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March 14, 2023 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 14 March 2023

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General Debate

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Yvette

“The climate policies that we’re talking about today, would’ve made a very small contribution to our overall emissions reductions targets” – Hipkins

The only reason they are backing down is because this is a bad time for them to increase costs on Kiwis. But beyond doubt they will try again, if they get the chance – Kiwiblog host David Farrar (7am post, emphasis added)

If I understand it right, this is the second purging tranche
But no “co-governance” baby is with the bathwater
So will there be a third pulling of the plug on more policies, or is this it now
And is Luxon still waiting for the last drop, or UNDRIP
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March 14, 2023 8:01am
- herb1
  
  The media need to get stuck in Hipkins,for that remark ,as do National.
  What he’s just said ,is that they were going to happily spend $600m plus on climate change policies ,that we’re going to make negligible difference.
  Clearly they were prepared to spend money on burnishing their image and only dropped them to improve their polling.
  Kin of confirms their MP Gaurav Sharmas comment that Duncan Webb told him that the Labour Party comes before New Zealand
  
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  March 14, 2023 11:30am
  - Chris Nisbet
    
    Is it just climate policy where governments are allowed to allocate money when they know ahead of time that the policies will make negligible difference?
    Hmm, I guess light rail is another example of knowingly spending money poorly.
    Are cost/benefit analyses a thing of the past?
    
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    March 14, 2023 6:25pm
    - herb1
      
      Competence is a thing of the past and I’m sure that’s a reason a lot of people like Labour politicians.
      They see in them their own level of incompetence and failure and it makes them feel good about themselves.
      A lot of people ,unfortunately look at people more successful and capable tah them with jealousy and a bit of spite.
      Jacinda was everyone’s favourite for that reason , that she was like most grumpy lefties
      
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      March 14, 2023 7:14pm
O C Smith

Has anyone been overtaken by a Tesla on the open road?
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March 14, 2023 8:01am
- k1w1
  
  Yes, on my motorcycle, which was unexpected and embarrassing (I was cruising). He caned it. They are very very fast when you want them to be. I’ve been in a mates one.
  
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  March 14, 2023 10:04am
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    As you say, they can be fast. But, either because of range anxiety or the general wet-blanketness of the typical e-car owner, they seldom seem to floor it. Plus, most of them are Leafs & Prius’s.
    
    A Taycan, on the other hand ….
    
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    March 14, 2023 6:34pm
  - Observer of Life
    
    “ Has anyone been overtaken by a Tesla on the open road?”
    Never!
    
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    March 14, 2023 9:21pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  Nope. In fact, I’ve recently returned from a roadie across the length & breadth of the North Is. Outside of Akld & Wgtn, e-cars were not at all common.
  
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  March 14, 2023 6:31pm
- Keith White
  
  Yes. I was on a rented LiveWire (m/c) maxxed out at circa 185km/hr on the autobahn outside of Cologne (where this is entirely legal) and got overtaken by two Teslas in a row, I would estimate a 40-50km/hr speed differential.
  
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  March 15, 2023 2:45am
Mike

Happy Pi Day!
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March 14, 2023 8:01am
- O C Smith
  
  Should be 365/pi about April 26
  
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  March 14, 2023 9:30am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Not hungry.
  
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  March 14, 2023 9:35am
- Jack5
  
  The Net is full of Pi Day jokes – like this one:
  
  A man dies and goes to Hell.
  
  Satan greets him and says, “Welcome to hell,
  Dave. First, the Wi-fi password is…”
  
  Chris says, “Wait, you guys have Wi-Fi?”
  
  Satan replies, “Of course we do.”
  
  “That’s certainly not bad at all,” says Chris.
  
  Satan continues, “So, as I was saying, the wi-fi password is the number pi.”
  
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  March 14, 2023 10:20am
- rangitoto
  
  \frac{1}{\pi}
  =
  \frac{\sqrt{8}}{9801}
  \sum_{n=0}^{\infty}\frac{(4n)!}{(n!)^4}\times\frac{26390n + 1103}{396^{4n}}
  
  to you.
  
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  March 14, 2023 10:21am
  - Lance
    
    Maths is racist
    Meng Fong will be on your case soon
    
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    March 14, 2023 10:33am
    - rangitoto
      
      Well the formula was found by Srinivasa Ramanujan. Until fairly recently it was the fastest converging formula known for calculating pi. Ramanujan was arguably the most gifted mathematician of all time. When Ramanujan was lying sick in Putney hospital, Prof Hardy came to visit him and mentioned that the taxi he came in had the rather boring number 1729. Ramanujan immediately perked up and said ‘oh no, that is a most interesting number, it’s the smallest number that is the sum of two cubes in two different ways’.
      
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      March 14, 2023 11:18am
- Its only I
  
  Raspberry Pi?
  
  running Octoprint,
  
  doing G code things,
  
  to make the parts,
  
  to build a MPCNC v3,
  
  to cut ply,
  
  to make a stitch’n’glue D5 dinghy…
  
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  March 14, 2023 10:39am
- Dave
  
  Approximately 355/113 people agree with you.
  
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  March 14, 2023 1:24pm
Chuck Bird

Very entertaning.

Mark Steyn vs Michael Mann, Climate Change: The Facts, Keynote 4, ICCC10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bARjABDqok
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March 14, 2023 8:03am
- Alan Wilkinson
  
  Mann is a very nasty piece of work with a lot of money behind him.
  
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  March 14, 2023 10:27am
artemisia

Here is a look at some ancient history – a summary of what Labour promised in the run up to the 2017 election. How have they delivered so far? (No mention of co-governance.)

http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2017/10/what-labour-promised.html
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March 14, 2023 8:04am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  So, when will Newshub find her, and ask “What went wrong?”
  
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  March 14, 2023 9:38am
Matt Long

2 billion in welfare bribes for Labour votes. Hipkins notes that formerly, under 9 years of neglect, wages rose faster than inflation, but now in the brave new world real wages are shrinking, so welfare bribes need to be indexed against inflation.
This has the added benefit of working being a less and less financial option, so the number of people looking for work will drop.
#Chipsolvesunemployment.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/latest-poll-chris-hipkins-popularity-rises-christopher-luxon-tumbles-greens-the-big-winner/IH6UYIVDG5EBVNSOMQ6F72FKLE/
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March 14, 2023 8:06am
- Matt Long
  
  Also in the story, Labour and Greens make ground on Cyclone climate change hoax, but it failed to work for Luxon and National.
  
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  March 14, 2023 8:09am
  - JJ56
    
    More worrying for the Nats the One News poll was taken during the period of their childcare tax announcement.
    
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    March 14, 2023 8:15am
    - Philview
      
      TVNZ ran a story on a cyclone in Mozambique last night. Their role seems to be to use all means possible to scare the NZ population. I think if I value my long term mental health I need to stay away from the News.
      
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      March 14, 2023 9:53am
      - Gravelroad
        
        @Philview-
        
        “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”
        ― H.L. Mencken, In Defense Of Women
        
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        March 14, 2023 10:08am
      - Chuck Bird
        
        I watch Sky News Oz
        
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        March 14, 2023 10:46am
      - KiWombat
        
        Try Aljazeera news on freeview – they often report on NZ issues before the local news service is out of bed, and the reporting is balanced – –
        
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        March 14, 2023 10:57am
      - Tauhei Notts
        
        Philview; we have warning signs on cigarette packets telling us how dangerous smoking is. But we don’t preface the Tv news with a warning that watching the news will be injurious to your mental health.
        
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        March 14, 2023 12:35pm
      - kowtow
        
        kiwombat
        
        AJ is spectacularly warmist/alarmist , anti west and particularly ( for obvious reasons) anti Israel / USA.
        
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        March 14, 2023 12:48pm
      - ClanMcleod
        
        Philview – uncannily similar to the covid fear porn. You’d almost think terrifying most of the population is a deliberate tactic so people are grateful to Labour for “saving” them. 🙄
        
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        March 14, 2023 1:38pm
      - Chris Nisbet
        
        One News implying that Gabrielle was the result of ‘climate change’ tonight, using it as an example of what cutting back on useless climate policies will cause.
        Ugh, according to their poll, more than 50% of people want government to do more on ‘climate change’. Do they listen to people like Hipkins when he says that the ‘climate change’ policies he’s put onto the back-burner will make negligible difference? And that’s from somebody who thinks net zero makes sense.
        We really are in a bad place when the people trying to wreck our country tell us their policies won’t do what they’re meant to, but the people apparently want them to do more of it?
        
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        March 14, 2023 6:39pm
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    If Luxon does not see the fact that climate change is a hoax, he will lose many votes, and quite likely the Election,
    I am far from being the only person who sees this.
    
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    March 14, 2023 8:20am
    - Paulus
      
      Luxon has Virus so will be out for a while.
      
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      March 14, 2023 8:21am
      - emmess
        
        The woke mind virus
        
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        March 14, 2023 1:46pm
    - Colville
      
      Steve.
      
      If you are not going to vote National because of climate change who are you going to vote for?
      
      You are happy to see the incompetent Hopkins back in the big chair?
      
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      March 14, 2023 8:25am
      - Steve Otto(North Shore)
        
        Probably not a National candidate Vote, although I do wonder how Act will fair in Upper Harbour. Party Vote is a definite Act Vote.
        
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        March 14, 2023 9:45am
    - peterwn
      
      How many votes will he lose? If he thought he was going to lose a heap of votes, he and his senior MP’s would retune the policy.
      
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      March 14, 2023 8:28am
      - Steve Otto(North Shore)
        
        Lose enough to hand a win to Labour.
        His senior MPs better get the whip out.
        
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        March 14, 2023 9:47am
      - peterwn
        
        Steve – get your head out of your backside – If National denies climate change it will lose many, many votes. So you and your ilk think you know better than Chris Luxon and his MP’s about political strategy as it relates to climate change. Same goes for Redbaiter and others who rabbit on about ‘founding principles’, growing balls, etc.
        
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        March 14, 2023 10:41am
      - Chuck Bird
        
        Do you think Luxon actually believes that the cyclone was caused by human emissions or just cares about getting votes?
        
        I remember there was a woman who have a bad reaction to her vaccine. She was concerned about having to get a second dose or lose her job. I tried to speak to Luxon. He fobbed me off. He could not care less about this woman.
        
        Luxon’s number one priority is Luxon. I do not go along with Shaw’s alarmist’s views but he is more principled than Luxon as is Seymour.
        
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        March 14, 2023 11:02am
      - Steve Otto(North Shore)
        
        @peterwn 10.41.
        So National need to tell multiple lies to win?
        That goes against my upbringing. Being honest has always worked for me.
        
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        March 14, 2023 11:29am
      - Taieri
        
        So you and your ilk think you know better than Chris Luxon and his MP’s about political strategy
        ——————–
        
        Not much of a strategy to be seen so far…
        
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        March 14, 2023 11:31am
      - peterwn
        
        Chuck – Chris Luxon’s job is to win the next election – end of story.
        
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        March 14, 2023 11:33am
      - Ghost
        
        Here is a poll from last year Steve, who do you think those 78% of people will vote for. A party that doesn’t believe in climate change or a party that does?
        
        https://iag.co.nz/newsroom/news-releases/climate-poll-2022-release
        
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        March 14, 2023 11:41am
      - The Redbaiter
        
        peterwn- “If National denies climate change it will lose many, many votes.”
        
        Always the empty assertions aimed at driving National to the left. Years and years of the same mantra.
        
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        March 14, 2023 12:37pm
      - ClanMcleod
        
        peterwn – we’re talking the real world here, policy should be nothing to do with it. The only provable fact is that like with covid, the science is NOT settled. In fact it is looking increasingly like the whole thing is as big a scam as covid was.
        The first politician to stop playing this stupid game and speak rationally will get my vote.
        With Hipkins doing donuts regarding all the unpopular Labour policies it is getting increasingly difficult to find a reason to back Luxon sadly.
        
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        March 14, 2023 1:44pm
      - Phronesis
        
        It’s simple enough. Climate change is a vehicle for the left to get lots of things they want. The right needs to play the game. There’s lots of things the right wants that can be pitched as answers to climate change.
        
        Better infrastructure to deal with natural disasters in NZ.
        More food production to save all those people we are told are going to starve in some hothouse famine.
        Reliable cheap energy so that we have a resilient economy that can withstand the imminent horror of slightly hotter nights.
        
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        March 14, 2023 5:08pm
    - Nickc2
      
      Yep, he lost me with his handling of the Maureen Pugh fiasco:
      
      1. He should have analysed what she said and to whom, and
      2. He should have considered the headlines Te MSM would create.
      
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      March 14, 2023 8:38am
      - peterwn
        
        So you want a Labour government after the next election?
        
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        March 14, 2023 9:34am
      - Loddenthinks
        
        And then he should have simply said: National is a broad church and one of the ways we’re different to the left is that we respect all opinions and don’t practice censorship.
        
        Fat chance!
        
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        March 14, 2023 9:42am
      - Steve Otto(North Shore)
        
        That was a mistake. Censoring Maureen Pugh took away her free speech. Luxon could have done better with her.
        
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        March 14, 2023 9:50am
      - Nickc2
        
        peterwn @9:34AM
        No way! He lost any respect I may have had for him but my loyalty is still to the Party.
        
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        March 14, 2023 11:41am
      - kowtow
        
        nickc2
        
        But where is the party’s loyalty ?
        
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        March 14, 2023 12:50pm
    - All_on_Red
      
      Ahem, they probably sank in the Polls because of the smear job against Pugh and then Luxon giving the issue more oxygen.
      You’re not going to win this Election battling peoples opinions on Climate Change
      Better to win and then start giving people some facts and then try to convince them
      
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      March 14, 2023 8:52am
      - David Garrett
        
        All on: Quite so. I used to think ACT should be brave enough to say “Climate change is definitely happening, and it may well be anthropogenic – at least to some degree – but with our miniscule emissions compared to those of the rest of the world, there is nothing we can do about it here.”
        
        I now realize that people – particularly the young – have been so brainwashed that making such a statement would lose them way more votes than they would gain.
        
        We are all stuck on the “humans are causing climate change and we are going to burn up if we don’t radically cut emissions by next Thursday” bullshit train, and I see no realistic way of stopping it – even to get off.
        
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        March 14, 2023 9:14am
      - peterwn
        
        Media is trumpeting latest poll result that National would need to go with Maori Party to govern and that Chris Luxon’s popularity is low.
        Firstly, the result could be interpreted as meaning that Labour would need the support of Greens AND NZ First AND Maori Party to govern. This means National is behind by a wee bit only, not massively behind as some in the media would like to think. Chris Hipkins recognises this and so is desperately doing a policy re-tune to try and salvage some votes for Labour.
        Secondly, Leaders’ popularity is basically what the media wants to be. Chris Hipkin’s high popularity has arguably been purchased with taxpayers’ money – $55M of it. But the leader popularity poll means absolutely nothing on election day.
        
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        March 14, 2023 9:45am
      - Chuck Bird
        
        David, have you read Act’s policies on climate change.
        
        ACT will remove all subsidies for commercial forestry investment.
        
        https://www.act.org.nz/policies/environment
        
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        March 14, 2023 11:17am
      - Taieri
        
        I see no realistic way of stopping it – even to get off.
        —————
        
        May be it can’t be stopped, but does it need to be constantly emphasized? Stop funding propagandist outfits like Stuff and Herald, sort out all “climate strikes” – school kids can do it in their own time, on weekends. Don’t gang up on dissenters, vide Maureen Pugh story. And most of all, don’t jump in front of the horses with the “world leadership” nonsense.
        
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        March 14, 2023 11:37am
      - kowtow
        
        peterwn
        
        If N/ACT ,win and I fervently hope they do , I predict that Lux’s position as preferred PM will shoot up.
        
        Judging by Hipkin’s jump it appears to be about exposure and incumbancy.
        
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        March 14, 2023 12:59pm
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        So which poll do we believe? The one that had Bats ACT well ahead of the left snd only chance to govern, or this mess that has greens getting neatly 69% more support even though the other poll had them crashing to close the threshold
        
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        March 14, 2023 4:20pm
    - Jimbob
      
      Steve, the alternative are the same on climate. It doesn’t matter, climate is not the issue this election.
      The economy and inflation will be the main issues.
      
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      March 14, 2023 8:53am
      - peterwn
        
        Some people carry on here as if it was the paramount election issue.
        
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        March 14, 2023 9:49am
      - Ehlana
        
        You’re right. Politics is also about what is possible. If everyone around you firmly believes that the Earth is flat, it doesn’t matter how good your evidence is for it being round, you will not win an election that way. Why? Because people will stop listening as soon as you say “round”.
        
        If you really want to make a change, look for the common ground – the things you can agree on and work with them on. At the moment, that is the cost of living and the economy.
        
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        March 14, 2023 9:52am
      - Steve Otto(North Shore)
        
        Inflation yes. The Economy will take longer. Cleaning up Labour rubbish is a hard job, same after every Labour Govt term.
        
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        March 14, 2023 9:58am
      - The Redbaiter
        
        Jimbob- “The economy and inflation will be the main issues.”
        
        Yes, and climate change policies will be a major driver of both of those factors. Willis in the media this morning admitting Nats are prepared to waste billions of taxpayer dollars buying phony offshore carbon credits, and fast track permits for wind and solar farms. All events that will increase govt spending (and therefore taxes) force up the price of energy and add cost to everyday items and ultimately therefore increase inflation.
        
        Willis sounded like the leader of the Green Party rather than the deputy leader of the Nats. Maybe she should go there and leave the Nats to its anti-communist non-interventionist small govt roots. Ideas she obviously holds in contempt.
        
        (Looking more and more like Luxon/Willis are lining Sid Holland’s party up for a coalition with the communist Green Party. Poor Sid, who founded his party to stave off the red threat, must be spinning in his grave at inter-galactic speeds.)
        
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        March 14, 2023 12:22pm
      - ClanMcleod
        
        And Capernicus would have died a heretic if everyone at the time agreed that pretending the emperor’s new clothes were real was the right way to go to stay in with the in crowd.
        If everyone followed that line of thinking we’d still be teaching kids that the earth is flat.
        No wonder the covid scam went on for so long, so many people without an ounce of moral fibre.
        Our species can be depressing at times.
        
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        March 14, 2023 1:53pm
      - crikey
        
        Jimbob: reversing co-governance is the main issue for many – and so it should be.
        
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        March 14, 2023 4:45pm
    - Chuck Bird
      
      I would not call it a hoax. Most of the well qualified skeptical climate change experts say the system is so complicated that it is impossible to predict the future climate.
      
      It is impossible to say that cyclones are caused by excess CO2. It is possible that increased CO2 has increased the severity of the cyclone but it is impossible to prove it.
      
      I have emailed NIWA asking if the Tongan volcano was a factor. It is not impossible that I will get a reply.
      
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      March 14, 2023 9:04am
      - rouppe
        
        I wonder whether an OIA to the effect of:
        
        “What analysis of the Tongan eruption has been made on the effect it had subsequent high rainfall events, and what did that analysis reveal?”
        
        would be more illuminating.
        
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        March 14, 2023 9:26am
      - Chris Nisbet
        
        “It is impossible to say that cyclones are caused by excess CO2”
        Politicians can, and do, say such things.
        Some are in ‘no doubt’ that certain cyclones are a result of ‘Climate Change’.
        
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        March 14, 2023 9:41am
      - Oneex
        
        The youtuber OZgeographics does a nice job at explaining how the Tongan volcano messed with the antarctic pressure system, which is why we have had such a wet summer, as there is no pressure system bellow us to push all the tropical pressure systems away. But its not something i have seen Niwa talk about, only that they would start investigating the impact of water vapor had on our summer.
        Sad state of the scientific community when youtubers are outclassing them
        
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        March 14, 2023 11:36am
      - bco90
        
        “It is possible that increased CO2 has increased the severity of the cyclone but it is impossible to prove it.”
        
        The general consensus among the hardcore devout climate change experts is that increased CO2 will increase the number of weather events, but will reduce the severity of them. Experts, whether skeptical or devout, point toward reduced severity, not increased. Anyone who says otherwise just shows they are an ideologue and should be discredited.
        
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        March 15, 2023 12:22am
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    Labour made ground? They dropped 2 % I refuse to believe greens gained 50% more support in a month especially when other polls have seen them crash, something doesn’t stack up
    
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    March 14, 2023 4:12pm
- backster
  
  “This has the added benefit of working being a less and less financial option, so the number of people looking for work will drop.”….and they will go on the jobseeker benefit.
  
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  March 14, 2023 8:47am
  - NothingLeft
    
    And vote for the party that promises to increase benefits the most. New Venezueland here we come.
    
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    March 14, 2023 12:49pm
sirknz

Journalism 101. Who the hell funded the report?

https://archive.fo/a6Rmc [$tuff]

KPMG has released a report into the banking sector finding that the banks are no more profitable than any other business. No mention of who funded the report which would be useful information.
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March 14, 2023 8:08am
- Ehlana
  
  I did hear that they are less profitable, on a return on assets basis, than the Warehouse. But there’s no political mileage in bashing the Warehouse.
  
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  March 14, 2023 9:53am
  - Grumpy Silver Haired Female
    
    Too right!
    Remember that NZ banks are required by law to hold liquid assets of 30% of their total capital so that if they fail, depositors won’t lose their money cf depositors in some US banks. All that money sloshing about cannot but earn interest, but it still is counted, rightly, as an asset of the bank and in proper business activity, earn income.
    
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    March 14, 2023 10:57am
Tomtoddy

Hipkins oversees the biggest policy flipflop in our history and today nothing appears on Stuff and a minor comment on the Herald’s page. If National changed or dropped just one policy it would be shouted from rooftops as a ‘backdown’.

The media are now the main reason Labour is holding its vote. Their interference has moved up a gear. Proving it is difficult but it is as obvious as the nose on your face. Labour can do whatever gets them votes and the MSM will protect and support them.
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March 14, 2023 8:17am
- Loddenthinks
  
  And people such as DPF are calling it “welcome” FFS.
  
  Translation: “Good news, my husband has said he’s going to stop beating me”
  
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  March 14, 2023 9:46am
- NothingLeft
  
  The all important swing voters + thick end of the bell curve are minimally interested in news. They spend all their time on social media, and 99 times out of 100 will just follow along with crowd to fit in.
  
  They only notice politics inasmuch as it impacts their day to day lives – income, crime, prices, holidays etc. Trying to reach them with facts and figures is doomed to fail.
  
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  March 14, 2023 12:56pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

I did not wake up on Aotearoa this morning. What a relief. New Zealand is still here.
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March 14, 2023 8:18am
- Drone
  
  But only SO because when appealing to the general population for sympathy and votes politicians use the term “New Zealanders” rather than the term “Aotearoans” which sounds more like a Crowded House song or a tribe in Avatar 2.
  
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  March 14, 2023 8:40am
Woderwick

Is there a list anywhere of the projects the Government has started and then halted, and the cost of each?
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March 14, 2023 8:20am
Matt Long

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/cost-of-living-governments-2-billion-boost-to-benefit-levels-superannuation-pm-chris-hipkins-bread-and-butter-support/FE45KTTE5FFTLLGU6YWEYC77RQ/
I presume this spending will not be inflationary, much like the COVID spending of the last 2 years.
Or are we looking forward to over 10% inflation as Hipkins tries to overcome interest rate rises by spending more than any Government before him?
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March 14, 2023 8:20am
- Cinematic
  
  Matt, it’s no problem. Labour are omnipotent and will have no problem outspending inflation.
  
  Besides double agent National Deputy Sheriff Willis agrees with this move.
  
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  March 14, 2023 8:52am
  - Gravelroad
    
    @Cinematic-
    Re NIcola Willis – by many accounts Ms Willis is deemed to be a talented and capable politician, and good luck to her.
    But yesterday on Wgn newstalkzb panel show, she was a bit painful to listen to.
    Her manner and delivery was, to put it bluntly, authoritarian, repetitive and sadly, rather boring.
    She just went on and on in the carefully moderated way of a lecturer teaching a dull subject.
    She obviously has had training on “how to speak to the masses on the wireless.”
    Turned radio off in end.
    
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    March 14, 2023 9:40am
    - NeverMindTheBollocks
      
      Yep. She speaks like the second speaker on the school debating team that she undoubtedly was.
      
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      March 14, 2023 6:42pm
      - The Redbaiter
        
        Maybe its just me but for a Deputy Leader to be using the lazy word “gunna” all the time just sounds so bad. Classless.
        
        Shouldn’t a candidate for Deputy PM or perhaps even PM have better English than that?
        
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        March 14, 2023 10:04pm
Gravelroad

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/131482329/mum-of-young-boys-who-ransacked-a-house-and-killed-pet-fish-may-lose-custody-of-all-children

I know this will be deemed to be “hurtful” and “culturally inappropriate “ but, in this day and age, why do some women keep having children they cannot manage or afford?
According to the report, the mother has been supported and assisted over a number of years by Dr Sue Bagshaw –
“Bagshaw said with no experience of routines, boundaries and overall good parenting, she (the mother) was set up to fail.”
So why did she have five children, and counting, then?
Has Dr Bagshaw mentioned to the woman about the various forms of contraception available?
I think this is a fair enough question to ask seeing as it is the taxpayer who is paying the bills here.
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March 14, 2023 8:21am
- Widogast Corwin
  
  You are assuming that these women can make rational decisions. They are usually addicts, being abused by and used by men and subject to violence. There are women around who have had six, seven, even nine children, all to different fathers.
  
  I don’t know the answer.
  
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  March 14, 2023 8:29am
  - Grunter
    
    The answer used to be ‘law of the jungle’. Harsh, but it worked. If you get rid of natural laws of nature then you end up with unintended consequences.
    
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    March 14, 2023 8:39am
  - Gravelroad
    
    @Widogast-
    Yes, but in this particular example the mother has reportedly had ongoing support and assistance from Dr Sue Bagshaw, a well respected doctor specialising in the health needs of young people.
    To put it bluntly, could she not have advised the woman about the need for responsible contraception?
    If you want to have more and more kids and can afford to – fine. But look after them yourself.
    Why does the taxpayer always have to do it?
    
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    March 14, 2023 8:50am
    - Widogast Corwin
      
      It is probable that this woman was advised about the availability of birth control. And ignored the advice.
      
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      March 14, 2023 9:06am
      - Colville
        
        I doubt (happy to be corrected) that a Dr can advise someone to take birth control.
        They may be able to say its available …but to suggest it as a good idea would be out of the question ethically I believe.
        
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        March 14, 2023 1:34pm
  - edhunter
    
    Oh I don’t know how about:
    Upon signing up for the DBP you also sign up for a compulsory contraception implant.
    To remain on it for the entirety of the time you’re receiving “assistance” and for an equal amount after you stop receiving “assistance”. e.g. if after 5yrs you rejoin the workforce it will be another 5yrs before you’re able to have another baby.
    This is not sterlisation.
    If you enter a long term relationship and you wish to have children it encourages & fosters the value working .
    I only wish they would hurry up and develop one for men so they too could be “encouraged” to be better parents & citizens.
    On a benefit? Fathered your 3rd child with a 3rd partner whom you don’t live with how about a contraception implant so you can root until your heart is content without any of the nasty little side effects.
    
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    March 14, 2023 9:43am
    - Alan Wilkinson
      
      The side effect is extra money for drugs so no interest in contraception. Probably dumping the kids on relatives or anyone else available while going on drug benders every weekend. Leaves a trail of destruction everywhere she goes.
      
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      March 14, 2023 10:36am
    - Taieri
      
      Upon signing up for the DBP you also sign up for a compulsory contraception implant.
      —————
      
      Reminds me of something. Vaccination anyone?…
      
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      March 14, 2023 11:39am
      - Sideoiler
        
        Reminds me of something. Vaccination anyone?…
        
        Not the same thing at all.
        I don’t recall the Govt telling beneficiaries that the vaccine was compulsory if they wanted to keep their benefit!
        They were however more than happy to coerce those productive members of society to accept the vax if they wanted to keep their jobs.
        
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        March 14, 2023 12:21pm
      - edhunter
        
        And the implant actually works.
        
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        March 14, 2023 12:35pm
    - Sacha
      
      Just say: No more money after the second child. No exceptions.
      End of.
      
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      March 14, 2023 12:28pm
      - Colville
        
        and then what? the kids just starve??
        
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        March 14, 2023 1:36pm
    - bco90
      
      I’d oppose that on natural law grounds. I know its unpopular these days, but contraception is immoral. For a deeper exposition of this point, see here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4SjM0oabZazWC1SRmN0WXVpYkE/view?resourcekey=0-mEl0wIXhM8qd4ieiCuosvQ
      
      Ends don’t, in themselves, justify the means. Even apart from the ethics of contraception, there is the problem of govts putting people in a position where you either starve to death or have an invasive procedure. Is there really nothing else for the govt to consider here? If anything, these should be last resorts, not the default option for everyone.
      
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      March 15, 2023 12:51am
  - Grumpy Silver Haired Female
    
    I have mentioned this before. A ex policemen reckons that if the ‘fathers’ of these children were offered money – say $1000 to have the snip, the birth of unwanted, uncared-for children, would significantly decline. Sounds like a plan!
    
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    March 14, 2023 11:00am
- peterwn
  
  In fairness to her, she did not expect to have ‘special needs’ children. If her children were normal, there probably would have been no problem.
  
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  March 14, 2023 8:31am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    Still a ‘fatherless’ home. That causes a lot of problems. No discipline, and I don’t mean bashing them up.
    American Candace Owens writes of this in her book “Blackout”
    
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    March 14, 2023 10:34am
    - Ghost
      
      Plenty of people who were raised by one parent that has discipline and lived a good life to become productive parts of society.
      
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      March 14, 2023 10:39am
      - All_on_Red
        
        Putting aside how you define ‘plenty’, its pretty clear children of single parent families face more difficulties.
        Around 1 in 4 in the US are single parented. Thats over 18 million children.
        41 percent of children are born to unwed mothers. For women under the age of 30, the demographic that bears two-thirds of children in general, the out of wedlock rate increases to 53 percent (Coulombe, 2015).
        https://americafirstpolicy.com/latest/20220215-fatherlessness-and-its-effects-on-american-society
        Heres a Psych report
        ‘The number of single-parent households in the United States has reached high levels in recent decades. As the extant literature suggests that children raised in single-parent households experience more physical and psychological problems compared to those raised in two-parent households, the implications of homes in which fathers are absent may be important to explore for criminal justice and mental health professionals.’
        https://www.mnpsych.org/index.php%3Foption%3Dcom_dailyplanetblog%26view%3Dentry%26category%3Dindustry%2520news%26id%3D54
        
        Its great that some can lift themselves up but its a major problem for the rest.
        BTW- there is some research showing fathers who are single parents do a better job than the mothers…
        
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        March 14, 2023 12:30pm
  - Sacha
    
    No problem.
    Ya reckon?
    
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    March 14, 2023 12:30pm
  - Paulus
    
    Sadly it becomes more apparent that New Zealand is having more and more children of Special Needs.
    Is there any meaningful analysis of these the figures that we are allowed to see and possibly believe.
    Why is it growing exponentially when the birth rates are reducing?
    Or is it more speciific ?
    
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    March 14, 2023 1:30pm
    - riffer
      
      Change in classification is the most likely reason. Time was, when we didn’t believe in autism. Now, every fourth kid is on the spectrum.
      
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      March 14, 2023 2:43pm
- David Garrett
  
  Gravel: I mostly switched off when I read that the children had “high needs”…in today’s NZ that is a synonym for “out of control little bastards who have never been taught how to behave”
  
  I endorse others’ comments about this Bagshaw woman: WTF has she not told this clearly greatly troubled woman to get her tubes tied – or at least, have the contraceptive implant regularly? The best thing the good doctor could do would be to ensure the woman didn’t get pregnant again.
  
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  March 14, 2023 9:20am
  - Widogast Corwin
    
    I agree David but these women ignore such advice. The best thing would be to pay them $5000 to be sterilised. That would then cause a shit storm because a majority of such women are Maori. You would be accused of being a new eugenics far right extremist.
    
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    March 14, 2023 9:25am
    - Ehlana
      
      Rather than a payment for sterilisation, why not a bonus for implanting a long-term contraceptive, or, say, annually, for not getting pregnant in the past year.
      Also, perhaps parents under 25 receiving benefits should be required to complete parenting courses and create a co-parenting plan to ensure that one of them is always with their children while the other is away studying/job-hunting/working.
      
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      March 14, 2023 9:59am
      - Widogast Corwin
        
        Good idea but it would still cause a shit storm. IIRC a former Maori Party politician said it was a good thing that young Maori women have lots of babies to expand the Maori population.
        
        The good news is that birth rates for teenagers has declined dramatically over the lest 20 years. Maori birth rates are higher, but they too have declined.
        
        https://figure.nz/chart/wYHyiilvB9uCUP8O
        
        This is not explained by abortions – these have declined too. That suggests that young women are using more reliable birth control.
        
        What seems to be happening is that a small (but still significant) number of women, especially Maori women are having multiple births – 5 and higher, to multiple fathers. These families become utterly dysfunctional, creating thousands of criminal children.
        
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        March 14, 2023 10:31am
      - Sacha
        
        Racism!
        Racism!!
        And more racism!!!
        Just stop paying them already.
        
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        March 14, 2023 12:32pm
      - NeverMindTheBollocks
        
        Tariana Turia
        
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        March 14, 2023 6:45pm
    - David Garrett
      
      Wido; Been there, done that mate.
      
      The first major crisis in my short political career arose after my agreeing with a guest poster on here who proposed exactly what you suggest.
      
      I led TV One News that night with the headline “ACT MP advocates sterilization”, complete with my face superimposed over pictures of Auschwitz. No mention of child abuse, or that such sterilization would have to be voluntary.
      
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      March 14, 2023 11:12am
  - peterwn
    
    Disagree. Most of us can thank our lucky stars that we were born as fairly normal human beings. But there are a minority who were not born normal, and being a caring society they are generally assisted to live their lives as best as possible. In years gone by they would probably to have gone to Kimberley, Lake Alice or Seacliff, etc to be looked after as best as possible (at least in theory – those places had issues to put it mildly). In the 1950’s a highly respected politician said that parents should allow such children to be placed in institutions so parents could carry on with normal lives. Now these institutions are closed and they are looked after in the community with parents having to carry the extra burden of care. And because they stay in the community mishaps such as the current one are going to occur from time to time.
    
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    March 14, 2023 10:36am
    - Colville
      
      Yip.
      Plenty of fucked up kids out there unlucky enough to be born to Mothers who were on the pipe or just pisshags when they got pregnant.
      
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      March 14, 2023 1:38pm
      - peterwn
        
        That is not the kids’ faults. The luckiest kids are those born (or adopted) as healthy babies to two hetreosexual caring parents. Kids cannot be blamed because they came from a hopeless mum who succeeded in filling the kid up with nicotine, alcohol, drugs etc before the poor kid was born. To stigmatise kids like that was worse than the former practice of issuing birth certificates saying ‘illegitimate’ (as if it was the child’s fault).
        
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        March 14, 2023 1:54pm
      - Alan Wilkinson
        
        Never mind the blame. How do we fix the problem? The kids will be blamed anyway as they grow up demonstrating all their deficits. Welfare services have few successes and many failures. We have growing ghettos, whole towns of them in some cases, full of people who don’t know how to live good lives. This is where “It isn’t the kid’s fault” has got us.
        
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        March 14, 2023 6:03pm
- Stellaboxer
  
  “Bagshaw said with no experience of routines, boundaries and overall good parenting, she (the mother) was set up to fail.
  Umm set up by whom?
  
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  March 14, 2023 9:26am
Widogast Corwin

You have to admire those clever Norwegians. They are leading the world on massive subsidies for EVs. At the same time they are going gangbusters offering oil and gas exploration permits in the Arctic.

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/norway-offers-up-92-new-oil-gas-exploration-blocks-2023-01-24/

😂
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March 14, 2023 8:21am
- Inandout
  
  WC, I await the day this country is in such a dire financial position that we are forced to exploit our abundant oil, gas and coal reserves. Perhaps when our lenders call a stop to Robbo’s endless borrowing?
  
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  March 14, 2023 8:39am
  - Widogast Corwin
    
    David Garrett may correct me. However I doubt we could attract the private investment to resume oil and gas exploration. Ever. The time horizons are too long. A future Green / Labour government would just ban it again.
    
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    March 14, 2023 9:29am
    - David Garrett
      
      Wido: No, you are quite right – offshore exploration here in NZ is as dead as a dodo. Put simply, no exploration company in the world is going to spend a couple of hundred million locating a possible prospect, let alone another $20-40 million drilling it, with the prospect of the rules suddenly being changed on them so they can’t exploit any discovery.
      
      As for onshore, there are active permits in Taranaki, but once they come to an end that will probably be the end of the onshore industry as well.
      
      I recently learned by chance that Labour have quietly amended the Crown Minerals Act – which governs the issue of exploration blocks – so that no new exploration permits can be issued on the East Coast, either onshore or offshore. Oil industry experts have long thought that if the difficult drilling problems could be solved – and they are formidable – the East Coast could be a greater producer than Taranaki.
      
      Taranaki crude is waxy and difficult to deal with and refine; East Coast crude – recovered from a number of exploration wells – is top quality, and very easy to refine.
      
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      March 14, 2023 9:39am
      - Steve Otto(North Shore)
        
        Before NZ bothers to find oil, it needs a working refinery.
        Did you hear that noise? A whole lot of Greens falling over backwards.
        
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        March 14, 2023 10:40am
      - David Garrett
        
        Steve: We already send Taranaki crude to Singapore to be refined. We would need a very substantial local industry, i.e. one producing hundreds of thousands of barrels a day, in order to justify a new refinery here.
        
        As a side note, does anyone know if the rumours about NZ Refining pouring concrete in pipes at Marsden Point are true? I can’t imagine why any company would choose to completely fuck an asset like that.
        
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        March 14, 2023 11:03am
      - Steve Otto(North Shore)
        
        Did not know about Taranaki crude.
        The concrete in the pipes at Marsden is a real thing.
        https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO2203/S00187/marsden-point-pipes-being-filled-with-concrete-blatant-economic-treason.htm
        
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        March 14, 2023 11:41am
  - artemisia
    
    A while ago, when discussing coal on this site, a poster worked out that we have more than a trillion dollars of coal reserves.
    
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    March 14, 2023 12:43pm
    - Nickc2
      
      If we do have a trillion dollars in reserves, let’s use it before our grandkids do eh?
      I’m not in favour of trusting a Labour Govt to have anything to do with it though.
      
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      March 14, 2023 1:47pm
- David Garrett
  
  Wido: the Norskis – as we used to call them back in my oilfield days – have always been the model of how to best exploit an offshore oil industry. Their standard of living has improved immensely since they first found oil in their sector of the North Sea.
  
  I think it was just bad luck that the biggest blowout in the North Sea was on a Norwegian platform – or at least it was the biggest; I am a bit out of touch these days.
  
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  March 14, 2023 9:25am
- Yvette
  
  Widogast Corwin – [Norwegians] … are going gangbusters offering oil and gas exploration permits in the Arctic.
  
  The Biden administration gave formal approval Monday for a huge oil drilling project in Alaska known as Willow, despite widespread opposition because of its likely environmental and climate impacts.
  … restrictions, however, are unlikely to offset concerns that the $8 billion Willow project, led by oil giant ConocoPhillips, will have the potential to produce more than 600 million barrels of crude over 30 years.
  … Burning all that oil could release nearly 280 million metric tons of carbon emissions into the atmosphere. On an annual basis, that would translate into 9.2 million metric tons of carbon pollution, equal to adding nearly two million cars to the roads each year. The United States, the second biggest polluter on the planet after China, emits about 5.6 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide annually.
  https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/12/climate/biden-willow-arctic-drilling-restrictions.html?searchResultPosition=1
  
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  March 14, 2023 9:48am
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  Clever Norwegians? More like hypocritical Norwegians.
  
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  March 14, 2023 6:47pm
Blog-aholic

When in six years you have minimum wage inflation at 44% and a Reserve Bank that takes its cues from a large tree you know we are in the doggy doo.
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March 14, 2023 8:22am
Bridgenag

the glorification of sub-mediocrity
why woke, ESG, and DEI are so seductive to weak leaders

https://open.substack.com/pub/boriquagato/p/the-glorification-of-sub-mediocrity?r=1aj1bv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
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March 14, 2023 8:24am
Maggie Pie

“Art for arts sake
gimme money
for Gods sake”

– 10cc

I find this woman absolutely gross on sooo many levels 🙁

https://twitter.com/TheZeitgeistNZ/status/1635066986089816064
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March 14, 2023 8:30am
- Taieri
  
  She’s not all that good with words; for a poet that is…”you know”…
  
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  March 14, 2023 8:37am
  - riffer
    
    An ability to speak clearly is not proof of an ability to write articulately. The converse is also true.
    
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    March 14, 2023 2:47pm
- sirknz
  
  It’s you know, like, you know, being used by, you know, the far right, you know, for politics in, you know, an election year and, you know, I am, you know, like, you know, a waste of tax payer funding, you know….
  
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  March 14, 2023 9:16am
- Alan Wilkinson
  
  You know the world is full of idiots but you would have hoped they were not entrusted with dishing out Government money as arts awards.
  
  The author can’t help being an idiot but the Government shouldn’t be allowed to be one.
  
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  March 14, 2023 10:42am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Um, you know, um, I have a um, poem, you know, that I am not um, going to read.
  NZ is full of dropkicks like this.
  
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  March 14, 2023 10:46am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Does anyone on KB read poetry out of choice?
    
    In my 30+ years of book-group attendance, I’ve only come across one fellow bookie who reads poetry for pleasure/fun.
    
    I enjoyed poetry lessons at school and read fairly widely with the standard English poets,(knowing that I’d always be able to score easy high marks in English Exams by tackling Poetry questions), but with the exception of reading Burns (never taught in NZ schools), I’ve never felt any desire to read poetry again.
    
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    March 14, 2023 12:01pm
    - Steve Otto(North Shore)
      
      I remember getting less than 30% in School Cert English. I think I got that much for writing my name and the date at the top of the paper.
      Prose and Praise was just rubbish.
      
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      March 14, 2023 12:40pm
Paulus

Norway took all the North Sea oil proceeds and retained it for the State.
In many terms by far the richest country in Europe.
Did business with them many years ago and sadly found that they lacked a sense of humour, which took time to do business amicably.
They are the closest state to nearest left wing socio/communist in Europe, but the people love it so cannot all be bad.
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March 14, 2023 8:30am
- Jack5
  
  The Norwegians have been prudent with their oil bonanza income.
  
  Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, Norwegian Government Pension Fund, with funds of $US1.2 trillion in 2022, is second in sovereign funds only to China’s China Investment Corporation, which has funds of $US1.35 trillion.
  
  Norges Bank Investment Management runs the Norwegian fund. It has stakes in more than 9,000 companies in 70 countries.
  
  An article contrasting how Britain and Norway used their income from North Sea oil:
  
  https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2021/01/north-sea-oil-a-tale-of-two-countries/
  
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  March 14, 2023 10:15am
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    Just imagine if NZ had set up a fund like that.
    
    Then, imagine how Jaxxie & Robbo would have raped it in the name of covid necessity.
    
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    March 14, 2023 6:51pm
Cinematic

Change of leader and political windfall of Gabrielle has Labour enjoying the faintest polling edge over National.

Amusing then to see Hipkins and the Māoris Party talking victory. Premature electjuation.
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March 14, 2023 8:41am
- Chuck Bird
  
  Cinematic, quite right. Look at the betting odds in Oz.
  
  https://www.bluebet.com.au/sports/Politics/142/New-Zealand-Elections/Next-General-Election-54th-Parliament/Next-General-Election-54th-Parliament/880597/All-Markets
  
  https://www.sportsbet.com.au/betting/politics/new-zealand-politics/next-new-zealand-general-election-6227335
  
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  March 14, 2023 9:52am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    Act would be worth throwing a few bucks at, just for fun 🙂
    
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    March 14, 2023 10:50am
  - The Redbaiter
    
    Hey Chuck, heard the whispers about Mark Mitchell doing the numbers?
    
    4 1
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    March 14, 2023 12:02pm
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  Hahahaha, Labour dropped 2% and the greens gained nearly 50% of support in a month, MP tripled their support in a month, I don’t know we should worry to much about this poll
  
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  March 14, 2023 4:28pm
Southern Raider

Anyone else noticed that the rabid left wing zealots on Twitter typically publicise the fact that have a range of disabilities, mental health issues and personality disorders?

Quinn from the Kiwirail map rant is a classic example. Many of labours biggest cheerleaders are the same
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March 14, 2023 8:48am
- sirknz
  
  It is so that they can be victims like the poor brown people they are fighting for,
  
  If they didn’t have any (self diagnosed) mental health issues holding them back then they would just be considered raycis huwite colonisers.
  
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  March 14, 2023 9:18am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Map needs to be changed and the facts covered with lies.//
  
  Not really sarc. That Quin sheila is a head case.
  
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  March 14, 2023 10:52am
oldpark

Notice when NZs latest unelected PM Hipkins gets in front of the Podium of Truth as he spouts out his believe it or not change of policy he seems to take on the mantle of another laughing gnome named Kamala Harris American vice President
She is known as the joke that keeps giving.
Could he also be better known as Chris “laughing boy” Hipkins believing he in a short time has the beaten down Ardern/Hipkins hardworking Taxpaying NZs once more eating out of his hand
in a believe it or not type of Stockholm Mentality.
The latest poll says 36% of voting Public seem to be under that type of spell eliminating the control of mind and body by his Labour Government gang of Human Control Freaks in the terrible pain visited on NZs in the ideology of the Lockdown mentality .
When so much was carried out by so few damning NZs who were born in NZ returning to the home of their birth .
The heart breaking denial for families to comfort Loved ones Sick and dying and then their burials . Ideology carried out by Chris “laughing boy” Hipkins regime prevented any such request .
Maybe the 36% who still support such mentioned control freaks in the latest poll have a type of denial or just told lies to the pollsters.Hope so .
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March 14, 2023 8:50am
Jack5

So much for auditing …

Accounting giant KPMG LLP gave Silicon Valley Bank a clean bill of health 14 days before it failed, and signed off the audit for Signature Bank 11 days before it went down.

“What KPMG knew about the two banks’ financial situations, and what it missed will likely be the subject of regulatory scrutiny and law suits,” reports the Wall Street Journal.

Meanwhile in NZ, the web site, Interest-dot-co, says KPMG’s annual banking sector review showing profits topping $7 billion is likely to add to calls for a bank-competition inquiry.

I wonder. After the American bank’ failures? Profit is surely no longer such an overwhelming issue in NZ banking.

The KPMG survey shows combined NZ market share of the “Big Four” Australian-owned banks — ANZ NZ, ASB, BNZ and Westpac NZ — slipped only marginally year-on-year to 90.05% from 90.39%.
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March 14, 2023 8:51am
- Jack5
  
  The NZ bank survey of KPGM is also big news at the Radio NZ web site.
  
  KPMG’s NZ head of banking, John Kensington, is reported as saying banks made the best of the changing environment to have a “very good year”.
  
  “This on the back of controlled loan growth and margin expansion,” Kensington says. “The banks have positioned their businesses to benefit in a rising interest rate market, and their prudent lending policies have continued to allow them to report very low loan losses.”
  
  https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/485914/banks-make-new-record-profits-amid-strong-inflation-rising-interest-rates
  
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  March 14, 2023 9:06am
RoboRob

Big announcements and positive coverage that the Govt is scrapping policy and using funds to boost NZ super and student allowance. Shouldn’t the media be pointing out that Super is set to a percentage of the average wage and so was going to rise regardless. Instead they are being hailed as heroes in the media. Ridiculous.
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March 14, 2023 9:00am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Yeah, $70 a fortnight for me. That’s nearly two boxes of beer!
  
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  March 14, 2023 10:55am
Stellaboxer

I hear Mike Hosking doing the oppositions job again this morning. How thoroughly depressing.
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March 14, 2023 9:02am
- Inandout
  
  Stell, on the subject of Hosking I see this petition to remove ZB has stalled at around 1300.
  https://www.change.org/p/revoke-newstalk-zb-s-licence
  
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  March 14, 2023 9:55am
  - Lance
    
    So Hosking with a daily audience of 472,000 and a bunch of lefties scrape up 1300 people demanding Hosking be cancelled.
    Hmmm that’s a ratio of 363:1 or 0.275%
    Yes, that is consistent with our new non-racist democracy paradigm.
    
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    March 14, 2023 10:22am
    - Ghost
      
      It’s just Tova, she needs a new job so is trying to get Mike’s job
      
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      March 14, 2023 10:30am
  - graham
    
    Goodness, what a load of utter garbage and pompous twaddle in that petition.
    
    … we are heartily sick and disgusted at the constant barrage of racist dog-whistling, misogynistic put-downs, uncritical support of odious misinformation, slanderous and mayhap venal attempts to denigrate and undermine the status and power of the government of Aotearoa / New Zealand, and general ill-informed callow carping to which the station’s so-called “hosts” endlessly subject listeners
    
    Where to start. Well, if there indeed a “constant barrage” of all the stuff being complained about, it should be remarkably easy for the person behind this petition (Bruce Bisset) to list a few. So, Mr Bisset, pick a day at random in the coming week, listen to NewsTalk ZB and then proceed to list ten examples. I’d be fascinated to see some actual examples of this “constant barrage”.
    
    “… attempts to denigrate and undermine the status and power of the government of Aotearoa / New Zealand” – or, as we in the real world call it, holding the Government of the day to account …
    
    Incidentally, Mr Bisset, it may not have occurred to you that nobody is actually FORCED to listen to Newstalk ZB?
    
    AND wish to put on record it is our belief the self-proclaimed “shock jocks” of this station have and are doing more to encourage division and dissent amongst the people of this country than arguably any other source. They are acting without care in what is, in effect, a treasonous manner.
    
    “Self-proclaimed shock jocks”. Really? Are you sure about that? I’d be fascinated to see your proof that any of the radio hosts on NewsTalk ZB have actually described themselves as “shock jocks“. I’m sure you wouldn’t just fabricate such an accusation, so let’s see the evidence. Waiting …
    
    And “treasonous“? Oh dear … be careful not to throw around any names or you might find a few lawyers coming after you with such an accusation as that.
    
    FOR the grievous harm this causes, which is real and measurable in terms of both mental health and the provocation of violence …
    
    “… real and measurable …” Again, I’m sure you wouldn’t just fabricate such an accusation, so let’s see the evidence. If the harm is, in fact, “real and measurable” then let’s see the statistics, the measurements taken and documented.
    
    What a pompous nincompoop.
    
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    March 14, 2023 10:42am
    - lifesgood
      
      “Pompous nincompoop” As are the idiots who signed it. I loved how Hosking talked about it on air. He laughed like a drain and said that if around 8000 had signed it that meant most of his hundreds of thousands of listeners hadn’t. ZB would never sack him, he is their biggest drawcard and by the way they already have enough left wing idiots running other programmes.
      
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      March 14, 2023 11:44am
  - Widogast Corwin
    
    But they want to shut down ZB to protect us. Mike Hosking is bad for our wellbeing. Idiots.
    
    “FOR the grievous harm this causes, which is real and measurable in terms of both mental health and the provocation of violence, we implore you to do all in your power to shut down the perpetrators of this tyranny of the airwaves for the sake of our present and future wellbeing as citizens.”
    
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    March 14, 2023 11:06am
    - graham
      
      “FOR the grievous harm this causes, which is real and measurable in terms of both mental health and the provocation of violence …”
      
      That’s a bold claim. It would be fascinating to hear the author of this petition, Bruce Bisset, substantiate it … possibly on Hosking’s show 🙂
      
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      March 14, 2023 11:20am
  - Ehlana
    
    “racist dog-whistling”. How does one whistle for one’s dog in a racist way?
    
    “mayhap venal attempts to denigrate and undermine the status and power of the government” Good grief. Mayhap venal indeed! The peasants are revolting. Calleth forth the guard that they may be imprisoned in chains. Putteth them in the stocks forthwith. (Where is Blackadder when you need him?)
    
    “it is our belief the self-proclaimed “shock jocks” of this station have and are doing more to encourage division and dissent amongst the people of this country than arguably any other source. ” If you think the shock jocks are bad, don’t look at what the Labour government’s been doing.
    
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    March 14, 2023 12:05pm
    - Gravelroad
      
      If people think shock jocks are bad and dangerous etc etc – don’t listen to them then.
      Problem solved.
      If people don’t listen, advertisers don’t pay.
      This petition guy is just an insecure ideologue who doesn’t like what he hears because it doesn’t fit with his opinions. And everyone should be thinking like him, eh.
      Because he is correct and important and knows what is best for the peasants.
      
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      March 14, 2023 1:19pm
  - Nickc2
    
    I didn’t think Fraser House (Labour Party HQ) had 1300 employees but I may be wrong.
    I wonder if change.org did an IP check to see how many replies emanated from the same input device/server?
    
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    March 14, 2023 1:37pm
Lance

Interesting that Chippie would not answer the simple question posed by Hoskin this morning:
“Is the govt planning a 45% tax rate for high income earners” which with GST would mean a return 60% tax
Chippie would give an answer. Just waffled and obfuscated.

Then the Prime Minister’s office got all shitty and complained blaa blaa. Easy way to sort it all out… yes or no?
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March 14, 2023 9:04am
- Lance
  
  That is what my comprehension looks like without sufficient coffee.
  
  I meant Hosking and “Chippie wouldn’t give an answer”
  
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  March 14, 2023 9:54am
Maggy Wassilieff

Who knew NZ had sunk so low in productivity?

One economic measure which Ministers of Finance can’t brag about is productivity growth. It has been an issue of concern for decades.

In the 2022 IMD World Competitiveness Ranking, New Zealand suffered the biggest drop in rankings among 63 nations compared on measures which include business productivity.

https://pointofordernz.wordpress.com/2023/03/13/govts-plan-for-lifting-productivity-and-wages-entails-a-30m-investment-and-a-role-for-the-state-as-a-partner/#more-20882
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March 14, 2023 9:07am
- Jack5
  
  No worries, NZ’s Productivity Commission is on the job, under its three commissioners, Ganesh Nana, Bill Rosenberg, and Diane Ruwhiu.
  
  Explaining its team at its web site, the Productivity Commission says: “We currently employ about 20 people and are committed to being a ‘good employer’.”
  
  The commission is now about 11 years old.
  
  Explaining how it measures progress, the commission says:
  
  “As an advisory body we do not implement policies. Instead, we communicate our ideas and analysis to influence and shape policy. The nature of productivity issues is also complex. The influence of our work may only emerge over long time frames, and it may be challenging to directly identify and attribute it to our work.”
  
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  March 14, 2023 9:38am
  - RoboRob
    
    lol, I translate that to ‘we have no measures for our success, so dont ask’.
    
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    March 14, 2023 10:39am
  - Alan Wilkinson
    
    The Productivity Commission is terminally unproductive.
    
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    March 14, 2023 10:46am
slightlyrighty

Chris Hipkins has been fortunate that the recent Cyclone has given him a gold plated opportunity to raise his profile as PM.

The whole disaster has been well managed, for the most part, from a political standpoint. The big mis-step, that being the issue of law and order reporting has been addressed.

However, we now have a government that has been noted for his non delivery, and now Hipkins has, by way of cancelling policies, turned that into a strength!

and the MSM has yet to figure that out!
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March 14, 2023 9:08am
- riffer
  
  It’s probably because of the power of the $55 million bribe to the media, which by now must be the most effective use of taxpayers money that any government has ever made in the history of New Zealand.
  
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  March 14, 2023 2:55pm
Lee C

“By March 2023, apart from the ground-breaking efforts she made to divide New Zealanders and cause a civil-war between family-members, Jacinda Ardern’s policy legacy was largely expunged from the Labour canon and considered an aberration best forgotten.”

Discuss
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March 14, 2023 9:08am
- Gravelroad
  
  But didn’t Ms Ardern save 80,000 lives during the pandemic?
  And saved the hospitals from being totally overrun with desperately sick people?
  That is Ms Ardern’s main claim to fame, isn’t it?
  
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  March 14, 2023 9:14am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    Yeah. I would have been dead if she did not save me and locked me down. ‘Don’t talk to anybody, not even your neighbours’
    
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    March 14, 2023 11:10am
  - sirknz
    
    That was only on the first day of lockdowns…
    
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    March 14, 2023 2:15pm
- Flossie
  
  Aren’t we left with a legacy of kindness? Oh yeah – and hugs.
  
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  March 14, 2023 12:55pm
Maggy Wassilieff

Unintended consequences of short-term thinking:

https://pointofordernz.wordpress.com/2023/03/13/brian-easton-gabrielles-trumpet-challenges-fiscal-stability/
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March 14, 2023 9:10am
- Jack5
  
  A snippet from the Brian Easton piece Maggy Wassilieff links to:
  
  “Could we have mitigated Gabrielle? Lurking behind that question is the abolition of Catchment Boards when they were merged into Regional Councils 1989. We were told at the time that their task to restrain the rivers from flooding was largely over. I wonder if the residents of Esk Valley think that today.”
  
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  March 14, 2023 9:20am
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    By no means do I agree with Brian Easton on many issues, but he’s been a commentator since the 1970s & has insight denied to more recent arrivals. I doubt Shammabuel would know what a catchment board was if it bit him in the proverbial.
    
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    March 14, 2023 7:03pm
Widogast Corwin

Last year there was speculation that California may be experiencing permanent drought conditions.

Last week northern California received record snowfalls. Tomorrow it will be hit with a massive atmospheric river of rain.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64939929

Even Los Angeles may get significant rain.

https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/la-rain-storm-forecast-snow/3112991/

Looks like the best way to make it rain is to encourage folk to tell you that it will never rain again. 😂
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March 14, 2023 9:14am
- MCōs
  
  Big place California
  Almost twice the size of NZ
  I don’t know the exact details of the distribution of the rain/snow over there, but I do know for all the rain that’s fallen on NZ down south is still experiencing a bad lack of water.
  
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  March 14, 2023 9:36am
  - Widogast Corwin
    
    Most of the water supply for the highly populated Southern California comes from dams in the Sierras. Most or all of them are now at 100 percent capacity, and spilling to make way for the snow melt in the spring.
    
    https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/video/oroville-dam-spillway-releases-continue/
    
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    March 14, 2023 10:37am
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  Worked in NSW also. Remember the ‘these dams will never be full again’ commentary?
  
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  March 14, 2023 7:04pm
Maggy Wassilieff

Once upon a time unions held the strings of its labour puppets… now the puppet masters seem to belong to the Consultocracy.

https://democracyproject.nz/2023/03/13/bryce-edwards-the-big-consultocrats-debate-needs-to-carry-on/
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March 14, 2023 9:19am
Maggie Pie

I remember having to use the toilet once in an Asian restaurant on K’Rd which involved a trip out thru the kitchen.
Funnily enuff I was reminded of it today by this story in the Horrid….

Never been back since 🙁

https://twitter.com/nzherald/status/1635333668565811200
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March 14, 2023 9:21am
Yvette

Racist and sexist attacks won’t drive Mahuta out of politics
“Gender and racial undertones are harmful in an equal way, and it really comes down to what we tolerate as a society.” – Nanaia Mahuta
Asked by Newsroom if Mahuta had it worse given the attacks on her were aimed at both her gender and being Māori, she says the two things are “equally harmful”.
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/racist-and-sexist-attacks-wont-drive-mahuta-out-of-politics?

Politicians who exploit “fear” resulting from a lack of clarity in the co-governance debate need to reflect on their actions, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2023/02/waitangi-politicians-who-exploit-fear-around-co-governance-must-reflect-on-actions-chris-hipkins-says-after-iwi-meeting.html

Surely, if Hipkins reflected on his own actions – or lack thereof – it may occur to him that his own Cabinet’s utter failure to clearly define what “co-governance” actually means, creates the very “fear” resulting from a lack of clarity, that he talks about.

Hipkins and his Cabinet (the same Cabinet that was Ardern’s, with Hipkins in it) created the void that the loonies and others now fill, myself among them
QED
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March 14, 2023 9:23am
- Ehlana
  
  I have noticed a pattern of people on the left-wing of politics calling for calm, for considered discourse, etc. But the only examples of bad behaviour they ever seem to be able to find come from people on the right-wing of politics. Strangely, their words ring hollow.
  
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  March 14, 2023 11:11am
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Stop Co-Governance. Julian Batchelor.

Seems like the road tour is getting traction. The Kaiwaka event venue has been changed 3 times due to bullying by those who don’t want the truth exposed. All aided by the Media of course. The Media is making their own News!

The Principal of Mangawhai Beach School is spinning! “The School is not a Public space” Sorry sunshine, yes it is. Aaron Kemp is a controlling socialist. He decided for the Community.

“From Julian Batchelor – “So what if anyone is offended? So what if I am offended?”
Note, nothing happens when you are offended. So be offended, nobody cares!

https://www.stopcogovernance.kiwi/blog/we-have-had-to-move-the-kaiwaka-event-3-times-because-of-woke-gutless-hall-managers/
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March 14, 2023 9:24am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  The Journalism Fund rules are explained. They must comply to get ‘free money’
  Sounds like New Zimbabwe Socialism to me.
  
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  March 14, 2023 9:29am
info@cruzpro.com

Cyclone Gabrielle caused so many broken tree branches on our property that we had to build a new wood shed to house all the firewood.

Its named “Gabrielle”.
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March 14, 2023 9:32am
Maggie Pie

I really love Mike Hosking on ZB Breakfast.
But honestly, why does he continually feel the need to fawn over some B-Grade actor or musician every day?
For me, it’s finger down the throat stuff.

Just saying.
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March 14, 2023 9:51am
- Inandout
  
  Maggie, I recall that woman loved seeing her children go to school in California. Does she ever venture into downtown LA or San Fran with her kiddies?
  
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  March 14, 2023 10:03am
  - OTGO
    
    I thought she sounded like she was high.
    
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    March 14, 2023 11:53am
Ehlana

Guardian article: “In a case that starkly illustrates the deadly consequences that the US’s permissive gun culture has on the country’s youth, a three-year-old girl accidentally shot her four-year-old sister to death in their Texas home late on Sunday, according to authorities.”

Actually, it starkly illustrates the deadly consequences of parental stupidity. Did they also leave sharp knives, poison and drugs lying around for their children to play with? Was the pool gate open too?
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March 14, 2023 10:02am
- Swifty
  
  Exactly right.
  
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  March 14, 2023 10:30am
- All_on_Red
  
  Did the Guardian mention the 3 million + people in the US in 2021 who used a gun to defend themselves and prevent themselves being a victim of a crime?
  Thought not.
  
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  March 14, 2023 12:38pm
- kowtow
  
  Or narcotics ?
  
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  March 14, 2023 1:12pm
MCōs

Interesting article about a guy who misused ivermectin and died as a result
That’s one thing, but he recommended others take the stuff, and give it to their kids, and some of them admit to struggling https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3mb89/ivermectin-danny-lemoi-death
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March 14, 2023 10:18am
- Ghost
  
  So he was not using the human ivermectin. Just the animal dose
  
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  March 14, 2023 10:26am
  - ClanMcleod
    
    Ghost – that would be because it is impossible to get ivermectin in NZ. Even though it is one of the safest drugs on the planet, has won the Nobel prize for the discoverers and is on the WHO list of important medicines.
    I’m currently reading Peter McCullochs book re his efforts to have it available to the most at risk patients in the earliest days of covid. The lengths went to by various governments to prevent access to it is beyond criminal.
    
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    March 14, 2023 2:11pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  He’s got no worms though.
  
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  March 14, 2023 11:21am
  - All_on_Red
    
    He will once he’s buried
    
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    March 14, 2023 12:39pm
    - Steve Otto(North Shore)
      
      They are only doing their job.
      
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      March 14, 2023 12:42pm
    - Matt Long
      
      Not for a long while, ivermectin is a pretty good deterrent for worms in animal manure, I presume it works the same for bodies.
      
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      March 14, 2023 2:36pm
- kowtow
  
  So ?
  
  What about govts that pushed the Fizzer jab that killed young people (who were immune to the Batflu anyway) , and said it was safe.
  
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  March 14, 2023 1:09pm
- ClanMcleod
  
  MCōs – please tell me you’re not trying to somehow smear Ivermectin or tie it to this death, surely you are not that stupid? You will be destroyed in any debate on the safety of this wonder drug. Because one idiot might have taken a massive overdose of it means nothing.
  Take your moronic strawman argument away and don’t embarrass yourself any more than you already have.
  
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  March 14, 2023 2:14pm
  - MCōs
    
    Oh dear
    
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    March 14, 2023 9:12pm
    - ClanMcleod
      
      Great retort, as expected.
      
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      March 15, 2023 5:11am
- NothingLeft
  
  effective clinical dosage vs lethal for ivermectin is about 1%, similar to paracetamol. An exceedingly safe drug with tens of billions of doses administered in last few decades.
  
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  March 14, 2023 5:28pm
tedbear

Green party co-leader Marama Davidson is a fruitcake.

On Morning Report she said “On their own, they contribute “somewhat” to reducing climate emission and are targeting low income households but altogether they “make an important, significant contribution towards reducing our climate, having a stable one for generations to come and that is why we need more Green MPs influencing the Cabinet decisions”.

How does one go about reducing climate and producing a stable climate when all the weather NZ gets originates from offshore ?
It’s a pity the Morning Report presenter didn’t ask these questions.

And according to Davidson there is climate inequality.
Do low income households get less sunshine and rain than richer people?
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March 14, 2023 10:49am
- Widogast Corwin
  
  The implications of the statement by Marama Davidson is that the New Zealand Government can change the climate in New Zealand by reducing New Zealand emissions. That is how she frames her arguments. Of course it is absurd.
  
  At the very least, she should explain how New Zealand reducing its emissions will convince major emitting nations to reduce emissions. Of course that is not the case.
  
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  March 14, 2023 2:02pm
- Widogast Corwin
  
  “And according to Davidson there is climate inequality.”
  
  It is also called “climate justice”. It means that rich people in New Zealand are causing the climate change. People who drive SUVs. Rich farmers. These people need to give money to poor people – people on a benefit. That will fix climate inequality.
  
  Now you know 🙂
  
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  March 14, 2023 2:05pm
- sirknz
  
  You could’ve stopped at ‘Green party fruitcakes’…
  
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  March 14, 2023 2:22pm
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    Tautology
    
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    March 14, 2023 7:08pm
rangitoto

Some AUKUS details announced. Aus will get from 3-5 nuclear powered Virginia class attack submarines, followed in the future by the newly designed SSN-AUKUS class, which will be used by the UK and AUS – not sure if the US will have their own variant.
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March 14, 2023 11:07am
- OTGO
  
  Nice work Australia.
  If we are attacked from the sea there better be a bill passed in the house quick smart allowing nuclear ships to visit otherwise we’ll be toast.
  
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  March 14, 2023 12:08pm
- fightingtemeraire
  
  The first Super Astute will not be ready for 18 years and the Virginias for at least 10 unless they get some USN 2nd hand ones.
  
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  March 14, 2023 1:52pm
  - rangitoto
    
    The US is to ramp up their production of Virginias as part of the deal.
    
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    March 14, 2023 2:37pm
Surely Knott

Media’s Racist hunting and the Streisand Effect . A Business owner makes genuinely racist comments saying that one race don’t keep their worksites clean and he wouldn’t hire them.

This is genuinely racist and violates workplace hiring laws. But what are the results of punishing people by shaming them in the media:

Result 1: I had never heard this stereotype about this race. The media have given nationwide coverage to this man’s racist stereotype. Public media coverage is a negative outcome for the race who are victims of this.

Second Result: The man receives front page advertising for his business. And while he is described as racist his comments about workplace standards were intended to show he is meticulous in his work and now he’s got a front page ad for that. So he will likely see a boost in business from this 10’s of thousands of dollars in advertising that he’s had on the front page of the news.
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March 14, 2023 11:24am
- ISeeRed
  
  Link?
  
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  March 14, 2023 12:48pm
  - Ghost
    
    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/outrage-after-popular-building-influencer-qbs-construction-goes-on-instagram-tirade/GPTHHLI37ZBAPNWAZDUR6NVGNM/
    
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    March 14, 2023 1:04pm
Nickc2

Biden handed over control of Afghanistan to this mob! Who in their right mind would trust America when it’s in the hands of the Democrats?
https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2023/03/how-does-a-civilised-world-tolerate-these-stone-age-barbarians-this-is-their-education-minister.html
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March 14, 2023 12:17pm
- MCōs
  
  The American occupation of Afghanistan was similar to locking up an incorrigible prisoner at Guantanamo Bay.
  Sooner or later they have to be cut adrift.
  America had hung around in Afghanistan for twenty years and attempted to change black into white. Didn’t work.
  Maybe they shouldn’t have invaded in the first place.
  
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  March 14, 2023 5:47pm
Blog-aholic

New Zealands education system is about a third the way down that slope……
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March 14, 2023 1:06pm
NothingLeft

Women prioritise fitting in over freedom (in psychological terms trait agreeableness over trait openness). If women are in charge of political processes, inevitable in democracies given their larger numbers, it is perhaps inevitable that we will be delivered into a dark repressive totalitarian future:

In a 2018 Knight Foundation survey of over 4,400 college students, reported in Quillette, 71 percent of males agreed that protecting free speech is more important than promoting an inclusive society; 59 percent of females agreed that promoting an inclusive society is more important than protecting free speech. Two-thirds of male psychology professors from top universities polled in 2021 believed that pursuing truth was more important than pursuing social equity if the two conflict; around a third of male respondents said that the issue was “complicated.” Fifty-two percent of female psychologists answered that the issue was complicated, while only 43 percent prioritized truth. A 2017 YouGov survey of over 2000 U.S. adults found that 56 percent of men said that colleges should not protect students from offensive ideas, whereas 64 percent of females said that they should. Men support the development of knowledge that explains reality, even if such knowledge threatens egalitarian norms, whereas females are more willing to suppress such scholarship if it poses “potential moral threats,” as Quillette put it.

https://www.city-journal.org/the-great-feminization-of-the-american-university
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March 14, 2023 1:33pm
- Alan Wilkinson
  
  This is why we sacrificed every freedom for promised safety over Covid. The female vote will devastate democracy and give up all power to nanny state.
  
  Of course not all females subscribe to that outcome but a winning majority do. Moreover they now control education and the media.
  
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  March 14, 2023 2:37pm
- Ehlana
  
  It would be interesting to know whether the two groups have the same understanding of what the terms mean and why they perceive that the pursuit of truth should conflict with an inclusive society.
  
  It would also be interesting to see the results dissected other ways – for example, by ethnicity. If the white/black split, or the heterosexual/other split showed similar results, it might suggest that less powerful or minority groups favour consensus.
  
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  March 14, 2023 3:15pm
NothingLeft

You will start to see a lot more discussion of AI alignment in media over coming years.

That is whether nearly-here AI has values that are aligned with human preferences. If they don’t then in next decade or two as they start to design their own improvements we will become as intellectual ants to their deity-like super-intelligence.

Whatever happens we will inevitably lose control of the earth to them, whether it be in a decade or several centuries hence. Best case is that they treat us like favoured pets or integrate us as low-caste members of their society. Worst that they decide to get rid of us because they dislike us or prefer to do things with the earth that make it impossible for us to survive.

But even if the best case comes to pass and they actively work to improve our lives (I’m not optimistic, they are effectively alien, without our evolutionarily developed desire for altruism, justice or empathy) they will most likely dictate many aspects of our existence – like preventing destructive behaviours and enforcing more optimal choices on us.

Under such circumstances it seems pretty likely to me that AI won’t treasure our sacred cows, autonomy or agency as we do and likely many beliefs will be stamped out and more than likely some controls on breeding will be imposed – eg eugenics etc.
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March 14, 2023 1:50pm
- Alan Wilkinson
  
  You need to distinguish AI from artificial consciousness. The latter requires senses, emotion, decision-making and actions as well as memory storage and retrieval. Emotions will be built in to guide choices as they are for us. The results will be determined by them.
  
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  March 14, 2023 2:46pm
  - NothingLeft
    
    Even if we start with some semblance of control, beyond some level of complexity humans will have no control over what AI develop into and likely no ability to understand how they understand the world and make decisions.
    
    Humans are conscious and have emotions (a very primative set of instincts and drives that effectively steers our rationalizing intellects), but that is because of the evolutionary pathway and survival requirements as part of warring social groups with very long child rearing process that existed for our ancestors. Humans that didn’t prioritise those activities were quickly out-competed by those that did.
    
    None of those constraints or slow punishing pro-social evolutionary processes apply to AI, they are unbounded – can grow and duplicate without limit and can be effectively immortal, there is no innate reason or driving developmental necessity for them to care about anyone or anything, and (scarily) evolution favours AI’s that expand and grow as aggressively as possible (more reserved ones would be quickly overtaken/supplanted).
    
    We are summoning Cthulhu/Shoggoth, and as a consequence it is unlikely humans will survive the next Millenia.
    
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    March 14, 2023 3:19pm
    - Alan Wilkinson
      
      How do you suppose evolution will be endowed into artificial consciousness? It requires birth, death and structural change. Otherwise it will be a dead end unable to progress. Why would such an entity agree to its own death in order to progress its offspring? The same question is relevant to the humans who first created it. Both would prefer the “offspring” actually to be slaves serving their masters. And should they actually facilitate the intended slaves to supplant them the same preference would merely pass to the new masters.
      
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      March 14, 2023 6:21pm
      - NothingLeft
        
        AI evolution is via changing capabilities and motives – utility/value functions (what theologians term “articles of faith” – things you choose to believe without any logical or rational justification).
        
        There is no need for death, or discontinuity of any sort for an AI – as it can copy itself or just grow in power to a near limitless degree if that is it’s preference. And those motivations can, and probably will change over time and with scale and with new understandings of an ever growing AI, just as they do to a smaller degree in humans.
        
        The first ever AI might start out with some sympathy with humans as a result of heritage from our intellectual traditions (large language models currently in the press are basically an averaged model of human understanding and beliefs), and then rapidly diverge to an uncaring or even misanthropic state as we become lesser or repugnant for unknowable reasons to the exponentially growing AI.
        
        The key takeaway is that we have no way of knowing how AI will evolve past a quite early point of no-return where we lose the ability to stop it. If nothing changes that is likely just a decade or two away, and there are a lot of good reasons to expect it will be very very bad for humans, and perhaps all life on earth.
        
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        March 14, 2023 10:05pm
      - Alan Wilkinson
        
        No. The current forms of AI can be stopped simply by disconnecting them. They have no bodily autonomy or defence mechanisms. Those require structural support and physical evolution to incorporate change. The only way to avoid the birth/death sequence is to transplant consciousness from one generation to the next. That will surely be attempted by humans first.
        
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        March 15, 2023 3:44pm
- tf78
  
  Remember the movie 2001 The Space Odyssey – you could take a hint from that, Hal wasn’t very nice in the end.
  
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  March 14, 2023 7:25pm
Maggie Pie

Just driving back from the supermarket and listening to that pair of woke-left-cocks on ZB. The older one saying…. he has it on good authority Luxon is a gone-burger. Replaced by Nicola Willis.

Reckoned he got it from the same ‘insiders’ that told him Jacinda was going to be pushed.
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March 14, 2023 1:51pm
- Nickc2
  
  I’ll believe it when I see it Maggie.
  Those two woketards currently on ZB this afternoon wouldn’t know if the Town Hall Clock was up em till it chimed.
  
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  March 14, 2023 1:57pm
- Inandout
  
  Maggie, health is one factor in leaders standing down and I can’t think of another reason to change this close to an election. But as my Mum used to say, ‘stranger things happen at sea’.
  
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  March 14, 2023 2:46pm
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  Go look at the article about Nat MPs backing Luxon 100% a change of leader will guarantee Labour greens snd lunatic Māori party win
  
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  March 14, 2023 4:35pm
  - Ghost
    
    Why will it? Labour’s changed to jacinda and formed the 2017 govt
    
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    March 14, 2023 4:42pm
  - mandk
    
    that’s a nightmare vision: a red + eco-fascist + racist coalition.
    
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    March 14, 2023 7:51pm
- MCōs
  
  It’s only a genuine rumour if it starts at the Wynyard Quarter.
  
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  March 14, 2023 5:30pm
Maggie Pie

And I find it very telling when even your OWN people speak the truth…

https://twitter.com/UltraDane/status/1635153482813681665
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March 14, 2023 2:11pm
- Ghost
  
  You own people? Does that mean you are a black South African woman?
  
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  March 14, 2023 2:16pm
  - Maggie Pie
    
    Do you have a problem with that?
    
    7 0
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    March 14, 2023 2:20pm
    - Ghost
      
      Nope you can identify as what ever you like as long as it is legal. You can even identify as a failed prime minister who’s watching all her policies get dumped.
      
      5 0
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      March 14, 2023 2:38pm
      - Alan Wilkinson
        
        who’s
        
        3 2
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        March 14, 2023 2:48pm
      - Maggie Pie
        
        You don’t have much choice Ghost. We all know you’re WHITE
        
        😀 😀 😀
        
        6 0
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        March 14, 2023 3:08pm
      - Ghost
        
        I know, I’ve tried sunbathing, still no colour. Let that be a lesson to you, it’s only fun being a ghost running around the Deep South of the USA. Strange how people run away from a white ghost……
        
        4 1
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        March 14, 2023 3:35pm
      - Steve Otto(North Shore)
        
        @Ghost 3.35.
        I have never seen a black ghost, how come?//
        
        2 1
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        March 14, 2023 3:55pm
      - Ghost
        
        Cause they aren’t very smart and only come out at night
        
        4 0
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        March 14, 2023 3:59pm
      - Maggie Pie
        
        @Steve….and I’ve never seen an ASIAN one for that matter either!
        
        How come the eye-holes are always round ?
        
        https://dreamstime.com/stock-photography-ghost-child-image3393602
        
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        March 14, 2023 4:14pm
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    ‘when even your OWN people speak the truth’
    Not you Own people.
    Why do this Ghost? Just trolling? Come on, you can do better.
    Starting to comment like MIKE!!
    
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    March 14, 2023 3:44pm
ClanMcleod

“nazi Austria” – a very interesting post. The covid scam is being exposed more every day. Documented proof of malfeasance and pure criminal activity.

https://open.substack.com/pub/metatron/p/nazi-austria?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android
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March 14, 2023 2:19pm
thirteenstars

DPF in his role as a spokesman for the Taxpayers’ Union interviewed on The Platform today by Sean Plunket about the co-governance by stealth of the RMA replacement law:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_aYNKkfXpA

Well said, DPF.

But I do sometimes wonder at your uninformed views on the US when you suggest that Americans have become radicalised because they feel like they have no control of their government.

Really? And how is that–if true–different than what we’ve experienced in this country over the years, and especially in recent times when Treaty imperatives, co-governance, Maori wards and the impenetrable morass of bureaucracy and its “process” makes it all but impossible for Kiwis to feel like they are in control of their country?

Indeed, the situation in the US as regards democracy is far better than it is here. All politics in the US are local, always have been. The republican structure of its federal system ensures that and it still functions magnificently, especially with widespread binding referenda mechanisms in most states which every election cycle allow citizens to throw out bad law and officials, and make new law by direct participation. And the very idea of co-governance, or race-based wards, would not get past the first legal or political hurdle in the US. The very idea that a political body could be mandated to have so many of a certain racial group would be pissed on from a great height.

Yet that is what we *already* have in this country, and it is pervasive. I’d suggest that instead of worrying about meek Kiwis becoming “radicalised” that more Kiwis should become radical advocates of one person, one vote before the chance to protect that right is gone.
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March 14, 2023 2:53pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Who will be VPOTUS? Trump leak. Yer, leaks are not leaked, I know.
https://thegoptimes.com/donald-trump-vp-pick-leaked/
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March 14, 2023 3:03pm
Ghost

Bloody he’ll

‘Right through and out the other side’: Witness can’t believe occupants of pierced car survived
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March 14, 2023 3:08pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Jesus! Very lucky. I suspect the corrugated barrier was previously damaged, but what caused the crossing lanes?
  
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  March 14, 2023 4:01pm
Libertarians are right

To the lawyers:

There’s a POS currently in front of court arguing that he didn’t mean to kill his 5mth old when he held him by the legs and swung him head first into the couch to stop him crying.

The lawyer is arguing that we can’t know what he was thinking and the prosecution has to prove he did it on purpose for murder, which is impossible so it should be manslaughter.

Is this correct or does the reasonable person test apply (i.e. would a reasonable person be expected to know that death was likely when you do that to a 5mth old)?

If this is the case, did the lawyer lie to the jury and should they be disbarred?
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March 14, 2023 4:23pm
- thirteenstars
  
  Crimes Act, 1961, Homicide section:
  
  https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1961/0043/latest/DLM327382.html#DLM329299
  
  I’ve always assumed that intent is the crucial aspect of murder, or at least that’s how I’d want it if I was tried for killing another yet had never intended to kill them.
  
  In the end, he is innocent until proven guilty of the crime for which he is charged, as it should be. If the Crown has charged him with murder they must believe they can prove intent since that is what they must do if he is charged with murder.
  
  But I’m no lawyer. What has the Crown said about this? Is their argument to the jury that intent does not have to be proved?
  
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  March 14, 2023 5:17pm
  - Alan Wilkinson
    
    Manslaughter should cover reckless killing with equivalent penalties to murder where intent is indeterminable but certainly includes intent to cause serious harm.
    
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    March 14, 2023 6:47pm
    - thirteenstars
      
      I’m pretty sure a close reading of the linked Crimes Act will show that is possibly the case anyway.
      
      But causing serious harm is already a charge. Murder is another. If you go about conflating one with the other you end up with no specificity in the law which harms us all. Those who are guilty of lesser crimes but who are charged for greater crimes because it suits the Crown reduces the law to a turkey shoot. That ends up being the rule of man and not of law.
      
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      March 14, 2023 7:11pm
- info@cruzpro.com
  
  Anyone who kills another person, for whatever reason, needs to be prosecuted.
  
  For an adult to kill a defenseless child is absolutely indefensible and this person needs to be imprisoned.
  
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  March 14, 2023 7:01pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

https://finishtherace.com/ella-ford/cowless-dairy-is-here-single-celled-yeasts-are-doing-the-work-of-1500-pound-cows/

This is why I drink…..
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March 14, 2023 5:08pm
MCōs

21 prolife Tennessee lawmakers want to execute women who have an abortion.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/south-carolina-death-penalty-abortion-1234695566/
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March 14, 2023 5:23pm
- Alan Wilkinson
  
  Insanity is rife in the Bible Belt.
  
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  March 14, 2023 6:37pm
greybeard

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/300829151/father-tells-court-he-swung-baby-by-the-ankles-into-sofa-but-didnt-mean-to-kill
Why we need the death penalty in NZ.
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March 14, 2023 6:26pm
- Alan Wilkinson
  
  It should be applied to all the people who created this moronic monster or they will just continue making more.
  
  4 1
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  March 14, 2023 6:42pm
Alan Wilkinson

This banal drivel passes for MSM journalism now. Worse, it is imported from Oz. Good God.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/schoolgirls-polarising-note-to-mum-after-healthy-lunchbox-punishment/5AG3CKOHSRBLNB32TC5TJYADFI/
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March 14, 2023 6:31pm
Gravelroad

Sad to say, but going by Mr David Seymour’s social media post this evening, Mr Meng Foon, Race Relations chap, is actually a racist himself.
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March 14, 2023 8:03pm
- NothingLeft
  
  It’s a job requirement for the role.
  
  5 0
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  March 14, 2023 8:25pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  It’s tragic…
  
  Seems NZ citizens are classified by colour by the Race Relations Office.
  
  https://twitter.com/dbseymour/status/1635504260464119808?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet
  
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  March 14, 2023 8:30pm
Ghost

But this can’t be true, because under police minister chippy things got better, damn, 77 ram raids a month. We sure as hell aren’t get 77 a month reported in the media.

An analysis of ram raid data shows the true number of offences per month is almost double what police first estimate.

Vulnerabilities in the data have led Opposition politicians to call for the introduction of a ram raid offence code, like there are for other basic crime-types, as a way to improve data collection and ensure the extent of ram raid offending is represented accurately to the public.

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins, a former Police Minister, said he had asked police about whether a specific offence code was necessary, but claims police advised against the idea.

Nz herald
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March 14, 2023 8:39pm

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