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January 1, 2025 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 01 January 2025

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General Debate

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CJames

If you want to know where the genesis for the Interislander ferry debacle came from, look to the other side of the world to Scotland and Calmac – the Glen Sannox / Glen Rosa stuffup. Almost as if Jacinda said to Nicola, “Here, hold my beer”.
They built oversized ferries that had massive cost overruns and were too big to fit in the port. The ships’ capacity is significantly greater than what had been travelling on the old ships (1000 seats vrs 250 for the old ones) – build for growth to a dying community? The budget to fix the port has had massive cost inflation, quadrupling the price. Fixing the port will now be more expensive than the ships. That means the ship (only one going so far) has to go to another port – a longer trip and one with no passenger handling facilities. From there, they will be bussed back to the port they were supposed to go to. The longer travel time means less sailings a day.
The building of the ships was so delayed that they painted fake portholes on the ship in the yard to convince people more progress had been made than was the case. This was to stop embarrassing questions in their parliament. The shipyard then went bust and had to be taken over by the government.
Because they wanted Net Zero ships, they swapped out diesel for LPG – batteries weren’t big enough. So LPG has to come from Middle East and then be trucked from bottom of England to the port. The CO2 emissions per trip or expected passenger are now higher than what it replaced. And they still aren’t in service yet – only one is at the commissioning trials stage.
Needless to say, the Scottish Government is broke, Ministers resigning because of scandals, running large deficits with a failed health service, and it needs baling out by the UK one.
Moral of the story – never let politicians (or even their bureaucrats) have any involvement with infrastructure. It will always cost the long-suffering taxpayer who has the feed the petty tyrants’ egos.
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January 1, 2025 8:00am
- CJames
  
  That can be the New Year’s Resolution. Don’t vote for any politician with grand plans and reduce the size of the empire.
  
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  January 1, 2025 8:03am
  - lastmanstanding
    
    Agree and a Happy New Year to everyone including the Left the Woke and the Elites and all other enemies of those who value free thought and free speech.
    However for me tomorrow the battle against the Left the Woke the Elites and those opposed to free thought and free speech recommences.
    
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    January 1, 2025 9:08am
    - Don Beckett
      
      HNY 2 Yorl 🙂
      
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      January 1, 2025 1:48pm
  - kiwikidsnz
    
    Recently, after a couple of beers, a relative suggested have a look at how vehicles are shipped all over the world.
    
    “Nowadays, the Pure Car Carrier (PCC) is being replaced by the Pure Car and Truck Carrier (PCTC). PCTCs typically have a wide stern quarter ramp and a side ramp for dual loading and discharging of a combination of cars and high-and-heavy cargo units in a short time span. The required mixture can be accommodated by having a number of liftable or hoistable car decks to allow high vehicle clearance. The internal ramp system is usually arranged in succession to allow simultaneous cargo operations on all decks. Internal ramps can be fixed, with ramp covers, or hoistable.”
    
    This configuration allows RoRo vessels to berth at practically any quay with no special purpose terminals. Can been seen regularly visiting at Aotea Quay Wellington
    
    https://www.macgregor.com/globalassets/picturepark/imported-assets/44459.pdf
    
    Put a couple of these on a Wgtn – Lyttleton run & take the vast majority of the trucks off the ChCh-Picton SH1. Leave Wgtn – Picton to BlueBridge.
    
    Forget the inefficient double/triple handling, featherbedded rail/rail ferry operation. We did well enough without it for a few years after the Kaikoura earthquake.
    
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    January 1, 2025 9:59am
    - Taieri
      
      Put a couple of these on a Wgtn – Lyttleton run & take the vast majority of the trucks off the ChCh-Picton SH1
      ————-
      
      For many years Pacifica Shipping maintained Wellington-Lyttelton overnight cargo service with 2 Ro-Ro cargo vessels. It ended in the mid 2010’s due to the insufficient volumes of cargo.
      
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      January 1, 2025 12:40pm
      - Jack5
        
        I used that service one time for getting a car to the North Island.
        
        Put the car aboard at Lyttelton. One or two days later, flew to Wellington and picked up the car.
        
        “One or two days” — I forget which. It was about 30 years ago.
        
        Taieri will know, but I think the NZ company was using leased ships owned by Germans. Someone on Kiwiblog suggested it was some sort of tax dodge in Germany.
        
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        January 1, 2025 1:25pm
      - John Loveridge
        
        Back in the good ol’ days if you knew the right people you could get yourself and your car on board too. It was a great trip.
        
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        January 1, 2025 2:06pm
      - kiwikidsnz
        
        I remember. No rail option & reducing Picton capacity will help. Also, IIRC the Wgtn-Lyttleton ferry provides a drivers break that’s legal & schedule advantageous.
        
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        January 1, 2025 2:10pm
      - kiwikidsnz
        
        …& probably more freight nowadays perhaps biased to South? Would likely start with a single vessel anyway?
        
        I’m ok to receive any +/- feedback, just thought that the idea had some merit, std vessels & avoiding a billion dollars & years of construction for terminals
        
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        January 1, 2025 2:33pm
      - Taieri
        
        Someone on Kiwiblog suggested it was some sort of tax dodge in Germany.
        ———–
        
        .
        This system of ship investment/financing was called KG (Kommanditgesellschaft) Fund and enabled pooling of funds of the small investors, which were used to finance purchase of ships. It wasn’t really a tax dodge as such.
        
        South Pacific Shipping, a NZ company set up with vessels owned by German KG funds, operated in the 1990’s mainly in the Trans Tasman trade. It collapsed when Tasman Accord (an agreement under which Trans Tasman trade was restricted to NZ and Oz vessels only) ended and cross traders too over.
        
        Pacifica Shipping either owned their ships outright, or bare-boat chartered them from Heino Winter, a German shipping company. Ro-Ro’s were owned outright by Pacifica, at least for the major part of their service in NZ.
        
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        January 1, 2025 5:01pm
      - Taieri
        
        Would likely start with a single vessel anyway?
        ———–
        
        Many tried this. And failed.
        The last one was an outfit called Searoad, which operated a single vessel service between Auckland and Lyttelton using a Ro-Ro vessel Bass Refer. It lasted about a year. Tranz Rail as it was called then I think, killed this service by offering dumping prices on the Cook Strait ferries.
        
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        January 1, 2025 5:04pm
- G152
  
  Thats why we dont believe in ferries
  
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  January 1, 2025 8:16am
- Doug Fister
  
  And Tasmania has their own debacle where the new ferries are all but ready but the Portside infrastructure is years away from being completed. So they are looking at storing or leasing out the new ships. This would almost certainly have happened here if the iRex project had gone ahead! That, and further massive cost blowouts.
  
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  January 1, 2025 8:26am
  - peterwn
    
    And in the iRex, widening the Tory Channel and the approach near Picton (so the new ferries could turn) would have further added to costs (including Koha) even if resource consent could be obtained for the widening work and dumping the spoil.
    
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    January 1, 2025 9:59am
- Ipanema69
  
  CJ that is an excellent post.
  
  As I have noted previously David Warburton (former CEO of AT) was the project director of the IREX project!
  
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  January 1, 2025 8:29am
- Grumpy Silver Top
  
  And not only infrastructure. In my early days in the food industry it was a matter of of continual stress that any piece of food processing or packaging equipment bought by the GM or CEO on an overseas trip (jolly) would not be fit for purpose and required extensive alternations and was constantly difficult to maintain due to the technical ignorance of these “high-ups”. ( A mere process engineer didn’t warrant overseas travel.) Nowadays companies that buy ‘economical’ equipment from anywhere but Europe or the US suffer the same issues.
  
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  January 1, 2025 11:18am
  - rouppe
    
    Same in IT. CEO/CIO gets called on by some senior manager from IBM, or Microsoft, or SalesForce, they talk about how the CEI/CIO has some problem with efficiencies in some area or other, and they get “I’ve got just the thing for you. Out of the box, no coding, plug and play”.
    
    Gets bought, IT gets told to deploy it, next minute someone wants something that then needs a bit of “customisation”. Wants to inject it into part of some other activity, and it turns into a “custom configuration”, and a horrible mess.
    
    One place I recently worked still had Lotus Notes because of some custom forms processes. Plenty of other products could do the same thing, products the business already had, or at least had part of, since that extra feature had additional licencing costs. We keep getting told to reduce costs, so we say “redevelop those processes on a different platform so you can retire Lotus Notes and it’s licencing costs”. Nope. Don’t want to spend money on replacing it because there’s no additional business benefit. So we end up with a hodge podge of systems.
    
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    January 1, 2025 12:12pm
    - NeverMindTheBollocks
      
      Lotus Notes – wow, that’s a blast from the past.
      
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      January 1, 2025 2:54pm
- KH
  
  I was pleased Nicola Willis cancelled the former ferry project.
  It was a slap in the face for the system that quotes a number and then comes back with six times the price and a shrug, “we are half way in, we have to complete and you have to pay”
  A lesson for the rest of them as well.
  
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  January 1, 2025 1:24pm
  - Quail
    
    KH,
    A system that has been implemented many many times ,particularly by minority’s and their pet social projects.
    Think of empty theatres and other Council buildings, some of which require on going injections of ratepayers and taxpayers funds annually to keep their doors open.
    It’s alright. It’s only fair that these minorities can take tax and rates for their own use !!
    
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    January 1, 2025 5:42pm
- Master Mariner
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwBHt6_nCqc
  SNP “GREENER FERRY” Is Actually Less Green Than 31 Year Old Boat its Replacing.
  
  Scotland also installed “one off” batteries on some of there ferries and the first issues / Problem was Breakdown of this Hybrid Battery system.
  
  Then you also have the same debacle in Tasmania and Ferry size too big for the Port of Devonport.
  
  Well done Nicola and cancel the NZ ferries.
  
  Ideology meets reality yet again.
  
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  January 1, 2025 2:24pm
- NZer In Exile
  
  Vote for idiots. Get pain.
  
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  January 1, 2025 2:53pm
Biscuit

HNY to one and all…

And, just so you can all say you have learned something on Day One of 2025:

Calendar year 2025 is a mathematical wonder:

• 2025 itself is a square, 45 x 45 = 2025.
• It is also a product of two squares, 9² x 5² = 2025.
• It is also the sum of three squares, 40² + 20² + 5² = 2025.
• And, remarkably, it is also the sum of the cubes, of all the single digits, from 1 to 9, 1³ + 2³ + 3³ + 4³ + 5³ + 6³ + 7³ + 8³ + 9³ = 2025.

No, don’t rush to thank me!

And, heh, my friendly downticker can begin 2025 the way he/she/it ended 2024. Go for it, fella, felless, fellwhatfriggingever!
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January 1, 2025 8:03am
- pdm
  
  You have far too much time on your hands Biscuit.
  
  Are the BOSS LADY and the cat away?
  
  HNY to you too.
  
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  January 1, 2025 8:15am
- 3-coil
  
  Biscuit: I knew it looked cool and felt lucky – now I know why! 😊
  Thankyou and HNY to U2!!
  
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  January 1, 2025 8:32am
- Rusty
  
  @Biscuit – The year 2025 marks a quarter of a century?
  
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  January 1, 2025 9:20am
  - Flossie
    
    Still a lot of people refer to 1900 as the “turn of the century”…time to stop that.
    
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    January 1, 2025 12:40pm
    - Steve Todd
      
      Agreed, Flossie.
      
      The year 1900 was the 100th year of the nineteenth century; 1901 was the first year of the twentieth century. (Queen Victoria survived until the 22nd day of that century, dying at 6.30 p.m. on 22 January 1901.)
      
      For the record, 2025 is the 25th year of the twenty-first century. That is to say, we are 24 years, 13 hours and 27 minutes into the current century (NZDT).
      
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      January 1, 2025 1:27pm
      - John Loveridge
        
        You’re technically correct, but worldwide we all celebrated the turn of the century at midnight on 31 December 1999, not 2000. Common usage has long since trumped mathematical exactitude.
        
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        January 1, 2025 2:12pm
      - Steve Todd
        
        You’re quite right, John. I remember that well. Business / the advertisers just couldn’t wait.
        
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        January 1, 2025 2:41pm
    - ChristopherW2
      
      Except that the first year was the Year Zero, because less than one year had passed since the birth of Our Lord (assuming the calculations were correct, which is disputed). When the year 100 rolled around, 100 years had passed – hence the dawn of the year 2000 marked the beginning of the new millennium.
      
      It’s also how computers count.
      
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      January 1, 2025 2:53pm
      - Don Beckett
        
        If Our Lord was born in 1 BC., the following year would be 1 AD.
        No year 0. AD means Anno Domini – from the year of The Lord.
        
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        January 1, 2025 7:40pm
- Dave
  
  That is interesting, though what it shows are invariant number relationships for conclusions one, two and four which someone better than me at algebra and more adept at html superscripts can show symbolically.
  
  Not mentioned by Biscuit, following from the invariant relationships, perhaps too obvious to mathematicians (not me) to mention, is that in the fourth conclusion the gaps between each successive cumulative total is itself a square of the successive integers, ie:
  
  1 cubed + 2 cubed = 9 or 3 squared
  +3 cubed = 36 or or 6 squared. 6-3 =3
  +4 cubed = 100 or 10 squared, 10-6=4
  +5 cubed =225 or 15 squared, 15-10=5
  etc
  
  Alas, I dropped science at the end of Form Four, dropped maths at the end of Form Five in 1963 and left school two years later, determined to study literature, which was great, but today I’d go the science/ maths route.
  
  Of course, the main significance of the year 2025, is that we are now only 500 years from this:
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3yDLvp9le0
  
  One of the greatest ( or most pretentious) songs of 1969.
  
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  January 1, 2025 9:46am
  - Dave
    
    Alas, not enough care proofreading my comment. In my second paragraph, deleting every word after ‘gaps’ would make more sense.
    
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    January 1, 2025 9:57am
    - Biscuit
      
      Yikes, at the ‘In The Year 2525’ reference, Dave.
      
      That (censored) (censored) (VERY censored) abomination came out in my last year at school … and one of the reasons I avoided the sort-of-prom the leavers threw was that the organisers proposed playing it over and over and over…
      
      Aaargh, eh?
      
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      January 1, 2025 10:39am
      - Don Beckett
        
        @ Dave.
        Just another small minded interesting thing using your calcs –
        “1 cubed + 2 cubed = 9 or 3 squared
        +3 cubed = 36 or or 6 squared. 6-3 =3
        +4 cubed = 100 or 10 squared, 10-6=4
        +5 cubed =225 or 15 squared, 15-10=5”
        
        The numbers 3,4 & 5 provide the sides of a right-angled triangle that builders use to establish a square – 5 being the hypotenuse of the other 2 sides when squared. 3 sqd. + 4 sqd = 25 which is 5 squd. 🙂
        
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        January 1, 2025 10:58am
      - Don Beckett
        
        Just for the downtickers – I am a builder, and that’s what we do to start setting out a building.
        
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        January 1, 2025 7:42pm
- Jethrod
  
  Also to make it a bit quaint:-
  
  0³ +1³ + 2³ + 3³ + 4³ + 5³ + 6³ + 7³ + 8³ + 9³ = 2025
  
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  January 1, 2025 1:09pm
igm

The left-wing media know no bounds . . .
https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/crime/peta-alleges-sheep-abuse-at-new-zealand-farms-1/
More anti-farming bullshit from tossers that have never even picked up a handpiece!
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January 1, 2025 8:28am
- pdm
  
  igm they have probably only ever worn designer gumboots.
  
  Shitstirrers in the extreme.
  
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  January 1, 2025 9:39am
  - Paulus
    
    Problem is that there are so many of them now – stared in my opinion with Helen Clark and has grown since then.
    Mostly women I understand, but that is not unique to New Zealand.
    
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    January 1, 2025 10:12am
    - AitchW
      
      Now that global warming is starting to be seen for the scam it is the pearl clutchers need a new catastrophe to obsess about. Is this it perhaps?
      Another pile of crap promoted by idealogues with no knowledge of what they speak and no regard for the lives they destroy.
      
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      January 1, 2025 10:30am
      - PurplePen
        
        Do you really think that that’s growing, the seeing of global boiling as a scam? Is there any hint of that in MSM anywhere yet.
        
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        January 1, 2025 12:15pm
    - Master Mariner
      
      I really think the best solution to all this is too shut NZ down for a week,
      ie No Diesel, No Power, No Food in supermarkets.
      Then and only then the “Squeaky wheel” not get any grease and the blinkers may come off.
      These people live in a “parallel Universe” to most working class NZ’ers who actually produce things and contribute to NZ’s GDP.
      
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      January 1, 2025 2:34pm
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  I doubt they even know what you mean by handpiece.
  
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  January 1, 2025 10:10am
- Sacha
  
  I am tired of PETA and it’s silly trouble making. Time for the government to tell all those American accented know-it-alls to shut up or go home.
  Mind their own business.
  And while I’m about it, there’s yet another yelping North American giving weather updates on the radio.
  These people do not sound like us.
  So there!
  
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  January 1, 2025 10:18am
  - greybeard
    
    “another yelping North American”: do you mean the one who reads the Wellington weather on NewstalkZB?
    I think it is a fake American accent.
    
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    January 1, 2025 12:22pm
  - igm
    
    And take their American accented clowns who have infiltrated our Parliament with them as well.
    
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    January 1, 2025 5:55pm
peterwn

So Wellington Water is bragging about fixing approx 8600 leaks, slightly short of target in the last few years and thanked the constituent councils for the funding. The situation should not even have arisen. Apart from water waste, leaks cause damage to road infrastructure. So leaks should have been fixed in a timely manner over the years and the current issue should never have arisen.
Imagine if the electricity system leaked.
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January 1, 2025 8:36am
- sirknz
  
  Imagine if the electricity system leaked.
  
  Shocking.
  
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  January 1, 2025 9:16am
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    If only it did. Might wake a few up.
    
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    January 1, 2025 10:13am
    - Sacha
      
      – or clear the decks –
      
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      January 1, 2025 10:19am
  - Jethrod
    
    Stunning
    
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    January 1, 2025 10:13am
  - PurplePen
    
    I could tap into that. Unmetered electricity.
    
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    January 1, 2025 12:17pm
- MCōs
  
  Approaching 10% of electricity is lost in the transmission process, but there’s probably not a lot can be done about it because it’s the distribution around the streets where most of it is wasted not the hundreds of kms of high voltage cables draped over the countryside
  
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  January 1, 2025 9:26am
  - peterwn
    
    When electricity networks are designed, this is done to minimise transmission and distribution losses without incurring excessive capital expenditure. Designing a zero loss network would be infinitely (literally) expensive. Similarly when transformers are purchased. For large transformers, the procurement documents would specify a $ value of losses for the designers to work within.
    
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    January 1, 2025 10:10am
    - Grumpy Silver Top
      
      Good to see appropriate use of “literally”. Happens so seldom that I have to look twice to confirm.
      
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      January 1, 2025 11:23am
    - PurplePen
      
      A bit like the design for zero anything such as zero road deaths or zero covid deaths.
      
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      January 1, 2025 12:19pm
  - Clyde
    
    I see China is installing 1000KV transmission lines as against the NZ network of 220kV. I would say the biggest loss on a daily basis is that lost by sending energy to the North Island via the very long DC cable from Benmore to Haywards.
    
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    January 1, 2025 10:57am
    - wsk12345
      
      You may recall that when the central NI major grid upgrade was done a decade or so ago, 400kV-capable circuits were installed but are only operated at 220 to this day because that still gives the best result. So we won’t be going to 1000 anytime soon.
      
      And yes there are a lot of losses across the cook strait cable but even with losses it’s still cost effective.
      
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      January 1, 2025 11:23am
      - Taieri
        
        And yes there are a lot of losses across the cook strait cable but even with losses it’s still cost effective.
        ———–
        
        An Italian company Prysmian has won a contract to lay a new submarine cable with the capacity of 1400 MW across the Cook Strait. The work is to commence in 2026 and the cable will be commissioned in 2030.
        
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        January 1, 2025 12:46pm
      - peterwn
        
        A higher grid voltage has been given consideration for the last 50 or more years. The trouble it, a huge one-off investment is required before the first watt flows. The minimum investment would be for a transmission line and two terminal substations, possibly on new sites. With 220kV the system can be extended incrementally and since money has time value was found to be more economic than a heavy capital expenditure up front even if the cost of future losses is capitalised and taken into account. A half and half option would be a two circuit 220kV line which could be upgraded to single circuit higher voltage later.
        The other possibility is to build a HVDC line north of Haywards to say Hamilton. This line would operate more efficiently than equivalent 220kV lines especially as the DC is already available at Haywards.
        Transpower has a ‘system architecture’ group that monitors trends in loads etc and gives thought to the most expedient methods of system expansion in the future.
        
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        January 1, 2025 3:17pm
    - alwyn.a
      
      Losses are much greater in AC lines than in DC lines.
      It gets much worse in the undersea cable across Cook Strait and transmission with an AC current in the undersea cable would be impossible.
      Given that it has to be DC for the Cook Strait bit it makes sense to convert the power to DC at the start of the line in the South Island and get the increased efficiency all the way.
      
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      January 1, 2025 12:32pm
Tomtoddy

Nobody needs anything too weighty today but it is difficult to avoid reality. This sometimes pleasant little country, often so inconspicuous it doesn’t appear on world maps, is in serious crap.

We urgently need to figure out how to grow our productivity if our kids are going to have a half decent lifestyle. There seems to be little consideration of what are the key ingredients of a growing economy and even less inclination to grasp the thorny nettle of deep change.

Many of the changes made by the Coalition so far were necessary – vitally so. They need to continue down the track of fixing past messes, but they must urgently focus on the positive things that will get us rolling forward again.

We need more investment. It has to be as easy as possible to entice capital in from offshore. We need to make it a bolthole for the anxious rich.

Most of all we need much bolder reform of education at all levels – kindy to uni. That would be No 1 for me. Reverse the incentives in health by making the patient the driver. Privatise faster. Shift the retirement age up by degrees.

Add some more ideas. Politicians need them. Plus the balls to do them.
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January 1, 2025 8:49am
- Jethrod
  
  The fast track legislation is a start.
  Consider dialing back on climate change proposals; China and India obviously don’t give a stuff about that situation.
  More encouragement to get people into work, once the economy is in better shape.
  
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  January 1, 2025 9:00am
  - JJ56
    
    With climate change NZ has lost sight of the costs associated with overegged risks. The effort going into justifying the cause and the country’s long suffering response is just a deadweight cost.
    
    Another area is DEI where social niceities are allowed to dominate the basics of well being, at considerable deadweight cost.
    
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    January 1, 2025 11:28am
  - Grumpy Silver Top
    
    Doubtless there are tables and articles that enumerate the world cost of climate change “mitigation”. Such a complete waste of money! And, as your comment notes, not spent in China and India, nor in the African continent. Is their seeming lack of care arrogance or pragmatism? I reckon it’s the latter. How can you take away the means to cook and heat homes and travel from people for whom there is no alternative? (Fossil fuels that is.)
    Climate change is a fact, humankind needs to continue developing ways to adapt. We cannot stop, nor slow its march.
    
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    January 1, 2025 11:29am
- Colville
  
  We need more investment. It has to be as easy as possible to entice capital in from offshore. We need to make it a bolthole for the anxious rich.
  
  Well that aint gonna happen… because Winston said no.
  
  I thought the tax on overseas purchase of houses $2mil (?) and above was a great idea.
  
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  January 1, 2025 9:07am
- JackRabbit
  
  We urgently need to figure out how to grow our productivity if our kids are going to have a half decent lifestyle.
  
  No we don’t.
  
  We just need to remove the barriers and impediments to the free market, peoples ability to produce, and the bloated systems.
  
  Economics 101.
  
  -Stop the Maori gravy train.
  -Make Maori trusts pay tax.
  -Stop giving Maori free land and control over resources.
  -Sell all govt businesses.
  -Cut regulations
  -Flat rate of tax.
  -Stop the mRNA jabs.
  -Address the vaccine deaths and injuries.
  -Go totally public on the truth behind the vaccines and the fake pandemic.
  -Criminally prosecute and imprison all those at the top that took part in the con.
  
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  January 1, 2025 9:07am
  - Tomtoddy
    
    Didn’t you just contradict yourself by offering useful, sensible suggestions that help grow our productivity?
    
    I am not talking increasing state investment. The opposite. Sell off many of the taxpayer owned assets and reduce debt.
    
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    January 1, 2025 9:35am
    - JackRabbit
      
      Point taken. 🙂
      
      Your statement: “We urgently need to figure out how…”
      
      We know how. We just need to do. All that is missing is the balls.
      
      An old Indian was standing on a street corner.
      
      Whenever a pretty young thing passed, he’d raise his hand in the traditional Indian salute and say: “Chance. Chance.”
      
      A fellow watched this going on after woman after woman passed and finally walked up to the Indian.
      
      “Excuse me,” the fellow said. “But I thought Indians were supposed to say ‘How'”
      
      “Me know How,” the Indian said. “Me want Chance.”
      
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      January 1, 2025 9:45am
      - Tomtoddy
        
        @JR At age 79 I can relate to the old Indian. “How” is even starting to figure.
        
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        January 1, 2025 11:51am
  - kowtow
    
    Parents must value education for their children.
    
    The education system must value education over indoctrination.
    
    Welfare has to be a final option not a lifestyle choice.
    
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    January 1, 2025 9:57am
  - peterwn
    
    And historically how would the last three items be applied to the Salk and Sabin polio vaccination situations in the 1950’s – 1960’s? A person who had to suffer the lifelong after-effects of polio would be thinking ‘if only I had been vaccinated’.
    
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    January 1, 2025 10:14am
    - bennerg
      
      Peterwn, I think what is being asked is to get to the truth. We can see a pattern of deceit amongst, what must be said, are good aspects.
      
      RFK Jnr exposed Fauci’s false claim that all vaccines had been fully safety tested, in fact none had been.
      
      Let’s get the basics right, so we can again trust our medical industry. Right now they are at the bottom fighting out the accolade with the politicians around the world who are selling our souls to the WEF disciples, immigrant globalists, climate modellers, and Big Pharma.
      
      At last the world has started to wake up to the hoodwinking and chicanery that has gone on too long. I suspect 2025 will mark the start of something beautiful, lead by the USA. But it will be a battle, so get out your popcorn.
      
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      January 1, 2025 10:26am
    - Sacha
      
      Back then, vaccines were tested with an eye on the safety of the recipients.
      They were swiftly removed from use if there were any safety concerns. Caution dominated in the use of new treatments.
      60 years later, the main concerns were the profits from sales, regardless of the safety (or otherwise) of the vaccine or the effects on recipients.
      
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      January 1, 2025 10:28am
    - kevn
      
      Peter… Ready for the next thing?
      https://www.malone.news/p/latest-bird-flu-psyop
      
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      January 1, 2025 10:28am
    - imalwaysright
      
      The jab isn’t a vaccine. It was called a vaccine because it made it easier to get an Emergency Use Authority.
      
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      January 1, 2025 10:53am
- Swifty
  
  Some very good points Tomtoddy.
  
  This has been very much on my mind for a few years.
  
  Line up 100 NZ lefty academics, media types and politicians and ask them what causes poverty and you’ll get long, voluminous answers generally amounting to little.
  
  Ask them what causes wealth on a national basis and it’s my experience that they won’t have a clue. They just have never thought about it. It’s not their focus. All they’re concerned with is carving up the existing pie.
  
  The pie invariably created by others.
  
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  January 1, 2025 9:08am
- Clyde
  
  Totally agree about education. But it has been infested at all levels by the race-based crap. NO-ONE is going to be better educated as long as the educators believe that, for example, maori “science” has the same validity as real science. Solution to this is going to take a real effort by Government and will only succeed by using cash to disencentivise teaching this crap to student teachers. Any University that wishes to peddle this stuff to student teachers loses money.
  
  Secondly, the nation needs to address the whole situation with gangs. This continuation of tribablism will only be fixed when a greater force is used by Police and the Judiciary than the gangs can muster. Force and confrontation are the tools by which gangs control and they will only back down when greater force is used.
  
  In terms of health, huge savings can be make by more personal responsibility.
  
  One more area that needs fixing and that is the media. Hopefully the communication arm of the Liemore, Watermelons and the Racist parties will crumble and die sooner rather than later.
  
  I’m hopeful that 2025 will be better than 2024 but its going to take some real action by a strong Government and the signs are not all that good that what is necessary to happen will do so when appeasement seems to be always willing to be used.
  
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  January 1, 2025 9:13am
- Toes on the nose
  
  Agreed. I work in education. It’s a cluster%$#@. MoE, NZQA, ERO, TKI, TEC…none of them talking to each other ffs. My plea to Erica…one dept. Easy peasy. Teach Maths, Eng (LIT), Science, languages, drama even + all trades. Problem half solved. Then just gotta weed out illiterate activist teachers.
  
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  January 1, 2025 9:47am
- imalwaysright
  
  I remember Boeing wanted to set up a plant at the defunct Ford Motor plant in Wellington.
  They wanted a tax break for a limited period.
  They were going to hire hundreds of skilled and unskilled people, many who were jobless at the time.
  Ruth Richardson refused them. She said that if they got a tax break then everyone would want one. NZ manufacturing never recovered.
  
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  January 1, 2025 9:59am
  - JJ56
    
    The thing to ask is if the opportunity was so good why weren’t Boeings shareholders or the investment community willing to put up the necessary cash, particularly if the operation was going to earn a profit (necessary for a tax break to have any value).
    
    BTW NZ manufacturing isn’t doing too badly.
    
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    January 1, 2025 11:33am
    - PurplePen
      
      They would be irresponsible to shareholders if they didn’t try and maximise profit which would include seeking tax exemptions. It might have been they were weighing up the NZ site with others in other countries too. Others might have offered tax exemptions also. It seems as if it’s OK for the NZ film industry tho.
      
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      January 1, 2025 12:36pm
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    Really? What were Boeing planning on manufacturing in Wellington? Flying boats?
    
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    January 1, 2025 3:05pm
- Paulus
  
  We have been declining in any productivity for the last 30 plus years, and some of it must be put down to the Waitangi Tribunal, and all its adherents.
  And it remains getting worse.
  
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  January 1, 2025 10:14am
- gorse
  
  Yes we need more capital, but what do the super bright Labour Party idiots want to do? Tax any gains on it. It will be a brave foreigner that brings capital into this country to invest.
  
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  January 1, 2025 10:42am
  - KH
    
    A high contribution universal Kiwsaver would grow capital.
    And could replace national super, which is going to fail (break) anyway.
    
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    January 1, 2025 1:32pm
- Keith White
  
  Make all prisons containing the violent = the rapists, the adult-murderers, the child-killers etc. – self-sufficient. They can grow what they consume or go without. They can sell / barter excess for anything more. NZ currently spends $2 billion on prisons, another $3.5 billion on police, Courts etc. While the human cost for the victims of violent crime is impossible to quantify, and equally impossible to remedy with money*, let’s at least make Hard Labour Great Again.
  
  *Oh, and – fraudsters and thieves etc. will also have to work on the prison farms and chain gangs to pay back what they owe.
  
  For other types of criminal, there are other means of achieving, in time, the sublime object = making the punishment fit the crime.
  
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  January 1, 2025 12:03pm
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    Lord of the Flies
    
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    January 1, 2025 3:06pm
- Burtland
  
  Its interesting how the chinese government have out maneuvered the EU Germany and the US in electric car manufacture and yet our government cant even get buying ferries right.
  
  More of what weve got isnt working – we need new thinking. The public service needs a massive rout, like 50%, and an injection of new smart thinkers.
  
  DEI hasnt worked.
  
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  January 1, 2025 2:55pm
- NZer In Exile
  
  Does the large infestation of woketards in the institutions want any kind of significant economic growth? I doubt it.
  
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  January 1, 2025 3:03pm
Sparrow

With time on my hands this morning waiting for the New Year revellers to wake up I trolled the Internet ref NZ shipping. Lo and behold I came across stuff which proves to me that nothing changes or gets done. In 2000 the then Labour government set up a review into the Shipping Industry. Appointed six luminaries of the time for the review. Then later twelve Ministers were to review the review. I have no idea what the result of all of this was but I guess SFA. The only bit which seemed to be missing were the consultants. This shit seems to carryon ad nauseum. I love watching old films of our ancestors who just got on and built roads, bridges, ports etc etc without all the bs of today. Let’s hope 2025 starts to bring in commonsense.
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January 1, 2025 8:50am
- peterwn
  
  The NZ owned Union Company was a major force in shipping. If the Company, unions and government had got together decades ago the Union Company with its green hulled ships with red funnels could have been a major player in world shipping just like Maersk is. Maersk is a Danish shipping company and the population of Denmark is not much greater than the population of NZ.
  The Union Company is now ancient history.
  
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  January 1, 2025 10:21am
  - fightingtemeraire
    
    USSCo was owned by P&O until the 70’s so they would never go in with the Govt, it was then sold to TNT/Brierley’s and asset stripped.
    
    Govt owned SCONZ was starved of funds and we know the result.
    
    Cabotage removed on Tasman and NZ Coast and the likes of Maersk/MSC/CMACGM moved in.
    
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    January 1, 2025 11:36am
    - AitchW
      
      Then there was the ‘merger’ with ANZDL run by the fellow whose name slips my mind who went on to run TollNZ aka NZ Rail into ground after MSC bought ANZDL.
      
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      January 1, 2025 1:20pm
      - Sparrow
        
        His name was Michael Beard. The ownership of ANZDL changed many times over the years. Bought from Shipping Corp by the French I think officially Sofrana who were owned by Delmas Villjeux who then became part of Bollore Group then I think it became part of Canadian Pacific then they got taken over. Story of shipping over the last couple of decades
        Gobbling up by the big boys. Beard brought a number of ex ANZDL people with him to the railways. They had cleverly worded contracts which when they became redundant at railways they got very nice gold plated parachutes.
        
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        January 1, 2025 5:40pm
- Keith White
  
  Making a profit out of being involved in the process was the sole KPI for these feral tax-thieves…
  
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  January 1, 2025 12:04pm
JackRabbit

8,600 is a meaningless stat.

[1] If it was:
“We fixed 8,600 out of 91,219* leaks, i.e. 9.42%” it would be a better metric.

* According to stats:
-50% of Wellington’s water is being lost due to leaks.
-there are 182,438 households.
-While leaks will be big and small, some big pipes some small, 91,219 is per household average.

[2] We fixed leaks, stopping 8% of the water being leaked.

[3] What is the annual rate of new leaks occurring.

It is about as meaningful as asking Chippie what he did for the economy last year, and he says “I ate 722 sausage rolls.”
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January 1, 2025 8:58am
- cmm
  
  The standard loss levels across the world seem to be around 25%.
  Anything over 25% is poor. To stay at double that for a decade or more is 3rd world level.
  
  Of course NZ, and Wellington in particular, has some extra challenges from earthquakes but that is really just making excuses.
  
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  January 1, 2025 10:18am
  - JackRabbit
    
    Thank you for the 25% figure. And if attrition and causality are factored in, I would suggest that the greater the existing water leaks, the greater the rate of subsequent water leaks. Due to erosion, stress, washing away of supporting soil/base course etc.
    
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    January 1, 2025 11:11am
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  That number 8600 was on here a few weeks ago.
  Simple math worked out to be 95 leaks fixed per week No Council in NZ could do that let alone Wellington. Maybe the numbers are wrong?
  As I said then, we are not talking replacing kitchen tap washers here.
  
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  January 1, 2025 10:31am
  - rouppe
    
    Would a bunch of those leaks fixed not be the household toby or fire hydrant point?
    
    Which is very akin to kitchen tap washers.
    
    They want you to think they’re talking about main line leaks, but they can only fix leaks they know about, and most of those are small running leaks down the gutter.
    
    The other day I read that Masterton District Council had replaced, relined or repaired over 8000m of pipe in the last financial year. That’s real maintenance.
    I could only find reference to 800m of a new rising sewer line in Wellington.
    
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    January 1, 2025 12:30pm
    - artemisia
      
      Agree, rouppe, some leaks are minor. Time to time I report leaks in my suburb to WCC and they seem minor usually around the toby.
      
      Once I reported water bubbling up through cracks in the middle of my street. That got urgent attention and I woke up in the middle of that night to a bunch of vehicles, lights and chaps.
      
      Seem to recall Master Plumbers offering plumbers to help with leaks, offer declined. Mobilising that army would cost but get a lot of work done fast.
      
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      January 1, 2025 1:43pm
  - David Garrett
    
    Steve: MATHS old boy..”math” is an Americanism
    
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    January 1, 2025 2:01pm
    - Steve Otto N Shore
      
      Yeah I know. It is just a habit. I think it sounds better.
      Happy 2025 DG.
      
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      January 1, 2025 2:49pm
      - Steve Todd
        
        I think it sounds better.
        
        Nevertheless, Steve, in New Zealand English, it’s incorrect usage.
        
        In my opinion, you deliberately write “math” (knowing it is incorrect usage), not out of habit, but because you are an Americanophile.
        
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        January 1, 2025 3:16pm
      - Steve Otto N Shore
        
        Steve Todd, I don’t care – and no it is not deliberately.
        Also my computer (not all) is set to American English and I can’t be bothered changing it.
        What is wrong with liking Americans. I have many great friends in Hawaii and Alaska.
        
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        January 1, 2025 4:02pm
      - Steve Todd
        
        Steve Otto N Shore – it is deliberate.
        
        When writing the word ‘maths’, you deliberately leave off the letter ‘s’, because (1) in your mind, you are knowingly and deliberately writing the word ‘math’, not ‘maths’; (2) you favour American culture over British/New Zealand culture — there’s nothing wrong with that — and (3) because, as you say, you just don’t care. Well, you should care.
        
        You know the word ‘math’ jars with non-Americans. You are the only Kiwiblog commenter who writes that word in preference to the word ‘maths’. Therefore, expect David Garrett, especially, to quite rightly continue to correct you.
        
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        January 1, 2025 5:06pm
      - All_on_Red
        
        Some people need to get a life…
        
        3 0
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        January 1, 2025 5:52pm
      - David Garrett
        
        And to you Steve…I enjoy your comments
        
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        January 1, 2025 8:14pm
- PurplePen
  
  Did the MSM report all that or did they just run with the number fixed on its own, which is meaningless.
  
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  January 1, 2025 12:40pm
Swifty

Happy New Year to all.

I wonder what will be revealed this year about The Maori Party and Waipareira dodginess and graft?

From what I hear it will be quite a lot.

Bring it on!
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January 1, 2025 9:11am
- Paulus
  
  No, carpet brushing again as continually expected.
  Any thing Maori is Sub Judice any way.
  
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  January 1, 2025 10:16am
  - AitchW
    
    I’m hoping that the scope of the corruption will be simply too big for it to be memory holed. Too many public figures will be implicated this time.
    
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    January 1, 2025 10:33am
- imalwaysright
  
  Don’t forget LeQuesne. He oversaw the abuse of the electoral process.
  I believe he deliberately undermined the democratic process and should be arrested.
  
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  January 1, 2025 10:32am
  - AitchW
    
    You’d have to wonder how high in the Labour government that corruption went.
    They had plenty to gain by helping TPM and who know what dirt Tamahere has on Labor government ministers!
    
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    January 1, 2025 1:22pm
    - imalwaysright
      
      Aitch
      “You’d have to wonder how high in the Labour government that corruption went”
      
      I would say that corruption starts at the top.
      Our problem is more that we don’t know how far down the food chain it goes.
      The public service may well be saturated with corruption and the lower ranks confuse it with policy. Very dangerous .
      
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      January 1, 2025 3:08pm
CJames

It is good to see the Minister calling out the media for trying to dignify the criminal offenders in south Auckland. You don’t get sent to those facilities because you made a few mistakes. They are generally hardened criminals too young for prison. More power (and other Ministers support for her to her.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/537959/youths-on-roof-not-a-protest-children-s-minister-karen-chhour
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January 1, 2025 9:12am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  The other sad thing about this “protest” is that the young offenders are not very bright chaps.
  
  They seemed to be unaware that MSM journos and camera operators are in holiday mode and no-one is going to rush off to interview them.
  
  They seemed to be unaware that their dial-up favourite politicians are also on holiday and aren’t going to rush into South Auckland to see them.
  
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  January 1, 2025 9:34am
- Paulus
  
  Break the number down and send them to as many different places as possible.
  Preferably in the cold.
  
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  January 1, 2025 10:17am
  - Clyde
    
    Both the Auckland and Campbell Islands are available for the construction of some basic housing for these young scrotes who are nothing other than the off-spring of the gangs. Build the basic stuff like barns, no fences needed and bugger all food. They would weed each other out PDQ. Problem solved.
    
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    January 1, 2025 11:02am
    - Keith White
      
      I still think an opportunity to influence their and others’ behaviour was missed.
      
      (Link is to a source for currently-available water cannon right here in NZ: starting at just over $4k for the ‘T-Rex’ – “T-Rex WC-M-65-K-SN 80 mm (3 inch) manual water cannon (straight bore stream shaper nozzle)”
      
      https://www.kettapumps.co.nz/collections/water-cannons?srsltid=AfmBOooyBKqJ6j3lr9GXvl2q2yd84QA6nknScXQenB8LZaFuvStQlB6-
      
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      January 1, 2025 12:07pm
Swifty

A reminder to all that the hanging of photographs is totally prohibited!

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1BRnKWcSEK/?mibextid=wwXIfr

//
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January 1, 2025 9:18am
- mandk
  
  Well, that bloke is certainly damned out of his own mouth.
  
  He delivered that edict sitting in front of a photographic image.
  
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  January 1, 2025 11:31am
  - Ghost
    
    Photos of animate beings are forbidden. Stonning, shooting, decapitating, blowing up animate beings not forbidden…..
    
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    January 1, 2025 11:48am
- nathie
  
  What’s the chances he has a “secret” room full of hanging photographs i.e. your typical ideological hypocrite!
  
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  January 1, 2025 11:39am
- John Loveridge
  
  Never take any notice of a bearded nun. It’s probably Eric Idle pranking you.
  
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  January 1, 2025 2:35pm
AitchW

John Minto and his mates are craven cowards.
Turning up at Stanley St to bully a 24 year old tennis player from Israel in support of Hamas et al?
How does someone maintain such bitterness all this life?
There’s a special place in hell for him. Beside Nicky Hager.
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January 1, 2025 9:34am
- kowtow
  
  Alawites are literally being thrown onto the back of trucks in Syria , trussed uplike animals , what will their fate be.
  
  No doubt mass graves await , as per the Assad regime.
  
  Where’s the outrage .
  
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  January 1, 2025 10:09am
- Tony Stuart
  
  The disingenuous OneNews described Minto and his mates as “pro-Palestine protestors”; wrong. They were there solely to bully as Israeli sportswoman who has no influence whatsoever over her country’s policies.
  
  Of course Minto has form in this regard, as Shahar Peer would know…
  
  https://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/3212531/John-Minto-arrested-at-tennis-protest
  
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  January 1, 2025 10:26am
  - pdm
    
    How does Minto manage to get around NZ so much?
    
    Who pays?
    
    I understand he is some sort of teacher (god forbid) in or near Christchurch.
    
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    January 1, 2025 10:54am
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      He retired from teaching in 2018 ( when he was 65).
      
      7 1
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      January 1, 2025 1:41pm
      - Steve Otto N Shore
        
        Science teacher according to the google machine. Imagine that, what does he know?
        
        1 5
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        January 1, 2025 4:13pm
      - Maggy Wassilieff
        
        what does he know?
        
        Probably a lot more maths and physics than most of us.
        
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        January 1, 2025 5:50pm
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  When is he going? NZ has had enough of him.
  
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  January 1, 2025 10:41am
  - John Loveridge
    
    Send him on holiday to Palestine.
    
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    January 1, 2025 2:36pm
    - Steve Otto N Shore
      
      He won’t go, just as he would not go to Sth Africa.
      
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      January 1, 2025 4:13pm
Tauhei Notts

David Seymour seems to have got a great team in behind him. See the 7 a.m. post about Brooke Van Velden.
And similarly, The Donald seems to have got a good team in behind him. 2025; bring it on. I think it will be interesting.
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January 1, 2025 9:44am
MCōs

I’ll tip my hat to the new Constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I’ll get on my knees and pray
We don’t get fooled again
Don’t get fooled again, no, no
Yeah
Meet the new year
Same as the old year
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January 1, 2025 10:00am
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  Who.
  
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  January 1, 2025 4:14pm
cmm

In 1992 I came to New Zealand, the land were anything could be accomplished with a bit of No 8 wire.

Now here we are asking ourselves whether we are capable of changing a car tyre.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/culture/360499286/poll-regifting-ok
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January 1, 2025 10:14am
- peterwn
  
  No 8 wire was even used for electricity reticulation despite its poor electrical characteristics as it enabled more reticulation to be built for the money available. As loads grew (and revenue increased) it was replaced by copper or aluminum conductors.
  
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  January 1, 2025 10:35am
  - MCōs
    
    In our office/house in Bangkok the boys fixed a broken fuse with the equivalent of #8 wire and nearly burned the place down
    I was back in NZ for Christmas and returned to a new office
    
    3 2
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    January 1, 2025 11:17am
    - Grumpy Silver Top
      
      My pen rai again?
      
      3 1
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      January 1, 2025 11:38am
    - NothingLeft
      
      In my electrical safety course in engineering we had a slide of a large galvanized coach bolt that had been inserted in a very large industrial fuse holder with the caption “5000A, slow-blow”
      
      3 0
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      January 1, 2025 5:35pm
  - JackRabbit
    
    Due to No 8 wire, having the required minimum 4mm sq cross section for a sub-main.
    
    I saw a hybrid installation recently that still retained the original incoming three phase single wires encased in metal tubes packed with insulation.
    
    3 1
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    January 1, 2025 11:24am
    - peterwn
      
      Trade name was ‘Pyrotenax’. Conductors could run hotter than for paper or rubber insulation. PVC and XLPE plastic insulation would have spelled the end of Pyrotenax and similar ‘mineral’ insulated systems.
      
      3 1
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      January 1, 2025 3:22pm
  - jonno1
    
    Not to mention SWER (single wire earth return) in rural areas.
    
    5 1
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    January 1, 2025 12:56pm
    - JackRabbit
      
      I remember an engineers story in the OZ outback where the earth return on a telephone line went through an earth stake via a water pipe, and in dry weather was a poor earth.
      
      The farmers thought they had a physic dog, because he would start barking a few seconds before the phone would ring.
      
      Turned out the dog chain was attached to the water pipe, and dog was getting the jolt from the volts used to ring the phone.!
      
      11 1
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      January 1, 2025 1:32pm
    - peterwn
      
      And engineer Lloyd Mandeno (father of SWER, which was a Kiwi invention) would have specified no 8 wire for that system where appropriate. Lloyd’s catch-phrase was ‘There must be a better way’. In the early days of mass rural electricity reticulation (starting in the 1920’s) the aim was to get as many customers connected for the least cost
      
      3 1
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      January 1, 2025 3:28pm
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  If you can’t fix it with No 8, it’s not worth fixing.
  
  8 4
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  January 1, 2025 10:59am
- JackRabbit
  
  were anything could be accomplished with a bit of No 8 wire, and binder twine.
  
  5 2
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  January 1, 2025 11:14am
Tony Stuart

Happy New Year everyone.

2024 was an interesting year, falling into a job that pretty much ticked all the boxes for me. It’s a shame that I’m 69!

I think 2025 is going to be a turnaround year; for the economy, the government, and for many New Zealanders. That’s not saying we are out of the woods, but things are going to improve, led by rural New Zealand. We owe our farmers a huge debt of gratitude for getting us through the last few years.
23 1
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January 1, 2025 10:22am
- Quail
  
  TS,
  Perhaps you should count how many farms and farmers still exist?
  The debt of gratitude is now just rural debt.
  Wool markets in severe decline, sheep numbers around 20 million compared to 70 million .freezing works closing and 1 million less lambs. NZ a nett importer of pork.
  Farming and their land management has been regulated out of business in this country by successive Governments.
  Critical mass is at risk for this once iconic industry and , sadly ,there is not now enough productive capacity to save the NZ economy.
  
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  January 1, 2025 8:21pm
sungsamning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-aGtpjpnsQ
Here’s The TRUTH about Trump, Elon, and H1B Visas.
The H-1B system needs fixing. Thats what the ‘MAGA civil war’ was about. It blew up on social media. And it was resolved on social media. The MSM had no input.
8 2
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January 1, 2025 10:29am
sungsamning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr_ooI8jJFE
China Prepares to Strike: Will Trump Stand in the Way?
China is increasingly becoming more aggressive toward Taiwan. Its invasion simulations are becoming more frequent, which raises the questions: Can Trump defend Taiwan? Will he do so? In this video, we’ll answer these questions for you.
7 2
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January 1, 2025 10:30am
70andstilllearning

Wondering if ’25’s going to be any different to ’24.

Seems like the luvvies at R&V are upset that an optional breath test before you leave will cost 5 bucks. Maybe they should leave it to the guys from NZP who will give them a freebee outside the site gates anyway – they might find $5 was cheap in retrospect …

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360537445/rhythm-and-vines-announces-5-charge-optional-breath-testing-attendees-depart
12 1
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January 1, 2025 10:45am
- Keith White
  
  Basically, the breath test setup is actually an IQ test. Which many are failing…
  
  13 2
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  January 1, 2025 12:09pm
- rouppe
  
  I couldn’t believe it. What a bunch of entitled little pricks.
  
  They’ve spent $400 to see a bunch of musicians, spent $hundreds on booze, or dodgy drugs, or whatever, ruined quite a bit of clothing in the mud this year, someone offers a service to pre test you before you fail a roadside test, and all they can do is moan how they have to pay $5.
  
  18 1
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  January 1, 2025 12:37pm
Jack5

Britain’s “skilled migrant” scheme, introduced by Boris Johnson, has turned into an “open borders racket,” says an article in the Telegraph.

In 2019, the UK net inward migration was below 200,000. In 2023, it reached a record of 906,000.

In the five years to 2024, about two million people from outside Europe arrived in Britain.

Meanwhile the country has experienced the largest “outflow” of millionaires of any country except China.
10 1
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January 1, 2025 11:03am
- Grumpy Silver Top
  
  That’s 1.33 per cent. Not quite as mindboggling as 906,000. Current UK population is 68.35Million.
  
  4 2
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  January 1, 2025 11:46am
  - imalwaysright
    
    Yes, but the 906,000 are actual people who have to be fed, clothed, housed, treated, and policed. Each one is a higher cost than existing citizens who are self supporting to a degree.
    Saying that they are only a small percentage is an attempt to minimise the reality.
    This 906,000 could be costing as much as spent on 5 or 10 million existing citizens .
    
    3 2
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    January 1, 2025 2:12pm
mogg

Hence the rise of Nigel Farage, five months ago Reform won 5 seats in parliament. If an election were to be held now Reform would win 72 seats and rising. 5 months ago the question was can Farage get into parliament, now the question is will Farage be the next PM. Now neither of the major parties would win a majority. Immigration is one of the top two concerns for the UK voting public and neither of the two major parties want to talk about it.
8 3
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January 1, 2025 11:51am
- Ghost
  
  Not by the current polling they wouldnt
  
  4 1
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  January 1, 2025 12:02pm
  - mogg
    
    The Spetator polling tracker which is updated daily show UK voting intentions as Labour 26% Tory 26%
    Reform 21%. These are voting averages on latest polling, which would give Reform more that 72 seats.
    The trend is strongly with Farage.
    
    5 3
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    January 1, 2025 1:27pm
    - Ghost
      
      you are taking the percentage they are standing at in the polls and converting that to seats, that is not how it is done. On current polling of the seats, reform would pick up 27 seats.
      
      4 1
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      January 1, 2025 2:02pm
      - mogg
        
        I am not doing anything, these are professional pollsters who know what they are talking about about.
        
        2 3
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        January 1, 2025 3:01pm
      - Ghost
        
        Yes that is exactly what has been done
        
        The voting intention regularly published by More in Common is a national estimate based on a representative sample of at least 2,000 people. It indicates roughly how many people in Great Britain intend to vote for one party or another. This is simple to calculate and allows us to track changes through time.
        
        Article
        
        They are not polling the individual seats. They have taken the percentage of those polled and then pulled out the number from that. A look at the seats shows reform is in the top 3 but rarely gets past the post to win the seat, they are currently expected to win 27 seats.
        
        4 1
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        January 1, 2025 3:37pm
  - mogg
    
    https://youtu.be/pojiYQ2A_Cc
    You can argue with this Sunday Times mega- poll
    
    2 2
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    January 1, 2025 3:14pm
    - Ghost
      
      No need to argue, uk has first past the post, a percentage of the complete electorate does not give their seat base.
      
      Last election reform got 14% of the vote. They only got 5 seats because they were coming second and third in many of those seats.
      
      5 1
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      January 1, 2025 3:44pm
      - MCōs
        
        Which is essentially why a referendum here voted in favour of proportional representation.
        The chances of either main UK party holding a similar referendum over there is nil.
        Apart from that the a Farage lead party governing the UK doesn’t bear thinking about.
        
        2 7
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        January 1, 2025 4:11pm
      - mogg
        
        Best thing is for you to contact Sunday Times and GB News and tell them they don’t understand how FPP works. They will be very interested to hear from you.
        
        2 2
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        January 1, 2025 4:29pm
      - Ghost
        
        Im sure they already know the polling has issues. But do tell us why reform uk got 14% of the vote and only got 5 seats, now on 21% you expect them to get over 70 seats. Btw, more in common predicted they would get 0 seats in the last elections
        
        After their 2nd best ever performance in the 2019 UK General Election, the UK polling industry flipped in the 2024 UK General Election to their 2nd worst ever performance after 1992. 6 of the last 9 elections have seen at least one party experience a major polling error. It would appear the move to web polling and lower barriers of entry has led to poorer quality polls.
        
        Article
        
        2 0
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        January 1, 2025 4:53pm
      - mogg
        
        I quote on “current polling Labour would lose 67 seats to Reform “ This is the biggest poll in UK yet you still insist that you are right and they are wrong.
        Do yourself a a favour.
        
        3 1
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        January 1, 2025 5:00pm
      - Ghost
        
        Martin Baxter currently has them as getting 26 seats on 21%. 38 seats on 22%
        
        https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/blogs/ec_reform_20241231.html
        
        Feel free to write him
        
        https://www.martinbaxter.co.uk/
        
        1 0
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        January 1, 2025 5:27pm
Bridgenag

Come back Maggie…… New trolls this year that sound like mmmm
10 4
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January 1, 2025 12:58pm
- mogg
  
  Happy New Year Maggie Pie wherever you are.
  
  12 1
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  January 1, 2025 1:29pm
Bridgenag

Latest “Bird Flu” Psyop
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

https://open.substack.com/pub/rwmalonemd/p/latest-bird-flu-psyop?r=1aj1bv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
8 4
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January 1, 2025 1:09pm
Sir Cullen's Sidekick

Happy new year to all hard working Kiwiblog bros out there. Just a reminder, next year is election year and Luxon is doing everything he can to bring National under 30% of the popular vote. Just sayin…

According to Roy Morgan’s last poll next gummit will be the Socialists-Communists-Terrorists coalition of chaos.

https://www.roymorgan.com/findings/9773-nz-national-voting-intention-november-2024
3 6
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January 1, 2025 1:22pm
Hugh Jarse

Thoughts and prayers with the two Nelson constables. I hope they make a swift and full recovery.
8 0
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January 1, 2025 1:35pm
- GazzaW
  
  One has since died in hospital. She was a Senior Sergeant with 38 years of service in our Police. The death penalty will never be reinstated in NZ but its surely time to consider a mandatory sentence of imprisonment for the term of natural life when a police officer is murdered.
  
  15 0
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  January 1, 2025 3:46pm
  - Chuck Bird
    
    I agree. We should have more than one person sentenced to life without parole.
    
    11 0
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    January 1, 2025 4:38pm
  - AitchW
    
    Killing a cop while on duty should be an automatic life sentence without parole. No exceptions no excuses. FFS, enough,
    
    3 0
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    January 1, 2025 8:17pm
Steve Otto N Shore

This nonsense turned up on Facebook. A Council wants to charge for a permit so you can work on your own car. Does this mean topping up the windscreen washer bottle, or cleaning the car?

https://7news.com.au/motoring/this-australian-city-wants-to-charge-people-to-work-on-their-cars-c-17243807?

This is what happens when the crazy socialists get power.
You will be happy and own nothing.
Repco and Supercheap will die.
14 2
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January 1, 2025 1:53pm
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  Link to FB. The comments are interesting.
  
  https://www.facebook.com/share/p/15RKbbUdFU/
  
  Hope it works.
  
  6 2
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  January 1, 2025 1:58pm
- NZer In Exile
  
  Yes and of course it’s in Victoria.
  
  Probably the largest collection of far left loonies and far-left voting grifters in Australia.
  
  7 2
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  January 1, 2025 3:26pm
imalwaysright

Another baby violently murdered.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/hamilton-family-harm-emergency-services-at-scene-of-serious-incident-at-fairfield-property/HCD2WNPK2NAYBHW7I56ZM57LII/
Its time for the death penalty.
8 2
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January 1, 2025 2:33pm
- Chuck Bird
  
  As someone else mentioned it will never happen but life without parole can more often that just once.
  
  5 0
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  January 1, 2025 4:40pm
Steve Otto N Shore

The maggots are even robbing on Christmas day.
NZ Justice system is not a deterrent any more.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/far-north-itm-ram-raided-day-after-owners-served-free-three-course-meal-for-100-people-at-christmas/QPOKRA6JAREC5GH4R2CT6R2N34/
5 2
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January 1, 2025 4:55pm
Ghost

Im sure I saw this movie a few years ago, wasn’t a great movie then, don’t think I can be bothered with it again……

Unknown Virus Rampages in China; Hospitals Utterly Overwhelmed
5 0
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January 1, 2025 5:47pm
All_on_Red

This proposed Policy by the UK Conservatives seems a little harsh
https://x.com/SirajAHashmi/status/1874183786034061684
2 1
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January 1, 2025 5:53pm
- Don Beckett
  
  Well they wouldn’t be homeless anymore, would they? 😆
  
  0 1
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  January 1, 2025 7:57pm

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