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September 6, 2024 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 06 September 2024

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General Debate

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Steve Otto(North Shore)

Government Efficiency Commission.
“‘I can’t wait. There is a lot of waste and needless regulation in government that needs to go,’ Musk tweeted this week amid speculation of his role influencing Trump’s economic policies.”
“Trump is expected to reiterate calls to declare a national emergency and remove ‘every bureaucratic hurdle to issue rapid approvals for new drilling, new pipelines, new refineries, and new power plants and reactors.'”
The swamp/deep state definitely don’t want this.

https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/other/trump-to-announce-sweeping-economic-plans-inspired-by-elon-musk/ss-AA1q3Ksf?
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September 6, 2024 8:06am
- Grunter
  
  Sounds similar to Seymour’s Ministry of Regulations. Cut the Red & Green tape! Less government and fire the Deep State wonks!!
  
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  September 6, 2024 9:16am
  - ISeeRed
    
    And how is that going? So far, a few snips here, a few tweaks there. No sign this government gets how deep in the shit we are.
    
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    September 6, 2024 3:01pm
Damocles11

Probably the main reason The New Zealand Herald has gone totally rogue is because NZME feel they are in an impregnable financial position due to the property industry bankrolling them through their ‘OneRoof’ property advertising entity. Just another reason to hate the amoral property industry.
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September 6, 2024 8:09am
- fernglas
  
  Did you see the headline in today’s Herald, screaming about Luxon being $975k richer after selling an investment property? Talk about stupid. You own a 975 k property which you sell for 975k so you aren’t a farthing richer. But it seems that even the pathetic OneRoof wants to have a crack at the PM
  
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  September 6, 2024 4:47pm
artemisia

A Jewish customer was recently rejected service by an Officeworks store in Melbourne by an employee declaring “I’m pro-Palestine”. And apparently not her first rodeo. Filmed by the customer, and legal action is being taken.

Officeworks has engaged one of the “big six” top Australian law firms to represent it.

Officeworks a bit worried? Or a lot?
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September 6, 2024 8:10am
- Simon
  
  lol – only a few years ago it seems when most of the country supported denial of service to the unvaxx.
  
  Denial of service, govt policy, to those who refused injecting a cattle grade vaxx into their body. Two classes of people.
  
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  September 6, 2024 8:18am
  - Benedict Yu
    
    Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
    I agree with your first paragraph. Your second paragraph is stupid beyond belief with your description of the vaccine.
    
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    September 6, 2024 9:29am
    - sherp
      
      But the MSM talking about a treatment as horse dewormer is a ok?
      
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      September 6, 2024 9:46am
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        It’s the same drug ffs
        
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        September 6, 2024 12:22pm
    - imalwaysright
      
      Its not a vaccine. It doesn’t work. They called it a vaccine to fool the public into taking it.
      
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      September 6, 2024 10:06am
      - lifesgood
        
        I only ever took the first three jabs that we were forced to and have taken none since. I have never caught covid despite multiple trips overseas without wearing mask. My family dutifully get boosters and they’ve all had covid so what’s the pont?
        
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        September 6, 2024 12:03pm
      - imalwaysright
        
        Lifes,
        Its like getting a chicken pox vaccine and then spending the next three years getting chicken pox and every time saying thank fuck I got the chicken pox vaccine.
        Reminds me of Pavlovs experiments.
        
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        September 6, 2024 1:15pm
      - ISeeRed
        
        lifesgood: technically, no one forced us. Sure, they threatened, bullied and shamed us, but no one held a gun to our heads or a knife to our throats. We still had the “freedom” and “choice” to refuse. At least, that’s the pass the Covid control freaks give themselves. Even to this day.
        
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        September 6, 2024 3:08pm
    - Geothermal
      
      It’s unfortunate that any opposing view on ‘ the vaccine that wasn’t’ is met with slanderous comments such as stupid , by you . Yours isn’t the only view acceptable to the readers. Good luck to you on your own personal decision to outsource your immunity . This doesn’t make you stupid . Just exercising your personal discretion, which I support .
      
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      September 6, 2024 10:44am
    - JackRabbit
      
      Your second paragraph is stupid beyond belief with your description of the vaccine.
      
      Benedict:
      
      (1) It was Ardern that said it was two classes of people.
      
      (2) If it wasn’t cattle grade vaxx, was it sheep grade? Or goat grade? By all accounts, many vials were found not only to contain undesirable compounds, but many had contamination consistent with being prepared in a non-sterile (animal grade) environment.
      
      Or so you simply reject the idea that you have been treated live livestock?
      
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      September 6, 2024 1:14pm
      - kevn
        
        Jack Rabbit… Some folk are compliant by nature. It is a wide ranging stance. Look at this vid, only 2-3 years ago, it hasn’t aged well… ‘They were just following orders compliantly’.
        https://x.com/Theblackfemini3/status/1831236984691712471
        
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        September 6, 2024 4:19pm
      - JackRabbit
        
        @Kevn
        
        Yep, they were treated like livestock.
        
        Man’s inhumanity to man.
        
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        September 6, 2024 6:47pm
    - Ra Henare
      
      Stupid beyond belief??
      Beyond your personal belief, perhaps BY.
      
      So those hundreds of thousands that don’t think it stupid, are in your opinion, stupid.
      
      Don’t you love freedom of speech.
      
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      September 6, 2024 2:21pm
- AitchW
  
  Fire her. That has to be gross misconduct, even in union dominated Australia.
  
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  September 6, 2024 8:32am
  - artemisia
    
    Suspect the pond ripples from this will reach a lot further than firing one employee, if they even do.
    
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    September 6, 2024 9:47am
    - AitchW
      
      artemisia you’re most likely right. Once her union got involved that nasty mob mentality that seems to plague the Aussies would kick in, and before you know it there will be a howling mob of pro-Palestine, trans rights, anti-Semitic, left wing rent a rabble at their door.
      The employer would then back down, reinstate the delightful young bigot and no doubt pay her handsomely for hurty feelz.
      Once upon a time that was called extortion…
      
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      September 6, 2024 3:05pm
  - ISeeRed
    
    Imagine if she had refused to serve a Muslim.
    
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    September 6, 2024 3:11pm
    - Ghost
      
      Imagine if they refused to serve a green mp……
      
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      September 6, 2024 3:16pm
      - AitchW
        
        No need to serve them, they help themselves….
        
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        September 6, 2024 3:20pm
- cmm
  
  I have no problem with a private company refusing anyone service for any reason whatsoever, just as customers can refuse to purchase for anyone for any reason. It is freedom of association.
  
  It is a different matter for government departments or any anyone sucking on the taxpayer tit.
  
  It is also a different matter for the worker. Workers are bound to serve their employer’s interests. If they don’t then they can be fired.
  
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  September 6, 2024 9:16am
  - Benedict Yu
    
    Well except that refusing service based on race is illegal in New Zealand. What if a hotel chain put up signs “no gays” or “no Maori”? How about “no white men”?
    
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    September 6, 2024 9:37am
    - sirknz
      
      They would get away with the last one in your list.
      
      The first two would probably lead to the followers of the pro Palestine crowd turning up out front and screeching incoherently.
      
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      September 6, 2024 9:47am
    - sherp
      
      Plenty of establishments in NZ that you would probably be kicked out of if you entered wearing the wrong color
      
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      September 6, 2024 9:48am
    - Anthony Melchett
      
      Not a bad idea.
      
      We are being segregated by stealth, may as well make it easy to see which place you can go to
      
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      September 6, 2024 9:51am
    - Gravelroad
      
      Haha.
      Behind my desk in a shared office years ago, there was a notice board on which there were cuttings from our newspaper.
      One from the 1880’s was an advertisement which stated:
      “Wanted: laundry workers. No Chinese or Nelsonians need apply.”
      True story.
      
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      September 6, 2024 9:53am
      - NothingLeft
        
        In pre-1960’s NZ there used to also be a strong tribal discrimination between Protestants and Catholics that could extend to who you would do business with or hire. The Catholic dominated towns of the South Island tended to be rougher and less prosperous than the Protestant.
        
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        September 6, 2024 12:13pm
    - cmm
      
      I was not commenting on legality but morality.
      
      If someone refuses to serve me based on race or hair colour or because I am too old or too tall etc etc – fine. I will take my business elsewhere.
      
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      September 6, 2024 10:21am
      - Flossie
        
        Plenty of places where there is no choice eg only one dentist within miles.
        
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        September 6, 2024 10:30am
      - cmm
        
        Flossie, I used to travel to a different town for a dentist.
        100km round trip. No problem.
        
        Most businesses wouldn’t freely constrain their customer base (for reasonable customers anyway) so for the most part it is a hypothetical.
        
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        September 6, 2024 11:44am
      - ISeeRed
        
        Anti-discrimination laws actually keep bigots in business. Having to serve everyone = more sales and profits without penalty or punishment. I’d rather know which businesses discriminate and spend my money elsewhere than unknowingly make a bigoted business owner richer.
        
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        September 6, 2024 3:16pm
    - Grunter
      
      What if they said ‘We will give priority to Maori before all other races’? That kinda sounds racist to me.
      
      Imagine if your Doctor was legislated to follow that rule…..nah, that would never happen!
      
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      September 6, 2024 10:34am
      - kowtow
        
        Exactly .
        
        And can you imagine the furore and round the world headlines had the Jewish person been refused for being black.
        
        Oh and recall the headlines about the various denial of cakes to homosexual couples .
        
        But it is now obvious even to Blind Freddy that certain discrimination is OK. And that’s not ok.
        
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        September 6, 2024 11:30am
      - imalwaysright
        
        “That kinda sounds racist to me”
        
        You would probably be right, but that should be the dentists prerogative. Freedom of speech and freedom of association are closely linked.
        People fear this concept because they imagine there are many who mean them harm. That isn’t correct.
        
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        September 6, 2024 11:54am
      - pdm
        
        Hawkes Bay Hospital (or whatever they call themselves these days) have just done so Grunter.
        
        Priority for free health care is given to Maori and Pacifica 14 to 24 year olds.
        The rest may get some priority if they have certain conditions eg Diabetes, Heart etc.
        
        Tod Stephenson from ACT is on to it and Mike Hosking had some coverage but, no mention that I could see in Stuff or the Herald earlier.
        
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        September 6, 2024 12:23pm
    - JackRabbit
      
      As per cmm’s comment: R.O.A.R. Right Of Admission Reserved.
      
      Which a private business or land owner can do.
      
      But govt can’t. Because by definition, only Govt can be guilty of Racism, because it has the power to enforce it, at the point of a gun.
      
      I know of businesses here in NZ, owned by white South Africans, who have a policy of not employing coloured people. That is their choice. And why did they make that choice?
      
      Because teenage daughter(s) were raped on multiple occasions at knife point by black South Africans. Said daughters work in the business, and employing black South Africans would keep re-triggering the rape trauma.
      
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      September 6, 2024 1:22pm
- Inandout
  
  art, Officeworks is owned by Wesfarmers as this article lays out.
  https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/retail/bunnings-kmart-officeworks-perform-well-to-help-wesfarmers-fullyear-profits/news-story/5b0381d8c840cf0a5eb6c74ab37878c3
  
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  September 6, 2024 9:59am
- NZer In Exile
  
  In 2016 when Trump got elected I once got harangued by a shouty young twit serving in a clothes shop after he heard me chatting with another customer in not too negative tones about the Trump win. Presumably the wee lad was an inmate at a nearby looniversity.
  
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  September 6, 2024 2:26pm
Clyde

What did folk think about the totally over the top TVNZ coverage of this circus going on in the Waikato over the last week? Last night was the pinnacle of virtue signalling, woke, inaccurate effluent now expected by those small number of viewers left by the state broadcaster. The ex-chief of the Tainui tribes was held up to be the “king of Ayohteeohrower” on a number of occasions – simply incorrect.

The coverage shows quite clearly that the Board and management of TVNZ have lost their way and need to go.

I was interested in hearing and seeing some news over the last week – what I saw was the orchestrated work of social influencers.
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September 6, 2024 8:11am
- PurplePen
  
  Not that I watched nor read nor saw any of it, but I suspect little was contributed nor said by Ngai Tahu. They can’t stand each other as is the same with some other tribes. Inter-tribal dislike is alive and well it just never makes the news.
  
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  September 6, 2024 9:20am
  - Flossie
    
    I’m sure heard that Tipene O’Regan was participating in the decision of who was to ascend the throne.
    
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    September 6, 2024 9:42am
    - Paulus
      
      Tipene was known as Steve until he saw the light !
      
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      September 6, 2024 10:30am
      - lifesgood
        
        Or saw the money bags. Yes his true name is Stephen.
        
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        September 6, 2024 12:06pm
      - John Loveridge
        
        Until he became a Maori, as somebody (Bob Jones?) once said.
        
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        September 6, 2024 4:45pm
- Tom Hunter
  
  The coverage shows quite clearly that the Board and management of TVNZ have lost their way and need to go.
  
  Chuckle. You really think National will do that?
  
  Not a chance, which is why the best thing to do with these entities is sell them or shut them down. Replacing people at the top has little effect and they’ll be replaced by Labour in a few years time anyway.
  
  De-power the state by eliminating its institutions. It’s the only way to be sure you can stop this.
  
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  September 6, 2024 9:24am
  - Ghost
    
    https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/new-board-appointments-rnz-tvnz
    
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    September 6, 2024 9:27am
  - Swifty
    
    I remember going back to the 90s, Richard Griffin bemoaning the fact that even with National appointing RNZ (National Radio in them days) board members, nothing ever changed – the march leftwards was relentless.
    
    Nothing has changed in the 25-30 years since except that the pace of the march leftwards has quickened.
    
    Nuke it from orbit – it’s the only way to be sure.
    
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    September 6, 2024 9:41am
- Mike
  
  I don’t think you should watch ceremonies that upset you so much. I think some people must watch TVNZ or listen to RNZ hoping to be offended or find something to moan about.
  
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  September 6, 2024 10:17am
  - Clyde
    
    You don’t get it do you? The role of a state broadcaster is to deliver impartial news with balance etc etc. What we say or heard was a mockery and dereliction of responsibility.
    
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    September 6, 2024 10:42am
    - Mike
      
      You are free to imagine that the state broadcasters should reflect your opinions, and thus reject any notion that the country might have changed a lot since the 1970s.
      
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      September 6, 2024 11:06am
      - imalwaysright
        
        “The role of a state broadcaster is to deliver impartial news with balance etc”
        
        He’s not asking for a reflection of his opinions.
        
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        September 6, 2024 12:00pm
      - lifesgood
        
        Says an avid listener who loves the feeling of comfort he gets from like minded individuals.
        
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        September 6, 2024 12:07pm
      - Swifty
        
        You’ve really lost it.
        
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        September 6, 2024 12:13pm
      - RightNow
        
        Impartial news with balance is so 1970’s doncha know?
        
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        September 6, 2024 12:18pm
      - pdm
        
        Mikey that is not what Clyde said.
        
        Perhaps the meaning of impartial is too difficult for you to understand.
        
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        September 6, 2024 12:28pm
      - NZer In Exile
        
        Mike as usual deflecting from the real issue with silly straw-man attempts.
        
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        September 6, 2024 2:28pm
  - ISeeRed
    
    100%. Don’t like it? Don’t watch/read/listen to it.
    
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    September 6, 2024 3:22pm
- Graham Sharpe
  
  I couldn’t agree more. Over the top coverage of basically a family funeral into some sort of national coronation. We are worried about kids not going to school – what about all those youngsters at Turangawaiwai for a week. Give us a break.
  
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  September 6, 2024 10:18am
  - imalwaysright
    
    Don’t forget the public service tangi leave.
    
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    September 6, 2024 12:01pm
- Paulus
  
  I saw it called a Pantomime in another media!
  
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  September 6, 2024 10:29am
  - Sacha
    
    I learnt a new word: ‘cosplay’. Look it up.
    
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    September 6, 2024 11:00am
- rouppe
  
  It hides the fact that this new “queen” will create more division than ever
  
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  September 6, 2024 10:35am
  - pdm
    
    rouppe can you be sure of that?
    
    She may follow in the steps of her grandmother who earned and deserved great respect throughout the country.
    
    If she follows her father you may be right though – especially if she allows the likes of Tuku Morgan to speak for her.
    
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    September 6, 2024 12:32pm
    - rouppe
      
      To be honest, no I don’t know.
      
      However she had been described as an activist. I haven’t seen a Maori activist that hasn’t been divisive.
      
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      September 6, 2024 5:51pm
- virtualmark
  
  Shrug.
  
  Personally I think they’re only the King of Tainui.
  
  But, that said, a lot of the population do think it’s a big event and to them it’s about the same as other Kiwis seeing QE II’s funeral.
  
  And it’s also a once-in-30-year or so event.
  
  So it is newsworthy, and fair enough for the state broadcaster to commit 15 minutes of the news broadcast to it.
  
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  September 6, 2024 2:48pm
- Grumpy Silver Top
  
  Neither was he King of New Zealand.. just saying.
  
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  September 6, 2024 4:43pm
Cassandra

Enoch Powell would be 112 now. If by some miracle he was alive and lucid I wonder what he’d say? I wonder what the public would say? In the aftermath of his Rivers of Blood speech several polls suggested that 67 to 82 per cent of the British population agreed with Powell’s opinions. Note that he wasn’t forecasting violence so much as making a classical allusion. Former Professor of Greek (aged 23). To a large extent the Caribbean immigrants to the UK have assimilated. They’ve become black Poms. I wonder if the Moslems will, in the UK, Germany, France and here. Many do but it’s going to be a long struggle for most. My own guess is never.
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September 6, 2024 8:15am
- fightingtemeraire
  
  Joined British Army as a Private in 1939 was a Brigadier in 1945. Youngest ever!!!
  
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  September 6, 2024 8:23am
- Simon
  
  “To a large extent the Caribbean immigrants to the UK have assimilated”
  
  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/02/more-than-half-of-uks-black-children-live-in-poverty-analysis-shows
  
  Quickly looked. Saw a while ago that half of Caribbean immigrants in London were on permanent welfare. So just got that link. They have not assimilated.
  
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  September 6, 2024 8:24am
  - cmm
    
    These children are not the immigrants. They are the grandchildren of the immigrants.
    
    The immigrants tried to assimilate and up to the 1980s or so they were assimilating relatively well. Since then there has been regression.
    
    The fracturing of society into “communities” has reversed that assimilation over the years to what we see now.
    
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    September 6, 2024 9:21am
    - waikatosinger
      
      The UK has always been fractured into communities. People just don’t mix so much in the UK. They are a society riven by geographic and class distinctions: divisions which are enforced by accent. That is partly why my ancestors couldn’t wait to get away from the place.
      
      In the UK everyone may once have looked the same, but they were deeply divided nonetheless. You could tell exactly what city and class someone came from by their accent. Accent just isn’t used in this way in the rest of the English speaking world.
      
      The UK was peaceful because there was a universal acceptance that people should “keep to their place”; both geographically, and in terms of class. And this allowed everyone to get along. The UK is very much a “we don’t bother them and they won’t bother us” kind of a place. That attitude is the glue that holds everything together.
      
      You could argue that immigrants to the UK are simply behaving like everyone else in the UK when they form themselves into isolated communities. The problem is not the division itself. It is that some groups do not accept the live and let live philosophy that has allowed the UK to work as a nation despite being divided.
      
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      September 6, 2024 10:29am
      - kowtow
        
        keeping to yourself and confining one’s conversation to the weather is one thing.
        
        arming yourself with a machete or firearm , forming criminal associations to push drugs and rob or rape , almost literally at will and with the Big State turning a blind eye , is quite another.
        
        In the past migrants generally migrated to the UK with the intention of working , today there are literally hundreds of thousands who should be claiming asylum in first country of arrival in Europe , making their way to the UK to be welfare bludgers , and no they won’t be able to idly chat about the weather with strangers or have any intention to either.
        
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        September 6, 2024 11:37am
      - ISeeRed
        
        Yes, I see little difference between the old protected class of lighter-skinned pedos in the media, entertainment etc. and the new darker-skinned rape gangs except by scale.
        
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        September 6, 2024 3:28pm
  - Cassandra
    
    In the UK being on welfare is assimilation. And the half not on welfare? They are well assimilated.
    
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    September 6, 2024 9:40am
  - Paulus
    
    After the War London Transport would have collapsed without those brought in from the Caribbean to run it.
    Britain was short of men after the War to do many jobs.
    And those from the Islands did brilliantly, as I used it every day for many years, many of them with good humour and cheer.
    
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    September 6, 2024 10:35am
    - Sir Henry Morgan
      
      For generations now the argument has been that Britain (insert other western nation as appropriate) will “collapse” without immigration.
      
      In reality I’m sure Britain could have muddled through just fine without importing masses of migrants.
      
      For what it’s worth I’ve heard the famous Windrush voyage was organized by private interests seeking a quick buck, and was not some government initiative responding to dire crisis. The mythologizing came along later.
      
      An unfortunate consequence is that Britain now hosts a large community of resentful young black people taught by school teachers, university lecturers, politicians, and cultural influencers that they are the victims of systemic racial discrimination and should respond by hating whitey. Of course, compared to other groups of immigrants to the UK, Caribbean blacks have on many measures assimilated quite well.
      
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      September 6, 2024 1:39pm
- mandk
  
  I was under the impression Powell was concerned about black Carribean immigration when he made his rivers of blood speech, but maybe I’m wrong.
  
  I think you are correct about black Carribean immigrants becoming Poms. Indian Hindus have done largely the same. But most Muslim migrants have not and never will.
  
  The trouble with Muslims is that they want to impose their religious laws and customs on the country they have occupied. Other religious groups do not.
  
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  September 6, 2024 8:28am
  - Cassandra
    
    mandk: you are right – Powell was referring to the West Indians.
    
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    September 6, 2024 9:43am
    - kowtow
      
      We’ve been over this so many times .
      
      He was referrring to Commonwealth citizens , who had full rights in the UK . In his speech he cites a Labour MP talking about special priveliges for the Sikhs .
      
      The speech was actually in relation to the Govt’s Race Relations Bill which he foresaw would divide citizens on race , citizens who were already equal before the law.
      
      And he was right.
      
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      September 6, 2024 11:47am
  - gravedodger
    
    Err no if my recollections are still showing green , There was a flood of Pakistani who worship a religion of peace who triggered Enoch.
    
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    September 6, 2024 11:40am
  - Ra Henare
    
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enoch_Powell
    
    Scroll down to 1968 Rivers of Blood.
    Having read the entire entry. I realised he was an educated man(11 languages) Professor at 25 etc etc
    
    Opinionated and not afraid to speak his mind.
    . Which of course rings a bell with me.
    
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    September 6, 2024 3:55pm
- Clyde
  
  The Muslims will largely not integrate with the populations of the UK and Europe. It is far too late to be wondering about what the effects of mass immigration from countries that have absolutely no link with those coming in will be. Germany used to have a policy of “importing” cheap labour from places like the former Yugosliavia and then ensuring that after the temporary work was finished, the people went back. Not now. The horse has bolted, the stable door has been torn down.
  
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  September 6, 2024 8:40am
  - MCōs
    
    Many Europeans immigrate to Asia and most certainly don’t integrate
    The consider themselves a cut above the locals
    
    6 6
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    September 6, 2024 9:46am
    - cmm
      
      Big difference though:
      1) They bring in significant forex.
      2) They are not being given heaps of taxpayer resources or living off the welfare system.
      
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      September 6, 2024 10:27am
      - Tom Hunter
        
        And they don’t wish to bend the local systems, across politics and culture, to their will.
        
        9 1
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        September 6, 2024 12:08pm
    - Clyde
      
      BS. Have a look at Singapore and show me that attitude. Give some examples of where you think that attitude exists. Do these people insist on welfare payments, free housing, free health care? No, they don’t.
      
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      September 6, 2024 10:45am
      - MCōs
        
        I said many
        
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        September 6, 2024 12:08pm
    - Sir Henry Morgan
      
      Integrating with the locals is not really an option for white people in most of Asia. Even mixed race children born in Asia tend to be treated as outsiders.
      
      A common question you get asked (even after living for decades, getting permanent residency, etc.): “So when are you going home?”
      
      There is very little reciprocity in arrangements for obtaining citizenship, purchasing real estate, pensions, drivers licensing, etc. Asian governments are about keeping Asia for Asians. Very different to how places like New Zealand treat Asian residents.
      
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      September 6, 2024 1:46pm
      - JohnRidd
        
        And yet they say we have systemic racism.
        
        2 1
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        September 6, 2024 4:53pm
    - NZer In Exile
      
      From people I know who’ve married Thais and have lived TH, unless one is significantly wealthy things could go very pear shaped when snobbing the locals.
      
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      September 6, 2024 2:30pm
  - malc
    
    Ironic that today sees speculation that Germany are going to adopt the UK’s (failed) Rwanda scheme to get rid of unwanted immigrants. Given the UK attempt was thwarted by the ECHR, you really couldn’t make it up.
    
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    September 6, 2024 10:26am
  - KiwiSapper
    
    “The horse has bolted, the stable door has been torn “own..”
    .
    And next for destruction, already being attempted, is the stable. Soon, there will be nothing left
    
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    September 6, 2024 10:34am
- cmm
  
  All this “community” stuff would seem to be the problem. There is no longer an expectation of assimilation as there was in the 1900s. Those people saw the benefits of becoming poms and, generally, worked hard to do so.
  
  Now we have society fractured into “communities” based mainly on race, religion or sexuality etc: black community, Muslim community, etc etc.
  
  That is now people’s primary identity – not British. The welfare system has taken away the pressures to assimilate.
  
  Whenever there is an “in group” there’s also an “out group” to direct frustrations and hostilities against. That has been made much worse by increasing white guilt and colonial guilt in UK.
  
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  September 6, 2024 8:43am
  - Countrygirl
    
    We seem to be reverting to tribalism both in ethnic communities and even our European one. It can’t end well.
    
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    September 6, 2024 12:18pm
- Jack5
  
  The West Indians didn’t come in a flood tide like the present surge of people into Europe. Immigration from the Caribbean was orderly and organised.
  
  The current tide resembles invasions of Rome by the Goths, Vandals, Burgundians, and Gepidae – all of them wild, Germanic folk.
  
  A mystery is why the Royal Navy, with two big new aircraft-carriers, atomic submarines, and about 6,000 marines can’t stop the civilian invaders pouring across the English Channel in rubber inflatables. Wrong tools?
  
  The smaller Royal Australian Navy has done good work protecting Australia’s longer borders.
  
  What will NZ do when the small boats begin reaching this country?
  
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  September 6, 2024 8:47am
  - AitchW
    
    Jack, we’re a long way from any sizeable population of boat people. Hard to see many getting here.
    
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    September 6, 2024 9:11am
    - MCōs
      
      Māori arrived in small boats hundreds of years before C² first crossed the Atlantic
      On that basis it must be theoretically possible for refugees to land here
      
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      September 6, 2024 9:34am
      - Benedict Yu
        
        Yes it is possible but unlikely. I thought that Maori arrived from the cook islands. That is not the same as a trip from Indonesia. I mean they are not going to come from Australia’s East Coast.
        
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        September 6, 2024 9:42am
      - AitchW
        
        Mcos that’s true. So, given Australia’s hard line on boat people, sending them to Manus Island, why did they not come here instead? The Tasman is a pretty wild and wooly stretch of water, most small boats would struggle to cross it.
        
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        September 6, 2024 10:19am
      - Don Beckett
        
        Correct Benedict. Not only the Cooks, but Raeatea (Hawaiki) Tahiti & other islands in that area.
        
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        September 6, 2024 10:30am
      - cmm
        
        But, but, but,… didn’t you hear about climate change? In the old days the seas were peaceful (as were the Maori). All the new storms at sea are due to the evil west.
        
        Theoretically possible, but ultimately what would be their motivation? They are drawn to the welfare hand outs and will go where these are best.
        
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        September 6, 2024 10:31am
      - JackRabbit
        
        @Benedict Yu
        
        “I thought that Maori arrived from the cook islands.”
        
        Those that arrived from the Cook Islands preceded the most recent settlers, and did so from about 500AD. You can read all about that on the Rarotonga website.
        
        Being a peaceful people, and not into the demonic eating of human flesh, raw or cooked, they were no match for the cannibals, and so were raped, killed, taken as slaves or eaten.
        
        The Waitaha that had been here since 0AD were also treated in a similar fashion.
        
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        September 6, 2024 1:31pm
      - JackRabbit
        
        @Don Beckett
        
        The current predominant Maori ancestors were the Tahitian cannibals. The Cook Island settlers preceded the invasion by the Tahitians by about 700-800 years.
        
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        September 6, 2024 1:33pm
      - NZer In Exile
        
        JR it would appear you are a Maori wonderfulness denier. /
        
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        September 6, 2024 2:33pm
      - Don Beckett
        
        Are you sure about that, Jack? The Takatimu canoe left Takatmu beach on Rarotanga around the same time as the other canoes and landed in Tauranga – that’s around 1300 AD
        I had a young Maori bloke – a good friend of my son – working for me for a number of years – he turned out to be a very good builder. He told me of his history, and had travelled over to Raro with some family, and through their verbal history, he found his forebears’ family. The language is almost identical to Maori, and they also call themselves ‘Maori’.
        I am not denying that there were polynesian travellers/explorers here well before the main migration, but they were not the same as the Cook Island migrants from around 1300 whose descendants live here.
        
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        September 6, 2024 2:53pm
      - JackRabbit
        
        @Don Beckett
        
        [1] The Cook Islanders maintain that they sailed to NZ from around 500AD.
        
        https://cookislands.travel/islands/history-people
        
        [2] The Waitaha history is around 0AD.
        
        [3] The Ngapuhi were earlier than the Tahitians.
        
        [4] Most cultures that had no ready written language used Oral History to record history. You can learn about that in the video “cousins across the sea.”
        
        [5] Oral History is still practiced by some Maori. I have a contact in one of those groups and I was told it is well known about the Waitaha having been here 2000 years ago as well as other history that is dismissed by mainstream.
        
        [6] Up until late last year, the The Polynesian Society website tps.auckland.ac.nz, had a browsable and searchable library of all the earliest books and documents back to the 1800s, relating to Polynesian society and history, including data about some records of oral history.
        
        The website was trashed / deleted / taken down / destroyed by a supposed “glitch” just before or around the 2023 election.
        
        One such oral history goes back 256 generations, or around 5000+ years.
        
        Outside of that, David Rankin a Ngapuhi elder, claims Ngapuhi oral history goes back 76+ generations and that when Ngapuhi arrived in their canoes, there were white people living here, some of whom help pull their canoes ashore. 76 generations would be about 1500+ years or around 500AD.
        
        There is a new TPS website but is now very restricted and browsable content locked away.
        
        [7] The original tps.auckland.ac contained a crap load of books and documents. References, history, oral histories.
        
        [8] https://enzb.auckland.ac.nz/ has also been clamped down.
        
        Ewen McQueen’s book, “One Sun in the Sky” about the true story of the TOW, used one of those sites if not both, as one source of his data.
        
        Clearly they do not want us having access to NZ history.
        
        [Mod – fixed]
        
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        September 6, 2024 4:18pm
      - JackRabbit
        
        Thanks Mod. 🙂
        
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        September 6, 2024 4:53pm
  - Grunter
    
    “The current tide resembles invasions of Rome by the Goths, Vandals, Burgundians, and Gepidae – all of them wild, Germanic folk.”
    
    And we all know what happened to the Roman Empire…..
    
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    September 6, 2024 9:21am
    - ChristopherW2
      
      The weakness in that argument is that the late Roman Empire was decadent, tyrannical, impoverished and plagued by civil war.
      
      Within about the space of time the Romans had spent declining, the Germanic peoples produced a more humanistic civilisation, while protecting and preserving what was worth preserving of the Roman Empire.
      
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      September 6, 2024 1:24pm
  - peterwn
    
    Are the Aussies still keeping tabs on the seas up to 1000 miles from its coastline? I seem to remember Helen Clark getting all upset since that 1000 mile area impinged on NZ’s 200 mile area off the coast of Southland.
    
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    September 6, 2024 9:37am
    - Mike
      
      The Australians were worried about boat people coming via Macquarrie Island?
      
      2 4
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      September 6, 2024 10:22am
      - G152
        
        I knew a whole bunch of people who (in small Yachts) sailed from various countries around the world and visited New Zealand, some several times.
        The reason the invasion hasnt happened is because no-one who is an invader knows who we are and where we are…………….
        
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        September 6, 2024 1:17pm
      - Master Mariner
        
        Nope, Worried about Poachers for Toothfish in Heard, Macquarie Islands.
        The French just sink them in Kerguelen Is.
        In Falklands , They are next too bloody hopeless and pose no threat.
        
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        September 6, 2024 2:47pm
    - NZer In Exile
      
      The shortest distance between NZ and Aus is apparently approximately 2,225 kilometers (1,383 miles). This measurement represents the gap between Cape Farewell on New Zealand’s South Island and Cape Otway in Victoria, Australia.
      
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      September 6, 2024 2:38pm
      - Ghost
        
        Hmmm, too far for Kim Dotcom to float over
        
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        September 6, 2024 3:23pm
  - Paulus
    
    Australian sea Borders are somewhat further and larger than the English Channel, with no or few little Easterners paying to try, despite many not making it.
    
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    September 6, 2024 10:40am
  - JohnRidd
    
    All they need to stop the migrants is to stop giving them welfare, prosecute those who commit crime and offer to pay for their trip home.
    
    The migrants are coming because the globalists want them to come.
    
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    September 6, 2024 4:59pm
- MCōs
  
  British immigrants assimilating in Spain
  https://x.com/bladeofthes/status/1812114129240330325?s=61&t=yFkzCNMWRCaVt1p5eRxUog
  
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  September 6, 2024 9:03am
  - In Vino Veritas
    
    Have you posted this before MCos? Someone has. And I’ll say the same thing again. There’s a difference between holiday makers and immigrants. Benidorm is full of British holiday makers in summer.
    
    9 1
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    September 6, 2024 9:33am
  - cmm
    
    Is Spain:
    * Bending over backwards to support the Poms – rejigging their welfare system etc?
    * Making no-go areas where police and others are not allowed into Pom areas?
    * Stamping on Spanish culture to accommodate Pom values?
    
    Nope.
    
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    September 6, 2024 10:36am
- Matt Long
  
  Jihad is a tenant of Islam, this doesn’t just mean armed struggle but internalizing Islam, and spreading it by all possible means.
  Nominal Moslems may assimilate, religious Moslems assimilate like the Borg in Star Trek. They have successfully assimilated from North Africa to Indonesia and are looking to assimilate all points between and around them.
  
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  September 6, 2024 9:52am
  - Mike
    
    Almost as widespread and insidious as Christianity.
    
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    September 6, 2024 10:23am
    - Grunter
      
      Don’t forget to add in socialism & communism Mike…! They would have to be the most insidious, although often a sudden revolution rather than a gradual takeover.
      
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      September 6, 2024 10:45am
    - NZer In Exile
      
      One has to be quite delusional and willfully ignorant to post something like that Mike.
      
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      September 6, 2024 2:49pm
  - artemisia
    
    There was a request to Kainga Ora for a home to have higher fences so women without face covering could go outside without being overlooked. Don’t think apocryphal, and don’t know what happened.
    
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    September 6, 2024 11:01am
  - pdm
    
    matt – tenant or tenet?
    
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    September 6, 2024 12:35pm
    - Matt Long
      
      Yes tenet. MEA culpa.
      
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      September 6, 2024 4:44pm
- ChristopherW2
  
  It was an ugly, stupid speech by a nasty wretch of a man.
  
  Apart from being hateful, bigoted and just plain dumb, that repulsive speech scorched the middle ground in any discussion that might have been had about immigration policy. He contributed to an area of public policy that depends upon reasoned argument, predictability and a broad degree of consensus becoming an emotional battle between political tribes.
  
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  September 6, 2024 1:18pm
Mod88

Interesting article by Cam Slater on the Good Oil blog site. The Verrall/Hipkins combo with their incompetence have very nearly got Li-ion batteries in devices outlawed by trying to back door the Vape-ban Legislation when in Govt. Talk about Spray & Walk Away. These people should be imprisoned for sheer incompetence. Link is from the Goodoil.
https://goodoil.news/labours-law-vaporises-millions-of-dollars/
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September 6, 2024 8:24am
- Mod88
  
  Further to this it appears this is the first Minister Costello has seen/heard of this and is most displeased. I expect Ayesha Verrall will be getting a broadside back after her repeated attempts in Parliament for a “gotcha” moment. Things could be quite exciting next week in the House.
  
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  September 6, 2024 1:46pm
Jethrod

To my mind that speech ranks top with any made in the last 75 years!
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September 6, 2024 8:33am
pdm

Upper Hutt may have the misfortune of having Chris Hipkins as its Electorate MP but, it seems to be well served by Mayor Wayne Guppy and his fellow Councillors.

Upper Hutt appears to be one of only two councils throughout New Zealand to have abandoned the Maori Wards rort inflicted on all New Zealanders by Nanaia Mahuta and the last Labour Government.

Kaipara Council is the other.
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September 6, 2024 8:36am
- Anthony Melchett
  
  The rest all seem to be ramming them in now, knowing that the people will vote against them in 2025 for disestablishment in 2028. It buys 4 more years of money to maoris and they will be hoping that labour are back in by then and will obviously lock them in somehow.
  
  Seriously nz, you guys are fucked.
  
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  September 6, 2024 8:46am
  - AitchW
    
    Correct me if I’m wrong but they still need to put it to the vote at the next council election. So, unless you want maori wards and gold plated cycle racks everywhere you need to vote against these clowns. Find out which candidates support getting back to basics and vote for them. And vote against apartheid.
    Democracy….
    
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    September 6, 2024 9:17am
    - Matt Long
      
      Councils will be forced to have referendums (Which some are fighting.) at the next elections but retain Maori wards until 2028, by which time they hope a future government will overturn the referendums and permanently embed Maori Wards.
      We’re to reimagine democracy, remember?
      
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      September 6, 2024 9:57am
    - alloytoo
      
      Why not instead petition for “English” or “Chinese” or “African” wards.
      
      Surely to deny them while persisting with Maori wards would, ahem ….. be racist
      
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      September 6, 2024 12:16pm
      - Grumpy Silver Top
        
        The accepted definition of racist seems, nowadays, to mean disagreement with any radical asserting that they have a maori ancestor or (two)
        
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        September 6, 2024 4:56pm
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  They are all banned from next election, this voting is to see if they will boot them now, I think people are thinking councils are voting against the law, that’s not what is happening, I don’t mind if they keep them till the election which is next year, but after that it’s war
  
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  September 6, 2024 8:56am
  - pdm
    
    G common sense says they will be voted out in at least 80% of councils.
    
    Rotorua, The Far North, Gisborne/East Coast being likely exceptions.
    
    All Councils are doing is:
    1. Delaying the inevitable.
    2. Inflicting extra costs, being referenda costs, on ratepayers.
    
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    September 6, 2024 9:12am
    - PurplePen
      
      If a council knows that the ward is going to be voted out then aren’t they failing to represent their community by not voting it out in the first place. This seems to be a common practice in quite a few councils. They regularly don’t listen to their electors.
      
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      September 6, 2024 9:27am
      - Anthony Melchett
        
        Local councils failing to represent their community is a feature of these idiots, not a bug
        
        12 0
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        September 6, 2024 9:54am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      All three of the electorate’s you mentioned are Nat, , don’t suggest that won’t follow the same lines, even many maori that vote centres or right will say no
      
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      September 6, 2024 9:36am
      - pdm
        
        I was thinking along percentage of population lines G.
        
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        September 6, 2024 12:38pm
    - edhunter
      
      Unless you can somehow magically increase the voter turnout dramatically from the dismal 36% that casted a vote last time I fail to see how you could possibly state with any confidence that 80% of councils will abolish the Maori wards.
      It would appear that the majority of ratepayers couldn’t give two flying f**ks whose in charge
      or
      finding information on candidates and their affiliations or what they actually stand for is too hard so they don’t bother.
      Either way something momentous needs to happen to break the masses out of the apathy shown towards local body elections if any real change is to be effected.
      
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      September 6, 2024 9:42am
      - pdm
        
        Most had no problem voting no when referenda were held ed.
        
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        September 6, 2024 12:39pm
      - NothingLeft
        
        Local body democracy is a failure due to low turnouts and hence dominance by nutty (motivated/monomaniacal) fringes.
        
        I would suggest we replace it with a random selection of a few hundred voters who are required by law (and paid) to spend a few hours getting informed about the local election issues and meeting candidates and then casting votes. A bit like jury duty. End the dominance of the extremists.
        
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        September 6, 2024 2:53pm
    - alloytoo
      
      Any population group that is represented less than than the population distribution should petition for their own wards.
      
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      September 6, 2024 12:17pm
  - Steve Todd
    
    @G the giant from Dunedin @ 8:56AM
    
    G, as I tried to explain last Thursday, here, https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2024/08/general_debate_29_august_2024.html/comment-page-1#comment-3611244, the representation arrangements in place on 11 October 2025, remain in place throughout the 2025–2028 triennium, regardless of the outcome of polls carried out at the 2025 elections.
    
    In this regard, see clause 39, subclauses (2) — note the words, “from the 2028 triennial general election” — and (5) of Schedule 1 of the Local Electoral Act 2001, here, https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2001/0035/latest/LMS457833.html, and,—
    
    paragraphs 83 and 84 of the relevant Local Government Commission guidelines, here, https://www.lgc.govt.nz/assets/Resources-Representation-Review/Maori-ward-supplementary-guidelines-2024.pdf.
    
    Note that a ‘no’ result (in a poll next year) “means that Māori wards/constituencies must not form part of the local authority’s representation arrangements for the 2028 [my bold] and 2031 elections.
    
    For further clarification, paragraph 84 states, “For local authorities that have held a poll alongside the 2025 election [regardless of the outcome], the next opportunity to consider the establishment or disestablishment of Māori wards/constituencies is ahead of the 2034 elections.”
    
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    September 6, 2024 10:43am
    - Grunter
      
      Thx Steve for the clarification.
      
      That is why most councils will wait for the 2025 vote, keep the unelected Maoris at the table until 2028, then bring them back in 2035 when the lefties are back in power.
      
      It still doesn’t stop Maori special votes by stealth. The Dunedin City Council has a ‘Māori Participation Working Party’ consisting of 5 local Maori (unelected) all of them having voting rights on various committees that make decent sized decisions on DCC matters (eg re-design the Main Street and the horrendous budget that came with).
      
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      September 6, 2024 11:00am
      - Steve Todd
        
        Grunter: Thank you for your response. I need to point out that Māori ward and Māori constituency councillors are elected by the electors on the relevant Māori electoral rolls. They are not unelected.
        
        We have one Māori ward councillor in Wellington (elected citywide) and two additional, appointed, Māori representatives, who sit (and vote) on committees but not on the full council. The Council has voted to retain the Māori ward for the 2025–2028 triennium, so we will have a poll on the matter in 13 months’ time.
        
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        September 6, 2024 12:21pm
      - GJM
        
        there is also the I Want It approval required for resource consents, which is a shakedown. No approval, no resource consent.
        i speak form experience.
        
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        September 6, 2024 5:02pm
    - Steve Todd
      
      […] in place on 11 October 2025, […].
      
      [Mod – fixed]
      
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      September 6, 2024 11:05am
      - Steve Todd
        
        Great. Thanks, Mod. Very much appreciated.
        
        Could you also please insert a closing quotation mark after “and 2031 elections.” at the end of the penultimate paragraph? Then both these correcting comments could be deleted. Many thanks.
        
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        September 6, 2024 11:33am
    - Skippytony
      
      Whats to stop the next Government from reversing this and allowing segregated wards again?
      
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      September 6, 2024 11:44am
      - Steve Todd
        
        Short answer: Nothing.
        
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        September 6, 2024 12:34pm
- mandk
  
  Mayor Guppy makes the occasional blunder, but he generally does the right thing because he reads the room well. Perhaps that’s why he has been Mayor of Hutt Superior for eight terms.
  
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  September 6, 2024 9:19am
  - pdm
    
    Hutt Superior mandk?
    
    You have been reading too many of Biscuits comments. lol.
    
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    September 6, 2024 9:27am
    - Mike
      
      Sensible people know that a dam at the Taita Gorge is necessary for energy security and many other beneficial side effects.
      
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      September 6, 2024 10:26am
    - mandk
      
      Are you from Hutt Inferior, pdm?
      
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      September 6, 2024 12:37pm
      - Biscuit
        
        Even worse, mandk.
        
        He’s from Hawkes Bay…
        
        Very magnanimously, I talk to him anyway….
        
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        September 6, 2024 1:57pm
  - MCōs
    
    Reading the room is not the way to run a council
    An example of this water metering that was introduced on the Kapiti Coast despite all sorts of ratepayer opposition. I think the mayor might have lost their job over the issue
    Since then numerous leaks have been identified and water use has gone down 25%
    If councils were to read the room progress would be minimal
    
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    September 6, 2024 5:36pm
    - AitchW
      
      Quite so. We elect councils to do the basics well. Sometimes that means making unpopular decisions.
      On a national level the best example is GST. There were deafening howls of outrage when it was mooted, the usual dire predictions of children starving and grannies freezing to death. Almost 40 years on we still have a simple and effective consumption tax. No room reading there….
      
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      September 6, 2024 5:50pm
- John Loveridge
  
  Why is FNDC so terrified of losing its Maori seats, if 72% of local young people are Maori? Surely the eventual referendum would be overwhelmingly in favour of the seats?
  
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  September 6, 2024 4:55pm
  - MCōs
    
    Young people don’t tend to vote
    Apart from that pakeha far outnumber Māori in that area the same as everywhere else in NZ
    BTW
    I live in the Manukau Ward, which is majority Pacifika and our councillors are invariably thus Labour and Pacific ethnicity, which means anyone who wants a pakeha rep can whistle in the wind
    
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    September 6, 2024 5:48pm
Grunter

Down to Earth Kiwi (economist Rob McCulloch) highlights Auckland law firm Chapman Tripp is attempting to shut down an Op-Ed by top economist Tim Hazledine.

https://www.downtoearth.kiwi/post/are-millionaire-partners-in-auckland-s-law-firms-and-nz-big-business-the-true-enemies-of-free-speech?

I totally agree – free speech always. Big Biz using its muscles via their big law firm needs to be called out.

The actual Op-Ed by Hazeldine is debatable, but definitely worthy of a read. Consider his point of view regarding Foodstuffs SI & Foodstuffs NI acting illegally – the fact that their law firm wants to shut it down speaks volumes IMO.

https://www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/350284911/foodstuffs-wants-merge-its-co-ops-consumers-need-opposite
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September 6, 2024 8:46am
- Jack5
  
  The earthquake and covid showed the need for the South Island to have independent food storage – in the south. The big bust in the Alpine Fault’s to come.
  
  Merging the two Foodstuffs co-operatives will be at the disadvantage of South Islanders. Think of the costs of the rampant shoplifting and ram raids in Auckland. Customers ultimate bear the costs. Auckland crime costs would be spread across the South Island as well as the North Island.
  
  We have had years of calls for more competition in supermarkets, and we have Foodstuffs trying to consolidate into one bigger firm. Doesn’t make sense.
  
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  September 6, 2024 8:58am
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    Before the CHCH quakes they weee going to merge CHCH and Dunedin Food stuffs to CHCH they quickly changed their minds and expanded Dunedin, not sure what expansion, but is it not two good stuff North Island businesses merging?
    
    If the Alpine fault blows in the high 8’s then it will not matter where it’s stored
    
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    September 6, 2024 9:13am
    - Jack5
      
      It’s a question of distribution from the storage centres.
      
      If the Alpine Fault pop is a big as many expect then storage near, or in, the two bigger southern cities will surely be important.
      
      Not sure what you mean by: “is it not two good stuff North Island businesses merging?”
      
      North Island and South Island Foodstuffs are separate co-operatives.
      
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      September 6, 2024 9:27am
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        I thought it was North and central merging, but if the Alpine fault goes, the Dunedin and CHCh distribution centres would be out anyway
        
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        September 6, 2024 9:40am
      - Benedict Yu
        
        That is just not the case.
        
        Dunedin is expected to suffer minimal shaking in an alpine fault rupture.
        
        https://youtu.be/uGWbjYy3to0?si=yVQPgfQvS5kYszMl
        
        Christchurch will suffer significant shaking for a very long time. 3 to 5 minutes. In contrast the 2011 Christchurch earthquake lasted 10 seconds. However the shaking should not destroy warehouses.
        
        I would have thought that the big problem for food distribution will be wrecked highways.
        
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        September 6, 2024 12:27pm
      - JackRabbit
        
        @Benedict Yu
        
        Fault lines are not always the cause of the earthquake, but the result of an earthquake.
        
        Damage is not always about length, but direction, P and S wave strengths, depth and location. Kaikoura lasted 2 minutes.
        
        The Christchurch earthquake may have released tension for Christchurch or made it worse, in relation to a future Alpine Event.
        
        Only examination of the GNS data and/or predictions based on that data will show. After spending considerable time examining quake drums across the SI after the Milford Sound earthquake in the early 2000’s, I found there were anomalies between drums that indicated a build up of stress. And at the time I predicted a large earthquake. Just not where and when, because I was lacking additional data.
        
        On any drum(s), a good sign is seeing a lot of consistently occurring minor shocks, and of consistent magnitude. This indicates the release of fault line stress at regular intervals. This was the pattern before Milford.
        
        After the Milford Sound earthquake, some drums went silent, and other morphed into slightly larger shakes with long periods between shakes.
        
        It was the drums that went dead that were of concern. Hence my prediction.
        
        Earthquake prediction technology has evolved considerably.
        
        Rather than just measuring shaking, you can use earth resistivity probe sets spaced at both short and long spacing. Different ground types change resistance and/or produce net charges, when ground pressure changes.
        
        Changes are recorded days or weeks before a big shake, and if watching trends, can show unusual pressure changes, combined with drum reading changes, months out.
        
        An absence of small shocks is not necessarily an absence of stress buildup. That’s why both shaking and earth currents are essential together.
        
        With current technology you can overlay a map of a region or country, and show the stress buildup in colours, not unlike the fake global warming weather maps.
        
        That’s one type.
        
        The Russians using planes with electrostatic 3D probes to sense changes in air electricity prior to a shake.
        
        The Japanese use ground mounted air electricity meters.
        
        I don’t know what GNS use. An absence of timely data at various times, indicates they may not be on top of it. That Ken Ring was able to accurately predict the February 2011 earthquake with warning indicators, and a number of aftershocks, and GNS were not, indicates that like most government departments, they are found lacking.
        
        Hell, in the 2010 earthquake you could predict the aftershocks in the days afterward, by simply consulting a tide charge. The drums would be quiet for half the day, and then as the moon phases and hence tides changed, the drums would start going haywire for the next few hours.
        
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        September 6, 2024 2:06pm
    - sirknz
      
      Many companies either have a SI warehouse or a SI 3PL partner to service their SI customers. A merger wouldn’t change that as shipping from the NI adds up to 3 days to the delivery time.
      
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      September 6, 2024 11:47am
  - Grunter
    
    Jack5 – a merged Foodstuffs would still have SI warehouses as there are now under separate entities. It doesn’t make economic sense to close down Chch or Dunedin warehouse facilities.
    
    Woolworths has warehouse/logistics in Chch and they are a national firm.
    
    In the current environment there is a very low chance that the ComCom will approve a merger. And Foodstuffs bad behaviour as outlined by McCulloch shows them up as a sihty bunch of Big Biz operators drunk on their existing power.
    
    So lets hope they get turned down.
    
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    September 6, 2024 9:31am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      That is what my point was in my original post. They were going to scale Dunedin right back before the earthquakes, but they pulled their head in an actually expanded Dunedin, Speights also ramped up production here
      
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      September 6, 2024 9:47am
- virtualmark
  
  To me the simplest way to break the current supermarket duopoly and increase competition would be to tell Foodstuffs it has to divest either the Pak’n Saves or the New Worlds. Choose the one you want to keep, be forced to spin off the other.
  
  That would leave you with three competing supermarket networks (Pak’n Save, New World, Woolworths).
  
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  September 6, 2024 2:41pm
Burtland

As if DEI hasnt been a big enough disaster, Microsoft’s social engineers are now tinkering with their AI to provide correct bias …

“Lindsay-Rae McIntyre, Microsoft’s Chief Diversity Officer, says her team is focused on embedding inclusion practices into the firm’s AI research”

“Microsoft believes that AI can support diversity and inclusion (D&I) if these ideals are built into AI models in the first place. “

what could go wrong? – a marxist AI engine providing advice.

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20240905-microsoft-ai-interview-bbc-executive-lounge
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September 6, 2024 8:49am
- Tom Hunter
  
  Good article here at Spiked on the impact of AI on free speech:
  
  As we first saw with Covid, Big Tech’s government-approved curation has led to the banning of divergent views, even from world-recognised experts. Similarly, climate-policy sceptics – even when highly credentialed – are being consigned to the digital gulag by Google. Already ChatGPT basically offers its human receptacles only the Green Party line on energy.
  ….
  AI could make such control even more pervasive, as people look to the algorithms to do their thinking and data gathering for them.
  
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  September 6, 2024 9:05am
  - JackRabbit
    
    Borg meets Cybermen meets Jem’Hadar.
    
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    September 6, 2024 2:52pm
- Grunter
  
  Anyone who uses the existing AI tools to do any serious research deserves to be brainwashed by these leftist algorithms.
  
  ChatGPT is useful for mundane things such as recipes, DIY (not DEI), after-dinner speech ideas, Dad jokes, etc, etc.
  
  But ask is about anything of importance and you get a whole bunch of woke BS.
  
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  September 6, 2024 9:36am
BeaB

Where would RNZ Morning Report be without sport and kingitanga? Item after item this morning and none of it adds up to much. They are experts at burble.
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September 6, 2024 8:51am
- Clyde
  
  Morning Report turned to crap some years ago and I’ve stopped (along with thousands of others) listening. They are nothing more than the Ministry of Truth for the unholy alliance of racists and the Liemore Pardy.
  
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  September 6, 2024 9:00am
  - pdm
    
    Morning Report used to be the Farmers information programme back in the day. I think it used to include comprehensive (reasonably accurate) weather forecasts, stock sales summaries, wool sale auction prices etc etc.
    
    I wonder how many farmers have stuck with it.
    
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    September 6, 2024 9:31am
  - John Loveridge
    
    Even I’m old enough to remember the glory days of Geoff Robinson. What a different time that was.
    
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    September 6, 2024 11:53am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  And it seems to be the same with TV News…it’s as if the entire country has gone to sleep for most of the day.
  
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  September 6, 2024 9:04am
  - Biscuit
    
    It wasn’t THAT long ago that One Ewes used to have a brief summary of the day’s stock market prices…
    
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    September 6, 2024 2:00pm
- MCōs
  
  Must be torture to listen to for three hours
  
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  September 6, 2024 9:05am
  - MCōs
    
    I don’t know how you do it
    
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    September 6, 2024 9:18am
  - BeaB
    
    Both Morning Report and Checkpoint seem to have been taken over by bogans. Someone said they could feel their IQ dropping as they listened. Remember the good old days of well-informed , articulate broadcasters. Sadly no longer.
    Perhaps we just need state-funded news bulletins with informative interviews instead of adolescent argumentative sniping
    
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    September 6, 2024 9:44am
- NZer In Exile
  
  The burble makes the woketards “feel” good. Doesn’t matter if they have no clue what it means. Well worth taking other people’s money to finance the lovely lifestyles of the RNZ gnomes therein!
  
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  September 6, 2024 2:52pm
kiwikidsnz

Labour paving the way for a capital gains or wealth tax

“Ultimately, if you look at a wealth tax and a capital gains tax, they’re actually similar, they’re points on a continuum.”

– a continuum towards the lowest common denominator

https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/350405328/labour-paving-way-capital-gains-or-wealth-tax
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September 6, 2024 9:02am
- Tom Hunter
  
  Unless the state is pared back, especially in the programmes that just automatically grow, a future Labour government will have the ultimate lever for tax increases and new taxes: introduce them or watch The System go broke.
  
  And most Kiwis will shit themselves at the latter thought and support the new taxes.
  
  Only delaying the inevitable of course. In fact such taxes might speed things up as those who could pay instead head for the exits while those further down the scale who are “rich pricks”, but can’t leave the country and are not quite rich enough to afford the best legal and accounting firms, stay, comply and are eventually exhausted of their wealth.
  
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  September 6, 2024 9:10am
  - AitchW
    
    Tom, lefties and greenies are all convinced that anyone better off than they are personally must have done it by oppressing and exploiting others. That’s how they justify eating the rich…
    
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    September 6, 2024 9:22am
  - Ian Boag
    
    not quite rich enough to afford the best legal and accounting firms, stay, comply and are eventually exhausted of their wealth.
    
    Ah – so that’s why the Oz and US and Canadian economies are down the tubes. CGT … 🙁
    
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    September 6, 2024 10:10am
    - cmm
      
      You need to zoom out a bit…
      
      In those countries CGT is somewhat balanced by making the interest on mortgages tax deductable.
      
      That makes some sense – if your capital gains are considered earnings, then the expenses incurred in making those earnings should be tax deductable.
      
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      September 6, 2024 10:42am
      - Ian Boag
        
        interest on mortgages tax deductable
        
        Not in Oz or Canada. Anyway – AFAIK – the norm for countries (most of the OECD?) with a CGT is that one’s personal residence is exempt. There are practical reasons for this as well as emotional ones. The “tax on inflation” argument is usually dealt with by having a lower tax rate – for Oz and Canada it is 15%. Other countries have similar sorts of rules.
        
        For investment property, interest is already deductible. Perhaps this is a reason to stand your argument on its head – if the cost of the investment is deductible, perhaps the realised gains should be taxable?
        
        I can understand that anyone currently sitting on untaxed capital gains wouldn’t enthuse about them being taxable, but it wouldn’t bring the sky down ….
        
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        September 6, 2024 11:09am
      - cmm
        
        Ian: In Canada you can deduct mortgage interest, but that was only introduced in 2023 it would seem:
        
        https://www.innovationcu.ca/personal/advice-tools/blog/2024/is-mortgage-interest-tax-deductible.html
        
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        September 6, 2024 12:31pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        @cmm
        
        I was living in Canada in 1972 when CGT first appeared. The sky did not fall in and there were no big issues. The driving force for CGT there was the report from the Carter Commission whose conclusions could be sumarised as “a buck is a buck is a buck”. A nice way to look at it ….
        
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        September 6, 2024 6:37pm
    - Tom Hunter
      
      …. so that’s why the Oz and US and Canadian economies are down the tubes. CGT
      
      And the NZ economy did just fine for decades without a CGT.
      
      The point being that when your lot start yammering about taxes the objective is simply to increase tax revenue so that government can do more because that’s never a bad thing in your mind – and any arguments about how these tax changes will improve the private sector economy, by providing some sort of fine-tuning, is just window dressing.
      
      I don’t much like our over-investment in property, especially private housing, but unlike you I see the problem as being the fact that alternative investments, say in NZ businesses, have not been very good over long periods of time. The 1987 sharemarket crash put paid to that and the stick of CGT or wealth taxes is not going to change it.
      
      If somebody could demonstrate how we might get our sharemarket to grow by 7.4% per annum average over almost a hundred years then we’d have the cure for poverty and much else besides.
      
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      September 6, 2024 12:23pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        There are all sorts of valid reasons why personal residences should be CGT exempt. So there is no reason to make interest tax deductible.
        
        For the rest of it – investment property gains should be taxable if interest is deductible. Either none or both ….
        
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        September 6, 2024 6:41pm
      - Tom Hunter
        
        Bigger picture Ian (and as I recall you are a scientist)….Americans Blissfully Drift Toward Financial Collapse:
        
        European countries have about 50% higher tax revenues than America, yet their real GDP per capita is lower, even factoring in the government services and subsidies they receive.
        
        The era of low interest rates and the accompanying “sugar high” is over. The higher cost of debt financing will inevitably impair the ability of succeeding generations, already tapped out, to shoulder the burden of our selfish spending.
        
        By now, we’ve breezed past all the easy fixes. We are facing severe warning signals and all the red lights are blinking. Yet in spite of the urgent need to change our ways, both political parties studiously look the other way. Getting elected is still the imperative that trumps all others.
        
        Despite some nit-picking about our better numbers on GDP/debt ratios and the like, the fact is that we’re on the same trajectory as the rest of the West.
        
        And new or increased taxes are not going to solve the problems. They’re crude stupidities!
        
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        September 6, 2024 7:05pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        So Tom …
        
        The solution is obviously less tax and less spending. The three biggies in NZ budget are health, education and welfare. The pension is half of the welfare bill. We need to “save” a few billion a year … ….
        
        So – what should we chop? Current attempts at generating savings in health spending don’t seem to be going far. Targets for ED wait times haven’t changed much so far. Reti – despite his impressive CV – is just another polly. Not his fault anyway. Education – wise the polytech sector is a hole in the ground and the unis are suffering. Their funding was slowd down because foreign students filled a lot of the hole. that was then …
        
        Welfare wise – pissing about with stuff like the job seeker benefit is a good idea, but anything that saves the odd hundred million – every little bit helps of course – doesn’t cut it in the big scheme of things. The pension is such a tempting target .. the only bit of gummint expenditure that noone looks to chop.
        
        So Tom – now that you have identified the problem – perhaps you have a solution … ?
        
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        September 6, 2024 8:09pm
      - Quail
        
        TH
        Agreed , but that outcome requires businesses increasing real productivity.Sadly these are regulated to a bare survival mode, and those that succeed are taxed into submission.
        Relying on tourism and immigration does not do it.
        
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        September 6, 2024 9:23pm
- cas
  
  Do you get a refund if you have a wealth loss i.e. losing money on shares?
  
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  September 6, 2024 9:13am
- AitchW
  
  Who would be stupid enough to vote for CGT or ‘wealth’ tax?
  Even the poor should aspire to getting themselves out of poverty, the politics of envy make me sick.
  
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  September 6, 2024 9:20am
  - cmm
    
    “Who would be stupid enough to vote for CGT or ‘wealth’ tax?”
    
    Envious people living in “their” state houses?
    
    Labour should rebrand. They are no longer serving the interests of working people.
    
    May I suggest The Benefit Party?
    
    ~~“Let’s Do This”~~ “Let’s demand this”
    
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    September 6, 2024 12:34pm
    - AitchW
      
      Labour stopped being the working man’s party a long, long time ago. He’s better served by National now.
      
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      September 6, 2024 8:21pm
- k1w1
  
  “Actually similar” my arse. They are nothing alike. One is on unrealised, and the other on realised gains. Chalk and effing cheese. The man is a total idiot. That said, they have a fair chance of selling CGT over a wealth tax, but the concern is the surprising number of proles who don’t know the difference.
  
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  September 6, 2024 9:24am
  - Chris Nisbet
    
    That’s why he said they’re on a continuum- chalk at one end and cheese at t’other.
    Therefore, similar.
    Makes perfect sense.
    Not.
    
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    September 6, 2024 10:11am
- PurplePen
  
  There’s already cap gains tax on those that buy and sell housing and shares frequently enough. It might be the ird just doesn’t yet monitor or pursue it much.
  
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  September 6, 2024 9:30am
  - Ian Boag
    
    Not a CGT – just regular old income tax for these people. Supposedly.
    
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    September 6, 2024 10:11am
- Grunter
  
  Rob McCulloch is on fire this morning!
  
  His take on Hipkins’s expanded tax plan AND more importantly, how they will make Iwi exempt from them.
  
  This brings up a serious question over sovereignty under a far-left Labour lead Government.
  
  https://www.downtoearth.kiwi/post/labour-leader-hipkins-is-on-course-to-declare-nz-s-parliament-does-not-have-sovereign-powers?
  
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  September 6, 2024 9:43am
  - Greenheart
    
    Who is Rod McCulloch?
    
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    September 6, 2024 10:00am
    - Swifty
      
      Rob McCulloch is a Professor of Economics at Auckland University.
      
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      September 6, 2024 10:29am
    - Blog-aholic
      
      Professor Robert MacCulloch holds the Matthew S. Abel Chair of Macroeconomics at Auckland University. He has previously worked at the Reserve Bank, Oxford University, and the London School of Economics.
      
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      September 6, 2024 2:42pm
  - AitchW
    
    Grunter based on that I might declare myself to be Maori. I’ve seen plenty of people much paler than I who identify as Maori. My family has been here over 50 years, pretty sure that qualifies as tangata whenua.
    Chur.
    
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    September 6, 2024 1:07pm
    - NZer In Exile
      
      Yes very funny/weird/sad when you see blue eyed people with alabaster skin prattling on about their tribal affiliations.
      
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      September 6, 2024 3:29pm
- JackRabbit
  
  Labour’s policy priorities:
  [1] Reinstating smoke-free laws and more…
  [2] Wealth Tax and Capital gains tax…
  
  If Hitler was still alive he’d probably want to marry Hipkins.
  
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  September 6, 2024 2:54pm
- Handyman
  
  “Show me the incentive, and I’ll show you the outcome” W Buffet.
  
  If house prices increase due to general inflation, there is an incentive for a government to print more money and fuel said inflation. The tax take will increase from the “greedy kulaks”.
  
  The intention of course is to drive private landlords out of the market and have everyone dependent on the all-caring Party.
  
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  September 6, 2024 4:09pm
cas

I was just reading the annual report of Local Govt NZ and see that the national President who is currently Sam Broughton, mayor of Selwyn, gets an honorarium of almost $100k. Nice work if you can get it. They pay out over $3m in salaries.
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September 6, 2024 9:22am
- pdm
  
  Wayne Brown and Phil Mauger pulled Auckland and Christchurch respectively out of that cabal I think.
  
  Other Councils should follow their lead.
  
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  September 6, 2024 9:35am
  - Grunter
    
    I’ve encouraged the socialist hot-bed called the Dunedin City Council to pull the pin. Got the expected answer – they love it! (apart from Vandervis)
    
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    September 6, 2024 9:45am
    - Clyde
      
      The DCC Councillors (apart from Vandervis) are collectively probably came out of the same mould as the Councillors of the Otago Regional Council (apart from 5 of them including Michael Laws). So far left they can see themselves coming the other way. Idiots and extremists.
      
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      September 6, 2024 10:54am
    - cmm
      
      DCC is what happens when non-ratepayers are allowed to vote ratepayers into giving them free stuff and they are too stupid/young to realise that they actually end up paying for it through their rent.
      
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      September 6, 2024 2:24pm
- grumpy
  
  Sam Broughton is a far left Jacinda worshipping idealogue. He is not standing for Council this election but has done the damage already.
  
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  September 6, 2024 11:40am
  - MCōs
    
    Sam Broughton is the mayor of Selwyn District which he won by a huge landslide in 2022 and which broadly equates to the parliamentary seat of Selwyn that Nichola Grigg won in a landslide at the last election for National and in the previous election by a lesser margin.
    Previous to that Amy Adams won three landslide victories
    One finds it hard to believe a ‘far left’ candidate could pull off such a stunning victory in an obviously true blue district populated by sensible agrarian types.
    
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    September 6, 2024 3:59pm
Swifty

The Yorkshire Haka:

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/JkCo9P6woChMBq18/?mibextid=UalRPS
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September 6, 2024 9:53am
John Loveridge

Whatever Professor Ball is describing, it ain’t mathematics:

https://science.anu.edu.au/news-events/news/maths-has-no-borders-professor-rowena-ball-brings-indigenous-mathematics-anu
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September 6, 2024 11:19am
- JackRabbit
  
  “Mathematics is a universal human phenomenon, and students of under-represented and minority groups and colonised peoples are starting to be more critical about accepting unquestioningly the cultural hegemony of mainstream European-based mathematics,” says Professor Rowena Ball from the ANU Mathematical Sciences Institute.
  
  1 + 1 = 2 is colonist brainwashing.
  
  In Maori she may be “correct”.
  
  Equal division among the tribe meant that the Chief took all he wanted from traders for free, and then tribe paid for what they got, as well as what the chief took.
  
  I have a lesson for you Rowena, 1+1=2, and the times tables, are valid in every sector in the galaxy, and a few other galaxies beside. Not because it is colonist idea, but because maths, like science, is based on observations of reality.
  
  The only time 1+1 is not equal to 2 is when you are in the Star Wars Cantina Bar scene and a trader will take off your right arm with a light sabre if he does not get what he wants.
  
  [Mod – fixed]
  
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  September 6, 2024 3:07pm
- NZer In Exile
  
  ANU in Canberra is the loonyversity.
  
  Some choice excerpts:
  
  “Mathematics has been gatekept by the West and defined to exclude entire cultures. Almost all mathematics that students have ever come across is European-based,” she explains. “We would like to enrich the discipline through the inclusion of cross-cultural mathematics.”
  
  “Indigenous and First Nations peoples around the world are standing up and saying: ‘Our knowledge is just as good as anybody else’s − why can’t we teach it to our children in our schools, and in our own way?’
  
  “And this is happening in New Zealand, North and South America, and Africa, and also in a great movement in India to revive traditional Indian mathematics.”
  
  “Here, in Australia, we are still in the early stages of the decolonisation journey. There is a curiously persistent trope that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples had only rudimentary mathematical knowledge, despite widespread evidence to the contrary. “
  
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  September 6, 2024 3:34pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Hunter pleads guilty to 9 charges.
He said father Joe did not promise to pardon him. Doesn’t pass the sniff test. Joe is still POTUS.

https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/other/hunter-biden-pleads-guilty-to-nine-tax-evasion-charges/ss-AA1q4tJk?
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September 6, 2024 11:25am
- Tom Hunter
  
  And it should be remembered that the only reason this happened was because a sharp-eyed judge called bullshit on the sweet plea bargain deal that Special Counsel Weiss was offering Hunter on various charges (like his gun charge) – after Weiss had already slow-walked numerous other charges until they hit their statute of limitations – and because two IRS whistleblowers then stepped forward to reveal how tax evasion issues had also been circumvented between the IRS, FBI and Weiss.
  
  In any case, while Hunter has been rightfully nailed I doubt he’ll suffer much even if he does see some jail time before his pardon. Moreover even these things are a drop in the bucket compared to the grifting of the entire Biden family, as had been long suspected in DC and the recent House investigative report showed in detail. An Impeachment that will now never happen but which would have been richly deserved.
  
  The Biden’s will get away with it.
  
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  September 6, 2024 12:40pm
  - cmm
    
    “a sharp-eyed judge ” I think you mean a judge that was not willfully blind.
    It was obvious to anyone with a teaspoon of grey matter what was going on.
    
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    September 6, 2024 2:11pm
cmm

Is it just me, or do others find it a sad indictment on social decay that people doing the right thing is considered news?

Would this picture look different in NZ?

https://www.stuff.co.nz/world-news/350405756/watch-sackfuls-cash-spill-road-china-and-locals-swoop-help
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September 6, 2024 12:00pm
Waipuk

I was at a primary school yesterday and heard a kid very loudly yelling. “I hate Luxton. He is taking away our Moari rights.

The thing is I don’t know if he is parroting what his parents have said or what he is hearing at school.

No matter what the subject Moari is threaded through the day.
11 1
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September 6, 2024 12:02pm
- Eastlander
  
  Both. I was taught in primary school that the Treaty of Waitangi swindled Maori out of their country, and that was way back in the 90s so I can only imagine how much worse it is now.
  
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  September 6, 2024 12:36pm
- NZer In Exile
  
  Lunatic infested councils are a dire problem in both NZ and Aus. IMHO a big part of the problem is the way council elections are run. Basically minimum transparency. People don’t know how dangerous, stupid and extreme each candidate really is. A huge spotlight needs to be put on who each candidate really is. Voting should also be compulsory.
  
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  September 6, 2024 3:41pm
  - greybeard
    
    Come back from exile, and HELP us !
    Seriously.
    
    1 1
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    September 6, 2024 7:39pm
    - NZer In Exile
      
      Thanks GB. I may possibly do that.
      
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      September 7, 2024 7:15pm
Benedict Yu

Most commenters will be aware that the Australian Senate has been conducting an inquiry into the causes of excess deaths in Australia.

No surprises in the findings. The main cause of excess deaths was COVID. The vaccines reduced mortality.

https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Community_Affairs/ExcessMortality47

This is not a government white wash. The Australian Senate Committees can be a pain for Australian governments.

However the conclusions could not be any different. Science and data don’t care about your feelings. The anti vaxxer Senator who pushed for the inquiry has had a painful lesson.

A small but important victory over the madness of the anti vaxxers.
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September 6, 2024 12:11pm
- cmm
  
  Can’t wait for another booster so you can be first in line?
  
  You really are missing the main points
  – whether or not people should have a choice in selecting whether or not to take the risk (on way or the other).
  – whether the government should have the tools to force them to do so.
  
  Some might think the outcome of an investigation is material. I don’t think so.
  
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  September 6, 2024 12:26pm
  - Dudley Quaffquaff
    
    It is perfectly possible to think both (a) the vaccine is acceptably safe and effective in reducing COVID incidence, seriousness and mortality and (b) that the State should not coerce unwilling people into having it.
    
    Some people on this blog disagree with (a), and use that to justify (b). The point of Benedict’s post is that that argumentation is weakened, since (a) is vindicated by this investigation.
    
    If you still want to make the case for (b), you’ll have to come up with different argumentation in support.
    
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    September 6, 2024 12:47pm
    - newview
      
      I believe the State has a case for vaccine mandates when a virulent virus which is killing large numbers of unvaccinated people and also making some vaccinated people really sick is justified. With Delta Covid that seemed to be the case. Subsequent variants have been less serious. For me it was justified for the first six months when we weren’t sure whether our hospitals could cope. After we knew they could cope there was no justification for the mandates.
      
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      September 6, 2024 1:36pm
      - Don Beckett
        
        It depends how the “vaccine” /vaccine is developed. I would still refuse an mRNA “vaccine” – but if they got a vaccine that was properly developed & passed ALL the tests without obfuscation, & made all the details public, I would arguably take it.
        Again, stated ad nauseam, I am not an anti-vaxxer. I am against “vaccines” hastily developed and improperly tested with falsification of test results, as was the Covid Pfizer vaccine.
        
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        September 6, 2024 3:09pm
- Sir Henry Morgan
  
  [Mod – no personal abuse thanks]
  
  The idea that the world was going to vaccinate its way out of a coronavirus pandemic (by force if necessary) was always idiotic.
  
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  September 6, 2024 1:52pm
  - Benedict Yu
    
    Yes but saving millions of lives with the vaccine turned out fine.
    
    Same old story here. COVID vaccines bring out the crazy on this blog. 😅 Anything climate change is a close second. Science nope. Data nope. Just madness.
    
    Of course climate change denial and fear of vaccines go hand in hand. Same underlying fears. Same demographic.
    
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8849212/
    
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    September 6, 2024 5:12pm
    - Benedict Yu
      
      Just an addendum. The real barrier to avoiding harm from COVID is the ongoing vaccine fear. I have never contracted COVID and I do not expect to ever contract COVID. For the same reason I have not contracted influenza for 23 years. I don’t want any of it.
      
      Yes you can choose to not be vaccinated against COVID and influenza but why? It is a foolish thing to do.
      
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      September 6, 2024 5:21pm
    - Sir Henry Morgan
      
      It’s not obvious to me that the vaccines saved millions of lives.
      
      Has a successful vaccine ever been developed for a coronavirus? Don’t coronaviruses evolve too fast?
      
      Is mandating that entire nations simultaneously use a largely untested new technology a smart idea?
      
      The insistence on a vaccination-focused response to COVID (incidentally called Wuhan Pneumonia 武漢肺炎 by the Chinese Communist Party, right up until they realized it wouldn’t be staying in Wuhan and ordered a rebrand) was incredibly expensive (government spending reached levels typically associated with war), sold via endless misinformation (Jacinda Ardern: “we will stamp it out like measles!”), and seems to have achieved little to nothing in terms of improved health outcomes.
      
      Despite endless dishing out of “vaccines”, COVID somehow still exists. It’s almost like the “vaccines” don’t really work.
      
      Also, people do die, especially people who are old and frail. For whatever reason, society seems to have increasing difficulty accepting this reality. Instead they let the government step in and claim it will provide a solution.
      
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      September 6, 2024 8:24pm
- kevn
  
  BY… Some ‘mad anti-vaxxers’ being hounded by compliant types.
  https://x.com/Theblackfemini3/status/1831236984691712471
  Only 2-3 years ago.
  
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  September 6, 2024 4:25pm
Taieri

On yer bike(s)…

“The transport system kills thousands of people prematurely each year, and the government’s new transport plan will only make that worse, an Otago University academic says.”

https://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/transport-system-killing-thousands-prematurely-otago-researcher

I think, I may go for a ride.
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September 6, 2024 12:15pm
- cmm
  
  The transport system keeps billions of people alive. Without that cheap, modern transport system, billions of people would starve to death.
  
  I am sure the rose-tinted-glasses-wearing ivory tower dweller would have preferred to live with the transport systems of 1700 or so – before filthy coal.
  
  Unfortunately this misses the fact that being trampled to death by horses was a far greater risk than being run over by a car in the modern world.
  
  But at least there was less death from pollution, right? Wrong. Horse shit in the streets bred flies. Flies spread diseases killing and maiming far more people than car pollution ever did – even the lead petrol fumes of the late 1900s.
  
  But no, Otagoites need to feed the white guilt narrative to stay relevant.
  
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  September 6, 2024 2:02pm
- fightingtemeraire
  
  It was because of the “Great Stink that Bazzelgette constructed that marvel of engineering the London Sewage System!!!
  
  4 0
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  September 6, 2024 4:16pm
  - greybeard
    
    Bazalgette and Brunel would have to be the greatest-ever engineers, designers, thinkers, managers, whatever the world has ever known.
    Simply astounding lives.
    
    2 0
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    September 6, 2024 6:55pm
Maggy Wassilieff

Nice work if you can get it…. even better if you don’t really have to work to get it.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/350401251/womens-refuge-cash-spent-beauty-treatments-dental-work-travel
12 1
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September 6, 2024 12:24pm
- cmm
  
  Sorry Maggy, I don’t think you could do the job.
  You’d have to unplug your scruples and leave those at home.
  
  7 0
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  September 6, 2024 1:41pm
- John Loveridge
  
  That’s absolutely appalling, Maggy. What a slap in the face for the women they’re meant to support. I wonder when any of them last visited a dentist or hairdresser.
  
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  September 6, 2024 1:59pm
  - greybeard
    
    Agreed: it is nothing less than theft.
    
    6 0
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    September 6, 2024 4:40pm
- fernglas
  
  I worked with many women who needed the services of Women’s Refuge. It is a great organisation to which I have donated freely over many years. Not any more. If it permits a mentality that other people’s money is there to be used for purposes other than those which were intended, then it’s off my list.
  
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  September 6, 2024 4:58pm
  - AitchW
    
    I have a whanau member who, as part of her job, had some interaction with Refuge. The local regional organisation was run by the ‘aunties’. A group of mostly morbidly obese women who treated it as their own private charity. Donations of furnishings etc were triaged, those that made it to the refuges were hoarded in locked rooms. The trust provided them with cars, laptops, clothes, travel, kai and other essentials.
    It was about as corrupt as you can get.
    
    8 0
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    September 6, 2024 5:44pm
    - greybeard
      
      I have believed for years that the choicest items donated to Op-Shops and other charities were listed on Trade-Me and the proceeds diverted to the “administrators'” accounts. These items never made it to the shop floor.
      Maybe it is better to sell it yourself on Trade-Me and hand the money over to the end-user, face-to-face.
      
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      September 6, 2024 6:51pm
- Prince
  
  Looks like they got away with a few thousand for a few years, then decided to go for the big sting $400K.
  Like old Tuku, they’re still claiming entitlement.
  
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  September 6, 2024 5:35pm
- rouppe
  
  Three individuals under investigation for the spending.
  
  And then a lazy $400,000 transfer to an incorporated society those same three head up.
  
  Not suspicious at all
  
  5 0
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  September 6, 2024 7:06pm
John Loveridge

Not premium:

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/pandoro-closing-its-three-wellington-cafes-today-the-latest-in-a-string-of-hospitality-closures/LOIEJYTRGBE4JD7WJSE36SWRNU/

Go Wellington!
7 1
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September 6, 2024 1:57pm
- Prince
  
  Maybe when the City Council takes hundreds more off each and every ratepayer every quarter, the discretionary spend dries up.
  At least the water supply (oops, sorry, the bike racks) are being fixed.
  
  4 0
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  September 6, 2024 5:32pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  Yep. Bike way + bus lane outside the front door means business dries up through lack of foot traffic.
  
  Who’da thunk it!
  
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  September 6, 2024 10:58pm
Sir Henry Morgan

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/ufc/ufc-star-israel-adesanya-complains-to-police-after-alleged-racial-abuse-in-heated-exchange-on-auckland-street/WZQJXHFEDNHPFL3S3GSNNBMUCM/

Poor Isreal Adesanya. New Zealand’s unluckiest guy. Always in the news encountering racial abuse for absolutely no reason.

There surely couldn’t be any connection to his own weird behavior, right? When he’s not in the news complaining about how awful New Zealanders have been to him, he’s talking about the size of his penis and threatening to anally rape competitors.
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September 6, 2024 4:29pm
Maggy Wassilieff

Copper Knickers anyone?

Seems RNZ news announcer Marama T-Pole has never heard of Copernicus .

5pm News at about 4:49
https://www.rnz.co.nz/
3 1
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September 6, 2024 5:22pm
Ghost

I’m not surprised councils are seeking legal advice of not having a referendum

Some councils have gone further, saying they would investigate the implications of refusing to hold a binding referendum on their Māori wards.

Palmerston North City Council said last month it would present a report on that matter at an upcoming council meeting. A council spokesperson told 1News yesterday there was no update on that report yet.

Article

Councils have long stopped listening to what their districts want. Just keep taking and taking for vanity projects. Who the fuck cares what the public want, just ram through what you want to do and keep taking and taking.

Let’s save time and money and stop having local council elections. I hereby nominate that councils are appointed by the liquidators
5 1
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September 6, 2024 6:02pm
- greybeard
  
  Councillors, like Judges, are threatened by maori gangs and/or maori pressure groups.
  e.g. Hawkes Bay, Kapiti, Gisborne, Far North.
  
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  September 6, 2024 6:46pm
- AitchW
  
  I’d be interested to see what the consequences of not holding a legislated referendum are. I imagine that the minimum would be having commissioners appointed and the councillors facing charges for gross negligence at the least.
  I imagine the minister for local government will be having some frank discussions with mayors. They may find they’re a lot less important than they’ve been led to believe by their sycophantic party officials.
  
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  September 6, 2024 8:43pm
NZer In Exile

Funny meme:

Who are the “far right” these days:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Jordan_Peterson_Memes/comments/1f9vzb6/yep/#lightbox
2 1
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September 6, 2024 6:19pm
- Ghost
  
  Far left 2024
  
  2 1
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  September 6, 2024 6:26pm
Steve Todd

In my opinion, the presidential election will come down to three factors: Pennsylvania, women (abortion / reproductive rights), and young voters.

Regarding Pennsylvania, I reckon one of the reasons Kamala chose Tim (yay!) over Josh, was because she is relying on Josh to deliver the state, regardless.

Kiwibloggers say Josh is annoyed that he wasn’t selected as the VP pick. I say nonsense — disappointed, maybe, but not annoyed. Let’s face it, since the decision to pick Tim, Josh has been nothing but 100% supportive of Kamala — his speeches in support of her have been powerful, and heartfelt.

See another example of his obviously genuine support for her, from a few hours ago, here:

Gov. Josh Shapiro on who will win Pennsylvania in November

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oU3-zFZCgcM [9:45].

I can’t wait for 1.00 p.m. on Wednesday.
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September 6, 2024 8:47pm

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