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September 18, 2024 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 18 September 2024

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NeverMindTheBollocks

The Comancheros turning up (501s ex Australia – thanks, ANZAZ chums!) will have put some local noses out of joint. Makes you wonder whether Jacinda’s favourite club might not have been quietly assisting Police.

“From the moment the gang established a presence in this country, they made it very clear they saw themselves as the number one gang in this country,” Coster said.

But Gilbert said it will have very little impact on the drug trade.
“When demand hasn’t been affected, demand hasn’t been impacted at all by this, unfortunately, that does mean that other suppliers will simply jump in to meet that demand.”

http://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/350418804/nearly-all-comanchero-gang-facing-charges-following-three-year-investigation

http://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/528276/comanchero-bust-other-suppliers-will-simply-jump-in-to-meet-the-demand
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September 18, 2024 8:01am
- cmm
  
  “Makes you wonder whether Jacinda’s favourite club might not have been quietly assisting Police.”
  
  Of course. It’s a win-win for the Blue Gang and the Red and Black gangs.
  
  You can almost predict how that phone call went.
  
  Cop: Geez, the punters are getting pissed off with gangs. Sorry to tell you this, but we’ve got to put on a show and take some of you boys out.
  MMob: What if we help you set up the opposition gang? They’ve been making a lot of noise. They’re bad for our business too.
  Cop: Sounds good, send us some info and we can make this happen. Hopefully that will appease the citizens for a few months…
  
  I will only take the cops’ “getting tough” talk seriously when they get stuck in to the Mob. Hard.
  
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  September 18, 2024 9:36am
  - WaynelSexton
    
    These drug busts in NZ never seem to take out any dirty cops. I guess our cops must be a moral bunch.
    
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    September 18, 2024 11:00am
    - cmm
      
      While I expect there are some dirty cops, I doubt there are really a consequential number of them.
      
      Far more problematic is this “policing by consent” attitude headquarters has. They seem to operate in conjunction with MMob rather than against them.
      
      When the cops do act against a MMob member it seems to generally be in a way that helps the mob too.
      
      For instance if the MMob need to eliminate one of their own who has overstayed his welcome then they can just feed him to the cops. Everyone wins:
      * cops get their PR stunt
      * MMob got rid of a stroppy member.
      
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      September 18, 2024 2:15pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Pity the cops haven’t invested so heavily in closing down the Mongrel Mob.
  The misery this gang has wreaked upon their fellow Maori is immeasurable.
  
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  September 18, 2024 9:38am
  - Simon
    
    “Pity the cops haven’t invested so heavily in closing down the Mongrel Mob.”
    
    Yes it’s such a “pity”.
    
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    September 18, 2024 10:50am
  - AitchW
    
    Maybe they went for the ‘low hanging fruit” first. MM and BP are so inextricably interwoven into the population that it would be a herculean task to attempt a raid of this magnitude on them.
    Comancheros on the other hand would be far more easily identified, and less connected.
    Having said that I fervently hop that this success will embolden the cops to come down a lot harder on our gangata whenua….
    
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    September 18, 2024 11:27am
    - Dave
      
      ‘gangata whenua’ – an outstanding coinage.
      
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      September 18, 2024 1:55pm
  - PaulP
    
    Surely not, the MMM is all about whanau! ///
    
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    September 18, 2024 12:51pm
  - igm
    
    Better to give them $2.75 million to increase membership.
    
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    September 18, 2024 5:23pm
- Simon
  
  MSM slop. Administrative state garbage. Meth use is out of control. Another gang would have grassed these clowns, quid pro quo, the state gets some headlines for the cattle while the gangs run things.
  
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  September 18, 2024 10:48am
artemisia

Minister Shane Jones has released for consultation a draft critical minerals list alongside a geological report on what minerals are where. Early deliverables of the minerals strategy.

Minster Jones has said New Zealand may have the third largest deposit of vanadium in the world after Russia and China. Shame not allowed to be mined because it’s on the seabed and the usual suspects have pursued a ban through the courts Looking at you Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, and others. Fast track has or will be applied for, so that outcome will be very interesting for seabed mining in general. New Zealand has a huge EEZ…

https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/draft-critical-minerals-list-released-consultation
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September 18, 2024 8:02am
- peterwn
  
  Yes and Greenpeace and F&B are on the attack already. Presumably their leaderships are quite happy to purchase and use stuff which rely on these essential minerals just as long as the minerals come from somewhere else. Just as they call on NZ to do its ‘fair’ share towards climate change, should not NZ do its fair share of mineral extraction for the products that society needs.
  
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  September 18, 2024 8:28am
  - EssenX
    
    The thing that gets me is the people that vote against mining and then migrate to Australia for higher wages and a better public services. What do they think pays for everything?
    
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    September 18, 2024 9:26am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      Lefties are hypocrites
      
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      September 18, 2024 10:35am
    - Simon
      
      “The thing that gets me is the people that vote against mining”
      
      Voting doesn’t matter. It’s 2024. Don’t people know that National are not in control. Hoops that elected politicians have to jump through shows this. Administrative state out of control. Start closing down govt departments
      
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      September 18, 2024 10:53am
      - waikatosinger
        
        I do wonder what some of those government departments do. The Ministry for Women is a great example. What are they for? We don’t have a Ministry for Men. If men don’t need a ministry why do women need one? What are the outputs of this Ministry for Women and can we measure them?
        
        I honestly can’t imagine what all those people must do all day. Drink coffee, play solitaire, have pointless meetings and generate pointless reports is my best guess. If they were gone tomorrow I doubt they would be missed.
        
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        September 18, 2024 5:32pm
    - Dudley Quaffquaff
      
      Some people vote against mining, and some people migrate to Australia for higher wages and better public services.
      
      What exactly is the evidence that they’re the same people?
      
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      September 18, 2024 1:40pm
- artemisia
  
  Since phosphate (fert) is on the critical list, farmers as big purchasers have an opportunity to submit during the consultation process. It closes 10 October.
  
  New Zealand phosphate is low cadmium and low leachate, much lower than imports. One would think the environmental activists would be keen, but no, seabed mining always B A D.
  
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  September 18, 2024 8:34am
  - peterwn
    
    Queensland has no qualms about phosphate (or other minerals) mining (its phosphate is low cadmium unlike the usual Middle East sources). Indeed Australia’s prosperity was built on the back of minerals – which is why it is called ‘the lucky country’.
    
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    September 18, 2024 8:44am
- Mod88
  
  Until the Seabed & Foreshore Claims out to the 12 mile line are passed then it will be Open Slather, koha will have nothing on the Royalties the various Iwi will demand. ‘Tis not NZ’s wealth but ours, all ours…
  
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  September 18, 2024 8:38am
- PurplePen
  
  Watch out! Ngarewa Packer if she can see there’s a dollar to be made will flip and start vanadium mining claiming it’s Maori taonga and in their fishing ground.
  
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  September 18, 2024 9:55am
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Oh no!
Trump and a whole lot of Laura Loomers are going to take over America.

https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/other/second-trump-administration-will-be-filled-with-the-laura-loomers-of-the-world-former-aide-claims/ar-AA1qIOVo?
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September 18, 2024 8:08am
- Gravelroad
  
  Yep, let’s demonise some woman who might be an all powerful conspiracy theorist.
  Say the conspiracy theorists on the “other side”.
  
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  September 18, 2024 8:23am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    Democrats are getting desperately short of material to attack Trump with.
    
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    September 18, 2024 8:56am
    - G152
      
      Two unsuccessful murder attempts means the democrats are getting desperate
      
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      September 18, 2024 10:58am
  - Mike
    
    She’s in a competition to be Trump’s No. 1 girl. So she srays close and gives it her all
    
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    September 18, 2024 10:23am
    - MAGA, Mostly Aryans on Government Assistance
      
      Its causing a few problems for Trump and his other fangirls.
      Haba has been dropped into the dunny since her ethical issues have threatened her law licence and MTG is livid, she thought roids was the answer to gain Trumps gaze instead of Looners extensive gender enhancement surgery. Loomer looks like she is pregnant…it it Trumps?
      
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      September 18, 2024 2:52pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Trump’s Security to be increased.
Build a wall around Mar a Lago and make Mexico pay for it!

https://babylonbee.com/news/11-new-security-measures-the-trump-campaign-will-be-implementing?
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September 18, 2024 8:15am
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  The golf course is not at Maralago from what I can gather, it’s across the road
  
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  September 18, 2024 8:32am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    The ‘Bee’ is satire.
    A wall around Mar a Lago will keep the FBI out! They won’t be searching Melania’s undies drawer.
    
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    September 18, 2024 9:35am
- Philview
  
  Per media speculation last night the would be assassin somehow had knowledge that Trump was going to be there and he was from out of town himself. It will be interesting what comes to light.
  
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  September 18, 2024 11:08am
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Kamala survives attempted interview.

https://babylonbee.com/news/kamala-safe-and-in-stable-condition-after-attempted-interview?
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September 18, 2024 8:18am
greenfinger

Pff! Are we supposed to feel sorry for Tori Whanau about her selling her car to make ends meet? She can’t even get her own finance under control and yet she wans to run Wellington and spend ratepayers’ money on the vanity projects simply to please her green friends that put her there in the first place. The city is doomed. Get out there and throw her and her comrades out of office at the next local election! Hopefully there is still something left of the city by then. No bailout and no central government loan for the city. That council will simply have to make ends meet on its own, like the rest of us. Lest we forget.
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September 18, 2024 8:25am
- Yabster
  
  they voted for her and that council- I am not hopeful it will change as the Wellington with all it Public (so called “servants”) is very left leaning..
  
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  September 18, 2024 9:17am
- crackle
  
  Would be fun if a reporter asked if she has a current drivers liscence
  
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  September 18, 2024 9:35am
- AitchW
  
  greenfinger, just how tone deaf is that woman??? Do she and her communications team not see how this will play to someone on an average wage paying the mortgage and facing huge rates hikes?
  Really smacks of “let them eat cake”.
  
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  September 18, 2024 10:17am
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  179 k a year, mayoral car, and she won 1.4 million in lotto 20 years ago when 1.4 million was worth something
  
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  September 18, 2024 10:37am
  - john1234
    
    Not to mention single and childless. I know booze is expensive but how on earth does she burn through $189K?
    
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    September 18, 2024 1:07pm
    - sirknz
      
      The excise taxes went up again. If you’re drinking at an industrial scale, it can add up fairly quickly…
      
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      September 18, 2024 3:45pm
- G152
  
  Its a pretty good rate of pay far in excess of the ratepayers incomes
  
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  September 18, 2024 11:00am
- AitchW
  
  SO, is it just me or does Harris have the most irritating voice in the world? Followed closely by Trump…
  
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  September 18, 2024 11:05am
  - Albie
    
    Heard Lindsay Perigo (remember him?) refer to as the Adenoid Airhead the other day.
    
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    September 18, 2024 12:00pm
  - john1234
    
    She has many irritating voices – which one? The African American one? The Southern Drawl one? The French one?
    
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    September 18, 2024 1:10pm
  - AitchW
    
    She speaks so slowly you could be forgiven for thinking that someone is feeding her lines through an ear piece.
    But no-one would feed her such drivel would they?
    
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    September 18, 2024 1:26pm
    - sirknz
      
      She’s truly an inspirational orator.
      
      There was her space speech, “Space is like really far away, OK, and it is, OK, really really big, OK”
      
      Or there was the Ukraine/Russia speech, “Russia is like a really big country, OK, and Ukraine is a much smaller country, OK, and the bigger, OK, country invaded the, OK, much smaller nation, OK, and we don’t like it, OK”
      
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      September 18, 2024 3:49pm
NeverMindTheBollocks

Terrace bike rack report: zero bikes racked at 8.25am.

A brilliantly fine, still, cool morning in Wellington. You don’t get a better day for biking than this.

Whoever approved this bike rack should be fired for incompetence.
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September 18, 2024 8:26am
- AitchW
  
  NMTB, what’s the bet they got a bonus for saving the planet!
  
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  September 18, 2024 10:18am
  - sirknz
    
    Extra Terry O lessons too.
    
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    September 18, 2024 3:49pm
- Matt Long
  
  There’s competition from the Irish for most extreme waste on a bike rack.
  Did I hear Whanau say, Hold my beer?
  https://www.irishtimes.com/life-style/2024/09/06/its-not-even-a-shed-a-summary-of-the-leinster-house-bike-shelter-controversy/
  
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  September 18, 2024 1:00pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  Evening update at 5.07pm: still no bikes.
  
  The CCTV footage must make for boring viewing.
  
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  September 18, 2024 5:08pm
zulumonster

Is there any good reason Newsroom won’t print Brenton Tarrant’s name when their article is about Brenton Tarrant? I know Jacinda Ardern started the whole nonsense thing about never saying his name, but I thought with her gone we could all start acting like adults again. Obviously some haven’t got the memo.

https://newsroom.co.nz/2024/09/18/christchurch-terrorist-gets-special-status-for-inquest/?mc_cid=8d9cd14b7c&mc_eid=b68775a22a
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September 18, 2024 8:31am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Media children acting like adults is just pretending.
  
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  September 18, 2024 9:39am
- imalwaysright
  
  Hopefully Adern will be giving evidence regards licencing.
  
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  September 18, 2024 10:11am
Matt Long

Chris Cuomo is about to be unpersoned by the left.
https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/1836051827865121121
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September 18, 2024 8:35am
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  Ghez, time for the left to do this, he suggest Trump assaults people, they say he calls for violence against the dems, they say he is hitler and must be stopped, what utter bullshit. Heard Harris say he recites parts of the Natzi Germany playbook, when has all this happened? I have never heard him call for violence, but the dems say he must be taken out(what does that tell crazed lefties)
  
  When the hell did he spout natzi Germany play book either
  
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  September 18, 2024 8:44am
  - Mike
    
    Didn’t one of his ex-wives say he had Mein Kampf for bedside reading!
    Fake news, obviously, as there is no evidence of Trump reading anything that doesn’t have his own name or picture in ti.
    
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    September 18, 2024 10:29am
    - Graeme Hall
      
      Mein Kampf – excellent recipe book for Left-wingers. Trump probably realised early on it is wise to know your enemies – especially those with “Socialist” in their label.
      
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      September 19, 2024 10:27am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Fuck the left. They want to destroy the Republicans, Trump is just in the way.
  I don’t know how he does it. He is doing what he said he would like in old interviews. Many times he was asked if he would ever run for President and he said no. Things have changed and he is committed now.
  
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  September 18, 2024 9:10am
  - imalwaysright
    
    The Dems are no a political party, they are a criminal gang who have appropriated the name.
    
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    September 18, 2024 10:14am
artemisia

Appears that Adelaide Uni is going online only from 2026. Student attendance on campus declining. Staff are furious. Maybe because they’ll have to change the way they do things.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/sep/13/adelaide-university-dumps-face-to-face-lectures
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September 18, 2024 8:35am
- kowtow
  
  The problem with all this remote , digital , online stuff is it runs in the face of what humanity is actually about .
  
  We are a social animal .
  
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  September 18, 2024 8:44am
  - cmm
    
    We can still socialise outside of universities.
    
    Of course there’s the flip side to universities too – the snob value. That’s highly antisocial.
    
    The reality is that as things get more and more specialised it is harder and harder to find a market for them based on geographic location.
    
    No university in NZ teaches the stuff I want to learn. In fact, no single university covers the subjects I am interested in.
    
    I think we’re going towards a situation where people will be able to pick and choose courses from various universities across the world and assemble them into a degree.
    
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    September 18, 2024 9:44am
    - Steve Otto(North Shore)
      
      You don’t want a Taylor Swift Degree? How come?
      
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      September 18, 2024 10:14am
      - imalwaysright
        
        You get half the credits if you can form your fingers and thumbs into a heart shape.
        
        You get the other half of the credits if you can do it twice.
        
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        September 18, 2024 10:18am
      - ChristopherW2
        
        If I were to do the postgrad study I’d like to do, I might throw in a paper on modern pop culture, such as the Taylor Swift phenomenon – you study things you can’t understand, after all.
        
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        September 18, 2024 4:14pm
- Blog-aholic
  
  Seems universities starting with an A are all buggered AU (compulsory cultural courses) and AUT (stupid Taylor Swift degree).
  
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  September 18, 2024 8:46am
  - Mike
    
    AFAIK the ‘Taylor Swift degree’ is a summer holiday course in media studies. Possibly doesn’t even credit towards any degree.
    
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    September 18, 2024 12:00pm
    - Blog-aholic
      
      Yeh, that makes all the difference………..
      
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      September 18, 2024 12:09pm
      - Mike
        
        Yes, it does. Would you like me to explain the difference between types of study and subjects of study?
        
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        September 18, 2024 2:10pm
    - Ghost
      
      It’s nothing new
      
      https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/music/news/articles/world-first-masters-in-the-beatles-music-industry-and-heritage-launched/
      
      https://universitycollege.tufts.edu/courses/browse/king-life-and-music-elvis-presley-30
      
      https://www.inquirer.com/education/bruce-springsteen-rutgers-college-course-20190807.html
      
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      September 18, 2024 12:09pm
      - Blog-aholic
        
        Yeh, that makes all the difference………
        
        Oh there is, lets look at it:
        1. Liverpool + The Beatles – connection check
        2. Tufts + Elvis – connection check
        3. Rutgers + Springsteen – connection check
        4. AUT + Swift – no connection found!
        
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        September 18, 2024 2:36pm
  - cmm
    
    A while ago I was returning from Lake Lyndon after some night fly fishing and was listening to RNZ.
    
    They were interviewing a Maori lass who had just earned her PhD on the influence of the guitar on Maori music.
    
    Ok, a step up on Swifty but still, you really have to wonder what the taxpayer gets out of that.
    
    There are many very useless degrees that people take on. A woman I know in Chch did a Masters in something to do with Middle Ages French peasants.
    
    Now I absolutely have no problem with people learning about anything that interests them, but:
    * why make it into a degree? Why not just read some library books?
    * why must the taxpayer fund your hobby?
    
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    September 18, 2024 2:21pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Makes you wonder how students are going to do Labs…..
  
  oh woops, it’s only STEM folk who need equipment to conduct investigations and experiments and get hands-on experience with the real, working world.
  
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  September 18, 2024 9:02am
  - mandk
    
    You are correct as usual, Maggy.
    
    STEM courses are relatively expensive for universities to run, but they provide great value as far as I am concerned.
    
    Courses in the arts and humanities? Not so much.
    
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    September 18, 2024 9:52am
    - Pope Punctilious II
      
      “STEM courses … provide great value as far as I am concerned. ”
      
      Yeah, especially now they include maatauranga!
      
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      September 18, 2024 10:24am
- mandk
  
  For a lot of uni courses, there’s no need for students ever to set foot on campus, so they might as well go on line. My youngest started a psychology and philosophy degree just as COVID hit and he didn’t visit the campus for the first 18 months. Even then, he didn’t need to be there physically.
  
  It’s different, of course, for disciplines like medicine, science and engineering. Students need to be there for lab work.
  
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  September 18, 2024 9:57am
  - imalwaysright
    
    Mandk,
    You would think that group discussions would be a key part of those subjects, bounce ideas around etc.
    Maybe the universities are treating non stem courses as prescriptive, in the sense that there is only one acceptable answer.
    Theirs.
    
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    September 18, 2024 11:01am
    - Close Hen Counters
      
      My son was in a similar situation when he did his commerce degree – shut down for most of it with covid stuff. Then there was zoom to make them normal 🙂
      
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      September 18, 2024 11:18am
    - mandk
      
      Group discussions and tutorials were also online. It wasn’t only lectures.
      
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      September 18, 2024 2:54pm
- Handyman
  
  If you are doing an online degree, why do it at the local university?
  Adeliade students could (will?) sign up to prestigious international universities.
  
  Do you remember the early days of the internet? Companies were setting up sites so “anyone in the world can buy from us”. What they missed was that their local customers could now buy from anywhere in the world.
  Which university will be the Amazon of the education sector?
  
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  September 18, 2024 10:20am
  - sirknz
    
    Udemy would be my guess.
    
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    September 18, 2024 4:06pm
Paulus

Sad isn’t it that we cannot afford to return to one of the richest countries in the world, as we were once not too may years ago, and have enough money to support all those in need.
We have sufficient minerals and other materials under us in enourmoues quantities that the so called Marxists will not let it be mined and sold overseas.
Wake up New Zealand – look at what Norway has achieved with North Sea Oil, being a very wealthy country, with sufficient funds to support all in need.
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September 18, 2024 8:46am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Marxists – specialists in destroying Countries, and people’s lifestyles.
  We have so much wealth but can’t touch it. Just import it. The plan will fail.
  
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  September 18, 2024 9:56am
Simon

Trump win in 2024 is the 4-year reset the world needs. Calm things down, fix the US economy & recognize the BRICS as legit. It also gives the Dems 4 years to reset. Democratic party is a criminal organization at the moment. Dems need 4 years to reset and get Newsom who ever to run his bog-standard bat shit climate policies whatever. But the open Dem criminality must stop. Just the usual hidden corruption business as usual hard grifting instead.

NZ as a satellite state of the US needs a Trump win.

Trump for the 4 year reset the world needs. Otherwise chaos & death.
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September 18, 2024 8:50am
- Grunter
  
  Simon – I am far from convinced that Trump can stop the chaos that you are predicting. I do agree, however, that we are heading for a major siht-storm.
  
  I also suspect Trump won’t make Inauguration Day. He will win the election if he gets that far.
  
  The pace of the craziness is gaining momentum each week…..2x failed assassination attempts, 2,800 Pagers blowing up in The Middle East, the head of NATO coming out and strongly advising Biden to fire long-range missiles into Russia (at the same time admitting that would mean NATO is at war with Russia AND that no one can win a nuclear exchange…..!)
  
  FFS – it’s hard to be a conspiracy theorist and sound crazy when this dumb siht actually happens!
  
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  September 18, 2024 9:24am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    If Trump wins but does not make Inauguration Day I am sure JD Vance can handle taking over. I don’t want to see that but the nasty Party are capable of anything.
    
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    September 18, 2024 10:00am
    - AitchW
      
      If Trump wins I predict lefty riots (including Palestine/LGBTQIA+ rights/assorted rentarabble) that’ll make the Capitol disgrace look like a nuns tea party.
      
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      September 18, 2024 3:01pm
      - sirknz
        
        You might as well say water is wet.
        
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        September 18, 2024 4:08pm
  - Simon
    
    This resets with Trump. If elected. BRICS change things. Merica either resets or BRICS win. GAE knows this and the Dems will likely be rein in. If Trump wins.
    
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    September 18, 2024 10:58am
  - imalwaysright
    
    “FFS – it’s hard to be a conspiracy theorist and sound crazy when this dumb siht actually happens!”
    
    I appreciate your angst!
    These days, the window of opportunity to be a conspiracy theorist is down to about a week.
    
    Day 8, even the BBC are running it…..!
    
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    September 18, 2024 11:08am
- cmm
  
  USA’s major problem is that it is sitting on over $30trillion debt and that is increasing at over $3tn a year.
  
  They are used to that level of consumption and feel entitled to it.
  
  The voters will not vote for the level of austerity required to slow that down, let alone turn that around.
  
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  September 18, 2024 9:47am
  - Grunter
    
    That US Govt Debt (it is actually over $35 Trillion) is what is driving all this craziness IMO. Along with all the EU, UK, Japanese & China Debt.
    
    There is no fiscal solution to it. 91% of the US Govt spend is on stuff that no Government will ever stop (health, education, retirement, military, police). The other 9% can be trimmed, but that doesn’t solve the problem.
    
    So what do they do…..???
    Answer – start a war. That’s what has happened throughout history time and time again.
    
    Except this time 9 countries have nukes!
    
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    September 18, 2024 11:00am
    - cmm
      
      Yup, there is really is no escape. It is hard to keep up because they’re adding another trillion every 100 days or so.
      
      That’s around $US30 average for every person in USA.
      
      Imagine what happens if you remove a cash injection like that! Even worse, imagine the stagnation if you go a step further and try to pay it back.
      
      Nobody wants to even think about it, so the trillions will keep on being added, but just faster…. until the wheels fall off.
      
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      September 18, 2024 2:38pm
  - Tom Hunter
    
    One of the first things I wrote about over at No Minister in 2019 was the US debt problem, including the unfunded liabilities (calculated on a 75 year time frame)
    – Social Security ($$20+ trillion)
    – Medicare ($50 trillion)
    – Medicaid (shared with the 50 states but it still has to be paid for).
    
    And those are low-balled estimates: the infinite horizon analysis that’s endorsed by a large number of economists (including Nobel prize winners) produces an unfunded debt figure of $210 trillion.
    
    With Social Security the Feds at least control both the input (tax) and output (rates & age eligibility) but on Medicare only the input – and it’s averaged 12% annual growth rate since it was started in 1965.
    
    I just looked at that old post the other day and laughed at my comment that all this would have to be added to ” the current Federal debt of $22 trillion.”.
    
    Yeah. In 2019. That’s how deep in the shit America is. More here.
    
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    September 18, 2024 12:34pm
    - Mike
      
      Tom is good at making the case for tax increases.
      
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      September 18, 2024 2:13pm
  - ChristopherW2
    
    I dunno – it’s bad but as a % of GDP, it’s still only half Japan’s debt. It’s recoverable.
    
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    September 18, 2024 4:18pm
- MAGA, Mostly Aryans on Government Assistance
  
  Trump indefinitely!
  
  Why bother with fake elections…
  
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  September 18, 2024 12:03pm
  - NothingLeft
    
    “Why bother with fake elections”
    
    Because the Democrats/permanent bureaucratic state need them to give some pretense of legitimacy of their oligarchical elite regime that is fleecing the population to fill their bank accounts.
    
    There would be no reason to make huge efforts to insert democrats into controlling all layers of elections from local to state level in swing states, actively working to exclude republicans and their scrutineers, and changing laws surrounding enrollment, collection and counting of votes to eliminate checks for voter eligibility and auditability, nor leaving borders open to bring in 10’s of millions of illegal immigrants IF democrats didn’t intend to cheat at an industrial scale and alter demographics of swing states in their favor.
    
    Judge them by what they do not what they say.
    
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    September 18, 2024 12:41pm
    - MAGA, Mostly Aryans on Government Assistance
      
      Your all in NothingLeft.
      
      Like I said why bother with elections, MAGA are the chosen ones, the right gawd told the right person in the right church to say it is so to the right people…gawds chosen people…and colour/color…Allahu Akbar.
      Yes NL or course the system is rigged if the chosen one fails again, its the devils Dems…cause reasons, lots of reasons…no, all the reasons.
      Why not just give the Whitehouse keys to the orange floater and just get on with greatest gov expansion in history…get the “right” people controlling the plantation, micro managing every single little thing.. that’s true freedom, isn’t that right NothingLeft?
      
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      September 18, 2024 2:03pm
    - Mike
      
      Luckily the republicans are committed to the people having their say:
      https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/elections/2024/09/06/florida-abortion-amendment-petition-signature-fraud-voters/
      
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      September 18, 2024 2:16pm
Cassandra

https://newsroom.co.nz/2024/09/17/a-long-personal-and-painful-read-for-the-minister-called-goldie/?utm_source=Newsroom&utm_campaign=8d9cd14b7c-Daily_Briefing+18.09.2024&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_71de5c4b35-8d9cd14b7c-97846255&mc_cid=8d9cd14b7c&mc_eid=c8a03a18b0

Newsroom up to its usual high standard of National-bashing. The comments are outrageous. Goldsmith is “a fickle, cheapskate racist” for wanting to have the Coastline Act reflect what Parliament intended 13 years ago, rather than what two judges decided recently which would lead to Maori control of the entire coastline. Waitangi Tribunal, predictably, complains that Goldsmith did not consult Maori. I note that Goldsmith didn’t consult me either. I’m happy with that. I can write to Goldsmith any time I like. So can Maori.
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September 18, 2024 8:54am
- pdm
  
  Not to be left out Tova has a bash at Luxon.
  
  https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/350419537/pm-struggles-explain-why-he-backs-police-gangs-not-guns
  
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  September 18, 2024 9:48am
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    These morons expect him to answer stuff that has gone into cabinet yet no decision is pending yet, never before have these assholes expected answers on the cabinet work that has not yet been made public
    
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    September 18, 2024 10:43am
  - Paulus
    
    Tova appears to have a fetish with Luxon.
    Perhaps she actually fancies him after all.
    
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    September 18, 2024 12:15pm
- Pope Punctilious II
  
  The government needs to look for a smart way to detoxify the Waitangi Tribunal, if disbanding it completely isn’t feasible. Any thoughts about how to tackle the task?
  
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  September 18, 2024 10:28am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    I don’t think the Waitangi Tribunal would exist for long if taxpayer pūtea dried up.
    
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    September 18, 2024 10:48am
  - Damocles11
    
    Disband it. Sick of the National / NZ First go slow on the WT and Treaty ‘Principles’. Get on with it.
    
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    September 18, 2024 10:57am
  - Skippytony
    
    The traditional methods are variations of:
    1. De-fang it
    2. Change the scope
    3. Create multiple actors with conflicting objectives
    4. Use carrot & stick approach. Reward them for useful stuff and punish them in ways that really hurt if they do dumb shit
    5. Get control of the leadership
    
    Machiavelli has more thoughts….
    
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    September 18, 2024 11:20am
Tauhei Notts

I visited Wellington on Monday. I had been there on 31st January. It seems that the number of smartly dressed obese women, all in black, has reduced.
I was sorry to see a lovely Murphy Street (near Pipitea Street) coffee house about to shut down. The hospitality scene in that city seems to be a stressful activity.
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September 18, 2024 9:11am
- Benedict Yu
  
  That area of Wellington around Pipitea Street and down to the railway station is a wind blown hellscape. Thousands of public servants and only about half a dozen places selling overpriced fake food.
  
  Some food carts outside the National Library selling hotdogs and street food would have made a killing. If Wellington council regulations ever allowed that.
  
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  September 18, 2024 9:35am
Maggy Wassilieff

The rush to ethno-universities is on…(for administrators)

https://www.bassettbrashandhide.com/post/john-raine-universities-not-w%C4%81nanga-time-for-the-government-to-step-up
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September 18, 2024 9:14am
- Grunter
  
  It makes your eyes water reading that! It is much worse than even I thought.
  
  This must come to a head, the Government will need to step in to stop the crap. The racist Uni’s will of course resist.
  
  Last resort – defund the Uni’s. Taxpayers don’t deserve to be treated as funders of blatant racism.
  
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  September 18, 2024 9:34am
  - Cassandra
    
    Vouchers is the answer. Fund the students and then see what happens. Good universities will soar and the rubbish – Tiriti led – will atrophy.
    
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    September 18, 2024 9:48am
    - cmm
      
      I don’t think vouchers will fix anything.
      
      If you hand out vouchers then you will end up with party universities where you can exchange your vouchers for a good time. Not much different to what you have now.
      
      People only appreciate what they work for and pay for. Remove taxpayer funding entirely.
      
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      September 18, 2024 10:09am
      - Benedict Yu
        
        See my comment below. Tertiary students effectively have vouchers. The money follows the students. (Research funding is different.)
        
        It works like this…
        
        Domestic students pay (on average) about 25 percent of their course costs. The student pays that to the University. The government then pays the university the remaining 75 percent.
        
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        September 18, 2024 10:25am
    - Benedict Yu
      
      Students already have ‘vouchers’. Students can enrol in any university they wish. The universities are then funded based on the numbers of students they enroll. Unlike schools, the ‘money follows the students’.
      
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      September 18, 2024 10:21am
      - Cassandra
        
        That’s not a voucher, BY. Will the Government fund a new (private) provider?
        
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        September 18, 2024 11:27am
      - Benedict Yu
        
        Yes.
        
        There are restrictions on new universities. Most countries do this, except the USA.
        
        However students in New Zealand can choose from more than 1,000 private training establishments and take their funding with them. And get a student loan.
        
        https://www.tec.govt.nz/funding/funding-and-performance/funding/how-who-what-we-fund
        
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        September 18, 2024 11:39am
      - cmm
        
        Yup, I agree BY. It might not be called a voucher system, but it is effectively a voucher system.
        
        I can’t see that moving universities to a “real” voucher system would change anything.
        
        School vouchers change things a bit because people are forced to go to school.
        
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        September 18, 2024 2:27pm
    - Pope Punctilious II
      
      Students are being indoctrinated at school and by the media, so a voucher system is needed at school level. See the comments below – we effectively already have a voucher system at university level. But there is no real choice currently available at university level, as all our unis have the same funding model, and their administrators are locked in a deadly contest of “mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the wokest of them all”. If we had a few high-quality private universities, the market might work better.
      
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      September 18, 2024 10:36am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    There will hardly be a student entering university in NZ who hasn’t been exposed to years of Te Reo phrases/karakia/learning their pepeha /singing waiata/understanding te Tiriti, etc, etc.
    
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    September 18, 2024 10:11am
    - Benedict Yu
      
      Surely overseas students will be on to this and no longer come here? Why would an Indian student come here to do a science degree?
      
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      September 18, 2024 10:39am
      - Swifty
        
        They’ll get a better science education in India .
        
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        September 18, 2024 10:44am
      - Grunter
        
        …..and be referred to as a “Non-Maori” with less rights
        
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        September 18, 2024 11:12am
      - Gussy Fink-Nottle
        
        “Why would an Indian student come here to do a science degree?”
        
        Because it gives them a pathway to residency (e.g. a Post Study Work Visa).
        
        Unfortunately, this fact won’t help our universities maintain (or reestablish) decent standards of content and delivery. Or entice top applicants that are serious about science.
        
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        September 18, 2024 12:06pm
      - Media hater
        
        Very few Indian students come here to complete science degrees. They come here to complete a Business Studies Level 5 diploma. So they can become a Store Manager at liquor outlets or fast food restaurants. The best pathway to residence.
        
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        September 18, 2024 12:07pm
      - cmm
        
        Although it is rather unfair on some of the very high quality universities in India, they all seem to be tarred with the same brush.
        
        Many students come to NZ to get another qualification to “westernise” their education certification. Chinese students often do this as a way to improve their English and make themselves more employable in the West.
        
        Social interaction and other 1:1 interactions with staff and students are important for these people but I would argue that for the bulk of students they are not.
        
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        September 18, 2024 2:34pm
- PurplePen
  
  Very good piece from emeritus prof. Thanks. This item stuck:
  
  “And, while the principle of kawanatanga (governance) ensures Māori representation on the University Council, which must discharge appropriately its obligations to Māori, there is no requirement that the Council discharges its obligations to all other ethnicities present on campus.”.
  
  Agree. Kawanatanga in the ToW was only governance of the tribe by their chief. In the context of the above extract I’d go as far as to say that kawanatanga has no business and was never meant to be in governance of crown institutions and crown funded orgs. By all means if it’s a Maori funded and owned institution, yes.
  
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  September 18, 2024 10:14am
- Eastlander
  
  All publicly-funded institutions need to be subject to the direct control of the appropriate Minister. Arguments for the independence of the public service or the universities depended on those institutions themselves being independent and apolitical, and now that the political interference is coming from within the organisations themselves there is no longer any case for leaving them outside executive control.
  
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  September 18, 2024 10:36am
  - Benedict Yu
    
    Sorry you need to unpack that statement.
    
    I am more familiar with the public service than with universities. Unlike universities, the public service has never been ‘independent’. It is under the direct control of the executive.
    
    The public service has embraced matauranga maori because the last government introduced a new Public Service Act which requires the public service to do so.
    
    See sub part 3.
    
    https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2020/0040/latest/LMS223351.html
    
    The current government has chosen to not repeal that part of the Act.
    
    Why? I don’t know
    
    DPF has now twice blogged on the incorporation of mythology into science, as recently as yesterday with the hurt feelings of the mountain on which someone died. He clearly feels strongly about the topic.
    
    The government could kill this stuff in the public service before lunch time by saying STOP. Universities are more difficult. However as the government provides 70 percent of their funding, of course that can be done.
    
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    September 18, 2024 10:50am
    - Eastlander
      
      The public service has since the early 20th century been ‘independent’ in that ministers have ‘no word in the appointment of the minnows, but should appoint the whale and have the ear of the whale’. As you know this was intended to ensure that the public service was not used as a mechanism of political patronage, but now the public service is a political actor in its own right.
      
      You have surely seen what happens when a minister tries to get a ‘whale’ to do something that the ‘whale’ and the ‘minnows’ don’t want to do. Stalling, obfuscation, malicious compliance – whatever it takes. Nor can you expect the ‘minnows’ to proactively advance policies they disagree with, they simply will not. Personnel is policy and unless the responsible Minister can terminate any public servant at any level at his own discretion he doesn’t have control of them at all.
      
      As much as we can rightly criticise the government for not simply repealing the changes made by the previous one, it’s quite clear that many public servants and even more tertiary education staff support what we can only describe as the He Puapua platform. That being so they’ll try to advance their beliefs whatever the law saws. You can’t turn them instruments of National or ACT policy, they have to go.
      
      Moreover, anybody in the public service with a legal education most likely studied the New Zealand Maori Council v Attorney General case from 1986. You have New Zealand’s leading judges stating that the treaty created a partnership, with Casey (if I recall rightly) going so far as to describe the relationship between the Crown and Maori as ‘fiduciary’. If you accept that interpretation – and you have to since it is part of New Zealand case law – you’ll believe that every New Zealand government organisation has to cooperate with (read: acquiesce to) Maori in everything that it does, explicit statutory directive or no.
      
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      September 18, 2024 12:26pm
      - Ra Henare
        
        For reference. The judgement (Known as the lands case) in 1987
        
        http://www.nzlii.org/nz/cases/NZCA/1987/60.pd
        Use Ctl F(Windows) and use the word Partnership. That will highlight the 8 occurrences of the word.
        
        Included this summary item from the President, Lord Cooke.
        Which has been mis quoted a gazillion times
        ////////////////
        Before concluding, there are some general observations I
        would like to make :-
        (i) I have spoken of what I perceive to be a relationship
        akin to partnership between the Crown and Maori people,
        and of its obligation on each side to act in good faith.
        //////////
        
        Note the word akin….which has been omitted by many in requotes.
        
        PS. The Treaty of Waitangi Act delegates the definition of the Principles of the Treaty to the Tribunal….. In my view, the Tribunal has been hijacked by vested interests, but that is a debate for another day.
        
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        September 18, 2024 2:49pm
      - Eastlander
        
        People are right to omit the word ‘akin’, since Cooke does at one point state baldly that the treaty signified a ‘partnership between races’, and in any event the distinction between a ‘partnership’ and ‘a relationship akin to partnership’ is so fine as to be undetectable. But Baron Cooke was never one for brevity.
        
        There is so very much to criticise about the decision but worth bringing up is Justice Richardson’s acceptance of Hugh Kawharu’s nonsensical claim that ‘sovereignty, in the sense of power and authority was wholly beyond the Maori experience and their view of the treaty could only have been framed in terms of their own culture’. Essentially claiming that the chiefs were a gang of fools ignorant of the wider world, which is demonstrably untrue. You would think that Maori activists would be ashamed to insult their forerunners in this manner but obviously they felt that was an acceptable price to advance their ambitions.
        
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        September 18, 2024 5:29pm
    - Yvette
      
      Stating that Government and all its services must be secular would kill the last remnants of Christianity, but could go a long way to removing te Ao o Maori, the Maori religious worldview.
      
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      September 18, 2024 12:45pm
    - MCōs
      
      The state may provide the majority of the funding for the universities, but that doesn’t entitle it interfere with the culture.
      A few years ago in 2015 Eleanor Catton was critical of our government and she was told to pull her head in by that champion of free speech, Sean Plunket because she had a taxpayer funded job at Manukau Institute of Technology
      https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/booker-novelist-eleanor-catton-responds-to-vicious-attacks-in-new-zealand-10014696.html
      
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      September 18, 2024 1:20pm
      - NeverMindTheBollocks
        
        Yeah, well, THAT was a different world.
        
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        September 18, 2024 4:48pm
  - Taieri
    
    All publicly-funded institutions need to be subject to the direct control of the appropriate Minister.
    ———–
    
    Such as “Waka Kotahi” having been under the direct control of the Associate Minister Genter?
    
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    September 18, 2024 1:07pm
    - Eastlander
      
      Labour-Green governments already had a sympathetic public service to work through, National governments quite plainly do not, especially following hiring the spree that the last labour government went on.
      
      As for what a Labour-Green government might do with direct control of the public service, that only matters if they ever gain power again (an entirely avoidable scenario).
      
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      September 18, 2024 2:11pm
I remember when

Rainfall yesterday at Palmerston North Airport weather station 22.2 mm while the City station recorded 8.4 mm.
September totals are Airport 110.9 mm and City 58.2 mm.
Is the Palmerston North Airport the victim of “Climate Change”?
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September 18, 2024 9:38am
- greybeard
  
  Maybe the City station has a leak?
  
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  September 18, 2024 10:12am
- Benedict Yu
  
  No. The rainfall patterns in Spring frequently result in localised outbreaks of rain. Two weeks ago there was a two hour heavy downpour in Otaki on the Kapiti coast. It was not raining anywhere else within 200 km. (I was there.)
  
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  September 18, 2024 10:28am
  - I remember when
    
    BY:
    It was indeed remarkable.
    There have been very few days in the last month and a half when there has been no rain within 200 kms of Otaki.
    
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    September 18, 2024 10:50am
  - MCōs
    
    NZ isn’t like Scotland, for example, where it rains everywhere all the time
    
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    September 18, 2024 12:15pm
  - Ra Henare
    
    May I suggest that on teh subject of rainfall localisation. Talk to a competent glider pilot.
    They will explain how that all works.
    
    After all, they have to “”read”” local weather conditions to stay aloft.
    
    My Bias.
    I was a Glider pilot for 40+ years and found local glider pilots were waaaaay better at explaining local weather conditions that meteorologists.
    
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    September 18, 2024 2:54pm
Jack5

Good work freeing a pygmy whale trapped under a private wharf on Kawau Island.

But this in a Yahoo News report catches the eye:

Because the whale is classified as a “taonga” species that’s significant to the culture or identity of Māori, local cultural experts were engaged to advise on the process for freeing it. And they monitored it during the dismantling of the wharf to ensure it remained calm.

Did pre-European settlement Maori have wharves?
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September 18, 2024 9:50am
- PurplePen
  
  Eye roll.
  
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  September 18, 2024 10:15am
- I remember when
  
  Was the freeing of the whale delayed while said Maori, local cultural experts were contacted and assembled?
  
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  September 18, 2024 10:43am
- Damocles11
  
  Pass the Koha please.
  
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  September 18, 2024 10:58am
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    Is “koha” Maori for sickbag?
    
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    September 18, 2024 4:49pm
- 70andstilllearning
  
  DOC + “cultural experts” = ????????
  
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  September 18, 2024 11:00am
- AitchW
  
  Or whales they didn’t kill? Free kai moana bro…
  
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  September 18, 2024 11:02am
- Hugh Jarse
  
  The lesson here is that only Maori can do good things. Maori spirituality is above all else according to the cub reporters. The transition of New Zealand from a modern science based country to a a new Maori spirituality based one continues.
  
  It would be interesting to know if DOC had other scientists, marine animal behaviour experts, vets were also in attendance to monitor this operation or just left it to the Maori experts ?
  
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  September 18, 2024 11:22am
  - imalwaysright
    
    Have the maoris got experts on infants?
    Fuck the whale, go and save the kids.
    How about “Maori Children Week”
    
    12 1
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    September 18, 2024 12:34pm
  - AitchW
    
    HJ and not only can only Maori do good things, but that Maori can only do good things…
    
    4 0
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    September 18, 2024 3:11pm
  - david
    
    Obviously the whale was monolingual and could only be conversed with in a stone-age language that is spoken nowhere else in the vast reaches of the ocean covering 60% of the planet surface. It needed to be instructed to stay calm in this ancient language so that the digger driver could pull the piles to make an escape route for it.
    In my day job I sell bridges.
    
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    September 18, 2024 3:27pm
  - Oskar
    
    Maybe the whale got lost when it was looking for the kauri trees to save from kauri dieback
    
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    September 18, 2024 4:59pm
I remember when

It being Maori Language Week I am hearing and seeing more spoken and written Maori than is usual.
I also notice that half of the instructions on my Council rubbish bags are in Maori.
Although this is happening I do not think I have any greater knowledge of the language.
Has there been any research to show that any of the above result in a greater knowledge or use of the language?
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September 18, 2024 10:40am
- Blog-aholic
  
  1. No
  2. Doubtful
  3. Maybe but it would be spun to say it is brilliant and they need more cash to ‘get it up the hill’.
  
  8 1
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  September 18, 2024 11:33am
- Inandout
  
  If you tune into ZB all news begins with Maori, or I presume that is the language.
  
  5 1
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  September 18, 2024 11:43am
- Yvette
  
  One evening this te reo week all the place names displayed in the TVNZ 1-News weather bulletin were in Maori, to the extent that Tauranga and Timaru (supposedly of Australian origin) among all the other names were translated as something else.
  However after the one use it has reverted to normal.
  It may have been interesting to see the channel’s complaints logs for the occasion of full Maori place name immersion.
  
  6 1
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  September 18, 2024 12:55pm
Chris Nisbet

I’ve just been watching a YT video about a wind factory in Gansu, China, that can allegedly produce 7000MW of electricity, and it covers 39,000km2 land area.
Let’s assume it does actually produce 7000MW whenever it’s needed (it won’t, because the wind doesn’t always blow).
Now, 39,000km2 is about 15% of the land area of NZ and 7000MW is about 70% of NZs current generating capacity by the looks of it.
So, assuming that we could install a similar sort of wind factory in NZ to supply our needs, it would need to cover >20% of the land area of NZ to replace the capacity we already have.
Remember that demand will double if we ever go 100% EV, and will go up some more if industry goes electric.
And then there’s the wee problem that occurs when the wind don’t blow.
I’m no engineer, but I don’t think wind factories are going to do the job for NZ.

https://youtu.be/8R19I8rdyR4?si=h3Un7nhv2OV7-A5L
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September 18, 2024 11:47am
- imalwaysright
  
  That’s about 6 watts per square metre. Not much.
  Maybe it is an annualized average, but producing a panel to produce 6w/hr for a lifespan of 10 to 15 years seems a waste of money.
  Thats about 500 to 600 kWh total.
  
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  September 18, 2024 12:48pm
- cmm
  
  “Let’s assume it does actually produce 7000MW whenever it’s needed”
  
  Electrical output of power generators (including the spotty renewable sort) are almost always listed as the maximum amount of power that will be generated under perfect conditions. This is termed the nameplate capacity.
  
  For wind, that is reached when the wind is blowing at exactly the right speed – not too fast and not too slow.
  
  The power in the wind is proportional to the cube of the wind speed. If you halve the wind speed you don’t get half the power – you get one EIGHTH the power.
  
  So even if the wind is at half the optimal speed you’ll only be getting around 10 to 12% of the name plate output.
  
  This is one of the biggest problems with wind output. It is very spotty and it is a lucky day when it comes anywhere near generating a useful amount of leccy.
  
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  September 18, 2024 2:10pm
  - Chris Nisbet
    
    Yup, understood. I was just showing how completely ridiculous the amount of land that would be needed would be if we were to try and use wind to supply our electricity needs, even if the things could generate their nameplate capacity.
    I knew it would be heaps, but was surprised at how much land this real-life example took up, and it is apparently in a good location.
    What a monstrous eyesore. The cost of all that ‘cheap” electricity must be horrendous. Transmission lines strewn about.
    No thanks.
    
    5 0
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    September 18, 2024 3:37pm
Ghost

Benedict, thanks for mentioning for all mankind. Loving it
1 4
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September 18, 2024 11:48am
Swifty

Maori with any sense of self-awareness must be pinching themselves, thanking their lucky stars, that they never discovered Australia.

Based on how tribes treated other tribes with, at times, appalling savagery, butchery and enslavement, I have no hesitation in claiming that had Maori chanced upon Aussie and then began going back and forth it would not have been a good experience for the Aussie natives.

I believe they would have been invaded, butchered and or enslaved – with their lands and fisheries as the main prize. Maori would have had no issue whatsoever, the lands would be theirs by right of conquest, as Ngati Tama chiefs stated after their genocide of the Moriori on The Chathams.

Just imagine therefore how today’s Maori radicals would attempt to decry colonisation but be forced to account for their own terrible behaviour in Aussie. I suspect they wouldn’t of course, they would do what they currently do with their own actual history of inter-tribal butchery and wholesale murder of each other – pretend it never happened, evade, downplay and label anyone who raises it as a filthy racist.
14 3
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September 18, 2024 11:58am
- MCōs
  
  Let’s not be so self righteous about how other peoples’ ancestors conducted themselves, Swifty.
  There’s not too many people who can point to a spotless past.
  
  4 12
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  September 18, 2024 1:36pm
  - cmm
    
    There you go falling in the trap of absolutism.
    
    Many, if not most of the people here had ancestors who more than did their bit.
    
    My two grandfathers spent years in South West Africa and East Africa during WW2 fighting slave traders which made life considerably better for those previously being enslaved.
    
    Before my one grandfather’s time in SWA, Owambos had fled the area into Angola to get away from the German flavour of colonialism. As soon as the Brits took over SWA they flooded back. The Germans had turned a blind eye to slaving in their colonies and the Brits fixed that.
    
    He then spent a couple of years in SWA helping the various Owambo tribes overcome centuries of tribal conflict that brought peace and prosperity never before seen in the area.
    
    Tens of thousands of British soldiers and sailors gave their lives – typically due to terrible diseases – fighting the Arabian slavers etc on the African coast. Most people of British roots could probably find a missing branch on their family tree.
    
    Then of course there are roads, rail, education, hospitals etc built by them too. Stuff that changed third world shitholes into the first world.
    
    But something something colonialism bad!
    
    13 3
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    September 18, 2024 2:03pm
    - Mike
      
      Your family must be an example of all those colonists who only went to Africa to help the native people, staying generation after generation while accruing no personal benefit.
      
      3 12
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      September 18, 2024 2:27pm
  - Swifty
    
    It’s the double standard that I’m pointing out MCos.
    
    One race is excoriated daily for historic misdeeds, another race gets a pass for historic misdeeds.
    
    It’s this phenomena that is the greatest clue that we’re being deliberately misled.
    
    We’re having a job done on us.
    
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    September 18, 2024 2:19pm
- NothingLeft
  
  Of course polynesians discovered Australia, many many times. They discovered Madagascar too. But the Aboriginals and poisonous everything in Australia made viable settlement almost impossible. Early english colonists nearly starved.
  
  Similar story to struggles of pilgrim settlers in USA.
  
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  September 18, 2024 2:05pm
Swifty

Look for trains!

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/PAcPMPHihox8e6nG/?mibextid=UalRPS

Recently in the Wairarapa.
7 1
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September 18, 2024 12:04pm
- OlderChas
  
  Sheesh!!! “..train ploughed through a car…”. Nothing factual like “…the idiot driving the car drove it in front of a moving, big, bright yellow, very visible train that he/she/they didn’t bother looking for the railway crossing….”.
  
  6 1
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  September 18, 2024 12:51pm
  - cmm
    
    Couldn’t hear the train over Taylor Swift
    
    6 2
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    September 18, 2024 1:37pm
Swifty

More white supremacy in New Zealand. What a disgrace. Why the hell are we using this white man’s witchcraft when there is matauranga Maori and our old people to guide us on matters of water storage and management.

Matauranga is superior to western science and its is about time it got its place in the sun!

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/350420237/four-year-project-involving-helicopter-big-weird-looking-hexagonal-loop

//
6 1
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September 18, 2024 12:45pm
- Blog-aholic
  
  Surely they are using a waka topatopa?
  
  3 0
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  September 18, 2024 2:32pm
  - greybeard
    
    Haritopatopa
    
    2 0
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    September 18, 2024 3:43pm
- mandk
  
  You could also use white man’s folk technology: a hazel twig for dowsing.
  
  And you wouldn’t even have to sing a waiata or offer a karakia before you start.
  
  2 0
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  September 18, 2024 2:59pm
cmm

Auckland architect talking up a $2.5bn bridge.

Go for it Auckland. If you can find $2500 (or let’s be more honest – likely $4000) from every Aucklander then go for it.

The whole Auckland Harbour Bridge (including the Nippon Clipons) was about $400k in today’s money.

With all the advances in technology, why does building a similar structure today have to cost 6x that (or more likely 10x that once the job is done)?

This is why all such infrastructure projects should be built as toll projects (like the Auckland Harbour Bridge was). This allows people to do rational design and analysis rather than pretending money is free.

Let’s say you want to:
* pay back in 20 years
* Design for 50k crossings a day (harbour bridge is 170k)

Ignoring interest, a toll of $5 a crossing would pay for a bridge like that. $10 would cover interest too.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/architect-meets-with-auckland-mayor-wayne-brown-over-proposed-25-billion-waitemata-bridge/JEKSCT2AJBCWXBSVGKDBWCOFGQ/
4 1
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September 18, 2024 1:52pm
- NothingLeft
  
  Build and then float into place and submerge a 2 up 2 down 4 lane tunnel with a couple of air snorkels from Waterview tunnel to Chelsea sugar factory. Only $200million for a suitable 70mm thick Ø12m steel tube 4km long built in a ship yard and towed to position.
  
  Get as much of the work done overseas fitting out the tunnel tube with everything before it is floated to NZ to save ridiculously inefficient costs of doing infrastructure in NZ
  
  3 1
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  September 18, 2024 2:21pm
Dudley Quaffquaff

I see somebody’s been pilloried and forced to apologize for dressing up in blackface.

Why is it wrong when a white person dresses up and prances about in a monstrous caricature of a black person, but totes right-on and amazeballs when a man dresses up and prances about in a monstrous caricature of a women?
12 2
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September 18, 2024 2:00pm
Jethrod

Is it now time for Chelsea Sugar to resite their refinery and therefore do away with the need to have a bridge which is designed to allow ships to pass under it to deliver raw sugar?
5 0
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September 18, 2024 2:24pm
- AitchW
  
  Doesn’t the Navy have a munitions dump at Kauri Pt which necessitates lots of room under the bridge for a frigate?
  
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  September 18, 2024 5:15pm
- fightingtemeraire
  
  You will have to relocate the Kauri Point Ammunition Depot.
  
  If Chelsea was asked to move, they would close it and use Australian Refineries to supply NZ.
  
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  September 18, 2024 5:53pm
- david
  
  But the R N Z Navy also need to transit under the bridge to load up with things that go bang. Yachts with 20 m masts also sail in those waters. So give the sug,ar guys a break eh?
  
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  September 18, 2024 8:02pm
Bobba Fret

The Tauranga council have decided not to pay Maori ward councillor Mikaere Sydney his $135,900 salary as he is unable to do the job until 2025.
But the vote was 50/50.
https://www.teaonews.co.nz/2024/08/16/taurangas-maori-ward-councillor-on-leave-until-2025/
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September 18, 2024 3:01pm
- The Housekeeper
  
  This is a good decision. Sydney should have surrendered his place the minute he knew he couldn’t fulfil any council resposibilities.
  
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  September 18, 2024 4:16pm
- fernglas
  
  From the link:
  “He will continue to be paid during his leave with an annual salary of $135,900.”
  
  3 0
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  September 18, 2024 4:24pm
- DimChappie
  
  That story suggests they are paying him. Here is the story about not paying:
  https://www.nzherald.co.nz/bay-of-plenty-times/news/tauranga-councillor-sydney-mikaere-wont-be-paid-on-medical-leave/O56IXL3I3NGSBI2MY6IZOBRHBA/
  
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  September 18, 2024 7:11pm
Taieri

“This week we celebrate Te Wiki o te Reo Māori — Māori Language Week”

Having heard it spoken “for real” only once in my entire life, I’m not sure there’s much to celebrate, but here it is:

https://www.odt.co.nz/southland/call-give-learning-te-reo-māori-fair-go
3 0
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September 18, 2024 3:21pm
Taieri

Transparency International New Zealand works with Government, the private sector and civil society to identify corruption risks and to promote integrity and transparency as antidotes to corruption.

At least that’s what they claim on their web page.

But, according to Dr Bryce Edwards,
“Transparency International NZ receives most of its funding from the following state institutions: the NZ Police, SFO, GCSB, MFAT, AG, DPMC, SIS, IRD, PSC, and MBIE. According to the NGO’s most recent annual report, of its annual income of $362,019, most comes from “Public Sector Support”: $310,000.”

The case of a rabbit being in charge of a lettuce patch?
4 0
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September 18, 2024 3:34pm
greybeard

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/350383236/very-unforgiving-west-auckland-road-scene-nearly-60-crashes-5-years
How many of these crashes involved local “Westies” and how many drivers were from outside the suburb ?
Sounds like a local problem to me.
0 1
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September 18, 2024 3:40pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Will Shackel. Nuclear for Australia. Nuclear is banned in Australia, I guess their percentage of nuclear idiots is less than ours.
Came by email yesterday and I just got back to it. I have not read all, just the first pages.
A PDF of 12 pages:

https://assets.nationbuilder.com/nfa/pages/2090/attachments/original/1726541551/What_is_Nuclear_Energy_Fact_Sheet_September_2024.pdf?1726541551
0 1
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September 18, 2024 3:58pm
Ra Henare

On Newstalk
Home On Air Kerre Woodham Mornings

Kerre Woodham: Who wants to be a teacher? Not many of us apparently

All the usual poor me BS.
But didn’t address the elephant in the room.
Woke western society.

Effing Students who don’t show respect and taunt teachers, knowing that admin will side with students.

Bring back corporal punishment and a bit of backbone from woke teachers and pathetic school/education admins.
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September 18, 2024 5:42pm
Eastlander

The Supreme Court has made a frankly questionable decision:

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/528334/supreme-court-dismisses-appeal-over-earthquake-ruined-building

In short, it was previously understood that under the Building Act 2004 s 393(2), no claim in respect of building work could be made 10 years or more from the date of the acts or omissions claimed to establish liability.

Previously this 10-year limit was understood to include contribution claims, where a party found liable can in turn make a claim against other parties who would also have been liable if they themselves had been sued.

Now the Supreme Court has concluded that contribution claims in respect of building works are NOT covered by the Building Act s393(2). This means that once a party has been found liable and their liability has been quantified, they may seek contribution from other parties, no matter how much time has passed since the acts alleged to have made the other parties liable occurred.

The effect of this will be to increase building practitioners’ insurance requirements, the costs of which will be passed on to clients, making it that much more difficult to get anything done in this country. Moreover, the prospect of being found liable in negligence for an undefined period beyond the previously-understood 10-year limit will further encourage the sort of defensive behaviour by building practitioners which creates costs and delays far in excess of any conceivable benefit in the quality and safety of building works.

All one can say in defence of this contentious decision (it was decided 3-2) is that at least it may take some of the burden off WCC and its long-suffering ratepayers.
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September 18, 2024 5:54pm
Scooter

Not only was this guy given 7 mths home D, he also has permanent name suppression. Maybe the judge agrees with Vic Uni and thinks we shouldn’t be so mean to pedophiles.

https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/crime/tauranga-man-found-with-child-sex-abuse-images-and-videos-gets-home-detention/
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September 18, 2024 5:56pm
greybeard

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/350420867/injured-climbers-likely-spend-second-night-aoraki-mount-cook
Who cares?
Why do these people persist in putting themselves into perilous situations and then expect the rest of the world to rescue them, at public expense, when it all turns to custard ?
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September 18, 2024 6:36pm
NothingLeft

Ukrainians hit a munitions depot in Russia, possibly biggest chemical explosion ever recorded (looks equivalent to a nuclear bomb):

https://youtu.be/SjKc7Rz-Gnk
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September 18, 2024 7:12pm
NothingLeft

Latest O1 LLM from Open AI apparently tests at about 120IQ, and in this video recreates software that a PhD astrophysicist spent a year developing in under an hour:

https://youtu.be/nZHGYGUjo9Q?t=92
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September 18, 2024 7:30pm

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