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March 15, 2023 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 15 March 2023

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Yvette

From Climate Emergency To Election Crisis

New Zealand declares a climate change emergency
Jacinda Ardern calls climate change ‘one of the greatest challenges of our time’ and pledges carbon-neutral government by 2025
A motion tabled in parliament on Wednesday recognised “the devastating impact that volatile and extreme weather will have on New Zealand and the wellbeing of New Zealanders, on our primary industries, water availability, and public health through flooding, sea level rise, and wildfire”.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/02/new-zealand-declares-a-climate-change-emergency
December 2020

Yesterday
Hipkins denied he had breached the [Labour/Greens] cooperation agreement.
But Shaw said it is part of that agreement.
… Was Shaw consulted before the policy reprioritisation announcement on Monday or was he just given a heads-up? “A heads-up,” Shaw said.
Would he expect to be consulted on something like that? “I would’ve, yes.”
Hipkins said there were “conversations with the Green Party”.
Shaw said it’s “very disappointing”.
He’s disappointed with the lack of consultation and with Hipkins’ focus on the cost of living crisis over climate crisis.
“It’s clear that the Prime Minister is very keen to win the election and he’s prepared to do just about whatever it takes to do that.”
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2023/03/election-2023-red-green-friction-heats-up-as-james-shaw-says-chris-hipkins-prepared-to-do-just-about-whatever-to-win.html

Parties on the left are clashing over the government’s climate policy purge, with Te Pāti Māori saying the Greens’ climate minister James Shaw should resign.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2023/03/te-pati-maori-calls-for-greens-party-s-climate-minister-james-shaw-to-resign-over-government-s-climate-policy-purge.html

Te Pāti Māori says James Shaw should resign. Labour didn’t consult Shaw. It seems they just told him it was happening.
But, if Hipkins is “prepared “to do just about whatever it takes to win the Election”, would he partner up with Chlöe Swarbrick as his Deputy?
How many problems would that address?

Just wondered, yesterday evening – while I watched shit happen on SHORTLAND STREET
Actually a conspiracy theory says that Andrew Little was going to run ads in that show to recruit nurses – wonder what mindless macaroon came up with that fairy tale?
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March 15, 2023 8:01am
- graham
  
  Labour didn’t consult James Shaw, so the Māori Party’s bizarre logic says James Shaw is the one who should resign.
  
  What planet are these clowns on?
  
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  March 15, 2023 8:56am
  - Loddenthinks
    
    Clown planet, obviously but it’s actually a reasonable point. If Shaw is so ineffective, and Labour care so little about ensuring he’s on board with this that they don’t even bother to consult, then he’s worse than useless. Which we already knew.
    
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    March 15, 2023 10:01am
  - Ghost
    
    If shaw strongly believes in what he is doing and his policies he’d resign over having this done.
    
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    March 15, 2023 10:35am
    - Paulus
      
      Shaw would not resigen as that would turn over Greens to the co leader and he would lose the car the Ministerial perqisites, and that income – come off it !
      
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      March 15, 2023 1:31pm
- lastmanstanding
  
  Climate Change is the number 2 concern after the cost of living. So how much are citizens prepared to pay in extra taxes or are beneficaries prepared to forgo in order for the Government to “fix” climate change 10% 20% 30% 40%.
  I say its the 80/20 Rule 80% arent prepared to pay or forgo a cent and 20% are prepared to pay or forgo one of the above.
  Thats why Chippy like other political leaders are walking back climate change. They know that the minute they impose extra tax or cut benefits they will be thrown out. Some of them also know that Climate Change is a giant hoax. They have found out.
  
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  March 15, 2023 9:38am
  - Bob
    
    Climate Change is the number 2 concern after the cost of living……..
    This election is about the future of DEMOCRACY in NZ, and the sooner that the sheeple recognise and accept this fact, the more likely we are to have an election in 2026.
    
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    March 15, 2023 12:04pm
  - Jimbob
    
    Lastman, if CC is no. 2 concern, then I have overestimated the IQ of New Zealanders. That is absolutely bizarre.
    Aside I see 23 lying scientists say cyclone Gabrielle is caused by CC.
    
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    March 15, 2023 12:05pm
  - NZer In Exile
    
    Lastmanstanding: “Climate Change is the number 2 concern after the cost of living. ”
    
    Where are you getting this claim from?
    
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    March 15, 2023 1:21pm
    - grumpy
      
      Sounds like a “Stuffed” poll……
      
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      March 20, 2023 3:36pm
- Rich Prick
  
  I accidentally caught the One News item on this. Labour’s change in stance got a brief mention as did the Green’s response. The rest of the story was about Luxon being absent with Covid (including video of his empty seat in the House) and how everything is so bad for them. The media’s bias really is off the chart.
  
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  March 15, 2023 10:30am
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    That’s why we can’t fall for their dhit, Bridges was treated the same, snd in the end the bots on one particular fb page one out, now the media rush to Bridges for comment, he should say why asked a dead beat like me
    
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    March 15, 2023 10:54am
- Tom Hunter
  
  The real joke is that Hipkins is better at fighting back against such accusations than Luxon is.
  
  Now some of that is due to the Lefty bias of the MSM, who don’t want to hurt Labour so badly that they lose power, but since the MSM are more Left than Labour they’re always going to be pissed when Labour are not Left enough.
  
  But the fact remains that Hipkins is getting away with dumping Climate Change policies that Luxon would quail to do so.
  
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  March 15, 2023 1:06pm
2ic

So the same teachers who enforced masking policies on students last year – when there was no legal requirement for them to do so – are now striking for “better conditions”?

These teachers didn’t seem to have any concerns about the conditions my children had to work under last year, so sorry, they have no support from me.
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March 15, 2023 8:01am
- mister nui
  
  These teachers say they are striking for “what they believe in”. But, where were these same teachers striking in support of the teachers who stood up for what they believed in, and didn’t take the jab?
  
  Of course they’re overworked – a lot of teachers were mandated out of a job, and since have not returned to the profession. They snidely supported the sacking of the unjabbed.
  
  Zero support from me.
  
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  March 15, 2023 8:14am
- Lee C
  
  I know of one parent who was upset that her child’s teacher got her class to write a ‘Thank-you’ letter to Ardern after the Christchurch atrocity. I.e. using her authority to create a political bias in her pupils’ minds.
  
  Many teachers (and this is an unsubstantiated view of mine) were content to be Jacinda’s shock-troops during the {ahem} ‘pandemic’. It’s unsubstantiated, until you have a coffee with an ‘average’ teacher and listen to their explicit political biases.
  
  They have uncritically supported Labour at elections times repeatedly and have actively engaged in stalling procedures and complaining when they have been instructed to implement policies they don’t agree with politically.
  
  They were Jacindarite fangirls extraordinaire – like really into the cult.
  
  And now they are calling on our love of fairness and humanity to ‘support’ them.
  
  Yesterday for example, on KB with pleas liberally sprinkled with politically-correct language and SJW supplications.
  
  The last time I spoke to a teacher, was after I’d removed my child for homeschooling. She called my home to tell me I should get my daughter vaxxed because ‘she was scheduled for it’.
  
  When I said no she asked if she should talk to my wife about it instead. I said no again, I’d discussed it with my wife, thankyou.
  
  Here’s a tip for you. Teachers.
  
  Don’t selectively apply your ideological values and inflict them on your charges then come whining to me about ‘equality’ and ‘fairness’ when the totalitarian power-junkies that last year you were cheerleading for suddenly decide to show YOU who is boss.
  
  Next time, perhaps recognise the danger you put people in and stand up for it because as I heard Jordan Peterson caution a woke audience yesterday:
  
  “For those of you who support the agenda, just remember one thing.
  
  You’re next.”
  
  Welcome to the darkside.
  
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  March 15, 2023 8:21am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    Teachers – this is how the future of the Labour Party is determined, Marxist Ideology.
    Hopefully in the future we will not need schools and classrooms, all children will be home schooled.
    Universities? Don’t know about that. They are infested with woke socialists too.
    
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    March 15, 2023 8:38am
    - Opie
      
      First they came for the unvaxxed, but teachers were OK with that because they supported Cindy and her shots and wanted everyone on site to get it.
      
      Then they came for the non mask wearers but the teachers were OK with that and demanded everybody wear a mask at school because the shots didn’t work and their mask didn’t work unless the kids had one round their chin.
      
      Then they came for the teachers, but there was no one left to stand up for them.
      
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      March 15, 2023 8:48am
      - ClanMcleod
        
        Opie – that’s exactly how it so yip, yip to paraphrase some moronic politician……
        
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        March 15, 2023 9:59am
    - Warren
      
      Surely this is the oppositions Leaders fault as many on here with the media blame him for just about every thing else that happens in politics that you don’t seem to like in our Country.
      
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      March 15, 2023 8:53am
    - kowtow
      
      NZ herald has a story today on University of Otago and its move to “become a Te Tiriti led organisation.”
      
      This is madness . That document has nothing to do with universities.
      
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      March 15, 2023 8:59am
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        It has nothing to do with education full stop, I have been to Waitangi, and I have read the very short treaty, it’s simply about two peoples living together as one. Another thing, the word Aeoteraroa was not mentioned as far as I remember, I made that statement also on FB once about the treaty, and Kelvin Davis gave me a sad face I mojo, but never came on to say I was incorrect, funny that
        
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        March 15, 2023 9:16am
      - NZer In Exile
        
        “a Te Tiriti led organisation”
        
        BAU then. We are all one people and all equal citizens with one government based on passed down traditions from British rule.
        
        Or an interpretation dreamed up while on LSD?
        
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        March 15, 2023 1:51pm
  - Mike
    
    Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
    Lots of people are phobic about teachers, who can have a sometimes annoying habit of opening children’s eyes to other ideas than those that are prevalent in the home environment.
    
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    March 15, 2023 8:40am
    - Steve Otto(North Shore)
      
      Opening children’s eyes to become all equally miserable under socialism?
      
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      March 15, 2023 8:56am
      - Mike
        
        Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
        Reject socialism Steve – don’t accept your benefit or ‘free’ healthcare.
        
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        March 15, 2023 9:16am
      - Gravelroad
        
        In reply to Mike below- correct me if I am wrong (I’m sure you will), but I thought benefits and health care were funded by people paying tax.
        And some people pay more to voluntarily finance their own medical needs through private insurance.
        But no, apparently it is our benevolent caring socialist government which is paying Lol.
        
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        March 15, 2023 9:39am
      - Steve Otto(North Shore)
        
        @ Gravel. Don’t worry about Mike/s diversions. He lives in a different World to us.
        
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        March 15, 2023 1:28pm
      - NZer In Exile
        
        Yep not even worth responding to Mike’s drivel. Waste of energy. He only listens to the woke echo chamber.
        
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        March 15, 2023 1:53pm
    - Libertarians are right
      
      Ironic.
      Most Right wing people don’t actually push their ideology on their kids (excluding religion but that isn’t explicitly right wing) while Lefties do, often aggressively. In fact, I’d suggest that a large number of our student politicians come from “right wing” families because people from poor families can’t afford to do worthless arts degrees.
      
      As for teachers brainwashing kids, they should be teaching kids to think for themselves, not feeding them their own ideologies.
      
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      March 15, 2023 9:14am
    - TS Child
      
      Opening children’s eyes to new ideas is their job. However, what I see is a restricted range of ideas and no teaching at all on the importance of logic and critical assessment. If children are taught how to approach new ideas with curiosity and thought, then they have strong tools for the future. If they only ever hear adults telling them what to think, then we deserve everything we get. In general, I’ve found teachers disappointing aside from a few stand outs who were superb. Another commenter suggested using the really good teachers to stream classes and the less good teachers to help support them. I can see a lot of problems implementing this, but I really like the general concept. It’s the 21st century. Time to review how we do things.
      
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      March 15, 2023 9:18am
      - ClanMcleod
        
        TS Child – we’re in the worst possible place right now, kids being taught what to think instead of how to think. Dangerous ideology.
        
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        March 15, 2023 10:03am
    - emmess
      
      What a load of crap
      It is the left-wing that is relentless pushed by all the institutions. Any opposing view is savagely clamped down upon.
      
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      March 15, 2023 9:25am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      Phobic? When they start deciding which toilet the kids can use I draw a line
      
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      March 15, 2023 9:35am
    - Jigsaw
      
      That is a most false and transparent excuse for brain washing that I have ever seen. It would be true IF teachers actually tried to ensure all sides of issues were discussed but 37 years as a teacher tells me that just isn’t so.
      
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      March 15, 2023 9:46am
    - Matt Long
      
      Yes Mike, it’s great when the State can open children’s minds to outside ideas.
      https://blogs.bu.edu/guidedhistory/russia-and-its-empires/elise-alexander/
      Even better when the schools can get children to inform on their parents for wrong think.
      
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      March 15, 2023 9:53am
      - Black with a Vengeance
        
        The Russian Education Ministry has unveiled plans to impose the “Important Conversations” lessons, which are meant to nurture patriotic sentiment, not just on schoolchildren and college students, but on parents and pedagogical university students as well. The minister said that the “format is being discussed now”.
        
        https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2023/03/04/school-of-patriotism-kremlin-seeks-to-force-parents-to-sit-through-propaganda-lessons-en
        
        So is Russia a ‘right’ wing or ‘left’ wing state ?
        
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        March 15, 2023 10:12am
      - rangitoto
        
        Russia is a left wing Nationalist dictatorship, otherwise known as NAZI.
        
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        March 15, 2023 10:34am
      - Jack5
        
        An interesting point raised in the post at 10.12 by 🌴BWAV.
        
        When Soviet Communist hardliners tried to seize power from Gorbachev in August 1991, the BBC and liberal newspapers in the West labelled the Red rebels “Right wing”.
        
        Do all people think they themselves mark the political centre?
        
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        March 15, 2023 11:56am
      - Black with a Vengeance
        
        Russia is a left wing Nationalist dictatorship, otherwise known as NAZI.
        __________________
        
        What would make it a right wing dictatorship, like what Netanyahu is trying for in Israel ?
        
        From my perspective I can’t see the difference in what Bibi is trying to do as what Putie has.
        
        Left/right ideology not only seems to be tied to age but gender as well.
        
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        March 15, 2023 1:22pm
    - Tom Hunter
      
      Chuckle. Mr I’m-just-here-to-entertain-myself must be thrilled with the bites he got from all of you with that piece of low-class snark that, as usual, contributed nothing to the debate. 😉
      
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      March 15, 2023 1:14pm
      - Black with a Vengeance
        
        …as usual, contributed nothing to the debate. 😉
        _________________
        
        You do you…
        
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        March 15, 2023 1:24pm
    - NZer In Exile
      
      Children are prone to be led by their feelings. Perfect fodder for activist idiots also led by their feelings.
      
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      March 15, 2023 1:23pm
  - Jimbob
    
    Teachers and nurses are 99.98% Labour voters. Labour can treat them like shit as much as they want, they will still vote for them.
    This fact goes back to the seventies when
    I first came across it, don’t talk politics to these people. You will get a violent reaction.
    
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    March 15, 2023 12:11pm
  - Paulus
    
    And to a number that I saw recently – get some exercise and lose some serious weight, to cut down the medical time off many take religeously.
    And how many teachers only work 4 days a week as I have heard that this is not an unusual thing.
    
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    March 15, 2023 1:35pm
- slightlyrighty
  
  If teachers want to reduce their workload, they should start with reducing their wokeload.
  
  Stick to the fundamentals at primary level. Reading, Writing and Mathematics. These are the foundations of a life of learning.
  
  Years 1-6 should be preparing the student for higher learning.
  
  Years 7-8 should be encouraging the beginning of enquiry based learning. Having learned the skills needed to comprehend, then the student can start to use these to make sense of the world by learning about it.
  
  Years 9 and up is helping the developing student express themselves. Guided learning becomes more and more relevant to these students.
  
  We are getting the foundations wrong. Simplfy the beginning. Less indoctrination, more structure and instruction.
  
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  March 15, 2023 8:37am
  - edhunter
    
    I agree whole heartedly with the sentiment of your post, but have to point out that teachers don’t actually get to choose what they teach. Those decisions come from higher up the food chain. The fact that those higher up the food chain are cut from the same cloth, probably went to the same uni & got the same degree but skipped working at the coal face is a moot point.
    What is it they say about the road to hell being paved with good intentions.
    
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    March 15, 2023 9:26am
    - Bob
      
      teachers don’t actually get to choose what they teach…..
      no, BUT THEY DO get the option of how they teach the syllabus, and there is nothing to prevent them exploring, with the students, alternative ideas and approaches to the syllabus content; expanding the mind.
      The syllabus is a MINIMUM content, not a maximum.
      
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      March 15, 2023 12:12pm
artemisia

Te Pūkenga tells academics not to say words like ‘staff’, ‘students’ or ‘Treaty of Waitangi’

CEO Peter Winder, “responding to questions, said the document was a “reference and resource to all kaimahi on our intranet”. There had been no complaints, he said, adding: “Comments we have had from staff have been positive.”

No complaints, there’s a surprise. Maybe ‘staff’ are not keen on career limiting moves.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/131490591/te-pkenga-tells-academics-not-to-say-words-like-staff-students-or-treaty-of-waitangi
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March 15, 2023 8:04am
- kowtow
  
  Complaints ?
  
  Haha.
  
  Why would anyone dial 0800 Self Referral to their gulag.
  
  They’d accuse you of being a white supremacist and be fired .Send your details to all manner of dis/mis information agencies etc ( funded at least partially by the state)
  
  Lose your banking services , mortgage etc
  
  The post modern equivalent of being unpersoned .
  
  Just wait till we have a digital currency and then copy the CCP social credit system.
  
  It is coming.
  
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  March 15, 2023 9:08am
  - ClanMcleod
    
    kowtow – it is coming, and like all tyrants before them, they don’t realise that what they think will be a socialist utopia will sooner or later become a living hell for them and the others who are responsible.
    That’s not any sort of threat, it’s an observation from history.
    Check out what happened to every other psycho who thought they had the “solution” to how best to run society under their “benign” control.
    
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    March 15, 2023 10:07am
  - JerJer
    
    The guy is a knob. I will contact them and communicate with them using all the banned words, and also direct it to their standard contact email address and Peter Winder.
    
    He can actually do nothing, he is just a public servant with no authority whatsoever, so, I’ll let him know.
    
    The place when it was a PolyTech was s shit hole anyway, and the graduates from a place like that are generally poor quality unemployable people that could not go to university, so graduates of place like that are generally on do-not-employ status. Anyone worth their salt would not teach there either.
    
    That was the level of quality from this instituation before it got turned into the merged mega-polytechnic with the name that no-one understands.
    
    The whole thing is pretty tragic anyway. Poorly managed, bleeding money, low quality education. The education system is in crisis. It’s just lowered the standard for people that either cannot afford to go to university or do not have the talent to get it. This cesspit is now one of their only options.
    
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    March 15, 2023 11:05am
    - Paulus
      
      I heard it said very recently that all New Zealanders (Aotearoans) should all speak Maori as it is the country’s official language, which English is not, and therefore it should be universially used.
      
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      March 15, 2023 1:39pm
- alex Masterley
  
  And people wonder why the heck the Megapolytech is in the financial stucke.
  Perhaps it should concentrate on core activities such as (and I am just guessing here) educating students, rather than producing Orwellian dictats…
  
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  March 15, 2023 9:55am
- Alan Wilkinson
  
  As I said yesterday, never work for fuckwits. Just get out of there.
  
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  March 15, 2023 10:45am
  - Colville
    
    AW.
    Agree.
    Liars and stupid people are just toxic.
    Just. Say. No.
    
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    March 15, 2023 11:43am
- Fuzzysnuggleduck
  
  When you read the article, ALL of the ‘staff’ who make comment are critical of the guidelines.
  So it suggests that the CEO is not in touch with what some of the affected people think.
  A nice touch that the 2nd half of the article was entirely negative about the policing of words.
  
  Nice greenstone pendant on the CEO though. Gotta wear it outside your clothing (rather than against the skin), so everyone can see.
  
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  March 15, 2023 11:41am
- Right of way is Way of Right
  
  “Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.”
  ― George Orwell, 1984
  
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  March 15, 2023 1:05pm
- zulumonster
  
  I wonder if Peter has picked up on the irony in his statement “Comments we have had from staff have been positive.”
  
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  March 15, 2023 2:26pm
Tomtoddy

Poor old Biden’s energy policy is all over the place. Rapidly rising inflation, pressure from escalating fuel prices and heat from the labour unions has led to him approving a new oilfield in vulnerable north Alaska. The greenies are going nuts, the local Indian tribes are between a rock and hard place wanting to side with the environmentalists but watching their wallets bulge with new royalties and the oil companies like Aramco are laughing again.

This was the President who said “no new drilling”, closed the Keystone pipeline project and banned exploration on state lands. As we know here in NZ principles and green aspirations are easily disposed of when warning lights flash from the ballot box.
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March 15, 2023 8:04am
- kowtow
  
  Had that been a Trump u turn it would be on our front pages and lead the nightly “news”. “Period”.
  
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  March 15, 2023 8:19am
- Simon
  
  Biden is all over the place like a mad woman’s shit.
  
  NZ should suspend all US centric policies, such war with China & climate fraud while this clown is in nominal charge.
  
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  March 15, 2023 8:38am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Biden’s Energy policy all over the place, but Joe does not know. He doesn’t even know what City he is in sometimes.
  The greenies Worldwide are nuts, best ignored.
  And Joe closed the Keystone pipeline. Nek minit he is begging the Saudis to increase production. That’s as bad as stopping coal mining in NZ and importing coal.
  
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  March 15, 2023 8:48am
- Master Mariner
  
  Not too mention he is emptying US Strategic reserves at a n alarming rate to keep a lid on prices.
  
  You really have to wonder don’t you ?
  
  Meanwhile in Europe,
  https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/EU-To-Overhaul-Electricity-Market-To-Encourage-More-Renewables.html
  
  ” Doing the same thing twice and expecting different outcomes” Springs to mind.
  
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  March 15, 2023 8:53am
  - virtualmark
    
    The Biden administration sold 180 million barrels at an average price of US$96 per barrel. That did help, a little, to keep a lid on prices … which is a good thing.
    
    They’re refilling that capacity now by buying oil at US$67-72 per barrel. So they will make money on this round trip.
    
    Buy low, sell high.
    
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    March 15, 2023 12:37pm
    - Master Mariner
      
      Not quite correct VM,
      
      They stated they would refill reserves at 70$ bbl however , This has not been done.
      
      Too best of my knowledge , Reserves have not increased.
      
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      March 15, 2023 2:21pm
      - virtualmark
        
        What I read, in the last few days, was that they were now buying oil at a price range of between US$67 and 72. So your US$70 is the mid-range.
        
        But I could imagine, based on how oil is normally contracted for, that that is for some future delivery. For example, when I look up the price of oil on my terminal here it’s quoting me US$72.21 for April 2023 delivery. I can buy futures contracts for oil out to December 2033 (US$50 at the moment).
        
        So it’s possible they’ve ordered fresh supplies for the reserves but not yet received any.
        
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        March 15, 2023 3:50pm
  - Tom Hunter
    
    And the key point is that the SPR was established after the Second Oil Crisis to make sure the USA would not be ground into the dust in a conflict where its enemies cut off the oil.
    
    It was not set up to rescue US politicians from the political fallout of high gas prices, but that’s entirely typical of what happens when giant State institutions are created, even by Right-Wing politicians like Reagan.
    
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    March 15, 2023 6:40pm
    - virtualmark
      
      Tom, a question: To the average man/woman in the street is it better to (a) take no action to reduce oil prices and force them to bear the full high price inflation, or (b) take what limited action you can to try to soften the oil price rises?
      
      I think the common-sense answer is (b).
      
      As a purchaser of petrol I’d be grateful if my Government could, and did, do anything to mitigate the price rises.
      
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      March 15, 2023 7:46pm
      - Ghost
        
        And how would you feel as if you were an American to find out those oil reserves which could be used in your own country were actually sold overseas?
        
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        March 15, 2023 7:54pm
      - virtualmark
        
        As a rational capitalist, and knowing that US refinery capacity was topped out, I’d be okay with the reserves being sold overseas because clearly the domestic market can’t take it but it’s a global commodity, so irregardless of where it’s sold to it’s going to have the same effect on the price of oil.
        
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        March 16, 2023 6:51am
Simon

Luxon has got covid the second time. Know a few people who are jaxxed and get covid the second time are badly hit. Hope he is ok.

Covid second time together with the jax and your immune system is badly hit need to take it easy. Very vulnerable. No stress is very important.
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March 15, 2023 8:06am
- kevn
  
  @Simon… Good oppportuniddy for Luxon to do a bit of jab study and understand where he is at.
  
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  March 15, 2023 8:55am
- ClanMcleod
  
  Simon – the jab increases your risk of catching covid. Fact. It also damages your innate immune system. It doesn’t prevent infection or transmission. Seriously, what is the point? Why do people still believe this government and their experts?
  
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  March 15, 2023 8:59am
  - Black with a Vengeance
    
    Why do people still believe this government and their experts?
    __________________
    
    …as opposed to anonymous randos spreading mis-information online ?
    
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    March 15, 2023 10:01am
    - Alan Wilkinson
      
      Anyone with a brain looks for hard evidence, not an expert. An expert says what he is paid to say.
      
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      March 15, 2023 10:47am
    - kowtow
      
      You can read about it in today’s herald .
      
      Hardly ‘online random’ .Still some chickens , very quietly coming home to roost . Very discretely mind.
      
      Hipkins extending mandates to carers without any “public health input”.
      
      Read all about it , read all about it ,
      
      Justice Gerard van Bohemen.
      
      Read all about it , buried on page 10 .Buried in page 10 .
      
      Batflu news and poor regime decisions , page 10 , read all about it.
      
      Once upon a time there was only one story in town ,read all about it , now buried in page 10.
      
      Te Media Pardy have moved on from their regime funded fear and panic mongering , still protecting their paymaster though , page 10 , read all about it!
      
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      March 15, 2023 10:50am
    - ClanMcleod
      
      Because the government “experts” have been proven to be liars. Like Michael Baker saying he never ever said masks don’t work when there is clear evidence he did. Like every expert saying the jabs were “safe and effective” when they are neither.
      
      On the other hand, the “randos” seem to have gotten pretty much everything right and almost all the “conspiracy theories” came true. That’s why gullible idiots tend to come out with words like “misinformation”. It’s an easy smear to attempt to stick onto anyone or anything they can’t debate.
      
      It worked for a while, but now it’s a totally transparent tactic to anyone paying attention.
      
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      March 15, 2023 10:54am
      - Black with a Vengeance
        
        On the other hand, the “randos” seem to have gotten pretty much everything right and almost all the “conspiracy theories” came true.
        _____________________
        
        Doesn’t everything come true when confirmation bias is the only tool in your box ?
        
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        March 15, 2023 1:27pm
    - Jack5
      
      Who are these “randos” of whom ye speak, 🌴BWAV?
      
      Here’s the definition of “rando” from Cambridge Dictionary online, with an example:
      
      An unknown or unexpected person:
      
      Some rando knocked at our door asking for directions to the station.
      
      And a definition from Slang Net:
      
      Rando means random. It is an abbreviation of random that is pronounced like “Rambo.” It is commonly used in a negative way to describe a random occurrence or person.
      
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      March 15, 2023 11:48am
      - Black with a Vengeance
        
        Who are these “randos” of whom ye speak, 🌴BWAV?
        _______________
        
        Throw 3 darts at the kiwiblog membership and you’re bound to hit 2…
        
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        March 15, 2023 1:29pm
    - NZer In Exile
      
      “…as opposed to anonymous randos spreading mis-information online ?”
      
      Says the online entity simply known as “Black with A Vengeance”😝
      
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      March 15, 2023 1:26pm
- mandk
  
  Wow. That’s double plus ungood.
  
  Not only the does vaxx not stop you from getting COVID, but when you do get it you are extra sick.
  
  Safe and effective?
  
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  March 15, 2023 9:06am
  - Matt Long
    
    Didn’t he listen to Chris Get Boosted Bishop
    
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    March 15, 2023 9:54am
  - kowtow
    
    Yip yip that’s what it is.
    
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    March 15, 2023 10:52am
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  I have heard of 4 people lately on their second turn, all four have said their second time was far less worrying, their immunity had nothing to bloody do with it
  
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  March 15, 2023 9:37am
  - ClanMcleod
    
    Thanks for your valuable input Dr G……
    
    Are you saying the human innate immune system which has evolved over a couple of million years had nothing to do with their ability to fight off an infectious disease? Maybe I am misunderstanding you, I’m intrigued, tell me more…….
    
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    March 15, 2023 10:12am
    - Fuzzysnuggleduck
      
      C’mon – people who get Covid a second time are not getting sicker. Only example I know is when someone got whacked 3 times in quick succession, Covid, non-Covid (flu) then Covid, and they were physically run down like anyone would be!
      The mRNA ‘vaccine’ was/is not very effective as an intervention and did nothing about transmission, and it essentially is useless after a period of months, so why pretend that this ineffective vaccine is actually making people with Covid sicker in 2023?
      I have seen no evidence around me with people with >1 positive result.
      
      In fact, Covid is such a big nothing, that I would suggest that it should be treated like any other illness – only isolate if really sick and avoid visiting vulnerable just like any contagious illness.
      But fear of the ongoing effects of the Vaxx years down the line is as silly as people with ongoing fears of Covid itself.
      This fixation with the supposed permanent effects of the mRNA jab is the mental equivalent of ‘Long Covid’. Take off that mental mask!
      Same as with the Covidiots; wake me up when we have dead lying end-on-end in the street.
      
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      March 15, 2023 11:56am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      When ever you get a virus you’re immunity is run down ffs
      
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      March 15, 2023 12:00pm
- Colville
  
  Really?
  I am 2x vaxxed and the second time it was like a mild hangover and a bit of hayfever. Gone in 2 days.
  
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  March 15, 2023 11:48am
  - virtualmark
    
    With the combination of vaccine and then infection our immune systems have become familiar with dealing with Covid and so it is fading back to be what all other coronaviruses are … a headcold.
    
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    March 15, 2023 12:39pm
    - ClanMcleod
      
      virtualmark – you’re in for a very rude awakening in the coming year or two. I hope things work out for you. Genuinely.
      This thing is the worst medical disaster in human history and it was inflicted on us by people, not nature. We are only in the very early stages of the negative outcomes and they are already substantial.
      
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      March 16, 2023 8:08am
zulumonster

There are new “politically correct” language guidelines issued in a “style guide” from Te Pukenga – the Polytech mega merge organisation.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/131490591/te-pkenga-tells-academics-not-to-say-words-like-staff-students-or-treaty-of-waitangi
Among the laughable guidelines are discouragement of the use of words such as staff, employee and merge. And apparently husband or wife are not to be used! And Treaty of Waitangi is also out.
Words fail me … but I’m sure if I did have the words they probably wouldn’t be allowed …
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March 15, 2023 8:09am
- mandk
  
  Hipkins’ gift to the nation.
  
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  March 15, 2023 9:09am
greybeard

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/131490591/te-pkenga-tells-academics-not-to-say-words-like-staff-students-or-treaty-of-waitangi

Dear God, this maori crap is out of control.
I predict that the educational outcomes of all associated institutions will take a nosedive, they will blow their budgets, many staff will leave and fewer students will attend.
Just madness.
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March 15, 2023 8:10am
- Yabster
  
  yep- sums up whats wrong with our Education system- wrong priorities!
  
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  March 15, 2023 8:12am
- Gravelroad
  
  @greybeard-
  This outfit is seriously out of touch with most ordinary New Zealanders – and destined to stay that way.
  Having said that, I guess a covey of consultants will have made a lot of money out of dreaming up this irrelevant stuff, and will be laughing all the way to the bank.
  Is Te Pukenga the brainchild of Mr Hipkins?
  If so, think on people.
  
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  March 15, 2023 8:20am
  - fightingtemeraire
    
    This Centralisation of everything:
    
    Health
    
    Polytechs
    
    Education etc etc
    
    Will result in the end to a massive cluster what’s it. Then another Govt will have to take many years to sort it out.
    
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    March 15, 2023 8:30am
    - kowtow
      
      Water.
      
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      March 15, 2023 10:53am
  - Reg Perrin
    
    The consultancy firms made loads. The operating model which cost many million was meant to be signed off at the end of 2021, has disappeared without a trace. Don’t worry about the consultancy firm though. They moved onto health
    
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    March 15, 2023 8:30am
  - Nickc2
    
    Why has this entity been given a Maori name FFS?
    Skills training is for all NZers, not just those who self-identify as Maori.
    
    16 1
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    March 15, 2023 8:32am
    - Black with a Vengeance
      
      Why has this entity been given a Maori name FFS?
      __________________
      
      Because Aotearoa/NZ was a Maori country to begin with and that fact needs to be acknowledged and respected in the naming of our institutions.
      
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      March 15, 2023 10:19am
      - Nickc2
        
        Bullshit! It was a Maoriori (first inhabitants) Country before Maori arrived and killed most of them.
        What you are asking for is not in the ToW (original or reimagined versions).
        
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        March 15, 2023 10:38am
      - Ghost
        
        Was it? Maori used to tell stories of those who were here before them
        
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        March 15, 2023 10:46am
      - Black with a Vengeance
        
        I use the word Maori to be inclusive of Pasifikans across Te Moana Nui who are First Nations/Indigenous and variously identify as Maoli, Maohi etc and of which Moriori were.
        
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        March 15, 2023 11:07am
      - leoj
        
        So, you’d be happy with a national referendum on whether the language should be compulsory/forced on us
        
        Thought not.
        
        That’s a referendum YOU would lose badly.
        
        It is being forced upon us and we’ve had a gutsful of it.
        
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        March 15, 2023 11:53am
      - NZer In Exile
        
        This whole “first nations” thing is a far left project. You know that right?
        
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        March 15, 2023 1:27pm
      - Black with a Vengeance
        
        It is being forced upon us and we’ve had a gutsful of it.
        __________________
        
        You sure it’s not just acid reflux ?
        
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        March 15, 2023 1:31pm
      - Dave
        
        Because Aotearoa/NZ was a Maori country to begin with…
        
        Linguistically true and culturally mostly true, but not entirely, as peaceful Moriori learned to their cost, and also not politically and institutionally true as NZ, the nation, was the creation of Māori chiefs and the British government initially in 1840, and later by all NZers.
        
        …and that fact needs to be acknowledged and respected in the naming of our institutions.
        
        I agree, but since many of our institutions are the product of settler-colonists’ and their descendants’ traditions, and are used by all NZers, this is quite arguable, especially if the Maori name is used only or primarily, as seems to be the case with TP, contrary to the language practice of most NZers.
        
        Some of the angst could be avoided if the institutions used names in both languages without preference and left it to individuals to freely choose their preferred name.
        
        (Redefining ‘Māori’ at 11.07 looks like sophistry to me.)
        
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        March 15, 2023 6:07pm
- Exclamation Mark
  
  Peter Winder, chief executive of Te Pūkenga, says there have not been any complaints about the guide.
  
  Yeah, I’ll bet there fucking haven’t been any complaints.
  
  Anyone brave or foolish enough to raise concerns about this rubbish could look forward to a permanent handbrake on their career prospects at the absolute best. More likely they would get frozen out of the joint by their “work friends” and “whanau”, be branded a racist and given the arse-card at the next restructuring.
  
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  March 15, 2023 8:23am
- Ehlana
  
  In fairness, I’ve actually never heard that any consultation was done with (non-elite) Maori before the introduction of Manglish.
  
  For the Stuff-averse among us, Te Pukenga (the new national mega-polytechnic) has issued a style guide, to ensure its communications reflect its values.
  
  So, “student” & “trainee” are discouraged, but “ākonga” (student) or “learners” are allowed. That’s right – you can say student, but only in Maori.
  And “We refer to each other as kaimahi, colleagues, work friends, whānau, or Te Pūkenga people,” rather than employees or staff (unless legislation requires those terms). Though, in response to media questions they did say ““Comments we have had from staff have been positive.”
  “We also use: spouse or partner – not husband, wife”. Presumably this applies even if you are a woman who is proud of her wife.
  And, of course, “We use Te Tiriti o Waitangi or Te Tiriti,”. Yes, once again, you’re only supposed to say it in Maori.
  
  They do appear to have recognised some problems with what they wrote, insisting: “It’s a guide. It’s not monitored.
  
  “The legislation we were created under (the Education and Training Act 2020) requires us to give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and this is therefore reflected in our style guide.
  
  “It is not a policy and our people will continue to express themselves in any way they are most comfortable with.”
  
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  March 15, 2023 8:57am
  - alex Masterley
    
    Guides have a nasty habit of becoming rules.
    
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    March 15, 2023 9:57am
    - Alan Wilkinson
      
      Guides tell you about the quality of the people who produced them.
      
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      March 15, 2023 10:49am
- Yvette
  
  In an article, “The Revolution Has Begun”, Chris Trotter writes that New Zealand is currently living through a revolution which has already captured control of the commanding heights of the public service, the schools and universities, the funding mechanisms of cultural production, and big chunks of the mainstream news media.
  http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-revolution-has-begun.html
  
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  March 15, 2023 8:58am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Sure is out of control. Monday morning I woke up in Aotearoa. Speaker of the house had the idiot box on play school TV1. It was unbearable – every second word was bastardising the English Language. I went to the lounge.
  Yesterday, not so bad. Today, not so bad. Why? Jenny-Mae Clarkson not there. She would be one of the worst at English/Maori mumbo jumbo.
  
  Let’s go to University and get a Degree in Nuclear Physics, all in Te Reo.
  
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  March 15, 2023 9:07am
  - Ehlana
    
    I don’t know about nuclear physics but I do know someone doing a doctorate in quantum physics – for which he had to go to America. So I suspect English would be a more useful language for budding physicists.
    
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    March 15, 2023 9:48am
Paulus

Have heard that Parents here in Tauranga, even at local school to where Ed Minister lives, are not happy as they say that children keep being bombarded with continual changes in their schooling.
Children, like us all, are creatures of habit and consistencey helps.
I cannot feel sympathy to the many Union Leaders that we are being bombarded with, along with the paid media, extolling Teachers virtues and why they need more money – no, no, not money less teaching time. Less stress, less everything, more time off.
If Teachers do not like the good life/work balance then they should get another job after all they are clever people to be Teachers !
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March 15, 2023 8:14am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  ‘Clever people to be Teachers!’ You forgot the //
  
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  March 15, 2023 9:09am
Captain Mainwaring

The despicable Michael Wood in Parliament yesterday looked like the spoiled brat who had just had all his toys taken away. And that’s exactly what happened. Most of Hipkins’ cancelled projects affected Wood’s playground.
And a bloody good thing that is too. Let him stew.
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March 15, 2023 8:15am
- Lee C
  
  Woods can always go fishing.
  
  In a River of Filth.
  
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  March 15, 2023 8:22am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    He may catch something he does not like.
    
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    March 15, 2023 9:11am
- Prince
  
  Looks like his publicity stunt of digging the first hole for the light rail a couple of weeks ago wasn’t enough to save the doomed project.
  Hipkins just brushed him aside.
  Watch the battle between these two develop, especially if Labour start slipping in the poles, and these two consider their strategies after an election loss.
  
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  March 15, 2023 9:17am
  - Nickc2
    
    Yep, the project price has blown out by another $1Bn.
    IMO, this is the excuse Mayor Wayne Brown needs to tell the Poison Dwarf (Michael Wood) and the PM where to stick their Train to Nowhere.
    Let’s face it, this Govt has never completed a project on time and to budget.
    
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    March 15, 2023 9:51am
    - ClanMcleod
      
      Nickc2 – of course the media blame covid, conveniently forgetting that covid did nothing.
      
      New Zealand’s largest ever transport project – has blown out by over $1b more due to Covid-19 lockdowns and other revised costs.
      
      It was Ardern and her government policies that caused the disastrous results. NOT a virus.
      
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      March 15, 2023 10:16am
      - Nickc2
        
        Te MSM makes shit up to protect their political party.
        
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        March 15, 2023 10:21am
    - kowloon
      
      This government has never begun a project!
      
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      March 15, 2023 12:47pm
      - Nickc2
        
        100,000 Houses?
        
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        March 15, 2023 12:51pm
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  He is wallowing trying to say how great they are for dropping policies that should never have seen the light of day
  
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  March 15, 2023 9:44am
- RoboRob
  
  Probably says something about Woods’s abilities. Make stupid decisions win stupid prizes.
  
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  March 15, 2023 9:47am
- Bobba Fret
  
  Wood will be holding a grudge against Hipkins and is probably secretly hoping Labour lose the election in October, so that in his view, he can knife Hipkins in the back early in the new year and take his rightful place at the head of the table.
  
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  March 15, 2023 10:02am
  - Flossie
    
    Thus guaranteeing many years in the wilderness for Labour.
    
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    March 15, 2023 10:57am
    - Paulus
      
      Not on latest opinion poll with new Government being Labour/Greens/ Maori, and the Media party, in the driving seat.
      
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      March 15, 2023 1:47pm
      - Flossie
        
        With M Wood in charge??
        
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        March 15, 2023 3:40pm
  - Dougal10
    
    Even if hipkins wins wood will be after his job . After all he has just watched hipkins take it off ardern.
    
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    March 15, 2023 8:43pm
sirknz

Yay, diversity strikes again.

https://archive.fo/zCRhE

Note the picture used at the top of the story with the implied ethnicity and then the actual ethnicity of the offender near the end of the article.
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March 15, 2023 8:15am
- Dave
  
  Huh?? From the lede, ‘…will be deported to India…’
  
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  March 15, 2023 6:25pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

This has left me wondering why Police have Tasers and guns.
Police tasered the guy through the car window and shot out his tyres, yet he was still able to drive from Whangarei to Auckland.
“The police watchdog concluded the officer was not justified in firing the shots from his pistol.”
“The IPCA also concluded that the officers were not justified in using their tasers as it was against police policy and made the incident more dangerous because of the risk of the man losing control of his car in the busy carpark.”
“firing the tasers was contrary to policy.”
What?? Our Police Force is NOT a Police Force with woke management and woke Dudges. Just go and do whatever you like crims.

https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/other/sheer-luck-no-one-injured-after-police-fired-pistol-tasers-at-fleeing-man-ipca/ar-AA18B7v5
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March 15, 2023 8:19am
- Maggie Pie
  
  Imagine how our underpaid ‘FRONTLINE COPS’ must feel, having a bunch of shiny arse whisky-soaks, who’ve never taken a risk in their entire lives, telling them how to do their job!
  
  No wonder they’re leaving in droves 🙁
  
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  March 15, 2023 8:32am
  - Maggie Pie
    
    And talk-of-the-devil SteveO….this just popped up!
    
    WATCH:
    
    https://twitter.com/Constitution45/status/1635687698319941632
    
    (The poor cop lived…the perp died later)
    
    13 1
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    March 15, 2023 8:55am
    - Steve Otto(North Shore)
      
      Cop is alive because of his vest.
      
      Cops don’t shoot at me, I wonder why?
      
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      March 15, 2023 9:21am
      - Fuzzysnuggleduck
        
        Bullet went under the vest, but at least he didn’t get shot in the liver or the heart. (He was a big & well-fed boy, so that may have helped).
        
        Comply with the police. Good advice to improve chance of living.
        That said, you can still get shot by the police in the USA even if you comply, and in other cases the response is utterly disproportionate. Police can do wrong, and plenty of examples.
        But this one is clear cut: don’t run, struggle, resist, pull and gun, and shoot at the police.
        Best possible outcome, aside from the police officer being hit at all.
        
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        March 15, 2023 12:07pm
      - NZer In Exile
        
        Stevo (NS): “Cops don’t shoot at me, I wonder why?”
        
        If you happen to be white (probably actually a shade of pink), then the far left loons and assorted race hustler grifters would have you believe it’s because of your skin colour.
        
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        March 15, 2023 1:30pm
      - Steve Otto(North Shore)
        
        @Fuzzy. When the Cops says put the weapon down, just put it down and you don’t get dead.
        
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        March 15, 2023 1:31pm
      - Fuzzysnuggleduck
        
        @ Steve; absolutely true, when they have a weapon.
        No issue there. But putting the distracting race aspect aside, there are plenty of body cam footages now of US Police using far disproportionate lethal force, or even lethal force on folk that are neither armed nor resisting or agitated – black and white.
        i.e. white versions of the ‘I can’t breathe’, or shot in their doorway blinking at the lights, or people sitting in the seat of their car, who lose their lives because the cop is twitchy, or else happy to resort to a bullet in an instance.
        No ambiguity if the person has a weapon in their hand however. Bang-bang-bang; shoot to kill.
        The cops aren’t always in the wrong, nor are the cops always in the right.
        
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        March 15, 2023 2:47pm
  - Paulus
    
    Is it true that in the last two years more Police have left than joined ?
    
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    March 15, 2023 1:48pm
- Mike
  
  Have you read the full IPCA report, Steve?
  
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  March 15, 2023 8:42am
  - graham
    
    Have you?
    
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    March 15, 2023 8:59am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    Do I need to? It just shows that Police Officers have their hands tied by woke legislation.
    I will leave the report reading to you Mike.
    Report back when you find what the Police should have done, because what they actually did do was not effective.
    
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    March 15, 2023 9:29am
Maggie Pie

My partner has just reminded me it’s 4-years-ago today that Christchurch mosque gunman Brenton Tarrant, provided the Ardern labour government the excuse they were looking for to disarm this country’s law-abiding legal firearm owners.

Is NZ now a safer place?
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March 15, 2023 8:20am
- Lee C
  
  It made it much safer for The Labour Party.
  
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  March 15, 2023 8:23am
  - Black with a Vengeance
    
    How so ?
    
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    March 15, 2023 10:44am
    - Lee C
      
      Well, Black, it provided Jacinda Ardern an opportunity to virtue signal her wokist agenda, and covertly promote the narrative that ‘white people with guns’ are a threat to society and conflating the presence of one lone lunatic from Australia with the notion that the guy you used to say ‘Hi’ to in the pub might be a ‘White Separatist’ and therefore needs to be relieved of his weaponry.
      Therefore securing the implicit support of the Latte-sipping urbanites who are frightened by the mere thought that one can hold a different opinion to them, and winning more votes.
      
      Ergo it was good for the Labour Party.
      
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      March 15, 2023 12:48pm
      - Black with a Vengeance
        
        You don’t think Aotearoa/NZ is safer for having taken an excess of guns from people who don’t need them ?
        
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        March 15, 2023 1:44pm
      - Ghost
        
        Is it? Seems to be an explosion of gun crimes the last couple of years. Where is it safe?
        
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        March 15, 2023 1:51pm
      - Black with a Vengeance
        
        Where is it safe?
        _____________
        
        Around mosques for starters…
        
        Just curiously – and excluding gangs – do the stats correlate to an upsurge or downturn in white guys with guns crimes ?
        
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        March 15, 2023 2:25pm
    - Paulus
      
      Jacinda is going to be back in charge of the regular commemoration of the shooting – little hippy said so this morning.
      Well nobody else will give her a job elsewhere in the world – they would avoid her like the plague and she needs an income.
      
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      March 15, 2023 1:50pm
- Nickc2
  
  NO! We took guns off law-abiding citizens and let Criminal Gangs keep theirs. We even gave one of these Gangs $$2.75 million for their troubles.
  
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  March 15, 2023 8:42am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    We took and paid for 87 sawn off shotgun barrels as well. They put them in a ‘bulldozer’ A hydraulic machine that bends things. How dumb, did they think someone might weld the barrels back on?
    
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    March 15, 2023 9:32am
- RoboRob
  
  My understanding it Gun crime has risen significantly since the gun buy back. If we were looking for confirmation of success that would be the prime indicator.
  
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  March 15, 2023 9:51am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    Just look at Oz
    
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    March 15, 2023 5:10pm
I remember when

Just a thought about the use of Maori language.
If, according to estimates of their population, there are approaching 900,000 to 1 million Maori, why would there be a danger of the language dying out.
That is more people than Greenland, Iceland, montenegro and the Isle of Man to name a few.
About the same as Fiji.
Surely, if a million people wanted their native tongue to survive they would ensure that was the case.
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March 15, 2023 8:22am
- graham
  
  “Surely, if a million people wanted their native tongue to survive they would ensure that was the case.”
  
  Spot on. I occasionally work late at my office, and the cleaners who are all Pacific Islanders are invariably chatting to each other in their own language. They don’t seem to need millions of dollars and massive Government initiatives to keep their language alive.
  
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  March 15, 2023 9:05am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    If 17% of 5 million equals one million – I went to the wrong schools.
    
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    March 15, 2023 5:30pm
- rockape
  
  Last time I was in the Isles of Man my granny was speaking English !
  
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  March 15, 2023 9:43am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    Sill got 3 legs?//
    
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    March 15, 2023 5:31pm
ClanMcleod

The German health minister Karl Lauterbach was recently interviewed on mainstream media. He is yet another who sees the narrative collapsing and desperately trying to worm his way out of this. He admits that vaccine injuries are at far higher levels than would normally have them instantly stopped.
He pleads it isn’t his fault because he didn’t sign the contracts, but like Ardern Bloomfield, Baker and others, he pushed this crap relentlessly on people.

Why were you coerced and mandated to take shots that cause severe adverse events at more than five times the rate warranting a ‘vaccine’ program to be halted?!?

Many people have already awakened to the reality that the declared COVID-19 pandemic has been the most mismanaged crisis of our time. However, far too many still believe the only narrative that was allowed to be disseminated without retribution. For them, shocking admissions like these coming directly from a federal minister of health ought to be a wake-up call.

Please share this video clip with those who still believe that ministers of health have had their best interests at heart. Ask them why these people are walking back their messaging.

The interview should be watched and shared widely.

https://open.substack.com/pub/viralimmunologist/p/bombshell-from-germanys-federal-minister?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android

The covid scam is being exposed more every day.
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March 15, 2023 8:32am
- grumpy
  
  This study from Australia on excess mortality….will anything like this be done on this side of the ditch, it seems we are very much similar in all aspects of Covid – except that NZ mortality is higher..,
  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/368426122_Australian_COVID-19_pandemic_A_Bradford_Hill_analysis_of_iatrogenic_excess_mortality
  
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  March 15, 2023 8:49am
  - ClanMcleod
    
    grumpy – the one thing NZ politicians, the mainstream media and the “experts” have been spectacular at is completely and utterly avoiding the elephant in the room. Their ability to avoid reality and to shut down any discussion of these topics concerning. It’s Orwellian.
    The level of narrative control is off the charts.
    
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    March 15, 2023 9:05am
- Master Mariner
  
  I Liked this bit from the above article,
  
  “And, as ‘narrative-pushers’ try to walk back their messages, we need to keep reminding them what their crystal-clear and confident messaging was over the past three years. Show them just how far they moved the goalposts.
  
  There seems to be a growing epidemic of selective amnesia among those who pushed the ‘narrative’.”
  
  No “Selective amnesia” in NZ, They have all but disappeared
  
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  March 15, 2023 9:05am
- ClanMcleod
  
  Well, it’s being exposed everywhere else in the world. Not NZ. Our media come very cheap.
  Note to Luxon, the best money you can spend.
  
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  March 15, 2023 9:07am
Tony Stuart

An interesting tweet from Jack Tame this morning, reflecting on his interview with Chris Hipkins on Sunday:

Jack Tame @jacktame

In our interview on @NZQandA, I focused a lot on Chris Hipkins’ climate change policy. He defended his position by repeatedly referencing the govt’s commitment to EVs. 24 hours after these comments he scrapped the clean car upgrade.

https://twitter.com/jacktame/status/1635404077487243265

Kudos to Tame for pointing out this amazing back-flip by the amazing gymnast who is also the Prime Minister of New Zealand!
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March 15, 2023 8:42am
- Gravelroad
  
  .”Politicians are entitled to change their minds. But when they adjust their principles some explanation is necessary.”
  Roy Hattersley – British politician
  You’ve got to hand it to Mr Hipkins. Who knew that he could turn on a dime and so quickly dispose of party policies that a short time ago he took a major part creating and implementing.
  And the polls say that the voters are in support of this casual flip flop style of governance.
  
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  March 15, 2023 9:12am
  - Libertarians are right
    
    How many times do we have to say this:
    He has not disposed of these policies.
    He has not flip flopped.
    
    He has merely taken policies that would hurt politically during the election off the table and used that money to bribe voters (and leave empty cupboards for National).
    
    After the election, those policies will be back with borrowed/stolen money funding them.
    
    It is a charade. They learned at the last election that they can win by declaring no policies and then claim a mandate after to do whatever they want.
    
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    March 15, 2023 9:32am
- All_on_Red
  
  He’s more ‘Choppy’ Hipkin’s than ‘Chippy’.
  Chop chop chop go Jacinda’s Policies.
  
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  March 15, 2023 9:13am
  - kevn
    
    @All on… jacinda who?
    
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    March 15, 2023 9:36am
- Tomtoddy
  
  When Luxon changed National’s tax policy the media were all over him ripping his flip flop. The media are commending the almost unbelievable major backtracking by Hipkins as “bonfires”, “astute judgement”, “clever footwork”.
  
  If ever there was media bias there it is staring you in the face.
  
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  March 15, 2023 9:21am
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    Again, Luxon did not change Nats tax policy, tge 39 cent threshold would go in a second term, not the first, how is that changing the policy? Theoretically yess, but the policy to get rid of the 39cent tax threshold remains, I note Hipkins refuses to rule out the tax going up to 45 cents, Hosking asked him three times or more if what he heard about that tax going up is true, and like a typical weasel refused to answer, do looks like the rich pricks will cop it
    
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    March 15, 2023 9:52am
  - RoboRob
    
    Stuff cartoon today references Chippies policy scrapping and portrays him as a super hero !
    
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    March 15, 2023 9:58am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Maybe it was “not something I would necessarily be aware of”.
  JA.
  
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  March 15, 2023 9:42am
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    She was never aware of anything
    
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    March 15, 2023 10:31am
- Bobba Fret
  
  Jack Tame will still be gutted as he is a Labour and particularly a Jacinda fanboy.
  
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  March 15, 2023 11:13am
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    He will be a Hipkins luvvie now
    
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    March 15, 2023 12:04pm
Grunter

Meng Foon – Race Relations Commissioner yesterday…..
“I always say to white people, you actually still have a lot to contribute to society”

This guy is a total clown and the lamestream media is his circus.
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March 15, 2023 8:48am
- Blog-aholic
  
  Imagine if you will for a moment if I said in a public space “I always say to black people, you actually still have alot to contribute to society”?
  
  What, oh what would the outcome be one wonders (not)!
  
  Foon has proven his unworthiness to be in his role.
  
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  March 15, 2023 9:09am
- Taieri
  
  Wonder what Meng Foon has contributed to the society?
  
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  March 15, 2023 9:18am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    Well he has taught NZ there are two types of racism.
    
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    March 15, 2023 9:45am
- Tomtoddy
  
  There was once a commissioner, Meng Foon
  Who has proved to be nothing but a loon
  But he does the left’s bidding
  Can you believe he’s not kidding
  And sadly he wont be axed anytime soon
  
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  March 15, 2023 9:26am
- RoboRob
  
  Hi Grunter, do you have a link to that?
  
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  March 15, 2023 10:01am
  - Gravelroad
    
    David Seymour drew attention on his social media page last evening to Meng Foon’s statement.
    It was reportedly made during an interview on The Platform NZ.
    Yours,
    White Person who may still may have a lot to contribute to society……
    
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    March 15, 2023 10:33am
  - Grunter
    
    Yes – it was on The Platform. Go onto their Youtube Channel and you can hear the full interview
    
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    March 15, 2023 10:39am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Try this
    
    https://twitter.com/dbseymour/status/1635504260464119808?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet
    
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    March 15, 2023 10:56am
- NZer In Exile
  
  “Meng Foon – Race Relations Commissioner yesterday…..
  “I always say to white people, you actually still have a lot to contribute to society””
  
  The guy has lost the plot. There is no logic in his words.
  
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  March 15, 2023 1:37pm
oldpark

Check out the latest High Court Ruling against Hipkins on him signing an order to block care givers financially in the great Covid Lockdown Fiasco .
Seems he will have to pay up and apologise .Go figure .
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March 15, 2023 8:52am
- Ehlana
  
  No, oldpark. You will have to pay up. I guarantee it’s not coming out of Hipkins pockets.
  
  As for the apology, I expect Hipkins will borrow the format Jacinda used with the KFC worker.
  
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  March 15, 2023 10:04am
Tomtoddy

Not many Kiwibloggers will be students of the dark art of Parliamentary Oral Questions. Most would state it is a waste of time, grandstanding, prevarication, fancy footwork and dodginess.

Its a tradition going back deep into our Westminster form of government. While it has clearly lost most of its effectiveness the recent ineptitude and bias of successive speakers has greatly contributed to this lack of value.

Question time is run under Speaker’s Rulings; a collection of rulings of the past that form precedents, guiding the incumbent. Members can raise points of order and have the Speaker adjudicate using the Rulings, his common sense and hopefully a strong degree of fairness.

The present Speaker, Rt Hon Adrian Rurawhe appeared prior to the exit of Mallard to be impartial and helpful. However, he has become a toothless judge and has deteriorated into sheltering Labour Ministers including Hipkins.

It revolves around insisting Ministers provide an answer. The Speakers Ruling require an “adequate” answer be given. It is subjective but Rurawhe is lowering the bar to let hopelessly inadequate replies to be made. The Opposition Whips need to push back harder and with greater dexterity and knowledge of the rules. Otherwise, the process becomes a farce and a waste of time and taxpayer’s hard earned resources.
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March 15, 2023 9:16am
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  I hear Veral was cut in two by Reti yesterday
  
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  March 15, 2023 10:33am
  - Captain Mainwaring
    
    Yes she was indeed. She is way out of her depth.
    
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    March 15, 2023 11:38am
    - Paulus
      
      Verrall is probably on her way back to Dept of Health where she was a good Medical Researcher come October – she has been well dropped by Ardern, Little, and little chippie.
      
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      March 15, 2023 1:56pm
NothingLeft

Open AI’s GPT4 Large Language Model (ie baby AI) finally released today. Smarter and more productive than a significant percentage of adults – it scores in top 20% of humans across a wide array of college level tests (including bar exam), the job losses over next few years are going to be massive, and all the other problems of the world are shrinking greatly in comparison to the issues and dangers that this raises:

https://openai.com/research/gpt-4
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March 15, 2023 9:19am
- ClanMcleod
  
  NothingLeft – indeed, more “useless eaters” for the Malthusians to have to come up with a solution to. They should check out the other “solution” of a statesman from the last century, he almost cracked it.
  
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  March 15, 2023 10:24am
Maggy Wassilieff

Now why would this Government be wanting to locate just some of its gas and oil wells?

https://www.newsroom.co.nz/govt-seeks-old-permit-holders-to-update-large-gaps-in-petrol-wells-database
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March 15, 2023 9:37am
Tomtoddy

Nash, this morning, “we are going as hard as we can against gangs”. Yeah right!!

Sending them home to watch porn on TV and work their drug deals on phone.
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March 15, 2023 9:40am
TripeWryter

I have been thinking overnight – when I was awake – about the teacher who wrote an open letter to this blog that was published yesterday.
I wonder if she was taken aback by almost all the responses – including mine.
She didn’t get a lot of sympathy and ‘you poor thing’ hugs-by-blog.
Quite a lot of replies – including my own – expressed dissatisfaction with the standard of teaching.
A few of us picked up on ‘less children’ when we would expect a teacher to know that it should be ‘fewer’ children.
These are the little, seemingly insignificant things that piss off parents and grandparents. It confirms for us that perhaps our kids’ teachers might not be up to scratch.
Now that’s not entirely true. There are good teachers. My niece the principal would be one. Her children didn’t leave her classroom without knowing how to read and write and do sums.
Which should be basic, by the way.
I would love to meet and shake the hand of the teacher who had my granddaughter for six months last year. My granddaughter’s spurt from a brand-new 5 year-old to 5-1/2 was startling and to this old grandparent, pleasing.
She had begun to learn how to read, write, and do sums.
She could count in Maori as well as in English. But as a white, stale, male, pale grandparent that I am, I could not understand why teaching her to count in Maori was important.
She is part-Asian. Her mother, my daughter, would prefer her to learn the language of her father and grandparents. That at least would be useful not just in their home country but also in Asia.
The teacher’s interspersing Maori words in her letter also did not go down well.
Now, she and her colleagues might dismiss the comments and commenters as ‘racist’.
That’s the common response by people who don’t like their New Orthodoxy being challenged.
I listened to the ‘poet’ Tusiata Avia reading her ‘poem’ the other night.
On Radio New Zealand she dismissed any criticism as ‘racist’ and as feeding into hate and fear. Anyway, that’s another story.
But what I wanted to say to the teacher was that her Maori bits were macronned in the prescribed, ‘right’, way. No doubt her Maori words would be pronounced perfectly.
I guess this because I hear my granddaughter saying the Maori words pronounced perfectly.
Yet teachers seem to make little effort with English words.
I think it is fair to say that a good many parents are not entirely satisfied with the standard of teaching in this country.
When will the teachers and their union acknowlege that they have not done very well in the last few decades when the products of their teaching go out into the world being the least taught in reading, writing, and doing sums, according to world rankings?
I have grandchildren in Australia. They seem to know how to do that.
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March 15, 2023 9:49am
- Black with a Vengeance
  
  But as a white, stale, male, pale grandparent that I am, I could not understand why teaching her to count in Maori was important.
  __________________
  
  If you were in any other country would you still not understand why children learning a little of that people’s language and culture might be important ?
  
  It appears you have highlighted exactly why there is a ‘stale’ component to the pale male identity.
  
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  March 15, 2023 10:32am
  - Ghost
    
    However living in a foreign non English speaking country learning their language is different than learning a language in NZ that offers no benefit to them.
    
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    March 15, 2023 11:06am
    - Ehlana
      
      Learning a second language does have benefits though. And learning Maori in New Zealand is no different to learning Welsh in Wales.
      
      The problem is that at present, New Zealand children are not learning either language.
      
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      March 15, 2023 11:46am
    - Black with a Vengeance
      
      No one’s asking anyone to learn full Te Reo just to not be so insecure about others, especially kid’s, learning a few words and identifying with the indigenous culture is all.
      
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      March 15, 2023 11:46am
      - Ghost
        
        If a child wants to learn it that is there option, if they would rather learn @ different language that should be their option as well.
        
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        March 15, 2023 11:50am
    - Paulus
      
      English is not an official language of Aotearoa whereas Maori is and so Maori language should be universally use as it is an official language.
      
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      March 15, 2023 1:59pm
      - Ghost
        
        Sign language would be more beneficial for people to learn.
        
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        March 15, 2023 2:02pm
  - TripeWryter
    
    Well, Black with a Vengeance, the point of your reply eludes me but never mind. Sarcasm always seems to go over my head.
    If my granddaughter lived in her father’s home country she would learn its language, as well as English.
    That’s pretty obvious.
    If I lived in the three countries my ancestors came from I’d be learning and speaking their languages, too.
    A few years ago I was holding informal ‘clinics’ for young Maori and Pacific Island kids who needed to know English, how to spell it and punctuate it – how to communicate in it, in short.
    They had been allowed to progress through their schools and come out at the other end not knowing where a full stop went, what a comma was (I’d say some of their teachers didn’t either), or how to spell. They were amazed that they didn’t have to stick an apostrophe on the end of every plural.
    I wrote the CVs and cover letters so that these kids could not only get an interview, but a job, and I taught them enough that I and they hoped would keep them in a job.
    An old stale, male ‘white cunt’, as one of them said with a grin.
    I ran into him in a Brisbane street in later years. He was doing well. He had an office job and was studying, as well.
    His Ngati Kahu girlfriend gave me a hug and a kiss because the CV and the cover letter I wrote for her had got her good jobs. She was a trim, neat, groomed executive assistant to some local politician.
    Now she was a transformation from the scruffy, untidy little wahine I’d known.
    She was a smart kid and I have to say it took her to get out of New Zealand and get away from the tribe mentality for her to realise her potential.
    I’m not a teacher. My background is journalism.
    I was a solo parent on the DPB for 13 years.
    The one thing that I could do for my children was to ensure they had the best education I could get for them.
    That was to be their ticket out of benefithood, some material deprivation, and into a life where they could live better and take advantage of opportunities.
    They’re now in their 40s. They do well. So do their children.
    It used to frustrate me that teachers tried to make my children ‘special cases’ because they came from a solo parent home.
    My children did not need bad behaviour excused because Dad was a solo parent.
    I never excused it so why should bloody teachers?
    So make all the seemingly clever digs at me all you like, Black with a Vengeance.
    I know who I am, what I’ve done, and you don’t.
    
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    March 15, 2023 12:16pm
    - Swifty
      
      Excellent.
      
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      March 15, 2023 12:41pm
    - Black with a Vengeance
      
      Nice one TripeWryter.
      
      My point is, that it’s important to know a little of the language and customs of any country in which you are somehow invested in.
      
      That applies more so to Aotearoa/NZ for obvious reasons…you live here!
      
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      March 15, 2023 1:04pm
      - NZer In Exile
        
        BWAV even the most grumpy old shits in NZ generally want to see everyone do well in life. The activist haters have brainwashed certain segments to have an enormous chip on their shoulders (both) unfortunately. It’s that attitude that is the root of the failure to succeed in life, more than anything else.
        
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        March 15, 2023 1:42pm
  - Fuzzysnuggleduck
    
    Nothing wrong with learning Maori words in Primary school. The songs we sung in the 1980’s mean that basic colours and counting in Te Reo are fairly easily absorbed.
    So why not?
    No issue with that, as long as students can still read and write in practical terms, but the exalting of Matauranga Maori ‘traditional knowledge’ (insight or learning) as being the SAME as ‘science’ (a method, a structure) and having to be taught alongside is patronising to Maori.
    Science is not a possession of any race – Greek, Arab, Chinese, ‘Western’ or Eskimo.
    
    …and if there was any real value in traditional Maori knowledge equal to theories behind, say, developing nano-technology then the Chinese would be stealing that intellectual property! 😉
    
    So it is the degree to which you take a inoffensive principle and go ‘Full Retard’.
    I for instance find it really silly trying to turn government departments into Maori names, when they are contrived and ‘gifted’ but might not make any sense even to a Maori speaker (let along the 90% of customers) unless explained, or else relies on some entirely silly esoteric or spiritual title for what might otherwise literally be a delivery of oncology services. Or due to a literal impoverished selection of terms/words available that our national transport and roading agency is now a ‘Unified canoe’.
    
    At a certain point, relenting exaltation of culture means bashing a square peg through a triangular hole.
    
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    March 15, 2023 12:42pm
    - NothingLeft
      
      Primary kids these days still don’t know their times tables at age 8-9 (unless parents do it at home), but they get TOW and Climate Change/Green indoctrination from age 5-6.
      
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      March 15, 2023 5:21pm
- Flossie
  
  I am recalling my granddaughter “correcting” my pronunciation of a Maori place name, then announcing she was “gunna arks mum” something.
  
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  March 15, 2023 11:10am
Black with a Vengeance

From what I’ve read, this whole ‘left/right’ political divide has less to do with ideology and more to do with age.

The older you get, the more your ideals and values shift to the ‘right’…
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March 15, 2023 9:54am
- RoboRob
  
  There is a famous saying, that is particularly accurate….
  
  ‘If You Are Not a Liberal at 25, You Have No Heart. If You Are Not a Conservative at 35 You Have No Brain’
  
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  March 15, 2023 10:07am
  - Black with a Vengeance
    
    …and if you’re not a grumpy old fuck at 65+ ?
    
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    March 15, 2023 10:22am
    - RoboRob
      
      Your normal ?
      
      7 0
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      March 15, 2023 10:46am
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      Why be a grumpy old fuck at 65+?
      
      I no longer have to work for a living.
      
      I’ve lived longer than my mother, step-mother, brother, some cousins and many friends.
      
      I’ve enjoyed seeing my kids reach adulthood & independence.
      
      There’s lots to be grateful for if you’ve reached 65+ and still in decent health.
      
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      March 15, 2023 10:51am
      - Black with a Vengeance
        
        Why be a grumpy old fuck at 65+?
        _____________
        
        I don’t know, but it seems to go hand in hand more with being ‘right’ wing, possibly ‘left’ wing ?
        
        It just seems the more one aligns with the ‘left’ or ‘right’ the grumpier they get as they age.
        
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        March 15, 2023 11:00am
      - Fuzzysnuggleduck
        
        I am far off 65+, but what might appear ‘grumpy’ might be older people’s irritation with stupid obsessions of younger generations.
        It was said long ago, ‘youth is wasted on the young’.
        
        I would also say that there are some stupid progressive and low information older folk out there too. Because some of them are tribal to the death (cradle to grave in their political loyalty), or else never developed a sense of nuance or cause & effect. Some are still only about the Feelz, even as their eye sight declines and their knees hurt.
        
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        March 15, 2023 12:52pm
    - NZer In Exile
      
      “…and if you’re not a grumpy old fuck at 65+”
      
      In this f’d up clown world? You’re probably thick and/or a dotty old lefty poser🤣
      
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      March 15, 2023 11:20am
- NothingLeft
  
  As you get older you understand more and more about the complex interactions of systems involving humans, seeing myriad examples of people struggling in their lives with various issues, the outcomes and unintended consequences that derive from incentives good and bad, and you observe how your own behaviours and understandings are changing over time. We come to know ourselves and others with much greater insight.
  
  Consequently a lot of people’s politics change, generally moving to the right as they see the pitfalls of generally childish/superficial left wing ‘solutions’.
  
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  March 15, 2023 10:15am
  - Black with a Vengeance
    
    …but then you idealise a time in the past where things were ‘great’ and become reluctant to accept change or move on from your ‘right’ leaning views ?
    
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    March 15, 2023 10:25am
    - All_on_Red
      
      No
      Its more that we are mature enough to be objective and know what generally works.
      
      I can see you are trying very hard to concoct a smear but really you are just exposing yourself as an ignorant troll (again).
      
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      March 15, 2023 10:37am
      - Black with a Vengeance
        
        No
        Its more that we are mature enough to be objective and know what generally works.
        
        I can see you are trying very hard to concoct a smear but really you are just exposing yourself as an ignorant troll (again).
        
        ________________
        Spare me the ignorant troll insults.
        
        …and No. It appears that you become immaturely subjective as to think you know what might have generally worked in the past but is no longer fit for purpose going forward.
        
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        March 15, 2023 10:51am
      - All_on_Red
        
        Oh such arrogance
        The ‘new’ way you talk about has been tried before
        And it didn’t work.
        As I said; ignorant troll- who is quite the racist too
        
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        March 15, 2023 12:16pm
      - Black with a Vengeance
        
        Oh such arrogance
        The ‘new’ way you talk about has been tried before
        And it didn’t work.
        As I said; ignorant troll- who is quite the racist too
        ___________________
        
        The ‘new’ way is not the ‘old’ way you think it is, or was.
        
        It’s something you probably couldn’t comprehend and clearly can’t envision.
        
        Perhaps you should look in a mirror as it appears you’re projecting your ignorant racist trolling persona on to me.
        
        Get help!
        
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        March 15, 2023 12:53pm
Maggie Pie

TRENDING…

Aunty Heihei tells Nanaia she’d be best to STFU!!

Says it’s her own fault she’s experiencing the racism she’s complaining about. Making it worse for all the good honest Maoris out there 🙁

https://twitter.com/AuntyHeiHei/status/1635385189290639360
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March 15, 2023 10:11am
- Nickc2
  
  Maybe if she (Nanaia) gave all those stolen water entities back to their rightful owners, some of the disparaging comments will disappear eh?
  
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  March 15, 2023 10:17am
  - Black with a Vengeance
    
    And who might those rightful owners be ?
    
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    March 15, 2023 10:27am
    - Nickc2
      
      Councils!!! Ratepayers!!!
      
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      March 15, 2023 10:32am
    - All_on_Red
      
      The people of New Zealand
      Who did you think?
      
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      March 15, 2023 10:34am
      - Black with a Vengeance
        
        The iwi whose land and waters were stolen in the first place.
        
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        March 15, 2023 10:53am
      - Nickc2
        
        Black with a Vengeance @10:53AM
        The water came from the sky (clouds). Nobody owns water.
        
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        March 15, 2023 11:05am
      - Black with a Vengeance
        
        The water came from the sky (clouds). Nobody owns water.
        ______________
        
        Of course somebody owns water.
        
        You can’t just go around swimming in people’s pools or stealing water from lakes and rivers on private property with impunity.
        
        Sadly if it’s not Maori ownership of public waterways, it’s the Crown, not Councils or ratepayers.
        
        Jolly King Charlie has owned the waters since Britannia ruled the waves.
        
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        March 15, 2023 11:57am
      - All_on_Red
        
        The Iwi didn’t own it either
        
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        March 15, 2023 12:13pm
      - Black with a Vengeance
        
        The Iwi didn’t own it either
        ________________
        
        Now your just being obstinate.
        
        Of course iwi owned it as much as the river owned them.
        
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        March 15, 2023 12:56pm
      - Fuzzysnuggleduck
        
        BWAV, you equate water ownership to the hypothetical ‘other’ swimming in your swimming pool?
        The pipes and infrastrucuture did not exist pre-1840, so it is not a possession or toanga of Maori.
        
        Maori mana whenua have a valid interest in waterways, lakes and fisheries clearly, but not any claim of ownership, or kawangatanga-role over management of those private infrastructure assets that specifically 3 waters is about.
        So in terms of a swimming pool, that is private property, and on private property.
        Nor is this about the rain water which helps to fill a swimming pool (which coming as rain is really not owned nor can be owned by anyone, any more than oxygen).
        Think about it….
        
        Also, that the land was ‘stolen’ is really really lazy as a statement. Unhelpful. Land changed possession in many ways: gifted, conquered, sold, confiscated: to call it simply ‘stolen’ would be an insult to cases when it was willingly sold or freely gifted under the mana of those rangatira at the time.
        
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        March 15, 2023 1:01pm
    - rangitoto
      
      The people who paid for all the pipes, treatment stations, storage etc.
      
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      March 15, 2023 2:02pm
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  I wonder if Mahuta is bedding the field for an exit at the election, she appears to be making excuses why she can’t do her job anymore
  
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  March 15, 2023 10:36am
  - Nickc2
    
    she can’t do her job anymore
    She couldn’t do her job to start with!
    I don’t give a fuck if she takes offense and quits her job. The sooner the better as far as I’m concerned.
    
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    March 15, 2023 12:46pm
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      You know what i am talking about
      
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      March 15, 2023 4:21pm
  - Paulus
    
    Mahtua and her cohorts can probably do better outside Parliament now rather than pissing inside.
    She and the 132 Census named Iwi can get greater control by getting places, unelected of course, on Regional and City Councils and Committees and making sure that nothing is done without their approval.
    Tauranga Harbour has been trying to get another Wharf, for 11 years I believe, and everytime it comes to Court it is blocked, by such as an environmental report on old pipi beds not having been done.
    Sad but it will only get worse – like rust, once it starts it cannot be stopped but may take time to control, or destroy.
    
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    March 15, 2023 2:08pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Wow! Auntie HeiHei has excellent words. I agree with her.
  Dumping the blame on Nanaia Mahuta is true.
  Wonder where she comes from? I would love a chat with her to share thoughts.
  
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  March 15, 2023 11:29am
I remember when

The Covid Cult:
It is quite remarkable the way that unfailing belief in the ‘official’ source of information continues.
Members continue to ignore the genuine questions being raised.
* The failure to accept that the benefits of the vaccine have been overstated.
* That vaccine testing was insufficient before release and information on testing must be full and open.
* That continued booster dosing is likely to increase covid’s ability to be immune to vaccination.
* That an inquiry into the outcome of government actions during the pandemic is essential, or we are in danger of repeating the failures.
* More research into the success and failures of mask use is required.
* We need to know exactly what research is being undertaken by pharmaceutical companies, armed forces and governments.
* Debate must be allowed on all actions and pros and cons must be fairly presented.
* Freedom of choice must be the driving force behind every action with governments using persuasion to encourage adherence.
* Statistics must be supplied as soon as possible and be presented in an understandable format.
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March 15, 2023 10:17am
- ClanMcleod
  
  IRW – if even a quarter of those excellent ideas had been implemented prior to this disaster it wouldn’t have happened. That tells us all we need to know. All of those draconian actions needed to happen to enable the madness.
  As for masks, there is more than enough evidence to prove they do more harm than good, if any.
  
  Tom Jefferson, the lead author of the Cochrane review, has added to the pain and embarrassment of Team Mask by granting this interview to Maryanne Demasi, in which he reiterates bluntly that “there’s no evidence that masks are effective during a pandemic,” no evidence that respirators do anything even in healthcare settings, blames misguided mask mandates on bad governmental advisers, and criticises the masking “craziness” that took root in 2020, in which “strident campaigners” – “activists, not scientists” – like “academics and politicians started jumping up and down about masks.” He also makes an observation that is often aired at the plague chronicle, namely that the failure of masks to do very much indicates that virus transmission itself is poorly understood, and far more complicated than we tend to assume. You should read the whole thing for yourself.
  
  Here, I want to highlight one crucial point. Jefferson explains that he and his co-authors were ready to publish a review on the evidence for masking and other physical interventions in April 2020, but that Cochrane held up its appearance by “inexplicably” demanding a further peer reviewer. This effectively delayed publication by months, in precisely the period that novel mask mandates were emerging all across the world. When the review was finally cleared for publication in November – long after its chance to influence mask policies had passed – the authors were directed to insert all manner of language softening their conclusions, and Cochrane included an accompanying editorial on why “Policy makers must act on incomplete evidence in responding to COVID-19.”
  
  Plainly, the conviction that mask mandates were necessary came first; The Science followed. All the while, though, the evidence didn’t go away. It was just suspended slightly out of view, diluted with weak excuses and deprived of influence over policy, until the ideological fervour dissipated and the plain truth could be spoken again. The lesson is that regime authorities, particularly when they enjoy the collaboration of the press and academia, can tell almost any lie, but keeping the truth out of view requires active effort, and sooner or later their myths come crashing down. The mask mythology was among the first to take shape, and it has been the first to fall.
  
  In the coming months other pandemic fantasies will also begin unravel.
  
  They are unraveling rapidly, but NZ is still in complete denial and most are ignoring reality and covering their ears and eyes while hoping it will all go away. It won’t. Not until it is addressed as you say.
  
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  March 15, 2023 10:39am
- Sacha
  
  All the info that you are asking for is available on the internet if you look.
  There are endless articles about the ineffectiveness of masks for example.
  There is lively debate – or was, most people now mow that the vaccines are ineffective, and downright life-threatening to some.
  Every week there is a new release of statistics about the pandemic, and its effect on various populations worldwide.
  The enquiring mind will have no trouble educating itself, but that’s the last thing a controlling government wants people to do and so it does nothing to encourage it.
  And where are the Members that you speak of? Surely not here?
  
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  March 15, 2023 10:58am
Swifty

Labour have squandered billions and billions since 2017 but can’t even get the basics right:

https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/health/131487229/christchurch-hospital-slashes-surgeries-as-anaesthetic-technicians-quit-bullying-toxic-department-in-droves

Hundreds and hundreds of millions to their arts luvvie mates, hundreds and hundreds of millions on working groups and reviews which led nowhere, hundreds and hundreds of millions on cycleways and other transport projects that failed to deliver the promised outcomes, a billion dollars annually in salaries for new core civil servants, hundreds and hundreds of millions on salaries on DEI and comms staff in the public sector – the list just goes on and on and on.

Meanwhile people who could be living excellent lives repeatedly piss and dirty themselves in bed or have to drag themselves around on crutches all because they can’t access surgical services.

I’m ashamed of our government.
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March 15, 2023 10:35am
- Its only I
  
  Your missing the point.
  
  “At least Labour are talking about it, National never did”
  Talking is enough apparently.
  
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  March 15, 2023 1:56pm
  - I remember when
    
    The ‘placebo’ effect.
    Talking about it reduces the costs of having to buy the sugar pills.
    If it doesn’t work the first time, you can talk about it again.
    
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    March 15, 2023 4:51pm
- Paulus
  
  Swifty
  And did you vote for them, 53% of the voters did, and many will do so again.
  
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  March 15, 2023 2:12pm
  - Swifty
    
    Paulus, yes I have, in ‘84 and ‘87 but not since then.
    
    How could one? Labour wreck everything they touch. They create fictional crises to increase the size and reach of government. They heap burden after burden onto private business. They use NZ families and businesses as ATMs for vote buying. They are terrible, abject, at setting and keeping priorities. They spray money around like drunken sailors and inevitably wake up in the morning with little or nothing to show for it. They implement policy after policy which result in outcomes opposite to that intended. While in opposition they curse, abuse and lambast National for things they themselves then go and do when next in power. They put union and civil service interests before those of parents and students.
    
    I could go on and on.
    
    But worst of all they constantly deceive us. They make promises they cannot keep or have no intention of keeping. They routinely deny the appalling results their policies have delivered. They constantly refuse to accept the evidence that their policies will cause harm and blunder on regardless. They completely waste huge amounts of hard-earned cash from the pockets of NZ families which would have done so much more for people leaving it where it was.
    
    And the cherry on top is that they will almost never, ever admit when they’re wrong. That their ideology has flaws. That their policies cause harm.
    
    It’s their arrogance, their inability to believe they’re ever wrong, that is their worst failing.
    
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    March 15, 2023 3:50pm
Maggie Pie

Thort this might we worth sharing?

My partner just txt that rumor doing the rounds down at the Viaduct….

‘Credit Suisse will be next’
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March 15, 2023 10:39am
- Alan Wilkinson
  
  Apparently its stock price nosedived after issuing a warning notice.
  
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  March 15, 2023 12:30pm
  - I remember when
    
    Credit Suisse only just survived the GFC.
    
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    March 15, 2023 4:55pm
- NZer In Exile
  
  CS has had the wobbles for quite some time now.
  
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  March 15, 2023 1:45pm
- Vory v zakone
  
  Credit Suisse is well known as the preferred bank for the Deep State 😲
  
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  March 16, 2023 12:32am
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Stop Co-Governance. Julian Batchelor.

https://www.stopcogovernance.kiwi/blog/three-things-i-am-discovering-on-this-journey-to-stop-co-governance/
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March 15, 2023 10:44am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Co-Governance All Through The Revised RMA. What A Disaster!
  CO-GOVERANCE WILL BE WOVEN THROUGH THE NEW RESOURCE MANAGEMENT ACT
  
  If you have an interest in any property including homes, commercial, industrial, business lease, whatever….
  you should know that the proposed changes to the Resource Management Act is being used to slide Co-Governance into your property rights.
  And it’s all being done by stealth and in as much secrecy as these mongrels can maintain.
  Whilst you have been working your arses off, paying your taxes and these pricks’ huge salaries,
  they have been beavering away in the wee dark hours to screw you.
  This makes 3 Waters look like an inconsequential little morsel for Maori Elite’s Gravy Train. Check out the Taxpayers Union below.
  By the way, where the #$*% is National on this? They should have been all over it!!!!!
  Luxon needs to step up and grow a pair, unless of course he supports this Co-Governance BS. If so, he needs to step aside.
  Please forward to any friends with a property or business. The only thing likely to stop this crap is public outrage.
  
  You thought Three Waters was bad? Wait until you hear about what’s going through Parliament
  
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  March 15, 2023 10:50am
  - DimChappie
    
    Here is the link to the Taxpayers Union campaign against Parker’s central planning committees (replacing the RMA):
    
    https://www.taxpayers.org.nz/stop_central_planning_committees
    
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    March 15, 2023 5:28pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  If Julian Batchelor is racist, why aren’t Maori activists engaging Meng Foon?
  I will be going to the Orewa meeting.
  Orewa, Auckland – Orewa Community Centre,
  40-46 Ōrewa Square Saturday 18-Mar 3.00pm
  
  https://www.stopcogovernance.kiwi/2023-nz-stop-co-governance-tour/
  
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  March 15, 2023 10:54am
ClanMcleod

The Lancet (along with quite a few other medical publications and newspapers) has become a laughing stock.

A great post from Norman Fenton.

In summary:

On 6 May 2021 The Lancet published a blatantly flawed study of the effectiveness of the Pfizer covid vaccine on the population of Israel, claiming it was 95% effective.

On 17 May 2021 we submitted a rapid response 250 word letter explaining why the study was flawed.

After an initial response saying they would ask the authors for a response to our letter we heard nothing until 20 months later.

The post describes the timeline of events. It clearly shows the levels of cover up and deception employed by The Lancet to hide this evidence.

https://wherearethenumbers.substack.com/p/the-lancet-has-become-a-laughing?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=email

No wonder people are losing trust in so many of our formerly dependable institutions.
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March 15, 2023 11:00am
Maggie Pie

Been making my partner’s fave Banana Cake and listening to Kerry Woodham.

Caller claiming to be a ‘Buyers Agent’…. looking for investment properties in Auckland on behalf of his cashed-up out of town client.

Reckons when you see some of the sh*t Houses & Apartments built in the last couple of years by Kiwibuild, we really dodged a bullet that the government never got near their 100,000 target.
Told the host from what he’s seen, they are already falling apart due to cheap shoddy design and materials….not to mention the crap workmanship.

Another failed government initiative under Jacinda Ardern.
No wonder she’s headed for the hills.
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March 15, 2023 11:13am
- MCōs
  
  KiwiBuild may have been a disaster, but the houses still had to be built to the same basic standard as any other new house, which I know from experience is not shoddy by any means. As long as the local council is doing its job.
  New houses do not “fall apart”.
  Tradesmen are required to use hardware that meets NZ Standards or replace the stuff.
  
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  March 15, 2023 1:53pm
  - Maggie Pie
    
    You come across as a real neat dude Cossie….but ya don’t know shit! 😀
    
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    March 15, 2023 3:11pm
    - MCōs
      
      What shit do you know, playing tennis, passing on rumours & listening to talk back radio?
      
      2 4
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      March 15, 2023 3:32pm
      - Maggie Pie
        
        LOL!! You should see the shit I don’t post Cossie 😀
        
        It sits in a folder titled…..
        “I think this is soo hilarious but some uptight leftard wont”
        
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        March 15, 2023 3:41pm
BeaB

The bureaucratic gravy train never lets a crisis go to waste. Stephen Town, lately on $13000 a week leave from Te Putenga, is now heading up cyclone recovery in Thames Coromandel. Sir Brian Roche is heading a government cyclone response team. Now Katrina Casey, who headed Grant Robertson’s implementation unit, is now going to lead yet another cyclone response unit. Did the implementation unit actually ever implement anything? Has anyone ever asked?
Do we silly, gullible Kiwis just keep shelling out our hard-earned dollars and then keep voting for the guys who have their hands in our pockets?
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March 15, 2023 11:14am
- Gravelroad
  
  This government cannot do anything without appointing a working group, consultant, response team or some sort of unit – all very well paid.
  We had all that here a couple of years ago after a flooding event – and another one last year.
  The government appointed people went to a lot of “community engagement” meetings to “report back”.
  Not sure to whom.
  Much money was spent on travel, meals, special clothing, accommodation, sitting round in special disaster HQ centres, phone calls, emailing and preparing reports.
  
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  March 15, 2023 12:04pm
- Paulus
  
  Wasn’t this the Town ex CEO of Auckland City Council, and before that his disaster as Tauranga CEO ?
  Gawd elp us !
  
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  March 15, 2023 2:14pm
  - fightingtemeraire
    
    And head of the Polytech up stuff
    
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    March 15, 2023 4:12pm
Bobba Fret

Good to know crime is going down//
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/crime/auckland-crime-police-hunting-offenders-after-supermarket-burglary-overnight/5BQGCLBBQNANDM46RFFXZZ45LA/
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March 15, 2023 11:30am
Jack5

Staff at the NZ-founded technology company Xero are upset by the laying off of 700 or 800 staff (see link below).

New Zealand does poorly when it comes to founding international companies. This is shown in the technology sector, with Rocket Lab becoming an American corporation, and now by Xero drifting away.

Some small countries do better. Denmark, for example, keeps shipping giant Maersk and Carlsberg, the international brewer.

Switzerland (8.75 million people to NZ’s 5m) has Nestle, which Fonterra has failed to mirror in diversion, and UBS.

Xero staff upset:

https://www.1news.co.nz/2023/03/14/exclusive-leaked-messages-reveal-anger-over-xero-job-cuts/
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March 15, 2023 11:42am
- Caine9
  
  The rouble is that the comparisons with countries like Demnak, Switzerland or Ireland son’t entirely hold water. each of themare on the doorstep of their main markets, Europe.
  We are remote and difficult to get to. The idea that it doesn’t matter where you are located these days doesn’t quite work. The exposure to easy input from all European countries is simply not here. It’s the difference between reality and theory. It all sounds good, but were just to far away.
  Also, despite complaining about foreign ownership, New Zealand investors just don’t invest here to the same extent.
  We hear about not getting access to capital, but someone does, they’re just not kiwis. Perhaps the world doesn’t have the same faith in us that we pretend to have, or would like them to have.
  I say “pretend to have” because when push comes to shove, we’re more likely to invest overseas and spread the risk there rather than invest heavily here.
  
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  March 15, 2023 12:32pm
  - MCōs
    
    Kiwis don’t speak foreign languages.
    Don’t even want to speak local languages.
    I was sent to Jakarta for a month and listened to about 4-5 primary aged kids in the pool easily switch between each other’s languages
    
    3 0
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    March 15, 2023 2:03pm
    - fightingtemeraire
      
      In many countries there are more than one language cheek by jowl with each other. Indonesia is one.
      
      India has about 20 official languages.
      
      If you live in the “Cockpit of Europe” ie the Benelux Countries, people can speak, French, German, Dutch as these languages are spoken withing a radius of about 150 miles.
      
      6 0
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      March 15, 2023 4:14pm
      - MCōs
        
        Interestingly the British are stubbornly monolingual even though though they are located in a very close proximity to numerous European countries.
        
        2 0
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        March 15, 2023 7:11pm
    - tf78
      
      I worked for the Japanese for nearly eight years and didn’t bother learning (apart from a few greetings) because they laughed at my attempts. My oldest brother lived there after leaving school back in the 60’s and spoke it fluently because he had no choice.
      
      The Japanese are some of the nicest people you could ever meet. I received cards from my old boss for over 30 years after I left.
      
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      March 15, 2023 8:56pm
NothingLeft

New Zealand’s annual current account deficit last year was $33.8 billion, or 8.9% of gross domestic product — the worst ratio since measurement began in 1988.

We are so so screwed. Our govt is borrowing at insane rate, and raising costs/destroying productivity to a perhaps fatal degree.
19 0
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March 15, 2023 12:50pm
- Master Mariner
  
  https://www.interest.co.nz/business/120331/new-zealands-current-account-deficit-widest-record-2022-forecast-narrow-tourism
  
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  March 15, 2023 2:42pm
- tf78
  
  Does CBDC’s ring a bell? (Central Bank Digital Currency). That will be our brave new world currency.
  
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  March 15, 2023 8:48pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

On my FB but I don’t know where it came from.
https://www.facebook.com/575336058/videos/1842069609491220/
4 1
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March 15, 2023 12:55pm
- NZer In Exile
  
  Why are you contributing to keeping FB alive?
  
  Please help it die. 😬
  
  8 1
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  March 15, 2023 1:47pm
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    No need for you to watch. It may die like MySpace or whatever.
    
    3 1
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    March 15, 2023 5:36pm
- tf78
  
  I now wish I’d been in a coma too! That was great, thanks.
  
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  March 15, 2023 8:42pm
rangitoto

Nash forced to resign.
10 0
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March 15, 2023 2:17pm
- Maggie Pie
  
  Bring back #40
  
  LOL!!
  
  2 0
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  March 15, 2023 3:20pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Beginning of ‘Control’ by Chris Hipkins?
  Oh boy, once they taste the blood of power, things change dramatically.
  
  6 1
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  March 15, 2023 5:42pm
  - tf78
    
    I can see he and Woods dressed in those smart uniforms.
    
    3 0
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    March 15, 2023 8:29pm
Swifty

It’s off to reeducation camp for you! You will be made to see the error of your ways.

https://i.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/tv-radio/131496480/radio-hosts-apologise-for-toxic-onair-rant-about-pronouns-inclusive-language

But soon you to will come to know the love that The Party has for you.
8 0
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March 15, 2023 3:58pm
- Swifty
  
  Bye bye ‘women’, bye bye ‘mother’ – it was nice having you around. It’s a shame to see you go.
  
  Next they’ll be coming for ‘grandmother’. They’ll be the next to be erased.
  
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  March 15, 2023 4:05pm
  - mandk
    
    It was a while ago that I read it, but I recall from the novel Brave New World that one of the most disgusting things you could say to someone was Who was your mother?
    
    5 0
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    March 15, 2023 4:54pm
    - tf78
      
      How does “Where did you come from?” rate.
      
      1 0
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      March 15, 2023 8:28pm
Swifty

“You have no right to judge me or question me.”

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/486025/mosque-attacks-gave-auckland-woman-confidence-to-start-wearing-hijab

What a stupid, fatuous remark. Of course we do and I for one will do it wherever and whenever I wish – and I don’t require her permission thank you very much.

I will judge anything and everything around me and make my judgements known – as I have no doubt at all this woman does many times each and every day.

I may even question this person or others like her and she and them have every right not to answer.

It’s called the freedom of speech and long may it continue, for all our sakes.

What a silly, thoughtless thing for her to say.
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March 15, 2023 4:23pm
TripeWryter

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March 15, 2023 6:20pm
- Ghost
  
  You have likely, by accident placed a tick in one of the boxes when commenting
  
  NOTIFY ME OF FOLLOW-UP COMMENTS BY EMAIL.
  
  NOTIFY ME OF NEW POSTS BY EMAIL.
  
  6 0
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  March 15, 2023 6:21pm
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    Yer, my email was making noises all day.
    Good to Ghost
    
    3 0
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    March 15, 2023 6:26pm
  - TripeWryter
    
    Thanks, Ghost. Yes, that appears to be what happened. An uptick to you.
    
    5 0
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    March 15, 2023 7:54pm
Southern Raider

One News does a story on Co-Governance

It interviews
– a Māori constitutional lawyer
– a Māori academic who co authored Ha Puapua
– a Māori mayor

That’s a real diverse opinion set
12 0
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March 15, 2023 6:24pm
- MCōs
  
  If you’d listened mayor Tania Tapsell is against co governance.
  Apart from that those discussions are so short as to be meaningless.
  And the the reason they are short is because the viewing public is only vaguely interested.
  There’s more interest, it seems, in a new A-League from Auckland
  How depressing is that
  
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  March 15, 2023 7:19pm
Maggy Wassilieff

Oh Dear, Oh Dear..

More disinformation from Hipkins and his mates

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2023/03/police-admit-error-after-revelation-up-to-three-times-more-ram-raids-reported-than-government-data-shows.html
7 0
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March 15, 2023 7:53pm
- Ghost
  
  Yeah the police covered for him, oh we have two sets of numbers. Bullshit, labour is constantly now releasing fake figures to make it look like things are improving then getting caught.
  
  I’ve got an idea, let’s demote a minister to make it look like chippy is a strong leader instead of a liar
  
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  March 15, 2023 8:38pm
Swifty

The Greens claim that a windfall tax on banks and energy company ‘super-profits’ is warranted because the banks didn’t do anything to deserve the ‘extra’ profit – it came as a result of factors outside the control of the companies concerned.

Do our farmers therefore warrant a tax reduction for being harmed by the same factors?

https://i.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/131500909/farm-profits-could-take-30-tumble-because-of-inflation-and-low-livestock-prices-farmers-and-industry-bodies-say

If not, why not?
4 0
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March 15, 2023 8:30pm
Ghost

It’s a strange country we live in where you can get home detention for rape and prison for stealing some pāua

Poacher who took suitcases of pāua from closed Kaikōura fishery handed prison sentence
6 0
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March 15, 2023 8:36pm
Ghost

That was quick

GARY GLITTER, THE disgraced glam rocker convicted of child sex abuse charges, is back in prison just over a month after he was released on probation, The New York Times reports.

The musician, real name Paul Gadd, reportedly violated the terms of his probation, though the U.K. Ministry of Justice didn’t offer any specifics. In a statement, the ministry said, “Protecting the public is our number one priority. That’s why we set tough license conditions and so when offenders breach them, we don’t hesitate to return them to custody.”

Article
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March 15, 2023 8:48pm
- Swifty
  
  “Helloooo, helloooo, it’s good to be back, good to be back……”
  
  2 0
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  March 15, 2023 8:57pm

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