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January 15, 2024 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 15 January 2024

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Warren

We have the Herald continuing to stir the Political pot today with Headlines
“Luxon’s Leadership to be tested”. With another Treaty of Waitangi bigger than petty politics.
So it is easy to take pot shots at the Government and Prime Minister Christopher Luxon but if they had used the same logic on Labour the former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Chris Hipkins the defeated Prime Minister we wouldn’t be in this same mess we have today.
Now as it was Labour that issued more power to Maori without the support of New Zealander’s and as it has proved you can’t buy your way out of trouble by agreeing to give 16% or less of the population without seeing what the majority of New Zealander’s want or believe it was always going to divide New Zealander’s.
Jacinda Ardern created this mess with the help of our corrupt.mediaand quit when the going got to tough , but the media didn’t like that and are still fawning all over every word she says even though many will say she is and was the worst Prime Minister New Zealand has ever had and it was all about her not what New Zealander’s population wanted.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/kahu/editorial-prime-minister-christopher-luxons-leadership-to-be-put-to-the-test/2YHBJ6D2KJGOJPG2XHOXOBYR5A/
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January 15, 2024 8:01am
- Simon
  
  Reactionary iwi leaders seek to maintain their wealth & power. While National seeks to directly address issues for some of the most vulnerable in society poor Maori.
  
  The mentally ill left and professional Maori class call Luxon a racist. Luxon will no doubt roll on. But its good for National to remind themselves and know the sewage NZ has been swimming in for the last 6 yrs.
  
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  January 15, 2024 8:45am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  NZ needs to know if Luxon has balls or not.
  Ratana? Who cares?
  Feb 6th will be interesting to see if he stands his ground or cowers.
  
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  January 15, 2024 8:58am
  - imalwaysright
    
    S.O
    
    He shouldn’t go.
    
    The media and the maoris will have already written the headlines and organised the disruptions.
    
    There is nothing he can do or say on that marae that will be fairly reported.
    
    They need him, he doesn’t need them.
    
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    January 15, 2024 9:22am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      He will be like others snd go the first year, and trouble and he can say take a hike
      
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      January 15, 2024 10:55am
    - spryte
      
      He can win. Don’t go and announce policy for all low income people, not just Maori although it may benefit Maori more than other races. Base criteria on real world need, not race, and emphasize that message over and over again.
      
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      January 15, 2024 10:58am
      - henrybryn
        
        “announce a policy for all low-income people, not just Maori although it may benefit Maori more than other races.” very well said and very clever
        
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        January 15, 2024 11:34am
      - Steve Otto(North Shore)
        
        Luxon still goes along the lines of special privileges for Maori.
        160 something cultures in NZ and Maori get first dibs?
        Nope, that is racist, bend and twist it all you like.
        
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        January 15, 2024 2:15pm
      - I remember when
        
        “although it may benefit Maori more than other races.”
        And that is the trouble, Maori are a ill-defined, poorly indentified racial grouping.
        There are benefits in their being so, as it makes success, or indeed failure, near impossible to confirm.
        
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        January 15, 2024 2:19pm
  - H. Upmann
    
    Luxon cannot get a plus out of this either way.
    If he attends, he will be shouted down and not a word will be heard plus there is a very high chance of him being physically attacked.
    If he is a no-show it gives the racists ammunition to attack the coalition for the next three years.
    
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    January 15, 2024 10:30am
    - rouppe
      
      The former is important to have in your pocket in order to bring out later on.
      
      As in “why would I listen to leaders of the people that did [example from Waitangi] to me.”
      
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      January 15, 2024 8:16pm
    - Loddenthinks
      
      I don’t know if he’s going to be attacked or not, but I did see a pallet-load of dildos in a courier van on the road to Waitangi the other day.
      
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      January 15, 2024 9:30pm
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    He has already told them where he stands last year, why would he roll over this year? As long as there are not two seperate societies as was starting to happen under the previous Marxist regime I will be happy, Māori will try and create pandemonium on our National day, then Luxon from that day on can do like Key did and English when they took speaking rights off him at Te Ti ti Marae. Helen Clark stop going after being made to cry as well, Luxon will gain support for telling the protesters bye bye
    
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    January 15, 2024 10:54am
    - Paulus
      
      Since when is our New Zealand Day held at Waitangi ?
      
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      January 15, 2024 1:25pm
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        I said National day
        
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        January 15, 2024 1:49pm
    - Steve Otto(North Shore)
      
      That small bit about Clark crying I support.
      Titiwhai Harawira was not allowed to speak, so that applies to all females.
      Sexist? Yes, but that is the way things are. How dare Ngati Pakeha be allowed to speak when a female Maori can not?
      
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      January 15, 2024 2:19pm
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    Add,
    Sounds tough? Well I have not seen Luxon stamp his authority on much yet. Sure, there is a 100 day plan, but how much has been actioned? Media won’t tell us ffs.
    Auckland fuel tax – has that been removed or delayed?
    Manager but not a leader.
    
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    January 15, 2024 2:39pm
    - Ghost
      
      “The legislation to remove the Auckland regional fuel tax scheme will be introduced to Parliament in our first 100 days. The exact timing is yet to be determined,” Brown said.
      
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      January 15, 2024 2:48pm
  - Sir Cullen's Sidekick
    
    Steve bro – Everybody knows Luxon is a coward and has no leadership skills whatsoever. So why even have some expectation?
    
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    January 15, 2024 4:17pm
- kowtow
  
  The Whoreald disinformatively calls it “de Maorification”.
  
  It could as easily and properly be called the re democratisation of New Zealand .
  
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  January 15, 2024 8:59am
  - Homas
    
    Nice of them to confirm by implication that the original agendum was in fact Maorification.
    
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    January 15, 2024 10:10am
- pdm
  
  When will the Herald and others understand that it is the `de maorification of New Zealand’.
  
  Aotearoa is a mythical place that does not exist.
  
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  January 15, 2024 10:20am
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    Just like Nania
    
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    January 15, 2024 10:56am
krazykiwi

A thought-provoking essay over at Konstantin Kisin’s Substack, by Freya India: Why I’m Worried About The Rise Of Liberal Young Women. Some extracts: –

Over the past two decades, the political profiles of young men and women remained pretty stable, but in recent years women have shifted significantly to the left. In the US, 44% of young women identified as liberal in 2021 compared to 25% of young men — up from 30% of women and 27% of men a decade ago; the biggest gender gap in 24 years of polling…. Why is this happening? One explanation is that women now far outnumber men at universities, where left-leaning and liberal academics dominate. We’re also more likely to study the social sciences and humanities, where professors lean further left than STEM subjects. Young men, meanwhile, are abandoning higher education in droves.

:::

Marriage and birth rates are already falling fast. In the UK, more than half of women aged 34 or under are now unmarried, and the majority are now childless by their 30th birthday. In the US, too, 45% of women are predicted to be childless and unmarried by 2030…. Stable marriages not only contribute to societal cohesion and are crucial for children’s well-being, but are a significant predictor of happiness for both men and women.

:::

Liberals tend to have a more external locus of control, meaning they feel as if their lives are governed by external forces like patriarchy or white supremacy—a perspective linked with poorer mental health outcomes. Conservatives, however, tend to think they have more control over their destinies.

:::

Feminism today spins self-pity as empowerment. Progressives talk more about powerlessness than personal responsibility. It’s not your fault; it’s the patriarchy! It’s not your diet or lack of exercise; it’s society! … I find few things more disempowering than the modern feminist insistence that I am a badass and a girlboss while also treating me like a fragile child, reminding me to ruminate about micro-aggressions and stupid jokes and how much men hate me. No wonder girls feel out of control. No wonder they feel more negatively about their future than boys

:::

Parents must also actively oppose ideologies that instill in girls these disempowering beliefs. That valorise victimhood; that vilify men; that present meaningful commitment as a patriarchal trap; that take detached individualism and dress it up as liberation. No more indulging this.

The whole essay is worth a read.
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January 15, 2024 8:02am
- Paulus
  
  Not surprising conclusions, an excellent essay but will be ignored by the majority.
  It will be a different world as already is can be seen in New Zealand over the last say 5 years.
  Look at all the new senior and top appointments in Law and Public Service as examples.
  
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  January 15, 2024 8:16am
- Grunter
  
  The universities are a major problem. A conversation with young female grads vs young female non-grads is glaringly very different. Grads (mostly) have been completely brainwashed into the nutty radical left thinking. Some then hit the brick wall of the real world and snap out of it, but most of them get stuck in victomhood and neo-racism.
  
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  January 15, 2024 8:19am
  - cmm
    
    Is this caused by university or is it a self selection bias?
    
    ie. is it:
    A) Those that go into university unbrainwashed come out brainwashed
    -or-
    B) Those that are brainwashed at school are more likely to go to university to study wimminz studies degrees where they end up in a like minded bubble and reinforce their pre-existing beliefs.
    
    Likely more B than A.
    
    The female grads I deal with normally have their heads screwed on well, but they are mostly engineers with little interest in playing victim cards.
    
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    January 15, 2024 9:27am
    - slightlyrighty
      
      Brainwashing is highly prevalent in the Humanities departments, and in the Arts Faculties.
      
      I wonder how far it has infected the Commerce, Law and STEM Faculties.
      
      I would say it has become endemic in the States. One only needs to look at the Bud Light Marketing disaster mananged by a Harvard Graduate.
      
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      January 15, 2024 10:12am
      - Burtland
        
        where have you been hiding – the infection was completed locally by Megan Woods and the Hipkins family
        
        Its endemic in government departments – we now have to wait for the infection to undermine the productive economy – but thats well underway.
        
        When the millennials finally meet accountability the whole lot will collapse.
        
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        January 15, 2024 12:07pm
- Tom Hunter
  
  I’d also suggest this post:
  
  Do let me declare very clearly: unless we have a massive counter-revolution in how society values children and motherhood, low fertility rates are here to stay. Have all the pro-natalist policies you can afford, as those families that have children should be supported economically by the state given the cost in time, energy and money to raise even two children these days. But don’t expect more children to arrive. That’s not going to happen.
  
  Cultural change is a glacier.
  
  And this one about a massive analysis, Sex and Culture, published in 1934:
  
  Unwin studied the art, literature, politics, science, architecture, engineering and other cultural activities as well as the social structures of the 86 societies. He was looking for the effect they had on the social energy, stability and cohesion of the group, as well as its ability to compete with and defend itself against rival civilisations. He concluded that there is a positive correlation between the level of cultural achievement and survivability of a society and the level of sexual restraint expected within that society.
  …
  Unwin had no axe to grind; he was not a believer and his work reads like that of a scientific rationalist who has nothing positive to say about Christianity.
  
  As far as “sexual restraint” is concerned, with Gen Z we seem to be seeing a small cohort bonking away as per usual as teenagers/20’s – but a larger cohort that just don’t engage at all. Japan is the coal mine canary with their ranks of Hikikomori but it seems we’re rapidly heading for Sekkusu-banare in the West as well.
  
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  January 15, 2024 8:28am
  - thirteenstars
    
    Hmm, Orwell’s 1984 had the Junior Anti-Sex League. They wore a red sash about the hips which ironically is quite comely.
    
    Capitalism results in a lower birthrates because each worker is made more productive through higher investment per worker. It’s not a theory. It’s the reality of the world around us.
    
    Populations shrink under capitalism. Witness advanced industrial nations. It’s not a problem. Each person is wealthier because they use capital more efficiently. Children become a choice. They are a blessing. Each generation becomes more powerful as the population shrinks and the capital tools they command are able to produce more efficiently per worker freeing up even more capital for research and investment.
    
    Fucking Marxists. Children. Children with nothing but guns.
    
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    January 15, 2024 8:11pm
    - Jake Dee
      
      I’m not saying you are wrong but this is a complex phenomena and there’s more going on in human reproduction than just capitalism. We are biological before we are commercial or technological.
      Have you ever heard of r/K selection strategies in reproduction? The r strategy is many offspring with less resources invested that mature earlier and live shorter lives, think mice and rabbits. The K selection strategy is fewer offspring with more resources invested in them that live longer and mature later, think elephants and tigers.
      People who live to ~75 -80 follow different life paths to those who die at ~25-30.
      Things that are seen all across the animal and plant kingdoms can’t just be pinned down to capitalism.
      
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      January 15, 2024 8:31pm
      - thirteenstars
        
        Yes it can because capitalism provided the tech and leisure time for women to use birth control and for men to earn enough to allow mum to stay at home and raise healthy kids.
        
        Then as birth rates declined it allowed women to employ limited physical powers to earn high incomes freeing them to have independent lives. Women and children are the greatest beneficiaries of capitalism.
        
        Even birth control and disease prevention in developing countries is paid for by donations from capitalist countries because capitalism produces such abundant surpluses it can fund those programmes–which it developed–without even feeling the strain.
        
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        January 15, 2024 8:51pm
      - Jake Dee
        
        Yes, BUT you can’t just let “capitalism” stand in for everything the human has done or is doing. Aristocratic classes have always had longer lifespans and lower fertility rates than the working class and that was clear long before this thing called “capitalism” evolved.
        There’s a good bit in “Brideshead Revisited” by Evelyn Waugh when the dying Lord Marchmain recounts how his family always “lived long and married late”. Fictional but accurate of the aristocratic life pattern.
        I have read some good stuff recently arguing that the European demographic shift to low births and longer lifespans began in pre-revolutionary France with the secularization of society. That’s also pre-industrial and pre-capitalist. I’ll link it if I can find it. Is it cultural patterns driving material conditions? The reverse or a bit of both? All rather a chicken or egg question.
        The “Hajnal line” and the Western European marriage pattern is also well worth your time investigating.
        
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        January 15, 2024 9:07pm
- mikenmildagain
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  The whole essay is worth a read
  Doesn’t seem so, from those excerpts.
  
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  January 15, 2024 8:47am
- Notsofast
  
  Last year was highlighted by the celebration by young women of the violent eviction of Posie Parker, young women from the two telecoms saying they wanted shot of their customer base, and the attempted blackmail and doxxing of a senior doctor by Jody O’Callaghan of Stuff. The last is well documented by Stephen Franks and Jonathan Ayling of FSU.
  
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  January 15, 2024 8:51am
- Master Mariner
  
  Interesting.
  What are your thoughts about this experiment?
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink
  
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  January 15, 2024 2:10pm
  - Jake Dee
    
    I became aware of the John Calhoun “Rat Utopia” experiments about 5 years ago and since then I have found them fascinating. Remove predators from the environment, ensure the food supply without work, but severely constrict the living space. Something very strange is going to happen.
    Obviously there’s a limit to how closely rats will match humans, but we are now living in conditions that nobody has ever lived in before. How does that effect our bodies and minds? It’s all certainly doing something.
    
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    January 15, 2024 6:32pm
    - Master Mariner
      
      Intriguing thats for sure.
      After a while they stop breeding and attracted to the same sex.
      
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      January 16, 2024 12:18am
      - Jake Dee
        
        Yes indeed. They called them “The Beautiful Ones”, they stopped breeding and spent all their time grooming.
        It would be amusing to see The Green party advocating for LGBTQIA+ as a perfectly natural feedback mechanism to thin out the human herd and save Mother Earth. They can’t say that of course, probably can’t even think it without their heads exploding, but it’s been seriously mentioned before.
        In his 1798 book “An Essay on the Principles of Population” Thomas Malthus wrote of several ways to control the population such as war, famine, disease and “vice”. That included abortion and pederasty.
        So, this stuff has been around for a long time, but for progressives it’s very important to never do science and never read old books.
        
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        January 16, 2024 3:59pm
Chuck Bird

I stand with Israel and not the scum in Gaza.
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January 15, 2024 8:06am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Incoming lefties in 3, 2, 1……
  
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  January 15, 2024 8:16am
  - KH
    
    OK Steve. I think they are all mad murderers. All of them.
    
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    January 15, 2024 8:19am
- Maggie Pie
  
  Hard to believe that Yemen won’t take the refugees from Gaza.
  Same sort of land.
  
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  January 15, 2024 8:19am
  - kowtow
    
    The Houthis have child soldiers , chattel slavery , sexual exploitation of children .
    
    The pro Hamas marchers in the west now proudly claim to ‘Stand with yemen’ .
    
    ‘nuf said.
    
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    January 15, 2024 8:27am
- Grunter
  
  Chuck – I’m clearly not a leftie (but downticks about to flow). My question for you is where does Israel’s plan take them, and the wider Middle East? What is the end game?
  
  And not for one minute interpret this as pro Hamas/ desert rats. A genuine question.
  
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  January 15, 2024 8:23am
  - Chuck Bird
    
    A fair question. Israel does not plan to take them anywhere and Muslim majority countries do not want to take Palestinians. I believe Israel plans on occupying Gaza for some time to prevent a repeat of 7 October the firing of missiles at Israel.
    
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    January 15, 2024 8:34am
    - Grunter
      
      So, IMO, there are 2 possible outcomes from that strategy (ie Israel occupies Gaza after bombing the crap out of Hamas);
      
      1. Israel achieves this successfully and the rest of the Arab world sits back and does not retaliate, OR
      
      2. There is a long and prolonged bloodbath in Gaza and some other Arab countries have a real crack at Israel resulting in Israel itself being under serious and constant threat. Potentially spreading to other players (eg USA and Iran) getting involved.
      
      The second scenario, IMO, is the most likely, almost certain, in fact it is already playing out. That is not a moral viewpoint, it is simply being realistic. So I just don’t understand why Israel would do that apart from blind revenge after Oct 7th. It is not in Israel’s own interests to follow their current pathway…..IMO
      
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      January 15, 2024 9:08am
      - Chuck Bird
        
        It will be a good thing for the US to attack Iran and make sure they do not develop nuclear weapons. If they do we will be in a terrible position.
        
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        January 15, 2024 9:37am
      - Chuck Bird
        
        This is 2 months old but still relevant.
        
        EXCLUSIVE: Is Netanyahu PREPARED To Strike IRAN Directly? | Israel-Gaza War | Rosenberg | TBN Israel
        
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoiiDZvKhLo&t=6s
        
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        January 15, 2024 9:49am
      - artemisia
        
        14,000 missiles launched from Gaza might have something to do with it.
        
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        January 15, 2024 9:56am
      - Chuck Bird
        
        This is a few days old.
        
        EXCLUSIVE: Netanyahu WARNS West: Israel May Act ALONE Against Iran | The Rosenberg Report on TBN
        
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxPc6GLczWc
        
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        January 15, 2024 10:13am
      - pdm
        
        Chuck didn’t Israel go in a few years ago and destroy Iran’s then Nuclear Capability?
        
        If I am right I will bet they are ready to do the same again in the near future.
        
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        January 15, 2024 10:25am
      - NothingLeft
        
        Disagree. Arab world doesn’t care about Iran-aligned Palestinians. They are sick of the Iranian theocrats stirring up shit through their various cats-paws, and are worried about Nuclear armed Iran (who likely have the bomb now). Iran’s Waterloo is likely coming.
        
        Israel will fully conquer Gaza, weed out and permanently imprison surviving Hamas fighters, and then withdraw, perhaps with some punishment land annexation or widened no-man’s land maintained to improve future wall security. Taking substantial land area as reparation might finally convince the Gazans to stop attacking Israel in future.
        
        Gaza will get no future support (water or power) from Israel – who will totally disengage, and financial support of Gaza from other supporters will likely decline too given how they shat the bed with Oct 7 atrocities. They will fall into catastrophic even deadly squalor due to their destructive over-breeding with much of their infrastructure and buildings destroyed in the current war. The west’s appetite for refugees is exhausted.
        
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        January 15, 2024 10:26am
      - Grunter
        
        Chuck – so you are therefore agreeing that my scenario #2 is likely and you’re all for that
        
        “it will be a good thing for the US to attack Iran”
        
        But that still doesn’t fix the problem, I’d argue it just makes it worse and threatens an even wider war and bigger death count.
        
        I have no answer to resolve this by the way. I see no genuine alternative to the current escalation pathway that Israel/USA/UK are on. In Utopia, the fighting would stop and everyone would get on, but that will never happen.
        
        I will say this, however, supporting the crazy Netanyahu to “go it alone” and attack Iran, etc has only one outcome – full-on escalation with nukes firing off.
        
        Good, debate, but you’ve only reinforced my position that Israel doesn’t have a plan other than to escalate to some awful endpoint.
        
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        January 15, 2024 10:41am
      - Wayne Mapp
        
        Chuck,
        It would be disastrous if the US attacked Iran. The lessons of the last 20 years should be clear enough by now. The scale of attacks to significantly reduce Iran’s ability to get nuclear weapons would be enormous.
        Both the US and Israel probably need to resign themselves to the prospect of Iran getting nukes. They are within a few weeks of having sufficient highly enriched uranium for several weapons. Just as with all other nuclear armed states, deterrence will be the appropriate response.
        
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        January 15, 2024 11:04am
      - Matt Long
        
        Their plan is based on rooting out Hamas and putting in place a new government like happened post WW2 in Germany and Japan.
        Whether that’s realistic remains to be seen.
        
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        January 15, 2024 11:08am
      - JimBobJoe
        
        Re your point 2: Which Arab countries are going to take a crack at Israel (remembering Iran is not Arab its Persian, and is not particularly liek by the Sunni Arab world…)
        
        Lets list them shall we:
        
        1/ Egypt: The government there cares not a jot for the Gazans – doesnt want them, even when the strip was offered back when they made peace with Israeli and got most of the Sinai back. Militarily they have been rinsed a few times by the Israelis and are not capable of having another go even if their political elite wanted to… There is no CCCP to supply arms. material and “advisors” to support a military attack on Israel
        
        2/Jordan: No, just no. Israeli tech and economic links keep Jordan afloat and they again dont want Palestinians or want to help them given the PLO tried to kill the Jordanian King and take over the country in 1973.
        
        3/Syria: LOL. The country is a mess and is not in a unified or coherent structure to mount a military adventure against Israel…
        
        4/ Iraq: See Syria by much worse.
        
        5/Various Gulf States; Well they have the cash but no capability to intervene militarily at all… So rule them out
        
        6/North African Arab states: Nah. Cant project power and while Libya, Tunisia, Algeria historically have support the PLO and Palestinians in general they have no ability short of training camps and funds to affect Israel via military means.
        
        So that leaves Saudi Arabia
        
        Saudis: The leadership in waiting (Crown prince and his supporters) wants nothing to do with the Palestinians and have made no serious attempts to help them for years – in fact if Iran hadnt driven Hamas to attack on 7 Oct, there would now be a peace and trade accorded signed between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
        
        So Israel faces very limited threats from the Arab world as much as the true believing Islamists on the Arab Street may want their rulers to attack and destroy Israel.
        
        The real threat is from Iran and its proxy terror armies like Hamas and Hezbullah.
        
        I predict once Gaza is in the past that Hezbullah are in for a lot of upper echelon leadership losses and will have a number of their missile storage facilities destroyed
        
        Israel has been roused and will now spend the next decade cleaning house, which will only be amplified if Biden loses the next USA presidential election
        
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        January 15, 2024 12:48pm
      - Paulus
        
        Israel has been under severe threat since 1948 formation by the International Powers and Agreements.
        
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        January 15, 2024 1:30pm
    - krazykiwi
      
      Occupation only ‘works’ where the occupied population largely, if begrudgingly, puts up with the occupiers. With close to 100% of the Gaza population wanting every Jewish head removed from its shoulders I can see occupation being a continual bloodbath.
      
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      January 15, 2024 9:10am
      - Chuck Bird
        
        KK, you have picked that it is not just a small minority that wants to kill Jews. The Israelis will stay in protected compounds and just come out to search for weapons.
        
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        January 15, 2024 9:17am
      - cmm
        
        From the occupier’s point of view, occupation only “works” if you can get out of it eventually.
        
        Israel already had to do occupation and withdrew when they could hand over to the PA.Keeping boots on the ground in another country is expensive and massively disliked by everyone – both occupier and occupied.
        
        But previously Israel were forced into it and likely they will be forced into it again.
        
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        January 15, 2024 9:32am
    - Warren
      
      And the very young and helpless are the ones that suffer through know fault of themselves without being able to defend themselves.
      I agree that Hamas started this and Israel should be able to defend themselves but at some point someone has to wake up and defend the helpless as Israel won’t stop until everyone is dead.
      That’s not defending yourself.
      
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      January 15, 2024 4:08pm
      - marcw
        
        Perhaps when the innocent hostages are returned? Or what point do you suggest Warren? The IDF may be on the brink of finding new HAMAS supply tunnels under the Egyptian border, so if I was them, I would wait until that possibility has been cleared at least.
        
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        January 15, 2024 5:41pm
  - KH
    
    My view Grunter is that Israel will not survive. Might take many decades yet. If it changed it’s approach it might have a chance.
    
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    January 15, 2024 8:34am
    - Chuck Bird
      
      Israel has nuclear weapons. They will take out Iran if pushed too hard.
      
      16 4
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      January 15, 2024 10:18am
      - MCōs
        
        Israel may well have nuclear weapons, but it would be committing suicide to use them.
        Just look at who else has the wretched things
        
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        January 15, 2024 1:15pm
      - Jake Dee
        
        Just take a little time to consider the details of what Israel “Taking out” Iran with nuclear weapons would look like. Iran is a nation of nearly 90 million people and an area of 1.6 million square km. Putting the morality of mass murder aside for one moment, if Israel launched every single one of it’s nuclear weapons in a surprise attack on Iran they would only ever be able to wound it. Then all bets are off, all treaties and deals with all the nations of the world are finished and Israel is the mad dog who has to be stopped.
        This isn’t a gun fight where you can just put a bullet in a man’s heart and it’s finished. there will always be a day after. Every action has a reaction and history never stops.
        
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        January 15, 2024 6:49pm
    - NothingLeft
      
      Iran is building up stocks of nuke bombs, and depending on how nuts the Iranian leadership is some of those might eventually end up in the hands of Hamas or Hezbollah.
      
      I’d say substantial chance that Israel in nuked in next decade, but that if that happens then Iran is wiped off the map too.
      
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      January 15, 2024 10:33am
      - Grunter
        
        Yep, I agree. The Irainian Mullah’s are absolutely nuts, anything could happen.
        
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        January 15, 2024 10:54am
      - NothingLeft
        
        Also a high chance that Iranian sourced nukes are used to wipe out a major western city in next 1-2 decades. Iran already sponsors other terrorist attacks. New York, Washington DC, LA, San Fransisco, Riyad, London are all in substantial peril with Nukes in the hands of death-in-Allahs-name-is-good Mullahs.
        
        Nukes should not be allowed to be in the hands of non-democratically elected leaders or religious fundamentalists.
        
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        January 15, 2024 1:38pm
    - kowtow
      
      Exactly the same for the “west” , it might take a hundred years , but it won’t survive .
      
      Demographics is destiny.
      
      8 3
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      January 15, 2024 10:58am
    - artemisia
      
      What about New Israel? South America, say. Where there are already significant numbers. Take their brains, experience, businesses and money and relocate en masse. Use their resources to grow, not defend.
      
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      January 15, 2024 12:17pm
  - Paulus
    
    Egypt will not take them and they are next door !
    
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    January 15, 2024 10:12am
  - newview
    
    Fair point Grunter. Chucks unquestionable support for Israel without explanation is a bit simplistic for me. If the total demolition of Gaza and the continued seemingly random killing of those who get in the way is Israels plan that’s a bit simplistic for me to. However Israel was well justified to retaliate strongly for those initial attacks and eliminating Hamas is part of that retaliation.. Israel is a legal state and has a right to be there but Israels agenda to populate disputed areas shows they are not blameless in the history since 1948.
    My solution for what its worth would be for UN forces to to enter Gaza regardless of whether Israel wants that or not. With all those around the world who support the Palestinians demands for a stop to military action from Israel, there has been little demand for Hamas to release the remaining Israeli hostages. Where is the pressure on Hamas to release those hostages. UN control and the release of the hostages will go a long way to finding some peace for the area.
    
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    January 15, 2024 10:20am
    - Chuck Bird
      
      “Chucks unquestionable support for Israel without explanation is a bit simplistic for me.”
      
      I believe the settlers’ behaviour in the West Bank was quite wrong in many cases. However, that in no way justified what happened on 7 October.
      
      There is also no justification for attacks by Muslims throughout the West.
      
      The fact is that few Muslims integrate when they come to the West. Look at Scandinavia.
      
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      January 15, 2024 10:31am
    - Paulus
      
      Didn’t Hamas strike Israelis first or do we ignore that now.
      Seems to be what the media understand and are paid to say.
      
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      January 15, 2024 1:34pm
  - Master Mariner
    
    Thats the crux of the matter.
    There is no where to go.
    So in effect you have consolidated another generation of terrorists all in the name of Allah.
    There is no moral high ground what so ever.
    The real question in my mind is what tail is wagging which dog.
    
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    January 15, 2024 12:39pm
  - miltonF
    
    Here’s my prediction:
    
    Israel will annex Gaza with the protection of the USA military. Surrounding countries will not dare interfere. The situation will become so bad that eventually neighbouring countries will grudgingly accept some refugees. However Israel will make sure that they relocate a bunch of them to the West Bank. Why? So they can recreate the same situation and annex the West Bank in the future…
    
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    January 15, 2024 6:13pm
- Simon
  
  Was the Israel govt involved in running Epstein Island? Looks quite possible.
  
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  January 15, 2024 8:23am
  - NothingLeft
    
    Yep, seems highly likely. As a small and seriously embattled state they will be of an ends-justifies-means survivalist mentality. But also clear that CIA or other three letter US agencies were in on the action – Prosecuters were told to back off in earlier Epstein prosecution and give him an easy deal by intelligence agencies.
    
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    January 15, 2024 1:40pm
- nathie
  
  Imagine the Greens were around in WW2 and held “pro-German” rallies condemning the allies for bombing Germany.
  
  Also imagine if the Greens totally ignored the Nazi party and German atrocities against allied nations and their populations.
  
  Isn’t this similar to the situation we have today regarding the Greens and their support of Palestine and zero acknowledgement of Hamas and their atrocities?
  
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  January 15, 2024 8:32am
  - Jake Dee
    
    Similar to your imagination, Yes.
    
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    January 15, 2024 6:53pm
Inandout

Hipkins spouting on ZB but will GG be mentioned I wonder.
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January 15, 2024 8:09am
- Chuck Bird
  
  Sadly not.
  
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  January 15, 2024 8:35am
- sht1971
  
  And sadly the fluff continues. A very misleading headline from that interview..
  https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/chris-hipkins-on-jacinda-arderns-wedding-his-summer-break-and-the-year-ahead/ZA7LHCCD7RHUPKVJYPVM7WFUTA/
  
  I scoured for anything about the year ahead but could only find wedding….
  
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  January 15, 2024 8:58am
- MCōs
  
  Golriz Ghahraman’s alleged shoplifting is nothing to do with Hipkins and the Labour Party; nor the PM for that matter
  It’s a serious problem for the Greens and the shop in question who don’t need this sort of attention
  No problem at all for the gossiping class, the media and the self righteous!
  
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  January 15, 2024 9:02am
  - mandk
    
    Wrong.
    
    You can judge a Party by the company they keep. And, with the possible exception of James Shaw, the Greens are a rag bag of drop kicks and degenerates.
    
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    January 15, 2024 9:26am
    - cmm
      
      Shaw is just a slightly more refined drop kick and degenerate.
      
      45 4
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      January 15, 2024 9:33am
    - Ghost
      
      Rubbish, the leader of the opposition has got nothing to do with this issue and he should leave it to the greens to comment on.
      
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      January 15, 2024 9:37am
      - Inandout
        
        Ghost, GG is a fellow supporter of the last Labour government and was happy for prisons to close.
        
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        January 15, 2024 9:50am
      - Ghost
        
        So? It has nothing to do with the leader of labour. Will you demand the resignations from everyone in the party that this person was part of? After all apparently you judge a party by the company they keep
        
        https://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/auckland-top-stories/300791764/prominent-political-figure-in-court-on-historical-sexual-assault-charges-including-against-underage-boy
        
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        January 15, 2024 9:55am
      - Matt Long
        
        Ghost; Will you demand the resignations from everyone in the party that this person was part of?
        Only the ones who supported or covered up the behaviour should the allegations be proved.
        
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        January 15, 2024 11:13am
      - Ghost
        
        Exactly, you don’t judge people by the company you keep, you judge them on their actions for what they are responsible for. Golriz has nothing to do with labour. It’s a Green Party issue, nothing to do with Hipkins
        
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        January 15, 2024 11:24am
    - Hard Cheese
      
      Shaw is just as big an idiot because he publicly agrees with the ideas of the other Green loons.
      
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      January 15, 2024 10:54am
  - Scooter
    
    Unless she is innocent she should resign, the fact that she has not commented shows she is guilty as. If she was innocent I would have expected her to immediately comment to clear her name.
    
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    January 15, 2024 9:47am
    - Bobba Fret
      
      Yes if it was me accused wrongly of shop lifting, I would have commented to say I have been wrongly accused and will fight the allegations on my return to NZ.
      
      17 1
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      January 15, 2024 11:38am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      She will be left with no choice if found guilty of theft over 1000 bucks, you are dismissed from parliament with a max penalty over two years prison, this charge is 7 years max
      
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      January 15, 2024 12:26pm
      - Sir Cullen's Sidekick
        
        Giant – If she spends even 60 seconds in prison, I will vote Greens next election. Wait for the charges to be dropped and Police issuing a statement that there is nudding to see here.
        
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        January 15, 2024 4:24pm
  - Paulus
    
    Sadly it looks as though GG may be guilty of shoplifting as a result of some medical condition. Therefore to get some sympathy she should resign from Parliament, and the Green Party, when she may well get some help, along with some sympathy.
    After all Wade-Brown is already cycling to Parliament to take her seat.
    
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    January 15, 2024 10:17am
    - NothingLeft
      
      Mental health will be the excuse, but she looks to me like a narcissist who feels she should be queen (kleptomania is often associated with narcissism). Social media feeds and exacerbates narcissism and other ‘dark triad’ traits, particularly in ‘Insta’ and Tiktok addicted women.
      
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      January 15, 2024 10:41am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      There is no excuse for this, this crap about MS is utter crap, it’s no excuse for the common man
      
      16 1
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      January 15, 2024 12:28pm
    - Rumblestrip
      
      Are we really going down the path of accepting the claim “I shoplifted due to my medical condition?” As if MS turns you into a kleptomaniac.
      
      It’s really an insult to thousands of other Kiwis with MS and other brain conditions who don’t go out thieving.
      
      If GG really was so out of touch with reality, why did she adamantly refuse to have her bag searched? Because she knew she had stolen, and knew it was wrong. Regardless of any brain conditions, she had a “guilty mind.”
      
      Also note she wasn’t stealing chewing gum at the service station but high-end, very expensive clothes. I’m sure they would have been her size. Totally self-serving. End of.
      
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      January 15, 2024 4:17pm
  - Chuck Bird
    
    Green MP Golriz Ghahraman back in New Zealand amid shoplifting claims
    
    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/green-mp-golriz-ghahraman-back-in-new-zealand-amid-shoplifting-claims/TO4YHNRP35BXNNDG2L7ISYVVDA/
    
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    January 15, 2024 12:36pm
- pdm
  
  Not his business these days I would have thought. GG is solely a problem for the Green Party and taxpayers.
  
  Hipkins has never had a concern for Taxpayers.
  
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  January 15, 2024 10:28am
Maggie Pie

Lost in translation?

When you hit ‘Translate Post’ from Persian, the Iranian twitterer references Golriz as…..HE.

https://twitter.com/AnzanZad/status/1746511427685478574
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January 15, 2024 8:16am
- Im Right
  
  Ohhh that poor man will be hounded!
  Not because of the meme (which is fact) but that he mis-gendered someone….his life is over!
  
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  January 15, 2024 8:23am
  - Dudley Quaffquaff
    
    He did not. Persian is a gender-neutral language, so the words for “he” and “she” are the same. This one is on Google Translate, where they are aware of and working on its gender bias but haven’t got there yet.
    
    Usually that bias works against females, for example it translates “o caliskan” to “he is hardworking” but “o tembel” to “she is lazy” (Turkish, but without letter modifications because I can’t be bothered to work out how to do them here). So in this case it’s quite refreshing to see Google assuming that a person accused of shoplifting is a “he”.
    
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    January 15, 2024 9:09am
- sirknz
  
  Don’t let Martyn Bradbury find out, misgendering someone is a far worse crime than shoplifting…
  
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  January 15, 2024 10:00am
Cassandra

UK and US news: Houthi strikes feature, with the sobering analysis that most of the West is bludging off America and Trump isn’t the only politician who will demand that US allies must pay their fair share. We are all totally dependent on trade, NZ more than most. We all need to contribute. A fisheries protection coast guard in our EEZ is not enough by miles. NZ needs a proper navy.
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January 15, 2024 8:27am
- mikenmildagain
  
  NZ doesn’t need to do too much to restore credible military capabilities. It is getting the new Poseidons and Hercules. The two frigates are being upgraded, but we really need a third. Have a modern tanker and a multi-role vessel. significant pay rises are desperately needed, and a thinning of senior officer ranks.
  The requirements are pretty modest, really. I can confidently predict the government will come up with a new white paper of capability plan, but then neglect to fund it.
  
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  January 15, 2024 9:54am
  - sirknz
    
    Those frigates at top speed can’t keep up with the average cruising speed of our allies in a flotilla (everyone else has to slow down for us) and the peashooters on board are barely capable of sinking a derelict fishing boat, at least according to the Navy guys I was speaking to a little while back.
    
    The torpedo tubes are apparently great fun when firing basketballs and lettuce or cabbage though…
    
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    January 15, 2024 10:04am
    - Paulus
      
      You assume that they are working – it would not be the first time when one frigate only got out of the Gulf just before coming back to Devonport.
      
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      January 15, 2024 10:23am
    - Wayne Mapp
      
      Our frigates are the same as those of Australia and a number of NATO nations. They have just been upgraded with new weapons systems and targeting radars. They have been used in numerous coalition operations and exercises.
      Yes, there is a current problem in retaining personnel, but don’t pretend that the ships are utterly useless. They are not. They are as good as the other MEKO 200 ships operated by Australia and by NATO nations.
      
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      January 15, 2024 11:16am
  - Paulus
    
    Are our NZ Navy vessel construction of a Naval configuration or are they a cheaper Commercial variety.
    For example did not one vessel get stoved in in the lower waters in a storm ?
    
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    January 15, 2024 10:22am
    - fightingtemeraire
      
      The frigates are to military standard. The rest to Lloyds Register or similar.
      
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      January 15, 2024 10:34am
  - fightingtemeraire
    
    We have a modern tanker.
    
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    January 15, 2024 10:35am
    - G152
      
      We actually had a navy when I was in in 1957
      
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      January 15, 2024 11:03am
  - Cassandra
    
    The current frigates are actually running out of time. NZ needs a third, as you say, but the crunch is that we now need to commit to the future fleet, likely three ships, probably Type 31 or equivalent. Very expensive but necessary. And we need to rethink the Army. Modern artillery (probably not guns), air defence, a realistic role. Air force okay in the meantime. And again you’re really get re the funding – real money will be needed. Bludging has got to stop.
    
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    January 15, 2024 10:58am
    - rangitoto
      
      Some destroyers with decent firepower would be better. Something like the upcoming DDG(X) would be good. They’ve got lasers!
      
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      January 15, 2024 3:08pm
  - Burtland
    
    havent the Ukrainians shown that conventional Navies eg Russian are obsolete ?
    
    7 2
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    January 15, 2024 12:33pm
    - rangitoto
      
      Not really. RuZZian stuff is not the best.
      
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      January 15, 2024 3:18pm
- jon
  
  Dump our nonsense anti nuclear stance and outsource our defence needs to Australia who are serious about such matters.
  
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  January 15, 2024 11:13am
  - Jake Dee
    
    Partially agree.
    Rethink defense, procurement, recruiting and training from the ground up. There is an enormous amount that can be done locally and in conjunction with Oz.
    Currently the funding is lacking, but also the political willpower and intelligence. There is a gigantic amount of old cold war stuff, less complex that a Toyota Carrola, just sitting around that can be the template for some very useful stuff indeed. That Kiwi guy (religious nutcase, but still smart) who made most of a cruise missile in his shed, points the way at what is possible with wits, determination and a bit of money.
    The bloated NATO Military Industrial Complex is not the only shop in town.
    Let The Bob Semple Tank show us the way!
    
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    January 15, 2024 7:07pm
- Master Mariner
  
  There is a few enigmas,
  Mainly why is the Chinese navy not patroling, A few Chinese registered Ships have been attacked.,
  Where is the EU Navy ? They have the most too lose economically wise. And why are the EU not unified.
  The big one for me is the fact it has not been delared a War Zone. Which it meets all the criteria.
  Incidently the Indian Navy is doing a sterling job outside of the area.
  
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  January 15, 2024 1:04pm
  - JimBobJoe
    
    China has a small flotilla of frigates (iirc) in Djibouti
    
    They should out there protecting commercial shipping
    
    They are not as they are happy to see the US etc expend munitions and they are probably talking with the Iranians to co-ordinate the attacks in the first place.
    
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    January 15, 2024 1:38pm
    - Master Mariner
      
      Why interupt the enemy , When he’s making a mistake.
      Sun Tzu.
      
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      January 15, 2024 6:38pm
      - Jake Dee
        
        That was Napoleon, but still a good point.
        Generally, I think we are starting to see that the power of NATO and the West has been overestimated for some time now. Other groups have been rising in strength, but the West has also allowed itself to be slowly hollowed out from inside.
        Recruitment short falls are a sign of this but also the new capabilities that Russia and China have fielded but that The West just doesn’t seem to be able to match.
        The West still has a few cards in it’s hand but they are getting fewer and fewer.
        
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        January 15, 2024 7:12pm
Skippytony

For those following the UK Post Office scandal, here is a good summary:

https://davidallengreen.com/2024/01/how-the-legal-system-made-it-so-easy-for-the-post-office-to-destroy-the-lives-of-the-sub-postmasters-and-sub-postmistresses-and-how-the-legal-system-then-made-it-so-hard-for-them-to-obtain-justice/
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January 15, 2024 8:29am
Surely Knott

A man lives in a shared building where a person from unit 3 stole his washing machine, repeatedly urinated on his doorstep, looking through his letterbox, made serious threats to him and climbed into his ceiling cavity.

And the courts find the landlord didn’t do enough. Should have installed security cameras on the common area and added privacy film on the windows. But it wasn’t suggested that the landlord should have evicted unit 3.

But what of the police, the courts , social services and the media. What’s their role in all this.

Why aren’t the people from unit 3 , the people who are actually responsible, named in the article , but the poor land lord is.

“Turner involved the police, and the washing machine was recovered.” Ok, yeah recovered and then what. Arrested? Charged?

Then he found someone hiding in his ceiling from unit 3. “Turner called the police, who took one person into custody.”. Taken Into custody and……then what arrested, charged, given a restraining order? It seems not. Just taken into custody is all the article says.

https://i.stuff.co.nz/business/133551222/tenant-who-found-neighbour-hiding-in-ceiling-cavity-wins-compensation
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January 15, 2024 8:30am
- Ghost
  
  Oh let’s blame the media for this, jezz, you never stop blaming everyone else do you. Police turned up, the dog unit turned up, the man was arrested. But let’s blame the police the media, how about you blame the labour government for making it nearly impossible to evict these kind of tenants.
  
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  January 15, 2024 9:42am
  - slijmbal
    
    What I found weird is that it somehow ended up (at least partially the landlord’s fault!). Assuming said neighbours rented (highly likely), possibly even from us via Housing Corp (whatever it’s called nowadays), surely it’s that landlord’s issue.
    
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    January 15, 2024 10:16am
  - Surely Knott
    
    Get a grip Ghost you’re obsessed with tracking my posts. Yes. It shows a pattern of behaviour. Who is blamed in the article. The landlord. Not the criminal. Who is responsible for charging and reporting on criminals. Yes. Police and media. I Am concerned about the new style of reporting that doesn’t name the criminal or what they were charged for. Why does the landlords company get named but not the criminals. Complaints about media’s reporting on crime will continue because it’s wrong.
    
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    January 15, 2024 12:25pm
    - Ghost
      
      You are on a public blog, don’t like people replying then don’t post crap. You’re concerned about blaming the media, police and everyone you can. Are you one of these people who like to blame others and lack self responsibility.
      
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      January 15, 2024 12:33pm
      - JimBobJoe
        
        Wow – deep end there Ghost. How is it blaming others to ask why the Media report in a certain way? Have a chill pill lad/ladette
        
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        January 15, 2024 1:40pm
      - Ghost
        
        Becuase this is what she constantly does. She comes and blames the police, she blames the media, she blames everyone and rarely mentions the criminal or the victims. She blames the media for not giving details of those arrested, even when there is name suppression. She blames the police for not giving details to cases that they are working on. She thinks she has a right to know details before they are presented in court.
        
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        January 15, 2024 1:48pm
  - Surely Knott
    
    @Ghost Are you saying it’s ok to name and blame landlords for the criminals behaviour? But not ok to name or blame media or police or the criminal themselves? That is the problem!
    
    Ps. Any word on who shot green candidate Jack Brazil? Has he said who was in the car with him, or did they report what police found when they raided his cafe? Is there still an open investigation?
    
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    January 15, 2024 12:29pm
    - Ghost
      
      No I’m saying you are a broken record that constantly blames the police and media. You are do deep in your attempts to blame them you’ve even in posts ignored the victims, shown no care for them until others do.
      
      Oh back on about Brazil, perhaps you can write him and ask him to actually tell the police who shot him. No you like to attack the police for him withholding information too.
      
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      January 15, 2024 12:38pm
      - Surely Knott
        
        Because the Jack Brazil case was a shooting and hasn’t been resolved, so yes I’m still asking questions.
        
        From media, “A person affiliated with Yours (cafe) told the Otago Daily Times on Sunday Brazil drove himself to the space after being shot in the liver. He called for an “ambulance but ended up getting a ride to hospital after flagging down a passing car.
        
        A witness said the armed offenders squad raided the premises about an hour later.”
        
        “The space remained cordoned off while police investigated it yesterday.”
        
        Hmmm I am also still wondering why Yours cafe was ” raided”. That’s all very weird. Is there still an open case?
        
        It’s not my job to personally ring Jack Brazil to ask for the case details. It’s the medias. Shall keep asking.
        
        https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/half-moon-bay-crash-nurses-among-those-injured-by-mans-alleged-car-attack-at-bus-stop/SX6WW7U7T5FMLDV3JK4SSKIZAI/
        
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        January 15, 2024 3:12pm
      - Ghost
        
        Then tell Brazil to tell the police who shot him. They can’t look into the magic ball you think they have and see who did it. They need Brazil to stop withholding information. Surely you actually can comprehend that.
        
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        January 15, 2024 3:15pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Stop Co-Governance. Julian Batchelor.

A Ngapuhi Elder talks some sense. Will activists follow him? No chance!

https://stopcogovernance.kiwi/blog/ngapuhi-kaumatua-says-te-reo-is-an-obsolete-inferior-language/
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January 15, 2024 8:41am
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  Crickey! He’ll be off the whanau Christmas card list.
  
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  January 15, 2024 7:53pm
Maggy Wassilieff

How on earth did any Health Authority think it was acceptable to appoint a chap with a violent rape conviction, dishonesty convictions, mental health issues and an “intellectual disability” to a position as a care-giver to a bed-ridden tetraplegic?

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/506645/carer-jailed-after-stealing-thousands-of-dollars-from-taranaki-tetraplegic-man#:~:text=On%20two%20admitted%20charges%20of,also%20ordered%20to%20pay%20reparation.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/editors-picks/4649215/Man-jailed-over-rape-of-pregnant-woman
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January 15, 2024 8:44am
greybeard

https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/133551674/are-gen-z-really-annoying-in-the-workplace-they-say-yeah-sometimes

There is no way I would accept “Financial Advice” from a 21-year old !

And why on earth does the 21-year old “Sales Consultant” do that sort of job if he “dislikes customers and believes he should get paid more considering how long he has been working here” ?
23 3
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January 15, 2024 8:47am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Spoilt little shits. They like the job, but don’t like working.
  I say to them quite often “You are here for one reason, right?”
  “What’s that?”
  “Waiting for knockoff time!”
  They don’t like what is true.
  
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  January 15, 2024 9:29am
- sirknz
  
  Just reading the last one’s comments is like really like annoying like you know like…
  
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  January 15, 2024 10:16am
leoj

TV 1 cricket is unbearable watching.

I gave up Sky TV three or more years ago. Paying $100 a month for too much crap.

Missed the cricket but that was the price I was prepared to pay to avoid all the woke nonsense.

TV 1 takes over Blackcaps match coverage and I had a Freeview descrambler so hooked it up, just to watch some good cricket.

It’s unwatchable with all the maori woke that has infected TV 1.

Place names – in maori.

Cricket terms such as wicket, fours and sixes – in maori.

When the hell did maori know the first thing about cricket and yet we have this crap rammed down our throats.

TV 1 – you are a disgrace allowing an obviously non-maori-invented sport to be overtaken by maori.

It’s unbearable. You lost me. I give up. Get lost with your woke maori nonsense.

The Blackcaps can continue without my nationalistic support and Cricket NZ get stuffed also. What a spineless pack of pathetic wokesters.
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January 15, 2024 8:52am
- Grunter
  
  Great rant! And I agree, impossible to watch/listen to
  
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  January 15, 2024 9:42am
- thirteenstars
  
  The Black Clash game coming up in a few days will use the Alternative Commentary Collective as the commentary team. Those guys are not woke and are as subversively funny as hell.
  
  They also do commentary of all Blackcaps games. You just need to hit mute on the TV and listen to their webcast:
  
  https://www.theaccnz.com/live-commentary/the-acc-brings-you-live-free-black-caps-commentary-all-summer/
  
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  January 15, 2024 9:44am
- mikenmildagain
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  I’ve heard that in some other countries entire commentary is in strange languages such as Hindi or Urdu. Unbelievable.
  
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  January 15, 2024 9:45am
  - rangitoto
    
    Hindu and Urdu, good old Indo-European languages.
    
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    January 15, 2024 10:22am
  - Media hater
    
    At the risk of stating the obvious, the reason commentary is in Hindi or Urdu, is because significant numbers watching or listening actually understand those languages.
    
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    January 15, 2024 10:27am
    - mikenmildagain
      
      Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
      The petal above wasn’t talking about commentary in Māori (the horror) though. His snowflake sensibilities were offended by the occasional refernce to Māori place names, and the screens at the grounds having scary worlds like wikiti, wha or ono.
      
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      January 15, 2024 10:43am
  - JimBobJoe
    
    h Mike, as a troll that is lame even for you.
    
    Cricket as an exemplar product of Colonialism is a very odd sport to attach Maori language terms to. I thought Maori wanted decolonisation!!
    
    As for Urdu and Hindi commentaries – if you have every heard them they drop the english cricket terms in all the time
    
    Try harder Michael. I dont think your heart is in the trolling game this year… very disappointing and must try harder
    
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    January 15, 2024 1:44pm
  - Jake Dee
    
    Hindi 609 million speakers, Urdu 232 million, you probably could have gone for better examples than that.
    I have no problem at all with nations or tribes keeping and protecting their languages, but we have to be clear on what they are and what they can do.
    Nobody is constructing electronic circuitry in Scots Gaelic and negotiating international business deals in Haitian creole.
    The business of the New Zealand government does not need to be conducted in Māori, this is a political and social status power play.
    
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    January 15, 2024 7:24pm
- pdm
  
  leoj
  
  Did not realise it was so bad as I never watch T20, hit and giggle, cricket
  
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  January 15, 2024 10:32am
- Moggy Cattermole
  
  Yes, as a long time cricket follower I agree that is unbearable. I also find Scotty Stevenson one of the worst commentators as he has little understanding of the game and makes constant mistakes. In terms of the Maori wokeness, TVNZ are not solely to blame as NZ cricket have gone down a similar path. Check out their recent annual reports sometime. They are driving this just as much as TVNZ.
  
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  January 15, 2024 10:49am
  - Burtland
    
    no money from government without supporting the woke agenda …
    
    Go and have a look at Sport NZ – another woke Robertson clusterfxxk needing disassembly ?
    
    https://sportnz.org.nz/about/our-structure/
    
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    January 15, 2024 12:52pm
- Damocles11
  
  Wokie Wokenson leads the woke commentary charge.
  
  8 1
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  January 15, 2024 11:33am
- MCōs
  
  All the games are deliberately played at places named after foreigners that people have mostly never heard of just so the Māori name can be slipped in to piss off people like you.
  BTW
  It’s free, which probably means they can’t afford top notch commentators like Ian Smith
  And
  Sky doesn’t cost me $100/month for sport and the basic channels, which don’t include all those one eyed 24hr news services
  
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  January 15, 2024 2:04pm
- Conservatarian
  
  I noticed that TVNZ’s coverage of last night’s NZ v Pakistan game was beamed live from “Kirikiriroa”, having just days earlier watched TVNZ’s coverage of the domestic Northern Districts v Canterbury T20 game beamed live from “Hamilton”. I could have sworn it was the same venue used for both games and the associated broadcasts. Can’t be though. “They” wouldn’t give preferential treatment to one language for the more high profile event, not “they” the state media.
  
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  January 15, 2024 5:39pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  “Batter”. FFS!
  
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  January 15, 2024 7:57pm
Prince

Tenant rents flat next to sub-human animals.
The Law decides Landlord has to pay.
No mention of what happened to the feral tenant next door.
New Zealand in 2024.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/133551222/tenant-who-found-neighbour-hiding-in-ceiling-cavity-wins-compensation
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January 15, 2024 8:53am
mikenmildagain

Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
I see Donald Trump is back in court tomorrow to see how much he will have to pay for continuing to defame his rape victim.
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January 15, 2024 8:53am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Which victim is that Mike?
  So hard to keep up with the Political interference.
  
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  January 15, 2024 9:37am
  - mikenmildagain
    
    I can understand you might have difficulty counting the number of women he has assaulted.
    
    7 33
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    January 15, 2024 9:46am
    - Its only I
      
      King Trump supporters don’t count the females way, way too young to be woman mike…keep up…or those that dropped their case due to death threats.
      
      4 15
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      January 15, 2024 10:04am
    - Steve Otto(North Shore)
      
      Witch hunt.
      “With no date, no month, no year, you can’t present an alibi, you can’t call witnesses,” Tacopina said. “What they want is for you to hate him enough to ignore the facts.”
      
      At the trial Trump was not allowed to speak or defend himself. Kangaroo Court.
      
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      January 15, 2024 10:57am
      - virtualmark
        
        Not true.
        
        Trump was absolutely allowed to speak – the defence could have called him as a witness. But they chose not to. In fact they chose to put up hardly any defence at all.
        
        Trump, over many years, has rarely (I want to say never) testified in court. Under oath. And subject to cross-examination. He threatens and blusters about his innocence, and witch hunts, and whines like a baby about how unfair it is. But here’s three observable truths from his litigation history:
        1. He will not testify in court under oath,
        2. He very rarely (if ever?) follows through on a threat to sue – nearly all of his suits are abandoned just before he is required to make a deposition,
        3. He always tries to delay every court proceeding.
        
        Those are not the actions of an innocent man.
        
        Maybe Steve, just maybe, he’s a third-generation mobbed-up crook who commits a lot of crimes???
        
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        January 15, 2024 4:03pm
      - virtualmark
        
        Further to the above … when I say Trump doesn’t testify in court, that’s true to date.
        
        But to date Trump has been in civil cases. The Georgia, DC and Florida cases are criminal cases.
        
        Firstly, as a defendant in a criminal case you can’t decide whether you want to be in court, or go play golf, or have a “rally”. Trump may be compelled to be in court every day – which I doubt he could cope with emotionally.
        
        Secondly, as a defendant in a criminal case you might find yourself called to testify whether you want to or not. I suspect he won’t testify in these cases, but it’s possible he is called as, say, a defence witness for one of the other defendants in the Georgia case.
        
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        January 15, 2024 4:20pm
      - imalwaysright
        
        S.O
        They did the same with Alex Jones .
        Also wasn’t allowed to question witnesses or rebut a witness employed to assess Jones ‘ net worth.
        
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        January 15, 2024 4:25pm
      - virtualmark
        
        Steve and imalwaysright, stop for a moment and think through one simple question …
        
        *If* “they” forbid you to speak in your own defence in court … do you think that would be slam-dunk grounds for appeal, or even better a mis-trial? Do you think you could take that all the way to the Supreme Court and win?
        
        The grown-up answers are “yes” and “yes”.
        
        Trump has not appealed the E Jean Carroll verdict. Alex Jones has not, AFAIK, appealed the major decisions against him (ie the Sandy Hook case).
        
        Maybe the reality is that when you believe that Trump & Jones were not allowed to testify in Court that that is in fact wrong?
        
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        January 15, 2024 5:01pm
      - imalwaysright
        
        Virtual
        I agree that it provides very good grounds for appeal.
        I watched the judge instruct Jones and remove his rights. What else can I post other than what happened?
        
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        January 15, 2024 5:47pm
      - virtualmark
        
        imalwaysright,
        
        I suspect you may be misinterpreting the Judge’s instructions. Witnesses in Court need to restrict their comments to the facts and the law relevant to the case. It’s not a free ticket to just rant about whatever you want.
        
        It is the Judge’s courtroom. If they think you’re just going to go off-topic or on wild goose type tangents then yes they are allowed to restrict your right to speak in the courtroom.
        
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        January 15, 2024 7:25pm
      - imalwaysright
        
        Virtual
        
        “I suspect you may be misinterpreting the Judge’s instructions. …”
        
        Since you haven’t seen and heard what the judge said to Jones you are not entitled to suspect what my interpretation may be.
        
        You are entitled, however, to have suspicion.
        
        Words matter.
        Yours make you appear willing to draw conclusions in the absence of evidence.
        
        Never a good idea.
        
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        January 15, 2024 9:28pm
      - virtualmark
        
        Shrug.
        
        But hey, I’ve done a bit of Googling and reading about Alex Jones testifying in the Sandy Hook trial at least. Two things to note:
        
        Firstly, the Judge found against Alex Jones on the defamation charge prior to trial – so the trial was just to determine the damages. So no one, including Jones, testified on the core charge – the Judge’s decision was based on the documents both sides filed. That’s common in civil cases. Trump’s current NY fraud trial is exactly the same … the Judge found him guilty of fraud based on the filings and the trial is just to determine damages. So no conspiracy there that Jones wasn’t allowed to testify.
        
        Secondly, it’s clear that when Jones was testifying (he did testify for several days) the Judge repeatedly admonished him to stay focused on the issue at hand. Quotes like “reminding the Infowars founder that he was in a court of law and is required to follow her instructions. ‘This is clearly not your show and you have to respect the process,’ Bellis told Jones. ‘Whether you like it or not you have to respect the rules.’ ” Which is exactly what I was alluding to in my previous post.
        
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        January 15, 2024 10:01pm
  - CrazyIvan
    
    E Jean Carroll. You know, the person that Trump said in court was not his type, and then thought the photo of her was of Marla Maples (his wife).
    
    The case where a jury found he had sexually abused her.
    
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    January 15, 2024 9:56am
    - Paulus
      
      Remember he was found Guilty by a US Court jury composed by predominantly women, as usual.
      
      9 5
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      January 15, 2024 10:27am
    - Libertarians are right
      
      The civil case where she accused him of rape, but because there was zero evidence, they went with sexual assault? Where their main piece of evidence was the recording of Trump saying that women let him grab them because he is famous?
      
      14 4
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      January 15, 2024 10:33am
      - mikenmildagain
        
        You would like to parse the difference between ‘sexual assault’ and ‘rape’? Would you be happier if Trump were referred to as a ‘sexual assaulter’ rather than a ‘rapist’?
        
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        January 15, 2024 10:38am
      - Libertarians are right
        
        Mike – there can be a huge difference between the two things (sexual assault is very broad). Also – it was a civil defamation case where he had to prove that he didn’t assault her. That’s a big difference to proving he did.
        
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        January 15, 2024 11:27am
      - Its only I
        
        The reason it was assault is because of the peculiar way that state classes rape as pecker use only.
        It was unclear if Old Stinky had penetrated her with a finger or his pecker. A jury both parties agreed on found it guilty but unfortunately for Trump the jury was protected from his “boys” threatening harm to anyone not giving Stinky a free pass.
        
        Every single trial old splatter pants releases names, ph numbers and addresses of everyone who opposes him for his drones to go a callin.
        
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        January 15, 2024 3:03pm
      - fernglas
        
        “Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled that Trump cannot deny the sexual assault, pointing to a jury’s previous finding.
        
        “Consequently, the fact that Mr Trump sexually abused – indeed, raped – Ms Carroll has been conclusively established and is binding in this case,” Kaplan also said.”
        
        Seems pretty clear cut to me.
        
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        January 15, 2024 6:57pm
sungsamning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7KmalDJu_4
Fuel For the Gravy Train.
In this video we watch Willie Jackson boasting his new racist government contract targets/rules. This money will likely be funneled right to, as Winston puts it “the Maori Elite”.
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January 15, 2024 8:54am
- Hard Cheese
  
  Willie’s gravy train intends to visit all stops:
  
  “The [5% Maori business procurement] policy supports buyers to be more intentional with their spending within existing quality assurance parameters. It’s anticipated Government agencies will take the policy into account when they go to market for each contract. The initial target of 5% will be reviewed at the end of next year and I have a real expectation that the data collected will support increasing the Maori social procurement target further.”
  
  Firstly, what is “intentional spending”? Does he mean that sometimes Government departments spend money by accident?
  
  Secondly, how would he know whether the data collected (whatever that might be) will support an increase in the target? It seems obvious from his language that the target will be increased whether the data supports it or not.
  
  Hopefully the new Government will put an end to this shameless quota nonsense. If a certain section of respondents can effectively overbid contracts on the basis that 5% of them are guaranteed to be awarded, all it’s doing is creating a hidden channel of bonus payments to the directors of the likes of MahutaCorp.
  
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  January 15, 2024 1:10pm
sungsamning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43axCkGrrN4
How Extensive is the Corruption in the Chinese Military? || Peter Zeihan
I had a handful of y’all point out that not everyone in the recent Chinese purges was targeted for political reasons; instead, many of these folks are facing corruption charges.
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January 15, 2024 8:54am
DeepBlue

If Golriz was in communication with the Green Party to ‘agree to stand down from her portfolios’, why weren’t more questions asked during that communication?//

They were, the Greens just didn’t like the answers or the inability to answer.
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January 15, 2024 9:23am
Maggy Wassilieff

Time for one class of citizenship only in NZ.

This is a decision for all voters: do we want to continue as a country where some voters have a different status based on who their ancestors were, or do we want to be a country where every citizen, no matter their ancestry, votes on the general roll?

https://www.bassettbrashandhide.com/post/don-brash-why-the-maori-electorates-must-go
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January 15, 2024 9:26am
- cmm
  
  This is not a new problem.
  
  Arguably there was justification for a Maori roll to address the impacts of the land ownership restriction on voting.
  
  However that justification for the Maori roll ended on 19 December 1879 with the introduction of universal male suffrage. Over 140 years ago.
  
  Pity Messrs Basset, Brash and Hide didn’t address the issue when they were in parliament (well not sufficiently anyway).
  
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  January 15, 2024 9:40am
  - Paulus
    
    We are not able to find the numbers of Maori in New Zealand – albeit that it is becoming expected that the so called 16% has been substantially reduced due to immigration and the reduced birth rate for Maori.
    Let us have some accurate figures please.
    
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    January 15, 2024 10:31am
    - cmm
      
      The numbers are irrelevant.
      Whether there is 1 Maori or 3 million does not matter. There has not been justification for one since 19 Dec 1879.
      
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      January 15, 2024 10:39am
  - Steve Todd
    
    @cmm @ 9:40AM
    
    […] justification for the Maori roll ended on 19 December 1879 with the introduction of universal male suffrage.
    
    As I have pointed out to you several times before, that is nonsense, yet, you keep repeating it.
    
    1. One of the reasons why the sop of four seats – it should have been at least 14 – were given to Māori, was because European MPs did not want to have to represent Māori constituents.
    
    2. Due to the casual racism of the day, no Māori candidate would ever have been elected to parliament, under FPP, in the absence of dedicated seats.
    
    3. The four Māori MPs were adamantly opposed to the removal of the Māori electorates. In fact, they justifiably (on a population basis) wanted more.
    
    It took another 90+ years of social change before the conditions were right for Māori candidates to start standing in, and winning, European seats.
    
    You can talk about justification for the Māori roll ending in 1879 all you like, but it’s just your right-wing, meaningless, opinion. It was never going to happen, and now it can’t without Māori approval (as I have previously explained; see, for example, https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2023/08/general_debate_28_august_2023.html/comment-page-1#comment-3426431).
    
    The boat was missed by Murray McCully and the National government in 1993. You really need to get over it.
    
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    January 15, 2024 12:58pm
    - cmm
      
      Those are nonsense reasons.
      
      1) “non-Maori did not want to represent Maori”. That’s a bold claim. I doubt it is true. I expect there MPs through time that have failed to represent sectors of their community (eg. Bloody Scots or damn xxx or whatever), but it was their job to do so. Are you really suggesting that all the MPs , or the majority, were saying “I don’t want sticky black people in my shiny electoral office.”
      
      2) Casual racism. Hmmm. Considering that Maori have been elected to high office thtoughout NZ’s history I doubt that is true. Consider whites and Maori have been interbreeding for centuries and “Maori” are generally 75+ or more white, I call BS.
      
      3) the four Maori MPs were opposed to it. Yup, of course they didn’t want to be kicked out of the trough! So what?
      
      The justification for the Maori roll was NONE of the factors you mention. It was only one thing, and one thing only: that traditional Maori land holding disenfranchised Maori under the requirement to hold land. That went away in 1879.
      
      Yes, an opportunity was missed in 1993, but it was also missed in 1880, and every year since.
      
      I do agree with you on one thing though: I don’t think it will ever change. If they couldn’t fix it in 140+ years, they certainly won’t be able to fix it with revisionist history airbrushing the past.
      
      If anything, we will only see things get worse with Maori increasingly getting more control over government.
      
      3 3
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      January 15, 2024 2:15pm
      - MCōs
        
        First Māori MPs elected to Parliament on 15 April 1868 by way of the Māori seats.
        New Zealand’s first Parliament was on Wednesday 24 May 1854
        James Carroll was the first Māori MP in a non Māori seat. Member for Waiapu in 1893
        
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        January 15, 2024 3:13pm
      - Steve Todd
        
        Responses—
        
        Firstly, I responded to that part of your comment that I reproduced.
        
        1. If you read Appendix B to the 1986 Royal Commission’s report on the Electoral System, and Te Ara, you will see that is true. One of the reasons the Māori seats were made permanent in 1876, was because European MPs did not want to concern themselves with Māori issues.
        
        2. Racism / social attitudes against Māori was rife prior to about 1970. They wouldn’t have stood a chance. One of the reasons why Māori were keen to serve during WWII, was to gain better acceptability in the wider society.
        
        The justification for the Maori roll was NONE of the factors you mention.
        
        I wasn’t commenting on that, today, or previously. I was stating my opinion as to why the seats were retained; why your justification for their removal in 1879 was not acted upon.
        
        Parliament was never going to abolish the seats in 1880, having made them permanent in 1876, however much you think they should have. The “opportunity” was missed, so stop referring to it.
        
        If anything, we will only see things get worse with Maori increasingly getting more control over government.
        
        Nothing more than right-wing opinion.
        
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        January 15, 2024 3:32pm
- Nigel Kearney
  
  They should fix the overhang exploit. Apart from that I don’t much care. The main effect of the Maori seats is to penalize the left by restricting who represents them in Parliament.
  
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  January 15, 2024 10:18am
  - cmm
    
    The overhang thing is easy to game and has nothing to do with the Maori Party per se.
    
    For example, National could, in theory, spawn a Blue Party who have nothing to do with National (wink, wink) except agreeing to support National Party on everything and they agree to not compete.
    
    Then Blue Party stands in electorates and National only go list.
    The Blue Party would then win heaps of electoral seats which would all be overhangs.
    
    It surprises me that only Maori and Labour have figured this out (partially).
    
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    January 15, 2024 10:45am
    - Steve Todd
      
      The Blue Party would then win heaps of electoral seats which would all be overhangs.
      
      Wrong!!
      
      You really can be quite frustrating, cmm. Once again, you have simply ignored a prior response from me, pointing out why you’re wrong.
      
      Just 10 weeks ago, I pointed out to you why this scenario can’t work (see https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2023/11/2023_election_final_results.html/comment-page-1#comment-3463233), yet, here you are again, putting it forward. Back then, I expressed the hope you would “now drop this nonsense”. No such luck, I see.
      
      If you don’t agree with my responses to you, then respond, telling me why! Don’t just ignore my comments and repeat your comments sometime later. As you know, I’ll only just come back at you.
      
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      January 15, 2024 1:28pm
      - cmm
        
        No, I am not wrong.
        
        There is nothing preventing someone starting a new party and there is nothing stopping parties making “cup of tea” deals and there is nothing stopping voters voting for them.
        
        There is nothing stopping someone making “The Blue Party”.
        There is nothing stopping National from withdrawing from all electorates or encouraging their supporters to vote for “The Blue Party”.
        There is nothing preventing National supporters voting National as their party vote and Blue for their electoral vote.
        
        Sure, that would kick off a race to the bottom. Labour would do it too.
        
        I ignore people who call me a right-winger and insult me.
        
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        January 15, 2024 2:21pm
      - mikenmildagain
        
        Steve
        Either cmm did not read your linked comment (then or now) or he did read it but did not understand it.
        
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        January 15, 2024 2:46pm
      - Libertarians are right
        
        Steve:
        Say “National” got 40% of the vote and “Blue” got 40% of the 72 Electorate seats.
        Under how you say it would work, they would get 29 electorate seats and 36 list seats (being 40% of 91) giving them 54% of all seats and being able to govern.
        
        That’s still a big problem.
        
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        January 15, 2024 3:28pm
      - Steve Todd
        
        Yep, thanks, mma, I’m just coming to that now.
        
        I’ve had a bad three days, with commenters not reading my comments correctly. Basically, they can’t handle being criticised, and lash back at me, full of rage, without fully thinking about what they’re saying.
        
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        January 15, 2024 3:48pm
      - Steve Todd
        
        @cmm @ 2:21PM
        
        I said you were wrong to say the Blue Party’s 40 seats would be overhang seats. For that to be the case, the Blue Party (BP) would need to be a registered party, with 500 members, etc. Your scenario is fanciful, for the reasons I have given, which, as mikenmildagain suggests, you appear not yet to have apprised yourself of.
        
        If National tried to pull a stunt like that, it would quickly become a laughingstock. The stunt would backfire on them. The Fourth Estate and National’s opponents would see to that.
        
        Sure, that would kick off a race to the bottom. Labour would do it too.
        
        Yes, I’m sure it would, which is another reason why it would never get off the ground. So why do you keep raising it as if it’s a possibility, then?
        
        MMP is not “easy to game”, by exploiting the “overhang seats” aspect of the system. The People simply wouldn’t buy it.
        
        I ignore people who call me a right-winger and insult me.
        
        And yet you didn’t.
        
        Now, having finally elicited a response from you last Wednesday, here:
        https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2024/01/mayor_should_focus_on_wellington_not_palestine.html/comment-page-1#comment-3496799, you will notice I said, “In other words, cmm, your right-wing view of life is not shared by everyone, by any stretch of the imagination. (It is not necessarily the ‘correct’ view of life, either.)”
        
        Would you deny that you have a right-wing view of life?
        
        Up-thread, I said, “but it’s just your right-wing, meaningless, opinion.” Opinion, not that you are a right-winger. And yes, your opinion is meaningless, because it pertains to an historical non-event. The Māori roll was not abolished in 1879 and, as we agree, will not be abolished anytime soon. How is that insulting?
        
        And then, again, in my 3:32PM reply to you, I referred to your reproduced comment (in italics) as right-wing opinion, because it is.
        
        Why would you now ignore me simply because I believe your view of life, and your opinions, are right-wing? Surely that is something you would happily wear. You’re certainly not a left-winger, are you?
        
        No matter. We battle on.
        
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        January 15, 2024 4:44pm
      - Steve Todd
        
        @Libertarians are right; 3:28PM
        
        Yes, it is. National 36 List and Blue 29 Electorate = 65 seats out of 120, being 54.17%.
        
        Fortunately, as I say, cmm’s scheme would never get off the ground. For one thing, the National Party hierarchy would have to approve the deception, being to refrain from standing Electorate candidates, to give the Blue candidates a “free” run.
        
        Secondly, to ensure the Blue Party did not receive unwanted Party Votes, it would have to be put up as an unregistered party by, at the least, having fewer than 500 members. That means any Electorate seats will be deducted from the number of 120.
        
        And, of course, once the Electoral Commission became aware of what Christopher Luxon and his cronies were planning, they would almost certainly decline to register the party, anyway.
        
        Then you have the leaders of the other parties in Parliament getting wind of the rort that National, and an off-shoot of National MPs/members, were planning to con the public with. All hell would break loose, especially once the media gleefully started to expose the morally reprehensible culprits organising such a scam.
        
        No. It’s all too silly for words. I hope cmm has now got the message, and we never hear of this nonsense (at least from him) again.
        
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        January 15, 2024 5:51pm
      - rouppe
        
        Just read your link
        
        Briefly, your The Blue Party would not be a registered party under the Act. Therefore, not only would it be ineligible to receive Party votes,
        
        Why would the Blue Party not be registered? It only takes 500 paid up members (iirc) to form a political party, which is as easy as the McGillicudy Serious Party repeatedly demonstrated.
        
        but any Electorate seats its candidates won would be deducted from “the number of 120”.
        
        Electorate wins are not deducted from the 120 before the party vote is allocated. If National get 40% of the party vote and 30 electoral seats they get 48 MP’s (40% of 120) from which their 30 electoral seats are first occupied, and any remainder, 18, from their list.
        
        If the Blue Party get 10 electoral seats and 1% of the party vote, they get 10 seats even though their party vote allocated them just 1. That’s the over hang.
        
        Now I know we’ve had our conflict yesterday, so before you explode, please tell me calmly where you believe my understanding to be incorrect.
        
        I’m off to explore Milan
        
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        January 15, 2024 9:25pm
      - Steve Todd
        
        @rouppe @ 9:25PM
        
        All good, rouppe. I have up-thumbed your response to me this morning.
        
        If you read the totality of my comments on this matter today, particularly my response to Libertarians are right, immediately above your comment, you will see that cmm’s scenario is nonsense.
        
        Of course, most of what cmm said at 2:21PM is true, but, taken as a whole, the scheme could never fly, let alone succeed in the manner he suggests. The Electoral Commission would quickly recognise the Blue Party as a fake party. For example, they would quickly recognise, or be tipped off to, the National Party’s attempt to put forward fake members, e.g., recently resigned National Party members.
        
        The skullduggery required to set up such a deceit would be exposed very quickly. That is surely one reason why it has never been attempted.
        
        Also, Electorate seats won by unregistered parties are deducted from the number of 120 (see section 191(8) of the Electoral Act 1993).
        
        I’ll leave it that, rouppe. Enjoy Milan; I’m back to watching the tennis.
        
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        January 15, 2024 10:52pm
  - MCōs
    
    Parliament is known as the House of Representatives
    Each MP represents either an electorate or the party
    They don’t represent ‘left’ or ‘right’
    
    I presume your answer to the ‘overhang exploit’ would be to maintain 120 MPs by apportioning the 48 list MPs along party vote lines above 5%
    So TPM would stay the same and other parties would dip out
    
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    January 15, 2024 3:30pm
- sirknz
  
  “Dats raycis tho”
  
  – Average Lefty
  
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  January 15, 2024 10:28am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  This is what Julian Batchelor and Stop Co-Governance is all about.
  Politicians put their balls in the ‘hinaki’ to be abused!
  Labour lite National are the same.
  
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  January 15, 2024 3:41pm
Maggie Pie

My partner was saying rumor down the Viaduct is the Government are looking seriously at an uncondtional offer of $22mil for the old Kiwi Bacon factory on New North Rd.

There’s a lot of smart people out there.
Sadly none of them were part of Labor. They paid $33 million of taxpayer money for it just one month prior to the election.

Watch this space.
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January 15, 2024 9:35am
- JimBobJoe
  
  The trail of personal connections around this purchase would make interesting reading if a decent investigative jurno could do the digging.
  
  I suspect there are a few people on one side of the transaction who will be much wealthy in their future life and not the recent purchasers who are obviously making a killing via this orchestrated flip…
  
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  January 15, 2024 1:48pm
cmm

Three months on and the Kahui cone of silence defence is still working for Baby Ru’s killers.

They are all either guilty of the crime or of helping to conceal a crime. There is common cause here. Just lock them all up!

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/133554448/still-no-arrests-almost-three-months-on-from-baby-rus-death
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January 15, 2024 9:43am
- mikenmildagain
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  Collective punishment ok?
  
  4 42
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  January 15, 2024 9:48am
  - Blog-aholic
    
    Ardern did it for one C19 case in Auckland so your point is?
    
    46 3
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    January 15, 2024 9:53am
    - Steve Otto(North Shore)
      
      Ardern – straight out abuse of power.
      
      21 4
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      January 15, 2024 11:03am
  - cmm
    
    Yes, it is fine for people with a common purpose to defeat justice.
    
    Crimes Act:
    
    Part 4 Parties to the commission of offences
    66 Parties to offences
    (1) Every one is a party to and guilty of an offence who—
    (a) actually commits the offence; or
    (b) does or omits an act for the purpose of aiding any person to commit the offence; or
    (c) abets any person in the commission of the offence; or
    (d) incites, counsels, or procures any person to commit the offence.
    
    (2) Where 2 or more persons form a common intention to prosecute any unlawful purpose, and to assist each other therein, each of them is a party to every offence committed by any one of them in the prosecution of the common purpose if the commission of that offence was known to be a probable consequence of the prosecution of the common purpose.
    
    If that wont stick then surely accessory after the fact will.
    
    21 4
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    January 15, 2024 10:23am
    - mikenmildagain
      
      Refusing to talk to the police does not, in itself, make someone a party to or accessory to an offence.
      Don’t get me wrong – these people may well be covering for each other. But the police would need actual evidence.
      
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      January 15, 2024 10:32am
      - Keith White
        
        You don’t need us to get you wrong – you get yourself wrong all by yourself.
        
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        January 15, 2024 12:27pm
- imalwaysright
  
  I saw Tuku Morgan and 20 or 30 of his ilk at a courthouse laying a complaint about the government threatening their gravy train.
  
  I didn’t see any of them at the courthouse when the infant Ru suspects were making an appearance .
  
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  January 15, 2024 9:53am
Ghost

To quote Eminem

Guess whose back, back again, Golriz is back

Green MP Golriz Ghahraman arrives back in New Zealand amid shoplifting accusations

Resignation by the end of the day?

[Mod – fixed link]
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January 15, 2024 10:00am
- David Garrett
  
  The link doesn’t work…where is the article published?
  
  Found it…thanks. Another few days of delicious shadenfreude as the Greens get some of what they love dishing out to others.
  
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  January 15, 2024 10:03am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    TV One news
    
    https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/01/15/green-mp-golriz-ghahraman-returns-to-nz-amid-shoplifting-claims/#:~:text=Green%20Party%20MP%20Golriz%20Ghahraman,retailer%20Scotties%20Boutique%20before%20Christmas.
    
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    January 15, 2024 10:06am
    - lifesgood
      
      Good lord! 1News reports “GG has returned to New Zealand having been of accused of shop lifting while overseas” Was she caught shop lifting overseas too?
      
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      January 15, 2024 11:04am
      - H. Upmann
        
        English is such a diffi-kilt landwich ….
        
        14 1
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        January 15, 2024 11:39am
      - David Garrett
        
        lifesgood: Yes…it’s called syntax…something even less known to today’s “journalists” than grammar…
        
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        January 15, 2024 11:53am
      - John Loveridge
        
        That reminds me of George W. Bush:
        
        “Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we…”
        
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        January 15, 2024 5:39pm
  - Ghost
    
    News hub, but looks like it’s been fixed, thanks mod
    
    Oh, btw the newshub video is funny, shows her picking out clothes in a shop.
    
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    January 15, 2024 10:07am
  - David Garrett
    
    Assuming she is guilty – whether she is actually charged or not – I can’t see how the Greens can avoid expelling her. Meteria Turei was forced to resign after admitting – and effectively boasting about – benefit fraud 20 odd years prior to her becoming an MP.
    
    This is a sitting MP who, it appears, has actively stolen (“shoplifting” is simply one type of theft) while she was an MP. That has to be worse than something done years earlier.
    
    Also as I have said, if she stays, every time she stands up to speak she will be heckled with varieties of some of the deliciously funny comments on here, some of which have appeared on this thread this morning.
    
    Secondly, her lecturing the rest of us on anything would become untenable. It would be a wretched existence.
    
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    January 15, 2024 10:43am
    - Ghost
      
      She cannot survive. There is no circumstance she can survive, even if it is disinhibition, it is impossible to survive this.
      
      I see two possible options
      
      The greens let her save face and she resigns
      The greens try to save face for how they handled it and remove her
      
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      January 15, 2024 10:48am
      - Swifty
        
        I agree.
        
        If the facts are as presented – that she did steal but then had the goods returned, then she must resign. If she remains she will be a permanent albatross around the Greens’ necks.
        
        *Unless Bradbury comes up with the evidence that it was all a Mossad false flag operation. 🤣
        
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        January 15, 2024 12:31pm
      - Ghost
        
        Yeah the goods were apparently anonymously returned latter that day. There is no way she can stay. Imagine Shane Jones and Winston in the house if she did, the greens would be destroyed daily. Hmmmm. Forgive and forget let her stay…..lol
        
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        January 15, 2024 12:41pm
      - Rumblestrip
        
        @Ghost I am curious as to the specifics of that “anonymous return.”
        
        Like, did some unknown person drop the clothes off and refuse to give their name? If so, who was this mystery person?
        
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        January 15, 2024 7:10pm
    - Yvette
      
      she will be heckled – like, How big was her haul?
      
      14 1
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      January 15, 2024 12:34pm
    - Paulus
      
      Why was Turei, now a Lecturer at Otago, not prosecuted for theft from Taxpayers ?
      
      13 1
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      January 15, 2024 1:43pm
      - Maggy Wassilieff
        
        We will never know…something about protecting her privacy….
        
        https://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/soper-consequences-turei-fraud-remain-mystery
        
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        January 15, 2024 4:26pm
    - JimBobJoe
      
      Dabid – i think the possibility of the Greens and Scotties doing a deal on the lines of misunderstanding and often been loaned clothes which are returned will be tried before Golriz is jettisoned.
      
      After all she is an outstanding legal mind and a woman of colour – how could the Greens get rid of such talent.
      
      Besides the Greens need a least one pretty lady on their team – pretty ugly bunch otherwise.
      
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      January 15, 2024 1:52pm
      - Rumblestrip
        
        The fact the police are involved and there is CCTV footage means it is too late for any deal. Police can push forward with a prosecution even if the retailer doesn’t cooperate any further.
        
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        January 15, 2024 7:05pm
    - Truman lodge
      
      She will not resign DG as she needs this term to qualify for her parliamentary pension.
      
      On the Platform this morning Plunket said one of the owners is a Green supporter and the other is not and they do not know what to do. I bet no charges are laid and the Greens do nothing.
      
      I am an ACT supporter but if an ACT mp stole 15k from me I would prosecute in a second.
      
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      January 15, 2024 6:13pm
      - NZer In Exile
        
        The shops in question mainly serve lefty posers?
        
        I’m thinking lawyers and green/left party negotiators will descend upon the shop owners to work out how to have this buried.
        
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        January 15, 2024 9:44pm
- cmm
  
  It depends. Does she have the guts to try to stare it down?
  
  Winston Peters seems to have survived his wee episode ripping off the benefit system by using bluster.
  
  If Scotties doesn’t press charges then maybe it will all just go away.
  
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  January 15, 2024 10:27am
  - Paulus
    
    Not sure that after all the publicity that Scotties will get the Police to press charges.
    GG and the Greens have as good as admitted it.
    
    12 3
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    January 15, 2024 10:33am
    - Bridgenag
      
      maybe some “we know where you live” stuff
      
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      January 15, 2024 10:51am
  - David Garrett
    
    cmm: Whatever happens it won’t “just go away” – see my comment above.
    
    And as for Peters, whatever else you say about the unprincipled prick, he is a skilled and highly experienced politician. Golly G is just a fantasist, a liar, and an up herself little madam.
    
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    January 15, 2024 10:46am
    - cmm
      
      DG: Yup, WP could likely talk his way out of a coffin.
      
      I don’t think any of the other MPs, of any stripe, have quite his survival abilities.
      
      I too think we’ll see Golly Gone soon. She is to used to playing the victim card and getting a soft landing. I doubt the little miss has anywhere near the survival talent to cope when the victim card stops giving.
      
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      January 15, 2024 12:43pm
  - Ruawai
    
    Len Brown stayed on as mayor after his indiscretion.
    
    10 1
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    January 15, 2024 12:39pm
    - H. Upmann
      
      …..and look what that got us; CRL.
      Ignoring the massive cost to build blowout, it will cost $100+m EVERY year it exists to subsidise the difference between revenue income and actual costs. Thanks for nothing creepy L Brown.
      
      12 1
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      January 15, 2024 1:24pm
      - MCōs
        
        Len Brown may have championed the project, but it was The Auckland City Council and the Government of the day that OKed the CRL and the people of Auckland & NZ who are paying
        
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        January 15, 2024 2:40pm
thirteenstars

Ghahraman has returned.

When asked how her trip to Singapore went, the ~~Greedy~~ Green MP remarked, “The clothing is so cheap it felt like daylight robbery.”

Seriously, the sticky-fingered filcher is back in New Stealand.
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January 15, 2024 10:01am
- G152
  
  The five finger discount queen went through Customs on her return. and had nothing to declare .
  Something something rambling mention of Jewish something something
  
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  January 15, 2024 11:16am
- Grunter
  
  So not only is she a thief, but she also contributed to ‘Global Boiling’ by taking an evil jet ride to Singapore for a holiday! 2-faced comie & 2-faced greenie…. (same thing)
  
  How does anyone believe the scam???
  
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  January 15, 2024 11:55am
  - David Garrett
    
    Grunter: I’m sure she’s planted the necessary number of trees to offset her emissions….well, the emissions of her aircraft at least…
    
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    January 15, 2024 12:26pm
  - Rumblestrip
    
    Did it turn out to be Singapore then?
    
    Singapore – a place famous for being so remote, having no phone, satellite, TV or internet service of any kind… /s
    
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    January 15, 2024 7:07pm
I remember when

Approximately 87% of the world’s population live in the Northern Hemisphere, only 13% in the Southern Hemisphere.
The monthly global temperature graph comparing averages with preindustrial levels for 2023 reveals degrees of increase.
During January-June period the average was around 1.3C, while in July-December it rose to 1.6C.
From a low in April it rose until September.
No, not every year has a similar trajectory.
Surely the question is because of what/why have the differences occured.
Is it enough to stick pins on a graph without detailing the contributing factors.
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January 15, 2024 10:03am
- cmm
  
  There are other factors than population.
  For example, the Northern Hemisphere is about 40% land mass while the Southern is only 20% (and most of that is Antarctica). Oceans have a very moderating effect on temperature – reducing the high temperatures and increasing the low temperatures. Hence we don’t see any of those temperature extremes in SH in the areas where people live.
  
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  January 15, 2024 10:34am
  - I remember when
    
    An interesting point from the graph is that the April/September rise occurred during the Northern Hemisphere Summer.
    It then stayed at record highs during September/December being Northern Hemisphere Autumn and Winter months.
    We are getting a total and calling it the answer.
    
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    January 15, 2024 3:26pm
Bridgenag

Great pictures of the signs on the tractors….

The German farmers are greatly angry and there are a lot of them: An early report from the gathering great farmers’ rally in Berlin

https://www.eugyppius.com/p/the-german-farmers-are-greatly-angry?r=1aj1bv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
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January 15, 2024 10:26am
- mikenmildagain
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  The poor petals don’t want the rest of the country to reduce the subsidies for their lifestyle businesses.
  
  5 37
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  January 15, 2024 10:35am
  - Taieri
    
    Their lifestyle business allows other people to eat.
    
    20 2
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    January 15, 2024 11:57am
  - Keith White
    
    What do you do mma to enrich others’ lives?
    
    15 4
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    January 15, 2024 12:31pm
    - Steve Todd
      
      He makes me laugh on a daily basis.
      
      9 7
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      January 15, 2024 1:54pm
- Swifty
  
  I’ve not followed this.
  
  What are the German farmers’ complaints?
  
  7 2
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  January 15, 2024 10:54am
  - Grunter
    
    A wide range of issues, and it’s more than just farmers. A lot of city-slickers have joined in and it’s a huge anti-govt protest.
    
    I’ve seen coverage that includes all of the following;
    – farmer subsidies are to be stopped (arguably a good thing, but similar to what happened in NZ in the 80’s)
    – increased taxes to pay for lots of immigrants
    – too many immigrants coming in
    – high energy costs due to global boiling scam (includes turning off nuclear plants). A lot of big industries closing and heading somewhere else because of this.
    – stop funding Ukraine/threat of wider war
    – anti-woke feelings
    
    There is no doubt that the Germans are hurting and getting very mad with life in general.
    
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    January 15, 2024 12:03pm
    - Swifty
      
      Thanks.
      
      9 0
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      January 15, 2024 12:51pm
    - Master Mariner
      
      Yep, Massive protests and No media coverage.
      Far bigger issues than farming exactly as you mentioned. I read 68% of Germans are favourable too the protests. Loss of jobs, Energy security and Cost of living.
      And Labour do not know what went wrong in NZ.//
      
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      January 15, 2024 1:29pm
- jon
  
  More support for the Afd party whilst the leftist parties continue their declines!
  
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  January 15, 2024 11:52am
Ghost

Damn. Nice to see employees thinking they shouldn’t go into work…….

Union members at One NZ are working remotely for the next fortnight — in protest at the telco’s work from home policy.

Formerly Vodafone, the company’s asked all contact centre employees to come into the office for at least three days per week.

Article
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January 15, 2024 10:42am
- David Garrett
  
  Ghost: I don’t know where you live, but for daily commuters, Auckland is a nightmare – some people spend three hours every day in their cars.
  
  If contact centre staff can provide the same level of productivity from home – and I presume that can be meassured and monitored – why should they be forced to physically attend the office, thus subjecting themselves to the daily nightmare?
  
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  January 15, 2024 10:50am
  - Bridgenag
    
    measured and monitored being the key
    
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    January 15, 2024 10:53am
  - Ghost
    
    David, I don’t believe they can. We tried one New Zealand for a few days last year, it was the contact centre that was the reason we dumped them. The noise of the person dealing with their child behind them while ignoring what we were saying to them, and then being told to call back in a few hours.
    
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    January 15, 2024 10:55am
    - David Garrett
      
      Ghost: Ah…actually one of the reasons I find it very difficult to work from home is I am so easily distracted (no young kids chez Garrett these days)…Mind you, with the net it is so easy to distract yourself wherever you are; I seriously don’t think I would have got my law degree if the internet was around then…even without it I found all sorts of ways of avoiding study. The dog never got walked so much!
      
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      January 15, 2024 11:13am
  - JimBobJoe
    
    In the AKL, Ones call centre is at Smales Farm on the Shore. It is easy to access by car and by PT as lots of buses go past and link with the Northern Busway. So no excuse not to go in to the office
    
    Dont want to work in their office – get another job.
    
    Working from home is a rort, but less so for call centre staff as everything is monitored via the IT systems in place (App reps sign into which manages call distribution basis on their skill sets and the choices callers make on the front end IVR) which includes time on queue, time answering calls, time spent doing note post call and then time available to take calls
    
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    January 15, 2024 1:57pm
- artemisia
  
  Two days working from home is a pretty good perk. Plenty get none. However, I’m sure the upset employees are well skilled and polishing up their CVs will help them get another job very fast.
  
  Meanwhile there will be plenty of (well skilled) applicants for the vacancies arising. Even if only allowed to work at home 2 days a week.
  
  Also telcos do restructure time to time and while of course the correct processes are followed, decisions about ‘roles’ are made. As anyone who has been involved in the decisions knows.
  
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  January 15, 2024 11:31am
  - Paulus
    
    My Son’s Australian Head Office have said they are to be back to 4 days a week from now, and any resignations must be in writing.
    An analysis of productivity was done by Professionals and the results were considered very poor as a result.
    The New Zealand Branch meet next week to follow and report to HO.
    
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    January 15, 2024 1:49pm
- thirteenstars
  
  One are as woke as hell. DEI, ESG, you name it, they’re into it.
  
  https://one.nz/our-company/corporate-responsibility/
  
  Of course their staff are demanding to work from home.
  
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  January 15, 2024 11:34am
  - imalwaysright
    
    Elon musk got his workers back to the office :
    
    ” if you want to continue to pretend to work from home, you can pretend to work for someone else!”
    
    13 1
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    January 15, 2024 5:03pm
    - thirteenstars
      
      Indeed. That said, the US is a country where the law of contract still applies. NZ tends to usurp contract law with legislation.
      
      If a NZ employer attempted a take it or leave it approach to employment disputes they would be bankrupted by the Employment Court verdict.
      
      In fact I know a couple who have been.
      
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      January 15, 2024 7:24pm
Bridgenag

We get mentioned in this one…..

The Deadly Rise of Scientism
We All Suffer Once You Can No Longer Debate “The Science”

This post from A Midwestern Doctor discusses what is probably the most central problem we face which is convincing the masses that the “scientific experts” should not be trusted especially since none of them will allow open challenge.

“Nonetheless, given how widespread the harm from the vaccines was, more and more of that data was leaked. Recently, this culminated with a New Zealand whistleblower forfeiting his career and risking his personal freedom (presently he faces a 7 year prison sentence) to leak (anonymized) record level data. This data provided a compelling case the COVID vaccine was harming people, and to my knowledge represents the first time record level data for a vaccine became available to the public.”

https://open.substack.com/pub/amidwesterndoctor/p/the-deadly-rise-of-scientism?r=1aj1bv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
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January 15, 2024 10:43am
- Master Mariner
  
  The Reason why NZ Data is extremly important as far i know is,
  NZ population had high vaccination rated BEFORE the onset of Covid.
  So with this Data you differentiate any noise and tell with certainty , Any adverse reactions , illnesses and diseases can be directly linked too the vaccine and not Covid.
  Hence why this Data is EXTREMLY important.
  Dr Bloomfield ?
  
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  January 15, 2024 1:37pm
Maggie Pie

Had to larf.
Just been talking to one of the girls whose friends attended…. ‘The Wedding’

She was saying how surprised some of the guests were to see disgraced ex-Labor MP Darren Hughes arrive at the venue in the company of his old landlady, Annette King.
Although as she said, what’s a Labor function without a few degenerates?

The best part however, was all the wedding-gifts had been put on display in a seperate marquee. Among all the usual stuff like air fryers, a last-name door mat, an ‘I DO’ scented candle, matching Him & Her organic waffle robes, and a signed self portrait of Helen Clark…..the REAL standout, was the 75cm fully inflated burst-proof bright red Swiss Ball. The card attached simple read, “With love. DH”

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/4809631/MP-Darren-Hughes-resigns-following-scandal
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January 15, 2024 11:12am
- David Garrett
  
  Maggie: Lovely…so 14 years on or whatever it is, Hughes still thinks trying to anally rape a drunk 18 year old (referred to variously – depending on the MSM outlet – as “a man” or “a teenager” so you choose) is amusing. I’m sure the owner of the bum he was targeting doesn’t think it’s funny.
  
  I recently watched a Netflix series about victims of Catholic clergy…sexual abuse appears to be seriously life changing for some.
  
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  January 15, 2024 11:59am
  - imalwaysright
    
    Well said.
    There are some scumbags in our midst who are worse than those behind bars.
    Shows the rabble the “heppy cupple” mix with.
    
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    January 15, 2024 5:07pm
Swifty

I’ve seen, more than once recently, accusations that to object to almost any aspect of trans ideology is contributing to ‘the genocide of trans people’ and I’ve read similar statements with respect to matters Maori.

https://i.stuff.co.nz/opinion/301038284/how-can-genocide-be-used-to-describe-both-gaza-and-a-policy-on-te-reo

I wouldn’t know whether this is a correct use of the term or not. I think we should consult the experts. Let’s start with Ngati Tama and Ngati Mutunga. They’re New Zealand’s experts on genocide.

Someone should give Willie Jackson a call.
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January 15, 2024 11:20am
Swifty

Observe the courtship ritual of the modern Kiwi in its native habitat:

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/pKSaBGDvXXVwiJNi/?mibextid=GGtJg3

NSFW.
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January 15, 2024 11:53am
- kevn
  
  Swifty… Inspiring //
  
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  January 15, 2024 12:31pm
- Rich Prick
  
  And they say romance is dead.
  
  13 1
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  January 15, 2024 12:52pm
- NZer In Exile
  
  Kind of tragic.
  
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  January 15, 2024 10:19pm
Jack5

Woke-led airline passengers who stopped a man from being deported from Britain in November rescued – it turns out – a violent drug dealer.

Lawrence Morgan was being deported to Jamaica after being sentenced to five years prison after a gun battle in the streets of Birmingham.

Passengers included a 26-year-old Cambridge-educated “events co-ordinator,” Hannah Gaffey. Noting that Morgan was being deported, Gaffey staged a passenger mutiny.

She refused to sit down, and phoned an organisation called Detention Action. A group of passengers joined Gaffey’s “standing-up” protest, and thus blocked the plane’s take-off.

Morgan responded by struggling violently, and the pilot abandoned the departure.

The Sun reported Gaffey said she felt “elated” when the man was being taken off the plane.

The Telegraph reports Morgan came to Britain from Jamaica in the early 2000s on a visitor’s visa and moved to Birmingham, where he joined a violent gang vying for control of the lucrative drugs trade.

In 2016, he was sentenced to five years and ten months in prison after being found in possession of a firearm and cocaine and heroin. The following year, he was given a two-year concurrent sentence for supplying class A drugs.

In 2020, Morgan was out of prison and took part in a shootout. At least 13 shots were fired on a busy street and one man died.

Morgan was acquitted of murder and attempted murder but was jailed for five years after admitting possessing a firearm.

Despite using the European Convention on Human Rights to battle deportation, claiming a “right to family life”, Morgan was given notice that he was to be removed from the UK.

The Telegraph says Morgan is believed to be held at a detention centre.

James Cleverly, Britain’s Home Secretary, is understood to be considering ways to prevent passengers from disrupting lawful deportations.
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January 15, 2024 12:21pm
- alex Masterley
  
  Heh, her linked in page suggests she has just been made redundant…
  
  17 1
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  January 15, 2024 12:38pm
- cmm
  
  “James Cleverly, Britain’s Home Secretary, is understood to be considering ways to prevent passengers from disrupting lawful deportations.”
  
  They surely have other tools already. Unruly passengers can be arrested and/or thrown off flights. Keep throwing “protestors” off the flight until they stop. Job done.
  
  Just caving to the mob is like negotiating with terrorists.
  
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  January 15, 2024 5:33pm
- Jake Dee
  
  “The Sun reported Gaffey said she felt “elated” ”
  This part is key.
  Progressive activism is a helluva drug. Leave the mess behind for somebody else to clean up.
  
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  January 15, 2024 7:37pm
Maggie Pie

Just how long should NZ taxpayers be expected to fund this carry-on?

Puff piece in ‘The Post’ appears to be written by a friend of Golly.

“….. suggesting the allegations are a plot by the Iranian government to defame her”

https://twitter.com/aniobrien/status/1746670038978011640
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January 15, 2024 12:38pm
- Hollyfield
  
  Perhaps the Iranian Government is working hand in hand with Mossad on this. //
  
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  January 15, 2024 5:07pm
Bobba Fret

So now that Gloriz is back in the country, will the Greens be announcing late this afternoon that she has resigned, or that she strongly disputes the allegations against her and will fight them and prove her innocence?
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January 15, 2024 12:49pm
- David Garrett
  
  Bobba: Who knows? But one thing is for sure: they are going to have to say something… even the MSM is now onto her…however reluctantly.
  
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  January 15, 2024 1:26pm
- Burtland
  
  more likely
  
  “lock your shop up Scotties – golriz is back”
  
  17 1
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  January 15, 2024 2:10pm
Littletramp

Ronnie O’Sullivan – what a career, he’s a freak of nature!
So understated and modest – therefore not newsworthy these days.
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January 15, 2024 12:57pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Word soup waffle from the House Drinker.

https://teapartypolls.com/rightsandfreedomnews/pelosi-insists-states-can-overrule-the-constitution/?
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January 15, 2024 1:37pm
- mikenmildagain
  
  You seem to have that exactly backwards. States may use the constitution to prevent insurrectionists from running for public office.
  
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  January 15, 2024 2:15pm
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    So who is this ‘insurrectionist’ you speak of Kemosabe?
    Besides that why do you think OUTUS Joe Biden has not been stood down?
    Because the corrupt Biden prosecutions would follow. Sitting POTUS can not be prosecuted right? Well sonny, that applies to Trump on Jan 6th 2021. Trump was still POTUS.
    Stop the leftist diversion nonsense.
    
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    January 15, 2024 4:39pm
    - Steve Todd
      
      Did you miss my response to Jigsaw on Saturday afternoon, Steve Otto(North Shore)?
      
      A criminal conviction is not required for an individual to be disqualified under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. (See https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2024/01/general_debate_13_january_2024.html/comment-page-1#comment-3498905.)
      
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      January 15, 2024 6:28pm
  - NZer In Exile
    
    No insurrection. Just a protest with a few people who went too far.
    
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    January 15, 2024 10:25pm
- virtualmark
  
  Nope.
  
  The Constitution applies equally to all states.
  
  But each state has slightly different electoral laws and that means the tests of when a Presidential candidate’s compliance with the Constitution happens at different times/stages, and the decision may be made by different positions/offices … depending on that particular state’s electoral law.
  
  For example, in Colorado the law meant that Trump was found ineligible at the primary stage, but in Michigan the Courts found that Michigan state law means anyone can be in the primary but their eligibility to stand for President is tested when the final November ballot papers are drawn up.
  
  Which I think is what Pelosi was alluding to.
  
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  January 15, 2024 7:34pm
Maggie Pie

There’s a saying in the Bible…”Like mother, like daughter”

Friends who’ve known me sinve school often say I’ve inherited my mum’s genes.

https://twitter.com/ThavasRas/status/1746623646943355155
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January 15, 2024 1:43pm
- Ghost
  
  Can’t blame a child for what their parent did. Will you blame Todd for what Roger McClay did?
  
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  January 15, 2024 1:54pm
  - Maggie Pie
    
    You always seem to get the wrong end of the stick Ghost!
    
    I was talking about the way I look, silly.
    
    10 5
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    January 15, 2024 2:02pm
    - Ghost
      
      So that’s a no. You aren’t going to hold the right to the same standards you hold the left too.
      
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      January 15, 2024 2:17pm
      - Maggie Pie
        
        Now you’re just saying sh*t for the sake of it.
        Offitty piss!
        
        8 4
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        January 15, 2024 2:50pm
      - Ghost
        
        No, you are the one saying shit, you link to a tweet that says Mother of Labour MP Carmel Sepuloni admits $100K benefit fraud, and refuse to hold the right to the same standards, just go on how they look. Why not be an adult and admit what you are doing
        
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        January 15, 2024 2:56pm
  - imalwaysright
    
    Correct Ghost.
    A snide post and a snivelling defense .
    Sad.
    
    2 2
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    January 15, 2024 5:18pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Ezekiel didn’t seem very sympathetic to harlots, did he?
  
  7 4
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  January 15, 2024 2:15pm
  - Maggie Pie
    
    23 ?
    
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    January 15, 2024 2:28pm
Chuck Bird

I am watching the Aussie Open. Does anyone think that men should get paid more as they do 5 sets while the women just play up to 3 sets?

I wonder what Maggie thinks.
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January 15, 2024 2:14pm
- Maggie Pie
  
  YIP- I do agree with you on that Chuck.
  Did you watch Nole against Dino last nite? Amazing 😀
  What an opening workout that was.
  Never got to bed until 3.
  
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  January 15, 2024 2:35pm
  - Chuck Bird
    
    Coco Goeff did very well with a straight sets win.
    Before that, there was a upset with no 93 wining the world’s no 7.
    
    5 1
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    January 15, 2024 3:26pm
- mandk
  
  It should be based on the amount of revenue they generate.
  
  If the women players brought in more money than the men, they should get paid more, even if they play fewer sets.
  
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  January 15, 2024 2:37pm
Yvette

Locals of an Auckland suburb, which has missed out on being connected to the city by light rail, have mixed feelings about the cancellation.
In line with its 100-day plan, the coalition government scrapped Auckland Light Rail, which had been six years [and “$230 million”] in development without a metre of track being laid.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2024/01/auckland-residents-react-to-scrapped-light-rail-budget-blowout.html

Dame Jacinda Ardern’s wedding was a “lovely day” with only a “couple of hiccups”, according to Labour leader Chris Hipkins.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2024/01/chris-hipkins-reflects-on-dame-jacinda-ardern-s-wedding-says-it-went-smoothly-besides-a-few-hiccups.html
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January 15, 2024 2:23pm
- Master Mariner
  
  Well you would Delegate,
  Tyford in charge of arranging venue,
  Megan Woods in charge of the (Hydrogen) BBQ
  The other Plank in charge of Transportion to and Fro.
  Robbo in paying the Bill.
  Verral in charge of the ambulance.
  
  I mean, What could honestly go Right.
  
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  January 15, 2024 7:01pm
Ghost

I agree with the low rating. I love their chocolate but $51 for a block of chocolate, no way.

US food site Tasting Table ranked 25 chocolate brands from around the globe … and placed our Whittaker’s in a lowly 24th place.

They were beaten by Nestlé, they were beaten by Cadbury … they were even beaten by Hershey’s.

Article

One block can be bought and delivered to the US by online retailer Kiwi Corner Dairy for a whopping $51, however savings can be made if you buy in bulk.

Article
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January 15, 2024 2:31pm
- lifesgood
  
  I sent a $6 bar of Whittakers to London. Postage was $35…don’t blame Whittakers, blame NZ Post
  
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  January 15, 2024 3:03pm
  - Ghost
    
    Whittakers aren’t to blame, they’re just the manufacturer. The problem is the company selling it. They should be buying in bulk as SANZA do in the uk, which is why you can pick a block up from them for, let me look, rum and raisin £7.55
    
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    January 15, 2024 3:13pm
- miltonF
  
  Yeah I don’t understand the fascination with Whittakers either. My impression is that people like it because it is a NZ made product. I think it helps that it is sold in an attractive gold packaging and its marketed at a higher price point. These factors make the buyer think they are purchasing a quality product.
  
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  January 15, 2024 6:42pm
cmm

And the lies continue:

“The latest Ministry of Health data showed weekly hospitalisations continued to number in the hundreds, with 324 people receiving care as at midnight Sunday.”

These are hospitalisations WITH covid, not FOR covid.

Based on my experiences in 2022, I would be very surprised if the hospitalisations FOR covid are more than 20.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/fifth-wave-of-covid-19-hits-new-high-in-nz-as-govt-looks-at-ending-free-rats/XKFST2TBBFHW5BIEZXYAQ6YA6Q/
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January 15, 2024 3:24pm
- Ghost
  
  I was just reading this bit
  
  For national surveillance, Plank said there was now less value in test results being reported than in the past.
  
  The ability to create fear has gone. New story. World war 3? UFO attack? Terrorism? Maybe virus X? The covid story is dead.
  
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  January 15, 2024 3:28pm
  - MCōs
    
    WWIII if Israel nukes Iran
    
    2 3
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    January 15, 2024 3:48pm
  - cmm
    
    For national surveillance there has never been any use in test results being reported (well not since the numbers hit double digits of infected people in any city).
    
    The info has been available from wastewater testing.
    
    2 1
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    January 15, 2024 5:24pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Thank fuck Jaspinda is gone. Auckland would be in permanent lockdown.
  Which is what she wanted of course!
  
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  January 15, 2024 4:54pm
Maggie Pie

Golly….. just how much murkier can the Golriz fiasco get I wonder?

https://twitter.com/Mattmateymate/status/1746643910313885994
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January 15, 2024 3:38pm
- Clyde
  
  The interesting question to ask is who leaked the story to Newstalk in the first place?
  
  Option one is that it is member of the Greens – internal power struggle.
  
  Option two is someone else. I’m picking Option one.
  
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  January 15, 2024 3:52pm
  - artemisia
    
    Consider the person who broke the story, and his rep. That is Thomas Cranmer / Philip Crump. Not an obvious choice for a whistleblower but a safe and sensible one with rather a good grasp of the law. He may not have been the leakee (?) but clearly was involved..
    
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    January 15, 2024 4:08pm
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    Internal power struggle.
    Worst kept secret of the Greens. We all know who!!!!
    
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    January 15, 2024 4:55pm
- kevn
  
  Maggie… So many options.
  
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  January 15, 2024 4:06pm
Chuck Bird

South Africa which murders white farmers has brought this case against Israel.

Israel’s Tal Becker gives the opening remarks for Israel at the International Court of Justice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQaDIcdgLRc
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January 15, 2024 4:04pm
BeaB

Wouldn’t it be refreshing if the party of high ethical values, instead of spending days trying to cook up a story, just came out and honestly told us what happened. Golriz herself, who no doubt has been practising for days, could tell us all about her mental problems, stress, struggles and conflicts, but the Greens could say this happened and this is what we are going to do about it.
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January 15, 2024 4:20pm
- imalwaysright
  
  Maureen Pugh could ask James Shaw about evidence of Golriz Garments stocktaking trends and then Luxon and Willis can tell her off and give her a fashion magazine to study.
  
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  January 15, 2024 5:28pm
Ghost

Dear god, this woman is chilling. This is the Article on her. Mother was in a mental institution, father given temporary custody. Mother released the order removed. 911 call of her informing them she has just killed her children and one is still alive, zero emotion.
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January 15, 2024 4:31pm
- cmm
  
  “Debra Jeter had admitted to the attack and murder, but the one thing police were missing was a motive.”
  
  A motive is a reason to do something, once you understand the motive, as flawed as it might be, then there is a rational path that makes some sense. eg. she couldn’t stand the idea of her kids being free while she was not, so she decided to kill them.
  
  She was a nutter. They don’t have rational thoughts. Why look for a motive?
  
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  January 15, 2024 5:19pm
greybeard

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/301039905/mori-king-meets-pm-christopher-luxon-days-before-national-hui

I think this was a bad mistake by Luxon. He has now shown preferential treatment for a bunch of racists/activists.
Maybe he should have consulted with his supporters before doing this.

“The meeting had been planned since last year and was an opportunity to further build on the relationship they have established in the last two years,” a spokesperson for the prime minister said.” Yeah, right.

Makes me now wish I had voted for Winston.
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January 15, 2024 5:25pm
- Ghost
  
  It’s the right thing to do. Luxon needs to talk with iwi, get them on side with his vision and what he wants to do. It shuts the Māori party and labour down.
  
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  January 15, 2024 5:35pm
  - Gravelroad
    
    I sort of agree with you Ghost, but the sense of Maori grievance and entitlement is so entrenched now that I question whether they and their leadership will even listen to a word Mr Luxon says.
    
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    January 15, 2024 5:51pm
    - Ghost
      
      You’ll always have the extreme side, the radicals beaten into a frenzy by the Māori party. The iwis are more ready to work with and have a relationship with the government, it’s in their best interest.
      
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      January 15, 2024 6:03pm
  - greybeard
    
    “get them on side with his vision and what he wants to do”.
    All very nice, but what if they are not interested in getting on his side ?
    Does he wait for them to call another meeting? He and National and ACT and NZF were voted in because of some very specific problems in NZ. Not just the loony left money-wasters ( Labour and Greens ) but the obvious, relentless maorification of the country through Govt departments, especially Health and Education.
    If any meetings with maori are held then he should be the one calling the shots.
    
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    January 15, 2024 6:29pm
- kiwikidsnz
  
  National/Luxon was very quick to revert to playing their usual games with race based politics and policies straight after the election
  
  https://beehive.govt.nz/release/50-million-lift-immunisation-rates
  
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  January 15, 2024 5:36pm
  - Ghost
    
    That money to get Māori current with their vaccines will save health dollars further down the track.
    
    Also important to read the money isn’t just for Māori
    
    Of the $50 million over two years, $30 million will go to Whānau Ora providers to work with those most at risk – Māori and non-Māori pēpi, hāpu māma, and kaumātua. An additional $10 million will go to North Island partners and $10 million to South Island partners.
    
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    January 15, 2024 5:45pm
    - kiwikidsnz
      
      Its a political race based allocation policy, well illustrated by looking who are the people (usual suspects) who are in charge of delivering it
      https://whanauora.nz/our-people
      
      If it was based on health needs it would have been allocated to & by Health NZ
      
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      January 15, 2024 6:25pm
      - Ghost
        
        We have a iwi run clinic here that does immunisations. Anyone can walk into it and get their child immunised they aren’t only for Māori.
        
        But the fact is Māori children have the lower immunisation rate in the country so there needs to be a push to change that, that push will save money further down the line.
        
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        January 15, 2024 6:36pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  The PM meets with a variety of interest group representatives.
  
  I’d only be worried if the PM exclusively deals with Waikato-Tainui/Kingiitanga.
  
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  January 15, 2024 5:44pm
  - Steve Todd
    
    Maggy: Something you probably are not aware of. Your 5:44PM comment, above, was the 3,500,000th comment on Kiwiblog.
    
    Just thought you might find that of interest.
    
    (https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2024/01/general_debate_15_january_2024.html/comment-page-1#comment-3500000)
    
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    January 15, 2024 6:58pm
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      Do I get a prize?
      
      8 0
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      January 15, 2024 7:14pm
      - Steve Todd
        
        Do you know what, Maggy, Tom Hunter asked the same question when I informed him he had posted the 3,000,000th comment.
        
        (After a tough three days on Kiwiblog, I just wanted to inject a little light relief.)
        
        4 2
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        January 15, 2024 7:35pm
      - Tom Hunter
        
        Well, as I posted on No Minister when Steve informed me, it is, in the words of Crash Davis:
        
        Annie:
        “I looked up your records– You’ve hit 227 home runs in the minors. That’s great!“
        
        Crash:
        “Don’t tell anybody.“
        
        Annie:
        “Why not? If you hit twenty homers this year you’ll be the all time minor league champ! The record’s 246.“
        
        Crash:
        “247 home runs in the minors would be a dubious honor.“
        
        @Maggie
        I realise you’re not into – as my youngest sarcastically calls them, “ball sports” – but you might get a laugh in watching “Bull Durham”.
        
        BTW, I have to admit it’s rather sweet to know I have this little bit of KB history in common with you – rather than having to share it with the other type who frequent this abode (looks carefully side-to-side).
        
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        January 15, 2024 11:56pm
      - Steve Todd
        
        @Tom Hunter @ 11:56PM
        
        I see you asked, “What did I win?”, not “Do I get a prize?” Just goes to show, you have to check.
        
        It’s not that I’m a trainspotter (although I was once a test match cricket scorer), it’s just that, since April 2020, coincidentally, after asking Maggy how she links to past comments so easily, I began recording all my comments, with their link addresses (which show the comment number), in Word.
        
        That’s why so many of my comments include links to past comments.
        
        This evening, one of my comments was No. 3,500,004, so it was no problem to find who had comment No. 3,500,000.
        
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        January 16, 2024 12:31am
- virtualmark
  
  I wonder what the relationship between the Maori Party and Tainui is like, now that Mahuta was beaten by a Maori Party candidate.
  
  I wonder whether the top leadership in the big iwis like Tainui and Ngai Tahu are all that well disposed to a Maori Party that is driven by firebrand urban Maori with radical backgrounds. The 2024 version of the Maori Party may not be all that well aligned with the historical Maori leadership structures.
  
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  January 15, 2024 7:39pm
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    The Kingitanga /Tainui-Waikato (Tuku Morgan – spokesperson) is now closely aligned with The Maori Party.
    
    Didn’t you notice Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke’s maiden speech in Parliament?
    
    Read it here:
    https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/hansard-debates/rhr/document/HansS_20231212_062118000/maipi-clarke-hana-rawhiti
    
    Look who she acknowledges:
    (translated)
    First
    To my king, King Tāwhiao Pōtatau Te Wherowhero te Tuawhitu, and the entire royal household, the Royal Consort, Ngā Wai-hono-i-te-pō, this night has been honoured by you. Peace and goodness be upon us.
    
    and
    
    [To the esteemed lady, the most talented lady, Nanaia Mahuta, the word will never be fulfilled, my gratitude to you will never end. You who blazed this path, you who hammered this House of Parliament, you who worked tirelessly for our people. Here your mokopuna bows to you.]
    
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    January 15, 2024 9:00pm
    - NeverMindTheBollocks
      
      Pass the sick bag
      
      4 2
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      January 15, 2024 9:48pm
Maggie Pie

‘The Joker’ is in agreement with WO….
The-Silence-of-the-Greens is deafening 🙁

https://twitter.com/EvilArthurFleck/status/1746749859552690659
12 2
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January 15, 2024 5:35pm
Truman lodge

This article is really chilling.

It is some kind of threat and Zimbabwe is on the cards I feel.

https://newsroom.co.nz/2023/11/29/a-young-browner-future-for-nz/
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January 15, 2024 6:09pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  It’s a pretty limited analysis when Aaron Smale ignores the Asian demographic in NZ.
  
  A notable change in New Zealand’s population composition, between 2018 and 2043, will be the increased proportion of the Asian population. By 2043, the Asian population will be the second largest ethnic group in New Zealand, overtaking Māori, this is projected to happen as early as 2023.
  
  https://berl.co.nz/economic-insights/new-zealands-ethnic-diversity-will-continue-increase#:~:text=New%20Zealand%20is%20a%20nation,percent%20Pacific%2C%20as%20seen%20below.
  
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  January 15, 2024 7:12pm
  - Jake Dee
    
    What will be interesting to see is the actions of Kiwis who are BOTH Asian and Māori over the next generation. Their numbers are small now, but they will only increase.
    
    2 1
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    January 15, 2024 7:44pm
- cmm
  
  Truman:
  
  We see a whole lot of plummeting statistics (eg. education outcomes, crime, obesity & health). Quite likely there is some correlation.
  
  It isn’t always that the same people are sliding, but often it is more that the demographics are changing.
  
  If we didn’t have a few Asians holding up their end at schools and universities we’d be screwed.
  
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  January 15, 2024 7:46pm
- NZer In Exile
  
  What a putrid piece of race-hate hustling. I presume the greaser comment is also “curated”.
  
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  January 15, 2024 10:33pm
Ghost

What is next for Green MP Golriz Ghahraman? Expulsion? Resignation? Exoneration?

A police investigation into an alleged shoplifting incident in December and allegations of a second incident involving the same upmarket Auckland boutique – these are not the sort of headlines anyone would want to start the year with, let alone an MP.

Article

Disagree with this article. There is no way she remains. In the greens or as an independent she would be crucified by Winston and Shane daily.

Greens need damage control and the only way to start repairing the damage is to get her to leave parliament, and as fast as possible.
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January 15, 2024 6:23pm
- Truman lodge
  
  The owner is a Green Party supporter allegedly.
  
  The other owner is not, and they are conflicted on what to do. I predict Golly get’s away with it and stays an mp.
  
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  January 15, 2024 6:27pm
  - Ghost
    
    Her career is over, it doesn’t matter what the shop does, she is finished.
    
    17 0
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    January 15, 2024 6:37pm
    - Steve Todd
      
      You comment with such certainty, Ghost. Not once, since the story broke last Wednesday, have you inserted the words, “in my opinion”, or, “in my view”, into your comments.
      
      You have no more idea how this matter is going to play out than I do. Who knows, she may end up sitting in parliament as an Independent MP until the next election! Or not.
      
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      January 15, 2024 7:14pm
      - Ghost
        
        https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/133561585/police-investigating-golriz-ghahraman-allegation–this-time-in-wellington
        
        She is gone
        
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        January 15, 2024 7:15pm
      - Maggy Wassilieff
        
        I don’t get how an MP who came into the house on a Party List can remain as an independent (as Dr E. Kerekere did) when they leave the party.
        
        10 1
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        January 15, 2024 7:21pm
      - Steve Todd
        
        @Ghost @ 7:15PM
        
        Okay, I hadn’t seen that when I started drafting my response to you. It’s certainly not looking good, but my comment stands (in my view).
        
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        January 15, 2024 7:27pm
      - cmm
        
        Stop the white knighting she’s so fucked they could use her for a Monty Python sketch.
        
        She’s just resting.
        
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vuW6tQ0218
        
        11 2
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        January 15, 2024 7:30pm
      - David Garrett
        
        Steve O: Well, IN MY OPINION, as I have said here before, her position is now utterly untenable, regardless of whether she is charged for one of the – now three – allegations of shop theft. (Shoplifting is just a euphemism for theft)
        
        Yes, she can stay on as an independent…but every time she stood to speak in the House she would be heckled unmercifully – with the kind of clever/witty references to shoplifting that have appeared here over the past week or so.
        
        In short, she’s totally fucked…In my opinion.
        
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        January 15, 2024 7:47pm
      - Steve Todd
        
        @cmm @ 7:30PM
        
        I am not white knighting her. I just wish commenters would say “in my opinion/view” occasionally (as I do, all the time) when commenting (on any matter), instead of making out they know how, as in this case, it’s all going to unfold. They, including you, don’t.
        
        My comment was not out of the blue. See https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2023/12/kiwiblogs_2024_predictions.html/comment-page-1#comment-3492908.
        
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        January 15, 2024 7:55pm
      - Steve Todd
        
        @DavidGarrett @ 7:47PM
        
        Yep, I appreciate that David (and thanks for the “in my opinion”), but, as you agree, she could end up staying on as an Independent MP. My point remains, I wish commenters would say, “In my opinion/view” occasionally, because no-one knows how this is going to end.
        
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        January 15, 2024 8:25pm
      - Ghost
        
        The way you communicate is the way you communicate, You should stop wanting the world to communicate the way you do.
        
        3 3
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        January 15, 2024 8:33pm
      - NeverMindTheBollocks
        
        Does Scottie’s have a Wellington branch?
        
        0 1
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        January 15, 2024 8:31pm
      - Maggy Wassilieff
        
        Yes, It’s on Blair St.
        
        1 0
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        January 15, 2024 9:03pm
      - Steve Todd
        
        @Maggy Wassilieff @ 7:21PM
        
        I think their party leaders just decide it’s not worth invoking the “waka jumping” law. Classic example, Simon Bridges, re. Jami-Lee Ross.
        
        See also sections 55A to 55D here: https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1993/0087/211.0/DLM307519.html.
        
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        January 15, 2024 9:13pm
  - Rumblestrip
    
    If the business was going to cover it up, it would have already happened and we wouldn’t be discussing this because we would never have known about it.
    
    At this point, the cooperation of the business is no longer required and there is no requirement for them to “press charges.” It is a formal police investigation and the police alone will decide whether or not there is sufficient evidence to proceed to prosecution.
    
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    January 15, 2024 7:20pm
    - cmm
      
      Perhaps they were covering up after they were told it was a once-off aberration but then they saw the Scotties offending and realized they’d been lied to.
      
      This begs the question if there are more going to come forward. I struggle to believe that she only started offending in October.
      
      My standard bet of 50 cents and a servo pie says that the Greens knew of this offending too.
      
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      January 15, 2024 7:42pm
      - Rumblestrip
        
        I wonder if we will hear any allegations of offending prior to her MS diagnosis. That would certainly remove MS as an excuse (not that it is a particularly good excuse in the first place)!
        
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        January 15, 2024 7:47pm
      - Steve Todd
        
        @Rumblestrip @ 7:47PM
        
        Unlikely, I suspect. She was diagnosed with MS about mid-2018. When she spoke with Kanoa Lloyd in late February 2020, she said she was diagnosed 18 months previously. (See https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/green-mp-golriz-ghahraman-opens-up-about-multiple-sclerosis-diagnosis/6CSKLH3UD5I2PYSJS2N447ZX5I/. – hat tip; Ghost, Wed 10 Jan.)
        
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        January 15, 2024 8:11pm
- fernglas
  
  The article is fairly superficial.
  The possibilities are much wider. For example, in this situation, a civilian might be given diversion, and thus escape conviction. But that requires an admission of guilt. That in itself should be enough to guarantee a resignation.
  The question of prosecutorial discretion is also in play. Does her position as an MP mean there is a greater public interest in a prosecution than if she were an ordinary member of the public? The public is entitled to expect the highest of standards from someone who is a lawmaker.
  Then there is the question of what would happen if she was prosecuted and pleaded guilty. Would she get a discharge without conviction? No previous convictions, otherwise blameless life; maybe, but again, an admission of guilt is needed.
  
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  January 15, 2024 7:13pm
  - Rumblestrip
    
    Diversion is for a first-time offender. But given there are three separate theft allegations now, on three separate dates, would diversion even be a possibility?
    
    5 1
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    January 15, 2024 7:29pm
    - cmm
      
      Considering that criminals, on average rack up something like 47 convictions before their first imprisonment, I’m sure some sort of diversion is possible.
      
      However it would be an extremely poor look for the judicial system as a whole if an MP, a justice spokesperson on top of that, was to get off while the white gumboot brigade are being sent to prison.
      
      Perhaps they can find some middle ground – give her a GPS bracelet.
      
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      January 15, 2024 7:38pm
      - Gravelroad
        
        Silver, gold or diamond GPS bracelet?
        
        9 0
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        January 15, 2024 8:00pm
cmm

Now it’s three. Any more in the woodwork?
She’s fucked!

Goodness Golly you’re Gone.
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January 15, 2024 7:22pm
- Ghost
  
  And third one mentions photos of her.
  
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  January 15, 2024 7:24pm
- cmm
  
  My standard bet of 50 cents and a servo pie says this is not the last.
  
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  January 15, 2024 7:34pm
  - Ghost
    
    This comment alone makes me think there has been other incidents talked about amongst the shops
    
    The store owner Melanie Smith emailed other businesses on Monday, saying she had laid a complaint and mentioned Ghahraman by name. She included images appearing to show Ghahraman in the store.
    
    Why inform the other shops?
    
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    January 15, 2024 7:42pm
    - cmm
      
      Shopkeepers know that thieves don’t do a single job. They go from victim to victim.
      Quite likely most really don’t want to press charges against an MP, especially a beloved greenie.
      But if one stands up, others might follow.
      Hence I think my 50 cents is pretty safe.
      
      My biggest outstanding questions are:
      *How much of thus offending are the Greens aware of?
      *Are they aware of others?
      *How often have they tried to smooth things over?
      * Why did they only strip GG of her portfolios when it became public? Ie why not after they were told of the offending?
      
      The cover up is starting to smell as ripe as the
      crime.
      
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      January 15, 2024 8:08pm
      - Rumblestrip
        
        … and after the 2023 election, when she was reappointed as the Justice spokesperson, was anyone in the Green party hierarchy aware of allegations or even rumours regarding her dishonesty?
        
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        January 15, 2024 8:25pm
Truman lodge

I hope Golly is on the way out!

But I am still worried she will get away with it. The Greens do not care, and their supporters do not care.

Golly needs the $ and will not resign. I doubt the Greens have the balls to push her. This is all 3rd world Banana stuff waiting to happen as I still think she will get away with it.

I bet Glenn McConnell from stuff had trouble writing the article.
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January 15, 2024 7:36pm
- Philview
  
  Probably better for the Centre Right if she stays on. In 3 years time the more disfunction on the Left the better.
  
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  January 15, 2024 8:26pm
coge

The Green co leaders need to step up and show some integrity to the people of NZ. Tonight would be an ideal time.
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January 15, 2024 7:38pm
- Truman lodge
  
  Agreed coge
  
  They are pathetic!
  
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  January 15, 2024 7:44pm
Ghost

Hmmm, just saw this. Sounds like an interesting job, anyone want to ask Golriz about it?

https://i.imgur.com/DwW16Rw.jpg
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January 15, 2024 7:50pm
Truman lodge

Golly would easily stay in Parliament as an Independant.

I mean even with all the Heckling she could hang with TPM who are absolute maniacs and children in the house . I think she will become unhinged.
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January 15, 2024 8:00pm
ecco

Wow a serial shoplifter. I don’t care what medications she’s on. The first instance, whenever that may have been, might be explained by medication causing lack of judgement. The other incidents are premeditated and deliberate offending.

If she has committed these acts and gets to keep her MP salary, then that’s disgusting, and is indicative of everything that’s wrong with NZ since Ardern came to power.
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January 15, 2024 9:03pm
- ecco
  
  If the Greens seek for her to retain her MP salary if she is found guilty of multiple acts of shoplifting then they are just taking the piss out of all the retail workers that they purport to represent.
  
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  January 15, 2024 9:09pm
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    Wouldn’t happen. GG will be replaced by Celia Wade-Brown; the Greens will continue to get their 10% cut.
    
    On that Biden-ish topic, surely it’s against NZ law for an organisation to demand that the employee rebates 10% of salary? Isn’t that akin to those dodgy Indian employers twisting the arms of their new-to-NZ, on-a-work-visa employees?
    
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    January 15, 2024 9:55pm

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