About
Contact
Advertise

Facebook
Twitter

September 27, 2023 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 27 September 2023

Like this:

Like Loading...

Email
Facebook
Twitter
Comment420

Uncategorized
General Debate

Comments (420)

Login to comment or vote

krazykiwi

In business, and particularly the startup world there is a saying that goes like this: “The big don’t eat the small. The fast eat the slow.” This saying suggests that the first, conventionally accepted dichotomy is irrelevant, and that second dichotomy is where the truth found.

Over the last 20 years I’ve come to believe this of politics, and have developed a similar saying: “The left don’t eat the right, neither do the right eat the left. The global elite eat the rest of us”.

The unending left-vs-right political seesaw is nothing more than a elite-supported, uniparty shell game. It is designed to keep the masses polarised, and to keep our eyes away from the real issue, that being strategic amassing of wealth and global power by these elites while we myopically squabble over domestic, tactical issues of little enduring importance, and while our personal sovereignty is slowly but inexorably crushed.

The other day I noted:

The WHO wants to grab global control through health. The UN wants to do the same thing through climate change. Both are pushing global digital IDs. Meanwhile, G20 and the Bank of International Settlements want to impose Central Bank Digital Currencies worldwide. Against this backdrop promising to ban gang patches or to build a hospital are crumbs, not even bread, at the global circus of an emerging digital gulag.

It is election time. Who among the political classes is advocating for personal and national sovereignty in the face of an emboldened, and increasingly rapacious class of global elites? I posit that no current or aspiring political leader has this issue on their radar.

Think about this as you mark your voting papers.

Think about it again when you get that rosy glow as ‘your side’ is confirmed part of the next government.

Think about it again next year as technocrats and global elites become increasingly brazen in their theft of your life and liberty.

Perhaps now is the time to change what we demand of our leaders?
76 8
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 8:00am
- imalwaysright
  
  Kraz
  
  After the first two paragraphs I got hungry and ate my voting card.
  
  Good points otherwise .
  
  13 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 8:07am
  - cas
    
    We haven’t got our voting cards yet. While that won’t stop me voting, it hopefully might stop some others.
    
    6 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 10:12am
- peterwn
  
  and your message for this election is?
  
  9 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 8:16am
  - sirknz
    
    To quote Bart Simpson. “You’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t”.
    
    9 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 9:36am
  - ClanMcleod
    
    We need serious, structural, political change. The current system is hopelessly flawed. We do NOT have a representative government.
    
    20 8
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 10:06am
    - imalwaysright
      
      Clan,
      
      What about, in order to keep the public democratically relevant post election, a referendum on proposed coalitions ?
      
      6 3
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 10:19am
      - ClanMcleod
        
        imalwaysright – I’m truly not a political animal, probably why my comments come across as naive to the more experienced on here!
        
        I think referendums have their place, but they have to be binding. EVERY single one of the five previous Citizen Initiated Referendums in NZ was ignored by the politicians at the time, even though every single on had over 70% public support.
        
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendums_in_New_Zealand#Citizens_Initiated_Referenda
        
        If they aren’t going to be respected then they should be abolished. They are expensive and extremely time consuming to organise.
        
        As they are now, they are little more than an illusion of participatory democracy.
        
        13 2
        Report
        September 27, 2023 11:15am
    - slightlyrighty
      
      The worst part about our system of government is that in often ends up giving minor parties a greater amount of leverage than they otherwise would have.
      
      It was the minor parties that scuppered the RMA changes the Nats wanted to make.
      
      It was a Minor Party that made Ardern the PM
      
      14 1
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 11:14am
    - bennerg
      
      Clan, I agree. I wrote here in Kiwiblog back in May about how to make some simple but fundamental changes to bring the power back to elected representatives, by making all electorate MPs independent, and all legislation only voted on by them. Party List MP’s would remain to form the government, but they would only formulate legislation. That allows qualified individuals to be put forward as List MPs without their need to deal with electorate issues.
      
      https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2022/05/guest_post_the_ardern_changes.html
      
      7 3
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 11:55am
    - miltonF
      
      It’s the 21st century for crying out loud. If representative democracy is something that we all agree we want, then why don’t we simply axe all of the “representatives” and represent ourselves directly? We have the technology to do this quite easily. While we’re at it, ban the use of polling as this is a distortion of democracy. It causes people to vote strategically rather than vote to represent their values.
      
      If the goal of democracy is to represent the values and desires of the public then these steps MUST be made.
      
      3 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 3:57pm
      - bennerg
        
        Milton, I agree with you in principle, but it relies on the public actually engaging in the process, keeping up on all issues, and that’s why I’ve promoted having electorate MPs as independent of any party, and only answerable to their electorate – and that perhaps is where the polling could occur on a more frequent basis.
        
        2 0
        Report
        September 27, 2023 8:48pm
- 2ic
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  This is why I will never vote for Seymour or Luxon. They are both beholden to globalist agendas – WHO, UN, WEF, Net Zero, Agenda 2030, Chinese $$$. The big contest now is not Left vs Right, it’s Globalist vs Nationalist.
  
  There is one party leader speaking out against the Globalist agenda – at least the only one polling high enough to be in parliament after this election. But I won’t mention him by name on this blog for fear of triggering all the downtickers 🙂
  
  25 65
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 8:29am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    They’ve got to you too!
    
    31 3
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 8:31am
  - Captain Mainwaring
    
    2ic, it’s obvious who you’re going to vote for and if too many do the same as you the country will be totally rooted.
    You might as well vote for the man in the moon.
    
    62 8
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 8:32am
    - David Garrett
      
      Captain: At least Man in the Moon is a reliable constant…the only constant about Peters – other than his corruption – is chaos.
      
      57 4
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 8:44am
      - dutyfree
        
        No The Peter’s people all seem to forget he gave us Ardern. OMG. They hated that, they love him. Blinkered is an understatement.
        
        36 1
        Report
        September 27, 2023 9:19am
      - ClanMcleod
        
        DG – we know you all hate Peters.
        
        Serious question, since Peter’s worst crime apprently was to give us the tyrant who destroyed NZ with her abusive covid policies, what do you believe NACT have done differently during covid that would have made things so much better?
        
        We know what everyone said at the time. We have the receipts. ‘Door to door vaccines’ and ‘get boosted’ Bishop would have done what differently?
        
        ‘I’ll let individual businesses do the apartheid and stop people buying food or partaking in society for themselves – saves us being unpopular by imposing it from the top’ Seymour would have done what exactly?
        
        They all would have done basically the exact same things. Maybe with slightly different timeframes re starting and stopping them.
        
        According to NACT at the time, they would have done everything Labour did but more ‘efficiently’.
        
        They would have rushed the experimental ‘vaccines’ in even sooner.
        
        They would have had a cheaper, more efficient ‘papers please’ system for participation in normal society.
        
        They would have found even more coercive ways to get to the magical, moronic 95% jabbed number. Detention camps for the untermensch maybe?
        
        I can’t help think of Germany when I hear that, with all the associated implications.
        
        None of them other than Peters, have change position since then. He is likely taking advantage of the vacuum. Why didn’t one of National or Act take whatever they perceived as a ‘hit’ and fill that void?
        
        Show me the evidence that I’m wrong for having these concerns.
        
        No I do not like Peters, I can’t think of any politicians I do like.
        
        (I did like Nikki Kaye when she was in government, even though I wasn’t a traditional National supporter, she was a good electorate MP and genuine.)
        
        13 24
        Report
        September 27, 2023 10:21am
      - Mark Hanley
        
        Clan. I would expect the upstanding bill English and Steven Joyce would have followed the NZ pandemic plan (preprepared by National) which was similar to Swedens. Sweden is the predictable winner (in fact I must look up my 2020 posts correctly predicting NZ s covid strategy would fail and Swedens would win)
        
        35 1
        Report
        September 27, 2023 10:40am
      - Taieri
        
        I would expect the upstanding bill English and Steven Joyce would have followed the NZ pandemic plan
        ———-
        
        Impossible to say…
        
        But, what is often forgotten, is a considerable support on the significant part of NZ population for the measures implemented by Ardern. This support, goaded by the media, was in fact a demand, a demand which no politician could entirely ignore. So, while Ardern is ultimately responsible for what’s happened, her decisions were not made in a vacuum.
        
        14 1
        Report
        September 27, 2023 10:57am
      - ClanMcleod
        
        Hmmm – 13 downticks to my reasonable and serious question regarding what NACT might or might have done differently during covid, based on their recorded comments at the time.
        Other than Mark Hanley who has posited an interesting but impossible to verify thought.
        
        So at least 12 people didn’t like the question, but nobody is apparently prepared to address it?
        
        That’s very interesting.
        
        12 10
        Report
        September 27, 2023 11:36am
      - 2ic
        
        @Mark Hanley
        “I would expect the upstanding bill English and Steven Joyce would have followed the NZ pandemic plan (preprepared by National) which was similar to Swedens.”
        
        Why would you think that, when everyone else (other than Sweden) threw their pandemic plans out the window?
        
        This includes the WHO. Their pre-Covid pandemic plan never mentioned measures such as locking down healthy populations – because it was too preposterous to even consider back then. Back then we all knew that quarantine was for sick people.
        
        2 7
        Report
        September 27, 2023 2:10pm
      - Miritu
        
        Maybe chaos is exactly what is needed in order to disrupt the agenda described so well by Krazykiwi
        
        4 1
        Report
        September 27, 2023 2:50pm
      - Mark Hanley
        
        The reason I am confident English and Joyce would have steered us through the covid BS without massive (ongoing) deaths and financial ruination, is because they are both decent honest clever men.
        
        Joyce like Luxon gave up millions to enter politics and the National Party really missed an opportunity when they rejected him for Simon Bridges (although Bridges did some excellent behind the scenes work).
        
        Compare that to the mentally challenged Adern who had no money and very little opportunity, outside suckering idiot NZ voters and dishonest Winston Peters into making her our PM.
        
        Only Evil would go on TV with a medsafe report hidden in her pocket saying the Covid Jab didn’t work and was potentially dangerous, to tell an entire nation the jab was safe and effective. Then proceed to mandate the entire country (including children) to get the jab to line her own pocket with Pfizer stipends.
        
        How many of those children are now dead because of Adern?
        
        Never forgive
        
        Never forget.
        
        10 2
        Report
        September 27, 2023 3:24pm
      - Mark Hanley
        
        MAWN. It is up to us to demand the changes post the election.
        
        Make enough noise and you will be surprised what we can achieve.
        
        It all starts with a party vote for National or ACT.
        
        5 1
        Report
        September 27, 2023 3:35pm
      - tavita
        
        @clan
        Arden and Co took their actions knowing that this was contrary to the advice they were given. National and Act acted on the information given assuming it was true.
        
        0 0
        Report
        September 28, 2023 12:11am
    - 2ic
      
      The country is ‘totally rooted’ (to use your words) under Luxon anyway. Luxon is a Globalist – e.g. his commitment to ‘Net Zero’, Chinese investment in our infrastructure – but more importantly what he doesn’t say.
      
      I’ll give you an example. I heard the talkback call referred to by Redbaiter in the link below where Luxon denied any knowledge of the WEF:
      https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2023/01/general_debate_15_january_2023.html#comment-3303567
      
      However, Luxon worked at Unilever, who are a WEF partner (https://www.weforum.org/organizations/unilever) for 18 years:
      
      https://christopherluxon.national.org.nz/about
      “a successful 18 year career at Unilever, working in New Zealand and around the globe, concluding his time with the company based in Toronto as President and CEO of Unilever Canada.”
      
      It’s not credible to think Luxon is telling the truth when he denies knowledge of the WEF. I just don’t trust him.
      
      10 12
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 11:05am
      - bennerg
        
        What was significant around the world (except Sweden) was the almost universal and immediate adoption of “the one” plan to deal to the “apparent” pandemic. This ignored all the previous planning for pandemics referred to above, ignored medical ethics developed after the Thalidomide tragedy (required testing regimes of 8-12 yrs) and adopted a new proposed risky strategy with active punishment for those speaking out against it. Throw in a paid media belt and you get what we got.
        
        What has not come out is who (or WHO) facilitated and promulgated this coordinated attack on our established democracy and science?
        
        Were the politicinas actually involved, or was it their advisors and mentors that took them there?
        
        And it is a valid question to ask, would Luxon and Seymour have done any different?
        
        Based on my own direct conversation with Seymour he would have “followed the science”. Sadly that “science” he follows is either political science, or the science that comes from institutions that get paid by the very people taking their advice. Hardly independent.
        
        The old adage of “follow the money” applies, and Pfizer got the pay off their US$2 Billion dollar fine in 2009 many times over.
        
        12 4
        Report
        September 27, 2023 12:08pm
      - Mark Hanley
        
        Adern took the Pfizer money, lied to and poisoned the nation, then ran
        
        Luxon has sacrificed millions to leave the private sector and take on the often thankless task of fixing NZ.
        
        Luxon has fixed the National Party, is leading National to a significant electoral win (I’m still confident my high forties prediction will be realized), and his strong team and policies will fix NZ.
        
        The only unanswered question is how will Luxon prevent a repeat of the disastrous adern/hipkins government and the ruinous 9 years of the Clark government.
        
        Some suggestions…
        
        1. A full covid inquiry with criminal charges against those who lied to us and against those who benefitted financially.
        
        2. A forensic review of all government spending and and in depth investigation of tax money recipients linked to MPs and their families. Improprieties must be investigated and prosecuted.
        
        3. A beefed up MP /MP family conflicts of jnterest policy with independent judicial oversight and significant consequences for breaches.
        
        4. Citizens referenda for any policy not articulated and costed prior to the election.
        
        It is time for kiwibloggers to stop moaning about Labour and to start directing their energies towards helping National and ACT repair our country.
        
        14 3
        Report
        September 27, 2023 12:47pm
      - ClanMcleod
        
        Mark Hanley – National would get my vote in a heartbeat if those policies were implemented.
        
        But I’ve yet to hear a single word that they’re considering any of them.
        
        8 6
        Report
        September 27, 2023 1:16pm
      - mawm
        
        Mark – All wonderful ideas but unfortunately Luxon has made no indication that he has the spine to stand up for our sovereignty, or to stop the UN/WHO/WEF/etc implementing their undemocratic policies on us.
        
        5 3
        Report
        September 27, 2023 2:57pm
      - NZer In Exile
        
        I haven’t heard Luxon announcing anything along the lines of firming democracy and/or bringing in more accountability (IE to we the people) for senior public servants and politicians. Maybe there is some incidental stuff in his talks somewhere but he doesn’t sound like a champion of democracy for the people by the people.
        
        3 0
        Report
        September 27, 2023 9:29pm
  - David Garrett
    
    2ic: As the old saying goes, if you think The Great Charlatan is the answer, it must have been a bloody stupid question.
    
    How exactly will him creating chaos in government help counter “the Globalist agenda”…whatever that might be?
    
    71 9
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 8:33am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      Peters was foreign minister that towed the WHO line s as bd locked out peoples out of our once beautiful country.
      
      17 6
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 9:00am
      - imalwaysright
        
        Illegible
        
        17 1
        Report
        September 27, 2023 9:38am
      - gravedodger
        
        He also toed that line?
        
        10 0
        Report
        September 27, 2023 11:30am
    - In Vino Veritas
      
      I have been investing in tinfoil David. Contracted out the hat making part. Had a really cunning idea, got the hat people to put wee aerials on them. Business is booming.
      
      12 3
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 9:07am
      - ClanMcleod
        
        You should put an ad in the ‘Edmond’s Cookbook’, it might come in handy. Unless there are some new ‘conspiracy theories’ out there that haven’t come true?
        
        Or maybe you’ve been ‘fact checking’ and you’ve found more examples of ‘misinformation’?
        
        Tell me more!! Please!
        
        5 5
        Report
        September 27, 2023 11:21am
    - Local Miller
      
      @DG: “the Globalist agenda”…whatever that might be?
      I find this laughable and sad. Almost every significant “conspiracy theory” over the past 10 – 15 years has been proven to be correct. I’m not talking stupid things like “the Twin Towers was a CIA Operation and the towers were collapsed by planted controlled explosives”, I’m talking the real stuff, like Agenda 2030.
      I’ll give you a great current example – The EU. When it was mooted it was to be an Economic Union only, but the “conspiracy theorists” warned that the eventual plan was to make it political and that the EU would eventually have political and legislative control over it’s member states. And look at it now, this is exactly what has happened. While control isn’t absolute, there are a plethora of laws that the UNELECTED EU Parliament have enacted that member states have to obey or face sanction. Look at how difficult it was when Britain tried to exit the EU, that was 100% political pressure, not economic.
      Anyone who follows the WHO, UN, EU, WEF, World Bank, Bank of International Settlements and still doesn’t believe that there is an agenda within these organisations both individually and collectively to in simple terms “rule the world” is ignoring reality.
      The most outspoken of these is Karl Schwab with his “You will own nothing and be happy”. Answer me this: If we own nothing, then who does own it? Why, the elite.
      
      33 5
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 9:40am
      - Jack5
        
        Local Miller’s … Almost every significant “conspiracy theory” over the past 10 – 15 years has been proven to be correct. I’m not talking stupid things like…
        
        Ah .. ah…
        
        Ah bugger, I give up on that, LM.
        
        12 2
        Report
        September 27, 2023 9:58am
      - Che Guava
        
        “I’m not talking stupid things like “the Twin Towers was a CIA Operation and the towers were collapsed by planted controlled explosives””
        
        Although I’m not certain that the CIA did the deed (although it would have to have been one of only about 4 or 5 intel agencies throughout the world with the skill, resources, and motivations eg. MI6, the CIA, the Mossad or the Russian FSB), I think this is a perfectly plausible explanation for what is highly problematic series of events. Consider:
        
        -The collapses looked exactly like controlled explosions would.
        
        -The rubble exhibited the hallmarks of controlled demolition, and contained huge quantities of proxies for high explosive events.
        
        – The physical problems with the official story (in terms of the building’s superior design, the nature of the collapse itself, and the plane design (in terms of possible performance capabilities and destructive capabilities if an impact did occur)).
        
        – That the alleged culprit never took “credit” for it (as you would expect, because that would be the whole point) and that there was almost zero evidence tying it to him, other than the say-so of the US establishment.
        
        – Who benefitted in terms of geopolitical implications over the next two decades and the US domestic policy that resulted.
        
        – And, aside from and independent of all of that, the fatal flaw in the entire “collapse due to plane impact” theory, which is the near-identical collapse of the 47 floor WTC7 building, despite the fact that it wasn’t hit by a plane (and incidentally, home to offices of the Securities and Exchange Commission (working on the Enron investigation), the IRS, the New York City Office of Emergency Management (!), the US Secret Service, the Department of Defense and the CIA among others).
        
        5 21
        Report
        September 27, 2023 10:39am
      - Matt Long
        
        I notice Schwab is quoted as, You will own nothing, not, We will own nothing, I gather he means his cabal will own everything and be very happy.
        
        8 3
        Report
        September 27, 2023 11:05am
      - Che Guava
        
        Posts against the official 9/11 narrative often receive many down votes, but I am yet to encounter any rebuttal or explanation on the question of the collapse of WTC7 as I touch on above.
        
        Here is footage of the event:
        
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiuFpuOsksc
        
        Very significantly and bizarrely, as far as I can tell, the collapse of WTC7 on 9/11 is not even mentioned in the official report, let alone any plausible account given.
        
        https://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf
        
        If this event cannot be adequately explained, then the whole thing collapses (pun intended).
        
        5 15
        Report
        September 27, 2023 11:43am
      - imalwaysright
        
        Che is dead right about the twin towers.
        Most people visualise high rise buildings as fragile stacks of independent blocks when in fact they are intergral structures more akin to a wire birdcage with cladding.
        In the case of these buildings they were in fact the equivalent of three separate yet linked birdcages and are virtually impossible to destroy.
        They were clearly destroyed by engineered explosives.
        
        4 17
        Report
        September 27, 2023 12:32pm
      - Che Guava
        
        imalwaysright
        Of course I’m right – those towers were designed to be near on indestructible by anything other than explosives. And, as I’ve pointed out, WTC7 alone is so anomalous to, and unaccounted for by, the official narrative, that it destroys the argument for an Islamic terror attack, “because they hate our freedoms.” Who makes this stuff up?
        
        You could wait a lifetime for someone give an explanation for WTC7 that doesn’t involve accepting as a consequence that the entire day was an obvious conspiratorial act, but it will never come, because there is no other explanation that doesn’t involve self-delusion. It’s all very hard to accept, but we must accept it.
        
        Popular belief in the official fairytale is, I think, due to an unwillingness to accept the logical conclusions of a rational argument simply because it goes against the irrational, implausible and frankly ridiculous alternatives offered by officialdom, and relatedly, a deep psychological aversion to accepting the fact that we are ruled by psycopaths who lie to the public as easily as they breath if it serves their agenda.
        
        5 11
        Report
        September 27, 2023 2:32pm
      - Local Miller
        
        People who say the twin towers was a controlled detonation haven’t spent any time studying how those detonations are done and have no idea of the logistics of doing this. It takes weeks to months to prepare a building that size for demolition, with literally hundreds of blast holes needing to be drilled, primed with explosives and linked together with blast cord to get a co-ordinated explosion. And to do it to 3 buildings would be literally impossible, especially in 3 buildings being used day and night. Good heavens, what’s that incessant drilling? Don’t worry lady, it’s just routine building maintenance. Yea right – Makes a good Tui add.
        What brings a building down in a demolition is not the explosives, but gravity. The explosions are only to weaken critical points and initiate a collapse, after that gravity takes over. If you watch the footage of the twin towers falling, it’s clear that the floors where the planes impacted were significantly damaged, both by the impact and the explosion of jet fuel. The collapse started with everything above the impact level starting to drop. While the buildings were incredibly well designed, they were not designed to take the collapsing mass of the that much concrete. And as the science of building demolition explains, once the process starts, gravity takes over.
        Also, we don’t know how undamaged WTC7 was because the other 2 towers collapsed on the other side relative to the available camera footage. The other side was blanketed in dust clouds and the whole area was cordoned off except for emergency personnel, especially after the collapse. If the other 2 faces of WTC7 were damaged in the collapse of the twins, then there’s every possibility that was enough to bring it down.
        My problem with the Twin Towers conspiracy theorists is that they ignore the science and any evidence that contradicts their theory.
        
        14 3
        Report
        September 27, 2023 2:35pm
      - Che Guava
        
        Local Miller
        On the one hand, you claim that it is a logistical nightmare to rig a building for explosives, then on the other hand “What brings a building down in a demolition is not the explosives, but gravity. The explosions are only to weaken critical points and initiate a collapse, after that gravity takes over.”
        
        In other words, a minimal number of well-placed charges to blow out the structural support, and then gravity takes over. That is precisely the argument.
        
        Maintenance work is carried out constantly on buildings like these, so it wouldn’t be unusual for workers to be going about things without raising suspicions.
        
        Would it be a 5 minute job? No, but so what? If you want war in the Middle East for 20 years, what’s a few days rigging three buildings (one of them home to branches of the US intelligence community)?
        
        “Also, we don’t know how undamaged WTC7 was because the other 2 towers collapsed on the other side relative to the available camera footage. ”
        
        You’d think the 9/11 report would have been the ideal place to look into this and to offer an explanation, but as I’ve mentioned, no mention was made and no explanation was given.
        
        To me, WTC7 cannot be explained on the accepted hypothesis, which on its own necessarily calls everything else into question.
        
        3 10
        Report
        September 27, 2023 2:51pm
    - Ipanema69
      
      Hi DG,
      
      Completely agree with your sentiments.
      
      Another factor that any Winston First adherent should consider is that the guy is 78 years old (he was born in 1945).
      
      Using the NZ male cohort life tables for an individual born in 1945 there is a 17% statistical probability of WRP shuffling off this mortal coil in the 2023 to 2026 term of parliament.
      
      There is furthermore a 33% statistical probability of this occurring between 2023 and 2029 i.e. in the next two terms of parliament.
      
      The guy is probably not going to be around to live with consequences of his decisions.
      
      20 2
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 9:53am
      - Ghost
        
        Rod Donald died before he was sworn in again, he was 48.
        
        12 0
        Report
        September 27, 2023 10:05am
      - ClanMcleod
        
        Ipanema69 – are Ardern’s parents still around? Just a thought….
        
        4 5
        Report
        September 27, 2023 11:24am
      - NothingLeft
        
        Something to look forward to.
        
        Sad that the worst people tend to die without ever facing punishment. There is little justice in the world.
        
        4 1
        Report
        September 27, 2023 1:14pm
    - 2ic
      
      I don’t think Winston Peter’s is the answer, but having someone like Casey Costello with a voice in parliament will be a good thing for this country.
      
      And I already gave examples of “the Globalist agenda”. The WEF Agenda 2030, Climate Change/Net Zero, WHO Pandemic Treaty, UNDRIP (United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, which NZ First policy is to withdraw us from).
      
      12 8
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 10:06am
      - ClanMcleod
        
        2ic – it’s all there, a lot of people are just starting to catch up with the agenda. Give them time.
        
        8 8
        Report
        September 27, 2023 10:27am
    - ClanMcleod
      
      DG – the fact you said ‘whatever that might be?’ means you don’t understand the problem let alone the question.
      
      7 7
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 10:26am
      - 2ic
        
        I’m sure DG will “own nothing and be happy” by the time he catches up.
        
        6 5
        Report
        September 27, 2023 11:08am
  - Dougal10
    
    That will be the former foreign minister who signed us up for heaps of this shit. If anyone is in the globalists pocket it is him.
    
    30 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 8:34am
    - ClanMcleod
      
      Dougal10 – I don’t really care what people did 4 years ago or whatever. I care about what they are doing and saying now, and Peters is the only one saying anything.
      Quick question, plenty of loud voices on this blog happy to attack Peters for his ‘opportunistic ‘ change of position on covid. Why are National and Act not doing this?
      
      Is there some chance they are in the same greenhouse but haven’t got any stones to throw?
      
      9 7
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 11:28am
  - Waipuk
    
    Unlike the authoritarian communist dictators in Labour, Greens and the Māori parties.
    
    12 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 8:36am
  - Tom Hunter
    
    The DimPost explained this way back in 2008 with Winston in Crisis, especially with the final point:
    
    Friday 10:30 AM: Receives report back from Department of Statistics confirming that proportion of New Zealanders with IQ below 90 is still greater than 5%. Laughs heartily. Tells rest of country to go fuck themselves.
    
    16 3
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 8:46am
    - ClanMcleod
      
      Tom Hunter – the problem’s the opposite to that. It’s people who think they’re smarter than everyone and are too narcissistic to accept any criticism.
      
      Ardern being the ultimate example. Seymour has revealed he’s not much better, his snide and petty remarks in the interview with Bob McCoskrie was a lesson in how to be a petulant, petty brat.
      
      Smacked of arrogance.
      
      I posted this earlier. A blog post explaining the problem. In case you missed it here it is again.
      
      https://www.eugyppius.com/p/vaccines-and-the-midwit-effect-or
      
      We are governed and managed by midwits. A vacuum filled because most decent, intelligent people wouldn’t go near politics or bureaucracy with a 10 foot barge pole.
      
      Decency and intelligence are mutually exclusive in those fields.
      
      11 7
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 10:37am
  - bartybart
    
    your problem with is Winston is that he never delivers on his rhetoric, he lies during the campaign to get votes then simply enjoys his position for 3 years and the constant attention and salary. classic ego/narcissist. I too like what he says about everything you’ve mentioned and more importantly his position on the co-gov maori blackmail, but I absolutely know he wont change a thing once he’s there. His single achievement is the gold card for hells sake.
    
    41 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 8:47am
    - Unity
      
      Sadly bartybart, I totally agree with you. He sounds good until the votes are in and then when he has the chance to do something good for the country, nothing happens. He ‘caught’ me once but never again. However, what he does prove is that from what he promises, he can actually see what’s wrong with this country, but doesn’t give a hoot when it comes down to actually doing something about it when he is in a position to do so. He won’t change!! Please don’t be fooled by hearing the truth and thinking he will do something. He wont!!
      
      27 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 9:34am
  - kowtow
    
    He put Ardern into power and was in cabinet for all the authoritarian hell delivered on us .
    
    And why would you vote for the guy who’ll keep Luxon in power, given what you’ve said above.
    
    27 2
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 8:48am
    - mawm
      
      And that “authoritarian hell” was aided and abetted by National and ACT. What makes them better than Peters?
      
      4 4
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 3:11pm
      - kowtow
        
        Yeah but this thread is specifically about Peters.
        
        3 0
        Report
        September 27, 2023 4:19pm
  - Rusty
    
    @2ic
    
    It’s not the first time the old dog has been called the saviour of democracy in NZ.
    
    Yet I don’t remember him speaking out against the UN, WEF etc, when he was foreign minister.
    
    21 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 8:48am
    - 2ic
      
      To be fair, I didn’t have concerns about those Globalist organisations back then too.
      
      6 2
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 2:13pm
  - Loddenthinks
    
    As the old saying goes, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me 7 times, I can’t believe he did that again!”
    
    47 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 8:56am
    - Kiwisaint
      
      Reminds me of this…
      
      Blackadder:
      ‘It’s the same plan that we used last time and the seventeen times before that’
      
      Melchett:
      ‘Exactly! And that is what is so brilliant about it! It will catch the watchful Hun totally off guard! Doing precisely what we’ve done eighteen times before is exactly the last thing they’ll expect us to do this time!’
      
      17 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 12:32pm
      - krazykiwi
        
        Season 4, Episode 1; “Captain Cook”
        
        2 0
        Report
        September 27, 2023 3:01pm
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    Let me guess Peters is not, even though he was foreign minister when we weee forced to lock down and lock loved ones out of the country
    
    14 2
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 8:59am
    - Jack5
      
      Peters was in a position of power during the early part of the Ardern Covid lockdown.
      
      I’ve heard Peters supporters say he kept a tight rein on the Ardern mob, and stopped them breaking from a slow trot into uncontrolled gallop.
      
      Probably Peters did rein in the Far Left and the race-activist crazies on dual-governance madness, but anti-vaccine folk would contradict themselves if they backed Peters on the ground of his Covid stance.
      
      Peters’s two spells as Foreign Minister were:
      
      A: 19 October 2005 to 19 November 2008.
      
      B: 26 October 2017 to 6 November 2020.
      
      One of Peters’s two spells as deputy Prime Minister was 26 October 2017 to 6 November 2020.
      
      New Zealand began anti-Covid measures on 28 February 2020 and began compulsory isolation in March. The general election was held on 17 October 2020.
      
      Here’s the Covid shutdown timeline, with pictures of Ardern sombre-face:
      
      https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/timeline-the-year-of-covid-19-in-new-zealand/O52TCKO4QXWX27ARQOMTBQNMN4/
      
      13 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 10:25am
      - Dougal10
        
        Te media won’t being any of that up as they are using winny to take down Act.
        
        9 1
        Report
        September 27, 2023 10:54am
  - Philview
    
    David Seymour chose a hard road for himself as sole MP of the ACT party for many years. I am not sure if that was the easiest platform to choose if he is wanting to implement a Globalist agenda. He has been advocating an anglophile free trade zone called something like CANZUK which I can imagine wouldn’t sit well with the Globalist Left.
    
    26 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 9:00am
  - RoboRob
    
    I see, so we deal with the global elite by voting for the politician that has spend the majority of his career overseas negotiating deals with said organisations.
    
    Makes perfect sense. I think I might fight against cliamte change by voting for the man who knows the most about it. I wont name him but I believe he may have a fake degree.
    
    14 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 9:16am
  - leoj
    
    [Mod – use peoples names]
    
    1 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 10:10am
    - leoj
      
      Okay.
      Poisonous Peters put communist Ardern into power.
      
      7 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 11:39am
  - imalwaysright
    
    Hiding a comment because too many pearls have been clutched is infantile.
    
    Are popular comments the only worthy comments ?
    
    6 3
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 12:02pm
    - Ghost
      
      I think that is just part of WordPress
      
      3 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 1:10pm
- Matt Long
  
  CS Lewis made the same point in his Space Trilogy series, left versus right is a side show while the real agenda proceeds behind the curtain.
  
  27 2
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 8:30am
  - kowtow
    
    “They” are very keen to fight climate change , but won’t protect their borders ( a basic duty of govt).
    
    Migration matters.
    
    12 2
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 8:50am
    - ISeeRed
      
      Yep. A family of four in India have a low carbon print. When they immigrate to the West, their carbon footprint explodes. Anyone who’s for fighting climate change must logically be against mass migration. Yet they aren’t. What does that tell you? They don’t know or don’t care. And clowns like this are in charge!
      
      9 2
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 2:12pm
- ClanMcleod
  
  kk – I don’t know if you subscribe to Eugyppius or not? Their latest post was superb.
  
  Vaccines and the Midwit Effect, or: Why smart people seem to believe all manner of crazy things, and smarter people seem to believe them even harder
  
  It makes perfect sense to me. We are ruled by midwits. What a wonderful word. His conclusion.
  
  They have the brains of upper middle-class professionals, and they’re also much more extroverted, conscientious and conformist than the broader population. In academia, where they dominate like nowhere else, we see a range of learned pathologies – not only a deep faith in irrational hygiene procedures like perpetual vaccination and masking, but a whole world of bizarre ideologies pertaining to human gender and biology, the environment and society.
  
  This is the entrenched technocracy that has been built up over decades which is responsible for the madness we are all currently enduring.
  
  Something has obviously gone very wrong with these kinds of people, but – and this is the crucial point – those things which have gone wrong with them are calibrated precisely to that midwit peak. However irrational the ideas current in this sphere, their appeal will increase with intelligence up to a point that is very nearly out of sight from us, because people of outlier high intelligence are extremely rare and their influence is negligible.
  
  The problem is, too few of these midwits will ever jeopardise their position of societal, academic or career status (and income) by ever acknowledging or challenging any the bullshit they have inflicted on the rest of us.
  
  Hence we are inflicted with the Wiles/Baker/Hendy/Jackson set, not to mention the mainly useless clowns polishing the seats in parliament.
  
  https://www.eugyppius.com/p/vaccines-and-the-midwit-effect-or
  
  30 8
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 8:44am
- lastmanstanding
  
  The Left are losing on both sides of the Tasman. In Oz support for the Labor backed The Voice is down to 30% having been 70% at the beginning of the year. The referendum date is 14 October. Aussies have shown they wont be robbed of billions of dollars to be handed to tribal elites and their hangers on.
  I say if a referendum was held on ditching the ToW it would have the same result and the Government that initated it would hold power for at least a decade.
  
  48 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 9:02am
  - Nickc2
    
    I agree with the sentiment.
    However, it will take a generation or two to rid our kids and their kids of the BS teachers have installed in them.
    
    27 2
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 9:18am
    - Jack5
      
      Most young Germans, Austrians, Italians shook off their Nazi-Fascist schooling within a year or two.
      
      8 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 11:40am
      - mawm
        
        Jack – The whole of Germany still lives in the shadow of their Nazi past. It affects their whole society in so many ways.
        
        5 0
        Report
        September 27, 2023 3:19pm
  - leoj
    
    Ditching the ToW sounds like a much better option than having a referendum on the principles.
    
    Maybe that’s something that an ACT member should suggest to Seymour.
    
    Then watch Luxon’s head explode.
    
    16 2
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 10:15am
- cmm
  
  “The left don’t eat the right, neither do the right eat the left. …”
  We don’t even really have a right here. Act is centre right.
  
  As I have said a few time before, the main parties are not really in opposition. They work together like the front and back of a wave: Labour tears it up and National settles it down and makes it work. Then the next wave comes…
  
  They are in cahoots to make it appear that democracy is at work. But in reality they walk in lockstep in the same direction.
  
  The only way this changes is a popularist uprising. Those tend to be ugly.
  
  15 6
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 9:11am
Keith White

Well now. A lesson to be learned here?

“Last week, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele gave a speech to the UN in which he defended his policies of jailing tens of thousands of suspected gang members to improve public safety in what was once the murder capital of the world. . . . There’s no arguing with his results. El Salvador really has changed for the better in the view of most people who live there.”

“If you let crime get out of hand, voters eventually bring in someone who’ll get it in hand.”
48 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 8:07am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Got that Kelvin Davis? Your job is gone sonny.
  
  17 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 9:34am
  - David Garrett
    
    Steve O: Sadly as you well know, the chances of anything like “the El Salvador strategy” to fight violent crime here are slim to non-existent.
    
    20 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 9:50am
    - Media hater
      
      And Slim just left town.
      
      4 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 12:11pm
NeverMindTheBollocks

Two theatre tickets from the night of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination sell for US$262,500.

If you’re a forger, this must be an easier payday than, say, making & selling an Old Master. Period-correct paper & ink, and you’re well on your way. There’ll be no provenance issues, after all.

Not that I’m suggesting these tickets are forged.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-66923246
8 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 8:10am
- imalwaysright
  
  Never,
  
  Expensive ? Yes.
  
  But it was a hell of a show !
  
  6 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 9:11am
- Observant Octagenarian
  
  Afterwards a reporter said to Mrs Lincoln “Apart from that Mrs Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?”
  
  10 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 9:35am
- thirteenstars
  
  Sic semper tyrannis!
  
  3 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 9:51am
peterwn

Cannot see why scheduled buses are being banned from Molesworth St while it is closed to stop protest vehicles. Access needs to be maintained for firefighters, ambos etc so there should be no problem letting buses through the roadblocks.
14 2
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 8:13am
- RoboRob
  
  Only in communist Wellington would the council close a whole heap if streets BEFORE protestors arrive to avoid disruption to citizens and businesses
  
  30 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 9:18am
softail 1450

Krazykiwi ,excellent post, humanity’s future right there, is it to late to stop ???
11 2
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 8:14am
Damocles11

Labour, aided and abetted by their lackeys in the media, are like the face hugger from the Alien movies, clamped firmly over the face of New Zealand with a proboscis down the throat – and one onto the brain as well – and they just grip on tighter if anyone tries to prise them off.
What dirty tricks and massive bribes will they have in store for the nation in the final run up to early voting? Hipkins is halfway through his transformation into something truly feral; it’s a ‘Smeagol to Gollum’ process evidently, with the PM’s chair being “my precious!”
The next debate could be truly wild with Hipkins ranting about spread sheets, cuts, and the imagined dangers of a National lead coalition.
12 3
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 8:14am
slightlyrighty

https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/early-edition/audio/carmel-sepuloni-labours-social-development-spokesperson-on-nationals-welfare-scheme/

So, Carmel is “disgusted” by the National Announcement on welfare? Does she not want National to announce their policies??
25 1
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 8:14am
- pdm
  
  SR – counter to that Christine Rankin loves it!!!
  
  22 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 9:16am
- 7kiwi11
  
  The media never ask the obvious question ” So Ms Sepuloni, are you saying you don’t expect people on the job seekers benefit to actually seek a job?”
  
  24 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 10:27am
  - rouppe
    
    I heard the former chief of staff to Ardern say on the radio that “many people on job seeker can’t work because of injuries or some condition” (words to that effect).
    
    Why then are they on job seeker, and not on sickness benefit?
    
    16 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 12:54pm
    - Ghost
      
      Because national changed the benefits, they got rid of sickness benefit and people with a sickness were put on jobseekers, they got rid of invalids and they were put of supported living.
      
      3 2
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 1:06pm
      - NZer In Exile
        
        Hence “the nasty nats” moniker. Perhaps they should avoid going overboard with petty nastiness like that in future. It only invites a communist/woke-lunacy takeover.
        
        1 0
        Report
        September 27, 2023 9:38pm
JJ56

Some wise thoughts for the Nats on environmental policy over at Point of Order https://pointofordernz.wordpress.com/2023/09/27/green-right-turn-in-britain-well-a-start/

Go back to your roots, drop command and control, and let the people adapt in the ways that work best for them.
12 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 8:15am
imalwaysright

The UN 2030 meeting will be on zoom rather than in person.
What an embarrassment for the UN and Sir Ashley .
The brave protestors have won before they have even turned up.

The protestors should bypass Parliament and the keystone cops and their illegal roadblocks and locked Parliament gates and protest at the hotels that the leeches are staying at. Don’t let them off the hook.
21 2
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 8:15am
TripeWryter

I am not surprised that Chloe Swarbrick – according to The New Zealand Herald – is in a close fight in Auckland Central.
Over the last year I have been hearing from young relatives in the electorate once enraptured with Chloe that they have become unenraptured.
‘Chloe never turns up unless there’s a TV camera – or camera – going to be there,’ – Grand-niece, 23.
‘Chloe has done nothing to stop the crime and the anti-Asian racism in the Auckland CBD.’ – A Filipina cousin of my granddaughter’s, mid 20s.
I would add that anti-Asian racism by young Maori and Pacific Islanders is a ‘thing’ in New Zealand, and I have said before it is barely reported on by our news media.
I am not surprised, either, that the National candidate pushing Chloes hard is ‘Asian’.

On something completely different I see that the Herald’s court reporter in Christchurch is outraged that the Jaz brothers’ defence manouevres in their ‘Mama Hooch’ case has cost about $900,000.
Well, Anna Leask, that’s the system we have. You as an experienced court reporter should know that.
The Jaz brothers, repellent as they are, made use of the system and laws available to them and to all of us.
Writing, as you usually do, with a strong streak of indignation and then going around looking for someone to say ‘how terrible’ does not change that.
37 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 8:19am
- Swifty
  
  What does Leask offer as an alternative to legal aid?
  
  Justice only for the well-heeled?
  
  14 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 9:28am
- 7kiwi11
  
  I bet she is totally fine with the millions spent on cultural reports… because you know.. equity… historic injustices…treaty principles… systemic bias.. yada yada yada
  
  14 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 10:35am
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  I watched them deliver the poll last night, 2% in it, Labour on 12% NZF on 4% but they stated that since the poll NZF has pulled their candidate, so 4% the greens won’t get, she looked very worried looking at the screen before the numbers came up
  
  11 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 11:07am
  - NothingLeft
    
    Why would she care, she’s easily going to get in with her high list place. She’d likely be relieved if she no longer had to pretend to care about an electorate.
    
    7 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 1:18pm
    - NeverMindTheBollocks
      
      But then she doesn’t get to lord it over the other Green MPs
      
      0 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 6:06pm
Matt Long

The Free Speech Union in the UK successfully pushes back against their Gender Conversion Bill which in New Zealand was overwhelmingly passed by our authoritian anti liberty parties
https://x.com/franks_lawyer/status/1706566831732052364?s=20
34 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 8:20am
Flossie

I think I am right that Hipkins is going to make some financial announcement today. A forlorn hope, but maybe somebody in the media is going to start hassling him for his costings??
And the Greens too even though they seem to think their wealth tax will cover all their promises. People would have to sell assets to pay this tax so who are they supposed to sell them to?
25 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 8:22am
- artemisia
  
  France tried a wealth tax. For a while. Unexpectedly (apparently), rich folk found many countries with wide open arms. Some just involving a stroll across the border.
  
  The wealthy have options.
  
  27 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 9:21am
- Taieri
  
  People would have to sell assets to pay this tax so who are they supposed to sell them to?
  ————
  
  The Green Party led government will happily take them over.
  
  13 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 9:29am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Only National have costings. Labour and the rest have ‘wild guesses.’
  
  12 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 10:01am
Matt Long

Let’s take the Train because public transport in the UK is so totally excellent.
The story is so bad it’s funny.
https://x.com/JamesNokise/status/1706433356186161479?s=20
14 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 8:23am
Gravelroad

I’m a pragmatist, KK.
First I want to see an urgent change of government here – so that the ordinary people like me and mine can get on with our lives without the constant concern of authoritarian, communist influenced “we know best” dictators telling us what to do, how to speak, what to eat, where to live, what to do for a job and how to spend our coin.
Am totally over the divisive influence of the Labour Party and the Greens. Ti Pati Maori can also take a hike – stop talking and do some work to help repair the damage done to our country.
58 2
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 8:25am
- krazykiwi
  
  It’s an illusion, Gravel. You have still have these downsides after a change of government. They’ll simply feel different, and the ‘rosy glow’ will kick in providing an unconscious bias allowing you to rationalise being short changed.
  
  23 6
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 8:34am
  - Gravelroad
    
    Pragmatist:
    “a person who is guided more by practical considerations than by ideals.
    “hardheaded pragmatists firmly rooted in the real world”
    2.
    PHILOSOPHY
    an advocate of the approach that evaluates theories or beliefs in terms of the success of their practical application.”
    Please advise “how we change what we demand of our leaders”?
    
    7 2
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 8:57am
    - krazykiwi
      
      Like many, Gravel, you appear content to demand that one lot is removed from office so another lot can take over to ‘fix things’. Others will demand the reverse next cycle. Rinse. Repeat. My contention is that this process is being promoted by, and is for the benefit of global elites, who are slowing crushing our personal sovereignty.
      
      In terms of changing what we demand of our leaders, I settle for demanding less pop-rhetoric around education, health etc and demanding more about the strengthening of statute-supported civil liberties, restrictions on the state’s power, and the prevention of diminished national sovereignty by rejecting any transfer of power from democratically elected new zealand representatives to supra-national entities like the UN, WHO and BIS.
      
      15 4
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 9:10am
      - cmm
        
        Yup, the only way to personal sovereignty (as much of it as can be saved) is to construct your life so that you depend as little as possible on the government.
        
        Sure it is not realistic to build your own personal roads and hospitals etc but there are quite a few things you can do to protect yourself.
        
        If you think your life depends on Labour, National or Act being in power then you are in a perilous state.
        
        16 4
        Report
        September 27, 2023 9:24am
    - Che Guava
      
      “Please advise “how we change what we demand of our leaders”?”
      
      How about stop voting for them simply because they are allegedly “better than the other lot” and also because you’ve always voted for them in the past. This seems to me to be the actually pragmatic approach.
      
      What incentive is there for them to change, when people will vote for them regardless? None. Let them be out of a job or sit in opposition for a decade until they change. Until they change (in particular, I want them to be more hardcore rightwing e.g. anti-progressive, anti-liberal and thus pro-social conservative), then it doesn’t make much difference if they aren’t in government anyway.
      
      8 5
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 9:54am
  - Che Guava
    
    That’s exactly the point: presenting the public with apparent options gives the appearance of popular sovereignty and with it, the possibility of real change. But a change of management isn’t a change of the enterprise at a fundamental level.
    
    Only when, as the best example, someone like Trump comes along (with the possibility of real change that he represents) does the pretense get dropped and all “sides” come together as a unified force against the outside threat.
    
    The Clintons, Bush, Cheney, Obama, Romney, Biden, McCain (when living), Pelosi, Schumer, AOC, Crenshaw, McCarthy, McConnell and all these characters are all basically on the same team.
    
    In that case, it’s not Dems v GOP, its the entire Establishment v Trump. The people who shit on Trump may as well just openly support the Dems, because the GOP and Dems are basically indistinguishable.
    
    In the case of New Zealand, I regularly make the case that both Labour and National governments have between them taken us to the same destination, just by slightly different routes. The result is the same. The same is true of Labour v Tories, Labor v Liberal, and Dems v GOP. None of it really matters, because none of them represent the popular interest.
    
    14 3
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 9:06am
    - imalwaysright
      
      Well said,
      
      Even the blurred lines between supposedly opposing parties have disappeared .
      
      The soon to depart Dan Andrews seemed to go one further and combine government and crime.
      
      Unfortunately the public now have an inbuilt acceptance of this bastardisation and corruption of democracy and government and will subsequently lower their expectations, and increase their tolerance, of candidates, MPs, public servants, and governments.
      
      The other asset future governments will have is the publics increased propensity to comply with government directives .
      The public have been taught that compliance and cooperation are the same thing.
      
      12 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 10:01am
- ClanMcleod
  
  Gravelroad – in response to your apparently rational and reasoned position, answer me this.
  
  I’ve been repeatedly attacked and downticked on KB for daring to even suggest that NACT are not my preferred choice this election. No problem, I get the angst.
  I’ve been accused of being a Peters supporter, nothing could be further from the truth. I’ve been idealistic and mentioned NZ Loyal and Liz Gunn as someone ‘nice’ to vote for.
  
  To anyone paying attention, clearly the whole covid thing is my number one concern and driver of the vast majority of my posts. I’m not a political animal. I only appeared on KB due to what happened during covid. One of the bonuses being access to an open forum where I got to read mainly rational and intelligent discussion. I also got to meet a couple of the contributors when I went to the protest in Wellington.
  
  Anyway.
  
  The one constant retort used by those so angry at the position I’ve put forward has been, “it was Peters who gave us Ardern in the first place.”
  
  Their point clearly being, it was Ardern who was the dictator who inflicted all of the tyrannical policies like mandates and passports on us, that somehow, none of this would have happened if Peters had gone with National.
  
  Please, correct me if I’m wrong. My recollection of the worst policies and human rights abuses in the earliest covid days – (which MAYBE could be excused as blind panic due to lack of information) – was that National and Act’s only responses were, they would do the same only ‘more efficiently’.
  
  Remember ‘door to door jabs’, ‘get boosted’ Bishop?
  
  The only conclusion I can come to is, if Peters had gone with NACT, the lockdowns, mandates, passports, segregation and other joys of the last few years would have still happened. That the only difference is, it would have been ‘managed more effectively’. I shudder to think how ‘more effectively’ would have looked.
  
  Detention camps maybe? Actual forced vaccination? ‘Better’ contact tracing’? Tighter vax passport controls? Who knows, we might have even saved some money……..
  
  Feel free to explain to me why my thinking is wrong, why none of the same wouldn’t have happened under NACT/NZF.
  
  I’m still a genuinely undecided voter. If you can convince me that the same shit wouldn’t have happened under a different government there is a very strong chance of modifying my election choices.
  
  Cheers.
  
  21 12
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 9:05am
  - Che Guava
    
    If people are busy fixating on people, then they aren’t thinking about principles. Party politics in 2023 is to a large extent just another form of bread and circuses that prevents us considering deeper issues and asking questions about our political system.
    
    Rather than concern myself with trivia such as who will be the MP for Wellington Central or Rangitīkei, I’m much more interested in meta-politics, the nature of power and how it is used, long term trends and historical analogies, and discerning the truth lying behind a century or more of lies promulgated through mass media to support popular narratives that shape our worldviews, and justify maintain existing power structures.
    
    Does it matter who is in government at any one moment? Perhaps it does, but not very much and certainly not as much as we are lead to believe.
    
    15 7
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 9:21am
    - ClanMcleod
      
      Che Guava – I’ve made a conscious decision that this will be the last election I participate in.
      
      I will do so with a vague hope of some radical change towards a genuinely participatory democracy, what we have now is neither.
      
      My hopes are not high, which is why I’ve been making my family as independent and self reliant as humanly possible.
      
      I am always hopeful that nothing untoward transpires, but I prefer to ‘be prepared’.
      
      10 4
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 10:44am
  - imalwaysright
    
    Clan,
    
    Well put.
    
    Remember that the draconian regime only eased the jackboots from our throats when the polls eventually told them to.
    The so called conspiracy theorists and the brave Parliament protestors got the message out and more kiwis started to become skeptical.
    
    Some also forget how badly the government were preforming pre covid. The writing was on the wall for the 2020 election that labour would lose.
    
    Panic, fear, ignorance (sometimes willful), dependancy and cowardice got them reelected.
    
    New Zealand is weakened but can come back. The Blame Game , justified or otherwise , doesn’t put food on the table.
    It is time for some to stop complaining and start looking forward to a brighter more prosperous future for everyone .
    
    Keep up the good work
    
    17 3
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 9:31am
  - RoboRob
    
    Hi Clan
    
    ‘…somehow, none of this would have happened if Peters had gone with National.
    
    No that argument relates to all of Labours other disastrous policy changes. We wouldn’t have high crime, a failing education and health system and as bad inflation. I understand your sole focus is on COVID, and I respect that, but most people here are focused on the bigger picture.
    
    ‘if Peters had gone with NACT, the lockdowns, mandates, passports, segregation and other joys of the last few years would have still happened. That the only difference is, it would have been ‘managed more effectively’.
    
    Correct. We would not have wasted as much money, leaked as many people through the borders, slanged off innocent people for crossing ‘boundaries’, blocked pregnant NZers coming home etc. We may not have had as many or as long lockdowns but we would have had the vax, passports and probably masks etc.
    
    Funnily enough your argument above is that essentially Winston would have made no difference to the covid response regardless of which parties he was in power with. I actually agree. He probably actually agrees with most or all of the response. He is also lazy and would have followed the train. As he did with other labour policies. Winston only went anti Covid response after getting the arse. His promises around covid are nothing burgers. In my opinion you are wasting your time trying to find a party that can retrospectively fix our covid response. Apologies are meaningless. You would be better looking for other things you think are important and measuring parties on their plans around those things.
    
    19 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 9:35am
    - Dodger
      
      I agree Rob. I would like to know if Adern or Hipkins had apologised and said “we made a mistake,” would Clan now be voting for Labour.
      He’s said in the past that he can’t vote for Seymour because he won’t recant what he said about the vaccines back then.
      
      12 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 11:15am
      - ClanMcleod
        
        Dodger, no, I won’t be voting Labour again, until at a very minimum, there is not a single one of those currently in the party still there. If the cancer is removed and they revert to their traditional core values, then I might consider supporting them
        This is extremely unlikely to happen in my lifetime so I’m fairly certain it’s a definite no.
        
        As for NACT, they are rapidly running out of time to do some sort of mea culpa. They are very close to the same box as Labour.
        
        That’s why I posted above that this is likely to be the last election I participate in.
        
        10 6
        Report
        September 27, 2023 12:33pm
      - ClanMcleod
        
        Also I fully acknowledge that Labour were horrendous at every aspect of governance even excluding covid response. However my number one concern is a return to covid policies by another government.
        
        Nothing I’ve seen or heard from NACT indicates either that they wouldn’t have done the same, nor that they wouldn’t try and repeat it if the WHO was to announce another ‘pandemic’.
        
        I wish this wasn’t the case, it would make voting an awful lot easier.
        
        9 6
        Report
        September 27, 2023 1:23pm
      - RoboRob
        
        @ClanMcleod
        
        Do you really believe that in a government led by Labour in coalition with Winston Peters or National in coalition with Winston Peters, that
        
        a) Winston could make a difference in a pandemic response.
        
        b) Winston would even try to make a difference in a pandemic response.
        
        4 0
        Report
        September 27, 2023 2:54pm
  - Gravelroad
    
    @clan – I agree that voting for “Mr Run with the hares, hunt with the hounds” Peters is a tempting proposition for some.
    But I don’t trust him to do the right thing.
    Being in the agriculture/farming/primary production sector is not conducive to voting for parties , such as Labour and Greens, which actively seek to destroy my interests (and NZ’s export income).
    So, in a way, I feel the same about my possible election choices as you do about who you can vote for to achieve what you see as a just outcome and reckoning for the covid scenario.
    All the political parties jumped on the covid bandwagon at the time.
    Not all the parties actively campaigned against agriculture- so an easier choice for me perhaps – if I were to look at the election only through that narrow focus.
    Bottom line is that there is only one party I can somewhat trust to turn the ship around and govern in the best interests of the people – all the people.
    And that would be National – with the assistance of ACT to keep them focussed and active on promised change.
    Disclaimer: I am not, nor ever have been. a member of any political party.
    
    15 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 9:49am
  - Littletramp
    
    Clan, I hear you and usually agree with your concerns, but here are my reservations with your comments that National simply endorsed most of the illogical nonsense that Labour mandated on this country during covid – FWIW.
    Factually you are correct, but politically I believe you should consider this.
    What benefit was there for National in opposition at the time, to openly question any majority govt dictats (supplemented by a sympathetic & controlled media) when nothing National or anyone said to the contrary would be listened to, and/or only used as ammo against them via the media? Answer – none.
    I give these guys benefit of the doubt in that they were not the ones who screwed the whole thing up like Labour did, through their ignorance, arrogance and then opportunism to steal billions of taxpayer dollars.
    As the world covid narrative drifted our (NZ) way early 2020, we all sat at home saying surely this appears serious enough that we need the public/private best and brightest to come together & work out how we approach this as a nation. Our best medical and logistics people offered their services and were basically punched in the face by Labour, who presented us instead with a bunch of Labour supporting academics who just went along with WHO instructions.
    Anyone who stuck their head above the pulpit got belted so why do it?
    I propose that if If National had of been in power in early 2020, a whole different approach may have taken, and we must give benefit of the doubt to anything they said while they were powerless opposition.
    IMHO – Such is politics and maybe give them a free ride on this, until they get in power and prove otherwise.
    It is pointless picking over each sides policies as your choice is much simpler that that.
    More of the same, or change.
    
    13 2
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 10:12am
    - Ghost
      
      It is the oppositions job to hold the government to account, not to sit there doing nothing because the media sides with the government.
      
      12 4
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 10:22am
      - Littletramp
        
        B/S – not at that time on covid. The full weight of the media, police, public opinion came down on dissenters – have you forgotten already Casper?
        
        11 4
        Report
        September 27, 2023 10:55am
      - Ghost
        
        No, not bs, when a government is taking away people’s rights, segregating society, manning barricades with gang members, lying about people to the media, lying about the equipment our hospitals have, lying about the Covid deaths, forcing a vaccine on people if they wanted to keep their jobs that is exactly when the opposition should be standing up.
        
        11 1
        Report
        September 27, 2023 11:03am
      - Taieri
        
        And the Opposition was very conspicuous by its silence…
        
        8 2
        Report
        September 27, 2023 11:10am
      - 70andstilllearning
        
        Which the opposition(s) did with considerable success through the Epidemic Response select committee during the initial Parliamentary adjournment. Was it any surprise that the government abandoned that model when the Auckland lock down created more difficulties in running a normalised parliament? Much easier to remove the lens though which the public might see matters in a way that could create “communication” difficulties for the government.
        
        5 1
        Report
        September 27, 2023 11:32am
      - krazykiwi
        
        “And the Opposition was very conspicuous by its silence”
        
        … because our so-called opposition* is simply a promoter of the same uniparty narrative (Govt knows best, the jabs aren’t harmful, humans are cooking the planet, the UN is laudable etc)
        
        *not just ours, most across the Western world
        
        9 2
        Report
        September 27, 2023 1:05pm
      - NothingLeft
        
        The media just refused to report anything that didn’t go along with Labour’s narrative, unless it was negative with regard to National/Act. Labour shut down the government so that they could have unfettered and unopposed control over NZ for the duration of the ’emergency’, ignoring all suggestions for work-arounds.
        
        The MSM abandoned journalism and became full time Regime propagandists. Ardern was getting 10-20minutes a day of uncritical fawning media coverage (when a short press release would have been far more efficient, and not wasted everybody time with a naked preening exercise), and everybody else was ignored or derided.
        
        7 1
        Report
        September 27, 2023 1:31pm
      - NZer In Exile
        
        National is largely just Labour with better macro economic and project management skills. All the woke crap pushed by unelected woke muppet groups (UN etc etc) will still be pushed.
        
        We do just have to get the clown show out right now and that is ACT/Nats and possibly NZF if you will. The alternative is the clown show completely destroying the now battered remains of NZ.
        
        Later I’d suggest growing the small integrity based parties if ACT/Nats prove to be just more dictatorial wokesters.
        
        0 0
        Report
        September 27, 2023 9:51pm
    - ClanMcleod
      
      Littletramp – I hear you, and I understand but respectfully disagree with your pov.
      
      Doing the ‘right thing’ is exactly what it sounds like. It’s the right thing, irrelevant of the consequences. Kowtowing to tyranny only encourages it.
      As the saying goes, ‘you cannot comply your way out of tyranny’.
      
      It might sound idealist, but it’s something I’ve lived my whole life, including through covid. To much personal disadvantage. Nothing remotely as bad as that suffered by others who took a similar stance.
      
      Search for Keith White’s comments on what happened to him and his family from yesterday’s General Debate. I don’t know how to link directly to it.
      
      https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2023/09/general_debate_26_september_2023.html
      
      Then tell me it was ‘hard’ for politicians to oppose the worst tyranny in NZ history.
      
      I always find the story of the ‘White Rose’ student led opposition during the Nazi era. Hint, it doesn’t have a happy ending.
      
      https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/sophie-scholl-and-white-rose
      
      And this famous photo is particularly inspirational. August Landmesser who refused to give a Nazi salute.
      
      https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/the-tragic-story-of-the-man-who-refused-to-salute-adolf-hitler-d7d1a9e75ca0
      
      Again, not a happy ending. But it reminds me of what the human spirit should be, but rarely is. If it was moreso we might find we don’t end up in such nightmare scenarios quite as often.
      
      6 4
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 11:06am
    - Keith White
      
      If enough people had joined those sticking their heads above the parapet, based on nothing more than bodily autonomy, freedom of speech, informed consent, and the doctrine of do no harm in other words, not even going near “does the WuFluvax work and is it safe” or not – then we’d have been a majority.
      
      11 2
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 11:46am
      - krazykiwi
        
        By my reckoning, the global elites who want to subjugate us, stealing our wealth and liberty number, at most, a few tens of thousands. There literally billions of the rest of us, so the shortage is one of urgency, agency and action.
        
        9 2
        Report
        September 27, 2023 1:09pm
  - leoj
    
    Clan,
    
    In the past I always sprang to National’s defence when anyone suggested that there was little difference between the two main parties.
    
    How wrong I was, and how right you are.
    
    They’re both a bunch of bastards.
    
    Effectively, I have no one to vote for this time around. The protests proved beyond a doubt that ALL the parties are in lock-step with each other.
    
    11 6
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 10:36am
    - Keith White
      
      What was heartening about the protest (I was only there for one day, then back to work) was it was a truly diverse community of New Zealanders. Far more diversity then we see anywhere else except possibly farmers markets and some sports events.
      
      11 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 11:48am
      - ClanMcleod
        
        Keith White – I was there for ten days, they were doing the best I’ve experienced, certainly smoking the kids memorable. I met many wonderful people.
        
        6 3
        Report
        September 27, 2023 12:38pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Not just a change of Government, but a Government who will change New Zealand into something much, much better. We are headed in the wrong direction. Fuck what other Countries are doing, we don’t live in other Countries.
  The lazy, whimpering, offended little shits need a size 10 regulation working boot up the arse. I have don’t my share, now you do yours.
  We need to stop having so many with hurty feelings and welfare dependent.
  Get out there, get a second or even a third job. I did, that is why I am freehold with vehicles, boats and a caravan. Living on 5 hours sleep a day is easy when you are young and determined. Stay out of the pub and off the booze and drugs. The World/Taxpayer does not owe you a living. You owe you a living. Anyone disagree?
  
  Rant over.
  
  29 2
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 9:12am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    Done* my share. I did proof read this but missed it 3 times!
    
    6 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 10:16am
Steve Otto(North Shore)

David Seymour sticking to his guns on the Treaty.
A referendum on the Waitangi Tribunal is needed. The gravy train needs to be stopped for the good of New Zealand.
Separate Maori this, separate Maori that is blatant racism, and has nothing to do with the Treaty as we know it.
Co-Governance has to be stopped. Why won’t Labour talk about this? Are they already committed? Asking the opinion of Waititi is asking for a headache.
Ruling out working with the Greens is a good move. Greens are not the Greens of yesteryear, they are communists.
Willie Jackson refers to Davis Seymour as the most dangerous man in Aotearoa. What about New Zealand Willie? What are you scared of Willie? Afraid that the Elite Maori will be stopped from the Tyrannical Tribal rule? We all know it has been happening since the creation of the Waitangi Tribunal in 1975.
For those that don’t know, the modern Treaty includes “forestry and fisheries” which were NOT in the original version in Moari or the Littlewood Draft.

https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/other/election-2023-act-leader-david-seymour-holds-firm-on-treaty-of-waitangi-referendum-demand/ar-AA1hfqTu
58 2
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 8:26am
- David Garrett
  
  Steve O: Seymour is making a fool of himself talking about “bottom lines” re a deal with the Nats.
  
  Even the dumbest voter knows that ACT has only potential coalition partner, and that is the Nats.
  
  32 2
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 8:40am
  - pdm
    
    DG you have been there and done that.
    
    Why do you think the ACT vote has fallen from 12/15% to the current 9% in such a short time?
    
    12 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 8:46am
    - Damocles11
      
      If you believe the polls that is. Have you ever been contacted by pollsters?
      
      17 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 8:52am
      - pdm
        
        D!! – never.
        
        mrspdm was contacted in the lead up to the 2007 election being the only time in 53 and a half years in our household.
        
        9 0
        Report
        September 27, 2023 9:31am
      - RoboRob
        
        Yes! Wife did the Roy Morgan poll a last week.
        
        7 0
        Report
        September 27, 2023 9:38am
      - wsk12345
        
        Do they call mobile numbers? I never answer the phone to numbers I do not know. I bet many other folk are the same- but do they tend one way in particular politically?
        
        4 0
        Report
        September 27, 2023 3:16pm
      - Ghost
        
        Constantly online. Had one yesterday.
        
        1 0
        Report
        September 27, 2023 3:17pm
    - greybeard
      
      You are saying that based on one poll !
      Do you not question that result for the Greens as well ?
      
      8 1
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 8:59am
      - pdm
        
        gb – I do question the Greens but to my knowledge DG has no association with the Greens that gives him the same insight he has with ACT.
        
        BTW to some extent it has been a trend down with ACT over the last few polls.
        
        Personally I don’t think either the ACT 9% or the Green 14% are reflective of what we will see in a couple of weeks. I think they will roughly be reversed but I am interested in David’s opinion.
        
        If he is prepared to comment of course.
        
        10 0
        Report
        September 27, 2023 9:30am
    - kowtow
      
      Bear in mind your average voter is not that clever and is in fact extremely fickle .
      
      Witness the 2020 covid landslide to Ardern and where has that got anyone and where are those voters now.
      
      Menwhile there’s only one poll that counts .
      
      The media really are whipping up these polls , for what they’re wotrth , to generate their failing revenues and relevance.
      
      It’s now totally over the top.
      
      Bring on election day and consign the regime and their media enablers to the bin.
      
      12 2
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 9:25am
    - cmm
      
      I’ll guess it is because of “bottom lines”.
      
      Most people voting for Act are really voting for the idea of National + Act.
      
      Too many bottom lines makes this problematic. If Seymour starts demanding too much and making NACT fragile then Act support will clearly drop.
      
      9 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 9:27am
      - Colville
        
        Most people voting for ACT are doing so to give National a spine and especially on Treaty issues.
        
        Isnt it circa 50% of voters want a referendum?
        
        But yes…the devil is in the detail. What will the question be??
        
        13 0
        Report
        September 27, 2023 9:49am
      - leoj
        
        All that proves is how gutless many voters are.
        
        6 1
        Report
        September 27, 2023 10:41am
  - kevn
    
    DG… and Seymour is being rewarded (not) in the polls by trailing the greens ffs.
    
    8 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 8:47am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      Only got himself to blame
      
      7 2
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 9:12am
  - hmmokrightitis
    
    Seymour will no doubt be feeling chastened by his recent stupidity, seemingly bred of arrogance. Unlikely but there you go.
    
    He had a chance to make a difference and by being an arrogant knob hes kicked ACT into a small party touch, as noted, behind the Greens. Well done David, well done. But then I have no sympathy for the party of freedom. When he had his chance to demonstrate the fact that the BoRA meant something he went AWOL.
    
    The sooner ACT remove him the better.
    
    17 8
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 8:56am
    - Colville
      
      Without Seymour ACT would vanish.
      
      17 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 9:51am
      - hmmokrightitis
        
        I’m not so sure. Yes, he’s done a good job building them up over recent years, but firstly his abandoning of support for protecting individual rights and now hubris (its as simple as that for me) means the decline is pretty much on him.
        
        If the key messages are reinforced and they go back to supporting individual freedoms I could see another leader come through. Probably not the current Deputy, but the potential is there.
        
        8 0
        Report
        September 27, 2023 10:25am
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        They just might next election
        
        1 0
        Report
        September 27, 2023 11:13am
      - kevn
        
        Col… Just like NZF and peters.
        
        4 0
        Report
        September 27, 2023 12:04pm
  - emmess
    
    ACT is starting to piss me off with their embrace of wokeness, with which there is nothing liberal about.
    I can’t bring myself to vote NZ First this election, given Winston’s treachery putting Jacinda into power, but if they perform well in this parliament, I could see myself voting for them in 2026, especially if Winston retires.
    I would hazard a guess that I am not alone, in my thinking.
    
    11 6
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 9:06am
    - thirteenstars
      
      “ACT is starting to piss me off with their embrace of wokeness…”
      
      Enlighten us with examples of woke ACT policy, policy which is fulsomely presented on their website.
      
      12 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 9:55am
      - Pope Punctilious II
        
        I can’t comment on policy, but all of ACT’s current MP’s voted for the so-called Conversion Practices legislation, which effectively criminalized parents and medical professionals who are reluctant to “affirm” a child’s gender dysphoria.
        
        5 0
        Report
        September 27, 2023 1:08pm
      - NZer In Exile
        
        Embracing full term abortion with gusto?
        
        I do wonder if a young, never married, no kids guy who really hasn’t had THAT MUCH life experience is going to work out well.
        
        0 0
        Report
        September 27, 2023 9:57pm
    - kowtow
      
      Then it will be the Jones First Party .
      
      Good luck with that.
      
      7 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 10:12am
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    Perhaps he could stop advertising it’s not good enough to just change from red to blue
    
    5 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 9:08am
  - Libertarians are right
    
    If only ACT had an option other than going into a coalition?
    
    6 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 9:16am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      What do you think they should be government at 8%? His arrogance was always going to undo them
      
      2 6
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 11:14am
      - Damocles11
        
        So Seymour suggesting ‘bottom lines’ is ‘arrogance’, yet Winston can thunder away all he likes and that is ‘strong’. Meanwhile Te Pati Maori and the Greens can both declare that a ‘Wealth Tax’ is a ‘bottom line’. Perhaps the only party not allowed bottom lines is ACT(?)
        
        The media are trying to disparage and destroy ACT, and so are many people on this site who are trying to drag ACT voters across to Winston. Seymour says nothing and he is ‘weak’ and ‘woke’, he pipes up and he is ‘arrogant’. Why would anyone vote ACT if they just expect Seymour to fall meekly into line behind Luxon? You’d be voting for ACT for ‘real change’, not to take orders from the party in blue.
        
        7 0
        Report
        September 27, 2023 12:25pm
      - Libertarians are right
        
        Of course they should be in a Right wing Government at 8%. What, do you think National should govern alone at 38-40%? No-one is suggesting ACT should be in control with only 8% but they should have a voice.
        It worries me that there’s completely antidemocratic people that think ACT should just shut up and do what they’re told – those people want my voice silenced.
        ACT are never going to overplay their hand as that would be electoral suicide and you know that.
        
        6 0
        Report
        September 27, 2023 2:07pm
- Damocles11
  
  And this is why the media are so desperate to collapse ACT’s vote.
  
  19 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 8:40am
  - thirteenstars
    
    Just as the Nat stalwarts are.
    
    They better be careful for what they wish. A bit of a percentage change here and there and National might find itself unable to form a stable government making the English-Peters clusterfuck of 2017 look like brilliant statesmanship.
    
    9 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 9:59am
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  I thought we want to stop the division on racial lines, the TOW is fine as long as others do not read other stuff into it, I am happy with Tow when it’s says we are one people equally
  
  11 2
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 9:07am
  - leoj
    
    All the ToW does now is divide people. It needs to be ditched.
    
    Have a referendum on scrapping it, not just the “principles”.
    
    8 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 10:45am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      That is Acts fault through snd through, you Act stalwarts have to stop worrying about a Nat stalwart, it’s ACT that has stuffed it, not Nats, it’s ACT leeching yo the charlatan
      
      2 7
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 11:21am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      Rubbish, the only ones divided are the rotten Māori elites
      
      5 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 11:22am
  - wsk12345
    
    Yeah but the current lot would have you believe it says partnership. It does not. So we need an answer either legally or by referendum as to its future in our constitution.
    
    2 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 3:21pm
Notsofast

New Zealand must take very seriously what is happening in England. Helen Joyce and her Sex Matters organisation are correcting these matters. David Seymour still conflates attempting to change sex orientation with suggesting people should run with the body they came in.
New Zealand law is completely wrong, and a reminder that parliament is a fallible institution.
A simple prediction is history will show this to the profound embarrassment of the 121.
8 3
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 8:28am
- Pope Punctilious II
  
  Yes, it’s damning that only 8 of our parliamentarians opposed that nefarious bill championed by the Greens. The rest apparently think an impressionable 13 yr old is in a position to give informed consent to puberty blockers, followed by cross-sex hormones and surgical mutilation.
  
  8 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 11:03am
Hugh Jarse

Genuine question, I see that a $100 million revamp of Ōpōtiki Harbour has been completed. I am not familiar with the area so wondered how many ships use this port and for what?. Is it one of New Zealand Firsts $3 Billion regional fund projects ?
12 1
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 8:31am
- kevn
  
  Huge… Mussell farm is the driver, biggest around apparently.
  There is anecdotal evidence that the harbour will just silt up again unless constantly dredged.
  
  13 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 9:22am
  - Tauhei Notts
    
    I thought the big big mussel farm was at Ohiwa harbour, just east of Whakatane. That is some distance west of Opotiki harbour. But I’m not sure.
    
    5 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 9:32am
    - cas
      
      That’s the oyster farm.
      
      7 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 10:16am
      - Tauhei Notts
        
        Thank you.
        Does anybody notice how on Kiwiblog if you get something wrong a polite person puts you right. Over on The Standard if you get something wrong somebody brings insulting words in to explain how thick and misogynistic and racist you are.
        DPF, thank you for bringing this blog to the blogosphere.
        
        15 0
        Report
        September 27, 2023 10:38am
- Martonman
  
  Port is for the local mussel farm barges . Believe that depth is about 4 metres at low tide.
  
  6 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 9:58am
In Vino Veritas

Aside from trying to find a place called Aotearoa, Willie Jackson is seriously intellectually impaired. He can safely be patted on the head with a “there, there wee fella”, and ignored.
18 1
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 8:37am
pwkmoss

Amazing how the Greens, TPM, & clearly some in Labour consider a wealth tax as a strong policy option, & a way to fund the country out of all its financial & social ills. A little research shows that wealth taxes have been an abject failure around the world – they have been abolished in almost all countries where they have been introduced, & remain in a very few (eg. Norway, Switzerland, Spain) that have very different economic & social structures to NZ. The general themes were it was expensive to administer, it was hard on people with lots of assets but little cash, it distorted saving and investment decisions, it pushed the rich and their money out of country, & it didn’t raise much revenue. So where are the media headlines & analysis around these facts? How can the Greens state that various policies will be “funded by a wealth tax”, when the evidence suggests that these funds will not actually eventuate & there will almost certainly be a number of negative unintended consequences? How come National continues to be continually attacked for one potential weakness in its tax policy? – very hypocritical. I would say that a Capital Gains Tax on realised capital gains (excluding the family home) may be worthy of consideration, at a maximum rate of say 10%.
24 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 8:38am
- kowtow
  
  ‘I would say that a Capital Gains Tax on realised capital gains (excluding the family home) may be worthy of consideration, at a maximum rate of say 10%.’
  
  I would say that if politicians stopped spending up so big then hardly any taxes at all would be worthy of consideration.
  
  25 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 9:19am
- Matt Long
  
  The greens and their wealth taxes and landlord taxes are a cargo cult.
  I realise most of them aren’t capable of following through with consequential thinking, but there must be a few of them who are pushing this for populism and realise they will just impoverish the country more.
  
  18 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 10:14am
- k1w1
  
  I can’t quite believe the zeal they are pushing a wealth tax with, when as you say, it’s easily proven to be a failure elsewhere (for a number of reasons). Or is it that it’s a worst case trojan horse to bring in a CGT (on realised gains)? A CGT is miles better than a wealth tax to anyone with more than half a brain, but neither is palatable. I would only support a CGT if it applied to the family home. Ring-fencing is stupid and leads to skewed outcomes.
  
  8 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 1:39pm
- AitchW
  
  Funnily enough I was pondering the administration of a wealth tax just yesterday. My conclusion was that it is likely to be full of loop holes, exclusions and baffling inclusions especially if drafted by a Lab/Green/TPM government. It’s also likely to pushed through under urgency then require amendment after amendment to sort out unforeseen consequences.
  Sadly I suspect that one will be introduced in our lifetime, after all Labour, Greens and TPM never met a tax they didn’t like!
  Equally sadly it is likely to cost a lot more to administer than it will ever collect and the only people to benefit from it will be tax lawyers and accountants.
  
  6 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 2:56pm
NeverMindTheBollocks

It’s a wet & windy Wellington welcome for protestors arriving in the Capital today. The Police have been busy blocking off streets, while public servants have been sent home to cower.

One thing is sure: there’ll be no Occupation today.

History repeats, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.
13 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 8:40am
- virtualmark
  
  Good luck to anyone who intends to occupy Wellington in September. They’re clearly not the sharpest tools in the shed.
  
  5 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 3:40pm
Lee C

Sorry Mods I repeat this without so many typos:

Does anyone else think that Andrew Tate and Russell Brand who both have successful blog-sites whihc interrogate the role of ‘The Deep State’ and ‘Big Pharma’ and ‘Media collusion narratives’ were both deplatformed, demonitised , and across social media sites and attacked across MSM outlets in an apparent concerted narrative about so far unproven and un-convicted sexual misconduct. Both demonitised across seemingly unconnected sites from Uber to YouTube, both accused by The British Parliament on the basis of unproven allegations of sexual misconduct from anonymous sources?
29 4
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 8:43am
- krazykiwi
  
  This is a great DailySceptic podcast discussion on the topic: Nick Dixon and Toby Young Talk About the Fall of Russell Brand (and Andrew Tate)
  
  10 2
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 8:58am
  - Lee C
    
    I started to listen to this KK, but found Toby Young’s equivocations sickening. I pray he never has a son, or is himself similarly cancelled with a similar ‘… sort of due process’.
    
    What a cockwomble.
    
    3 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 10:27am
    - krazykiwi
      
      Yes, I didn’t buy his assertion of “due process by diligent journalists looking for evidence”.
      
      4 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 11:54am
    - NeverMindTheBollocks
      
      Toby Young is of course the author and apparent life model of ‘How to lose friends and alienate people’ – a very funny film.
      
      1 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 7:00pm
- Inandout
  
  Lee, the machine would dearly love to destroy Tucker but the question remains, how?
  
  8 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 9:33am
- Matt Long
  
  Scott Adams was also deplatformed for supposed racism. His take on the situation improving,
  https://x.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/1706713096604336259?s=20
  
  4 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 10:18am
Maggie Pie

There’s thousands on X asking WTF our Foreign Minister is doing 🙁

https://twitter.com/EvilArthurFleck/status/1706463173707280386
25 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 8:58am
- In Vino Veritas
  
  C’mon Mags, everyone knows what she is doing. She is revisiting the “Paris Sackline” fashion of the 60’s. There are those that would say she is out of shape. I say to them, round is a shape. And she wears the sack well.
  
  23 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 9:12am
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  She is actually breaking the convention after parliament has been dissolved, Hipkins will have sent her to the western front, it’s his cell I bet
  
  18 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 9:14am
  - pdm
    
    G – maybe `little’ Willie sent her.
    
    7 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 9:35am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      How can he interfere with that?
      
      [Mod – you don’t need the aggression]
      
      2 1
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 11:26am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  I think there’s something wrong with her spine.
  
  She seems to have the posture of person decades older than her 53 years.
  
  14 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 9:41am
  - cas
    
    The way she walks and has lost weight makes me think she needs a hip replacement.
    
    9 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 10:15am
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      But hip replacements are easy to do (and get, for some folks), so I think there’s something else going wrong with her frame.
      
      9 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 10:56am
      - Drone
        
        Not easy to get Maggs, you need to be unable to walk, NM is obviously not a candidate, on the basis of joint deterioration but possibly qualifies on the basis of race.
        
        7 1
        Report
        September 27, 2023 11:58am
- Ghost
  
  The constipated walk?
  
  7 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 11:04am
- Clyde
  
  She is the ultimate embarrasment to NZ. Fronting up to the UN and wailing and moaning with the help of a rabble of other wailers and moaners in the spectator seats. Wonder if that lot were transported to the US from NZ as well? A disgrace, but of course the Princess appointed her and little Chip kept her on.
  
  11 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 11:05am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  The jacket and the coalsack do not really make a suit.
  
  6 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 11:21am
kevn

Maggie… Selling NZ down the river as per the labour narrative. While constipated.
17 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 9:03am
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  It is against political agreement that once parliament is dissolved that ministers get out unless there is a disaster
  
  11 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 9:16am
Tempist

Interesting PSA election chart someone showed me from their latest journal – identified the Greens as most aligned to PSA objectives/policy – when even your oldest friends start abandoning you, you’ve passed the beginning of the end…
11 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 9:18am
NeverMindTheBollocks

Not content with shuttered Civic building, Old Town Hall & Central Library, not to mention batshit crazy projects to rip up half the major streets in town to replace with bike paths – did I mention the antiquated pipe network and the mountain of debt? – Wellington City Council is now proposing to spend more money that ratepayers don’t have to create a promenade & plane spotting area at Lyall Bay.

Councillor salaries need to be pegged in an inverse manner to rates rises. Perhaps that would focus their minds, because nothing else seems to.
16 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 9:20am
- RoboRob
  
  Would that be the same council with ‘a serious financial disaster’ on the horizon? The same Green/Red council where 40% of its water is leaking our of rusted pipes?
  
  13 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 9:44am
  - Matt Long
    
    If the water is leaking from neglected council pipes it must be time to declare a “water emergency” and cut off some industrial users and a few political dissidents from the water supply.
    Throw in a few stories about dairy farmers using 10 million litres of water to produce a litre of milk to keep the masses virtuously outraged and distracted.
    
    8 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 10:24am
    - RoboRob
      
      I think 3 waters is almost entirely the government, based in Wellington, trying to back door bail out the left wing Wellington council.
      
      It was / is totally unfair that councils that managed their assets and focused on core infrastructure bail out the likes of Wellington who paint coloured pedestrian crossings.
      
      13 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 10:41am
    - Drone
      
      Too late Matt Long Wellington water are already predicting shortages and implementing a ban. https://www.wellingtonwater.co.nz/about-us/news-and-media/news-and-media-2/level-1-water-restrictions-beginning-this-weekend/
      
      6 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 12:07pm
  - MCōs
    
    I would suggest WCC should meter the water to individual users. At the moment there is no incentive to conserve water. That would change very quickly if homeowners/tenants had to pay for water leaking from their pipes.
    
    5 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 11:36am
    - krazykiwi
      
      The council should fix their glaringly obvious mismanagement long before suggesting end users change their usage patterns in order to mask that mismanagement.
      
      5 1
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 3:13pm
graham

I see Ginny Andersen is accusing Mark Mitchell of touring the country “scaring old ladies”.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/election-2023-greens-chloe-swarbrick-in-fight-with-nationals-mahesh-muralidhar-for-auckland-central/L373YWVACRFNREES5MOYOJPM3U/

Ginny Andersen told Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking Breakfast that Mark Mitchell is holding public meetings to drum up fear about crime.

“These meetings where you go around the country scaring old ladies. Mark’s being going around the country scaring old ladies, that’s exactly what his whole campaign has been.”

Mitchell fired back, accusing Andersen of downplaying the concerns expressed in those meetings.

“Actually attend one of those meetings, and you’ll find it’s not just old ladies – and old ladies care about their safety as well. You might find that it’s a big cross-section of the community.”

Ginny would appear – like so many of her Labour comrades – to be so far out of touch with the real world as to almost defy belief. Does she not read the headlines or follow the news at all?

And as for a campaign to “scare old ladies”, remind me again Ginny of the messaging during Covid that your Government was putting out? Oh yes – that if we didn’t follow the rules, our health system would be inundated, there wouldn’t be enough hospital beds to cope, and tens of thousands of New Zealanders will DIE.
34 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 9:27am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Ginny needs to update her stats on those supposedly decreasing ram raids…
  
  https://www.nzherald.co.nz/hawkes-bay-today/news/two-ram-raids-in-two-days-napier-liquor-store-newest-target-of-school-holiday-crime/Y3D3QYHDXFDU7NHT7BGDSLPXEA/
  
  20 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 10:22am
  - Matt Long
    
    These weren’t ram raids Maggy, it’s vehicle assisted shopping access for disadvantaged Aotearoans.
    
    22 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 10:26am
G the giant from Dunedin

Nice to see Chloe sweating with the poll in Auckland central, sounds like Peters has pulled the NZF candidate, so Nats may very well win this
27 1
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 9:36am
Maggie Pie

“IS IT THEM AGAIN YOGI”? …. “IT’S ALWAYS THEM BOOBOO”

There are some things you read that really make you wonder.
Why on Gods Earth, would any woman want to go back for more?

https://twitter.com/nzherald/status/1706479068395282551
13 2
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 9:45am
Maggy Wassilieff

Love him or loathe him, Winston Peters knows how to handle RNZ’s Morning Report crew

https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018908669/new-zealand-first-want-two-year-cap-on-job-seeker-benefit

(from 4:54)
15 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 9:49am
- David Garrett
  
  Maggy: It’s taking forever to load that clip; how about a summary for us?
  
  6 2
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 9:54am
  - Prince
    
    To summarise
    ‘Stop playing silly games on Morning Report’.
    I’m not a fan, but it is good to hear someone fighting back occasionally.
    
    9 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 10:12am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    and a few seconds before the final exchange:
    at 4:15 after a long spiel by Corrin Dann:
    
    “Well you spend an awful lot of time putting your point of view which is wrong”
    
    and when Corrin Dann interrupts to state that it’s not his pov.., Winston responds…
    
    “Can I finish without you being so rude?”
    
    It seems RNZ ‘s interviewers need some lessons in how to ask short, precise questions and stop dominating the interview.
    
    20 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 10:32am
- Maggie Pie
  
  There’s certainly no love lost between them Maggz….
  
  https://twitter.com/ResistanceKiwi/status/1706462448885330045
  
  9 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 10:15am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Doncha just wish you could come out with lines like “dripping with bilious bias”?
    
    13 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 10:37am
    - Maggie Pie
      
      I will tomorrow 😀
      
      9 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 10:39am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  A two year cap will just not fit for some. My partner is on the job-seeker allowance.
  She just had her 64th birthday. Who in their right mind would employ a 64 year old Woman?
  She has experience in sewing and small time warehousing. A job came up about a year ago, in Newmarket (we live on the Shore) She does not drive so 3 buses there and back each week day. Who would spent 4 to 5 hours travelling each day to do an 8 hour job?
  Ridiculous. One more year and she can retire. We may get divorced – a better Super option. Oh wait, we are not even married!!
  
  4 2
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 11:35am
  - wsk12345
    
    You’d have to live apart as it sound like you are in a “relationship in the nature of marriage”
    
    2 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 3:38pm
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    Could your wife learn to drive?
    
    1 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 7:05pm
    - Steve Otto(North Shore)
      
      At 64?
      
      0 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 28, 2023 9:01am
  - Ghost
    
    Plenty of places employ older workers. Bunnings opened here a few months ago, some older workers there, as with the new countdown that opened. When our area got rid of bus drivers one of the bus drivers decided to retire, he was 82.
    
    2 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 7:13pm
Yvette

“Winston Peters is a force for chaos in government, I made the principled decision that we wouldn’t work with him, I don’t believe that the platform he’s campaigning on and the values that New Zealand First represents are compatible with mine or those of the Labour Party,” Hipkins said. “And I don’t want to lose my entire Maori Caucus and several other sympathetic members as well” he might have added :o)
10 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 10:00am
- Pavel
  
  Hey Yvette, a lot of people on this blog have been saying if Winston is the king maker it is going to cost billions. Now I’m no politician but have spent decades in business and companies with just one customer always get thrown over the barrel and have strips of skin peeled off of their asses. Applying that same pattern to politics, if anything it should cost a lot less than the last times he’s been kingmaker because he can’t run an action style negotiation between the two. If Winston does end up kingmaker, and “if” Luxon has a pair of balls, Luxon will simply say to Winston “here’s the deal, take it or we’ll have another election”. Winston is getting old, he hasn’t got a lot of time left to live and he’ll only have one party to negotiate with. If Nat and Act go into coalition with NZF I can’t see NZFs role being anything more than seat filling and box ticking, they have no leverage over the Nats because they have nobody else to negotiate with.
  
  6 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 2:45pm
  - wsk12345
    
    Make no mistake – is labour can form a gummit with NZ1 they will do it. It’s “for the best of the country” after all.
    
    4 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 3:40pm
  - Yvette
    
    Pavel,
    I may not have expressed myself to well, but what I was trying to get at is that Hipkins will not be the one rejecting Winston, but rather Hipkins’ entire Maori Caucus and several other sympathetic members as well. Hipkins will only be the middle man
    
    3 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 3:48pm
Maggie Pie

They say NZF would need to get 9% for LEE DONOGHUE to get a seat.

Don’t like his chances….but he is the sort of guy we need in there!

https://twitter.com/EerjkMcRaeOF/status/1706417458272424334

(And check out Chloe’s socks & shoes 😀 )
12 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 10:04am
- Blog-aholic
  
  Chloe’s suck a sour lolly face and her Bro and Mate sure warmed the audience.
  
  I doubt that Donoghue is her mate nor is he her bro so a little repsect for him from her might be a more professional attitude to have.
  
  Why is it or what is it that trans allies or activists are afraid of?
  
  Clearly it is truth and reality that scaares them.
  
  10 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 10:41am
- mogg
  
  Donoghue is good, very approachable articulate, intelligent, no platitudes/jargon, snazzy dresser better style than Winston.
  
  9 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 11:04am
  - Maggie Pie
    
    Exactly mogg!
    Compare him to that deviant waste of green space from Mexico 🙁
    
    12 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 11:24am
- I remember when
  
  Don’t you just love how being male you don’t know how female feel.
  If you’re not gay, you don’t know how how homosexuals feel.
  If you not transgender, you don’t have the right to debate their demands.
  
  Fortunately Chloe does it on our behalf.
  
  10 2
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 12:09pm
  - AitchW
    
    Does that not work both ways then? If you’re trans then you have no idea how a cis person feels?? The argument that transgenders used to be cis won’t fly, because, from what I’ve read and seen on TV, transgenders have known from birth that they’re not the gender they were ‘assigned’ at birth…
    
    8 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 3:02pm
  - Damocles11
    
    How many transgender people are there in New Zealand, and how many of them are demanding to use women’s bathrooms? Judging by the amount of hand-wringing that is going on over this issue, you’d think they made up 49% of the population. The whole thing is starting to get tiresome….how did we get through the last century without ‘the transgender community’ rioting in the streets over access to bathrooms?
    
    5 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 4:16pm
- Damocles11
  
  The continual use of the term ‘mate’ by her is a put-down, it’s patronising. She always acts as though she owns the facts, and then starts yelling “this is hurting people!” when she can’t win the debate via the strength of her arguments; when she feels that the guy may be listened to it’s time to get highly emotional in that way. The frequent use of maori words by the Lefty’s on the panel is also intended to signal their moral superiority and the purity of their wokeness.
  
  5 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 4:09pm
Maggy Wassilieff

Who are the dog-whistling racists?

https://pointofordernz.wordpress.com/2023/09/26/graham-adams-will-the-racists-please-stand-up/
9 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 10:09am
- Yvette
  
  Maggy Wassilieff, from your link –
  
  It slowly dawned on Hipkins that Bridge wouldn’t be deterred from his mission to expose his lazy and disreputable tactic. He blustered about there being “nothing to fear” from bilingual signs until Bridge asked again: “Are you saying that anybody who opposes the signs is inherently racist?”
  
  Decades ago Brian Edwards in an interview program confronted both parties involved in a postal strike and as a result as far as I can remember was the key to resolving the situation and in another result set a target which interviewers and journalists aimed at for years after.
  
  Ryan Bridge on the AM show could possibly achieve a similar journalistic highpoint in telling Hipkins and Luxon, both in advance, that he is going to ask them to define exactly what they mean by “co-governance” so that each has to do what should’ve been done ages ago.
  
  19 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 10:31am
Maggy Wassilieff

I can’t quite figure this one out….

https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/300978170/chess-grandmaster-hans-niemann-denies-cheating-with-vibrating-sex-toy

There’s always a number of possible moves in the opening and middlegame … so how would niemannn be signalled which move to take?
9 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 10:43am
- cmm
  
  Morse code? bzz bzz
  
  7 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 10:47am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Cheers, yes… that makes sense…
    
    Different signal for Q, p, B, R etc
    
    5 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 11:14am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Remote controlled egg. Peaches and Cream.
  A friend told me.
  
  4 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 11:54am
- peterwn
  
  So in future top level chess matches will need to be played in a Faraday cage.
  
  6 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 2:23pm
  - Ghost
    
    Or just ask why they’re smiling so much?
    
    5 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 2:25pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Stop Co-Governance. Julian Batchelor.

https://stopcogovernance.kiwi/blog/seymour-needs-to-come-out-more-strongly-and-definitely-against-co-governance/
4 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 10:47am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Full interview David Seymour and Moana Maniapoto 24 September 2023.
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAv0vQQweh0
  
  4 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 10:50am
AitchW

For the last couple of elections it’s been obvious from the moment that the early voting numbers are released what the final result will be due to the large number of early votes already counted.
I’ve often wondered why we’re being encouraged to vote early.
How many on here will be waiting for election day to vote at your local polling station? Call me old fashioned, but I much prefer to vote in person at the polling station on election day.
15 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 10:56am
- Ghost
  
  I’ll be voting next Monday or Tuesday.
  
  9 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 11:06am
  - Matt Long
    
    I’ll be voting on election day, I want to see where the polls are before I make a final choice.
    
    7 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 12:56pm
    - BeaB
      
      It’s up to us to choose when we vote. I prefer doing it when and where I like rather than traipsing through some dreary school hall.
      
      3 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 2:02pm
      - AitchW
        
        I’m not suggesting that it’s not up to us to choose when we vote. I’m merely curious as to which method people prefer, voting on the day at the local polling booth or in advance via mail.
        Regardless of the outcome I can hear the howls of outrage about stolen postal ballots already!
        
        2 0
        Report
        September 27, 2023 3:04pm
      - Steve Todd
        
        @AitchW @ 3:04PM
        
        […], voting on the day at the local polling booth or in advance via mail.
        
        Eh? That was not in any way clear from your 10:56AM comment.
        
        Advance voting, i.e., the voting that commences on Monday, 2 October, is the casting of ordinary votes at polling stations. It has nothing to do with voting “via mail”. (Stolen postal ballots? What on earth are you on about?)
        
        In 2020, 1,976,996 people (including me) cast advance votes, being 68.30% of the total of 2,894,486 people who voted. (In 2017, 47.61% of all votes cast – again, including mine – were advance votes.)
        
        While the number of advance votes cast each day will be progressively released as from Tuesday 3, the advance votes cast for each of the candidates and parties will not be tallied until polling day, 14 October. Soon after 7 p.m. that evening, we will have a pretty good idea of the state of play, based on those votes. To me, that’s a good thing.
        
        In fact, I’m a big fan of advance voting. It’s a very welcome facility. It means I don’t have to make a special effort to get to a polling station on “the day”, allowing me to concentrate on other aspects of my life, safe in the knowledge that my duly completed ballot paper, clearly and unambiguously showing my two formal votes, is already in the system.
        
        4 0
        Report
        September 27, 2023 5:15pm
Ghost

Here’s what everyone has been waiting for, lol

Election 2023 live updates: Labour releases fiscal plan showing how it will raise and spend money
7 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 11:10am
- cmm
  
  I can already feel my wallet getting lighter.
  
  13 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 11:37am
- ClanMcleod
  
  Did they find the unicorn??? Or did they find another magic money forest that wasn’t already cut down and pulped???
  
  12 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 11:40am
I remember when

I was watching the BBC earlier and as part of a series of panel discussed items a clip of Donald Trump was shown.
During it Trump mentioned the US offshore turbine whale deaths debate.
He suggested there had only been one recorded incident involving a vessel hitting a whale, although the time span wasn’t clearly defined.
Then stated that the whales were being driven crazy by the use of the turbines.
The US panel member stated he was spreading ‘conspiracy theories’ without any reference to the fact that there was a debate (as yet inconclusive.)
Rather than putting the utterance in context, he used the ‘conspiracy theory’ destruction method.
6 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 11:34am
ClanMcleod

Sad to see the end of another era. I won’t be buying any more Edmonds Cookbooks.

https://aotearoabooks.co.nz/edmonds-taku-puka-tohutao-tuatahi/

The old one is a bit tattered but it’ll have to do.
12 1
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 11:44am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Sent one to our Alaskan friends years ago. She loves it, and she is a Thai.
  
  7 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 11:59am
- Ghost
  
  I wonder what sort of market there is for a Māori cookbook, I doubt it will get many sales.
  
  8 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 12:03pm
  - cmm
    
    I know a bunch of wokesters that will by it and use it every week, proudly offering their kids punakeikis for breakfast.
    
    6 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 12:28pm
  - Tauhei Notts
    
    Does that Maori cookbook explain how to cook “long pork”?
    Like, should it be cooked hangi style with fern root rather than, say, oregano and garlic.
    
    10 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 1:57pm
  - ClanMcleod
    
    It’s the blatant, nauseating virtue signalling that really annoys me.
    
    1 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 28, 2023 1:58am
- info@cruzpro.com
  
  Don’t see a problem with a Maori version of the Edmunds cookbook as long as they also have an English version available.
  
  1 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 6:55pm
Ghost

And this gets name suppression, pathetic

At 11.30pm on April 21, an argument about finances broke out at the man’s family home and he pushed the woman on to the couch.

He grabbed her by the neck and pushed her to the ground, before hitting her in the face up to three times.

He then hit her with a spatula and rolling pin, court documents said — though the defendant disputed that aspect.

On a phone call to the victim’s family, the man said he would kill her “and they would never find her”.

The woman received some swelling and bruising to her right cheekbone, a bruise on her arm and marks on her chest.

Article
7 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 11:47am
- kowtow
  
  It’s worse than name suppression;
  
  He got off.
  
  ‘Judge Smith did not enter a conviction on the charges and suppressed the man’s name, occupation and place of employment due to concern for his family.’
  
  ODT
  
  5 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 12:53pm
I remember when

NY Times article puts the blowtorch to the ‘widespread belief that honey bees are in danger .’
* If you overcrowd any space with honey bees, there is a competition for natural resources, and since bees have the largest numbers, they push out other pollinators, which actually harms biodiversity.
* It’s an agricultural story (bees are farmed), not a conservation story.
* There are now more honey bees on the planet than there has ever been in human history.
* The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations says beehives around thye world have risen nearly 26% in the last decade, to 102 million from 81 million.
12 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 11:47am
cmm

A few days back, someone doubted my statement that there are 200,000 net taxpayers in NZ. (ie. people that pay more than than they consume).

These people are obviously very important. They actually pay tax. Everyone else just consumes it.

I did some back of an envelope calculations and I suspect there are actually far less net tax payers.

One way to calculate this is to look at all the taxpayer funded services a person consumes in their life and compare it to the tax they pay.

To get a like-for-like comparison we can just price everything in today’s dollars to get rid of the complications of inflation etc.

* Birth. Cost of being born (maternity hospital , midwife, etc etc) :$10k
* Childcare subsidies: $10k.
* School: $9k per year = $108k.
* University subsidies (assuming going to uni): $20k per year x 3 years = $60k.
* Various medical expenses: $50k
* Super: average lifespan at the moment = 88, so 23 years of super at approx $380 per week = $19760 per year = $454k

Total = $692k

That’s just for that stuff, we haven’t covered things like roads, police, military, corrections,…

So if you haven’t paid at least $700k of tax in your life then you’re a net tax consumer.

How many people are paying that amount of tax during their lives?
10 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 11:54am
- Matt Long
  
  That’s only 14k per working year it’s not all that much.
  Have you included the government borrowing to pay for their largesse in your calculations?
  
  7 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 1:10pm
  - cmm
    
    No, I just looked at a few things. There’s still a bunch more (police, roads, military,…)
    
    What % of people are paying 14k a year average while they work? Even professionals will not be paying much in their first 10 or so years.
    
    7 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 1:32pm
    - Tauhei Notts
      
      $14,000 tax = $69,934 in income.
      Any dairy farm worker on that sort of income can’t be much good.
      
      7 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 2:04pm
      - Keith White
        
        wsk12345: On the plus side, the people who spend large amounts of their own after-tax income to raise, feed, clothe and house their children are providing the people who provide you with services; so there’s that.
        
        5 1
        Report
        September 27, 2023 5:02pm
- wsk12345
  
  At 45 I’ve already paid way more than that. And I don’t have kids so no transfers flowing my way.
  
  7 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 3:47pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  Including GST? I pay more GST than that per year, let alone via Income Tax.
  
  3 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 7:15pm
Swifty

Does anybody have any idea why the Maori Party has their party president representing them in this debate, rather than an MP like all the other parties?

https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300977282/winston-is-going-to-send-you-back-to-hawaiki-sparks-fly-at-tvnzs-kaupapa-mori-debate

Is Tamihere providing cover for his hapless MPs?

And why would the debate organisers agree to it? It’s a debate between MPs isn’t it – those who wish to represent us. It defeats the purpose of party officials do the talking doesn’t it?

How odd.
14 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 11:58am
- Ghost
  
  Rawiri’s mother died, Debbie is with him.
  
  6 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 12:08pm
  - Steve Todd
    
    And John Tamihere is No. 26 on Te Pāti Māori’s List, so he is at least an official candidate at this election.
    
    6 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 1:34pm
    - Swifty
      
      I wasn’t aware of that.
      
      Thanks Steve.
      
      5 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 3:16pm
      - Steve Todd
        
        You’re welcome, Swifty.
        
        (I’ll take this opportunity to ask you: did you ever get around to counting up the number of MPs since 1854? I counted 1,508.)
        
        3 1
        Report
        September 27, 2023 4:36pm
  - Swifty
    
    Ah, good point Ghost.
    
    That could well be it.
    
    4 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 3:17pm
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    That would be John Tamihere’s co-grandparent of Rawiri’s children, since JT is Rawiri’s FiL.
    
    Odd that JT is not off at the tangi. A bit rude in Maori circles, I would have thought.
    
    Anyway, why wasn’t Marama there instead?
    
    1 3
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 7:18pm
    - Steve Todd
      
      Anyway, why wasn’t Marama there instead?
      
      Marama who? Marama Davidson?
      
      Why would the co-leader of the Green Party stand in for an absent Te Pāti Māori MP / candidate?
      
      Surely you don’t think the friendship that Marama and Debbie enjoy should extend to standing in for each other – do you?
      
      Or do did you leap in without thinking?
      
      2 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 8:42pm
- Blog-aholic
  
  Tamihere runs the show, a side show.
  
  6 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 12:52pm
I remember when

And they say that legal aid is free.

Mama Hooch rapist brothers Danny and Roberto Jaz receive almost $900k in taxpayer-funded legal aid: NZ Herald.
13 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 12:01pm
- Maggie Pie
  
  TBF, Lawyers are no different to the rest of us…..they gotta eat.
  
  7 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 12:48pm
- Matt Long
  
  Wow , that’s almost 900 hours, reminds me of the John Grisham novel with the new lawyer being being told to charge out an hour every time the case crosses his mind.
  
  8 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 1:03pm
  - F E Smith
    
    Not sure where you get your figures from, but that is in fact over 5000 hours, plus disbursements. That is for a 9 week trial with two defendants (so likely four lawyers, two each [senior and junior]). The payment rate for that is $150 per hour plus GST for both prep and hearing time (those can be different), and the lawyers would have to justify every hour to Legal Aid. All of the lawyers would have been receiving significantly less than their private rates, most likely between $200-300 per hour less.
    
    What isn’t mentioned is how long the pre-trials went for, which I understand was a very long time.
    
    New Zealand gets very, very good service from its criminal defence bar, at cut rate prices, considering that most work is done at the same rate that your mechanic or plumber now charges.
    
    0 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 11:52pm
- cmm
  
  And they are about to each receive $120k a year in corrections care. Assuming they will serve 8 years, that’s about $1M each.
  
  Add to that police time ??another $500k?? and court time ??another $200k?? and this is already almost $3M.
  
  Then they still want to appeal.
  
  Crims cost us massive amounts.
  
  11 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 1:28pm
Don Beckett

@cmm 11.54 am.
I presume you include GST along with income tax, fuel taxes, local body rates, other charges like water rates etc.
3 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 12:09pm
- cmm
  
  I only did a partial look at the expenses.
  Fuel taxes are ring fenced for transport. Rates don’t go into paying any of those things I mentioned.
  
  How much GST do you think you pay a year?
  
  The vast majority of people are paying much less than they consume.
  
  4 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 12:26pm
  - Fuzzysnuggleduck
    
    “How much GST do you think you pay a year?”
    
    15% on any Goods and Services.
    How long is a piece of string?
    
    But GST is a good point, as it may well mean a whole lot more net taxpayers or close to break even, amongst even middle class households.
    Especially those folk that conk out without too many years retired.
    
    But your point is presumably around the tipping point, and the likes of wealth tax, when the amount of money is less in proportion to ‘Gibsmedat’ population.
    And I would agree: NZ needs to end the addiction of handing out money, supporting lifestyles of ‘professional’ beneficaries, shrink the public sector outside non-critical frontline, and cease thinking that creating equality artificially is both a moral imperative or ultimately helpful.
    
    7 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 1:36pm
Maggie Pie

Remember when Trumpy was being questioned about his ‘real worth’…. he told told Sean Hannity that his Palm Beach property ‘Mar-O-Largo’ alone, was worth more than a billion dollars.

Seems a NY Dudge thinks differently….

https://twitter.com/EricTrump/status/1706795629505114508

WTF? A property a few doors along from us just sold for $22 mill. LOL!!
6 1
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 12:18pm
- Libertarians are right
  
  That’s an extraordinary story because it relies on the utterly moronic idea that banks etc wouldn’t independently value the properties themselves. Trump’s argument even pointed out that his financials explicitly told third parties not to rely on the info and to get their own valuations.
  The dudge sanctioned the lawyers for pointing out his mistakes multiple times, telling them that common sense and reality were not allowed in his court room (paraphrased).
  
  I get that a lot of people don’t like Trump but these cases are making a mockery of America’s concepts of democracy and justice.
  
  10 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 1:14pm
  - peterwn
    
    Same happened in Auckland a few years ago. The perpetrators were charged and convicted even though the lenders were not ‘out of the money’ (ie able to sell the affected properties at a profit).
    
    2 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 2:12pm
  - All_on_Red
    
    Forbes put it at USD $350 million a couple of years ago.
    I think it has dual frontages and is a huge site.
    A small 8 bed sold next door a few years ago for $49 m
    
    6 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 2:35pm
    - virtualmark
      
      Mar-A-Lago is a national historic landmark, so there are a lot of restrictions on how it can be used and developed, both from Palm Beach county and from (I think) Federal restrictions. My understanding is that those restrictions limit its value.
      
      5 2
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 3:15pm
      - virtualmark
        
        Although I’m sure the Saudis or the Russians would pay Trump way more than $20m for Mar-a-Lago …
        
        5 2
        Report
        September 27, 2023 3:21pm
      - All_on_Red
        
        I’d of thought Forbes would know what they are doing, but perhaps you could write to them and tell them where they are wrong?
        So funny
        
        1 1
        Report
        September 27, 2023 4:59pm
      - virtualmark
        
        It has been well reported in the past. For example, Trump is not allowed to use it as a residence … which is a current issue with the county. Likewise whoever owns Mar-a-Lago can’t knock it down and redevelop the site. Etc etc.
        
        But hey, Eric “Fredo” Trump tweeted today that Mar-a-Lago was worth about a billion. You’re the kind of man who’d believe him. Even though Eric is already banned from running a charity in NY, and now’s also banned from running a business there too. But you probably think he’s a credible chap.
        
        2 1
        Report
        September 27, 2023 5:37pm
- virtualmark
  
  The judge’s verdict goes *way* beyond Mar-a-Lago.
  
  The judge has made a summary judgment (ie didn’t even see the need for a trial, just reached a judgment off the written evidence & depositions) that Trump & the Trump organisation committed significant bank and insurance fraud over many years.
  
  As a result he’s instructed the Trump Organisation to be wound up, presumably all the properties and assets sold, some amount of the proceeds to be paid to the NY AG (they had asked for $250m).
  
  This will surely be appealed, but the legal view is there’s little chance of an appeal winning.
  
  Basically this is the end of Trump and the Trump family doing business in NY state.
  
  So Trump has now been found guilty of charity fraud, bank fraud, insurance fraud and tax fraud. Have you ever thought that maybe he’s just a conman? And that many here have fallen for his con?
  
  3 3
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 3:20pm
  - Matt Long
    
    Sounds like this time you’ve definitely got him.
    
    4 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 5:51pm
Ghost

Whooops

The Labour Party has pulled down social media posts after Google got in touch about the use of its branding.

The party’s social media accounts over the weekend shared a post showing a Google search bar with the company’s logo above it.

Article
15 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 12:19pm
thirteenstars

Here’s Maori TV’s Moana Maniapoto interviewing Winston Peters a couple of days ago, in which he lays it out to her about co-governance:

https://youtu.be/TQgECL38DKg?si=BxVqlx2wDOofjfZh&t=1320

I’m not voting for Peters but from time to time it pays to drop the personality politics and judge things on policy.
8 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 12:52pm
Jack5

Like a Leftist blogger? Pulling information out of your arse?

The great chess scandal that’s not going away …

American grandmaster Hans Niemann, 20, has again denied that he cheated against Magnus Carlsen, the Norwegian some regard as the greatest chess player ever.

Niemann, in a new interview with Piers Morgan, has again denied using anal beads to win the match.

Asked specifically about the allegation that he used anal beads to cheat, Niemann replied: “Well, your curiosity is a bit concerning, you know, maybe you’re personally interested. But I can tell you, no. Categorically, no, of course not.”

The accusations seem to be that experts watching the game signalled to Niemann by wireless through the beads.

Carlsen, considered by many to be the greatest player of all time, had accused the young American chess player of cheating, leading to a legal row resolved out of court.

“It is very disheartening to be accused of cheating after that victory,” Niemann told Piers Morgan Uncensored in a new interview.

Piers Morgan Uncensored is a TV show broadcast by TalkTV in Britain and by Sky News Australia and Fox Nation in the United States.

The internet site WebMD describes use of the beads:

Anal beads are sex toys used during sex — either partnered or solo — to enhance your orgasm. Anal beads look like a variety of bulbs attached to a cord with a grip on one end. They are intended for insertion into the anus, and the end grip should make them easy to remove. The insertion and removal of anal beads stimulates the sensitive nerves at the entrance of the anus which increases sexual pleasure.

WebMD doesn’t mention how they might be WiFi or Bluetooth enabled for signals, or how beads would use signals.

Following his defeat, Carlsen, 32, claimed Niemann had cheated, which the American denied. The internet chess server and social networking web site Chess.com banned Niemann and later published a report saying he had likely cheated more than 100 times in online games.

Niemann then filed a $US100 million defamation lawsuit in America against Carlsen; Chess.com; and US grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura.

A judge dismissed the lawsuit in June and Chess.com said all parties had agreed to move forward without any further litigation.
7 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 1:13pm
cmm

Oh dear, it looks like going woke hasn’t stopped Hato Hone staff from being beaten up.

What kind of scum beats up ambos?

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/five-injured-in-river-reserve-crash-in-hawkes-bay/FHY2MSHOBRC37IECTRGZTNMLYY/
8 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 1:23pm
- Blog-aholic
  
  Probably from the Hone Hateo brigade of ignorant, indignant degenerates.
  
  7 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 1:29pm
- Libertarians are right
  
  Hawkes Bay – so gangs?
  
  8 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 1:29pm
  - cmm
    
    I’m sure the ambulances have “Proudly sponsored by the Mongrel Mob” written on the side.
    
    Or maybe it said Lions Club.
    
    It gets so confusing with all these cultural organisations.
    
    8 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 1:39pm
- Damocles11
  
  Who is ‘Hato Hone’ and what does he have to do with ambulances?
  
  5 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 3:53pm
  - Keith White
    
    He’s the Patron Taniwha of gang convoys.
    
    5 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 5:05pm
    - Jack5
      
      According to the online dictionary, “hato” is Maori language for “saint” and “hone” (with an umlaut over the “o”) is Maori for John.
      
      Aside: Would the following be the most unneeded Maori word creation: for Bluetooth, Hono Iarere?
      
      4 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 5:31pm
      - Damocles11
        
        So they are calling themselves ‘Hato Hone St John’ these days.
        
        1 2
        Report
        September 27, 2023 8:23pm
Tauhei Notts

The Taxpayers” Union’s site has an 0800 number TAX FLEE.
I was thinking of our current Minister of Finance and tried 0800 TAX FLEA. It goes to the same number. An irritable insect.
7 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 1:26pm
Maggie Pie

TRENDING

Green Party candidate @32 on the list has “high hopes” for a seat afta the Election…

https://twitter.com/StrangestMedia/status/1706459046180782515
7 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 1:27pm
cmm

Can’t deny it Jaffas…

Auckland is a shit hole:

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/auckland-sewer-sinkhole-thirteen-metre-deep-tomo-wastewater-overflow-closes-beaches/ADWW7VJKBFC7VER5PHE6NSKRY4/
11 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 1:36pm
- Maggie Pie
  
  Six years of infrastructure neglect by Phil Goff and Labor.
  Allowing high-rise slums and importing the 3rd world to populate them.
  This is just the beginning….
  
  I’ve just test flushed our toilets and they’re all ok at this stage
  
  13 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 2:14pm
  - virtualmark
    
    Similar story to central Wellington. Council encourages lots of inner-city apartments, but then doesn’t invest in upgrading the infrastructure to cope with the higher volumes from those residents.
    
    I would love to see the Nats/Act commit to re-writing the Local Government Act to force councils to focus back on essential infrastructure and services.
    
    9 2
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 3:24pm
- PeterB
  
  Being Parnell, the shit will smell sweeter so not a major.
  
  11 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 2:19pm
  - Maggie Pie
    
    Just down the road from JK’s place as well 🙁
    
    5 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 2:34pm
BeaB

RNZ is shameless. Every time National announces a policy they line up an ‘expert’ to tell us why it is wrong. They never do this for Labour policies, even now.
This morning Luxon used the word ‘refute’. We heard Ardern use this word for years, whenever she rejected an argument. But suddenly it is a word of the day on RNZ with the full definition, showing that Luxon had used the word wrongly.
They can’t help themselves. Even on the smallest matters, National always gets a negative swerve and Labour gets a pass.
23 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 1:59pm
- Swifty
  
  Well spotted BeaB.
  
  13 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 3:13pm
Prince

I presented our Household Financial Plan to the Whanau this morning.
I had it checked and approved by some blokes I have had on the payroll for 7 years as subcontractors – they said it looked ok. Just as well for them.

So long as I get 5% more revenue annually for 6 years and inflation is under 2% by next year, we can continue eating oysters and crayfish on the mortgage. We might them think about paying some debt down in 2029, assuming nothing unusual happens.
Oh and we need to cut a few $K off our costs from November onwards. The Whanau weren’t too impressed by that, but I told them to hold fire, keep the faith, and we’ll discuss again in November.
11 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 2:22pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  You’ve got it all wrong, Prince.
  
  Tell the Whanau times are Tuff and you’ve instigated a traffic light system.
  
  If they haven’t pulled in $x dollars for your mortgage or performed x hours of work for your whare, then orange sticker them and deny them Xmas treats…
  
  If they haven’t pulled finger by November, red-sticker them.
  
  14 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 2:35pm
  - Prince
    
    But, but Maggy, they are very very very vulnerable. They need wrap around support on a daily basis, emergency funds every week, they are entitled to warm, safe houses (except when they roam around at night), free Sky, free groceries and food, free dental care, free pills, free transport… free everything.
    
    8 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 4:49pm
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      You sound lovely Prince.
      
      Perhaps you should stand for the Green Party.
      
      I’d vote for you.
      
      6 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 7:23pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Believe this shit?? Trump gave him the DCM.
This is the sort of prick who could start WW3. Getting in before Biden is relieved of being Commander in Chief?
Very easy when it is not your money, and you don’t give a shit about the homeless or the Vets with PTSD.
America first (DJT)

https://newsaroundthehill.com/2023/09/26/gen-mark-milley-thinks-the-us-and-its-allies-have-deep-enough-pockets-for-ukraine-to-win-no-matter-what/
3 3
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 2:50pm
- virtualmark
  
  ?
  
  Trump appointed him to the standard 4-year term. That’s coming to an end this weekend. He has a lot of chest candy, but the DCM isn’t one of them.
  
  So far US aid to Ukraine represents about 5% of one year’s defence spend. For which they (and their NATO allies) have destroyed at least half of Russia’s military force. The US would have gladly taken that deal at any time in the last 70 years.
  
  And what $ the US has spent has been spent buying new weapons from US manufacturers, to replace the older ones sent to Ukraine. That’s US dollars spent in the US employing American workers. It’s not like they’re paying US dollars to Ukrainians to build weapons in the Ukraine.
  
  5 2
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 3:30pm
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    I just knew you would turn up – with TDS. So Miley’s term, I did not know. This will be why Miley is making War noises now.
    So the US of A should go in, no matter the cost??
    Then 5% – seems like that is important , 5%. But who is paying VM? I am fucking sure the American Taxpayer does not want to pay.
    This Miley dork wants war in any Country except his own. I’m not even sure about that. What has Miley done for America? He sure as fuck don’t care about Vets with PTSD.
    
    3 2
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 4:35pm
    - virtualmark
      
      Just pointing out the facts Steve.
      
      Seeing you’re so interested in Milley then this is an excellent read that answers the questions you raise … https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/11/general-mark-milley-trump-coup/675375/
      
      1 1
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 5:42pm
      - Steve Otto(North Shore)
        
        The Atlantic? One above CNN or three below?
        
        2 1
        Report
        September 27, 2023 6:43pm
Maggie Pie

THIS JUST IN from YouTube

Imagine if the rolls were reversed….the City would be in flames tonite 🙁

https://www.youtube.com/live/rRy-mznHF8c

Mark Mitchell can’t come quick enuff!!
4 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 3:02pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

The Nasty Party are at it again. Anyone remember the Labour “STOP” signs from about 2011? Year, “STOP” Well yes Labour, STOP being a bunch of cheating, lying bastards.
Too strong Mods? I don’t think so.

https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/national/labour-pulls-social-media-posts-after-google-gets-in-touch/ar-AA1hiUSC
8 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 3:11pm
dave_c_

“New COVID Restrictions/Lockdowns”
being currently reported (for many countries) as on the table/rollout plan, by the NWO.
Why is this sort of news not being reported in New Zealand – Don’t answer, as I believe I already know the answer.
11 1
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 3:12pm
- Ghost
  
  I got told a little while ago to stock up, and anything I needed from overseas to get it now. Not told why just something big is coming
  
  5 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 3:22pm
  - Keith White
    
    Where I am currently working, there is a lot of corporate security chatter about the combo of (1) Oct 4 FEMA nationwide Emergency Alert System (EAS) and Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) signals going out to the entire US population and freakemout; (2) Biden agreeing to send long-range Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) to Ukraine who can then reach deep inside Russia, and therefore (3) Putin deciding to go full tac nuke on Ukraine so they cannot send missiles to Moscow — i.e. exactly the reasoning why Kennedy was threatening the Kremlin about missiles in Cuba back in the day.
    
    4 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 8:38pm
    - virtualmark
      
      Here’s a prediction.
      
      The US will soon give Ukraine something like 100 ATACMS missiles. But they will be the version equipped with the cluster bomb warhead. That version only has a range of 140 km – it’s the unitary warhead version that can go 300.
      
      As with other US military aid these are older versions that are now in storage rather than in active use.
      
      The purpose of these will be to take out all the Russian anti-aircraft missile sites that can reach aircraft flying over the front.
      
      That then gives Ukraine air superiority. From there they can use JDAMs and other weapons to clear out any Russians in Ukrainian territory.
      
      0 1
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 10:17pm
      - virtualmark
        
        And the very next day … https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ukraine-getting-atacms-cluster-variant-would-be-a-big-problem-for-russia
        
        0 0
        Report
        September 28, 2023 2:42pm
Benedict Yu

How does a jury decide, 30 years after the alleged offences, who is telling the truth, beyond reasonable doubt?

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/300978240/daughter-of-former-all-black-gives-evidence-in-sexual-abuse-trial-its-not-a-dirty-secret-anymore
12 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 3:12pm
- NothingLeft
  
  It’s impossible. Memories of 30 years past are weakened by time and twisted by overlaid intervening emotional bias. In some cases they can even be fabricated (“recovered” memories), because our brains make up missing details – as we see whenever we listen to children recounting events. There are endless examples of how fallible memory is, even immediately after events, with a lot of academic studies of the matter.
  
  But the legal profession desperately needs to maintain the fiction of the strength and reliability of memory as it underpins all the rituals of legal praxis.
  
  11 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 4:42pm
  - Cinematic
    
    Yep, countless memory studies and experiments have shown the human brain to be highly fallible when it comes to accurate recall. Even after relatively short periods and particularly when suggestions are made or ideas are planted. The Meredith Maran case is one to read.
    
    6 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 5:26pm
    - info@cruzpro.com
      
      You are undoubtedly right (most of the time).
      
      There are a few things I remember vividly that happened 58 years ago. The reason is because they were traumatic and burned into my gray matter like it happened yesterday.
      
      1 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 7:49pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Overseas the summer heat waves are are summer, but it is MAGA GOP’s fault, your fault if you are one.
Is there a scale of ‘stupidity?’ or is it just too diverse? A righties fault if you get sunburn – or freeze to death – not personal choices.

https://2020conservative.com/what-hillary-is-blaming-you-for-now-is-absolutely-revolting/
3 1
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 3:24pm
Benedict Yu

Julie Ann Genter says National and ACT policies are the equivalent of a “death cult”. Too funny 🙂

https://x.com/JulieAnneGenter/status/1706578580292132941?s=20

“There is a common thread with National/Act: from transport & climate policy to social welfare and crime/prisons.

They ignore or reject all evidence of reducing harm, savings lives (and money!)

It’s all populist reckons.

Death cult comes to mind.”
15 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 3:27pm
- graham
  
  Oh dear. Julie Anne Genter does have a tendency to come across as passionate (on a good day) or just plain hysterical (much of the time)
  
  18 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 4:29pm
- Prince
  
  The evidence from LabGreen’s transport, climate, social welfare and crime/prisons experiments are all around us.
  Broken roads, traffic jams, climate crises, growing welfare dependency, escalating crime and recidivism.
  Thanks but no thanks.
  
  11 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 4:40pm
Benedict Yu

Marama Davidson specifies that her pronouns are “she/her/ia”

https://x.com/MaramaDavidson?s=20

I thought that this was a new gender like “cat gender”. These folk are referred to in the third person by the pronouns “nya/nyan”. As you all know, “nya/nyan” means “meow” in Japanese.

But to my relief, there is another explanation.

“In te reo Māori, the pronoun for everyone is ia. When people share that their pronouns include ia, this is usually a sign of respect to te reo Māori as the indigenous language of Aotearoa, and can be a way of indicating that a person speaks, or is learning, te reo Māori.”

https://www.tengakaukahukura.nz/pronouns#:~:text=In%20te%20reo%20M%C4%81ori%2C%20the%20pronoun%20for%20everyone%20is%20ia,is%20learning%2C%20te%20reo%20M%C4%81ori.

So show solidarity. Update those pronouns. 🙂
9 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 3:33pm
- graham
  
  I’d have to start using them first, Benedict!
  
  Never have. Never will.
  
  11 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 4:31pm
- Prince
  
  Solidarność Comrade.
  
  5 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 4:36pm
Maggie Pie

I’m thinking of taking up Chess.
11 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 3:36pm
- NothingLeft
  
  The focus on openings and the nasty surprises they can deliver is a turn off for many.
  
  7 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 3:53pm
  - Maggie Pie
    
    Don’t be so anal 😀
    
    8 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 6:00pm
Maggie Pie

And I see where Nashie has landed a cushie sounding gig with international recruitment agency ‘ROBERT WALTERS’

There is life after politics then 😀
11 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 3:54pm
- Keith White
  
  He is proudly boasting about using networks he developed during this time in Parliament in this new job. So much for spending his time as a “public servant”. Hopefully he’ll crash and burn in this role as well.
  
  14 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 5:32pm
kevn

labours spending… outrageous.
https://pointofordernz.wordpress.com/2023/09/27/alex-holland-labours-spending/#more-24590
10 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 3:55pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  Those Billions don’t spend themselves, Kev
  
  3 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 7:37pm
Ghost

Too quote Phil Collin’s, just another day in paradise

Armed police are responding to an unfolding incident in West Auckland’s Henderson, closing off a key motorway overpass as rush hour begins.

A video sent to the Herald from the scene shows two police officers taking cover behind patrol cars while a third officer runs towards the overpass. Emergency service sirens can be heard in the background along with what appear to be the sound of gunshots.

“F**k, guns and all boys?” The man who filmed the video said. “Oh, shots and all.”

A witness said, “police are out in force with the big guns” on the Lincoln Rd Northwestern Motorway overpass bridge.

Article
9 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 4:17pm
- cmm
  
  A witness said, “police are out in force with the big guns”
  
  Witnesses use such strange ways to describe things. 223 is hardly a big gun.
  
  It’s a bit like when people say “it sounded like a bomb going off”. 99% of people saying that have never heard a bomb going off and 99% of the people they are talking to have never heard a bomb going off, so the term in pointless – it doesn’t aid understanding.
  
  FYI: A bomb going off sounds very unlike what most people think a bomb should sound like.
  
  11 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 5:03pm
- Jack5
  
  The Ardern firearms clampdown really worked didn’t it?
  
  It got guns out of the secure cabinets of hunters, sports shooters, and farmers and into the hands that would fully use them.
  
  20 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 5:13pm
  - Keith White
    
    Your concern has never been aired in the mainstream media so it can’t be true. /sarc.
    
    10 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 5:33pm
  - kowtow
    
    The Ferald this morning published what actually looked like a police written PR release detailing yet another case of straw buyer .
    
    As an example of how “registration” is working.
    
    But the example given was not , as far as I can tell about registration , it was about the police matching a firearm to an already existing database provided by commercial sellers to police since 2021 and going back to 2019 , a long long time prior to the register going live.
    
    Mis or disinformation from the Ferald ?
    
    6 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 6:01pm
    - Keith White
      
      Misinformation and disinformation…
      
      5 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 7:59pm
Jack5

The farce continues of a Southland local bodies’ agency working up a plan for an oat-processing plant, then allowing the plant to be based in South Canterbury.

The agency went into into a 49:51 partnership with one of Stephen Tindall’s companies, and last year the Government said it would invest $6 million, preferably in equity shares. That would further lower the proportional holding of Southland, the instigator of the project. However, it would also mean the Government plus the Southland agency would be the majority partner in the project, and would have the final say.

The plan is for a factory ultimately capable of producing 80 million litres of oat milk, much of it for export. The factory is expected to provide about 50 jobs in ~~Southland~~ South Canterbury.

With Government participation reported, Southlanders might take the row to political candidates in the run-up to the general election over the next 17 days.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/news/133009870/no-bang-for-buck-councillor-attacks-great-south-as-chair-defends-decision-to-support-relocation-of-oat-milk-plant-to-canterbury
7 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 4:55pm
softail 1450

Art Laffer, respected Reagan economist 10 minutes ago speaking of the American mortgage market, “this country cannot deal with 7% borrowing rates at this time, it will destroy the housing market which is 17% of the economy at the moment ”
Art come down to NZ where we are facing 8% or 9% in the coming year.
11 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 5:31pm
- krazykiwi
  
  Look at this: Share of US Mortgages that are Newly Delinquent.
  
  Notice anything?
  
  8 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 5:57pm
  - kevn
    
    kk…. Begun bigly in c19 2020.
    
    4 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 9:28pm
Ghost

Unfortunately I don’t think we will see this stop and a much larger war is coming

Russia running out of options except to engage in head-on clash with NATO — Medvedev

Russia has few options left except for a direct confrontation with the now fascist NATO bloc, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said on his Telegram channel.

“It seems that Russia is left with fewer and fewer choices but to engage in a direct ground conflict with NATO, which has turned into an openly fascist alliance similar to Hitler’s Axis, only bigger in size,” he wrote.

Medvedev listed several events that make a direct clash between Russia and NATO more likely, namely deliveries of US-made Abrams tanks, promises to send longer-range ATACMS to Ukraine as well as ties between Canadian authorities and Nazis.

“We are ready [for the conflict], although the result will come at a far greater cost to mankind than in 1945,” the politician concluded.

Article
5 5
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 5:35pm
- virtualmark
  
  Medvedev is a well-known drunk, who appears to hit the vodka and then get on to his Telegram account.
  
  The Russians are getting six shades of snot kicked out of them by Ukraine. Ukraine!
  
  The Russians know full-well they wouldn’t last more than 48 hours against NATO (to be honest they wouldn’t last 48 hours against Poland, let alone NATO). And NATO knows full well that by the end of that 48 hours the Russians would be looking at the nuclear launch buttons. So the adults in the room will continue to ignore drunks like Medvedev and keep the lid on a direct NATO-vs-Russia confrontation.
  
  8 3
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 5:46pm
- kowtow
  
  Medvedev is Putin’s barking rabid dog.
  
  Ignore him.
  
  China won’t allow the Ivans to go nuke.
  
  7 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 5:52pm
- NothingLeft
  
  China are happy watching the rapid crumbling of Russia’s military strength in Ukraine and the bleeding of it’s young population knowing that it is speeding the day when the Russian empire dissolves and leaves Siberia ripe for the taking.
  
  3 2
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 10:09pm
bennerg

I note with interest that Nadene Lomu has issued a cease and desist letter to filmmakers who are making a documentary on the life of her late husband Jonah Lomu.

This is interesting as first she is making a claim that she is protecting the rights on behalf her children. However a quick search of the IPONZ database shows some interesting points:

1. In 1995 The New Zealand Rugby Union applied for a series of Trademarks for “Jonah Lomu”, covering a rangte of things such as merchandies, sporting goods etc. These applications were cancelled in 1998.

2. In 1998 a series of Trademarks for “Jonah Lomu” was registered, covering Clothing, Headgear etc, by a company called STYLEZ LIMITED, and Auckland company owned by lawyer Chris Darlow. They are still active.

3. Nadene registered a range of trademarks more recently, covering things such as soaps, alcoholic and other beverages, paper products etc. These are all recent applications (> 2021).

While I accept that Nadene is trying to earn a keep for her kids, trying to stop a film documentary using this legal angle will (or should) not succeed. Otherwise anyone with a trademark on their business name could prevent any investigation into their activity.
7 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 5:56pm
- bennerg
  
  Further research shows that after Lomu’s death, his Will stated Darlow was to be responsible for the Intellectual property, on behalf of his sons.
  
  https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/revealed-details-of-jonah-lomus-will/IE6UBNJBJVSC2H2KLQRFLDT52Q/
  
  Nadene tried to claim ownership – to the extent that she changed Companies Office records in her favour – and they had to be changed back.
  
  The application for “Lomu” trademarks in her own name indicate some attempt to assert control, however her claims on ZB that she was “doing it for her kids” indicates some disingenuousness, as Jonah had charged Darlow with that role.
  
  0 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 9:07pm
- bennerg
  
  This topic was also covered here in KiwiBlog:
  
  https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2016/02/potential_fraud_sadly.html
  
  In doing what she has done, Nadene may put focus back on her previous actions, trying to bypass the instructions in Jonah’s will.
  
  3 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 9:13pm
Maggie Pie

My partner’s only just got home after getting stuck out at West Auckland.

First thing he said when he walked thru the door….
“Thank f**k they shot that pr!ck”
14 1
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 6:20pm
cmm

My thoughts are with the cop that had to do the shooting.
It’s a hard thing to do. Thanks for doing your duty.
13 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 6:43pm
- Maggie Pie
  
  Altho like my partner just said…there needs to be a lot more of it.
  
  9 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 6:47pm
  - cmm
    
    Maybe, but it sucks to be the guy that pulls the trigger. Only sick bastards actually enjoy it.
    
    4 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 8:34pm
    - NothingLeft
      
      I think a large fraction of men at least would be entirely at peace with shooting a bad un with barely a moment of regret.
      
      “If you have to look along the shaft of an arrow from the wrong end, if a man has you entirely at his mercy, then hope like hell that man is an evil man. Because the evil like power, power over people, and they want to see you in fear. They want you to know you’re going to die. So they’ll talk. They’ll gloat.
      
      They’ll watch you squirm. They’ll put off the moment of murder like another man will put off a good cigar.
      
      So hope like hell your captor is an evil man. A good man will kill you with hardly a word.”
      
      -Terry Pratchett
      
      1 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      September 27, 2023 10:12pm
      - cmm
        
        Terry Pratchet writes historic fiction.
        
        There is a lot of research showing that even well trained soldiers are squeamish about shooting someone. A lot of volley fire missed the target – not because the old muskets were inaccurate – because the soldiers deliberately aimed high.
        
        To shoot someone in a civilian context is completely different to a military context.
        
        0 0
        Report
        September 28, 2023 1:58pm
  - Captain Mainwaring
    
    Maggie,
    What was your partner doing out in West Auckland?
    Was he repossessing a car?
    Can’t imagine another reason to venture into that hellhole.
    
    4 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 9:18pm
Swifty

I’ve just listened to a RNZ piece on 3 Waters.

The first half was fine, the second half was nothing but a complete, open propaganda piece on why 3 Waters is a great thing and that National and ACT will wreck it – and with no opportunity whatsoever for National or ACT to put their case, to say why they disagree with it or to put alternatives.

The announcer even concluded the piece by pondering “Well listeners, what does that do for your opinion on 3 Waters?”.

I am genuinely shocked. I can’t understand how that piece was approved for broadcasting. It was nakedly supportive of Labour policy and dismissive of National. Completely one-sided.

Apalling.

Heads should roll especially with us so close to the election.

I’ll try to post the piece once RNZ publish it online.
23 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 7:04pm
- Suze Wainwright
  
  Maybe, but what would the listening audience figure have truly been?
  
  4 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 8:27pm
  - Swifty
    
    It’s the principle Suze.
    
    3 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 9:29pm
Maggy Wassilieff

I’ve never been much of a fan of Paddy Gower, but he’s much better as a Leader’s Debate moderator than Jessica Mutch McKay.
9 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 8:33pm
- Mrs_Right
  
  Did he even attempt to moderate the debate? Hipkins came across as a very angry man who is behind in the polls though.
  
  15 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 8:43pm
  - pdm
    
    mrs R – I saw no more than 5 minutes total but every time I switched from the rugby Hipkins looked like a fifth former whose lunch had been knicked.
    
    Of course that was in the days when we took our own lunch to school.
    
    9 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 9:31pm
  - emmess
    
    Hipkins was incredibly rude, constantly interrupting.
    Gower should have told him to STFU.
    
    7 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    September 27, 2023 10:07pm
- Gravelroad
  
  Mr Hipkins came across as a gibbering idiot on speed dial.
  There is something seriously wrong with that guy.’
  Interesting that all the left wingers on the after panel said that Hipkins sounded like the leader of the opposition and Luxon the Prime Minister.
  
  18 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  September 27, 2023 9:00pm
Maggie Pie

Well, that’s 2 hours we’ll never get back.
As my partner said.. “Paddy Gower isn’t a moderators arsehole”
16 1
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 9:07pm
jon

Fleeting mention of Co governance by Gower in the debate and clearly a issue the media is reluctant to have discussed. There are several more important matters that should have seen the light of day rather than the other nonsense that was thrown at the viewers. Also i m not convinced that many of those in the audience were undecideds!
7 0
Log in to Reply
Report
September 27, 2023 10:01pm

Add a Comment Cancel reply

Login to comment or vote

« Another Premier goes

ZB Plus »

Donations

You can now donate to Kiwiblog

Exclusive content from DPF on Patreon

Become a Patron!

Never miss a post

Email Address

Join 37.4K other subscribers

Highlights

Health Target 5 – elective treatments
Health Target 4 – Specialist appointments
Health Target 3 – Emergency Dept Waiting Times
Health Target 2 – Immunisations

Links

Open mike 19/11/2024
The Standard
Mr Hegseth Has His Work Cut Out For Him
No Minister
"...He has assembled a cabinet of nihilists who will be loyal to him not their jobs. ..."
Not PC
Are You Even Aware That There Is Another Big UN Climate Conference Going On?
Utopia
We would welcome Shane Jones telling us if his aquaculture deal with Ngai Tahu amounts to a partnership
Point of Order
Word of the day
Hompaddock
Mainstream news media are turning on themselves
Bob McCoskrie's McBlog
ILLITERACY
No Punches Pulled (Bob Jones)
When ACT aren’t presenting dangerous race war inducing legislation and crying about Hakas, they are demanding poor people get kicked off buses and attacking Mihi Forbes
The Daily Blog
More lawlessness from National
No Right Turn
A Day of Reckoning
NZCPR
Media Link: “A View from Afar” on the US elections.
Kiwipolitico
This will not end well
Offsetting Behaviour
Top 14 Predictions for Round 10
Stats Chat
Pretty (il)legal
Croaking Cassandra
Tory Whanau may have to sell Wellington mayoralty to make ends meet
The Civilian
The Accidental Engagement
Imperator Fish
Legal Beagle: Election '23: The Special Votes
Public Address
Making this movie might have been a mistake
Liam Hehir
Why I am retiring from political blogging
Kiwi FireWalker
Angie Warren-Clark: Meet the Newbies
Dan Moskovitz

editor@kiwiblog.co.nz

PO Box 12270, Thorndon, Wellington 6144

Facebook
Twitter
FourSquare
Instagram
LinkedIn
Google+

Archives
Disclosure Statement
Editorial Policy
Privacy Policy
Complaints Policy
Comments Policy

Design by cre8d

%d

Share this:

Like this: