General Debate 18 February 2025

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peterwn

Years ago a prominent property investor (Olly Newland I think) purchased a shopping mall where the rents were lagging market rents since the tenants had the previous owner over a barrel at rent review time. All the leases were coming up for renewal together and when asked the investor indicated the new rents would be market rents. One tenant (a spokesman for the tenants) met the investor and got the same response. The spokesman rudely said that the tenants would not be renewing their leases and would advise prospective tenants not to sign up. The investor was not fazed and felt like Mohammed Ali about to go into a championship fight. He told the spokesman that he was not getting a new lease. He then offered new leases to the other tenants at market rents and with staggered terms to help avoid future ganging up attempts. The white flags went up and the tenants accepted the leases like lambs.
I think there is a similar mismatch of perspectives between politicians and the four electricity ‘gentailers’. The politicians seem to think that they can threaten to put the boot into the gentailers and miraculously there will be plenty of cheap power. Shane Jones criticised the gentailers for coming to an agreement over the future use of Huntly as being a ‘market failure’. I do not know what Shane was expecting (he is not the brightest bulb) – perhaps Genesis should be a Mother Teresa and keep Huntly available ‘on spec’ and keep a copious supply of coal on hand. He forgot that Genesis was previously burned by the Electricity Authority (by dishonouring spot prices) so Genesis responded by playing a cool game. Then year before last when there was peak period blackouts one night Megan Woods was hoping like mad that a reason could be found to clobber Genesis but EA etc could find nothing. Seems Ministers think that rearrangements will solve the problem but I suspect they are posturing and know they cannot get away with giving the gentailers a hiding. A fashionable idea is to force a split up of gentailers into generators (selling into the market) and retailers the thought being that the generators will squabble like 4 scorpions in a jar driving prices down. Frankly if I was a generator I would be looking for bilateral contracts to sell my power and if a retailer seeking similar bilateral contracts to buy my power. As a generator I would not be interested in developing more generation unless I had a prospective market for it and that means forward contracts with a retailer. I would not be interested in a contract that allows a retailer to purchase power only when they feel like it (ie when they cannot buy it for a lower spot price).
So Ministers, MP’s and others – be warned that there is no free lunch in this game. All that would happen would be a slight deckchair rearrangement. The power generators are similarly placed to the property investor in my story. Unless the Government is prepared to pour big $$$ into the game the generators will have the last laugh.
I think the Ministers would have similar issues with supermarkets. Woolworths would especially have skin in the game with years of experience dealing with Oz politicians.
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February 18, 2025 8:00am
- Mark Hanley
  
  Peter, there are a number of cartels operating in NZ, driving the cost of living up. of which electricity is one.
  
  Whilst difficult (and as you identify potentially costly) to implement and monitor, there are solutions to NZs cartel problem.
  
  Failure to implement these solutions will have an ongoing negative affect on yours and others quality of life. Failure to act will also embolden more industries to create cartels.
  
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  February 18, 2025 8:20am
  - NK
    
    There are not enough people living in NZ . That is our fundamental problem when it comes to internal competition in numerous sectors and is fundamentally why living here is so expensive.
    
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    February 18, 2025 8:55am
    - RoboRob
      
      That is 100% true. NZ with a population of ~10m would be a lot better off. Even from an infrastructure position, we would have twice the people paying for maintenance of state highway one for example.
      
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      February 18, 2025 9:09am
      - Mark Hanley
        
        Robb. There is a cost to living in a beautiful, sparsely populated and extremely happy country, which we all accept.
        
        However, laws can solve the big nz cartel problem, which will improve our quality of life.
        
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        February 18, 2025 9:53am
      - RoboRob
        
        @Mark
        True v NZ. However I would argue that we would hardly notice and extra 5m people. Asside from the increased concerts and event opportunities.
        
        No laws cant solve the supermarket cartel problem. We just aren’t big enough for real supermarket competition. Things are much cheaper in the USA as they have a huge population, variety of suppliers and massive economies of scale. Laws cant magically change that.
        
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        February 18, 2025 10:17am
      - MCōs
        
        When NZ had a population of 2.5mil people probably thought wouldn’t it be marvelous if there were 5mil people
        
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        February 18, 2025 10:48am
      - NZer In Exile
        
        MH: “extremely happy country”
        
        Hello?
        
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        February 18, 2025 12:19pm
      - Mark Hanley
        
        Surely the government can pull levers to aid the expansion of Costco or tempt an Aldi here.
        
        Lever suggestion 1…. Free up land for a large supermarket.
        
        Lever suggestion 2…. setup a fruit and veg online trading platform to allow supermarkets and smaller retailers to bid against each other. Growers claim they currently get a pretty raw deal so this platform should help.
        
        Lever suggestion 3…. aid importers by using government resources to facilitate cheaper, easier, and safer food imports.
        
        I’m no supermarket expert but the levers above work for all industries.
        
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        February 18, 2025 12:20pm
      - Mark Hanley
        
        MCOS nz is 11th in the world.
        
        https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/happiest-countries-in-the-world
        
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        February 18, 2025 1:18pm
      - RoboRob
        
        @Mark
        
        Re 1: You dont think land is available here? Does costco need misisterial help to purchase some land? I know the existing supermarkets bought and held land in key areas but that has already been removed.
        
        Re 2: Great idea. Don’t you think a non government entity would have set up such a thing if it were feasible? My guess is that a combination of the supermarkets refusing to buy on such a platform and growers refusing to expose their pricing is the reason this doesn’t already exist. People like to negotiate deals in private and with all sorts of non price aspects i.e. I will sell you product x at price y IF it is on the thrid shelf always and you agree to buy z quantity for the next n weeks.
        
        Re 3: This isn’t a government issue. Sure import procedures can always be better but the key thing is the quantities involved. I am sure when Foodstuffs buys frozen berries from China they order say 50 tons, how much do you think costco in the US orders? 4,000 tons? Who do you think gets the best buy price? Who gets the cheaper shipping cost per unit? The govt cant legislate away the fact we are a tiny country miles from anywhere.
        
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        February 18, 2025 2:18pm
    - Mark Hanley
      
      Population ia certainly a factor NK but….
      
      Our fruit and vegetables are reasonably priced which I suspect is due to the many independent fruit and vege stores.
      
      The electricity market (where producers choose when they generate based on spot prices, thereby artificially restricting supply) can be fixed with rules, monitoring, and penalties.
      
      The vertical integration in the electricity Industry is also a probem which can be fixed.
      
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      February 18, 2025 9:49am
      - info@cruzpro.com
        
        Solar keeps getting cheaper and more households will install panels if electricity becomes more expensive.
        
        The electricity suppliers must realize that once solar has been installed they will continue to lose income for many years.
        
        We put solar on our roof almost seven years ago and they have already paid for themselves. Now returning a profit.
        
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        February 18, 2025 3:51pm
    - JackRabbit
      
      There are not enough people living in NZ
      
      I disagree. If you deregulated electricity, banned Iwi being stoppers, you would find all sorts of micro/mini hydro schemes, as well as the big ones, pop up all over the place.
      
      Supply and demand. Supply will scale to meet demand. And that has been proven thousands of times all around the world.
      
      If you own a hotel in the outdoors, and have a small river tributary on your back doorstep, that can generate 40kw with a vortex generator, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, why wouldn’t you build said generator. A few of these exist, but 99% never get past consent because of all sorts of bullshit reasons.
      
      New Zealand has a wealth of opportunities and resources, all locked up by govt and Iwi.
      
      If it were true that you can’t progress until you have a country of 10M, then mankind would have perished millions of years ago.
      
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      February 18, 2025 10:32am
      - kowtow
        
        Yep , while there are many many issues at play the 10 m figure is simply a number pulled out of a ……..hat.
        
        Some of the wealthiest states in the world are U 10 mil.
        
        Singapore , Lichtenstein , Switzerland , Luxembourg , Ireland ,Monaco, Denmark .
        
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        February 18, 2025 11:14am
      - JackRabbit
        
        @kowtow
        
        simply a number pulled out of a ……..hat.
        
        Agreed.
        
        The last govt pulled so many things out of hats, and made tens of billions disappear, that in a non woke world, it could power stand up comedy routines for the next 100 years.
        
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        February 18, 2025 1:34pm
      - RoboRob
        
        You obviously can have such a country, we exist. Yes there are plenty of things we can do to make things better here. However the overall point still stands, if we want cheaper goods and services these things tend to come with competition and economies of scale. NZs population can’t support, say 5, major supermarket chains. Thats why players aren’t already here.
        
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        February 18, 2025 2:24pm
      - cmm
        
        kowtow: “Some of the wealthiest states in the world are U 10 mil.
        Singapore , Lichtenstein , Switzerland , Luxembourg , Ireland ,Monaco, Denmark”
        
        Yes, but all of those are on the doorstep of large populations and still get much of the benefit that economies of scale bring.
        
        They are also much smaller than us (in terms of land area) with much higher population densities.
        
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        February 18, 2025 2:24pm
    - Jack5
      
      There are not enough people living in NZ …
      
      You’re looking only at the consuming side of the equation, NK.
      
      For nearly all of the last half-century NZ hasn’t exported enough goods to pay the existing population’s way in the world. Our relative wealth has fallen – and is still falling – to 44th in the world on a per capita basis.
      
      Increasing the population too quickly has strained our health system and much other infrastructure to near-breaking.
      
      More successful developed countries, from the US to the UK, are fighting fighting to control surging population.
      
      The especially high immigration in Labour’s last year or two has especially hurt NZ.
      
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      February 18, 2025 11:21am
    - Handyman
      
      @NK
      New Zealand has the lowest GDP of English speaking countries. Our best and brightest are moving to those other countries.
      From where are the millions of immigrants going to come from?
      
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      February 18, 2025 12:11pm
      - Jack5
        
        Handyman pulled this one out of his hat: ” … New Zealand has the lowest GDP of English speaking countries…”
        
        There are many English-speaking countries with lower GDP than NZ, but not developed ones like USA, Canada, Australia, UK. Nor India which has English as a subsidiary official language. It has a huge GDP. but is 152nd in GDP per capita, compared with NZ at 44th.
        
        For an extreme example, NZ has about 30 times the GDP of The Gambia, whose official language is English.
        
        Handyman is closer to the mark in referring to high-skill immigrants from lower-GDP countries.
        
        For them, NZ competes with Australia the United States and other developed countries richer than NZ. We are not as attractive a migration destination as we, especially our politicians, like to believe.
        
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        February 18, 2025 2:09pm
    - Paulus
      
      Of the number of people in New Zealand not enough actually are Tax positive.
      It appears that numerically more are tax recipients than taxpayers.
      
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      February 18, 2025 2:30pm
    - Mark Hanley
      
      Rob. Your rebuttals would all be valid if there wasn’t the huge battier to entry presented by the monopolosticly competitive supermarkets.
      
      Government action is now required to level the playing field.
      
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      February 18, 2025 4:33pm
      - KH
        
        Big is not efficent. The monopolies make money by control, not efficiency.
        
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        February 18, 2025 7:04pm
    - NeverMindTheBollocks
      
      Disagree, NK. If we had half the number of people in NZ then we’d have plenty of leccie. Prices were lower in the past because supply was plentiful. Easier & cheaper to get a car park too.
      
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      February 18, 2025 6:49pm
  - RoboRob
    
    I dont think the Gens are a cartel. I think the issue is that they can currently sell all their power. If they wanted to grab market share (by dropping prices) they would have to increase generation to do so. They would need to spend billions so that they could drop their price and grab customers. Thats possible except they know full well the other gens would drop their prices to keep the clients.
    
    So we have a situation that gens dont want to build extra generation as it only costs them money and drops their per unit return. This is why they build small projects, they know they cant have black outs but they dont want to over spend. The small projects are generally wind, which are not reliable.
    
    This is the market working correctly, balancing supply and demand. But if the government wants cheaper, more reliable power (and they should as it will drive growth) they need to either
    
    1) Spend big $s building large generation projects themselves. This worked in the muldoon era, but at that stage the govt owned all the gens. If we tried it now, likely the existing gens would put of all extra generation in preparation for the govt build.
    
    2) Legislate to break the market. I think they need to set penalties when surplus power drops below a certain percentage (say 10% above peak demand) and rewards for new baseload generation. If we always had a small surplus of generation we would a) have no more brown outs, b) have competition as gens battle to sell their generation.
    
    I am big into free markets in general but the more I think about the electricity market the more I feel small market manipulation is the only solution.
    
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    February 18, 2025 9:21am
    - Mark Hanley
      
      Rob. Good thoughts except… The market isn’t working if electricity margins are extremely high compared to other oecd countries, especially as hydro is recognized as a cost effective mehod to generate.
      
      Your example “they could drop their price and grab customers. Thats possible except they know full well the other gens would drop their prices to keep the clients” is the same for every industry yet competition keeps margins reasonable in other industries.
      
      The difference with the electricity market is there are a few big players who work in unison to keep their margins very high, otherwise they would be seeking efficiencies and dropping their prices to gain market share and increase profit.
      
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      February 18, 2025 10:26am
      - Paulus
        
        Too few people in New Zealand over a very large area !
        
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        February 18, 2025 2:31pm
      - RoboRob
        
        The difference is the cost of entry and cost of expansion of generation.
        
        If I sell bolts and drop the price to gain customers I can simply order more from my supplier. If I sell car washes I can hore more staff and build extra hoses etc.
        
        If Contact drops the price and doubles it’s client base, where does the extra power come from? Major extra generation takes decades so it would have to buy power from its competitors (who would kill them). If contact biulds a $1b new station that takes 10years before generating power, thats a risk becuase they cant gaurantee a client base.
        
        If I want to open a power company and compete with the existing players, whats the up front cost and time period before I can make my first sale? 15-20 years and $10b ? What will the existing players do to counter me in the 15 year heads up they have while I build?
        
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        February 18, 2025 2:31pm
      - Mark Hanley
        
        Agree. cost of entry is a huge barrier. Hence, my earlier suggestions for government intervention.
        
        If the power companies I mentioned earlier built the generation projects they had consent for, electricity would be cheaper and margins would reduce.
        
        New entrants building generation capability would have the same effect.
        
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        February 18, 2025 5:20pm
    - PurplePen
      
      Like 2.
      
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      February 18, 2025 11:17am
    - PurplePen
      
      The annoying thing with all our hydro is we built and paid for the infrastructure.
      
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      February 18, 2025 11:18am
      - rjay
        
        “The annoying things is..we paid for the infrastructure”.
        Yes and then “we” were repaid handsomely when “we” sold half the shares. To complain that we should still get all the benefits of ownership would be like the original owners of Microsoft shares who have sold up still expecting a dividend. Or someone selling land in 1840 expecting beneficial interest in that land today.
        
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        February 18, 2025 2:24pm
      - wsk12345
        
        And there’s the problem with having the govt build generation. Users don’t pay – taxpayers do. And specifically the taxpayers who were working in the years the projects were built.
        
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        February 18, 2025 6:18pm
    - Handyman
      
      The electricity market is the same but opposite than other markets.
      Think of the TV market. Every year the TV get cheaper forcing all TVs sell at the lower price. For electricity new generation is the most expensive, so everyone sells electricity at the latest high price. Lucky old hydro – they get to sell electricity at large margin.
      
      When the weather dependent generators are flat out, the electricity price is low so the hydro generators back off and save their water for when the wind drops, or when demand outstrips the capacity of the weather dependent generators.
      
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      February 18, 2025 12:27pm
      - wsk12345
        
        It’s not getting g cheaper to build generation like it is to build tvs.
        
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        February 18, 2025 6:19pm
  - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
    
    Don’t think it really matters. As long as Ministers are willing to posture and huff, but seriously believe that they can on one hand demand we switch from fossil fuels to electricity, and on the other hamstring generation, and force investment into wind and solar which are expensive and deeply unreliable, we will get exactly what we deserve.
    
    High prices, and regular power cuts.
    
    On the other hand, Genesis has just stockpiled 1 million tonnes of coal at Huntly. So I guess its pretty clear what they are backing – and thank goodness it is to deliver electricity to customers when the inevitable failure of the green grid happens again this winter.
    
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    February 18, 2025 9:32am
    - peterwn
      
      Genesis has only stockpiled this coal after entering into agreements with the other three generators for firming up capability.
      
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      February 18, 2025 10:09am
      - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
        
        A system that had reliable abundant cheap energy wouldn’t need to do this. Everybody knows that small scale unreliable plants reliant on intermittent energy supply will deliver expensive and short term solutions – and everybody also knows that demand for electricity will only continue to grow, but the government is unwilling to remove the regulatory burden on large-scale hydro, which is the only sensible solution (absent Nuclear).
        
        Looks as though the penalties for supply failure are kicking in, and the generators – or their large customers – have essentially decided it is better to pay the penalty in carbon charges than the penalty for supply failure.
        
        Sensible choices.
        
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        February 18, 2025 10:23am
      - kowtow
        
        Hopefully the banks cancel all the power cos accounts , quick sharp, given their coal fetishes .
        
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        February 18, 2025 11:41am
      - Jack5
        
        Poster TDFKAN at 9.32: …Genesis has just stockpiled 1 million tonnes of coal at Huntly …
        
        That’s about a year of Indonesian coal imports to NZ, overwhelmingly for Huntly.
        
        A factor might be anticipation of increasing demand pushing up the price of Indonesian coal.
        
        Indonesia’s home demand is surging as its 285 million people increasingly want electricity for cooling and other home use. Meanwhile bigger export customers, such as India, the Philippines, and Vietnam are buying more Indonesian coal.
        
        NZ in its Green rectitude, has choked the lion’s share of mining our country’s estimated 16 billion tonnes of coal reserves.
        
        The Huntly power station was built on and near coalfields.
        
        And we import for it around a million tonnes of Indonesian coal a year.
        
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        February 18, 2025 11:54am
      - JackRabbit
        
        @jack5
        
        A factor might be anticipation of increasing demand pushing up the price of Indonesian coal.
        
        A major factor will be meeting all the extra demand created by EV charging, and keeping businesses and homes powered while encountering low lake levels. Unintended consequences of going woke and virtue signalling without having the infrastructure to support said virtue signalling.
        
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        February 18, 2025 1:54pm
    - Mark Hanley
      
      Deity. My understanding of the governments renewable generation proposal is that it includes hydro (ive previously posted an excerpt of a Luxon speech including hydro in the mix).
      
      National’s strategy is to encourage private companies to build the generation. private companies won’t do that unless there are sufficient returns.
      
      The gentailers have many non generation costs which competition will help reduce.
      
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      February 18, 2025 10:39am
      - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
        
        Talking about hydro is not doing hydro.
        
        How many more “conversations” do we need with Chris from Accounts before something actually happens?
        
        Notice that the engineering firms are quietly letting staff go?
        
        Noticed that the CHiPs are losing heart, because they are ready to build, but the government is still “conversing” with itself?
        
        You need someone to put their big boy underpants on and get moving.
        
        The current PM is more worried about kneecapping his coalition partners than he is worried about having anything to show for his remaining year and a half in office (If he doesn’t get rolled first).
        
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        February 18, 2025 12:18pm
      - Mark Hanley
        
        Deity, the conditions for new generators to enter the nz market have been established.
        
        Luxons government is running a seminar to attract infrastructure investors.
        
        electricity generation is also competing for time and money with many other priorities.
        
        Luxons government is bravely taking on nzs biggest issues. Issues that have existed for my half century on this earth, so that’s half a century of governments who weren’t brave enough / or couldn’t be bothered to solve them.
        
        Give Luxon’s team time!
        
        and if you find yourself wavering, think about your alternatives!
        
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        February 18, 2025 1:30pm
      - RoboRob
        
        National doesn’t have a strategy with regards to generation. I have heard / read both Luxon and the minister. Yes Luxon says, we need renewable (he likes to be green) and yes hydro is in the mix. What is his plan with regards to this…….
        
        Essentially
        ‘There is already a huge pipe line of new generation, some of which is already consented. We will be talking to generators to see that they break ground on these projects.’
        
        Thats not actually a strategy. It sounds good but a plan it isn’t.
        
        The minister says
        ‘We have already taken action by… setting up working groups to look at the issue. If we dont see improvement we (the government) will take further action’.
        
        What action? More working groups?
        
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        February 18, 2025 2:53pm
      - wsk12345
        
        The non gen costs are teeny. You won’t notice that competition on your bill.
        
        And who is going to to spend 20 years getting a consent for hydro. Remember project aqua?. Cost Meridian 10s of millions and failed to get consent.
        
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        February 18, 2025 6:23pm
    - wsk12345
      
      I don’t think the market is the problem. The four big gens getting together to fund the Huntly stockpile is a much simpler response to a firm capacity issue that implementing a capacity market which you see in some jurisdictions.
      
      Honesty why is anyone surprised that gens are only building wind and solar? Geothermal requires big payouts to iwi, hydro isn’t possible anymore, new coal and gas are too much of a risk with labour coming back in, what do you think they should do?
      
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      February 18, 2025 10:44am
      - Jack5
        
        Contact Energy’s $924 million geothermal station at Tauhara, officially opened in November will supply about 3.5 per cent of NZ’s electricity. Contact is also building another, but smaller, geothermal station. That will be Contact’s 7th.
        
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        February 18, 2025 12:06pm
      - Mark Hanley
        
        The fast track consenting legislation paves the way for large Infrastructire projects like hydro dams.
        
        I was involved in the electricity market in the late 2000s. Back then electricity generators had a pipeline of generation projects waiting for the right economic conditions before they were huilt (it is not in a cartels interest to increase supply without sufficient demamnd to keep margins high.
        
        Which tells me there are opportunities for new economic generation and a new entrant.
        
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        February 18, 2025 12:07pm
      - RoboRob
        
        @Mark
        
        What prey tell, is going to encourage the ‘cartels’ (as you call them) to build these?
        
        What encouragement is there for a new entrant? As I mention earlier in this thread, a new entrant would spend 15 years (minium) building and getting on the grid, in the meantime what will the encombants do to stop them grabbing market share?
        
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        February 18, 2025 2:57pm
  - Philview
    
    I don’t think my power bills have substantially increased in the last 10 years. I do feel I am getting ripped off with increases in insurance costs and council rates.
    
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    February 18, 2025 11:18am
    - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
      
      Mine have. I have replaced every bulb with LEDs, bought heatpumps, got rid of point source heaters, use firewood for hot water in winter, and cook on gas. The power bill still went up.
      
      A lot to be fair was fixed line charges, but definitely I have kept consumption down, and the price has gone up. However, I have to acknowledge that the increases don’t match the 40% that Rates and Insurance have, so yes, perhaps the electricity market isn’t functioning as poorly as some think!
      
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      February 18, 2025 12:24pm
    - Taieri
      
      I don’t think my power bills have substantially increased in the last 10 years.
      ——–
      
      39% increase per kWh since 2022.
      
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      February 18, 2025 12:44pm
      - MCōs
        
        I just did a quick check & my power bill that I paid today was 18% more than the equivalent one ten years ago.
        In the interim all 18 internal lights have been changed to led and external ones spruced up.
        When I read about Europe prices I think that’s pretty good.
        
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        February 18, 2025 5:09pm
  - NothingLeft
    
    Robots and AI will wreck a lot of those cartels in 5-10 years;
    
    Eg going off-grid and getting a weekly 1-200kWh delivery of electricity from a battery van to charge up your home battery – supplementing rooftop solar. There’s $0.2/kWh cost difference between the wholesale and retail electricity price to pay for that, might even just use self-driving personal EV to do it in middle of night Cost of operating an automated electricity delivery service would be less than half what utility companies add to electricity costs.
    
    For supermarkets we’ll end up with automated supermarket delivery services operating from large warehouses in cheap extra-urban land – or maybe drone deliver services. Supermarket land monopolies will no longer prevent competition. Fresh meat fruit and vege etc won’t have to pass through hands of supermarket monopolies, and ultimately could even be grower direct to customer, or at least in one or more amazon-for-food type businesses.
    
    A lot of current cash-cows are going to get very wobbly.
    
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    February 18, 2025 6:43pm
- Handyman
  
  I don’t like the current trend to blame the kulaks. In early Soviet Russia the government blamed all its ills on the small business and land owners (kulaks). it encouraged the tenant farmers to rise up and take the land which the government formed into large collectives. Inevitably, famine ensued.
  
  In New Zealand, the green party, Labour and National have, in turn, demonised landlords, supermarkets, banks and electricity providers as kulaks. They see anything less than 100 percent tax on the company profits as a “subsidy” and an abuse of their “social license” to operate.
  
  The railways too used to be owned by a private company to make a profit at no cost to the taxpayer. Helen Clark bought Toll Rail for ideological reasons and promised to spend $200 million over four years to bring it up to standard. Kiwirail now sucks up $2 BILLION EACHYEAR under government control. That is a Dunedin hospital and a Nelson hospital EACH YEAR.
  
  Now imagine if the government ran the supermarkets and the electricity system.
  
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  February 18, 2025 9:01am
  - peterwn
    
    The Government actually made a reasonable job of running the electricity system from the early 1900’s to Rogernomics. It was the only organisation with financial depth to take the commercial risks involved with going from a boutique industry to a mass industry. There were issues but generally things went well. In particular the department delivered on time the needed electricity projects to meet the needs of the ‘Think Big’ projects at the time (the worthiness of the projects is irrelevant in this context. The main issues were in my opinion were:
    1. A serious overbuild of capacity in the 1980’s. There were demand forecasting mechanisms in place and some of the input was rather optimistic. But politicians have had their fingers burnt with power shortages in the past and did not want to see it happen again.
    2. The Management had significant Government constraints imposed on it particularly with Human Resources and procurement. A further issue was being forced with the Ministry of Works on projects.
    3. General organisation and staffing were inefficient and there was a reluctance (inertia) to move towards automation.
    The last of the ‘old time’ General Managers (he was in my opinion the best of the General Managers over the years) recognised the issues and set about with dealing with them. Then everything changed – not really for the better.
    Incidentally this General Manager was paid a pittance compared with the five CEO’s of the gentailers and Transpower. And yet he basically was in charge of all their activities as well as regulatory functions (now with MBIE).
    
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    February 18, 2025 10:32am
    - wsk12345
      
      You do realise that the LRMCs of the think big hydro plants are in the range of 15-21c/keh. That’s wholesale! ECNZ was selling power at wholesale 3c/kwh! Wholesale prices now are nearly at e bottom end of that range on average- so those hydros will never pay for themselves. Yeah they did a great job.
      
      Deregulation comes in and prices rise because the subsidies were removed.
      
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      February 18, 2025 10:47am
      - peterwn
        
        I am aware of that school of thought which was effectively that NZ should have been building smaller scale projects particularly low capital gas fired generation rather than large hydro. I did not realise costs were in the range indicated, but I suspect there was misinformation on costs pedalled by various ‘experts’ to justify their stance that the whole power development programme was misconceived.
        
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        February 18, 2025 12:23pm
      - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
        
        can you provide a source, I always thought the LRMC was around 5 -10c a kwh. It was wind that was in the 15 to 20c range. I guess the carbon charges on coal and gas force those prices up too.
        
        Happy to be proven wrong.
        
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        February 18, 2025 12:27pm
      - wsk12345
        
        Deity – sorry it was a paper report I read at the ECNZ library decades ago. Written by McSomeone I believe. I was reading it as I was looking for actual costs for a market design thing I was working on. Really wish I had kept a copy. Who knows what happened to that stuff.
        
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        February 18, 2025 6:28pm
    - imalwaysright
      
      There are too many people in between the generator and the end user.
      None of them raise the the number of kilowatts, but they do raise the price.
      Their only job seems to be to send out invoices.
      
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      February 18, 2025 10:48am
      - peterwn
        
        The various groups are the generator, retailer (generally combined), transmission network, distribution network. In the days when the distribution network operator was the retailer, the makeup of a power bill was approximately 50% generation, 25% transmission, 25% distribution.
        The cost of the customer interface (metering, billing and customer liaison) would be far less than in the past because of larger customer aggregations (6 figures), remote meter reading and automated payments. There are unlikely to be further efficiencies to be obtained within the generators. Transmission and distribution are natural monopolies and as such are regulated with respect to rate of returns, capital expenditure, supply quality and efficiency. Most potential savings would have been achieved in these areas. Any thought that costs in these areas can be slashed are just a pipe dream unless the Government is prepared to heavily subsidise the industry.
        
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        February 18, 2025 12:39pm
      - Mark Hanley
        
        Good points peterwn.
        
        Have you considered….
        
        Competition reduces margins and margins are the key problem with nz power prices. A new player and the separation of generation amd retail increases competition.
        
        Companies operating in monopolistic competition typically have less focus on efficiencies so it is unlikely there aren’t significant efficiencies to be found.
        
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        February 18, 2025 2:01pm
      - wsk12345
        
        Imo the big waste is in distribution. I’ve worked right across the value chain and distribution is appalling. The rest are not bad.
        
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        February 18, 2025 6:32pm
    - Handyman
      
      I agree.
      That was in the days of sensible hydro and coal, when electricity generation was seen as an engineering issue and not a moral/political issue.
      These days a NZ government would make the same monumental errors as the UK. The UK has guaranteed enormous tax payments to private wind and wood generators forcing up the cost of electricity. At the same time it subsidises consumers via a price cap mechanism. So consumers face very high power prices and pay again silently through tax.
      The outcome is an over reliance on weather dependent generation.
      
      The root cause is the same in UK, NZ, Germany and others….
      Ideology can toy with the laws of economics but it cannot overrule the laws of physics.
      Base electricity capacity must be enough when all weather dependant is off line. (not counting n-1).
      At the margin, when I hear new solar will power 30,000 homes I always think 30,000 homes will have no power at night.
      
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      February 18, 2025 11:24am
  - thirteenstars
    
    “Now imagine if the government ran the supermarkets and the electricity system.”
    
    The government does run the electricity system, or more properly, the government decides how power is distributed and how it is produced. It controls that through national and local ownership of transmission lines and through the establishment of Transpower which allocates wholesale prices.
    
    The most insidious and politically-tainted control however is through restriction of electricity production via denial of consenting of power projects, particularly large hydro facilities. That is akin to the government setting wholesale vegetable prices for supermarkets and then restricting the amount of land used for vegetable production. Yet who would get the blame for cabbage at $8 a head? And who would have to pay?
    
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    February 18, 2025 11:02am
    - Quail
      
      The recent closing of a timber mill in the central NI was allegedly because of the cost and short supply of electricity..
      So a badly needed( exports , manufacturing) productive industry ,that is using natural resources has to close because infrastructure in NZ is inadequate.
      That is a matter for immediate Government concern.
      They should be encouraging energy growth in NZ. Electricity generation , oil exploration is a must,
      To do this efficiently deregulation is absolutely essential.RMA reforms and adopting ACT ‘s treaty bill are even more essential.
      
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      February 18, 2025 12:38pm
    - wsk12345
      
      Utter rubbish. Transpower certainly does not “allocate wholesale prices” – the NZX as the Pricing Manager does that, according to market rules. Transpower does schedule and dispatch generation according to those rules but pricing – no.
      
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      February 18, 2025 6:34pm
- lastmanstanding
  
  Those who support Labour in NZ and Labor in Oz are clearly suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.
  
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  February 18, 2025 9:34am
- redeye
  
  Aussie supermarkets do play tough. Client of mine who supplies both told me about Woolworths Neutral bay having to vacate because Coles bought the land under the store and kicked them out. Apparently this is par for the course with both side doing that to each other a number of times.
  
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  February 18, 2025 12:20pm
  - alwyn.a
    
    The same thing happened in the Wellington suburb of Tawa.
    Foodstuffs bought the property where the Woolworths Supermarket was operating and cancelled the lease. It then built a New World on the site. That would have been in about 2011 IIRC.
    
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    February 18, 2025 3:30pm
Grunter

A long read on the extensive reach of USAID. I have traced through on a few of the embedded links, but not all, so I can’t say how much of this is real or not. Which is kind of the point of the article – who knows what BS has been concocted by media. But what is obvious, USAID has been the central cog of propaganda on many far-left narratives. Including global boiling, covid, gender, mass immigration, and Russia/MIC.

Have a read and make up your own mind what you think…..

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/pattern-beneath-usaid-and-architecture-perception
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February 18, 2025 8:06am
- sungsamning
  
  With USAID exposed, and their budget cut; I wonder if some MSM outfits will fall over. Even the ones that survive, like NZME have lost all credibility. Any politician with a backbone should throw their USAID contributions in their face at every interview.
  
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  February 18, 2025 9:02am
  - Grunter
    
    I agree – Trump, JD Vance & Musk are doing just that.
    
    I’ve been digging into the BBC links. It’s huge and very corrupt IMO. The effort they have gone to try and hide it with various NGO’s and ‘Media Funds’ is eye-watering. Reuters looks to be as bad if not worse.
    
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    February 18, 2025 11:04am
    - imalwaysright
      
      Have a listen to this.
      Mike Benz, ex US Department of State, telling Joe Rogan of the tactics and spread of USAID.
      
      https://open.spotify.com/episode/2rXdCTkipx2Iu5dX1Gh0s5?si=I8t8WlwBTtS5xgNkb_m56A
      
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      February 18, 2025 2:07pm
  - Philview
    
    I was awake early on Sunday and listened to the RNZ News at 6 am which took a sound bite from JD Vance’s speech which focused on Donald Trump is the new sheriff in town. When I listened later to the actual speech later it was clear that RNZ’s soundbite was very misleading.
    
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    February 18, 2025 11:26am
  - Paulus
    
    Presumably any funds to the media from say USAID are funneled through New Zealand on Air, as most is now done, and PIJF is the product channel here.
    
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    February 18, 2025 2:36pm
Yvette

Destiny Church library protest ‘intimidating and unacceptable’ – police
One aspect of the haka is that the gesture of bulging eyes and protruding tongue is to symbolise what the hakaee, will look like with their head rammed on the point of a palisade stake.
It may be something proclaimed followers of Essene Jesus Christ should consider carefully not doing
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February 18, 2025 8:07am
- judith8409121
  
  is that saying thats its just wrong if people attached to destiny church do it – but the police find it a hoot when done openly by the anti seymour thugs in parliament or in the carkoi ? again nz overt bigotry
  
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  February 18, 2025 9:12am
- Anthony Melchett
  
  But the haka is fine when the all blacks use it? It seems the only time a haka is not OK is if it is used to stand against trans weirdos.
  
  So trans is more important than maori culture.
  
  Got it.
  
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  February 18, 2025 9:24am
  - Don Beckett
    
    I agree with the principle of protesting trans ideology – especially to children – but not their tactics.
    Trans ideology is totally immoral and runs in total contradiction to the natural law. I cannot understand parents who subject their children to this form of indoctrination, despite the smooth talking but highly deceptive words.
    
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    February 18, 2025 10:47am
    - imalwaysright
      
      DB
      The parents are using the children to virtue signal.
      As for the trannies, I would say that a fair number are actually fetishists who get sexual gratification from being near children.
      They aren’t fulfilling a public need, they are fulfilling their own fantasy.
      
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      February 18, 2025 10:55am
      - Groggy
        
        who’s fantasy? They seem to live large in your heads.
        
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        February 18, 2025 11:31am
      - Don Beckett
        
        With a pseudonym “groggy” –
        pot – kettle – black comes to mind.
        
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        February 18, 2025 12:46pm
    - Scott
      
      Don Beckett – I saw this post from Brian Tamaki this morning showing one of the drag performers who read stories to kids.
      
      Yesterday some commenters on this blog couldn’t understand why drag performers could be seen as sexualised? Look at this picture of one of the drag performers who read to children and decide for yourself if you think he is sexualised?
      
      https://www.facebook.com/share/1Bbhnzy3ut/
      
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      February 18, 2025 2:06pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  But who decides when haka is appropriate to use as a form of protest?
  
  https://www.teaonews.co.nz/2025/02/17/haka-as-a-form-of-protest-destiny-church-targets-lgbtqia-with-haka/
  
  “O wad some Power the giftie gie us
  To see oursels as ithers see us! “
  
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  February 18, 2025 10:53am
  - herb1
    
    TJ Perenara “decides” Yvette
    
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    February 18, 2025 11:40am
- kowtow
  
  I’d suggest Liz Gunn and the cameraman found their arrests ‘intimidating and unacceptable’.
  
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  February 18, 2025 11:06am
- PurplePen
  
  Those on the receiving end of any haka should always return with a wry smile.
  
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  February 18, 2025 11:24am
- Philview
  
  I note the Herald this morning naming the Destiny supporters and where they work.
  
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  February 18, 2025 11:28am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Doxxing by the MSM
    … but only ever to be employed against “wrong thinkers.”
    
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    February 18, 2025 12:46pm
    - NothingLeft
      
      We need a law on the books to punish doxxing – perhaps also publishing personal details of doxers.
      
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      February 18, 2025 6:52pm
- Paulus
  
  Haka is precursor to just Physical Violence
  – so why do it ?
  Should be banned in New Zealand as primative, not clever.
  
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  February 18, 2025 2:38pm
Nukuleka

Tha racially segregated Maths tutorials introduced at The University of Canterbury, providing classes specifically for Maori and Pacific Island students, will sadly be regarded as the ‘dummy’ tutorials for those who can’t cope with mixed, mainstream tutorials. I wonder whether the decision- makers at UC’s Maths Department intended that to take such a divisive, patronizing approach.
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February 18, 2025 8:08am
- Mark Hanley
  
  On the education bright side…..
  
  Luxon and his team continue to produce positive results for NZers.
  
  Teachers are Labour’s strongest supporters and will be fighting education changes tooth and nail.
  
  Do not underestimate the work, skill, and expert management required to implement changes to education. There are many positive affects of superior education to the lives of all our children. e.g., Lack of a basic education is a major driver of crime.
  
  “Parents can now expect their children to benefit from a new year-by-year knowledge-rich curriculum grounded in the science of learning, structured approaches to literacy and numeracy, new classroom resources, targeted interventions for kids who need extra help, teachers’ professional learning and development, and the roll-out of the new phonics check,”
  
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  February 18, 2025 8:12am
  - sungsamning
    
    Fair enough. Ms Stanford should watch the educrats like a hawk. They’ll have a lot of dirty tricks up their sleeves.
    
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    February 18, 2025 9:06am
  - Notsofast
    
    Fibonacci series, the infinite sequence of prime numbers, all can be taught to 5 year olds easily.
    And phonics with no pictures necessary to show the splendor of the English language.
    The big bang and something for nothing for good measure.
    The speed of light taking 100,000 years across the galaxy.
    
    Fact is better than fiction for kids, forget the life skills, they come automatically.
    
    And minimal fake Te Reo to confuse them.
    Just the words as used before the nasty whites arrived.
    
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    February 18, 2025 10:03am
  - Paulus
    
    Parents want to abdicate the upbringing of their children to so called ignorant Unionised Teachers.
    So what do you expect for the last 30 years.
    
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    February 18, 2025 2:40pm
- Chuck Bird
  
  Something similar is happening in Oz.
  
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  February 18, 2025 8:14am
- cmm
  
  It is fine to have extra maths classes for those that are struggling, but why make them race based?
  
  I expect that few are going to show up. If they’re struggling in maths, and are on a path requiring maths, then chances are they didn’t fully use the resources available to them at school. So why would they use these resources?
  
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  February 18, 2025 8:18am
  - Surely Knott
    
    Agree. Making them race based just reinforces stereotypes for the public but also for those racial groups who are taught that they are special needs. It’s racist, it’s gross, and unhelpful. PS. My child with Maori ancestry is an absolute gun at calculus and is teaching it to others. (proud mama) Stick your stereotypes Uni. of Canterbury.
    
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    February 18, 2025 8:33am
  - kowtow
    
    Also depends why the extra tutorials.
    
    have they reduced entry requirements to the extent that the wrong people are getting onto courses they shouldn’t be in.
    
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    February 18, 2025 8:42am
    - cmm
      
      Yup,
      
      UC has bridging programmes (probably all universities do). These are excellent for students who are not fully up to speed to get their skills up.
      
      Why are these students not taking a bridging course?
      
      It seems to me that having extra maths lessons is perhaps not a good idea when this is done in parallel with other courses that need it.
      
      For instance, first year physics needs some solid maths. If your maths isn’t good enough for first year maths then it probably also isn’t good enough for first year physics either.
      
      Rather take a 6 month bridging course then start 6 months later.
      
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      February 18, 2025 8:56am
      - sungsamning
        
        Any student that needs a ‘bridging course’ shouldn’t be in university in the first place. It’d raise the value of a degree. So would dumping all the racist DEI nonsense.
        
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        February 18, 2025 9:08am
      - judith8409121
        
        because this has nothing to do with bridging – this is to do with the ‘safety’ of coloured skin people. Much the same as what happened during the 1960s USA – with signs – whites only – blacks only. This discusses it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M91zAvhD4QM
        
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        February 18, 2025 9:15am
      - cmm
        
        The bridging programmes are often used by people who have matured a bit and decide to then go to university.
        
        Both of our kids homeschooled all the way through then went on these bridging programmes as a way to get used to doing lecture notes, tests, exams etc.
        
        They really are useful and doing this before becoming a first year student means people are fully prepared.
        
        Once you are through a bridging programme then you are a student just like everyone else.
        
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        February 18, 2025 10:04am
      - kiwimike
        
        A teacher I know comes up against kids who can’t manage either the maths or english for their year level. (sometimes both).
        Some of the kids talk about going to UNI but not being up to standard is an incremental stall.
        next year it will be worse, so no wonder there are bridging courses.
        Do they have to leave UNI if they fail the bridging course?
        
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        February 18, 2025 11:33am
      - cmm
        
        kiwimike: “Do they have to leave UNI if they fail the bridging course?”
        
        Admission to the bridging course is only admission to the bridging course – it is not an admission into further studies.
        
        So that means you leave the university at the end of the bridging course regardless of whether you pass or fail. You can then apply to further admission into first year and you might be accepted….. or not.
        
        When you do apply for first year your bridging course results are taken into account.
        
        In NZ you do not need to NCEA qualifications to go to into tertiary studies. Both my kids successfully pursued degrees without ever going to school and only doing NCEA2 chemistry through correspondence school. You just need to convince the university that you can do the work.
        
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        February 18, 2025 2:08pm
  - mw
    
    This is the problem as I see it. There is some expectation that you already have the knowledge and grades to be able to do first year math at uni. I can’t remember the names of the papers now but a bit over 30 years ago I did the first year advanced calculus and pretty much got by with what we were taught with last year of high school. I can imagine that the paper that the majority take is not going to be pushing many people that did ok with math at high school.
    So the question arises, why does any one require tutorials before the semester starts for a subject that they should have had the grades to do? Then I ask why is it only for a special group? Then you have to ask if members of that group have been accepted without the same grade requirements of other groups? That can be the only reason I can think why only that group is given a chance to catch up to a level they expect everyone else to be at.
    I was introduced to this last year at auckland when my son told me one of his friends could go to tutorials before the start of the year and it was only for some groups, based on race.
    
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    February 18, 2025 8:58am
    - wsk12345
      
      Not the same everywhere. I aced 7th form calculus but first year maths was a massive step up.
      
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      February 18, 2025 10:52am
  - MCōs
    
    Maybe the resources weren’t available to them at school.
    
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    February 18, 2025 11:01am
  - PurplePen
    
    If you struggled with maths, why on earth would to continue with it at university. I suppose it might be a prerequisite for some other paper? But then if you struggle with maths you’re not likely to also do well with the other paper.
    
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    February 18, 2025 11:26am
  - Paulus
    
    Every thing now has to be Race Based as that is the way for the last 30 years it is going, now much faster than ever.
    Maori winning in every way now.
    
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    February 18, 2025 2:42pm
- Anthony Melchett
  
  It used to be called cabbage maths back in the day.
  
  Now it will be cabbage maths, for brown people!
  
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  February 18, 2025 8:26am
- peterwn
  
  If any Maori or PI student specifically wanted to be in a ‘mainstream’ tutorial the Maths department would most probably accommodate their wishes. The Maths department would want to attract as many students as possible and would want to see as many as possible succeed.
  
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  February 18, 2025 8:37am
  - Nukuleka
    
    peterwn: of course this is correct. Maori and PI students can choose either race based or mainstream courses. That is taken as read. But that does not negate the point I was making. These race based tutorials will likely be regarded as tutorials for dummies. If support tutorials are necessary for struggling students they should be available to all.
    
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    February 18, 2025 9:49am
- sungsamning
  
  Of course they did. They just don’t see the situation the way normal people will. They’re honoring the treaty, and pushing DEI. Job done as far as they’re concerned.
  
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  February 18, 2025 9:05am
  - PurplePen
    
    I never see how this sort of thing ‘honours the treaty’. Where’s the connection with any of the three treaty articles.
    
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    February 18, 2025 11:28am
- JackRabbit
  
  It is hard to learn colonial maths, when said students are being brainwashed to reject everything colonial, including the English language.
  
  The separate maths courses will make little difference, until said students are not brainwashed, and learn to embrace modern society.
  
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  February 18, 2025 9:23am
- NoFax
  
  It’s the bigotry of low expectations. Those who consider themselves progressive think Polynesian and Maori students can’t make it on their own abilities so need “big white man” to save them. That’s why problems are only managed never solved as the funding stops and the warm embrace of a self-congratulatory blanket that virtue signallers wrap themselves goes away.
  
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  February 18, 2025 9:38am
- rangitoto
  
  Things went downhill when they stopped using Στοιχεῖα Stoikheîa to teach mathematics.
  
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  February 18, 2025 9:51am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    How did Euclid represent numbers?
    
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    February 18, 2025 12:50pm
Yvette

Canadian doctors refuse to debate COVID report exposing lockdown failures
https://centrist.nz/canadian-doctors-refuse-to-debate-covid-report-exposing-lockdown-failures/?
Summarised by Centrist, then further summarised by AI –

The Alberta COVID Pandemic Data Review Task Force’s Final Report criticises lockdowns and vaccine mandates, advocating a different approach to future public health crises. Instead of engaging with its 269-page findings, the Alberta Medical Association (AMA) and numerous doctors dismissed it outright. The AMA issued a brief statement calling it “biased” and “anti-science,” while 48 doctors and academics signed an open letter rejecting it without serious debate. The letter misrepresents the report’s recommendations, relying on authority rather than evidence. Critics refuse to acknowledge flaws in the pandemic response, avoiding meaningful discussion of the report’s findings and recommendations.

1 – Will the New Zealand Covid Report be equally dismissed?
2 – Was it just lucky that after the nation was finally re-opened, the virus had changed from the more deadly Beta and Delta – Italian and French decimation of inter-generation families (so it would have gone off like a bomb through similar living arrangements here, especially New Zealand Pacific Island People) – to a more moderate Omicron variation, which didn’t flood our hospitals to Code Red daily, or necessitate deployment of the refrigerated containers on standby at the Police College in Porirua?

What sets humankind apart from other animals would appear to be the process that when we make mistakes one is supposed – if one survives – is to learn from them

Did I get that perhaps partly right, Benedict?
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February 18, 2025 8:09am
- judith8409121
  
  not quite sure why people continue to believe that omicron is a transfigured virus from the original – its not – i wonder why this lie continues to be spread? Can you tell me why you think that? I would be interested in knowing how that keeps coming up.
  
  Omicron was around at the same time as the original covid and then it disappeared to reappear later after the great reopening – it is a separate strain altogether
  
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  February 18, 2025 9:24am
  - Yvette
    
    Comparison of Virulence:
    Omicron vs. Delta and Beta
    ◦ Severity: Studies and hospital data showed that Omicron infections resulted in lower rates of severe disease, hospitalization, and death compared to Delta and Beta.
    ◦ Transmission: Omicron was significantly more transmissible than previous variants, leading to a rapid surge in cases.
    ◦ Hospitalization: Despite higher case numbers, a lower proportion of people required intensive care compared to the Delta wave.
    ◦ Symptoms: Omicron infections were often associated with milder symptoms, particularly in vaccinated individuals.
    
    Impact in New Zealand:
    • Beta Variant: Had a limited impact in New Zealand due to strict border controls.
    • Delta Variant: Led to a significant outbreak in 2021, prompting lockdowns and increased hospitalizations.
    • Omicron Variant: Despite being highly contagious, the overall burden on hospitals was somewhat lower than with Delta, partly due to high vaccination rates and prior immunity.
    
    While Omicron was less virulent on an individual level, its high transmissibility meant that a large number of people still became ill at once, leading to pressure on healthcare services.
    
    Please: take it, or leave it
    
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    February 18, 2025 10:13am
Cassandra

“Nero fiddles while Rome burns” applies to New Zealand. The world is in turmoil yet still there’s no plan here for what we must do. We’re still debating our “independent foreign policy” which meant nothing when the term was coined, other than an excuse to reduce expenditure, and means even less now. The cold, hard facts are that NZ is totally reliant on lines of communication and trade remaining open and usable. In time of trouble both sea and air will close. Nothing in and nothing out. We will starve. No oil, no drugs, no exports of any kind. While sitting it out appeals to the ill-informed and wishful thinkers that’s not how it works. We can’t do it alone hence our relationship with Australia and through them America. That means we must make a meaningful contribution. 1% on defence doesn’t cut it. Whatever we’ll provide – and a three frigate navy or equivalent seems to be the best option – it means a massive increase in defence expenditure.
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February 18, 2025 8:10am
- pdm
  
  Agreed Cass.
  
  Only David Seymour is saying publicly that we should increase our Defence spending to 2% of GDP.
  
  Why aren’t Defence Minister Judith Collins and her Assistant Chris Penk saying the same – especially as both are known for saying what they think.
  
  Are they being constrained in what they are allowed to say?
  
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  February 18, 2025 8:24am
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    I wonder who could be doing this constraining?//
    
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    February 18, 2025 8:42am
  - Cassandra
    
    You can bet your bottom dollar that National has a unified approach to this. There are no votes in defence expenditure so the word will be out to keep quiet. Although Collins has hinted “We must do more”. The push comes to shove when the defence review is published. But it’ll all be aspirational, no commitment. In true kiwi style there’ll be a working group and eventually an order will be placed, long after Collins and Luxon are retired.
    
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    February 18, 2025 8:42am
- Phronesis
  
  There was much ado about a (fake) tweet from Trump supposedly describing NZ as third world. The irony was not one of those offended understood that we are Third world. The first world is the Western alliance of NATO and American Allies (not us since the end of ANZUS) The second world was the iron curtain countries. The Third world is all the rest, including us.
  
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  February 18, 2025 9:28am
  - MCōs
    
    Of course NZ is aligned with America, which was more or less the original definition of first world
    That classification of nations fell by the wayside with the end of the Cold War.
    Now it’s more a vague indication of a country’s development
    
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    February 18, 2025 3:15pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  In time of trouble both sea and air will close. Nothing in and nothing out. We will starve.
  
  We definitely won’t starve. In fact for the first couple of years of a total closedown, NZ will be awash in Beef and Mutton.. (currently NZ exports 90% of its beef and 80% of its lamb meat).
  
  It might be a bland diet of meat, spud, squash and onions for dinners, and coffee might be off the menu, but we shouldn’t go to bed hungry.
  
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  February 18, 2025 9:50am
  - rangitoto
    
    It will be hard to keep farms anywhere near as productive as they are now without refined oil products.
    
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    February 18, 2025 10:01am
    - Paulus
      
      I forgot that to have Plastic in and on everything, it comes from Oil
      – eh Greens or am I wrong ?
      
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      February 18, 2025 2:48pm
      - Ra Henare
        
        Plastic can be made from many materials. Potatoes is an example.
        The reason most plastic products come from oil is COST. Its the cheapest option.
        
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        February 18, 2025 11:07pm
  - Cassandra
    
    Maggie: how does the meat get from farm to table? How do the abattoirs operate? How do we pay for it? Etc.
    
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    February 18, 2025 10:12am
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      how does the meat get from farm to table?
      
      We’ll bike out to the farms ….
      
      Or the farmers will have to bring the beasties into town for slaughter…. (remember each town/suburb used to have holding pens and abbatoirs)
      
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      February 18, 2025 10:30am
      - rangitoto
        
        Maybe I need to invest in dray horses and oxen.
        
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        February 18, 2025 10:44am
      - gorse
        
        More likely the hungry hoards will walk out to the farms, shoot the farmers, and kill then eat everything.
        
        Then they will be starving
        
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        February 18, 2025 10:45am
      - Maggy Wassilieff
        
        Then they will be starving
        
        Ever heard of cannibalism?
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Horrid_Practice
        
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        February 18, 2025 12:57pm
    - NeverMindTheBollocks
      
      Coal-fired rail! Just like the old days!
      
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      February 18, 2025 7:18pm
- MCōs
  
  Doomsday talk has been around all my life and nothing has ever come of it as far as threat of invasion is concerned.
  There have always been someone out to get us. The yellow peril, the reds, the papists, foreigners in general, enemies fabricated by politicians and wild eyed minority groups to keep us fearful.
  Now drag queens/kings are going to be the ruin of us all!
  
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  February 18, 2025 5:51pm
Steve Otto N Shore

FBI hid secret assassination documents.
Love to know what it is the Deep State are hiding.

https://patriotpulse.net/donald-trump-will-be-angry-as-hell-when-he-finds-out-the-fbi-hid-these-secret-documents/?
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February 18, 2025 8:14am
- David Garrett
  
  Steve: can you define this “Deep State” for me? Serious question.
  
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  February 18, 2025 8:23am
  - Anthony Melchett
    
    DG
    
    The deep state:
    
    The mechanism that allowed Biden to remove the chief Ukrainian prosecutor in 2014 that was looking into his son. He did this by threatening to cancel a billion dollar loan previously offered to Ukraine untill they sacked him. The money for this loan was supplied by USAID – effectively a slush fund for politicians to further their pet projects and wealth. Then if you comply with further demands (eg fake board appointments etc for those controlling the loans), you probably don’t need to pay it all back.
    
    There is a tangled web of mass corruption sitting just under the surface which they don’t want you to see that has been controlling the world and particularly it’s funding.
    
    This is only the beginning, watch this unravel over the coming months as Musk exposes more of it. Anyone complaining about what he is doing was no doubt receiving dirty money which has just been cut off. They won’t take kindly to it, I imagine they will try to take him out as well as trump
    
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    February 18, 2025 8:41am
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    To me it is a collection of people or groups actively working to bring Trump and his admin down. Democrat elite and RINOs would be a big part. The smaller protesting groups (antifa, BLM etc) just tag along. They are being used.
    Your description would be interesting. Everyone sees it differently.
    
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    February 18, 2025 8:49am
    - David Garrett
      
      Steve: Your description would be interesting. Everyone sees it differently
      
      See, here’s the problem I have with that term. I would have thought that if there was any consensus on meaning, it would be clear, and most could agree with it.
      
      Someone above mentioned Yes Minister – I saw that as a struggle between elected politicians and the stultifying bureaucracy that resisted political instructions they didn’t like. I encountered exactly that problem back in 2009 when trying to get some accurate prisoner-bed numbers from Justice officials re the proposed 3S law (it turned out they just made them up).
      
      From the responses I have got to my question, some would think I had encountered the “Deep State” whereas I would say I encountered left wing “progressive” officials who were out to frustrate what we were trying to do.
      
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      February 18, 2025 9:22am
      - Maggy Wassilieff
        
        Wikipedia’s not too bad on the topic:
        
        Since at least 1963, the deep state has been used to describe “a hybrid association of government elements and parts of top-level industry and finance that is effectively able to govern the United States without reference to the consent of the governed as expressed through the formal political process.
        
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_state
        
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        February 18, 2025 9:55am
      - Steve Otto N Shore
        
        Frustrate what we were trying to do.
        That is exactly it with Trump and his appointments. If Trump was not President it would be someone else, so the corrupt can continue their way of life.
        
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        February 18, 2025 10:01am
      - kowtow
        
        Could I suggest how the NZ public wants real justice against violent crime particularly , as shown by referenda , polling etc
        And how hard it’s been for 3S to go through in the first place , how unelected judges , academics , law societies , churches ngo’s , media etc frustrated or criticised it . Then scrapped in parliament and finally back again , watered down as to be pointless , is a great example of the largely unelected , unaccountable ‘Deep State’ at work .
        
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        February 18, 2025 10:48am
      - Tom Hunter
        
        @David Garrett
        
        I was asked this exact same question on Feb 8 on this forum by one “AitchW” and here was my answer, but I’ll copy and paste it again.
        
        I’ve never liked the term Deep State; it stinks of Far Left paranoia about things like the CIA, paranoia that was rampant in the 1970’s American Left, presented in a stack of books and movies like The Conversation and Three Days of The Condor. Small, conspiratorial little groups of people doing their stuff inside US government agencies. It’s even funnier – if you like black comedy – to see how the Left has now embraced the FBI, CIA and others: extolling them, defending them.
        
        I prefer to call it The Administrative State.
        
        And one of the keys to this is the Professional Management Class that easily move between the private and public sectors; The USAID that’s currently in the news is a microcosm of “The Deep State” in that it’s part of the other cycle between government and the private world – the tax money flowing to NGO’s that then advocate for more tax money to be spent on good causes.
        
        But it’s not just RWNJ’s like me who observe this. Here’s the Left but decidely based NZ commentator, Danyl Mclauchlan, who, after lambasting the Labour government for its uselessness in getting anything done (hit the link), wrote the following:
        
        In 1994 the US historian and cultural critic Christopher Lasch died, and a year later his final book The Revolt of the Elites was published. Lasch started his career as a socialist and ended it as a hard-to-categorise hybrid of anti-capitalist, anti-consumerist pro-environmental conservative. The revolting elites in his book are the professional managerial class: the educated technocrats who occupy a commanding position across post-industrial economies, not by direct ownership of capital or overt command of the political system but by managerial control of all our institutions. They run everything. I’ve written about the professional managerial class [PMC] before – I don’t think you can understand 21st century politics without them – and for Lasch their most important qualities are: a) they’re a global class; b) they’re more concerned with the virtual and abstract than the physical, and, c) the primary purpose of their politics is therapeutic.
        
        Although not liking the term “Deep State” it certainly works as a metaphor when you consider that these people and their systems are so “deep” that they are almost always unaffected by elections.
        
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        February 18, 2025 11:30am
      - cmm
        
        Tom: I think the point that “Deep State” achieves that “Administrative State” does not is that “Deep” implies the following:
        1) The “Deep State” is somewhat beyond the “Shallow State” that most people interact with on a daily basis. Your interactions with a cop, a nurse, or a kid’s teacher are “shallow state” interactions that give the state some legitimacy. But there is a deeper, more sinister layer that is beyond serving the public’s interests. Instead it serves its own interests.
        2) The “Deep State” is inaccessible to scrutiny and control. Over time, the “Deep State” becomes such a large % of the state that the “Shallow State” breaks down but there is no way to fix things.
        
        Clearly the secretive 3-letter agencies have off-books budgets etc for legitimate reasons, thus giving them more opportunity to have developed deep state practices, but now we have this throughout all government organisations including education, health etc.
        
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        February 18, 2025 12:01pm
      - Tom Hunter
        
        @ cmm
        
        I agree, it’s just that, as I said, the Far Left conspiracy origins of the term put me off, even if it does seem more applicable than ever nowadays.
        
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        February 18, 2025 12:39pm
      - sungsamning
        
        They’re part of it. Add in ‘academics’ and ‘journalists’. Also big business interests with DEI, and ESG programs. And a lot of the ‘entertainment industry’, and NGOs.
        
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        February 18, 2025 2:00pm
  - cmm
    
    I think “Deep State” is a grab-bag of different corrupt practices in the state that does not just fit into a single tight definition.
    
    The “Yes Minister” TV series was an example of the Deep State. The state organisations setting themselves up to serves their own interests and set up mechanisms to make themselves impenetrable to scrutiny and external control.
    
    The CIA is a classic example of that. Our education system in NZ too.
    
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    February 18, 2025 9:14am
    - Tom Hunter
      
      “Yes Minister” and its sequel are one of my all-time favourite shows and I’m currently watching it with my youngest and enjoying his shocked reactions of “But nothing has changed”
      
      But it has changed, and for the worst.
      
      Sir Humphrey represented The Establishment, and in England that meant the right Public Schools (Eton) and the right universities (“both of them”). In short you could laugh at it for many reasons but one of them being that it was just old-fashioned snobbishness about getting The Right Pepple Making The Right Decisions and that was a world already damned near dead in the 1980’s.
      
      But what we have now are evil Sir Humphrey’s, and ones with nowhere near the level of education or erudition and not just a disdain but an active hatred for their public they “serve”.
      
      And in the US this is all powered by literally billions more in funding, plus channels to get it out to people like themselves. Sir Humphrey was quite happy to take his knighthood and his pension when he retired. Nowadays these assholes expect the following: just look at the NGO salaries for the connected people – the PMC.
      
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      February 18, 2025 11:45am
  - sungsamning
    
    Here is the Merriam Webster Dictionary definition:
    An alleged secret network of especially nonelected government officials and sometimes private entities (as in the financial services and defense industries) operating extralegally to influence and enact government policy
    The power of the deep state comes from experience, knowledge, relationships, insight, craft, special skills, traditions, and shared values. Together, these purported attributes make nameless bureaucrats into a supergovernment that is accountable to no one. That is a scary prospect.
    —David Rothkopf
    What the archbishop suspected was a crime stage-managed by Turkey’s “deep state”—an opaque underworld where powerful elements within the state, especially the military and security services, act in conjunction with violent extremist groups … as well as the apolitical criminal underworld, to undertake special, illegal operations in the political interest of the country’s ruling elite.
    —John Eibner
    
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    February 18, 2025 9:16am
  - Bridgenag
    
    Deep state is a type of governance made up of potentially secret and unauthorized
    
    networks of power operating independently of a state’s political
    
    leadership in pursuit of their own agenda and goals.
    
    PsyWar Glossary, p 372
    
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    February 18, 2025 9:35am
  - MCōs
    
    As Trump uses the expression it refers to some vague group of unelected people who don’t support his agenda and importantly have the ability to act accordingly
    When the day inevitably comes that Trump has a falling out with Musk he will be part of the deep state
    
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    February 18, 2025 11:23am
    - Steve Otto N Shore
      
      Explain Hillary Clinton, and tell me she is not part of it.
      That goes for Pelosi and the rest etc.
      
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      February 18, 2025 4:54pm
      - MCōs
        
        Pelosi has always been elected.
        Hillary Clinton was a senator and vastly out polled Mr Trump in the election for president.
        Neither of them were ‘deep state’ anonymous unelected public servant flunkeys working against the government of the day.
        
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        February 18, 2025 6:01pm
kowtow

As NZME are pushing it so hard ;

Luxon says the disruption by Destiny is not the ‘kiwi way’ ; well nor is giving govt facilties ( libraries) and finance to gender political movements .

Photo of Swarbrick at that parade .
In one hand she has a “progressive/trans” flag , while wearing the Hamas ‘resistance” scarf .Reconcile that .

Now that we’re talking of defunding ‘charities’ we don’t like , let’s open the gates and clean the whole lot of frauds out.Don’t just pick on the ones the media don’t like.
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February 18, 2025 8:14am
- Paulus
  
  I was thinking after reading this that if Swarbrick was in Gaza, which is still Hamas controlled, she would effectively be one of the ladies in the way of servicing the troops, and as a Muslim she would be constantly pregnant and fat all the time.
  Women. are an anathema according to the teachings of the Koran.
  
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  February 18, 2025 2:55pm
G152

Here in NZ we have a fractured freedom of speech. Its present if we do what the masters decree.
Like rainbow things where children are faced with library lectures and fairy told tales.
BUT when a god bothering cult take exception and protest suddenly they have no freedom of speech….
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February 18, 2025 8:15am
I remember when

Takuta Ferris: Te Tiriti of Waitangi: Episode 8: (TikTok).
“What this means is that in 1840, when the Chiefs of the Confederation and The Crown signed the Treaty, there was no giving over of any resources, none.
The Crown didn’t get any resources they just got rights and they were given some authority, a degree of authority, to act on behalf of their people, that’s it.”

Bit unfortunate for those of us who are non-Maori.
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February 18, 2025 8:16am
- cmm
  
  Well it is all very well for Ferris to make that statement, but is that really true?
  
  I am absolutely no expert in this matter, but as I understand it the Maori signed up to be British subjects.
  
  Doing that would sign them up to the same resource ownership laws etc as defined by British law.
  
  That would including signing over various things to the Crown (eg. the Queen’s Chain, water, air, coast,…).
  
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  February 18, 2025 9:20am
  - JackRabbit
    
    But Ferris and Co work on the basis that if you tell a lie often enough, it will be accepted by those that are too lazy to do any homework.
    
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    February 18, 2025 9:25am
    - cmm
      
      That summarises the whole treaty reinterpretation industry.
      
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      February 18, 2025 10:07am
  - David Garrett
    
    cmm: You have it 100% right. I commend Apirana Ngata’s 1922 paper on the meaning and effect of the treaty to you. I don’t have it on my computer up here or I could send it to you. Google should assist.
    
    He saw Article III – which made Maori British subjects – as by far the most important of the three Articles (clauses/paragraphs)
    
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    February 18, 2025 9:26am
    - PeeJay
      
      And the important thing to remember is that Apirana Ngata lived at a time far closer to the treaty signing than the likes of Takuta Ferris, so would have an intrinsically greater understanding of the intent and meaning behind the treaty than the current crowd who attempt to reinterpret the treaty on an almost daily basis.
      
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      February 18, 2025 11:49am
    - Northshoredoc
      
      Here it is DG.
      
      https://www.nzcpr.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/TreatyOfWaitangiBySirApiranaNgata.pdf
      
      Should be required reading.
      
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      February 18, 2025 2:14pm
  - I remember when
    
    Maybe it is meant to create the possiblility.
    Add in the argument that when they signed the Treaty most, if not all, of the resources were on Maori land.
    A reason they like to insist their rights are as at 1840, the time of the signing of the Treaty.
    
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    February 18, 2025 11:27am
  - Quail
    
    Maori all over NZ actually sold a lot of their lands to settlers , A couple of examples:the Wairau Plain for Blenkinsops ’ s cannon. and in 1839 20 million acres of central New Zealand were purchased including all of Taranaki.
    Worth looking at NZ Company records and other purchases.some of which have been the subject of further recent settlements.
    There appears to be only limited recognition of these transactions .
    
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    February 18, 2025 3:14pm
  - Ra Henare
    
    Think you will find out that Maori did not sign up to be British subjects. But the rights of British subjects.
    There is a difference.
    
    In consideration thereof Her Majesty the Queen of England extends to the Natives of New Zealand Her royal protection and imparts to them all the Rights and Privileges of British Subjects.
    
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    February 18, 2025 11:17pm
- Clyde
  
  Ferris is a liar – we all know that don’t we?
  
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  February 18, 2025 9:23am
- Eastlander
  
  Picked that argument out of his nose presumably.
  
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  February 18, 2025 10:04am
- MCōs
  
  Are people getting Ferris Derangement Syndrome now?
  
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  February 18, 2025 11:29am
TripeWryter

I’ve just been watching a Stuff worry-piece on YouTube that the Guvamint is going to cut funding to universities by 4 percent.
Excellent!
Maybe that might encourage the unis to ditch the woke, racist stuff and get back to being centres of intellectual rigour and not of indoctrination.
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February 18, 2025 8:17am
- Clyde
  
  If the Government wanted to really show up the appalling wastes of money in Universities then it should make an example of Otago. The whole outfit run by Grant Robertson, a He Puapua writer as the maori VC and EVERY faculty or dept infested with maorification at all levels – the whole outfit brands itself as Treaty Led – whatever that actually means. The Teacher Education area is complete indoctrination. The only way they will change is complete financial pressure. Remove all govt funding until they provide what they are supposed to provide.
  
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  February 18, 2025 9:28am
- Hugh Jarse
  
  As a parallel 4% is probably about what government departments and agency’s spend on meeting opening and closing karakias, koha, DEI staff and support, indoctrination meetings and education of their employees in te al Maori, so a good figure to cut their budgets by and let the CE’s find the budget internally rather than as an add on to their budgets.
  
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  February 18, 2025 9:53am
- Paulus
  
  But Special People will not be affected by any cuts in funding – probably increased share.
  
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  February 18, 2025 2:58pm
Tom Barker

Why on earth should Elon Musk have to provide evidence of the efficiencies he’s making to US federal funding? When you’ve got that much money the truth is what you say it is. So Trump is above the law, and Musk is above the truth. What could be more fair and efficient than that?
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February 18, 2025 8:18am
- RoboRob
  
  Why is it that the left demand proof from Musk when he says there are 150yr olds receiving benefits. Yet the same people are perfectly happy to believe anything any government department says?
  
  Are people geting Musk Derangement Syndrome now?
  
  What wrong with an independant organisation going through the books and pointing out waste and fraud? I wish we had it here.
  
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  February 18, 2025 9:29am
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  Fairly hard to uncover inefficiencies when the left does not want you to.
  What are they scared of?
  
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  February 18, 2025 9:43am
  - I remember when
    
    If you want to ‘uncover inefficiencies’ you incentivise the existing staff by increasing their wages if they find cost savings.
    As this will usually result in lower staff numbers this then becomes your base staffing number.
    
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    February 18, 2025 11:40am
    - Steve Otto N Shore
      
      They get paid enough. Sack the useless ones. That is what Musk is getting Trump to do. Musk is not the sacker, Trump is.
      DCM or you will be escorted out by security.
      
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      February 18, 2025 4:56pm
- Tom Hunter
  
  If you’re willing to sacrifice your supposed defence of people’s private information then Musk and company will be more than happy to publish the social security numbers of all those 120 year old+ people.
  
  As usual you and the rest of the Left are a joke on your “principles”, in this case with it just being your usual dance of “rules for thee but not for me”, as witnessed by the endless glee when your side gets hold of private information – including from government data – on your opponents.
  
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  February 18, 2025 10:39am
  - riffer
    
    Wired has a good article on how there are no 150 year old’s collecting social security.
    
    TLDR: It’s caused by a COBOL glitch in dates.
    
    https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-doge-social-security-150-year-old-benefits/
    
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    February 18, 2025 11:46am
    - Raphael
      
      except Wired’s explanation is crap. It’s been a while since I programmed in it, but COBOL does not default to using 1875 as a reference point (sure an individual system could be customised to that, but why would the US be using a “metric” date).
      Musk has specifically posted how many people are in each age bracket held by Social Security and it debunks that link of thinking.
      https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1891350795452654076
      If it was simply a blank date working out to 150 years ago, you would not have this:
      90-99: 6.0M
      100-109: 4.7M
      110-119: 3.6M
      120-129: 3.4M
      130-139: 3.9M
      140-149: 3.5M
      150-159: 1.3M
      160-169: 121K
      170-179: 6K
      180-189: 659
      190-199: 448
      200-209: 879
      210-219: 866
      220-229: 1K
      240-249:1
      360-369:1
      
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      February 18, 2025 2:14pm
      - RoboRob
        
        100% Agree. From memory the issue with COBOL was always around where users had only specified 2 digit dates, and that was a Y2k issue.
        
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        February 18, 2025 3:00pm
    - RoboRob
      
      Oh and for what its worth you can’t trust anything you read in a tech site when it realtes to politics. Arstechica and Wired (and others) are all owned by Condé Nest. They are a highly politically left organisation and have turned tech sites into political sites with tech info.
      
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      February 18, 2025 3:02pm
    - Tom Hunter
      
      I’m glad others have responded to this as I wasn’t going to (one of those “wasting time in Internet fights” things) BUT…
      
      As someone in the IT industry who has actually programmed COBOL and later been a consultant on fixing such legacy systems that article is BS.
      
      Here’s the thing – as they try to dazzle people with tech bullshit they don’t understand themselves.
      
      – As part of the whole Y2K thing I had to sit with COBOL coders ploughing through thousands of lines of ol;d code, often dealing with stuff written in the early 1970’s. In all that time I never came across a date field based on an “epoch” of 1875 and the “Convention du Mètre.”
      
      – Given that the Social Security system wasn’t computerised until the early 60’s I suppose it’s possible they did
      
      – But at that stage there were still people around born in 1875 (hell, the last Civil War Vet had only just died in 1959), so they would not have simply had their birthdays reset.
      
      – IIRC the SSA themselves released a report in the leadup to Y2K talking about how they’d removed people from the system because they’d been born before 1870, not just 1875. And there was no spike in 1875 “births” either, which would be a mark of an “indicator” date.
      
      – When I was coding COBOL in the early 80’s there was some ISO scheme that applied to things like field definitions so it’s a fair bet that the SSA COBOL-based system used that. In any case, that and the later standards like the ISO 8601 they mention result in dates and times being stored as readable text, not as numbers so even 1875 was not this “epoch” thing that WIRED is wanking on about.
      
      – I haven’t looked at the SSA datasets (they’re publicly available) but I’d bet dollars to donuts that the birthdays are in a fixed-width format, maybe – if they’re lucky – with the year as a two column field (Y2K, woo hoo).
      
      At best they don’t understand this stuff, even as they claim to. As worst it’s fraud that the Left (meaning you) are desperate try to cover up because it’s just more failings of your beloved giant State. I doubt it amounts to much fraud but such flaws indicate that there are others dealing with current SSA payments, then we’re in the same world as the excuses made about USAID, that it’s nothing compared to the whole budget.
      
      Yeah, that’s how waste and fraud start. In fact that’s one of the things they rely on.
      
      In addition, I’ve been reading WIRED for years and while it was once a good tech site it has, like the MSM, de-generated to just being another Leftist mouthpiece enforcing the Leftist Narrative Of The Day – rather like you denying all the claims about Karakias and such from people on this forum who have as much contact with the public service as you do.
      
      Just look at the reporters creds:
      
      David Gilbert is a reporter at WIRED covering disinformation, online extremism, and how these two online trends impact people’s lives across the globe, with a special focus on the 2024 US presidential election. Prior to joining WIRED, he worked at VICE News
      
      FFS. And I see the “expert” he quoted was blabbing on about “The Threat To Democracy”, a Democrat Party talking point that already failed last year. Plus he was from the NSA, the Intelligence community that had 51 prominent members lying through their teeth about Hunter Biden’s laptop just so Biden could score a talking point deflection in the 2020 debate.
      
      Same shit here, different subject, different day.
      
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      February 18, 2025 5:36pm
kiwikidsnz

The long tradition of the English military reneging on their commitments to allies continues

“UK Special Forces command rejected resettlement applications from more than 2,000 Afghan commandos who had shown credible evidence of service in units that fought alongside the SAS and SBS, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed for the first time.”

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy9l9elr95zo
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February 18, 2025 8:19am
- Gussy Fink-Nottle
  
  2,000 Afghani Commandos resettled in the UK.
  What could possibly go wrong?
  
  10 3
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  February 18, 2025 9:12am
  - JackRabbit
    
    Trojan Horse.
    
    5 3
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    February 18, 2025 9:56am
    - kowtow
      
      Troy was Greek , now it’s Turkish. Following a colonial settler militant migration out of Central Asia .
      
      6 1
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      February 18, 2025 11:00am
      - Jack5
        
        The end of the ancient Greek settlements on the Turkish coast came brutally in 1920 as the Turks followed up their genocide of their Armenian citizens.
        
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        February 18, 2025 11:33pm
- kowtow
  
  The long tradition of the BBC shitting all over British institutions.
  
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  February 18, 2025 9:24am
Surely Knott

In November 2024 , three years after the extreme Chinese inspired covid response, the courts found that Tamaki’s protests were in fact lawful. The charges were dismissed and other charges were dropped by police. Footage showed that Tamaki had organised the protest in partnership with police to be lawful. But for 3 years he was held up in Media as a criminal and a pariah and had to wear the threat and burden of worrying about a criminal jailable conviction. Did the police and media apologise or compensate him?

3 months later we are at it again. Calling him a fascist. And accusing his group of violence and concussion of a 16 year old girl. So do we have our facts straight.

Now, we are calling Tamaki a fascist and a criminal , threatening the charitable status of his organisation .

“Library staff and organisers, fearing for their safety, were forced to barricade themselves and the children attending the science show inside the venue.” So the report is made not on what Tamaki did but how library staff felt. Because they are presenting Tamaki as a terrorist threat when once inside his group simply did a Haka from what is shown on video. Or was their violence. Did they try to shut down the show as alleged. Or did they do a haka and move on.

So what were the facts:
Feb 17 “Police confirmed they were INVESTIGATING allegations of assault after about 50 people entered the building and refused to leave, with a teenage girl receiving a concussion during the fracas.”

This morning the article is presented again, with changes but the story still says police are investigating.

The man has been put in stocks in the public square and police haven’t even fronted up and made a statement. The young girl in the video appears to be doing the hitting. Is that the one with concussion. Was she assaulted. Or is she assaulting. We can’t tell from the video or from the polices statement.

This is how the media is doing misinformation. Or hide information from the public. It’s two days in did the police arrest anyone. And if not then media should stop misleading the public.

And if disrupting a protest in a public place with sound like a haka is illegal, and scary then media should report on the Palestine protests and the Posie Parker protests the same way.

If media is wrong about the assault then they should be sued for defamation.

Is he a fascist. Of course not. He has no power. He is not in government. He is not using his public power of the state to force an ideology on others. Those using the library and museum to promote gender ideology, pronouns etc are the ones using state power.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/534316/police-drop-covid-related-charges-against-brian-tamaki-lawyer
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February 18, 2025 8:23am
- NoFax
  
  Never ever trust the media especially when it comes to Brian Tamiki. They actively lie because they hate Christianity. Remember, activists cosplaying as journalists to further their cause.
  
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  February 18, 2025 9:44am
  - Paulus
    
    Am interested as to how many of Tamaki’s people are in Jail ?
    
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    February 18, 2025 3:01pm
- Ghost
  
  What luxon actually said was
  
  When asked if he thought Destiny was right to have charitable status, Luxon replied: “There is a broader question at play which we have said that we would look at in due course around the registration – you know charities and their charitable status, therefore their tax treatment as a consequence … will form part of the important piece of work.”
  
  Article
  
  Nz herald had to correct their article
  
  Clarification: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said the Government may consider a review of Destiny Church’s charitable status. The review would be a broader look at the charity sector as a whole.
  
  That correction has been since yesterday.
  
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  February 18, 2025 10:04am
  - Surely Knott
    
    Mmmm because to threaten his charitable status is against the role of government. The Charities registration board is independent and ” makes all decisions on registration and deregistration,”
    and shouldn’t be interfered with by politicians.
    
    Furthermore he hasn’t broken any law, and no one from the protest has been charged.
    
    He has however been unfairly targeted by police before.
    
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    February 18, 2025 11:39am
    - Ghost
      
      He didn’t threaten their charity status, that is you, as always making something up. It’s what you do, as well as laking any compassion or humanity for the victims. Good for the teenage victim of these thugs the police have opened an investigation into her assaults.
      
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      February 18, 2025 12:37pm
      - Conservatarian
        
        Please introduce yourself to the words “alleged” and “claimed”.
        
        3 0
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        February 18, 2025 2:09pm
    - Paulus
      
      Whole Charities and Tax Free positions need a serious look.
      
      6 0
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      February 18, 2025 3:02pm
TripeWryter

There is a New Zealand YouTuber I am starting to like – The Anglo Saxon.
He appears to be a lawyer. Unlike lawyers, though, he speaks in plain words and short sentences.
Has anyone else seen him? Do you know who he is?
16 2
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February 18, 2025 8:27am
- sungsamning
  
  Yeah, I’ve seen his stuff. I’ve put some on another blog.
  
  6 2
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  February 18, 2025 9:20am
- Jules99
  
  Yes I came across his YT channel recently. He has a voice like a professional broadcaster. Good content.
  
  2 0
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  February 18, 2025 3:58pm
- Bridgenag
  
  Please give me a link
  
  1 0
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  February 18, 2025 5:49pm
Matt Long

In case a poster regresses to student politics days, Grok has a fairy good definition of Fascism.
What is Fascism?
“Fascism is a political ideology and system of governance characterized by:

Authoritarian Rule: Fascist regimes are typically led by a dictatorial leader who holds absolute power.
Nationalism: Extreme emphasis on national unity, pride, and often racial purity. Fascists advocate for the nation or race as the primary unit of human organization, often promoting a sense of superiority over others.
Totalitarianism: The state seeks to control all aspects of society, including economic, political, cultural, and social life. There’s little room for individual freedom or opposition.
Militarism: A glorification of military might, often leading to aggressive foreign policies and expansionism.
Anti-Democratic: Fascism opposes liberal democracy, parliamentary governance, and individual rights in favor of centralized control and suppression of dissent.
Corporatism: The economy is managed by the state in collaboration with private sector entities, where business interests are aligned with state goals, often under the guise of serving the nation’s interests.
Anti-Communism: Historically, fascism emerged partly as an antithesis to socialism and communism, though it shares with these ideologies a disdain for liberal capitalism.”
The global left including New Zealand’s recent governments have more in common with fascists than Destiny Church does, but they’re not fascists, something worse perhaps. The term Progressive is a new speak euphemism for their odious ideology.
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February 18, 2025 8:34am
NK

The social media and MSM pile-on against Destiny Church continues today.

It’s rather concerning. The latest is a Destiny Church leader who works for a radio station funded by the government was at the Team Atatu library event, and Paul Goldsmith, as minister for broadcasting, was contacted for “comment”.

Tau Henare is quoted as saying the Destiny member should be sacked from his radio job.

As I say, the pile-on, MSM bullying and social media “thuggery” is concerning.
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February 18, 2025 8:39am
- pdm
  
  How many lost jobs as a result of the Posy Parker brutality? Or did any of them have jobs to lose?
  
  Shaneel Lal fell on his feet in Hipkins Opposition Leaders Department and as I understand it he was one of the ring leaders.
  
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  February 18, 2025 8:47am
  - Conservatarian
    
    Shaneel Lal was also one of the most vicious bullies in the online NZ culture wars (I haven’t recently looked for any of his social media – perhaps he still is). He may have mended his ways since he got his more high profile job with Hipkins.
    
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    February 18, 2025 2:14pm
- My-Gumboot
  
  Yeah, If you are brave enough to do the full trans thing, dress-up, make up etc and go out in public you must have a level self confidence that is way beyond me. Shouldn’t really need Tau and MSM to take the scrap for you.
  
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  February 18, 2025 8:48am
- kowtow
  
  yep , where was the pile on from the media after the Posie Parker riot or even after Phil Twyford was jeered off that Hamas stage and had to have a very heavy police escort to get him outta there .( while Swarbick screeched , genocidally ‘river to sea”)
  
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  February 18, 2025 8:51am
- sungsamning
  
  Anyone interviewed by an NZME ‘journalist’ should throw the matter of previous USAID funding in their face.
  
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  February 18, 2025 9:21am
- JackRabbit
  
  Tau Henare is quoted as saying the Destiny member should be sacked from his radio job.
  
  On that basis there would be no-one working at any MSM outfit in NZ.
  
  It’s different when the Left say things.
  
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  February 18, 2025 9:58am
Scooter

This is the trouble with Chris Luxon, the continual biz talk slogans, he is still in the corporate boss mindset “The public is my customer” he said to Mike Hosking. What exactly are the NZ public buying from Luxon and what is he selling?
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February 18, 2025 8:43am
- cmm
  
  No dude, the public is your boss.
  
  If you think the public are your customers then I would ask:
  1) Who do you think are your share holders?
  2) Who do you think are your board of directors?
  3) Who are you accountable to?
  
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  February 18, 2025 9:01am
  - RoboRob
    
    I prefer ‘the public is the client’.
    
    The client who is paying for the job you are doing for them. Boss implies a direct ability to instruct and change the command. Either way its an important message to get to the public service.
    
    My wife, who now works for the empire (led by darth Luxon), has been instructed to treat the people she works with as clients, which I like. I must say I am generally impressed by the part of the empire she works for so far.
    
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    February 18, 2025 9:38am
    - JackRabbit
      
      The public are the the shareholder and bosses, not clients. That is why it is called ‘Public Service.’
      
      11 1
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      February 18, 2025 10:01am
    - cmm
      
      Client and customer are fine for some purposes, but suggest that people have a choice and can take their money elsewhere.
      
      This breaks down in two ways:
      1) Taxpayers cannot chose to take their money elsewhere.
      2) Many of the “customers” are those getting “free” services that others pay for.
      
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      February 18, 2025 10:31am
    - PurplePen
      
      I’m surprised that the public service needs to be told this. The requirement is in their name.
      
      6 0
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      February 18, 2025 11:40am
      - Paulus
        
        Was once called the Civil Service !
        
        4 1
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        February 18, 2025 3:04pm
    - NeverMindTheBollocks
      
      Only lawyers and hookers (but I repeat myself) have clients.
      
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      February 18, 2025 7:31pm
  - Dudley Quaffquaff
    
    If the public is the boss for politicians, then it should be no surprise if politicians do a poor job. They’re being awfully managed. Contradictory, incoherent and inconsistent demands undermined by counter-productive and incomprehensible incentives leave them completely unclear as to what the boss wants and with no particular reason to want to find out
    
    7 4
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    February 18, 2025 9:48am
    - cmm
      
      Yup, unfortunately that is generally correct.
      
      Politicians respond to what the voters ask for. The voters are what are really broken.
      
      7 1
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      February 18, 2025 10:33am
    - PurplePen
      
      But still, when you have a client you’d be wise and professional to manage their expectations and even what they think are their requirements, especially if they’re unrealistic.
      
      3 0
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      February 18, 2025 11:43am
  - Miritu
    
    You’re not keeping up.. did you not get the memo?
    The public are our subjects, we rule over them
    
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    February 18, 2025 1:16pm
- RichardF
  
  Based on the preferred prime minister ratings the public is not buying what Luxon is selling.
  
  They have a perception problem. There’s lots happening behind the scenes but most people are unaware of progress. The media is against the coalition so they have to think of other ways to get their message across. I don’t think tik tok is the answer either.
  
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  February 18, 2025 9:05am
  - Bevan
    
    Luxon is showing himself to be a rather shite PM.
    
    But who are the alternatives? I cant think of many in National who wouldnt give the MSM and opposition a field day.
    
    Reckon this will be a one term government, at the next election we will most likely see a Labour/Greens/TPM coalition – the most left wing and activist in history. The only benefit being that they would stuff the country up so much, the political pendulum will swing back to the right with a vengeance.
    
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    February 18, 2025 11:59am
    - Don Beckett
      
      Why wouldn’t those voters just shift their vote to one of the other two partners?
      I don’t see that it’s inevitable that we will have the socialists back in power, just because they perceive that Luxon is not fulfilling the voters’ wishes.
      
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      February 18, 2025 12:55pm
      - Bevan
        
        Because there are a significant portion of NZ voters with IQs lower than peanuts who only swing between National and Labour. Look at the polls – National is dropping and ACT is not rising accordingly, they are stagnant – the voters aren’t leaving National for ACT, they are either going to Labour or they are not going to vote. And with the Maori seat overhang, either way you cut it, that’s a Labour led government
        
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        February 18, 2025 1:49pm
    - Paulus
      
      A National/Labour Coaltion after the next election perhaps.
      And the media will have won.
      
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      February 18, 2025 3:06pm
    - Pope Punctilious II
      
      I don’t think this will be a one-term government. The extremist demands of Te Pati Racist will scare off centrist voters when they realize Labour will need TPR to win a majority.
      
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      February 19, 2025 11:04pm
- David Garrett
  
  Scooter: Whatever Luxon is selling, I’m sure as hell not buying it.
  
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  February 18, 2025 9:29am
  - cmm
    
    It’s a bunch of buzzwords.
    Sounds great until you ask for specifics.
    
    The “whatever” is one of the greatest problems here. Luxon has yet to articulate any clear policies for this “growth” thing – let alone the plans to achieve them.
    
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    February 18, 2025 9:33am
    - RoboRob
      
      If the government really wanted growth (outside of tourism) they would be looking at making NZs energy cheaper. In the modern world (and historically) the future will be for those countries with cheap energy and good communications. Look at the recent AI and data center boom, you need cheap power for this. Cheap energy also allows for growing tomatos etc and cheaper food prices. Cheap energy allows for manufacturing and anything else you can think of.
      
      Unfortunately thus far they are doing the ‘lets instigate a working group on power’. As if that hasn’t been done before At least they will be able to sit on their hands for the rest of this term while the review completes. Next term, after the first year, they can take the learnings from the working group and review their options in another working group.
      
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      February 18, 2025 9:44am
    - Grunter
      
      Come on, I heard him tell Hosking exactly what they are doing to ‘Go for Growth’….//
      
      “We are looking into it. Let’s see what comes to the surface”
      
      Brilliant! What a plan! He made such a great shampoo seller……!
      
      12 1
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      February 18, 2025 10:14am
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  He is selling co-governance and maorification.
  
  23 2
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  February 18, 2025 9:51am
- Quail
  
  Sorry, seems to be sorted now,
  
  2 0
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  February 18, 2025 10:21am
sungsamning

Annual Ad-Free Subscription… Join the Fight and Support Revolver Now…

Check out the new merch! — Donate…

Sign up for our email list… stay on the bleeding edge…

If you’ve been following Revolver News, you know we’ve had Norm Eisen’s number for years. But who is Norm Eisen, really?

It’s a loaded question, but here’s the short version of how he got started: Norm’s a Harvard Law grad. Back in 1991 he met his BFF Barack Obama. While he was there, he also served as Assistant Director of the Anti-Defamation League (a left-wing anti-free speech/propaganda group) and worked as a research assistant to his professor, Alan Dershowitz.

But Eisen’s story takes a much darker turn the moment he and his Deep State buddies saw their power apparatus crumbling, thanks to a political outsider named Donald J. Trump.

Long before everyone else caught on, we identified him as the Deep State’s legal mastermind and the architect behind the relentless lawfare weaponized against President Trump.
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February 18, 2025 8:57am
sungsamning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZ0Snng5gKY
Unemployment in D.C. Spikes.
Let’s see. What was it they said when all the pipeline workers lost their jobs? Oh yeah, learn to code!
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February 18, 2025 8:57am
cmm

There is some talk of infrastructure spending delays causing hundreds of engineers to leave.

Certainly this is a contributor, but I think it is likely the straw that breaks the camel’s back rather than being the only issue.

NZ’s boom/bust way of operating does not build confidence in NZ as a good place for a career, but there are many other issues too. A substantial number of these need to be fixed to stem the bleeding – let alone reverse it.

A few buzzwords won’t fix this.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/542017/devastating-hundreds-of-engineers-leaving-nz-due-to-infrastructure-delays-ceo-claims
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February 18, 2025 9:07am
- RoboRob
  
  The problem is, how to stop left wing governments stopping construction and diverting that money to consultants? We tend to only actually build when a rigth wing government is in place, the rest of the time we spend billions consulting on projects.
  
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  February 18, 2025 9:47am
  - cmm
    
    It would be interesting to see this broken down.
    
    How many of the engineers that are leaving NZ are white-collar engineers and how many are steel-toecap engineers?
    
    5 1
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    February 18, 2025 10:36am
  - PurplePen
    
    I heard or read the other day Bishop has Labour support for a cross-party infrastructure stream. The idea being to avoid infrastructure whiplash every time the govt changes. And I remember during the election the infrastructure debate which had a rep from each party. They all agreed that they had much the same view in terms of infrastructure scope. The differences lay around the edges.
    
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    February 18, 2025 11:49am
    - Quail
      
      Yes MMP at work,
      Same old bureaucracy , politicians doing as the bureaucracy wants.
      Voters taking whatever is dished out.We have no real options.
      
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      February 18, 2025 4:44pm
- JackRabbit
  
  From that link:
  “Hundreds” of engineers were also losing their jobs, Templer added.
  
  Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop said in a statement the number of projects had increased since the government came to office.
  
  Both statements are not mutually exclusive.
  
  With Labour being tossed out, it signaled the end of, or curtailing of, heavily bloated pocket pissing contracts.
  
  Engineers leaving is not good. They don’t grow on trees. It takes years.
  
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  February 18, 2025 10:20am
  - Surely Knott
    
    I saw the guy interviewed on the Platform. He said many of the engineers were now working from home in NZ but for Oz companies. Surely this is the best of both worlds. Instead of working for the government they work for OZ companies and then spend their earnings locally.
    
    Is high paid specialist workers going to OZ terrible. Not ideal. Ideally we would have work for them here. But if we don’t have work for them here then Oz is a good thing. They are only 3 hours away and can easily move back if NZ has another large scale project.
    
    It’s not the same as health workers where the number of patients would be fairly steady.
    
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    February 18, 2025 11:44am
    - JackRabbit
      
      It’s not the same as health workers where the number of patients would be fairly steady.
      
      It is far from steady. In the late 90’s I turned up at ED at 3am, and there were no other patients. Now you will find 20-30 at that time of night. And the population has only increased 30% over that time.
      
      Also the range of new illnesses is colossal. I know of people entering the hospital systems as new doctors, getting burnt out in 3-5 years.
      
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      February 18, 2025 1:45pm
    - cmm
      
      That is what I do and have pretty much being doing since 2007. Other than a few months working for a couple of NZ companies, all my work has been offshore.
      
      Even before then I was working for NZ companies that are owned by overseas entities, so basically the local engineering output is exported in raw form.
      
      The downside with this is that it does not create local industry and local jobs (beyond take aways and groceries etc).
      
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      February 18, 2025 2:37pm
    - cmm
      
      ” can easily move back if NZ has another large scale project.”
      
      Assuming:
      1) they want to.
      2) the pay etc is competitive.
      
      There is a global shortage of skilled people. NZ still seems to have the broken attitude that you can treat people poorly and they will still come because of beautiful scenery or something.
      
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      February 18, 2025 2:40pm
- Eastlander
  
  New Zealand had an influx on engineers and firms because of the Christchurch event. One of them had quite a bit riding on lake Onslow.
  
  Comes down to too many engineers chasing too few jobs, and the country simply can’t afford to fund enough work for all of them. So some will shift to Australia. It does once again raise the question of whether we shouldn’t simply bite the bullet and become a state ourselves.
  
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  February 18, 2025 10:56am
- Damocles11
  
  Not sure it’s ‘Boom – Bust’ anymore, the old tricks that were behind the ‘Rockstar Economy’ – mass immigration & pumping the property market – simply aren’t working these days. Our existing infrastructure is at full capacity and our population is ageing, rising superannuation costs are just one of many stones dragging NZ into an economic abyss. The relatively small productive sector can no longer adequately carry the increasing population of many urban dwellers who don’t bring any foreign currency earnings, and this is borne out it our balance of payments deficits.
  
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  February 18, 2025 12:31pm
Chuck Bird

As I understand Tamiki went too far with violence.

However, there are bigger issues like confused children being prescribed drugs that are irreversible. Sometimes teachers or councillors keep parents in the dark.

I support Family First on this issue. Last year we had speakers who had extreme regret for their transition.

Family First had its charitable status removed but outfits like InsideOur get taxpayer funding.
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February 18, 2025 9:20am
- David Garrett
  
  Last year we had speakers who had extreme regret for their transition.
  
  You had speakers where Chuck?
  
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  February 18, 2025 9:46am
  - Don Beckett
    
    I understand he means at Family First – an organisation I support.
    
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    February 18, 2025 11:21am
    - David Garrett
      
      Don: Yes, I’m basically in support of FF…i certainly believe a stable two parent family is most likely to produce decent human beings.
      
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      February 18, 2025 12:10pm
  - Chuck Bird
    
    The Family First Convention.
    
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    February 18, 2025 11:32am
  - Chuck Bird
    
    David what do you think of this?
    
    FAMILY MATTERS: How to respond to the ‘transgender trend’
    
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYGstyUslZw
    
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    February 18, 2025 2:34pm
- Damocles11
  
  I’m yet to see footage of any violence, but I now understand that a haka performed by Destiny Church is ‘bad’ but one performed by TPM, rugby players, activists, labourites etc is ‘good’.
  
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  February 18, 2025 12:33pm
Maggy Wassilieff

The problem with NZ in a nutshell….a lesson for all innovators…Do not become reliant on the NZ Government for funding.

https://theconversation.com/remembering-the-poly-1-what-nzs-forgotten-homegrown-school-computer-can-teach-us-about-state-led-innovation-249577
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February 18, 2025 10:08am
- cmm
  
  NZ is far too small a market to develop things like this for itself. Every product needs to be designed for international sales.
  
  I would suggest that the main killer for the Poly 1 was what killed almost all of the microprocessor systems emerging at the time: the IBM PC and clones.
  
  “NZ$10 million purchase agreement for 1,000 units per year over a five year period.”. So $2000 each…
  
  That was about the same price as a PC at the time and a PC could run a whole lot of software.
  
  Software availability is what kills boutique computers.
  
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  February 18, 2025 10:45am
  - Jack5
    
    The first Apple 2 was sold in mid 1977. From then the pace of innovation kept increasing and the first IBM PC was released in August 1981.
    
    The Poly, with its Flex operating system, went into production 1981. It never had a show of being an international leader.
    
    ARM, developed by engineers from Acorn, which made the BBC computer, now dominates the cellphone world. ARM was in a way an intellectual spin-out from Acorn.
    
    New Zealand had nowhere near the intellectual firepower to emulate the pioneering of ARM.
    
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    February 18, 2025 11:47pm
- Lance
  
  Not even that.
  We were in an industry the govt (NZ and Aus) decided to make ‘it’s pet’.
  Regulations became ridiculous and removed from reality, the entire industry jostled for subsides based on shit engineering but wonderful theories from academics, the consumers became pissed off because the half arsed theories didn’t work but you had to build them that way otherwise no subsides (and then overpriced compared to everyone else).
  Then something else shiny came along so ALL subsides were removed overnight and put on the new shiny tech.
  
  It would have been much better if govt/s just stayed out of it and let the people that actually knew their arse from their elbow could get on with it.
  
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  February 18, 2025 10:52am
  - Quail
    
    Yes Lance the downside of subsidies is well known.
    Politicians never seem to remember the economic harm to economies.
    
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    February 18, 2025 4:53pm
In Vino Veritas

For anyone asking about which programs in the USA have been cut and why, here’s a (quite long) clip of Ben Shapiro talking about the closing of the Dept of Education.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTElMvkD70U
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February 18, 2025 10:10am
- Dudley Quaffquaff
  
  Don’t you think this information and explanation should be provided by official sources?
  
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  February 18, 2025 11:30am
  - In Vino Veritas
    
    Sigh. Dudley, you actually can look if you want to.
    For instance:
    https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-cancels-additional-350-million-woke-spending
    There are plenty of US news sources that have reported various Government entities having terminated contracts, staff, initiatives etc, see this for one: https://www.propublica.org/article/department-of-education-institute-education-science-contracts-doge
    Nearly every day Trump comes out and literally TELLS the media what he and DOGE are doing.
    
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    February 18, 2025 3:41pm
  - In Vino Veritas
    
    And Dudders, theres this:
    https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-cuts-over-600-million-divisive-teacher-training-grants
    
    Again, these take no time at all. And look pretty official to me. US Dept of Education no less.
    
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    February 18, 2025 4:41pm
  - In Vino Veritas
    
    And from the DOGE (you know, the Department of Government Efficiency) there’s all this shit:
    US taxpayer dollars were going to be spent on the following items, all which have been cancelled:
    – $10M for “Mozambique voluntary medical male circumcision”
    – $9.7M for UC Berkeley to develop “a cohort of Cambodian youth with enterprise driven skills”
    – $2.3M for “strengthening independent voices in Cambodia”
    – $32M to the Prague Civil Society Centre
    – $40M for “gender equality and women empowerment hub”
    – $14M for “improving public procurement” in Serbia
    – $486M to the “Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening,” including $22M for “inclusive and participatory political process” in Moldova and $21M for voter turnout in India
    – $29M to “strenghening political landscape in Bangladesh”
    – $20M for “fiscal federalism” in Nepal
    – $19M for “biodiversity conversation” in Nepal
    – $1.5M for “voter confidence” in Liberia
    – $14M for “social cohesion” in Mali
    – $2.5M for “inclusive democracies in Southern Africa”
    – $47M for “improving learning outcomes in Asia”
    – $2M to develop “sustainable recycling models” to “increase socio-economic cohesion among marginalized communities of Kosovo Roma, Ashkali, and Egypt”
    
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    February 18, 2025 4:44pm
imalwaysright

I was wondering why the Human Rights Commission were AWOL during the covid régime when our human rights were suspended and we were abused.

It turns out that Paul Hunt , then Chief Human Rights Commissioner, was busy threatening internet companies because the internet was being mean to his friend Jacinda!

https://www.1news.co.nz/2025/02/17/tech-agencies-failed-to-protect-ardern-from-violence-misogyny-hrc/
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February 18, 2025 10:39am
Morgan H

I’m someone who doesn’t have a neat political home. People have labelled me “far-right”, “communist”, “woke”, “fascist”, “lefty”, “racist”, “centrist”, or whatever they find convenient at the time. This is usually just based on one viewpoint at a time rather than all my views collectively. Personally, I feel my views are determined by facts and morals rather than just following the crowd. I find the tribalizing thinking of both sides to be holding us back.

This is why I’m a big supporter of MMP. Although I admit I might be slightly biased as I was born and raised with it. The electoral reform I would enact would remove the Maori seats and lowering the % threshold. There’s no longer any justification for the Maori seats. The threshold should be lower so people can properly express their views in the system rather than what currently happens. The main parties take advantage of us by only offering extremely water-downed out ideas. Some people suggest 2.5% threshold, but I could accept 4%.

I think are culture is getting to PC. The constant use of cancel culture to shut down everything is destroying our culture. Too many people justify it when their side is doing it, which says a lot more about their own “values” than they care to acknowledge. Sportsplayers shouldn’t be cancelled for having a joke with their mates, especially when the only person offended is hypothetical.
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February 18, 2025 10:43am
- cmm
  
  I think you might like the idea of what they have in Switzerland.
  
  Here you basically have a choice of package deals wrapped up as parties. But what if you, say, like Labour’s education policy, National’s health policy and Act’s crime policy? Who do you vote for.
  
  Rather than have to choose one-size-fits all parties, Switzerland runs many referendums per year. For example, in 2024 there were 4 referendums voting on 12 different issues.
  
  IMHO this is the best way to get a fine-grained selection of what you want.
  It seems to also keep the population relatively engaged in politics rather than making that just a once every few years freak show.
  
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Swiss_referendums
  
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  February 18, 2025 11:13am
  - PurplePen
    
    I’ve seen a Swiss referendum. A booklet, quite a number of pages, is sent to each household. It explains the issue, the solution options, impacts of each solution in detail. It’s excellent.
    
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    February 18, 2025 11:56am
  - James Stephenson
    
    We’d probably just end up like California with everyone voting for tax cuts and spending increases…
    
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    February 18, 2025 1:09pm
- Philview
  
  After Labour got an absolute majority in 2020 and dusted off an unmandated manifesto I am now in the MMP camp.
  
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  February 18, 2025 11:32am
- Steve Todd
  
  @Morgan H @ 10:43AM
  
  Some people suggest 2.5% threshold, […].
  
  Of whom I am one.
  
  Two-point-five percent is a guaranteed three seats. We’ve had parties in parliament with only three seats, or fewer, before. A three- or four-seat party will have sufficient parliamentary resources to be an effective voice in the House (and in select committees).
  
  With the Party Vote threshold set at 2.5%, the one-seat exemption from the 5% threshold could also be abolished. That facility was simply copied from Germany, where it facilitated the entry into the Bundestag of regional parties that could not attract 5% of the Party Vote, nationally.* In New Zealand, until recently, it merely allowed party leaders to drag a couple of colleagues into parliament with them.
  
  * A snap election is being held this Sunday, 23 February (being seven months early). The “three-seat rule” was eliminated as part of the 2023 electoral system reforms. From now on, seat distribution will be determined solely through each party’s share of the second (Party) vote. (The 5% Party Vote threshold has been retained.) This means parties are no longer allowed to keep overhang seats. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_German_federal_election.)
  
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  February 18, 2025 3:31pm
Benedict Yu

And here is another example of why the Ministry of Education needs to be bowled.

A senior role to “shape” the education system. The selection criteria are expertise in te ao Maori, te reo Maori, and tikanga.

There is literally no requirement to know anything about education.

https://www.seek.co.nz/job/82077155?type=standard&ref=search-standalone#sol=0d1d720c8a30b8552eaa12e72bd9e1940a395eaa

Honestly, all this could be ended so easily by the government. The minister or her office must read these job ads

Disclosure. I have worked at the Ministry of Education in senior roles, but not in the last decade.
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February 18, 2025 11:13am
- cmm
  
  Yup, since they are not doing anything about it, the implication is that National is perfectly happy with the Aotearoaification.
  
  I have yet to see a single substantial act to refuse that.
  
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  February 18, 2025 11:15am
  - Benedict Yu
    
    I could write the job ad properly but I would have these criteria.
    
    Demonstrated understanding of what makes an effective school.
    
    Dealing with failing organisations.
    
    Good understanding of all the factors that determine individual achievement including family influences.
    
    …. Of course anyone who knew any of this would give up in despair and resign. I have first hand experience. Which I fully admit has influenced my views on the Ministry. Hence my disclosure.
    
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    February 18, 2025 11:23am
    - cmm
      
      I am certainly you could write a good job ad, selecting the important criteria.
      And that is exactly why you will not get the chance to do so.
      
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      February 18, 2025 12:55pm
- Damocles11
  
  Now we just need the usual apologists to show up and explain why National can’t do anything, or that they are masterfully making changes in the background but unfortunately they are not reflected in this job ad or the many others like it. There will some pitiful excuses made, and some claims that it’s all good because National is purportedly ‘going for growth’.
  
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  February 18, 2025 12:00pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  And just as bad…
  This job/contract is just for 12 months, but the successful applicant is expected to “build and maintain meaningful relationships”…
  
  What a load of horse-shit.
  
  Breeze into a department, hang-about for a few meetings, then piss-off.
  
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  February 18, 2025 4:02pm
- Pope Punctilious II
  
  Where is Erica Stanford?
  
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  February 19, 2025 11:13pm
cmm

DG: This is a clear example of what is meant by “Deep State”.

The education department has become a self-selecting, self-perpetuating machine that feeds off the taxpayer.

It won’t change from within because the gatekeepers only allow their own sort in. The people that are really needed to fix the organisation cannot tolerate the working conditions and frustration and leave.

This is not limited to education, but pretty much to every state organ.
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February 18, 2025 11:32am
- David Garrett
  
  Cmm: thank you…and also to the many others who offered definitions of Deep State…I am now much better informed.
  
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  February 18, 2025 12:13pm
  - cmm
    
    In the old days a discussion such as this would have been incomplete without a tin foil hat. Unfortunately that is no longer the case.
    
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    February 18, 2025 12:54pm
  - sungsamning
    
    You’re welcome, David. Thanks again for the original three Strikes.
    
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    February 18, 2025 2:15pm
Steve Otto N Shore

Air Traffic Control getting the DCM.
More DEI hires going?

https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/other/trump-begins-firing-air-traffic-control-staff-amid-7-plane-crashes/ar-AA1zdTZU?
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February 18, 2025 12:09pm
- fernglas
  
  The article says they are firing probationary employees whose jobs include maintenance and repair of air traffic control systems. Seems a bit dumb when they can’t get enough air traffic controllers in the first place.
  
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  February 18, 2025 2:14pm
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    I think they have a problem with antiquated computer systems that nee serious upgrading.
    
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    February 18, 2025 4:59pm
- fightingtemeraire
  
  Taking a leaf from Ronald Reagan’s book.
  
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  February 18, 2025 3:07pm
Benedict Yu

Oh dear how surprising.

“An electric plane maker that Air New Zealand signed up with to potentially supply up to 23 aircraft has reportedly laid off most of its remaining staff after failing to attract new funding.”

https://www.thepost.co.nz/business/360583341/former-air-nz-proposed-e-plane-supplier-lays-most-staff

My understanding is that there is a future for small electric planes – like 2 to 6 people. They exist now. Air New Zealand’s smallest plane carries about 50 people. I am not aware of anything on the horizon.

Good old laws of physics.
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February 18, 2025 12:29pm
- cmm
  
  There is a future in small electric planes in the microlight category for toy/hobby use, but not really for commercial use.
  
  Quite frankly I was expecting this because the physics just did not stack up.
  
  It was always just greenwashing.
  
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  February 18, 2025 12:52pm
  - PurplePen
    
    Same with freight trucks. The energy to weight ratio of batteries is 100 times less than fuel. With that vast difference there’s no way you could ever make a business case for freight trucks let alone aircraft.
    
    It’s odd Air NZ didn’t do this simple maths before throwing money at the aircraft project.
    
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    February 18, 2025 3:37pm
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  Where is that Luxon guy? He will send money to AirNZ.
  
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  February 18, 2025 5:01pm
Steve Otto N Shore

Elon musk was not elected but he has the power of getting people fired, and getting dodgy outfits closed.
Fauci was not elected yet he had the power of closing a whole Country down and forcing a debatable vaccine on everyone.
So the hypocrat Democrats can STFU. The adults are in charge now.
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February 18, 2025 12:36pm
Handyman

The electricity market has so many parameters. Let’s simplify the discussion.

Imagine 40 per cent of taxis are solar powered by panels on their roof. The other 60 per cent are regular petrol cars. On a sunny day with low demand the solar cars make money with a low price and the petrol cars stay in the garage.
If the demand picks up the petrol cars will make money with a high price and the solar cars will charge the same as the petrol cars!
At night, or on cloudy days, only petrol cars operate but cabs charge a high price because there is a shortage of taxis.

So overall, introducing cheap solar powered cars with free energy increases taxi costs and creates supply shortages.
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February 18, 2025 12:42pm
- JackRabbit
  
  Imagine 40 per cent of taxis are solar powered by panels on their roof.
  
  And requiring 150+ hours of full sunlight to charge.
  
  There is a reason why Hybrid EVs are popular as taxis. They run on gasoline.
  
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  February 18, 2025 1:51pm
- cmm
  
  “Imagine 40 per cent of taxis are solar powered by panels on their roof. ”
  
  You may as well imagine that pink ponies poo candyfloss.
  
  The roof of a taxi is maybe 3 square metres as can generate around 500W or so in peak conditions, so you’re very lucky if that gives you 3 kWh of electricity a day.
  
  A taxi-sized vehicle will give maybe 5km of range per kWh. Total generated range 15km. On a perfect day. Being generous.
  
  Taxis routinely do 150 to 200km/day so 15km is only a tenth of that – on a good day.
  
  A very light cloud cover would knock that down to less than 10km and moderate cloud cover down to 5km or so.
  
  A taxi running less than 70-100km a day is going to lose money and is not sustainable.
  
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  February 18, 2025 2:00pm
  - info@cruzpro.com
    
    You are correct that solar panels on the roof of a taxi will not work.
    
    An electric taxi can be charged at night however and do 150-200 km during the day. The cost of electricity is cheaper at night making the cost of running the taxi quite low. Much lower that the running costs of petrol powered taxis.
    
    Also, you see a lot of hybrid taxis on the road.
    
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    February 18, 2025 4:07pm
    - cmm
      
      ” The cost of electricity is cheaper at night ”
      
      That is not due to the laws of physics etc. It is only related to supply and demand as things currently stand.
      
      ie. there is typically less demand at night and getting people to shift their loads to night time can reduce the peak loading – requiring less generators etc. Thus it is often worth it to discount night time electricity.
      
      However….
      1) if night electricity usage was to go up substantially, then there is no more incentive to get people to shift their load into the night and night time electricity rates will go up.
      2) if electricity usage shifts more towards solar panels, then the cost of night time electricity will go up – a lot.
      
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      February 18, 2025 7:38pm
  - Handyman
    
    @jack and ccm.
    It was a thought experiment, where the impossible is allowed.
    Think of the solar taxis as weather dependent generators and petrol cabs as hydro or coal generators.
    
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    February 18, 2025 4:21pm
    - Steve Otto N Shore
      
      Good escape Handyman – LOL!
      
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      February 18, 2025 5:04pm
    - cmm
      
      Well it is useless as an experiment because it is not grounded in reality.
      
      Imagine if we could turn gravity on and off, then we could… except we can’t so any conclusions are bollocks.
      
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      February 18, 2025 7:39pm
Inandout

So we are told unless we throw billions of dollars at the climate scam companies like Nestles will refuse to trade with us. Now if Nestles deals with 188 countries do you think consumers will give a toss about the DEI crap?
https://www.nestle.com/info/suppliers
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February 18, 2025 1:05pm
- JackRabbit
  
  If Nestles are that woke, you would have to question how much DEI goes into every block.
  
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  February 18, 2025 2:07pm
cmm

Having recently turned 63 and starting to now plan my glide path, I have become a bit more curious as to what is going on in Kiwisaver land etc.

I was stunned to come across this article from just a few months ago. The thing that really caught my eye was that only 20% of 60+ people have more than $80k in Kiwisaver.

Assuming a couple each have $80k in Kiwisaver – and that is all, then that gives them $127 a week of extra money over the NZ Super (assuming it needs to last until age 95).

Of course many people will be able to reverse mortgage a house, but still.

The median is less than half that: under $40k, giving a couple only $55 or so extra a week.

Based on this, it doesn’t look like it will ever be palatable to reduce NZ Super.

https://www.moneyhub.co.nz/average-kiwisaver-balance-by-age.html
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February 18, 2025 1:08pm
- Blog-aholic
  
  Palatable nor plausible unless you want a LOT of homeless destitute OAPs
  
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  February 18, 2025 1:20pm
- Dudley Quaffquaff
  
  You seem to be assuming that KiwiSaver is their only savings. There’s no reason to assume that. It’s perfectly rational only to put into KiwiSaver, enough to ensure that you maximize the Government’s contribution – and to accumulate other savings elsewhere.
  
  If this really is all they’ve managed to accumulate after a lifetime, then they must have been so low-income that NZSuper won’t represent much of a reduction in their standard of living. Or they’ve been unlucky with their health or ability to work, in which case there is other public assistance available. Or they’ve pissed it all away, in which case that’s neither Government’s fault or their problem.
  
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  February 18, 2025 3:26pm
  - rouppe
    
    If you don’t put in 3%, your employer doesn’t put in 3%.
    
    The government contribution of $1042 is only part of the incentive programme.
    
    I started a kiwisaver for my son when he was 5. $50 a month. He’s now 19 and his balance is now $30,800. 99% of that is from just $50 a month.
    
    To only have $80,000 after 15 years of consistently saving 6% (3+3) would be disappointing
    
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    February 18, 2025 5:56pm
- PurplePen
  
  Bit generous with 95 being the end date. I’m working on dying before I’m 90.
  
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  February 18, 2025 3:40pm
  - JackRabbit
    
    Be careful what you wish for.
    
    95 is the old 65.
    
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    February 18, 2025 6:10pm
- Dudley Quaffquaff
  
  PS: the situation of people already in their 60s is anyway irrelevant. Any changes to NZ Super would have to be made well in advance, so as to allow people a reasonable opportunity to adjust their retirement planning. Thus, changes made now might be scheduled to take effect from say 2040 and only to affect people who reach the eligibility age then or after that, ie those presently 50 and under.
  
  This is also why people already past, or close to, the age of eligibility should butt the fuck out of discussions about NZS reform. They’ve got no skin in that game. They will neither be affected by nor pay for any reform.
  
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  February 18, 2025 3:54pm
  - Ian Boag
    
    scheduled to take effect from say 2040
    
    We could of course do what was done before. Starting tomorrow we could lift the age by six months a year. That seemed to work without any widespread misery.
    
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    February 18, 2025 5:24pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  The gap between what is recommended for a comfortable lifestyle ($600k) and what the average retiree’s KS balance actually is is enormous.
  
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  February 18, 2025 7:48pm
sirknz

Is anybody surprised by this outcome?

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/worlds-first-openly-gay-imam-muhsin-hendricks-killed-in-shooting/7DTQRR3QXVFOTAB7JOC6EHQLSI/
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February 18, 2025 1:56pm
- greybeard
  
  Not “gay”.
  Homosexual.
  And surely there can be no such person as a homosexual muslim ?
  
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  February 18, 2025 6:36pm
Ghost

Report released

Public Service Commissioner Sir Brian Roche today released the findings of an inquiry into the protection of personal information.

https://www.publicservice.govt.nz/news/findings-of-inquiry-into-protection-of-personal-information-released
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February 18, 2025 2:18pm
- Prince
  
  ‘The System has failed’ says Sir Brian Roche.
  No, this is the result we should expect under ‘Co-Governance’, where money and responsibility is handed over to Iwi-led ‘charities’ who have clear conflicts of interests.
  All three ‘charities’ have denied mis-using data collected, despite clear evidence to the contrary.
  This is deemed outside the scope of the review.
  
  If this had involved a Non-Maori electorate, there would be a clamour for the MP, elected on a handful of votes, to step down. Don’t expect any significant noise to come from the usual suspects, TVNZ. Stuff and RNZ, except the usual ‘Racist review’ allegations.
  
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  February 18, 2025 3:01pm
Swifty

More than bloody allegations!

“These two findings, along allegations that the marae collected information from people receiving Covid-19 vaccinations, later used in a TPM text message campaign during the election campaign, and entered into a database owned by Waipareira Trust.”

That’s exactly what happened to me. Went to get my Covid shots in Henderson and then shortly thereafter started getting texts from Waipareira to join them for Waipareira activities nothing to do with Covid (but everything to do with The Maori Party).

I’ve never had anything to do with Waipareira in my life so it was easy to put two and two together. Waipareira harvested my contact info from my signing up to their Covid service and then used it for their own (TPM) purposes.

https://www.thepost.co.nz/politics/360585089/chief-statistician-stands-down-after-sobering-report-misuse-census-information

Anyway, I strongly suspect nothing will come from it, as Tamihere himself said “everything is allowed if it is in the service of Maori kaupapa.”

I should just stop being so racist and check my white privilege.

//
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February 18, 2025 2:34pm
- rouppe
  
  There’s now a police enquiry.
  
  Offer your statement to them.
  
  The more chance of dealing to John Tamihere the better
  
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  February 19, 2025 10:11am
Steve Otto N Shore

I just received an email from the Taxpayer’s Union. Jonsie Awards.
In the link below, about half way down the page is a comparison chart of NZ and Norway.
Jesus Christ! What a birdsnest the Govt structure is. How the hell are they supposed to find time to actually work? 30% more employed and it is a dam mess!

https://www.taxpayers.org.nz/taxpayer_update250218

NZ v Norway. How the bloody hell did NZ Govt end up like this? It can only be the Public Sector Employees making things look like they are doing a good job of managing NZ. It has to stop, now, today!

https://assets.nationbuilder.com/taxpayers/mailings/11126/attachments/original/Public_Policy_Responsibility_Flowchart_comparason.pdf?1739830131
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February 18, 2025 2:44pm
- PurplePen
  
  Yeah. Saw that spider diagram comparison a few weeks ago and sent it to Judith Collins as well as ACT and NZ First.
  
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  February 18, 2025 3:42pm
- DimChappie
  
  Yes I see very positive signs that there will be big cuts. Luxon said he’s up for it, let’s see.
  
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  February 18, 2025 8:04pm
- Quail
  
  For those supporting MMP.
  NZ has twice as many politicians as actually needed
  *Look at Norway and also Ireland. They operate well with almost 1/2 as many politicians.
  *Half of our politicians are not chosen by voters , they are simply appointed by the political bureaucracy.
  *Even those who are rejected by the electorate often end up back in parliament on the party list.
  *Unbelievably some of these electorate rejects are even appointed ministers —- This despite voters clear wishes!
  *Going to a 2.5% threshold would likely even increase the number required.
  The mess that the Coalition government inherited from Labour was not because Labour had the majority in the previous election ,it was because of Labours abject incompetence plus (reluctantly to be fair) the twin impacts of Covid and RB decisions .
  MMP has bloated bureaucracy beyond reason and consequently choked productivity!
  
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  February 18, 2025 8:35pm
greybeard

https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/360585178/consensus-nz-should-be-ready-deploy-peacekeepers-ukraine

For NZ to send “peacekeepers” to Ukraine is ludicrous. So-called “peacekeepers” are usually unarmed and have absolutely no authority to use force .

A good example ( or rather the WORST example ) of this is the total uselessness of UN troops in the 1990s Balkans conflicts.
They literally stood by while thousands were massacred.

If you were too young to remember this, here is a precis of what happened in the latest Balkan war:
https://www.exploros.com/summary/Key-Points-about-the-1990s-Balkan-Wars
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February 18, 2025 3:33pm
- cmm
  
  Generally peacekeepers only make sense if:
  1) They are not one of the belligerents. NZ has participated in this war and has picked a side. They are no longer impartial.
  2) The war has reduced to minor skirmishing etc. That is not the case yet.
  
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  February 18, 2025 3:41pm
- thirteenstars
  
  “are usually unarmed ”
  
  That’s just not true. Even a woke military like NZ sends armed peacekeepers to various places around the world.
  
  The poor performance of UN peacekeepers in some places is due to poor policy or rules of engagement. Regardless, the US plan as outlined by SecDef Hegseth is that peacekeeping in Ukraine will not involve UN or US troops but will use only European troops who will not be operating as NATO forces and therefore will not trigger the Article 5 mutual aid clause if attacked. This is designed to avoid entanglements and make the peacekeeping operation an entirely European affair, which it should be.
  
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  February 18, 2025 3:57pm
  - cmm
    
    Yup,
    
    Peacekeepers are armed, but only for self defence. There is generally very little they can do to stop anything.
    
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    February 18, 2025 7:32pm
than

RNZ putting a weird political bent in this article. But, I supppose that’s par for the course for them.

There was a private NZ venture to make computers for schools that came out at the same time, but that was crowded out of the marketplace by the Poly 1. I think it was called the Pegasus. For others, the Sinclair ZX Spectrum
(which I still have today.) also are fine machines for learning (in the day)

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/542199/remembering-the-poly-1-what-nz-s-forgotten-home-grown-school-computer-can-teach-us-about-state-led-innovation
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February 18, 2025 5:28pm
Swifty

Hey Tom H. – yer mate on The Platform today:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ariJonD-7DI
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February 18, 2025 7:35pm
- Tom Hunter
  
  Heh. Thanks swifty.
  
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  February 19, 2025 7:08am

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