General Debate 26 August 2024

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Yvette

Equal rights for all.
ACT’s Treaty Principles Bill will ensure our nation’s founding document delivers on its promise of equal rights for all New Zealanders. https://www.treaty.nz/

Any Māori may submit a claim to the Waitangi Tribunal. We do, however, require certain information before we can proceed with a claim.
Non-Maori may not.

Is this going to end well?
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August 26, 2024 8:03am
- Paulus
  
  No, as it appears that Maori will not win unless they and the Waitangi Tribunal, an advisory body, not a voted for Quasi Government.
  It appears to the 85% of the non Maori population only Maori will not waiver whilst the 85% pay for whatever they want and get.
  In over a half Century, we have never seen the division of population, go flat out to get everything they want.
  New Zealand is divided like never before and will only get worse, as such, as the media support this effective breakdown of New Zealand society, along with the non Maori white Liberals, mainly women, who are basking in their joy at seeing the duly elected Government do what they were elected on.
  Sure they would bring back Ardern if they could.
  
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  August 26, 2024 10:38am
Simon

What is more fake? The MSM narrative pumping Harris, together with fake polling or the covid “vaccinations.”

Or is it equal? Basically people injected themselves with shit as fake as Harris’s reported momentum.
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August 26, 2024 8:04am
- Grunter
  
  Most/all of the swing States will go Trumps way, especially now that Jnr has joined Trump in these States.
  
  Harris has zero chance IMO of winning a fair election
  
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  August 26, 2024 10:48am
  - Benedict Yu
    
    “zero chance”? I don’t think that is what you mean.
    
    Yes RFK will bring some votes for Trump. But he will also lose votes because he, is well, crazy on important topics like vaccines. Can you imagine the catastrophe if he were Health Secretary?
    
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    August 26, 2024 11:35am
    - NZer In Exile
      
      Is RFK “anti-vax” across the board, or just in cases where he believes profit has trumped safety/efficacy?
      
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      August 26, 2024 6:49pm
- Benedict Yu
  
  Except the COVID vaccines saved millions from death and serious illness.
  
  It is time to let it go. You can choose to not get your COVID vaccine boosters. IMO it is a foolish decision, but I support free choice. (For adults. Parents who refuse to vaccinate their children are another matter.)
  
  The vaccine mandates and passports in New Zealand were wrong beyond measure. You can point that out forever. Hopefully they will never be repeated. However, claiming that the vaccines were “fake” is so crazy that it enables despots to ignore everything else you say, because they can claim that you are crazy.
  
  If you want to be treated seriously as an opponent of despots, stop saying crazy stuff about vaccines.
  
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  August 26, 2024 11:32am
  - alloytoo
    
    Vaccines in general have been a great boon to mankind.
    
    The Covid “vaccines” prevented neither infection, nor spread.
    
    Risk vs benefit ratio is dubious at best.
    
    Worse still the mandates have increased skepticism of vaccines in general.
    
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    August 26, 2024 11:55am
  - Burtland
    
    Covid is endemic – the jab wasnt a vaccine – what happened to herd immunity.
    
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    August 26, 2024 12:16pm
  - Taieri
    
    the COVID vaccines saved millions from death and serious illness
    ———-
    
    Dame Jacinda alone saved at least 80000 lives and that was before the vaccines were even invented.
    
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    August 26, 2024 1:25pm
  - rouppe
    
    I read this recently.
    
    https://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2024/08/dr-guy-hatchard-open-letter-to-medical.html
    
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    August 26, 2024 1:27pm
  - wsk12345
    
    What utter BS. The covid “vaccines” didn’t save millions. fauci, the bought and paid for NIH, FDA and all their overseas equivalents and the paid for media parrot this stuff often enough and some seemingly smart people believe it, and go on to parrot it to other people.
    If you take out the oldies and dementia patients, your so called vaccines saved almost nobody. Unvaxxed people who got omicron mostly experienced it as a mild cold! You think it was a serious illness because the vaccine stuffed your immune system for the next variant. Either that or you are morbidly obese with diabetes and a few other serious issues.
    
    You think I’m crazy not to take a vaccine with potentially life destroying side effects to possibly prevent (but more likely exacerbate) a mild cold? Who’s mad?
    
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    August 26, 2024 1:29pm
    - imalwaysright
      
      Wsk
      Its strange that some attribute the fact they aren’t dead to them taking an experimental drug.
      
      The only way to even consider the possibility is if all of those people who didn’t take the drug had died when they got covid.
      
      I suppose they get some religious type of comfort from their belief, in itself probably a good thing for them.
      
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      August 26, 2024 2:53pm
  - Conservatarian
    
    “I bought this car, and its steering wheel and brakes are ineffective, the car keeps failing to brake and to steer me away from obstacles I want to avoid. But I perceive that the seatbelt and air bag and bull bars are quite effectively at minimising the effects of the crashes I keep suffering. So I will continue to extol the virtues of the entire car.”
    
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    August 26, 2024 2:14pm
  - Ra Henare
    
    BY, interesting concept.
    You believe in freedom of choice.
    BUT
    you have exceptions for things YOU decide should not be freedom of choice matters.
    
    Sorry, but anyone who professes to believe in freedom of choice(items within the constitutional fully debated law) and adds a but, or Except for…..
    
    DOES NOT believe in freedom of choice.
    
    Don’t you believe it’s a bit hypocritical to remove choice from parents but allow dictates from government employees in a Ministry???
    
    It’s the same argument for free speech. There are no buts or excepts.
    
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    August 26, 2024 2:38pm
    - Benedict Yu
      
      That is a terrible argument.
      
      “Parental choice” is explicitly limited. You cannot leave your children unattended. You cannot withhold medical treatment. You can’t drive your children around without a child seat.
      
      I am simply arguing that withholding childhood vaccines should similarly be unlawful. It is hardly a radical argument, and applies in more than 80 countries globally. Hopefully things will soon change in New Zealand. Anti vax parents are a menace to their children and society.
      
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      August 26, 2024 3:23pm
      - Grunter
        
        Bene – those are ‘terrible’ examples that you have given. Those of us who grew up in NZ before the 1980s never had a child seat, and were often left all day to roam the hills (“Just be back before it’s dark….”), and were only given a Disprin on rare occasions.
        
        You’ve been bitten by the Nanny-State bug at some stage……
        
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        August 26, 2024 4:14pm
Chuck Bird

Below is my submission to the Law Commission. The link to their request for submissions is below.

https://www.lawcom.govt.nz/our-work/ia-tangata/

Thumbs up if you agree with it. Thumbs down if you do not. Please consider making a submission. Submissions close Thursday 5 September 2024 at 5pm.

A review of the protections in the Human Rights Act 1993 for people who are transgender, people who are non-binary and people with innate variations of sex characteristics

I am emailing my submission rather than answering a bunch is silly questions online.

Unlike the lawyers on the Law Commission, I do not have a university degree but I do have a degree of common sense. It seems that most on the Law Commission lack common sense or they would not be wasting taxpayer’s money on this anti-woman nonsense.

I wonder if any of you watched the female boxing in the last Olympics where someone with an XY chromosome bashed up a woman. When I say woman I mean an adult human female who has a XX chromosome. Would any of your lawyers think you could convince a jury that this fight was fair?

This individual with the XY chromosome is rare so I will stick with transgender people for the rest of my submission.

While I do not think should be treated badly I think they should not be allowed women’s toilets or changing rooms, and should not be allowed to play against women in sport. I do not think they should be assaulted but I do not think they have a right to assault others, especially women as happened at Albert Park when Posie Parker tried to address some of her supporters.

The women who were assaulted should have had police protection. However, they did not get it due to political interference of the Greens and some in the Labour Party, particularly Hipkins.

Prisons

Women have been raped in prisons overseas. I do not believe it has happened here or a least reported. I believe that the safety of female prisoners especially on remand should trump the rights of transgender people. If a woman is raped in prison someone as well as the rapist should be held to account for putting the woman at unreasonable risk.

Children

I certainly believe that the rights of children and parents trump the rights of transgender activists and another sick activist who wants to secretly teach impressionable children about what is age-inappropriate and pushes a transgender agenda.

RODNEY HIDE: Leave our kids alone

I was at a Family First event and a young woman came here from the US.

Former Trans Kid Chloe Cole on Why She Regrets Her Transition

Chloe Cole is one of many females and males who have regrets about transitioning.

Ben Espiner: who’s behind gender education changes in our schools?

It is a myth that the Law Commission or bodies like the Climate Change Commission are independent. Political parties choose who goes on the different commissions. In the case of the Law Commission if the members were chosen by the last Labour government they would pick people they knew supported transgender activists. We had a Prime Minister who when asked by Sean Plunket to define a woman made New Zealand a joke around the world.

New Zealand PM struggles when asked ‘what is a woman?’

I will post this submission on social media. I am happy to include any response from the Law Commission to state if and why they think I am wrong.

Chuck Bird
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August 26, 2024 8:05am
- Pope Punctilious II
  
  Good work Chuck. I plan to make a submission too.
  
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  August 26, 2024 8:28am
  - Ghost
    
    If you do as chuck has, you are wasting your time. Just use their submission form if you actually want it read
    
    https://ia-tangata.lawcom.govt.nz/online-submission/questions-for-chapters-1-6/
    
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    August 26, 2024 10:17am
    - Pope Punctilious II
      
      Agreed, I plan to use the submission form rather than write a separate submission. I’ve just been reading some of the Law Commision’s musings on the subject – excruciating stuff, full of ideology.
      
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      August 26, 2024 10:42am
- Dudley Quaffquaff
  
  As Spam says below – this isn’t helpful AT ALL to the cause you purport to be supporting. Your submission will be neither read nor counted.
  
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  August 26, 2024 9:05am
Bridgenag

the censorship and surveillance state flexes
france arrests telegram CEO for failing to help them spy on customers

“shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;”

has become “unless we disagree with what you say.”

https://open.substack.com/pub/boriquagato/p/the-censorship-and-surveillance-state?r=1aj1bv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
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August 26, 2024 8:05am
- Mod88
  
  Asked Why?? Zuckerberg has not been arrested for Instagram infractions, Elon Musk replied,
  
  “Because he already caved into censorship pressure.”
  
  “Instagram has a massive child exploitation problem, but no arrest for Zuck, as he censors free speech and gives governments backdoor access to user data.”
  
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  August 26, 2024 8:22am
- Blog-aholic
  
  Censorship is the child of fear, the father of ignorance and the desperate weapon of fascists everywhere.
  Laurie Halse Anderson.
  
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  August 26, 2024 8:31am
  - Chris Nisbet
    
    That would have been better if the attribution was redacted.
    
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    August 26, 2024 10:17am
  - Bridgenag
    
    100!ticks
    
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    August 26, 2024 12:53pm
- Spam
  
  Do they allow email submissions or is the form what they’ve asked for? If the latter, you may have given them an excuse to bin your submission as non-conforming.
  
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  August 26, 2024 8:44am
  - Spam
    
    Oops… sorry. Was supposed to be a reply to Chuck.
    
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    August 26, 2024 8:58am
    - SWIM
      
      I am emailing my submission rather than answering a bunch is silly questions online.
      
      Yip…straight in the bin.
      
      They had questions they want answers to so they can collect data…and here they have a rambling rant.
      
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      August 26, 2024 9:03am
      - NeverMindTheBollocks
        
        To ask the question is to answer it, Comrade
        
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        August 26, 2024 10:22am
  - Chuck Bird
    
    Spam. The answer is yes. I phoned and checked.
    
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    August 26, 2024 10:10am
    - Notsofast
      
      Glad to hear you went to source. I was astonished at the confident dismissal of your approach.
      
      Here is Katrina Biggs describing her submission in person, and a view of the commissioners
      
      https://youtu.be/-0CY2JVJiUY?si=0i8dWCU_XXbCbk6Y
      
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      August 26, 2024 11:22am
      - Chuck Bird
        
        [Mod – unless you have their permission please don’t post email addresses]
        
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        August 26, 2024 2:25pm
    - Ghost
      
      No, you’ve submitted a big long rant which will get trashed because you can’t follow instructions. They are not wanting what you submitted, they are wanting submission on the questions.
      
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      August 26, 2024 11:39am
      - Chuck Bird
        
        [Mod – unless you have permission to post someone else’s submission do not post it. Also drop your usual personal attacks]
        
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        August 26, 2024 3:03pm
    - Dudley Quaffquaff
      
      And you believed them.
      
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      August 26, 2024 1:29pm
    - Ra Henare
      
      Chuck, you do realise that phoning a Government department to get a decision is an exercise in futility, IMHO.
      
      I only ever email departments(or get them to email their reply) as I find that any decision given could be from an ignoramus who only started the job last week. It is next to useless when the rubber meets the road.
      
      If it’s more than 90 days later, they will have scrubbed the voice recording and will happily deny anything.
      
      Did you ask the name of the person giving the decision and record the time and date and tell them you were doing so.
      
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      August 26, 2024 2:47pm
Simon

[Mod – use their real names]
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August 26, 2024 8:06am
- Simon
  
  Lol – it was a copy and paste to a Trump twitter post.
  
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  August 26, 2024 10:48am
Bridgenag

Sunday Strip: The Meme Police.
Totalitarian frogs enforcing the new world order

https://open.substack.com/pub/rwmalonemd/p/sunday-strip-the-meme-police?r=1aj1bv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
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August 26, 2024 8:07am
nygr

It’s so easy to sit on the edge and criticise and complain. The Maori leaders/agitators/protestors seem to whinge and moan and show disdain and disrespect towards our society. They want radical change. But can anyone tell me their long-term vision for the future of New Zealand? What is their wanted solutions and outcomes?
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August 26, 2024 8:10am
- PurplePen
  
  Yes. And mostly it’s “honour the treaty” or “that does not honour the treaty” is shouted in response to anyone else’s initiative. But no-one then asks the people shouting “what do you mean specifically by honour the treaty, can you give me some examples in relation to the initiative at hand”. Seymour has sometimes done this and the response from whomever is never clear. It’s made murky and mysterious through heavy use of Manglish.
  
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  August 26, 2024 10:19am
- rouppe
  
  That they do nothing but
  1. They control the resources
  2. They control the money
  3. They are not responsible for anything
  
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  August 26, 2024 10:26am
- sherp
  
  New Zealand->Aoteroa=Rhodesia->Zimbabwe
  
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  August 26, 2024 10:27am
- Allan
  
  They have no long term vision apart from a return to tribalism and lining their own pockets. This is already happening with the maori elite sucking off the hind tit of the Treaty settlements,lining their own pockets, paying no tax because of the so called charity status of the maori corporations and those at the bottom of the heap in the tribe getting 3/5ths of 5/8ths of sfa from the settlement money. Also I think that underpants Morgan’s inflated opinion of himself clearly shows the total and utter arrogance of these clowns.
  
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  August 26, 2024 11:58am
artemisia

“Deep concerns” – principals react to maths curriculum changes

Principals unhappy with the curriculum changes coming up. Some of them say the changes are of deep concern, and are being implemented at alarming and unrealistic pace.

The subtext from the principals in the article – we need more money / resource / time or we might fail to make the required changes and it will be someone else’s’ fault.

Would have been grand to see a little bit of comment from principals along the lines of – we know there is a problem with achievement, but we are all dedicated professionals and if we all have to work a bit harder to get up to speed we will.

But no. Just sounds like – we hate change and this government.

Meanwhile – Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said new data from the Curriculum Insights and Progress Study showed that last year about 50,000 children in Year 8 did not meet the expected benchmark for maths. “There’s no way to describe those results as anything other than a total system failure,” said Luxon.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/why-bay-principals-are-concerned-about-changes-to-the-maths-curriculum/IGC5COM3SJE6HLNY7UA2AWHRPM/
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August 26, 2024 8:10am
- cmm
  
  The worst of the “deep concerns” was that children might fail and be kept back a year.
  
  Surely that is not a concern. Surely that is the best possible outcome.
  
  If a child has not mastered what it takes to pass a year, then they should be held back to repeat it. They can then continue their school career on a solid foundation.
  
  Each year serves as a foundation for subsequent years. If you have not mastered year 3, but progress to year 4 anyway then you are being set up for a string of failures all the way until quitting school at year 10 due to frustration.
  
  Parents: insulate your children from this monstrosity that passes for “education” in NZ. All you need to do is spend 2 hours a week augmenting the rubbish education they get at school. That’s it 2 hours a week. If you can’t find 2 hours a week for your child’s future then poor education is the least of their worries.
  
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  August 26, 2024 8:17am
  - cmm
    
    A downticker who thinks a child should be kept in “fail jail” for the rest of their lives rather than be given a chance to repeat and progress on a solid footing.
    
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    August 26, 2024 8:37am
    - SWIM
      
      cmm.
      I didnt downtick you but if you think its just an additional 2 hours reqd then I have a bridge to sell you!
      
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      August 26, 2024 8:45am
      - cmm
        
        We homeschooled our kids end to end. They didn’t spend a single day at school. Both ended up with technical degrees.
        I think I have a reasonable understanding of what is required to teach kids.
        
        Of course children need more than 2 hours total education per week, but if you are augmenting what they are getting at school then 2 hours each week would put them way ahead of their peers.
        
        Two hours per week of adult supervision to ensure they understand what they did at school and help them through difficult patches should be enough. Of course I would expect the child to be doing a bit more than that in homework etc.
        
        I am curious: how much do you think is required?
        
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        August 26, 2024 10:11am
      - Don Beckett
        
        A comment from a wiser man than me:
        “If you surrender you children to Caesar for 10 years, you cannot be surprised if they become Romans”
        The state system is broken – Charter schools, private schools or home schooling has become a necessity, not an option.
        
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        August 26, 2024 11:41am
      - cmm
        
        SWIM: To be clear, I think it wrong you scored all those downticks. I was not one of them.
        
        I am genuinely interested to know how much time you think is needed to supplement children’s education.
        
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        August 26, 2024 1:14pm
      - wsk12345
        
        Friends of mine homeschooled for most of high school, I think they went back for the final year. They did 1.5 hours per day of work and rest of the day was free to read, do sport or occasionally outings with other homeschooled kids.
        Both now have STEM degrees and good jobs. One was dux in her final – and only – year at school. As far as I can tell the parents did very little supervised teaching. I recall teaching one of the, fractions and decimals which they seemed to find hard, in their first year at home.
        
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        August 26, 2024 1:42pm
    - Bridgenag
      
      Well done. Why don’t we get the grandfathers to help the modern kids
      
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      August 26, 2024 12:57pm
      - mawm
        
        Bridge – probably because modern day mathematics has become incomprehensible to them. Oh for the days of simple old fashioned calculus.
        
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        August 26, 2024 1:35pm
  - Gravelroad
    
    For many people these days, the trauma of hurt feelings about your kid having to repeat a course, is far worse than them failing the course in the first place.
    Having to repeat a year was not uncommon when I was at secondary school – admittedly some years ago.
    If you did not get UE (University Entrance) accredited through adequate results during the year, you had to sit the exam at the end.
    If you didn’t pass that, you didn’t get accepted into uni and had to do the year again.
    Probably annoyed some parents, but that is the way it was.
    
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    August 26, 2024 8:37am
    - Flossie
      
      I can remember kids I was at school with who repeated 5th form as they didn’t pass School C. There was one boy who sat it three times.
      
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      August 26, 2024 8:42am
      - pdm
        
        Flossie so true.
        
        One of the most capable ladies I worked with back in my BNZ days failed school C three times.
        
        Another boy I went through high school with (sort of as he was in the 5th form when I was in the 3rd form and eventually we were 5th formers together) got School C on his 3rd attempt and went on to be a successful school teacher.
        
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        August 26, 2024 9:56am
      - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
        
        First 15 eh? We had a few second year 5ths, who were big lads and very handy in the scrum. School would work hard to keep them even if they couldnt understand or pass the exams.
        
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        August 26, 2024 10:37am
      - MCōs
        
        The year I sat School Cert the pass mark was 200. My score was 202, which meant I moved up to the 6th form even though I was below 50 in 3/5 subjects.
        I scored 27% in chemistry, but still didn’t repeat the year. Incredible
        The marks were manipulated nationwide so that 50% failed, but conversely 50% passed.
        It didn’t matter how good or bad the education system was, every year the results were the same at 5th form level.
        From memory only 7% of the school pupils went on to university and 50% didn’t make it passed the first year.
        
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        August 26, 2024 10:39am
      - Don Beckett
        
        I sat School Cert in 1956. As McCos says, the marks were scaled to allow only 50% to pass. I got 260 total – Highest mark was 68 in Maths, & lowest mark was 58 in French. Acreditted UE.
        A good mate of mine sat School C. 3 times and failed.
        By the time he was 35, he was a millionaire – large home in Epsom, commercial building in Takapuna, small managed farm in Tauranga & thriving export business.
        Wasn’t at all an academic, but heaps of common sense and street wise.
        
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        August 26, 2024 11:47am
      - Colville
        
        My older brother came back to school after the holidays just because he wanted to punch a specific teacher… the teacher had moved to another school so Bro went and got a job. Probably saved Bro a serious conviction as Bro has an inhuman ability to hit hard for a skinny prick.
        
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        August 26, 2024 12:03pm
      - AitchW
        
        nigel6888 that school I attended in the 70s used to just about gift UE accreditation to the first 15.
        If you were part of that team you’d need to totally illiterate and innumerate not be accredited!
        I was accredited without having to play rugby….
        
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        August 26, 2024 2:26pm
      - NeverMindTheBollocks
        
        Fifth form – my three favourite school years!
        
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        August 26, 2024 3:23pm
    - cmm
      
      That is really the problem of the modern generation of teachers: they feel “traumatised” all the time by perceived minor pains and inconveniences.
      
      Unfortunately these experiences contribute to our growth and general education. When we save people from the minor pains of learning then we destroy their education.
      
      Children are far more resilient than that. They might feel upset for a day or two but they will soon settle down and make new friends.
      
      Learning to read is hard, as is learning your times tables. It might be frustrating and make children cry at the time. But trying to live an adult life without these basic skills is far more painful in the long run.
      
      Ditto failing a year at school. So what if you don’t progress with your mates (where you will just fall further behind)? You will make new mates. You will also progress with confidence.
      
      Of course in our modern “everyone gets a trophy” culture of “fairness” this is not tolerated.
      
      End result is that everyone gets the “trophy” of passing, but passing has to be dumbed down to make that happen. At the end, the “trophy” of education has no value.
      
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      August 26, 2024 8:58am
      - pdm
        
        cmm – I don’t think learning to read or times tables is especially difficult with good teachers and help at home.
        
        I had no problem with either but put Algebra, Geometry, Chemistry and Physics in front of me and I did not have a clue – in fact still don’t.
        
        At 78 I remain an avid reader and right through my working life have been able to comprehend what I read as well as add, subtract, multiply and divide as well as most, if not all, of my peers..
        
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        August 26, 2024 9:18am
      - cmm
        
        pdm: Relevance is often the key.
        
        As an avid reader, I would assume you are wired as a life-long learner and could teach yourself chemistry if you had a desire/need to do so.
        
        IMHO: the most disadvantaged people in the world are those that believe that you can only learn at school and, if they missed an opportunity at school are stuffed for life.
        
        This is one of the biggest failings of big-state thinking. People lose sight of the fact that they can take control of their own lives.
        
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        August 26, 2024 10:16am
      - imalwaysright
        
        The teacher cohort employed by public schools are no different to any other government or local government employee.
        Low intellect, low energy, and treat professional responsibility like a dose of monkey pox.
        
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        August 26, 2024 3:04pm
    - Ian Boag
      
      Having to repeat a year was not uncommon
      
      Half the people doing School C (year 11/5th form) failed it and most of them left school at this point. At my school there were three 6B classes (School C passed) and one 5R (repeats after School C failed). Number of repeat 6B students was boo-all. UE generally came from accrediting. Only a few 6B students sat UE and only a few of those passed.
      
      This of course does not deal with the case where someone could pass a couple of School C subjects and still have to repeat them because they had failed others. The 1950’s model espoused here was one where 30-odd% of kids left school at 15 and 50% of the rest failed School C.
      
      Is that really something we should aspire to repeat?
      
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      August 26, 2024 9:06am
      - cmm
        
        “Is that really something we should aspire to repeat?”
        
        No, not necessarily. You are creating a false strawman.
        
        But we certainly shouldn’t repeat what we are doing now which ignores that children are struggling until they fall out the end of the school system and it is too late to take corrective action.
        
        Here’s the real question: Would you rather repeat a year at school and then come out with a pass that is actually useful, or be pushed through school and finally fail dismally at first year Uni?
        
        I would argue that a lot of the children who dropped out of school in the 1950s did so because at that time there were plenty of career opportunities for people dropping out of school. Things were very different them.
        
        About 1km from where I am right now, there used to be the Firestone tyre factory that was a huge employer. If you’d dropped out of school in the 50s you could have been off to Firestone at age 16 and slowly risen up the ranks there.
        
        Many of those opportunities don’t exist so we need to develop human capital as well as possible. Sometimes this requires repeating a year.
        
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        August 26, 2024 9:21am
      - Ian Boag
        
        You are creating a false strawman.
        
        If you say so.
        
        I am just describing how things were when the “repeat a failed year” thing was how high schools worked back in the day. I assume you would have it different to how it was then ….
        
        A lot of people in the Trades stream (maybe 1/4 of the total 3rd form enrolment) left at 15. There were three 3rd form Trades classes and one 5th form one. That says it all – how it was …
        
        Sure there was Firestone and the freezing works and the folk who left at 15 from 4th form Trades stream had a reasonable chance of snagging an apprenticeship etc. A girl could come out of SC failure and still get into nursing.
        
        Hasn’t been that way for a long time.
        
        The school of 400-odd had 25 in 6A (year 13).
        Large scale “repeat a year” stuff would be different if we did it now?
        
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        August 26, 2024 10:20am
      - cmm
        
        Yup, in the 1950s that girl that failed SC could still go nursing. Now she’d be required to get a degree or at least study for a month or two even to become a nurse aid.
        
        That is exactly the point I was trying to make.
        
        So how would Miss Hypothetical be helped by pushing her through every year whether she was performing adequately or not? Eventually she’d be pushed out of Years 12 failing dismally all the way through because she missed a solid foundation in Year 6.
        
        Now Miss Hypothetical is 18 or 19, lacks some basic understanding she should have had in place when she was 13 and everything perched on that is rocky. She has zero chance of piling a Nursing degree on top of that.
        What does Miss Hypothetical do now? Maybe sit on the dole and set up a baby-making enterprise?
        
        Alternatively, she could have been held back in Year 6 to repeat that. Sure she might have cried for a few hours. But now she has an opportunity to get a solid understanding of Year 6, proceed forward and come out or Year 12 with sufficient grounding to go into nursing. Sure, she would be 19 or 20, a bit more mature and probably ready to knuckle down to a solid career.
        
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        August 26, 2024 1:28pm
    - Notsofast
      
      Why not have summer catchup courses as an option?
      If the correct methods are used to teach, there are no failures. This absolutely requires rote learning, and in turn proper education for teachers.
      
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      August 26, 2024 9:31am
      - RoboRob
        
        Teachers dont want to teach those courses.
        
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        August 26, 2024 9:49am
    - NothingLeft
      
      It is really important that kids be criticized and dressed down occasionally at home and at school when they are achieving less than they could. This culture of unleavened and mostly unearned praise screws them up and feeds into hobbling their future resilience as well as increasing development of self-destructive narcissistic belief and behaviour patterns.
      
      This is particularly true of girls, who almost all adults (including teachers) unconsciously tend to favor and praise – to their long term detriment.
      
      So teachers really need to be unapologetically direct and perhaps even a little ‘mean’ at times for the sake of their kids development. I suspect that is something that will be more difficult for female teachers than male.
      
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      August 26, 2024 9:43am
    - Fedup oldie
      
      Exactly what happened to me. Didn’t get accredited,sat the exam and failed. Had to repeat the 6th Form.
      During that year the penny dropped and I went on the get a science degree majoring in mathematics.
      Repeating a year was the best thing that could have happened.
      
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      August 26, 2024 10:42am
    - Paulus
      
      Many years ago I was kept back a year as my GCE results were not as they were expected to be.
      I did well the year later.
      
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      August 26, 2024 10:42am
  - pdm
    
    `The worst of the “deep concerns” was that children might fail and be kept back a year.’
    
    Used to happen all of the time when I was going through Primary School in the 1950’s. A number of the kids I knew then who were held back did at least at well if not better in life than the ones not held back did.
    
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    August 26, 2024 8:43am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    2 hours to clear the indoctrination – because we know it is there.
    
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    August 26, 2024 11:06am
    - imalwaysright
      
      And they wonder why kids don’t want to go to school.
      Kids aren’t stupid, they know when they are being used and abused.
      
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      August 26, 2024 3:10pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  I have very little sympathy for these principals.
  
  They have known for years that primary schools in NZ have not been producing competent pupils in maths.
  
  The Min of Education has been publishing documents in the last few years that clearly outline what Principals and teachers need to do to strengthen maths in their schools.
  
  https://evidence.ero.govt.nz/documents/teaching-maths-in-years-1-3-good-practice-guide-for-teachers
  
  https://evidence.ero.govt.nz/documents/making-it-count-teaching-maths-in-years-1-to-3#read-online
  
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  August 26, 2024 8:42am
  - RoboRob
    
    The principals and teachers ONLY ever speak out when the government asks them to change or do work. When the kids are busy failing and results are getting worse the Principals and teachers are dead quiet and their unions are busy making sure there are no ways to compare school or teacher performance.
    
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    August 26, 2024 9:31am
  - kowtow
    
    For years .
    And basic literacy .
    
    I was shocked when my children were going from intermediate to secondary ( over 20 years ago)
    
    The secondary schools were touting themselves as having remedial English , to bring ’em up to secondary standards .
    
    That’s for children who had been in the system for some 7 years.
    
    What chance has a child who is functionally illiterate going into secondary.
    
    It is literally scandalous .
    
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    August 26, 2024 9:34am
  - Burtland
    
    this is DEI in action not education …
    
    “all the kids should be equally useless because some are useless”
    – some fxxkwit socialist educator
    
    and then we breed a generation of useless, including the teachers
    
    then comes useless employing the useless because they might look useless
    
    Chapter 1 of “how to build a shipload of fools”
    
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    August 26, 2024 10:16am
    - Steve Otto(North Shore)
      
      Kids can only learn at the pace of the slowest so the slowest are not made to feel dumb.
      
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      August 26, 2024 11:09am
      - John Loveridge
        
        That is exactly what is happening.
        
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        August 26, 2024 2:13pm
  - PurplePen
    
    I’m not sure what the problem is for teachers with maths at primary school. I could teach primary school maths today and if someone handed me a maths book with examples and questions already laid out, even easier. I’m guessing that’s structured teaching. As for secondary school or whatever it’s called, presumably they have teachers where one of their subjects that they specialise in is maths as we used to have. Can’t see why they would have any issues with teaching a subject that know very well. Just grab a maths book from any other international school and off you go.
    
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    August 26, 2024 10:30am
    - NothingLeft
      
      Because modern teachers/pedagogy are/is pathologically avoidant of rote learning and repetitive drilling of foundational facts and knowledge. Because it is too hard/boring/not fun etc.
      
      But that is the quickest and easiest way to develop core math skills and understanding (and a lot more besides).
      
      Same thing for spelling, it absolutely requires deliberate boring practice and repetition of leaning words in order to condition and structure the learning neural pathways in the brain. The payoff then is that it massively increases the capability of the brain to rapidly learn new words as we get older with little effort.
      
      I compare my generation’s literacy and mathematical ability to those of my kids and we were easily several years ahead even at year 4-5
      
      The obvious conclusion is that education as an academic discipline has less than zero value. It is actively making things worse. Complete and utter wank.
      
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      August 26, 2024 11:09am
    - Nigel Kearney
      
      Secondary school is not the problem. Kids arrive there already behind compared to other countries and do not fall further behind. Primary and especially intermediate is where the problem lies.
      
      I don’t think you appreciate the lack of maths and science knowledge of the people now choosing to go into primary teaching. It is very different from 40-50 years ago. They lack the most basic skills. Of course you could do it. Any reasonably intelligent person who finished high school 20-30 years ago or more could do it. But those people are in other jobs.
      
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      August 26, 2024 2:01pm
    - Paulus
      
      Teachers are too busy with “social studies” to have time to teach anything else.
      
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      August 26, 2024 3:14pm
- BeaB
  
  With structured literacy they are being given workbooks, teachers manuals and lesson plans. I think the same for the new maths.
  This all looks like a lot less work to me. Just turn the page.
  Perhaps they could use some of their endless holidays, teacher only days and mid term breaks to swot up.
  Part of the problem of course is the laughably low levels of literacy and maths needed to become a primary school teacher.
  They themselves barely scraped through.
  Good parents will always make up the deficit but there is an army of kids whose only hope is school and a decent teacher.
  
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  August 26, 2024 9:04am
  - John Loveridge
    
    Then there is little hope.
    
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    August 26, 2024 9:42am
  - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
    
    This is the guts of it, teacher training is abysmal and the candidates are very, very average.
    
    Back in the 1960s teaching or nursing, or secretarial were the only professions easily open to women – so the smartest women went teaching.
    
    Today you learn to teach if you are the thickest and laziest.
    
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    August 26, 2024 10:42am
    - Burtland
      
      now the smartest become influencers and teach the kids on tik-tok
      
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      August 26, 2024 11:24am
- Grunter
  
  These clowns (Deeply Concerned Principals) are essentially admitting that they are not up to doing their job – which is to teach our kids maths.
  
  It is undeniable that the way maths has been taught for the past 20-30 years has been a complete failure. These clowns probably can’t interpreter numbers, but a downward-sloping performance chart is bad.
  
  And to say they are deeply concerned at making changes to a failed system…..!! Good grief, go work somewhere else. The problem with these Union-protected loons is that they are now a product of the failed system.
  
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  August 26, 2024 9:35am
  - Burtland
    
    this is DEI in action not education …
    
    “all the kids should be equally useless because some are useless”
    – some fxxkwit socialist educator
    
    and then we breed a generation of useless, including the teachers
    
    then comes useless employing the useless because they might look useless
    
    Chapter 1 of “how to build a shipload of fools”
    
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    August 26, 2024 10:19am
  - mawm
    
    Grunter – That today’s teachers are a result of a failing education system is probably the most important problem. As the older teachers retire there is no one to step up and guide the students.
    
    Over recent years I have read columns of complaints from universities and business about illiterate or innumerate students and employees.
    
    We are not the only country where, what has often been attributed to Gramsci, the “long march through the institutions” of communism has resulted in the lowest common denominator of outcome.
    
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    August 26, 2024 1:58pm
- rouppe
  
  Would have been grand to see a little bit of comment from principals along the lines of – we know there is a problem with achievement, but we are all dedicated professionals and if we all have to work a bit harder to get up to speed we will.
  
  They’ve been saying that for 30 years
  
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  August 26, 2024 10:27am
- Ghost
  
  What it sounds like to me is that the teachers college has been pushing out teachers who are not capable of teaching the basics. The Principals know that, and know they are in a place with a bunch of useless teachers who can’t teach maths
  
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  August 26, 2024 10:28am
  - Paulus
    
    But when they pass out from Teachers College they are proficient in all things Maori though.
    They did get in if they did not bow to Maoridom anyway at their interview.
    
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    August 26, 2024 10:45am
  - MCōs
    
    A teacher doesn’t front at a classroom first day out of university with ten years experience
    
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    August 26, 2024 10:52am
    - Ghost
      
      I remember back in primary school the trainee teachers coming into the classes for a few weeks at a time. The ones we had knew what they were teaching and would often be used to help give one on one help to those struggling with maths, reading or writing.
      
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      August 26, 2024 10:54am
- Handyman
  
  A question for those who know regarding school holidays:
  What is the current status of teachers during school holidays or any time outside the 1000hours per year of class time?
  1. THEY ARE NOT HOLIDAYS!
  2. Well deserved breaks from a stressful job.
  3. On full pay and available for ongoing training.
  
  What is in the employment agreement? Is it possible to require teachers to attend training sessions after school or in school breaks?
  
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  August 26, 2024 10:42am
  - John Loveridge
    
    A teacher friend uses the school holidays to catch up on all the jobs around her hobby farm.
    
    My kids tell me of their teachers regaling them with stories of the family reunions, or the skiing trips to Queenstown.
    
    And so on ad infinitum.
    
    Fuck all work gets done.
    
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    August 26, 2024 2:17pm
    - sirknz
      
      Great. I married the only teacher in the land who works solidly throughout her holidays, marking and prepping. She does the same thing most weekends and evenings.
      
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      August 26, 2024 8:28pm
      - Dougal10
        
        I’ve got one of those as well. So there are at least 2.
        
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        August 26, 2024 9:29pm
BeaB

Ingrid Hipkiss of RNZ Morning Report has a long list of stuff she doesn’t know. This morning the word ‘entomologist’ was beyond her, as was St Arnauds. This may be why her interviews are so banal. Her ignorance, which she proudly admits to, doesn’t stop her interrupting her interviewees and inserting snide comments. How did she ever get this job?
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August 26, 2024 8:24am
- John Loveridge
  
  In the days when I still watched television Ingrid was a weather girl who came across as rather thick. I too was surprised when I read she had got the RNZ gig. Geoff Robinson will be spinning in his metaphorical grave.
  
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  August 26, 2024 9:45am
  - Tarquin North
    
    They don’t call it red radio for nothing and sheep like Hipkiss fit right in.
    
    15 0
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    August 26, 2024 9:59am
  - Jethrod
    
    Perhaps blessed with the right name?
    
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    August 26, 2024 10:06am
- Burtland
  
  yep, working there turns your brain to mush,
  peacock dann ryan – others turn to the bottle
  
  needs decent management and a commitment to be neutral
  
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  August 26, 2024 10:29am
- sherp
  
  … you don’t become a journalist if you have decent school grades…
  
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  August 26, 2024 10:29am
- PurplePen
  
  I can only imagine as I haven’t listened to RNZ for a couple years now.
  
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  August 26, 2024 10:32am
- Paulus
  
  Ingrid used to be one of my favourite interviewers but she has grown older and more bitter competing with her well know rivals.
  
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  August 26, 2024 10:46am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Yep,
  
  and this afternoon, 1 pm News Marama T-Pole had difficulty with asphyxia…. she made a right muck up… something like askypsia.
  
  https://www.rnz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=2018952773
  (at 2:10)
  
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  August 26, 2024 1:58pm
BeaB

Why is Lydia Ko a role model only to women and girls, according to RNZ. Surely every NZer is inspired by her sporting prowess and her personal values.
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August 26, 2024 8:25am
- Grunter
  
  BeaB – you should stop listening to this BS called RNZ. It can not be doing your top 2 inches any good. Seriously, consider switching it off for your own good.
  
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  August 26, 2024 9:41am
- pdm
  
  I agree BB.
  
  That was a high class interview Lydia gave after the trophy presentations.
  
  I only saw her last putt this morning but her composure under pressure is and always has been impressive.
  
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  August 26, 2024 10:01am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    Watch her lips after a perfect shot.
    When she knows she has pulled off a beauty she suppresses her smile.
    
    4 2
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    August 26, 2024 11:22am
- Burtland
  
  when Lydia puts her mind to it she can win anything
  – but she appears to be a bit ho-hum about her golf
  
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  August 26, 2024 10:33am
  - pdm
    
    Burt – The competition is tougher now in the Women’s Professional Ranks than it was when she started 10/11 years ago.
    
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    August 26, 2024 2:19pm
- cmm
  
  “Why is Lydia Ko a role model only to women and girls”
  It is because she’s Asian.
  If she was Maori she would also be a role model to Maori.
  If she was a white male she could just shut up and stop being colonialist.
  
  The whole thing is based on the divide and conquer of identity politics.
  
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  August 26, 2024 11:03am
  - Paulus
    
    Lisa Carrington a great role model, is part Maori, but she does not shout it, even when she gets the Maori Women’s Sports Award.
    
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    August 26, 2024 3:19pm
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  That’s what made me sick when the little pocket battle ship Lisa Carrignton won her medals they said she was an inspiration to her whakapapa and her iwi and her race, she has to my knowledge never spouted one utterance of Te Reo during her media dealings, but they clearly must have got at her, she did for the first time spout Te Reo and quite a bit, she s as Leo went on about her heritage which she has never mentioned all these years. Media turning her into a yard stick to beat whitey around the head with
  
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  August 26, 2024 1:36pm
Maggy Wassilieff

Why would any international Tour Company trust NZ?

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/350389448/cruise-giant-seeks-blame-tourism-nz-and-gns-over-whakaari-tragedy-victims-us
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August 26, 2024 8:46am
- Blog-aholic
  
  NZ citizens themsleves would do well to be wary of the NZ Public Services and NGO’s. They do not and never have have the citizens interests at their core.
  
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  August 26, 2024 9:01am
- sherp
  
  .. they’re being sued for damages …. NZ companies can’t be sued for such damages as all liability in NZ is covered by the tax payer through ACC…
  
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  August 26, 2024 10:31am
Steve Otto(North Shore)

The United States of Venezuela.
Let’s have some price controls. If the farmer can’t produce milk, eggs, meat, or veges with a profit he will simply stop production. It is that simple. No money means no economy.

https://freedomeagledaily.com/theteapartydaily/kamala-harris-about-to-make-american-store-shelves-as-empty-as-venezuelas/?
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August 26, 2024 8:47am
- Ian Boag
  
  he will simply stop production
  
  And she will go broke shortly after that because she can’t meet her debt obligations ….
  
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  August 26, 2024 10:28am
  - sherp
    
    Yea but price controls mean you’re going broke anyway… so you can either slave your ass off going broke or put your feet up and go broke…
    
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    August 26, 2024 10:36am
  - Burtland
    
    US debit – who wants to talk about that, doesnt seem to get a mention
    
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    August 26, 2024 10:38am
  - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
    
    The only debate is the timing of the business failure. Not making a profit means that you will go bust.
    
    Trading while knowingly insolvent will get you prosecuted in most jurisdictions.
    
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    August 26, 2024 10:45am
    - cmm
      
      Solvency is very different from being in debt.
      Solvency is easy for a government to retain – just keep printing money.
      Of course the money will continue to lose value, causing increased inflation, but that’s unlikely to explode in the next 4 years.
      
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      August 26, 2024 10:59am
    - Ian Boag
      
      Not making a profit means that you will go bust.
      
      Maybe eventually, but hope springs eternal for the affected parties. Look at what happened here when Douglas axed all the subsidies in the late 1980’s. Most farmers survived.
      
      My own business went through a horribly unprofitable few months at one stage due to supply issues with the product I was selling. We had a big enough equity buffer to stay in business while we changed what we did.
      
      In a “normal” market a decrease in profit would see a value drop for the asset that produces it. If the farmer is not geared up to his eyeballs this would be a bit tough but not the end of the world.
      
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      August 26, 2024 11:04am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    That’s what “no economy” means Ian.
    Everything crashes to a halt, all because of communist Kamala.
    
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    August 26, 2024 11:40am
SPC

The UNSG says that the government is wasting its time with its return to plan to explore for new oil and gas fields.

“Guterres said he did not raise New Zealand’s intention to extract more fossil fuels in his meetings, but said any attempt to do so would be in vain.

“The only thing I can tell you is that the oil and gas that will be discovered from now, I’m absolutely sure, it will never be used,” he said.

Oil and gas projects have long lead-in times from discovery to extraction: Newsroom reports an average time of 16 years between a permit being issued to production.”

https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/08/24/un-chief-disagrees-with-nzs-plan-to-reverse-fossil-fuel-ban/
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August 26, 2024 8:49am
- Grunter
  
  This guy is such an obvious idiot.
  
  Killing off Oil & Gas (as well as coal) just means a total collapse of our developed world. No energy sector means no industry, agriculture, and mode of travel goes back 200-300 years.
  
  That would support, at best, about 1 billion people. In other words, we kill off 7 billion+ people.
  
  Is that what he wants???
  
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  August 26, 2024 9:48am
  - rouppe
    
    In other words, we kill off 7 billion+ people.
    
    Is that what he wants???
    
    Climate change is caused by humans. So, yes, that is what he wants.
    
    Not him, or his family, though. No, no, no. Just “other people”
    
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    August 26, 2024 10:33am
  - sherp
    
    Yes eletist want the poor to starve… is that not obvious to everyone by now…
    
    6 1
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    August 26, 2024 10:37am
  - Burtland
    
    comrade António was president of the Socialist International from 1999 to 2005
    
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    August 26, 2024 10:43am
  - cmm
    
    People might think we live in the computer age.
    Incorrect, we live in the diesel (and lesser extent gas turbine) engine age.
    
    Oil enables our food production, but it also enables getting food from anywhere in the world to almost anywhere else in the world for close to zero cost (compared to what it cost 50 or 100 years ago).
    
    That means that everyone is pretty much eating oil – throughout the world.
    
    Stop using oil and almost immediately:
    * Over 80% of the world’s food production will stop.
    * What is left will be close to impossible to transport.
    * Food costs would go up by a factor of 10x or more (depending on distance to market).
    
    90% of Africa would die as well as a very large % of Asia, Europe and USA.
    
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    August 26, 2024 11:15am
    - imalwaysright
      
      Yes, the promised land of the computer age.
      All of our problems would melt away.
      Games
      Porn
      Email
      Shopping.
      
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      August 26, 2024 3:22pm
- NothingLeft
  
  NZ spends 10Billion a year on oil imports, and that is going to go up further when we run out of gas. At the same time we have a 30Billion dollar balance of trade deficit which is rapidly resulting in NZ ownership being transferred to other countries with no realistic plan to stop the hemorrhage.
  
  Being self sufficient in oil and gas would be tremendously beneficial to NZ’s long term economic survival and prosperity. Without it we are definitely going to end in miserable economic slavery to other countries.
  
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  August 26, 2024 9:51am
  - Grunter
    
    Dead right!
    
    NZ is fast becoming an over-priced tourist spot and a retirement village. Take away air travel, that leaves…….pretty much nothing!
    
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    August 26, 2024 10:01am
    - rouppe
      
      Retirement village?
      
      Once I qualify for National Superannuation I’m over 50% sure I’ll be taking it somewhere else.
      
      4 0
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      August 26, 2024 10:34am
    - Burtland
      
      elites and their kids love airtravel – it will be the last to go
      
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      August 26, 2024 10:46am
- RoboRob
  
  People like ‘Guterres’ are functionally brain dead and have not learned from history. People have been predicting ‘peak oil’ and a transition away from oil since at least the 1980s.
  
  Every year they find more sources and each year the demand for oil increases. If people had listened to the likes of Guterres, and stopped exploring for oil, in the 1980, 90s and 2000s we would be totally fucked now.
  
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  August 26, 2024 10:03am
  - mawm
    
    Anyone who has seen the failure of communism each and every time it is implemented and still believes in it must be either brain dead or of extremely low IQ. He will fit in well with Jacinda, Kamala and AOC.
    
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    August 26, 2024 2:08pm
- Taieri
  
  “Guterres said he did not raise New Zealand’s intention to extract more fossil fuels in his meetings, but said any attempt to do so would be in vain.
  ———
  
  What a cretin…
  
  Since the (in)famous Captain made her silly “call” in New Zealand, Suriname, a small country with the population of just over 600K has been busy with developing their oil and gas industry:
  
  https://theenergyyear.com/articles/suriname-a-rising-star-in-oil-and-gas/
  
  The neighbouring Guyana, another small country, is also booming:
  
  https://www.cnbc.com/2024/01/27/how-guyanas-big-oil-boom-turned-it-into-the-worlds-fastest-growing-economy.html
  
  May be they don’t know that the World is boiling?
  
  And in the meantime the old New Zealand is having problems with paying its bills…
  
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  August 26, 2024 10:08am
- JackRabbit
  
  “The only thing I can tell you is that the oil and gas that will be discovered from now, I’m absolutely sure, ~~it will never be used,” he said.~~ it will be mothballed, and later “rediscovered” by Blackrock type companies who purchase it for cents in the dollar and who will profit from it, as has been the pattern overseas.”
  
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  August 26, 2024 10:23am
- PurplePen
  
  “The only thing I can tell you is that the oil and gas that will be discovered from now, I’m absolutely sure, it will never be used,” he said
  
  If he’s not just sure of it, but absolutely sure then he’ll have no trouble putting money where his mouth is then. What a plonker.
  
  Oh .. and so what. Open the fields and if capitalism agrees with you, you’ll be right. Ah ha ha haaa…
  
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  August 26, 2024 10:36am
- Benedict Yu
  
  If the oil and gas majors are exploring for oil that “will never be used” they will lose their money. I would trust their judgements over the UN or Chloe.
  
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  August 26, 2024 11:00am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  My comment the other day about Guterres saying the oil and gas discovered now will never be used was ‘he is a head case.’
  
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  August 26, 2024 11:46am
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  Said the man who flew to Samoa, then to NZ, then to Tonga and on to God knows where.
  
  One rule for thee, another rule for me
  
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  August 26, 2024 3:33pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Letter to RFK’s miserable family. They disowned him for withdrawing and endorsing Trump. American left losing their shit.

https://discernreport.com/tammy-bruce-pens-a-letter-to-rfk-jrs-miserable-family/?
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August 26, 2024 9:04am
- BeaB
  
  The Kennedy brothers, Jack, Bobby and Teddy, had great PR which hid their sleaze. They were rich, glamorous and articulate but they are no role models for today’s youth.
  
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  August 26, 2024 9:47am
- RoboRob
  
  The Kennedy clan has been against RFK from the moment he stood against Biden. They are tools of the democrat party and do the bidding of the party. There are plenty of endorsements of Biden and photos of various Kennedys. I believe RFKs sister has been particularly vociferous with her attacks on RFK. To his great credit RFK has mostly refrained from commenting on his family.
  
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  August 26, 2024 10:07am
  - MCōs
    
    If it wasn’t for the family name Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would be a completely unknown attention seeker
    
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    August 26, 2024 11:04am
    - RoboRob
      
      True, as would all his siblings. That doesn’t change my point, the rest of the family are Dem drones and well worth ignoring. At least RFK is stately enough not to openly bash or really respond to the nasties in his family.
      
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      August 26, 2024 11:28am
    - mawm
      
      What about the recognition of his legal ability in taking on and winning against large companies for their destruction of the environment? I would have thought that his green credentials appealed to you MCos, or doesn’t that count now that he has come out in support of Trump?
      
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      August 26, 2024 2:18pm
      - imalwaysright
        
        Mawm
        
        His success against big business is probably why the Dems aren’t backing him.
        
        3 1
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        August 26, 2024 3:27pm
- the deity formerly known as nigel6888
  
  Mary Jo Kopechne could not be reached for comment.
  
  Nor could the waitresses who were humiliated in Teddy’s “waitress sandwich” escapades.
  
  The Kennedy’s have been sleazebags for a very long time. RFK may be nuts, but he does seem to have principles!
  
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  August 26, 2024 10:50am
  - NothingLeft
    
    There are always women lining up to root anyone famous or rich given their powerfully hypergamous drives that seemingly override healthier modes of thought and behavior. Women are fundamentally the gatekeepers of sex in liberal west – so it is all up to them not the men as to if there will be sex happening or not – men will say yes to almost anything.
    
    So does that make the men or the women the baddies in these dalliances?
    
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    August 26, 2024 11:22am
    - Pope Punctilious II
      
      But rich and famous men have personal agency. They don’t have to root every attractive babe who crosses their path.
      
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      August 26, 2024 12:21pm
cmm

In some ways I support the position that the market should decide whether or not to support this business and government overreach, even for food safety, is often over the top.

But here we have a Maori woman of business playing the race card. “Tatana said she believed she would be declined again given she is a young Māori woman in business.”

No sweetie, they’re bending over backwards because you are Maori. A non-Maori would have been dealt with far more severely.

“We’re just juicing up shit”. Marketing 101: don’t call your own product shit.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/350384137/woman-says-she-will-invoice-mpi-after-31k-worth-unsafe-fruit-juice-seized
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August 26, 2024 9:31am
- Grunter
  
  “We’re just juicing up shit, putting it in the freezer, giving it to the community and selling it to the workforce. What’s the big freaking deal?”
  
  Because shit can make you crook!!! And there is every chance that is exactly what is in your product based on the details in the story.
  
  Lock her up before she causes more harm.
  
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  August 26, 2024 9:56am
- sherp
  
  How lucky she is to live in a country where the tax payer is picking up the cost of the any damages her product might cause.
  
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  August 26, 2024 10:40am
- PurplePen
  
  There’s a few things she “believes” there based on zero facts and that determines her world view. What a shame.
  
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  August 26, 2024 10:42am
  - cmm
    
    We’ve been telling them that Maori science is as good as that filthy colonial science so why should her application depend on facts?
    
    “Asked about her food safety processes, Tatana said the juice was frozen to “freeze out” bad bacteria before it is sold to ensure it is safe for consumption.”
    
    Colonial science would say that freezing juice won’t kill bacteria, but that’s just some white mofo’s opinion!
    
    We really can’t have it both ways as a society.
    
    If we put “Maori science” up there on a pedestal equivalent to, and often better than, western science, then we must surely also accept that “squeezing shit” and freezing it is as good as pasteurization.
    
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    August 26, 2024 11:55am
    - rouppe
      
      “Maori science” had access to neither juice nor a method of freezing.
      
      So Maori science has no application in this example
      
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      August 26, 2024 1:45pm
greybeard

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/350391194/dairy-company-fined-420000-making-false-claims-about-origin-products

Milkio is majority-owned by Hamilton couple Rajesh and Shrabani Chatterjee.

And so it continues….
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August 26, 2024 9:35am
- John Loveridge
  
  There’s a common factor popping up again and again…
  
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  August 26, 2024 9:49am
  - Colville
    
    A turban?
    
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    August 26, 2024 1:54pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  NZ imports butter.
  
  That’s a ‘Man Bites Dog’ headline, right there.
  
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  August 26, 2024 3:37pm
Matt Long

TDS sufferers choke on their Bud Light while the Foo Fighters are on blast.
Trump team show records of purchase of rights to song. I guess the FF will donate those proceeds to the Creepy Harris/Waltz ticket.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/foo-fighters-my-hero-trump-rfk-jr-b2601348.html
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August 26, 2024 9:54am
- sherp
  
  HIV aids deniers don’t have a lot of credibility…. but hey media will ignore that if it allows for a jab at Trump
  
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  August 26, 2024 10:42am
cmm

Now Harley Davidson has had their Bud Lite moment and people are calling them “Rainbow Riders”.

I wonder whether this is going to impact on gang mana in NZ and we will see a down-tick in HD sales?
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August 26, 2024 10:19am
- kevn
  
  cmm… Maybe Harley just needs to add an EV bike to their line-up? //
  
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  August 26, 2024 2:28pm
  - Jack5
    
    Or, a chance for Harley-Davidson’s legendary great rival, Indian Motorcycles, to produce the dominant American motorbike again.
    
    Indian Motorcycles is now owned by Polaris Industries, known more for its snow-mobiles and utility terrain vehicles. Manufacturing is in the United States.
    
    New Zealander Burt Munro was one of the great champions of Indian motorbikes.
    
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    August 26, 2024 9:04pm
  - RichardX
    
    They already do…..https://www.harley-davidson.com/us/en/products/bikes/electric-bikes.html
    
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    August 26, 2024 11:19pm
Grunter

Just another State-owned entity chewing through taxpayers’ money at an increasing rate of knots!

Landcorp lost $26 million despite a contrived revenue of $38 million from carbon credits.

Goldsmith does his usual “we are very concerned” act on behalf of taxpayers, but “has no plans” to sell off this woke bloated state-owned Wellington farmer.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/pamu-state-owned-farming-company-registers-26m-full-year-loss/R6IGOYVCNJE5PP3IPFUDSNVUEA/
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August 26, 2024 10:28am
- Benedict Yu
  
  Why does the government own farms? 🤔
  
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  August 26, 2024 11:15am
  - cmm
    
    Same reason as why the government own a bunch of other things: airlines etc.
    
    Government “ownership” protects them from having to function effectively. There is always the taxpayer to provide guarantee.
    
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    August 26, 2024 11:39am
  - Swifty
    
    “So that the profits are retained in New Zealand.”
    
    Snigger.
    
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    August 26, 2024 12:43pm
  - sherp
    
    So they can over regulate farmers adding cost while state owned farming runs at a loss with the tax payer chipping in until no private person can farm and make a profit then the state can own all farming…
    
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    August 26, 2024 5:21pm
  - Jack5
    
    Benedict Yu’s question: Why does the government own farms?
    
    It’s the relic of a policy of more than a century in which the State bought large land holdings, typically used for grazing, and broke them into farm-size properties.
    
    Then it helped finance first, former soldiers, into the new farms, and later, other young farmers.
    
    It was being wound down 50 years ago when Maori activists realised the land held was potential booty.
    
    The State then pretty much held the land for settling claims by tribes.
    
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    August 26, 2024 7:52pm
- Damocles11
  
  My concern is that if the government moved to sell Landcorp, Iwi will immediately slap Treaty claims on all that land.
  
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  August 26, 2024 12:34pm
  - Matt Long
    
    Most of Landcorps’s farms in northland are being held for future treaty settlements.
    Interestingly, the site of the former Towai School, occupied by Green MP Huhana Lyndon and some hapu was not in fact donated by Iwi to the education department but sold by the grandfather of a good friend of mine to Dept of Ed.
    I believe the property has now been secured by the Hapu at a discount with help of a Maori Trust.
    
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    August 26, 2024 2:14pm
- Swifty
  
  So they lost $26 million this past year, on an asset base of $2Bn.
  
  https://www.nzherald.co.nz/the-country/news/pamu-government-urged-to-sell-farming-body-into-private-ownership/ULYVPCL7TJCRLJMEPAJOSBM6RY/
  
  $2Bn eh? Think of what benefits would come investing that in our health system or Pharmac or sorting out water infrastructure etc.
  
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  August 26, 2024 12:42pm
  - cmm
    
    It’s hobby farming just at a national scale.
    
    If you can take the money and get better returns from putting it in the bank then it isn’t really a business.
    
    I told that once to a sheep farmer friend outside Christchurch. Farm land probably worth $20million. Returns for both his wife and himself working about 50-60 hours a week each: $150k. So paying himself and the missus a working wage ($70k each), that really means he’s making maybe a $10k per year as a business profit on a $20M asset.
    
    He got a bit upset with me when I told him he was a hobby farmer, but explained why. About a year later he started subdivisions and made a packet. He kept a third of the land, works now 20 to 30 hours a week and lives well off the (guess) $15M in investments. New 4×4, overseas holidays, invested in his kid’s businesses…
    
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    August 26, 2024 3:16pm
    - Grunter
      
      That’s a great story – well done cmm in opening up the hobby farmers eyes to other possibilities.
      
      I hope he flicked you a life-long retainer!
      
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      August 26, 2024 4:24pm
  - Quail
    
    Huge losses so sell it ? So who would buy ?
    Take a brief glance at comparable profitability in the private ag sector?
    Despite huge productivity gains and the blood sweat and tears that cost ,most agriculture is in decline .lncluding the former hi flying sheep industry.
    Regulated and taxed out of business. Just like NZ manufacturing or really any other productive activity with “real “exports.
    We now rely on selling myths/ landscape to get a living.
    The whole tradable economy ( except the government construct carbon credits ) is in a a big decline.
    Sorry about the rant but this is the real picture!
    
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    August 26, 2024 6:32pm
Grunter

Another top post by economist MacCulloch.

His Fat-Track recommendation is spot on!

“The 384 projects should simply be referred to the NZ Treasury / Infrastructure Commission for evaluation & ranked highest to lowest in terms of benefit-to-cost ratios. Those institutions should send their ranking / recommendations to Cabinet for ultimate sign off. The rankings should be publicly available. Should Cabinet accept a project low on Treasury’s rankings, then we’d know it was because they wanted their mates to get the job, unless some very good reason otherwise was presented. For National to adopt Labour’s same fast-track “panel” process tells us one thing. Both National & Labour have failed to deliver for NZ and they still dont know how.”

https://www.downtoearth.kiwi/post/on-the-fast-track-approvals-bill-chris-bishop-shane-jones-took-a-good-idea-turned-it-into-a-dog
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August 26, 2024 11:05am
- cmm
  
  “Fat-Track”
  Was that on purpose?
  Very fitting!
  
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  August 26, 2024 3:20pm
  - Grunter
    
    Just spotted that…..typo – but yes very fitting
    
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    August 26, 2024 4:25pm
Benedict Yu

Late last week I was at a social function, making small talk. A Maori woman asked me “Where is your whare?” I replied “pardon?”. She repeated the question. I stare blankly. Her friend then says “She is asking where you live.” They then both roll their eyes and walk away.

In hindsight I was aware that “whare” translates to 🏡 house. However I could not translate quickly enough. 🙁

I should not let this get to me. However it occurs to me that those who are pressing for a hybrid language in New Zealand are winning. I am also positive that the public service has doubled down on this since the new government came to office, the exact opposite of what many commenters here predicted, or at least hoped for.

Any young person who aspires to a career in the State sector now has no choice but to learn the Maori language. More importantly they also need to embrace the te ao Maori universe, the earth mother and that entire parallel universe. I don’t see how a serious scientist, for example, could do that. Such folk will simply leave New Zealand to pursue science careers, never to return.

This is the new country. If you cannot speak the Maori language, expect to be shunned at social events with folk smirking at you and walking away.
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August 26, 2024 11:13am
- RoboRob
  
  Its probably better smirked and walked off, at least you know the kind of person they are. Not worth associating with.
  
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  August 26, 2024 11:31am
  - Benedict Yu
    
    That was the plan. But there are now too many of them.
    
    10 1
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    August 26, 2024 11:58am
    - Pope Punctilious II
      
      I know the feeling. My workplace is like that. Virtual meetings (via Teams) help me cope, as it’s less likely that others will notice my facial expressions in response to the patter about “systemic racism” etc.
      
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      August 26, 2024 6:43pm
- cmm
  
  “This is the new country”
  
  Perhaps it is just the government bubble you choose to live in.
  
  I doubt the people down at Tavern Harewood (aka the common man) would give you shit like this.
  
  It has been a very long time since the “public service” has had any interests in serving the public. It is infected by people like these who must prove they are part of the “in crowd” to get ahead.
  
  The only way there can be an “in crowd” is if there is an “out crowd”. That means the out crowd need to be harassed.
  
  Picking on the Asian dude (and I assume for a moment distinctlyAsian looking) dude for a cheap shot to prove you’re in the in crowd is just pure racism.
  
  But it is Maori racism, so it is OK…
  
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  August 26, 2024 11:34am
- Hammie
  
  I’m ok with that, shunned it is.
  
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  August 26, 2024 11:41am
- Blog-aholic
  
  It is all part of the two tiered citizenry that Ardern started….yip, yip it is what it is.
  
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  August 26, 2024 11:48am
  - Paulus
    
    I think that Helen Clark and her feminist cohorts started it before Ardern.
    
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    August 26, 2024 3:26pm
    - Pope Punctilious II
      
      And what did John Key do to stop the rot?
      
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      August 26, 2024 6:33pm
- kowtow
  
  Yer but they couldn’t speak it either , as in they asked “where is your” in English .
  
  They’re extremely rude .Taking such an arrogant attitude , along with the eye roll and the walk away .
  
  If they’re public servants , that says an awful lot .
  
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  August 26, 2024 12:25pm
- Gussy Fink-Nottle
  
  BY –
  Next time, enquire as to their own proficiency.
  
  (Still) very few people speak Te Reo Māori (at a meaningful level).
  
  7 2
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  August 26, 2024 1:08pm
  - imalwaysright
    
    A friend of mine got an email, from another government, department entirely in maori.
    
    She replied entirely in Greek.
    
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    August 26, 2024 3:48pm
    - Pope Punctilious II
      
      Ομορφη! Στο ελληνικό αλφάβητο?
      
      1 0
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      August 26, 2024 6:34pm
- Handyman
  
  English is an official language of New Zealand and I never apologise for using it. I especially do not indulge speakers by using pidgin Maori. A single Maori word substituted in an English sentence often reduces clarity and sometimes. makes no sense.
  People who know more than ten Maori words can happily signal to each other silently by wearing a giant greenstone tiki around their neck.
  
  Your interlocutor was obviously not from Christchurch. The correct form for small talk in Christchurch is not “what is your address? but rather “what school did you go to?”
  
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  August 26, 2024 1:21pm
  - Ghost
    
    English is not an offical language of NZ yet. The current government plan to make it one
    
    7 1
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    August 26, 2024 1:48pm
    - kowtow
      
      Ghost
      
      What language do the courts and parliament use every day , at the counter at the police station , the vast majority of schools ,Hobson’s proclamations of sovereignty etc
      
      English is de facto the official language of New Zealand.
      
      Maori is one of two de jure official languages , but that is pure farce.
      
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      August 26, 2024 4:01pm
      - Ghost
        
        You’ve just admitted it’s not an offical language, it is simply the de facto language. The current government plan to make it an offical language instead of just a de facto language
        
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        August 26, 2024 4:11pm
  - Colville
    
    The correct form for small talk in Christchurch is not “what is your address? but rather “what school did you go to?”
    
    In Auckland…its who was your surgeon and where do you get the ketamine….??
    
    7 1
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    August 26, 2024 1:57pm
  - BeaB
    
    Actually the Christchurch question is ‘what primary school did you go to’ as that pinpoints the suburb.
    
    3 1
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    August 26, 2024 3:10pm
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    Giant greenstone amulet.
    How about my plastic/bone fish hook? It is about 12 inches (300mm) by 4 inches (100mm) by 1 1/4 (32mm) thick.
    Hell of a laugh at parties. Start a riot if I wore it into Auckland Uni.
    
    2 2
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    August 26, 2024 3:59pm
- lifesgood
  
  Nobody better ask me where my whare is. How utterly ridiculous.
  
  5 2
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  August 26, 2024 1:23pm
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    Exactly. I don’t own a mud & raupo sticks hut.
    
    3 1
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    August 26, 2024 3:42pm
- rouppe
  
  The French have a bad rep for refusing to speak English with someone who doesn’t speak French.
  
  Looks like pockets in NZ are going the same way?
  
  Was this a business related social function, or private? I’d not be surprised to hear this happened in Wellington, more surprised to hear it happened in Christchurch
  
  1 1
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  August 26, 2024 1:54pm
  - Benedict Yu
    
    It was a function I attended in Wellington.
    
    3 0
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    August 26, 2024 3:32pm
Jack5

The Herald reports the Commerce Commission says dairy company Milkio Foods Ltd has been fined $420,000 for misleading customers with claims such as “100% Pure New Zealand” despite importing core ingredients from India.

A quick look at the NZ Companies Register shows the main shareholders of Milkio Foods Ltd, with a joint 62.98 per cent stake, are Rajesh Chatterjee And Shrabani Chatterjee of the same address in Hamilton.

This is the sort of information a National Minister is trying to shut out of the Companies Register. The addresses tell us that the controlling shareholders are closely related, and are resident in NZ.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/dairy-company-made-false-100-pure-new-zealand-claims-on-products-from-india/MQRHEWOU5NDARGTYANGMFZXZQI/

AND here, from point 5.2 of the MBIE executive summary of planned changes by the Minister of Commerce, Andrew Bayly, to the Companies Act is this concern:

Directors’ and shareholders’ home addresses are publicly available giving rise to safety and privacy concerns.

Who is Bayly trying to protect and why do they need more protection than the rest of us?

https://www.mbie.govt.nz/dmsdocument/28988-modernising-the-companies-act-1993-and-making-other-improvements-for-business-proactiverelease-pdf
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August 26, 2024 11:51am
cmm

You really have to wonder what anyone gets out of stabbing a mild little man to death.

What could possibly motivate this? Is it another of these social media inspired events where feral scum attack random strangers for likes?

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/blockhouse-bay-homicide-police-reveal-victim-stephen-thorpes-last-movements-before-violent-struggle/2TYZKGASUNCBPPGZLWMP3UF33Q/
7 1
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August 26, 2024 12:23pm
- Bobba Fret
  
  I hope the police have strong leads of inquiry as they need to arrest this person and get them off the streets. Surely there were witnesses and it was plain daylight. Surely an arrest is imminent.
  
  2 0
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  August 26, 2024 2:12pm
- NZer In Exile
  
  cmm: “What could possibly motivate this?”
  
  Possibilities:
  
  Fried brain due to hard drug use.
  
  Severe mental illness.
  
  One of the above + relationship/jealousy issues.
  
  One of the above + financial issues.
  
  Organised crime revenge + mistaken identity.
  
  0 1
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  August 26, 2024 7:24pm
cmm

Who else thinks the next Bond is going to be a one-legged lesbian of colour?

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/why-its-taking-so-long-to-find-the-next-james-bond/Y465Q3EWJNFY7OZEVXZRPBB26M/
11 1
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August 26, 2024 12:31pm
artemisia

So 4 Uber drivers can now be considered employees, not contractors, though Uber is apparently going to appeal to the Supreme Court.

Drivers who become employees may find life is not what they expect. Sure they may be offered a wage, leave and more, but they will lose flexibility and independence. And gain monitoring, KPIs and performance reviews.

I think workers should be allowed to agree their employment status with a prospective employer. No agreement, no job offer.
6 2
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August 26, 2024 12:44pm
- mandk
  
  A lot of them would not become employees.
  They wouldn’t all be taken on.
  
  2 2
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  August 26, 2024 1:09pm
- Mike
  
  Depends upon whether the state has a legitimate interest in setting working conditions.
  
  1 3
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  August 26, 2024 1:52pm
  - imalwaysright
    
    It should be none of the courts business how a person sells their labour.
    
    2 2
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    August 26, 2024 3:54pm
    - Mike
      
      That’s one point of view. Some people think the state shouldn’t regulate anything.
      But given the state regulates quite a lot things relevant to the employment relationship, opting out of employment law might not work.
      
      1 1
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      August 26, 2024 5:39pm
cmm

Now here’s a crock of shit:
AI-based recruiters are claiming that AI systems are more “fair” because they don’t have human biases.

That is a crazy statement, but it maybe sounds reasonable to the Great Unwashed.

All AI has biases. They look at patterns of data and make predictions based on those patterns of data. That is exactly their purpose.

In other words, they discriminate. Indeed, for many years in the AI industry we even talked about “discrimination functions”.
More recently words like “discrimination” have become loaded with negative connotations, so we use words like “classifier” instead. But no matter the wriggling, the meaning is the same: the AI looks at a bunch of data and decides which pile it belongs in: good vs bad, cat vs dog, turn left vs turn right,…

The outcome is only going to depend on the data set it was trained with. Whatever it was trained to seek out is what it will seek out.

In my opinion it is still early days. AI still has huge weaknesses. Sure, it has progressed somewhat since the 1980s when I first fiddled with it, but it still has a long way to go.

Companies using AI for hiring are going to lose out.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/350384218/jobseeker-interviewed-100-robots-cant-get-dishwasher-work
6 1
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August 26, 2024 12:50pm
- Blog-aholic
  
  AI is programmed by humans and they have bias built in…..
  
  You literally only have to check the internet serches using AI and questions that may not suite a certain narrative to see the bias already in existence.
  
  3 1
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  August 26, 2024 1:46pm
  - cmm
    
    Well, kinda…
    
    The AI “program” itself doesn’t have any biases per se. All it is is a big pattern matching engine that can look at various patterns of bits on the input and shovels out patterns of bits on the outputs.
    The program does not know or care what those bits are.
    
    Then there is the training step where data is gathered and classified: this is a picture of a cat, this is a picture of a dog etc (or whatever classification function is being trained). That is not programming per se.
    
    This is where all sorts of biases are introduced. Typically, the people doing the data classification are very budget workers (think Indian sweatshops).
    
    Often unintentional data bias is introduced when data sets are not chosen carefully.
    
    For example there is one classic case where a system was trained to detect tanks (the military kind). It worked extremely well on the training data but poorly in the real world. Eventually they figured out why: in the training data all the tank photos had dark backgrounds and all the other photos had light backgrounds. All the classifier had learned was to classify light from dark backgrounds.
    
    AI systems will learn to “cheat”. They are after all just statistical matching units.
    
    As Maori commit crimes at 3x non-Maori, it is quite likely that any AI system would learn to “cheat” and immediately flag Maori as likely criminals.
    
    2 1
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    August 26, 2024 2:36pm
    - Paulus
      
      But didn’t Maori create AI ?
      
      2 1
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      August 26, 2024 3:29pm
    - Steve Otto(North Shore)
      
      I like Elon Musk’s comment about AI must have a kill switch, an off switch.
      Now who controls that switch?
      Well it has to be United Nations of course!//
      
      1 3
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      August 26, 2024 4:15pm
- Burtland
  
  “Chief executive of Sapia.ai, Barb Hyman, told Stuff that chat interviews improve disability inclusion for organisations hiring in high volumes, and remove human bias.”
  
  theyre actually using AI to provide DEI bias – what could go wrong 😂
  
  sapia.ai “we hire with heart” 😂😂😂 you mean an algorithm
  
  https://sapia.ai/about-sapia-ai-recruitment-software/
  
  4 1
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  August 26, 2024 2:00pm
- sirknz
  
  If you haven’t figured out how to answer the questions with the appropriate buzzwords peppered in after 100 interviews, you’re probably not going to be a very capable employee.
  
  1 0
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  August 26, 2024 9:29pm
Mike

I’m not sure whether the Minister for the Tobacco Industry is lying or slack, but I can think of no other plausible explanations:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/in-depth/526139/revealed-politically-charged-tobacco-policy-document-that-nz-first-minister-casey-costello-tried-to-hide
2 10
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August 26, 2024 1:49pm
- Ghost
  
  I’m surprised she wasn’t replaced last year.
  
  2 5
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  August 26, 2024 1:54pm
- greybeard
  
  Could be a setup.
  
  2 4
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  August 26, 2024 2:01pm
  - mandk
    
    Of course it is.
    
    When did you last hear RNZ doing a story about Labour being in the pay of the unions?
    
    6 3
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    August 26, 2024 2:39pm
    - Mike
      
      How did RNZ trick Costello into such lies?
      
      3 3
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      August 26, 2024 3:22pm
    - greybeard
      
      I don’t mean a setup by RNZ, but by someone else. We have plenty of single-issue nutters in NZ who take things to extremes.
      
      1 3
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      August 26, 2024 4:57pm
      - Mike
        
        You’re imagining a criminal conspiracy when incompetence is a more likely explanation.
        Ministers getting helpful advice from industry, unions or other groups should remember the key points without creating a paper trail.
        
        1 2
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        August 26, 2024 5:33pm
- Conservatarian
  
  I haven’t read a RNZ article for years. This one is quite hilarious. RNZ writes a politically charged article describing a “Politically charged tobacco policy document”. It even has a special graphic designed at great cost.
  
  At least they removed the “Ayesha Ferral press release” header before they cut and pasted it in. That must have been the sub-editor’s 17 years of taxpayer funded journalisming paying a dividend.
  
  Who are these “51 former intelligence officials” that RNZ seems to be in contact with? These brave firefighters for the truth making the outright assertion that Costello is a stooge of the tobacco industry? Maybe they snuck into the Taxpapers Union or Hobson’s Choice offices year and saw Philip Morris (NZ) Limited delivering a palletload of cigarettes to the staff to smoke in the office along with some DVDs to be played at the local charter school.
  
  4 2
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  August 26, 2024 3:16pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Mad woman talking shit.
Citizenship, but she will secure the border.
My head hurts.

https://rumble.com/v5c2wpp-kamala-harris-promises-citizenship-for-illegals.html?
6 5
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August 26, 2024 2:19pm
Conservatarian

Are you too “slack” to think of any other plausible explanations?
1 2
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August 26, 2024 2:59pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Harris outshines Trump. More trusted than Trump on the economy. Really?
Sorry, not believing it. Remember 2015/2016 when Hillary was so far ahead of Trump it wasn’t funny? The ads, the polls, the media. The media all follow each other. They are not reporters, they are repeaters.
Hello! Hillary got creamed in an Election she had rigged ffs. Then they all still blamed Trump for winning!

https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/other/kamala-outshines-trump-on-major-election-issue/ss-AA1oHCLH?
7 5
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August 26, 2024 3:08pm
Ghost

Appears a trucks tyre blew, causing it to cross the median barrier hitting cars and a van

Awful

My thoughts are with those who are injured, their families and especially those who have lost their loved ones

State Highway 1 crash near Bombay: Three believed dead, lanes closed after multi-vehicle crash
5 0
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August 26, 2024 3:31pm
- Conservatarian
  
  A disaster with visceral, immediate, actual consequences. In stark contrast to my indulgences of just minutes ago, sitting here in comfort writing mean words to strangers on the internet.
  
  4 2
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  August 26, 2024 3:41pm
  - Mike
    
    Multi-tasking
    
    2 3
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    August 26, 2024 3:56pm
    - Conservatarian
      
      You can have a thumbs up good sir.
      
      2 1
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      August 26, 2024 4:14pm
Benedict Yu

What a nutty statement:

“The Government will urgently reverse a ban on oil and gas exploration, a move it says will help control soaring electricity prices.”

https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/350392000/live-christopher-luxon-returns-post-cabinet-press-conference

Which companies are going to risk tens of millions to explore for new gas fields? Even if that happened, if they discovered gas, production would be a decade away, at least.

It is stupid to argue that the reversal of the ‘exploration ban’ will do anything to affect current electricity prices. Maybe it is just idiot reporting by the journalists. I can’t imagine that Chris Luxon believes that.

I can see New Zealand’s future. It is giant LNG ships offloading their gas from Australia.

Jacinda killed the industry here forever. It is arguably the most damaging things that she ever did.
10 2
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August 26, 2024 4:16pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  “the most damaging” and she is not in jail.
  Just tilted the head, gave frowny expression, smiled, and walked away.
  I am sure she has no idea how much NZ will suffer because of her childish attitude.
  
  5 5
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  August 26, 2024 4:32pm
  - Benedict Yu
    
    Unlike the Congo we don’t throw politicians in prison.
    
    Jacinda was every bit as bad as I expected but folk voted for her.
    
    5 0
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    August 26, 2024 6:05pm
- Mike
  
  By that same argument, the ban has had no impact on the present ‘crisis’ as nothing had been discovered over many years that could have come on stream by now or in the immediate future
  
  2 4
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  August 26, 2024 5:28pm
  - Benedict Yu
    
    Yes.
    
    2 0
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    August 26, 2024 6:03pm
  - greybeard
    
    How do you know that nothing new would have been discovered since the ban was imposed? Drillings by new companies from 2017 to the present may well have turned up new fields. We will never know.
    
    4 2
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    August 26, 2024 6:24pm
    - Ian Boag
      
      The previous 15 years hadn’t …. go figure
      
      2 0
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      August 26, 2024 7:39pm
    - Jack5
      
      A big tappable resource is the coal-seam gas (CSG) in our large coalfields.
      
      When John Key closed down the State coal venture Solid Energy as it reported losses during a world coal-price dip, Solid Energy was investigating using CSG in the coalfield under the country’s biggest thermal power plant.
      
      There was also an attempt by an experienced mining entrepreneur to launch on the NZX a company to continue his explorations of CSG on coalfields in the far south of NZ.
      
      NZ’s property-obsessed investors showed virtually no interest in the scheme, and the entrepreneur moved on to more promising new-venture territory.
      
      The disaster at Pike River was a sad illustration of the gas energy locked up in our coalfields.
      
      1 2
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      August 26, 2024 8:14pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        Umm. The Waikato “CSG” was not natural gas from a coalfield. It was about drilling a hole down to a coal seam, blowing air down, lighting the coal and using the resultant CO (from another hole) as fuel for a power station. Sums didn’t work …
        
        1 2
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        August 26, 2024 9:10pm
      - Jack5
        
        Miners use two methods to extract CSG – one of which is fracking.
        
        The Solid Energy CSG exploration wasn’t completed or even well on its way before Key closed the company.
        
        CSG mining is big in Australia, despite the country having substantial other natural gas resources.
        
        CSG mining seems to have been helped by this piping development:
        
        https://www.pipeliner.com.au/australian-csg-continues-to-grow/
        
        AND, an example of a substantial CSG project in Queensland:
        
        https://www.offshore-technology.com/projects/surat-gas-project-australia/
        
        2 0
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        August 26, 2024 9:29pm
- nz_aj
  
  If they had spent their 6 years building the gegawatts of electricity generating capacity required to replace the banned oil & gas, then perhaps it wouldn’t be considered reckless and dumb.
  But they didn’t.
  Energy independence would be a good thing.
  We still have a lot of geothermal resource that can be developed. It doesn’t fail in a dry year like hydro and wind, and doesn’t require expensive energy storage or battery backup.
  
  3 0
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  August 26, 2024 6:46pm
  - Ian Boag
    
    How was the gummint supposed to “build new capacity” when this was the gentailers’ problem in Max Bradford’s brave new competitive world …. ?
    
    4 1
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    August 26, 2024 7:43pm
  - Ian Boag
    
    the banned oil & gas
    
    which didn’t exist ….
    
    3 3
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    August 26, 2024 7:45pm
    - Jack5
      
      It’s obvious that nz-aj was referring to exploration for oil and gas.
      
      1 2
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      August 26, 2024 9:32pm
- NZer In Exile
  
  And she got a medal for her “efforts”.
  
  0 2
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  August 26, 2024 7:28pm
Ghost

Name suppression should be lifted.

The former political figure accused of plying teenaged boys with alcohol and sexually abusing them has been found guilty.

The accused is aged in his 50s and has been given interim name suppression to continue for at least 14 days.

On Monday, a jury at the Auckland District Court found him guilty of three charges of indecently assaulting a boy between 12 and 16 and guilty of five charges of indecently assaulting a male over 16, following a week long trial.

Article
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August 26, 2024 5:17pm
- fernglas
  
  I agree. It seems that the suppression was in place to protect fair trial rights and now that the trial is over there is no need for it. However, the defendant has asked for it to continue and the Judge has had to grant it because there is an automatic right to appeal which would give the extension anyway, regardless of the merits. I would suggest that a refusal to face the music by seeking meritless suppression orders should be a factor which reduces any sentencing discount for remorse, and should be a statutory sentencing principle if the Governement and courts are too week to tidy up the whole name suppression regime itself.
  
  1 1
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  August 26, 2024 7:23pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

STEVE OTTO (NORTH SHORE)
Still moderated, with no known reason.
[You had a status reply yesterday, get over the fact you are on the same level as most posters, and stop demanding attention. mod]

[ Nuther Mod : we don’t get involved in the merits of what people are posting. However, grizzles about moderation are off limits on the blog and should be taken to DPF. Do it again (whinge about mods) and you can expect your post to vanish plus a holiday for a week or two. ]

https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2024/08/general_debate_25_august_2024.html#comment-3609194
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August 26, 2024 6:15pm
Scooter

I wonder why there is no description of the person who stabbed the scientist in Auckland. The person was seen attacking this poor guy so there must be a least some basic info as to size, colour, sex even etc? Only description is they could be stained with blood, just as well it’s not Halloween.

https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/crime/blockhouse-bay-stabbing-new-lynn-mp-warns-residents-to-be-careful-while-stephen-thorpe-s-killer-remains-at-large/
1 2
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August 26, 2024 6:16pm
- Ghost
  
  Depending on how the attacker was dressed might mean some of that info is not known. Police are looking at the cctv, so hopefully they will see somethingthat can help
  
  2 0
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  August 26, 2024 6:48pm
  - NZer In Exile
    
    Perp was from a lefty designated “vulnerable group” so they are strenuously brain-storming a comms strategy?
    
    2 2
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    August 26, 2024 7:32pm
NZer In Exile

10 Questions For Climate Alarmists

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmscZ3O0sso
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August 26, 2024 8:03pm
Jack5

What is going on with the Coalition health reforms?

Red Radio reports: We’re so short of GP’s people can’t get on practices’ patient lists, and yet our medical school graduates can’t get jobs.

The health system is going to be a big issue, if not the big issue at the next general election.

Today, we’re 27.28 per cent through the current Parliamentary term from 14 October 2023 to 19 December 2026.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/526221/dozens-of-medical-students-without-a-post-graduate-job
2 0
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August 26, 2024 8:06pm
- Ghost
  
  I was at the gp the other day, overheard someone being told that the earliest appointment for their gp was the following week. I guess we’re lucky with our gp, we don’t have to wait.
  
  3 0
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  August 26, 2024 8:22pm
  - NZer In Exile
    
    Yes things seem to be patchy. Some people glide through the system with a smile. Others experience a horror show.
    
    1 2
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    August 26, 2024 8:59pm
- Jack5
  
  Whoops and sorry …
  
  Today, we’re ~~37.2 per cent~~ 27.28 per cent through the current Parliamentary term from 14 October 2023 to 19 December 2026.
  
  [Mod – fixed]
  
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  August 26, 2024 10:29pm
Ghost

Tell them to stick their head where the sun don’t shine.

Social services questioned Kirstie Allsopp for allowing her 15-year-old son to go interrailing across Europe, it has been revealed.

A social worker contacted the TV presenter demanding to know what “safeguards” had been put in place when she allowed her youngest child, Oscar, to travel for three weeks on the continent.

Article
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August 26, 2024 8:29pm

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