 2009, as part of a massive new public works programme, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government announced that construction of the Messina Bridge would indeed go ahead, pledging €1.3 billion as a contribution to the bridge’s total cost, estimated at €6.1 billion.[5] The project was cancelled again on 26 February 2013, by Prime Minister Mario Monti’s government due to budget constraints.[6]
  
  The bridge would have been the longest suspension bridge in the world, almost doubling the main span of the Akashi Kaikyō Bridge in Japan. The bridge would have been part of the Berlin–Palermo railway axis (Line 1) of the Trans-European Transport Networks
  
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  September 20, 2020 12:14pm
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    Part of the problem of the Messina Bridge was the cost in fees payable to the Mafia
    
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    September 20, 2020 4:08pm
calendar girl

That published photo of PM Ardern, posing for a group photograph close-up with a large number of people, shows the PM’s level of brazen hypocrisy.

“One rule for thee, but not for me.”

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/122824985/election-2020-david-seymour-criticises-jacinda-arderns-lack-of-social-distancing-in-selfie-while-on-the-campaign-trail
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September 20, 2020 8:50am
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Amazing. Newshub posted an item involving what Trump said without sleighting him.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/world/2020/09/ruth-bader-ginsburg-the-moment-donald-trump-is-told-of-rbg-s-death-as-tiny-dancer-plays-in-background.html?
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September 20, 2020 8:55am
Swifty

Canterbury is a Hundred (1950)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RegzDF2_JM
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September 20, 2020 9:26am
Durden

Damien Grant says this and I think he is wrong.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/300109925/treasurys-preelection-opening-of-the-books-tells-an-ugly-story

“New Zealand entered the global financial crisis (GFC) with one of the strongest fiscal and monetary positions in the West. Decades of fiscal prudence and austere monetary policy had delivered us a trivial sovereign debt, a strong dollar, and positive interest rates that rewarded the prudent and kept a firm discipline on the delinquent.”

Pre GFC, the world was awash with CDOs, low interest cash, and crazy property and share market asset value rises and a long stint of international “irrational exuberance”. Rather than Labour doing anything fiscally responsible (they won 3rd term with the big “student loan” bribe), it was world events that impacted NZ economic position. We floated up on the economic tide around the rest of the world. NZ under Labour simply creamed increased tax collections with higher tax rates — 33% company and 39% personal and Cullen’s deferred “chewing gum” tax cuts.

“Decades of fiscal prudence and austere monetary policy” — bullshit. This was not the case during the 3 terms of Labour. Neither was the NZ dollar particularly strong. The economic tailwinds NZ got were also there in Australia but much stronger — hence the net (70k odd/year ) outward migration flows from NZ.

To the big shocks that the Key government faced as listed, you could add Hubbard’s SCF failure too (~ $2B). Bill English ensured that debt was well in control. Maybe under too much control, because he forgot to invest in housing, infrastructure and give tax reductions BEFORE the elections.

And remember the NZD was at dizzying heights almost all the way through the John Key Government. At one stage we were thinking about parity with the USD.

Yes while exporters would have complained (W Peters the regional saviour made noises), it was the best and the cheapest time for NZ businesses (incl farming) to buy/invest in capital equipment, plant and know-how to improve the appalling productivity (GDP per capita). NZers failed to take up that challenge.

This has only got worse under this CoL government. The current low value of NZ$ since the Labour government took over is equivalent to an invisible buying power/pay cut of 25-30% for each and every NZer. Debt is now monstrous.
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September 20, 2020 9:28am
- IC5000
  
  > This has only got worse under this CoL government. The current low value of NZ$ since the Labour government took over is equivalent to an invisible buying power/pay cut of 25-30% for each and every NZer. Debt is now monstrous
  
  The same could be said for Australia since the Coalition came into power in 2013. I recall we were getting US$1.10 to the Aussie before that time and now it’s around US$0.70 which is an utter disgrace. The Coalition doubled our debt BEFORE covid came along and now they they’ll probably double it again.
  
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  September 20, 2020 3:42pm
Brian McDonald

Bugger can’t find a post from Tony talking up the Auckland Central poll.
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September 20, 2020 9:30am
- bruceavon
  
  We talked about it yesterday. The worst part of it, no one in the press seems to be talking about, is the party vote. Which has National at 23%. In the absence of any of the big polls lately, that looks bad to me.
  
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  September 20, 2020 10:07am
  - Harriet
    
    Cindy with her ranking gets back in on the party list no matter how Labour goes – so some may well give National the party vote.
    
    Meaning — who else has support other than Cindy — Key was popular but so too was English, Brownley, Collins…..
    
    No one else in Labour is very popular.
    
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    September 20, 2020 11:18am
  - Brian McDonald
    
    Who knows brueavon, I thought it had been a tight seat for several elections at least. Be interesting what the sentiment is behind the drop.
    
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    September 20, 2020 2:06pm
    - bruceavon
      
      Yeah. Well National won the party vote there last time with 49%. For it to be 23% in an area still in lock down doesn’t sound good to me. I wish a real poll would come out. Seems weird we haven’t had one when the election is so close.
      
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      September 20, 2020 3:32pm
      - Brian McDonald
        
        I agree.
        
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        September 20, 2020 7:25pm
- Humble Capitalist
  
  I just found a post from Comrade McDonald though
  
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  September 20, 2020 11:18am
  - Brian McDonald
    
    Best you can do is an insult. Well done.
    
    1 8
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    September 20, 2020 2:04pm
    - Humble Capitalist
      
      Not really an insult is it? The PM has used it as a term of endearment.
      
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      September 20, 2020 5:47pm
- Tall Man
  
  No need, the labour party media are doing it for them.
  
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  September 20, 2020 1:05pm
mikenmildagain

World leaders in 1945 vs world leaders in 2020:
https://www.facebook.com/MilitaryHumorpage/photos/a.1660895010907765/2601436420186948/
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September 20, 2020 9:32am
- Fletch
  
  Churchill – OK. But Stalin? Really? And FDR, whose policies prolonged the Great Depression? I’d take Trump over him, any day. Not much of a meme.
  
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  September 20, 2020 11:07am
  - Harriet
    
    Trump is a gruff Statesman which is more meaningful to the average American than the likes of a polite politician in Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush…
    
    Trump was elected to drain the swamp of colluders and he largely has, and is continuing to do so.
    
    Trump will be victorious, Washington is the new Empire and Trump the Emperor – people are better clothed and are eating more of the cake.
    
    Bourbanists and Bolsheviks will never be drunk on power. They will go back to their vodka – and L&P. 😎
    
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    September 20, 2020 12:06pm
plc

Glorious day.

… [Deleted – try again without being obnoxious with it. Mod.]
#YNWA
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September 20, 2020 9:48am
sooty

How many of the imported muslims from the Chch massacre trial have gone home?
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September 20, 2020 9:49am
- Paulus
  
  Have enquired with Department but nobody will tell me (or anybody I guess) or it is a secret anyway.
  Doubt if any/many as I believe they were promised by Cindy that they could have immigration visas if not citizenship if I remember correctly.
  
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  September 20, 2020 11:00am
Steve Otto(North Shore)

RBG meltdown. Perfect example of a deranged Democrat. Vid has had a horizontal flip done (why?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyPa57qU7aQ
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September 20, 2020 10:12am
- RW Capitalist
  
  So nothing has changed since 2016.
  
  3 0
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  September 20, 2020 12:18pm
Maggie Pie

Just been browsing the Sundays out on the deck.
Fab day here so far. Could see dozens of little P Class racing out by North Head. We’ve even got a couple of Kereru in the Puriri. Life IS wonderful isn’t it.
Shot into Newmarket yesterday afternoon to get another jar of my La Mer Night Creme from Smith & Caughey. I’ve been hoping the Chemist Warehouse would start stocking it. Such a rip-off.
And while i was there I went for a wander along both sides of Broadway. Counted 37 ‘Shop For Lease’ signs!
Those Chinese Pangolins have a lot to ansa for.
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September 20, 2020 10:12am
- bruceavon
  
  Newmarket main st was dying before covid. The mall is the main killer. Sucked the life out of the rest.
  
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  September 20, 2020 10:18am
  - Captain Mainwaring
    
    Sounds like what happened to High St. Lower Hutt when Westfield moved in.
    
    18 0
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    September 20, 2020 10:55am
- RJ
  
  A lot of small businesses are in the bones of their asses with all the crap dealt to them under labour before COVID came around.
  
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  September 20, 2020 11:23am
- Hollyfield
  
  My local mall, which is small by “mall” standards and is not one of the main chains, has changed drastically since March. The first time I popped in after the first lockdown I was shocked at how many shops are now vacant. Paper Plus has gone, and many smaller businesses.
  The one new business is an Asian supermarket which looked quite busy.
  
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  September 20, 2020 1:15pm
Cobolt24

Vote in this if you haven’t already. https://votecompass.tvnz.co.nz/
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September 20, 2020 10:21am
- Spam
  
  Ah yes – the vote compass that puts Act (sponsor of the End Of Life Choice Bill, supportors of same-sex marriage, supporters of vaping, and as far as i know, supporters of cannabis reform ) as being “Socially Conservative”.
  
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  September 20, 2020 11:06am
  - Evadne
    
    And Lanour in the centre economically…
    
    7 0
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    September 20, 2020 1:26pm
  - Dougal10
    
    Its a place to go and see what kind of stupid result you can make it have.
    
    3 0
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    September 20, 2020 4:54pm
- RW Capitalist
  
  Done and that makes 5 times
  Wonder how they can say this is a genuine method of polling?
  When people can spend all day on it slanting the results.
  
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  September 20, 2020 12:31pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Trump boat parades. This is the guy that started it and the boat is now the official Trump boat. He had a flag on his pier and someone made him take it down. He got pissed off and sent his boat to get wrapped. Carlos Gavidia. Awesome!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OSF5apvB6k
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September 20, 2020 10:22am
- marcw
  
  Love his enthusiasm, shame about his sea-master navigation ability! He could benefit from a lesson or two. LOL
  
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  September 20, 2020 10:34am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    Looks like he had little room to turn into the running tide. I’m more impressed with the 900 HP
    
    10 3
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    September 20, 2020 10:55am
greybeard

https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/food-wine/300109785/tip-top-orders-ben-baylys-new-fine-dining-restaurant-to-stop-calling-its-ice-cream-dessert-a-trumpet
Subheading: “owner of new restaurant scores free advertising using dodgy practice”.
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September 20, 2020 10:25am
- Loddenthinks
  
  Yep, no such thing as bad publicity. This guy Bayly clearly has either some dirt on people in high places or is very well connected. He had an entire TV series made about his “quest” to open this greasy spoon.
  
  His business partner is obviously the brains of the operation, and the shrill squawking from someone calling themselves a food blogger – Lauraine Jacobs, never heard of her – is laughable.
  
  “For them to come in and be so pathetic, couldn’t they recognise that Ben’s doing something amazing and feel quite flattered? I would be flattered. I think that’s nonsense. Too many lawyers in this town, and not enough innovative thinkers.”
  
  Firstly, it wasn’t a lawyer that wrote to the greasy spoon, it was Tip Top’s Senior Brand Manager – which is her job, by the way.
  
  Second, if you’re such a fan of innovative thinking, why couldn’t they think of an innovative dessert themselves, or at least an innovative name for it?
  
  Side note: further evidence, if it were needed, of the dishonesty and chicanery of the MSM, particularly $1uffed. The headline was “Tip Top orders Ben Bayly’s new fine dining restaurant to stop calling its ice cream dessert a Trumpet” which of course was quite wrong.
  
  $1uffed said that it was a “cease and desist” letter (it wasn’t) and that they had “ordered them” to stop using the name (they hadn’t). In fact, one of the owners said:
  
  “I found it really polite and completely reasonable. We were really happy to comply with their request, and changed the name of the dessert.” Go figure.
  
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  September 20, 2020 12:17pm
- RW Capitalist
  
  What’s next……The NY symphony orchestra?
  
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  September 20, 2020 12:34pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Nov 3rd. Get ready for this.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CFPnOi7gOlk/?
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September 20, 2020 10:28am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Democrat mating call
  
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  September 20, 2020 10:29am
Jack5

The Medical School low-marks preferential entry row …

More than half of the second-year class at Otago University’s Medical School entered their study through the low-marks entry system, a veteran medical practitioner reports in a letter to the Otago Daily Times on Saturday, as the row continues over the suggestion of setting a ceiling on this type of entry.

The university’s preferential entry scheme for Maori, Pacific Islands, refugees, and rural students faces a legal challenge from a parent of an unsuccessful entrant.

Douglas Cox, of Lake Hayes, says in a letter to the Otago Daily Times, printed on Saturday, that Nicholas Maru Mantell said that in his second-year class at Medical School there were only two Maori.

Cox wrote:

“Professor Mantell may be suffering from ‘elderly forgetfulness’ with his statement that there were only two Maori members of his second-year class, of which I was a member. Including himself and Professor Durie there were four members with Maori whakapapa and one Samoan.”

Both Mantell and Cox were ophthalmologists (eye specialists). The Medical Register says Mantell’s practising certificate expired on August 31, and Douglas Cox’s expired in 2015.

Cox also says that he applauds the affirmative pathway into Medical School, but asks where it stops .

“Will the opponents of a cap on the affirmative pathway be happy only when 70 per cent, or 80 per cent, or 90 per cent of those selected come through this pathway.”

Cox says he is the son of a white bus driver from a small town who gained entry to Medical School through hard work and good marks in his medical intermediate.

Meanwhile, in the Christchurch Press, Martin van Beynen reports that the father of the student who didn’t get into medical school and who is legally challenging the preferential entry scheme, says he is getting support from other parents.

Van Beynen writes:

“The student achieved A+ grades for the requisite papers and a UCAT (an intelligence/suitability test) result above the 90th percentile. His child was denied entry.

Maori and Pasifika applicants were accepted for 2020 with B- averages and no consideration of UCAT scores.

For this year’s intake, 120 of 202 places available to first-year Health Sciences places went to preferential-entry students. Of those, 79 (39 per cent) were Maori and ethnic Pacific Islanders.

Van Beynen’s article:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/122803669/support-for-legal-challenge-to-university-of-otago-medical-school-admissions
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September 20, 2020 10:30am
- kowtow
  
  So we don’t live in a meritocracy .
  Another lie.
  
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  September 20, 2020 12:42pm
  - IC5000
    
    Lol of course not. Making your way up in life whether it be in large corporates or govnt has always been about brown nosing, social networks and nepotism. Obviously nobody in those positions are going to say this.
    
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    September 20, 2020 3:46pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Why the University thinks it needs to be the one to sort out the lack of representation of Maori and PI into the Medical School is beyond me.
  
  The problem started much further back down the the Education chain…
  
  Schools should be accountable for failing to turn out well-prepared Maori and PI students who can hold their own at entry level into Med School.
  (for if the B- entry level Maori & PI students are capable of keeping up with their 2nd yr and beyond colleagues….. then they were capable of performing well at 1st year).
  
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  September 20, 2020 1:38pm
  - IC5000
    
    > Why the University thinks it needs to be the one to sort out the lack of representation of Maori and PI into the Medical School is beyond me.
    
    Again, another instance where you should be doing some basic research on the subject.
    
    2 10
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    September 20, 2020 3:49pm
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      Feel free to fill me in with the facts then…
      
      I’m a busy old lady… washing to do, gardens to dig, lawns to mow, meals to cook, kilometres to swim…
      
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      September 20, 2020 8:49pm
- Jules99
  
  Yeah, I have a family member who missed out on a place despite having the requisite marks. She’s gone to Australia.
  
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  September 20, 2020 2:11pm
  - Dougal10
    
    Watch the white flight to australian universities increase . An otago medical degree will soon be almost worthless.
    
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    September 20, 2020 4:58pm
Humble Capitalist

Comrade Robertson just told Jack Tame he will ‘take that on the chin’. Fair enough but which one?
Comrade Ardern tells us that climate change is the nuclear free moment of the times. She needs to tell her fellow comrade to ease back on consumption. Comrade Robertson has been in a great carbon emitting paddock.
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September 20, 2020 10:36am
Maggie Pie

My partner met up for a beer with a couple of his duck-shooting mates in Ponsonby last nite. Said they were spewing about the latest poll showing Labor ahead in Central. One of them knew Helen White and was saying “….. a really nice lady by all accounts but … [Deleted. You are risking your auto-posting status with this and similar recent posts. Suggest you be a little more discerning in your outbursts. Mod.]

LOL!!

TBH, I’d never even heard of her so just checked out FB

https://www.facebook.com/events/932360207274783/
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September 20, 2020 10:41am
- Inandout
  
  Maggie, I looked at that FB photo and that Indian chap and was wondering what was going through his mind. If I were him it would be ‘why are so many dairies being robbed by scum?’
  
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  September 20, 2020 11:07am
- Maggie Pie
  
  @Mod….. Warning heeded.
  (May i just say in defense, that anything I post either on my own or my partners behalf, can always be supported by solid evidence if required) 😀
  
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  September 20, 2020 11:42am
Sigmund Freud

This is exactly why NZ is in a life or death existential crisis. Who can read this and not weep for our former beautiful country. Of course, the solution to their self created problems is simple: JUST REPORT AND FACT-CHECK THE NEWS!!!

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Make a contribution

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We’re asking our readers to help us continue to play our vital role in society. Stuff holds a special position in New Zealand, with the largest network of newsrooms – hundreds of journalists from Northland to Southland. We’re part of your local community, doggedly pursuing the issues that matter.

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September 20, 2020 10:45am
- RJ
  
  Right, nz is in life or death existential crisis because media who are struggling because of the internet are asking for donations. Although I would never donate to them, you need to get out and live your life, enjoy the beautiful day instead of panicking because of nothing.
  
  New zealand is a former beautiful country? Maybe you should move to Aussie, still an amazing beautiful country and no matter who the leader is I would still rather be here than anywhere else.
  
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  September 20, 2020 11:21am
  - Loddenthinks
    
    Media are only partly struggling because of the internet, as many news sites have successfully monetised online consumption.
    
    IMO the main reason is that people are simply not prepared to pay for lazy, biased, sloppy, disingenuous, dishonest, amateur “reporting” and opinion of idiots, and would rather the media simply fact-checked, then reported, the news.
    
    I don’t want or need to be told what to think or how to feel about something that somebody says. Just the facts, ma’am, but that seems to be too hard.
    
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    September 20, 2020 12:27pm
- the deity formerly known as nigel6888
  
  Hahaha
  
  They willingly squandered their integrity.
  
  Die news media, and die quickly, this is embarassing.
  
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  September 20, 2020 12:22pm
- MCos
  
  “This is exactly why NZ is in a life or death existential crisis.”
  
  What sort of shit is that?
  
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  September 20, 2020 1:00pm
Tasman Terror

Goldsmith summed up the stimulus debate….. Nats want a temporary tax cut and allow the people to stimulate the economy or Labour wanting Twyford and Jones making those decisions.
The talk on the street is that Labour has been snookered on this and are panicking big time.
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September 20, 2020 10:51am
- Catgurl13
  
  Those were Goldsmiths comments on Q&A this morning, however I don’t think it looked good. Jack Tame was asking why not give lowest earners that money instead. It really didn’t make Nats look good.
  
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  September 20, 2020 11:47am
  - fernglas
    
    The difference is that National will let you keep your own money to spend, and Labour will take your money and give it to someone else to spend.
    
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    September 20, 2020 1:55pm
  - Classic Liberal
    
    Give people what money? It doesn’t exist until people work and produce. Lower taxes increase spending, small businesses, jobs. This gives more govt income overall through a larger tax base.
    
    Tame’s leftist idea means that you curb spending by taking a larger cut of people’s income and discourage production.
    
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    September 20, 2020 2:59pm
    - Bullion
      
      The bottom 64% of income earners get 18% of the value of tax cuts.
      
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      September 21, 2020 10:36am
- DeepBlue
  
  Robbo has come out fighting saying there is a $4B hole as National didn’t correct Super figures which were down graded between May budget and PREFU.
  He’s had it verified.
  
  I am hoping this was a trap to catch Robbo out, as national said they’d had their figures checked too.
  
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  September 20, 2020 11:49am
  - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
    
    So Robbo is now the great financial analyst? Hmmm.
    
    What is his line ” we completely screwed the economy, and are $200bn in the hole with no way out, but look over there, they have a typo!”
    
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    September 20, 2020 12:24pm
    - Swifty
      
      The trouble for Robbo is that he has lied to and misled NZers for so long now that I struggle to believe anything that comes from his mouth.
      
      The outrageous howlers he told and spread while in opposition are too many to mention.
      
      I just don’t know why we let them get away with it.
      
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      September 20, 2020 12:54pm
  - KevO'Brien
    
    Robbo with his profligate spending couldn’t tell $4BN from small change. His Reserve Bank cashbook access gives him spending power to do as he pleases. I’m sure no repayment is expected as that money is”owed to the people as a dividend for effort.”
    
    National have had to fix Labour’s free fall expenditure previously. Prices are already rising–how do you stop them, when money is thrown from helicopters.
    This vast free money blowout is also tainted as likely election fraud.
    
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    September 20, 2020 12:57pm
  - artemisia
    
    Seems the government quietly changed super fund contributions without announcing it. Despite Mr Robertson smacking the idea in July. A recent very quiet decision then.
    
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    September 20, 2020 4:08pm
    - Dougal10
      
      Seems they have got robbo to admit to and bring back up something he had buried.
      
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      September 20, 2020 5:06pm
- IC5000
  
  Is National incapable of any creative thinking beyond cutting taxes?
  
  Oh that’s right, they going to build roads and put the country billions in to debt. But isn’t debt bad? That’s what they keep saying so now it can’t be bad.
  
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  September 20, 2020 3:52pm
Inandout

Every time I listen to the ad about your mental health asking to list the 10 things that are positive in your life I immediately think:
‘Make Ardern Go Away’ times 10.
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September 20, 2020 11:04am
- MCos
  
  You need to get a new life if the current one is dominated by Jacinda Ardern.
  
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  September 20, 2020 12:56pm
  - Classic Liberal
    
    She’s smirking from every fence, telling me to keep moving. I still don’t know wtf she means except that I certainly want to move away from her smug smile.
    
    8 1
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    September 20, 2020 3:02pm
  - IC5000
    
    Some people just like to be dominated by someone stronger than themselves. Hence why Trump is popular with many here.
    
    2 7
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    September 20, 2020 3:53pm
Tony Stuart

You can watch National’s campaign launch at 2pm this afternoon either on the National Party website:

https://www.national.org.nz/

Or on the National Party FB page:

https://www.facebook.com/NZNATS
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September 20, 2020 11:29am
- MCos
  
  Should be riveting.
  
  2 10
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  September 20, 2020 12:53pm
  - RW Capitalist
    
    well at least more informative and intelligently presented than JA and her circus clowns.
    
    10 3
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    September 20, 2020 1:03pm
  - Mike
    
    What did I miss?
    
    2 1
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    September 20, 2020 2:47pm
    - DeepBlue
      
      Unfortunately it was actually very painful to watch. Only 1900 people watching live at the peak. Maggie Barry fronting with her media skills, not a young person in sight. Seemed very dated.
      
      No new policy, but something coming Monday.
      
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      September 20, 2020 4:37pm
artemisia

Election 2020 live: Grant Robertson claims National’s economic plan has a massive home; Greens unveil nature policy

More a mansion than a state rental then? Maybe Minister Robertson had John Key in mind.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300111955/election-2020-live-grant-robertson-claims-nationals-economic-plan-has-a-massive-home-greens-unveil-nature-policy
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September 20, 2020 11:44am
I remember when

Harriet @ 9.42:
The reason for my employee discount system is that at the moment, especially with the COL, the tax options always mean taxing high earners more.
There is never any thought about why they are in the high income group.
They are not all the same, although the suggestion is that they can all afford to pay more tax. Maybe paying more tax will result in them deciding not to increase their staff numbers. Perhaps they will decide to defer some planned venture which would increase staff numbers.
Of course the only fair tax is GST, because it catches everyone. You pay for the money you spend.
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September 20, 2020 11:45am
- Harriet
  
  If the COL get back in they aren’t going to do anything favourable for the most part anyway.
  So it’s a case of what Nat/ACT would do.
  
  IMHO — you could have 0-5% tax rates your entire life on income, gst…… but with a death tax rate of say 40% – largely to pay for public utilities and governance. You probably wouldn’t need road tolls, petrol tax…… But that’s never going to happen……..and one other reason being ‘climate change’. Consumption taxes aren’t going away.
  In other words – it’s all about politics. Everyone becoming wealthy and giving half away when they die just doesn’t come into the mix no matter what the benefits are to individuals and society.
  
  To better yourselves, but to stop the housing bubbles, market distortions…….. I’d seriously suggest that kiwis invest some money in the ASX outside of superannuation………largely for income. 15yrs ago the NSW economy alone was 5 times the size of NZ’s. It’s probably twice that now – with the same size population.
  
  It’s always been a matter of stability in NZ and it probably always will be. Better to shore up alongside Aussie than try to do it all alone.
  
  Key dismayed me……..you don’t get personal responsibility without financial literacy…….and he never advocated for that. 😎
  
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  September 20, 2020 12:55pm
  - Classic Liberal
    
    Do you realise that most people are married and the widow/er can’t pay those death taxes big needs the money themselves?
    
    It’s a totally communist idea, wealth grabbing in death taxes by the state to pay people for stupid reproductive decisions.
    
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    September 20, 2020 8:36pm
Catgurl13

Saw miss Thick as a brick on Q&A this morning debating against Nick Smith about the Cannibis referendum. He made very good arguments along with a doctor who was also against it. He was up against Chloe and that babbling twat from a university who did a study…..the fact Nick had an actual Dr who heads the medical council with him was great.
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September 20, 2020 12:05pm
- MCos
  
  Haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about.
  Why don’t you explain who was actually on which side of the debate and what they actually said?
  
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  September 20, 2020 12:52pm
  - Catgurl13
    
    Don’t worry it’s a wee bit over your head lol.
    
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    September 20, 2020 2:47pm
burt

Looks like another person is going to use the Labour Party precedent of “the consequences of my crime won’t be nice” to get let off and get name suppression.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/122759800/i-wasnt-thinking-clearly-former-hospital-worker-admits-stealing-dead-womans-credit-card-because-of-covid19-financial-pressure
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September 20, 2020 12:18pm
- Swifty
  
  burt – I saw an article yesterday on another person getting name suppression with the Labour case quoted as the precedent.
  
  (I can’t at the moment remember what case it was, if I do I’ll post it)
  
  I hope that the Labour case hasn’t spawned a new normal; that people regularly get suppression. A feature of open justice is that the public has a right to know who has committed what.
  
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  September 20, 2020 12:50pm
RW Capitalist

Halloween suggestions

1. Don’t be a miserable git….the kids are having fun.
2. Save up all those McDonalds toys…(do they still have them?) Some of my collection are over 10 yrs old. Supermarket give aways etc and give those away.
Note: kids are happy and parents are happy re the lack of sugar.
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September 20, 2020 1:00pm
Jack5

Woke stuff on Stuff

Bevan Hurley, on Stuff today, is writing about what New Zealand can do for a Vietnamese born drug smuggler we want to deport, but neither Vietnam, which he fled as a child, nor America, which took him in as a refugee will have him back.

Hurley says of the flight of the “boat people” from the new Communist regime in South Vietnam, at the end of the Vietnam war:

“Lam was among the more than 800,000 Vietnamese that fled their homeland after the war ended in 1975. Often referred to as ‘boat people’, many were left traumatised by violence and humanitarian crimes such as the widespread use of napalm bombing and chemical weapons such as Agent Orange by the United States.”

That is untrue and offensively ignorant. The boat people fled when the Communists took over South Vietnam as the America pulled troops out.

It wasn’t American napalm and “chemical weapons” (presumably Hurley is alluding to de-vegetation spraying) that made the boat people flee and suffer starvation, drowning, and priracy. It was fear of Communists.

If he was still subscribing to Stuff I would cancel it today.
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September 20, 2020 1:07pm
- Jack5
  
  Edit: If he I was still subscribing to Stuff ….
  
  If you want to read Hurley’s article, which otherwise is quite interesting:
  
  https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300104424/convicted-of-a-record-heroin-bust-a-former-child-refugee-caught-in-a-diplomatic-deadlock-may-never-leave-new-zealand
  
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  September 20, 2020 1:15pm
I remember when

There is a reason many Labour voters change their party vote as they get older – they start to realise what New Zealand will be like eventually.
That it is possible for people to be disincentivised when other people do too much for them.
That you can become dependent on other people instead of being self-sufficient.
That helping people doesn’t mean doing anything for them.
That people who do have things done for them do not always appreciate it.
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September 20, 2020 1:13pm
Rusty

Hear that the looney premier of Victoria want’s to pass a bill that can detain Victorians indefinitely on suspicion of breaking lock down rules in that state.

We in NZ should be worried when looney left wing/ Labour people are in control and power.

A Victorian police state won’t happen here??

I can’t even communicate with family members in Melbourne who have made that city there home on the topic of those over the top lock downs because I fear for there safety.

Victorians face book communication are being monitored by the Andrews/ KGB style govt who have sent cops to peoples homes who say negative things about them on social media.

Scary stuff !
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September 20, 2020 1:14pm
I remember when

Just the other day I was thinking – this covid-19 pressure is making me feel like stealing credit cards!!
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September 20, 2020 1:16pm
- artemisia
  
  Miscreants are hoping there is a drawer full of damp covid tickets in the courtroom. Because Jacinda said there is this covid, be kind.
  
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  September 20, 2020 4:41pm
Maggie Pie

Ma was telling us she remembers how much smoother things ran when the Coathanger was only 2 lanes…. and even had Toll Booths!
She would go across on the back of her boyfriends motorbike and he would tape a 20 cent piece to the cylinder-head Then with his gloves on, he’d drop the red-hot coin in the Toll Collectors hand before roaring off. LOL!!
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September 20, 2020 1:22pm
- fernglas
  
  I remember the toll collectors had little nets for the bikies to drop their coins into, because heaps of us used to pop them in our mouths before arriving at the booths.
  
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  September 20, 2020 1:59pm
  - Maggie Pie
    
    Ma reckons that was one of the differences between the White and the Maori bikies 🙁
    
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    September 20, 2020 2:38pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  Bad to the bone!
  
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  September 20, 2020 4:18pm
Loddenthinks

A slight difference in how National and Labour deal with holes in their policies’ finances. National’s policy had a funding shortfall of $4.3 bn, a fact Robertson gleefully pointed out. Goldsmith admits it’s a “fair cop”, points out why it tripped them up (Labour stopped contributing to the NZ Super Fund and didn’t tell anyone) and explained why it didn’t matter in the long term.

Compare and contrast with the last election, when Joyce pointed out (correctly) the $11 bn hole in Labour’s finances. Deny, deflect, obfuscate, call the media and trolls to run interference, nuttin’ to see here, Let’s do this.
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September 20, 2020 1:41pm
- Swifty
  
  Goldsmith handled it very well – cough and move on.
  
  I’m glad he didn’t do like Labour – never, ever, ever, ever admit to a mistake and if pushed throw some lackey under a bus.
  
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  September 20, 2020 1:45pm
- Wired-one
  
  “Labour stopped contributing to the NZ Super Fund” where the hell was our fair and impartial media on that? Journalism in this country is a disgrace.
  
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  September 20, 2020 1:45pm
- MCos
  
  The 2017 Election has been and gone, mate.
  National still think they won because they can’t do basic MMP arithmetic and it looks like they can’t do the complex stuff either.
  
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  September 20, 2020 1:50pm
  - Swifty
    
    That’s right MCos, the National Party is full of thickos – that’ll be why more New Zealanders voted for National in 2017 than the Labour and the Greens combined.
    
    Jacinda is in the position she is in because of the decision of one man. A decision he made in Labour’s favour because he would receive more from them in return than National was prepared to offer if, in fact, he hadn’t already made his mind up before the election.
    
    If she wins the 2020 election, with or without Winston, (now that National have spurned him) then credit where credit is due, she will have won it fair and square as New Zealanders knew the composition of both camps in advance.
    
    But as far as the 2017 election is concerned she is and always will be the selected NZ PM not the elected NZ PM.
    
    I’ll say something else too – I reckon if NZers knew in 2017 that voting for Winston was a vote for Labour and the Greens I reckon we have Bill as our PM today. And that is exactly why Winston plays this little charade each election and why he is spitting tacks right now at National for spurning him. They have robbed him of his power.
    
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    September 20, 2020 2:38pm
  - KevO'Brien
    
    So the confusion arises out of Robbo’s switching hidden numbers and Robbo lines up $100 Million spending from the Reserve Bank.
    How’s Robbo going to repay any of it?
    
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    September 20, 2020 5:17pm
MCos

This is quite funny
https://twitter.com/joebiden/status/1307491919384260609?s=21
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September 20, 2020 1:45pm
wimpston peeeders

I see robo has slammed nats for a 4bil error in their shadow budget/plan.
bit rich of robo since he still denies his 11bil hole from 3yrs ago even tho its grown to tripple that now…
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September 20, 2020 1:52pm
- fernglas
  
  Goldsmith admits a 4 billion dollar mistake and apologises to Collins. How incompetent can you be? 4 BILLION!!!!
  
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  September 20, 2020 2:02pm
  - wimpston peeeders
    
    Not as incompetent as a 30+ billion hole.
    
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    September 20, 2020 2:28pm
  - Swifty
    
    No, look at the real cause fernglas – Labour did a switcheroo on some super numbers without telling anyone and Goldsmith was going off Govt numbers he thought were current, but were not.
    
    He should have checked admittedly, but don’t mistake this for some basic arithmetic error or similar.
    
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    September 20, 2020 2:42pm
    - Isobar
      
      No switcheroo. The numbers are set in legislation. No tricks here.
      
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      September 20, 2020 4:03pm
  - gorse
    
    Stephen Joyce discovered an 11 billion Dollar hole which proved to be larger, then Covid came along. How incompetent can Labour be.
    
    13 0
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    September 20, 2020 2:51pm
Tony Stuart

A new Covid cluster in the Auckland community:

https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/two-new-cases-covid-19-community-transmission-in-nz-not-connected-auckland-cluster

Officials think it’s either a lengthy quarantine period, given that 3 and 12 day tests were negative in managed isolation, or the person contracted Covid on a domestic flight. If the latter is true, someone’s been flying around New Zealand being a super-spreader, at a time when Air New Zealand has relaxed distancing on planes, and Jetstar has resumed operating.

Remember 11 August 2020? Four cases in a cluster all but shut Auckland down, and has had the rest of us at Alert Level 2. With three cases in this new cluster, which is unrelated to the South Auckland cluster, I can’t see the PM dropping alert levels tomorrow, which may just be the last straw for a whole lot of Kiwi small businesses.
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September 20, 2020 2:21pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  School holidays start on September 25th.
  I don’t think folks are going to be too happy having tighter restrictions placed on them.
  
  The CoL had better hope that this latest outbreak is tightly constrained.
  
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  September 20, 2020 2:32pm
  - Tony Stuart
    
    Especially as Air New Zealand last week sold thousands of tickets on full planes, which they might now have to cancel.
    
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    September 20, 2020 3:49pm
    - Greg Ettridge
      
      If many of those planes don’t fly, they will fly straight to the desert.
      
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      September 20, 2020 8:25pm
  - KevO'Brien
    
    What say they let it go?
    
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    September 20, 2020 5:13pm
- fernglas
  
  What about that he picked it up later in his quarantine period from someone who brought it in and was in the same facility? And then didn’t test positive at his last test because it was too early? If so, it’s more rational to blame it on poor hygiene measures in isolation than on some extended incubation period or a random contact with the same chapter of the virus outside isolation. Another cock up at the border.
  
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  September 20, 2020 2:51pm
  - Tony Stuart
    
    Either way, it’s the start of a completely new cluster, and that’s bad news for a lowering of alert levels. They will want at least another week to see if they have the cluster contained.
    
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    September 20, 2020 3:48pm
    - KevO'Brien
      
      There will always be new clusters. Perhaps the best way to learn would be for the PM and her team to become an infected cluster. They might see the error of their ways then.
      Amateurs playing at government. Why don’t they get Twyford to help out?
      
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      September 20, 2020 5:12pm
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    @fernglas…
    seems the most plausible explanation to me…(assuming we’ve been told ALL the facts)
    
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    September 20, 2020 6:08pm
Harriet

Haha I just read Trump’s nominating a women this week for SCOTUS.

The D’rats are cornered — they can’t oppose it without offending women and minorities. 😎
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September 20, 2020 2:22pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Would you play chess with that man? Maybe. Would you play poker? Master troll
  
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  September 20, 2020 3:13pm
  - Mike
    
    Judging by his casino bankruptcies, gambling might not be his strong point.
    
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    September 20, 2020 4:15pm
Jack5

Britain’s educational time bomb: Woke educationists are victimising white working-class kids.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8751131/White-working-class-children-UKs-deprived-pupils-MPs-warned.html
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September 20, 2020 2:28pm
- Swifty
  
  No Child Left Behind.
  
  Oh, except you poor white kids over there. You are to suffer for the perceived sins of your forebears and so that we, the teaching establishment, can ease our white guilt.
  
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  September 20, 2020 2:47pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Elsewhere known as “white trash or the deplorables, or the expendables”
  
  Once the backbone of the Labour Party.
  
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  September 20, 2020 6:13pm
Komata

FWIW: (and assuming I heard it correctly), an interesting comment from Judith Collins at the Nat’s election launch:

‘The people who earn the money, get to keep the money’.

Because it’s such a radical idea, perhaps someone should tell Robbo…
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September 20, 2020 2:48pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Facebook factcheckers did not exist until the ‘truth’ started getting out.
“Partially False” But they never identify which part! Just rabid lefties
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September 20, 2020 3:16pm
Monique Watson

Looks ;ike the next SCOTUS nominee will be a woman. Trump just said so at a rally in Fayetteville NC. Canny bastard knows how to maker a silk purse out of a sows ear. All eyes on NC going Republican.
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September 20, 2020 3:17pm
- Harriet
  
  It’s a 30 yr legacy in the making for Trump – he won’t put this off. Covid was so last year.
  
  And the polls and the Dems have said rioting has hurt the Dems. There will be more soon. Lots more.
  Meanwhile today Biden has decided to go back in his basement taking the day off. He can’t handle one day in office. Trump will say so.
  And Harris will mouth off like she did with Kavanaugh. nuff said there.
  
  The independents will now bury the Democrats in November. And the riot squads will then bury Antifa and BLM.
  
  Long Live The Republic. 😎
  
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  September 20, 2020 5:42pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

American? Don’t vote for Donald Trump//
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCfYx7xO6pY&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR3bamklh-DS6Gz7EDT5zCQ37klDBurcnNbTJ4gU40cjeWHn3WmMF_73s0M
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September 20, 2020 3:25pm
70andstilllearning

Heh! have I missed something this arvo while out in the garden?
About an hour ago according to:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300112075/election-2020-live-judith-collins-shrugs-off-4b-hole-in-nationals-books-as-she-launches-campaign

“Labour finance spokesperson Grant Robertson on Sunday morning….”
Has 1$tuffed got some info that emphatically demotes him to ‘Labour finance spokesperson” that us plebs don’t know about?

After all, the Saint of Disasters has just as emphatically told “us” that they are the “government” until 17 October and caretaker provisions only come into play post that date

Just asking?
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September 20, 2020 4:20pm
- RW Capitalist
  
  I think Robertson, should pull his head in…
  This $4b of miscalculation of a “promise”.
  His $11bill that turned into $20bill was real money in a real budget.
  
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  September 20, 2020 5:39pm
Wired-one

6pm Newshub leads with “Nationals disastrous day” are they for real? Fuck journalism in this country is disgraceful. It’s well past time right leading people in this country had a news channel catering to our views. Hard hitting fact based journalism, not this woke utter nonsense.
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September 20, 2020 6:11pm
- Tony Stuart
  
  No, they’re not for real. They live in a word where sensationalism is king, and every story they broadcast has to have an “angle”.
  
  Just report the bloody facts Newshub, and stop editorialising everything to suit your narrative.
  
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  September 20, 2020 7:53pm
- niggly
  
  Been noticing how much the MSM repeat Grant Robertson’s attack lines (the give away is the shear number of bombastic and negative descriptions applied to National within a report – the exact same descriptions Robertson uses himself when being interviewed on the same subject)!
  
  Newshub’s Jenna Lynch has been covering Robertson’s attacks of late (and plying on the rhetoric). In fact a couple of weeks ago at a press conference she was shown turning around to make eye contact with him walking past the seated MSM journos to the podium and gave Robbo an enormous smile! Very, very friendly it seemed, for supposedly a “professional” working environment where there are meant to be boundaries!
  
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  September 20, 2020 9:04pm

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