General Debate 23 February 2025

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Gravelroad

https://www.stuff.co.nz/culture/360589567/why-legendary-film-maker-james-cameron-loves-wellington-not-donald-trump
Headline “news” on $tuff today.
Should I be impressed and influenced by what this guy has to say? A millionaire who makes film?
I get it that he had to escape Trump for his wellbeing etc etc, but isn’t he just basically a white colonist like the rest of us?
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February 23, 2025 8:20am
- kowtow
  
  A rich Canadian lecturing New Zealanders about an American President ?
  
  And this;
  
  ‘One of the best things about life here was getting away from the wall-to-wall coverage of Trump in the States, he said.’
  
  Yet his power and influence can get Useful Idiots like Gower and $t1ffed to ……..
  
  ,,,,,give us wall to wall coverage of the guy he claims to want to flee .
  
  TDS is real.
  
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  February 23, 2025 8:28am
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    Trump is living in his head. There is no escape!
    Wellington will suit him just fine, but stay there.
    
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    February 23, 2025 10:40am
    - Paulus
      
      Doesn’t he live on his Estate in theWairarapa ?
      
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      February 23, 2025 11:16am
      - Steve Otto N Shore
        
        No idea. As long as he stays there.
        
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        February 23, 2025 11:46am
      - Maggy Wassilieff
        
        He has a house in Roseneath as well as his Lake Pounui house in South Wairarapa.
        
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        February 23, 2025 1:26pm
- Swifty
  
  So James Cameron supports a massive state, and all the fraud, graft, outright theft and waste that goes with it?
  
  Who knew?
  
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  February 23, 2025 8:50am
  - Quail
    
    Cameron says he believes “taxpayers cash for movies needs to keep coming” !
    Wonder how many taxpayers NZD he has received ?
    Perhaps USD are now in short supply in the US.
    Subsidising the NZ film industry has very rarely benefited all New Zealand
    
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    February 23, 2025 10:29am
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    That the same Cameron who bought 2 dairy farms because he could, then virtue signalled by stripping them of stock until the grass grew, then put the cows back on the farms? That hypocrite?
    
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    February 23, 2025 10:57am
- Philview
  
  I saw the headline but couldn’t bring myself to read. The way the media are carrying on you would have thought the World was a harmonious place before Trump came to power. I have been interested by Trump policies towards Mexico which seem to be uncovering that the country is actually a criminal State. Mexico is defending the rights of Drug cartels and per a couple of articles the political apparatus of the country is substantially funded by those cartels.
  
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  February 23, 2025 8:53am
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    Mexican President does not seem to be interested in US drone stalking the fentanyl labs. They will start destroying them soon if Mexico does not shut them down. It is almost as if Claudia Sheinbaum wants the US to destroy them.
    Not sure what she wants.
    
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    February 23, 2025 10:54am
    - Keith White
      
      Sheinbaum is older Swarbrick with a dash of Golgriz.
      
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      February 23, 2025 8:29pm
  - cmm
    
    “. I have been interested by Trump policies towards Mexico which seem to be uncovering that the country is actually a criminal State. Mexico is defending the rights of Drug cartels and per a couple of articles the political apparatus of the country is substantially funded by those cartels.”
    
    What?
    The corruption in Mexico has been obvious for decades. The drug gangs really run the show.
    
    The only way to make Mexico take this seriously is to grab them by the balls and squeeze.
    
    One of the biggest income earners in Mexico are the remittances from foreign workers sending money back to family in USA. That is about 5% of GDP and is larger than agriculture, tourism or oil.
    
    About 21% of the GDP is manufacturing – mainly supplying USA.
    
    Remittances can be taxed and manufactured articles can subjected to duties.
    
    Thus those two levers provide a way to force Mexico into compliance.
    
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    February 23, 2025 12:37pm
    - Don Beckett
      
      “The only way to make Mexico take this seriously is to grab them by the balls and squeeze.”
      
      Are you saying that Claudia Sheinbaum is a trannie ?
      
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      February 23, 2025 1:01pm
- Suze Wainwright
  
  Didn’t he base avatars on Maori, or something…?
  
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  February 23, 2025 8:53am
  - 7kiwi11
    
    No, I believe it was native Americans and Smurfs. The film is often referred to as Blue Pocahontas for a reason.
    
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    February 23, 2025 9:46am
  - john1234
    
    Avatar story copied from Dances with Wolves
    
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    February 23, 2025 11:44am
  - Lance
    
    The language spoken by the Navi (native inhabitants) was largly based on Maori according to the person that wrote it.
    
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    February 23, 2025 3:33pm
- sirknz
  
  He is a billionaire, and part of the Hollywood elite so not even close to being in touch with what the mere mortals go through when his preferred team are in charge.
  
  I wonder if his name will be on the Epstein list?
  
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  February 23, 2025 8:57am
- Inandout
  
  Gravel, follow the money from USAID. Those who scream the loudest are often sucking on the tit.
  
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  February 23, 2025 9:21am
  - Lance
    
    At the moment that would be many US farmers
    
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    February 23, 2025 3:34pm
    - ISeeRed
      
      Careful. Your TDS is showing. US farmers haven’t been on the tit just “at the moment”, but under both Democrat and Republican administrations in the past.
      
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      February 23, 2025 9:38pm
    - Ghost
      
      Not sure why you are getting downvoted. Yes the closing of usaid is going to hit farmers, especially those who grow Corn, grain and rice that is sold to usaid programs. There are other federal projects that are being closed that were funding farmers as well.
      
      https://www.agriculture.com/billions-of-dollars-at-stake-for-farmers-hit-by-trump-funding-freeze-pause-on-foreign-aid-11681298
      
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      February 23, 2025 9:47pm
- Benedict Yu
  
  I could not watch the video but the promo is sickening enough.
  
  ““I think it’s horrific, I think it’s horrifying,” is Cameron’s response when asked about Trump’s re-election.
  
  The legendary Hollywood director has to spend a lot of time in the United States, but said President Trump made him even more desperate to escape home to Wellington…..
  
  …. When I ask him what it is about his adopted home town, Te Whanganui-a-Tara, that he loves so much, you get the sense he has found his place and his people.”
  
  A communist journalist interviewing an entitled billionaire.
  
  You would think from the interview that Donald Trump took over the United States in a coup.
  
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  February 23, 2025 9:39am
  - pdm
    
    Te Whanganui-a-Tara?
    
    Here I was thinking he (Cameron) lived in Wellington.
    
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    February 23, 2025 11:07am
    - Colville
      
      Didn’t he buy a couple of farms over Lake Ferry way? .
      
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      February 23, 2025 11:15am
      - septic skeptic
        
        He had/has a place overlooking hot water beach.
        
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        February 23, 2025 1:26pm
- John Loveridge
  
  Paddy Gower AND James Cameron? What’s not to like?
  
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  February 23, 2025 10:15am
  - septic skeptic
    
    Yes we are spoiled for choice today.
    
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    February 23, 2025 1:26pm
- rouppe
  
  James Cameron wants more film subsidies because “for every dollar put in, NZ gets $7 or $10 out”.
  
  I’d like to see some evidence of that, because my gut tells me that James Cameron gets rich off those subsidies, NZ gets some paye from the skilled staff (a few dozen, maybe 100 people) but in reality, for tens of millions of subsidies NZ as a country gets stuff all revenue for serious things like education and health. And that’s how I measure value from subsidies.
  
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  February 23, 2025 10:41am
  - septic skeptic
    
    LOTR was of tremendous benefit to tourism. Vastly better than RWC, Lions tours and Americas cup combined IMO. But LOTR was the exception.
    
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    February 23, 2025 1:29pm
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  I did click on the link to see what it was about, but sorry, I can’t be bothered watching any of Gower’s shit.
  
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  February 23, 2025 10:57am
- Notsofast
  
  Without Trump we would not have the JD Vance speech in Europe defending Western Civilization from the powerful thrust against free expression.
  Trying to imagine Tim Walz in the role, failing.
  Did Paddy ask any questions about his views on Vance?
  This presidency is a move to see beyond, Mr Cameron may have abandoned his country, but his country is helping the world in a time of crisis.
  
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  February 23, 2025 11:43am
  - Northshoredoc
    
    He’s Canadian I believe.
    
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    February 23, 2025 12:55pm
    - Notsofast
      
      Good point thank you.
      
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      February 23, 2025 2:05pm
  - Steve Todd
    
    @Notsofast @ 11:43AM
    
    Did Paddy ask any questions about his views on Vance?
    
    Doubtful, given the meeting was supposed to be about what, in the collective opinion of the centre-right group, Vision Wellington (https://visionforwellington.nz/), is best for Wellington (see https://wellington.scoop.co.nz/?p=168085 and https://wellington.scoop.co.nz/?p=168169). (See also https://wellington.scoop.co.nz/?p=166641#more-166641 for more context.)
    
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    February 23, 2025 2:06pm
- NothingLeft
  
  There was a great piss take on James Cameron and his massive ego in a comedy sci fi series “Futureman” a few years back:
  https://youtu.be/XYL82LwDtyg
  
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  February 23, 2025 11:57am
  - AitchW
    
    A member of our family was an extra on Avatar and had some brief encounters with Cameron. His experience was that the guy is a massive jerk! Huge ego, even bigger power trip.
    He treats the people who work for him like crap.
    
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    February 23, 2025 4:30pm
- PurplePen
  
  This is the guy that was telling us all to not eat meat as it’s good for the planet or climate. Meanwhile he and his brood are busy jetting around in private jets, big gas guzzling SUVs, own and operate multiple dwellings.
  
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  February 23, 2025 12:01pm
- Pope Punctilious II
  
  A millionaire who … makes over-budget turgid movies that wallow in sentimentality, and then bombastically claims he’s “on top of the world!”
  
  I did like the “Unobtainum” joke though.
  
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  February 23, 2025 8:21pm
Chuck Bird

Something our PM should watch.

An Inconvenient Truth: our climate policies can’t save the environment. so what will?| Bjorn Lomborg at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN_ARfPY9rY
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February 23, 2025 8:24am
imalwaysright

A very short vid of Luxon talking about the Marsden refinery.

Half way through he says “first we have to increase renewable energy because we have a lot of data centres coming”.
Assuming he means wind and solar. What happens when they aren’t available? Do the data centres get priority over our base load?
What happens to other industries and domestic users? We have already seen companies close or suspend operation because of energy costs.

Data centres won’t make us money. They make the owners money, yet Luxon wants to let them have a large share of our crumbling energy supply.
Something is very wrong here.

https://youtu.be/J-23Tb7GGVk?si=ktShf6Fkexqlk9Ne
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February 23, 2025 8:32am
- Benedict Yu
  
  Indeed. The first year I was willing to give the guy some slack. Now I have given up.
  
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  February 23, 2025 9:41am
  - Scooter
    
    I think he’s just not very bright and doesn’t like to delve into the issues and just prefers to delegate and appear to be the boss and look to get things done. However politics is very different to the corporate world, in politics the public aren’t customers as he had referred us as being. We pay and elect politicians to represent us and so far he’s not up to the job.
    
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    February 23, 2025 10:07am
    - cmm
      
      I think he sufficiently bright, but he thinks the people he is bullshitting are not. And perhaps he is correct.
      
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      February 23, 2025 12:40pm
  - Mark Hanley
    
    Imalways right. There is a lot of assumption and opinion on kiwiblog but not much fact. As you hopefully noticed, I’m working to improve that unfortunate position.
    
    Luxon has stated hydro is in the mix for the renewable energy projects, I posted the reference previously.
    
    Your statement that data centres won’t make us much money….. really?
    Data centres won’t employ highly paid techicians etc?
    Data centres won’t pay tax?
    Data centre’s won’t purchase land?
    Data centres won’t pay hefty telecommunication fees?
    Data centre’s won’t be a catalyst for more high tech businesses to start up around them?
    Data centres won’t attract more (money making) talented engineers to NZ?
    
    BY. I never noticed you giving Luxon any slack from your ficticious, ureferenced, generalized opinions.
    
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    February 23, 2025 10:25am
    - Don Beckett
      
      That was going to be an uptick until you unloaded on BY.
      
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      February 23, 2025 1:04pm
      - Mark Hanley
        
        See my comment above… too many inchallenged, unevidenced, unreferenced, inaccurate Luxon abuses on kiwiblog.
        
        Its not much fun ( i prefer posting and discussing solutions and suggestions to improve nz) but they need to be called out…… when good men do nothing, evil prevails.
        
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        February 23, 2025 1:10pm
      - Gravelroad
        
        Yes agree.
        Mark Hanley presents his judgements as facts, facts that must not be challenged.
        Then goes on to belittle other commenters who might (with knowledge) disagree.
        I get it that he feels the need to constantly talk up and support Mr Luxon – fair enough.
        But just because Hanley M states that something is a fact, doesn’t necessarily make it so.
        The National Party should have learnt by now that patronising and talking down to the electorate just does not work.
        
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        February 23, 2025 2:09pm
      - Mark Hanley
        
        Gravel. I always encourage kbers to read my posts before criticizing. If you read my posts you will see many examples of me challenging kbers to post arguments against my fact based positions with referenced facts which support their arguments (as i do).
        
        Unsurprisingly, not one kber has taken up the challenge.
        
        Which brings me to your post, which ironically given your baseless criticism of me, is just more unsupported and incorrect opinion.
        
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        February 23, 2025 3:18pm
    - septic skeptic
      
      Data centres won’t pay tax. They will transfer price and choose to pay in another jurisdiction.
      
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      February 23, 2025 3:21pm
      - Mark Hanley
        
        No gst on the power and telecommunications links?
        
        No gst on the land they purchase?
        
        No paye for their. employees?
        
        No rates?
        
        Etc?
        
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        February 23, 2025 3:31pm
      - Jack5
        
        Will any further developments like China’s DeepSeek moderate data-centre power demand?
        
        It hit futures contracts on natural-gas futures.
        
        Sorry but this link gives just a two-paragraph taste of an Australian Financial Review report:
        
        https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/deepseek-dents-outlook-for-ai-fuelled-power-boom-20250129-p5l7yo
        
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        February 23, 2025 5:30pm
    - wsk12345
      
      Well if he thinks hydro is going to provide lots of cheap energy he is even more deluded than i thought
      
      Hydro hs always been super expensive. Historically the build was paid for by the government and tariffs have never got to a level that would even close to pay them back. Cheap and hydro do not belong in the same sentence. Except small run of ricer which by its nature is non-firm (not reliable).
      
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      February 23, 2025 5:14pm
  - PurplePen
    
    Yes. But we can’t go from the current souvide into the fire that the opposition would be.
    
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    February 23, 2025 12:02pm
- Taieri
  
  first we have to increase renewable energy because we have a lot of data centres coming
  —————-
  
  Why are they coming here and how are we going to benefit from their arrival?
  Other, than by paying higher power prices that is…
  
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  February 23, 2025 9:50am
- NK
  
  It’s very telling that Luxon simply repeats the soundbites his advisors give him. I don’t think he is across the issues at all. Indeed, I do not think he is bright enough to be across them. John Key was the benchmark. He was full of data, figures, numbers and could speak off-the-cuff without being micro-managed. He was/is very sharp. But that was his background: He had to think fast, act fast and make decisions quickly. His brain was wired for it.
  
  By contrast, Luxon is simply a manager. Interestingly enough, that’s also the background of Nicola Willis.
  
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  February 23, 2025 10:13am
  - David Garrett
    
    NK: As you probably know, I had a limited number of interactions with Key…but from the few I had, I think you are 100% right. A very smart man.
    
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    February 23, 2025 10:24am
    - Mark Hanley
      
      NK. Luxon is simply a manager who was chosen from tens of thousands vying for the air nz ceo job.
      
      And simply a manager who was chosen to lead the National Party after one term in parliament.
      
      Luxon is simply a manager who gives all his speeches without notes.
      
      Luxon is simply a manager who always cites facts and figures to back up his answers when questioned by the attempted gotcha biased nz media.
      
      Luxon is simply a manager who has fixed inflation without crashing the nz economy (a managed decline is the best case scenario).
      
      Luxon is simply a manager who is lowering crime in nz.
      
      Luxon is simply a manager who has implemented conditions conducive to improving nzs productivity.
      
      Adern was definitely proof nz doesn’t require an experienced and successful manager at the helm.
      
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      February 23, 2025 10:49am
      - pdm
        
        Luxon is simply a manager who always cites facts and figures to back up his answers when questioned by the attempted gotcha biased nz media.`’
        
        Cannot agree with that one MH.
        
        He avoids the difficult subjects, his hour with Kerre Woodham the other day being a prime example, and more and more he waffles and does not answer the question.
        
        Finally look at the damage Ardern did to NZ in almost bankrupting and racially dividing it – yet you praise her in your last sentence.
        
        Your attempted logic is impossible to follow – and did you notice I am not the only one challenging you.
        
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        February 23, 2025 1:13pm
      - Mark Hanley
        
        Pdm. I thought my adern sarcasm was painfully obvious. I’ll be sure to point it out next time i use sarcasm.
        
        Your rhetoric is as usual short on facts or references. Care to elaborate……. what subjects was luxon asked to discuss then avoided?
        
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        February 23, 2025 1:48pm
      - Steve Todd
        
        @Mark Hanley @ 1:48PM
        
        Mark, your repeated spelling of Ardern as Adern is puerile.
        
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        February 23, 2025 2:26pm
      - Mark Hanley
        
        Steve. I’m more interested in the discussion than peurile criticism of the spelling of a single word.
        
        Why don’t you try coming up with a coherent fact based argument, you never know, you may enjoy adding something constructive to the conversation.
        
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        February 23, 2025 3:26pm
      - Steve Todd
        
        @Mark Hanley @ 3:26PM
        
        Wow! What a stunning comeback. I feel quite chastened – not!
        
        The fact is, Mark, you’ve been doing it for months, which means it’s deliberate – and, as I say, puerile. For goodness’ sake, grow up.
        
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        February 23, 2025 3:48pm
      - Mark Hanley
        
        Wow. I take a factual referenced counter view to the Luxon critics who have taken over kb and unfortunately chased the clever reasoned discussions and discussers away, and the only crititcism you can come up with is my efficient spelling of [Mod – spell the name correctly]
        
        I must be doing a Great job.
        
        I noticed you didn’t take up my invitation to add somehing factual and thought provoking to the conversation.
        
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        February 23, 2025 4:10pm
      - pdm
        
        MH time to get your own blog I think and see how many followers you have
        
        You are out of your league here – a bigger Luxon sycophant than even G the giant. At least he is succinct and often has posts that generate upticks.
        
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        February 23, 2025 4:43pm
      - Mark Hanley
        
        Pdm. You could try a constructive facts based argument… you might enjoy it.
        
        I kkow I’m winning the argument when all you’ve got is pathetic personal attacks.
        
        And there are plenty of people reading, upticking, and following my posts…. although I’d have a pretty sad life if upticks on kb was the measure of my success.
        
        Ps. I’m still waiting for you to tell us what subjects luxon was asked about on Kerry woodham’s show…. but avoided.
        
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        February 23, 2025 5:26pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        @MH
        
        I noticed you didn’t take up my invitation to add somehing factual and thought provoking to the conversation
        
        Pretty much KB standard …. “this action/idea is nonsense” .”Marxist” and “in addition to being wrong you are a clueless idiot” …
        
        It’s called “robust debate”
        
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        February 23, 2025 6:28pm
  - Paulus
    
    John Key was a top Money Dealer and Trader in the USA – that requires top guile, which Luxon does not have.
    They are different.
    
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    February 23, 2025 11:20am
    - NK
      
      Thanks for confirming my point.
      
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      February 23, 2025 11:39am
  - PurplePen
    
    Rob Muldoon was one that had all the facts and figures at his fingertips, and wasn’t afraid to speak his mind either.
    
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    February 23, 2025 12:03pm
    - Don Beckett
      
      Yes, except that he was a socialist & a character assassin.
      
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      February 23, 2025 2:37pm
    - Ian Boag
      
      He lumbered us with an unfunded pay-as-you go super scheme which is sort of starting to creak a bit now ….. The Think Big stuff didn’t look all that good either ….
      
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      February 23, 2025 6:30pm
  - Dougal10
    
    They all just repeat what their media minders write for them , ask them a simple question like , how come you are spending millions on wilding pine control yet 80km away the local councils are allowing whole farms to be swallowed up in pine carbon forrest that is a disaster , the confusion on their faces is amusing.
    
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    February 23, 2025 5:05pm
- Grunter
  
  So let’s assume Luxton isn’t dumb (seems a reasonable assumption). Then he repeatedly trots out renewable energy BS as if it hasn’t already failed EVERYWHERE that it has been pushed out (Germany, UK, Denmark, California, New York….). So what gives?
  
  IMO he is obviously part of the global left that want a neo-Marxist future of some sort. He supports Maori partnerships, global boiling, big Govt, big tax, big debt, big welfare state, woke language, DEI.
  
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  February 23, 2025 10:17am
  - Mark Hanley
    
    Grunter….. can you post the references supporting your “opinion”?
    
    Please look at my comments and references about hydro being part of future energy solutions.
    
    I have been challenged on the cost of dam building / hydro. I will respond to the claim that the hydro capital costs makes hydro too expensive.
    
    The poster didn’t explain how capital costs spread over the centuries the dams will produce energy reflects in price.
    
    The poster didn’t suggest a cheaper form of energy.
    
    The poster didn’t discuss the high paying technical jobs hydro supplies.
    
    The poster didn’t discuss nzs shocking trade deficit and what percentage of that deficit is energy costs.
    
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    February 23, 2025 1:18pm
    - GJM
      
      Hydro is dead in NZ. The activists and the Maori who have been given the rivers see to that. $100m want it that Meridian gave as hush money to get their resource consent renewed?
      
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      February 23, 2025 2:26pm
    - wsk12345
      
      If that was aimed at me – our dams have historically built to a 100 year life. Two turbine lifetimes. They were not built to withstand a substantial earthquake. The costs would be orders of magnitude greater for better seismic strength and with today’s labour and materials costs. A few puddly jobs!?? Are you serious!???
      
      I didnt offer a cheaper form of energy as the post was about hydro. But I can. Gas. Efficient coal. Geothermal. All cheap and reliable, even in dry years
      
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      February 23, 2025 5:29pm
  - Dougal10
    
    So he is a teal nat.
    
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    February 23, 2025 5:13pm
  - Sacha
    
    @ Grunter: Are you referring to the PM when you refer to ‘Luxton’?
    Or the MP for Gisborne?
    
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    February 23, 2025 9:05pm
- rouppe
  
  The recently commissioned geothermal station near Taupo was essentially paid for by Microsoft, and all it’s energy goes to it’s data center.
  
  So sounds good on paper but doesn’t help the NZ energy deficit at all.
  
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  February 23, 2025 10:43am
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  Sounds like Spark is going to build a large data centre, many of the larger data centres build their own power supply, usually renewable energy sources, he may well have been talking about that very fact , Spark announced this on Thursday
  
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  February 23, 2025 11:02am
  - wsk12345
    
    Great – so when there is no wind and solar output and the grid is struggling most, they will force the price even higher.
    
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    February 23, 2025 5:30pm
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  Luxon’s answer is word salad as usual. All over the place.
  Get it there and start drilling some holes.
  Get Marsden running. Filling the pipes with concrete was plain sabotage. Drag the pipes away and put in new ones. NZ needs to drop all of this green shit. Nothing wrong with fossil fuels. The bushfires and volcanoes give off many times more CO2.
  Need to go back to Luxon for a definite decision. Get him off that fence he sits on. Either that Luxon, or resign. There are a few who can do a much better job than you.
  
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  February 23, 2025 11:08am
  - Paulus
    
    Marden Refinery was privately owned and the pipes were owne4d by the Shareholders to do what they wanted.
    
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    February 23, 2025 11:21am
    - Steve Otto N Shore
      
      I know it was privately owned. The Govt should have purchased it, but guess who wanted all oil stuff stopped? There was no need for the concrete. What was the real point of that? Spite?
      
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      February 23, 2025 11:49am
      - CJames
        
        From what I know of the plant, there was significant buried pipework which was enbedded in concrete. When dismantling a plant, you will often fill these with concrete to reduce explosion risks for the workers.
        Nothing sinister, just good practice for the people working on site.
        
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        February 23, 2025 1:30pm
  - Mark Hanley
    
    Steve. In my quest to improve the quality of kb discussion i implore you to try doing some reading before you comment. It takes a second to search and check your statements are incorrect.
    NZ Herald……
    “Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says the coalition Government is considering whether to build a new oil refinery amid the country’s energy production challenges.
    
    It comes as the Government’s report investigating New Zealand’s fuel resilience, including the potential re-opening of the Marsden Point oil refinery, is expected to be released in the coming weeks.
    
    I’m always of the view that it (marsden) wasn’t just mothballed, it was actually sort of broken up and stopped,” Luxon said.
    
    “It should never have happened, to be honest, because … it’s a strategic asset and infrastructure we need.”
    
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    February 23, 2025 11:26am
  - Ghost
    
    Pipes were not filled with concrete, you’ve been told before when you pushed this fake shit that it was fake, yet you keep doing it
    
    https://goodoil.news/concrete-in-pipes-fake-news/
    
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    February 23, 2025 12:27pm
    - Mark Hanley
      
      Settle down Ghost, the repeated inaccurate generalized luxon abuse fake shit is much more prevalent on KB and i cant remember you calling those posters out for posting fake shit ….
      
      The PM is of the view marsden point was sabotaged to prevent it reopening….
      
      “I’m always of the view that it (marsden) wasn’t just mothballed, it was actually sort of broken up and stopped.” Nz herald.
      
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      February 23, 2025 12:47pm
      - Ghost
        
        You should learn to pay attention then before you claim I don’t call out others on their fake shit.
        
        7 2
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        February 23, 2025 1:35pm
      - Mark Hanley
        
        Care to post a reference to your calling out luxon fake shit posters?
        
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        February 23, 2025 1:59pm
      - Ghost
        
        The blog has a search function, use it yourself
        
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        February 23, 2025 2:18pm
      - Mark Hanley
        
        I did search ghost…. nothing.
        
        1 6
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        February 23, 2025 3:35pm
      - Ghost
        
        Learn to search better
        
        5 1
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        February 23, 2025 4:29pm
      - Dougal10
        
        Get a room you two
        
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        February 23, 2025 5:18pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        (marsden) wasn’t just mothballed
        
        Why should it have been?
        
        I wouldn’t be surprised if it was sort of worn out because it had been allowed to run down because the owners saw no future for it.
        
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        February 23, 2025 6:34pm
    - Steve Otto N Shore
      
      I had not seen or heard of that item Ghost. I was always under the impression the pipe were filled with concrete to stop them being used again.
      Someone said to reduce the risk of explosion. That does make sense.
      Mark Hanley is a picky picky type – best ignored. Whatever people say he will look at ways to disagree with them. His day job must be very boring.
      
      Anyway, that refinery needs to be rebuilt and I would say another one built somewhere south in the lower north island. South island? dunno. Closer to the oil the better.
      
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      February 23, 2025 2:44pm
      - Mark Hanley
        
        Thx Steve. I do pay attention to details as you correctly articulate. Especially when people use baseless ideologically driven statements to criricize others.
        
        And i agree with you. It seems to make sense to build an oil refinery to add resilience to our energy supply.
        
        But like the pm, I’ll wait for the fact based analysis before I take a position on that one.
        
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        February 23, 2025 4:18pm
      - Ghost
        
        I told you back in November last time you posted this nonsense that Stuart had put a press release out that it was fake, and I’ve posted this link to you other times you have made this claim
        
        https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2024/11/general_debate_01_november_2024.html
        
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        February 23, 2025 4:24pm
      - Dougal10
        
        I don’t think us fuel users in the south island had been using nz refined fuel for years as it was too expensive to double handle it in and out of nz ports.
        
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        February 23, 2025 5:21pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        I was always under the impression the pipe were filled with concrete
        
        Now if you could just point us at where this (always) impression came from …. ?
        
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        February 23, 2025 8:09pm
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    Luxon said they were discussing building or reopening the refinery. That means cabinet, how the he’ll does he give a decision when it’s in the discussion stage? it’s in the NZF and Nats agreement to look at reopening the refinery
    
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    February 23, 2025 2:17pm
    - Ian Boag
      
      So the gummint should build and subsidise a refinery when the last one was closed because it was uneconomic? Wot?
      
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      February 23, 2025 4:51pm
- MCōs
  
  “Data centres won’t make us money. They make the owners money”
  What doesn’t that apply to?
  What they do is the same as any other business. Provide an avenue for investment & jobs
  
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  February 23, 2025 12:31pm
- cmm
  
  Data centre of the sort he is talking about DO NOT MAKE MONEY. Nor do they create significant employment.
  
  Once the building is built (sparse warehouse style buildings employing few people) and the equipment installed (all cheap to install rack mounted equipment requiring a few sparkies)), a data $100M data centre needs maybe a crew of 5 people to run it.
  
  These data centres are mostly remote operated from overseas. Almost everything coming in or out is via the network. That’s how networking works. It is as easy to control a system 2 metres away as it is to control one half a planet away.
  
  For the most part the only major thing they consume locally is energy – electricity – and they produce pretty much nothing into the local economy and do not generate new jobs or build local skills.
  
  This is especially true of one of the major data centres – machine learning centres.
  
  Machine learning is an absolute energy hog. The ML data centres in USA chew through more than 80GW. That is over 8x the peak winter electricity production of NZ.
  
  ML data centres are entirely controlled over the internet. The training data comes via the internet and the trained models leave via the internet. All NZ does is provide cheap power and gets nothing back.
  
  The only slight redeeming quality of ML data centres is that they run for a long time and their power use can be scaled according to available electricity. ie. if there is less electricity available, then the systems run a bit slower and use less power. If there is lots available, then run them faster and use more power.
  
  Even that comes with a down side. Remember that nice cheap night-rate power?. Yup, that we use to heat water and hope to use to charge EVs overnight? That exists because night time generation is under utilised. Well the ML data centres will consume that – likely killing off night rate power (or at least pushing the rates up).
  
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  February 23, 2025 12:56pm
- Tom Hunter
  
  It’s a slight variation on the original reason for the Bluff Aluminium Smelter.
  
  We’d supply the cheap electricity, including building the Manapouri powerhouse and tunnels while the smelter owners would build the smelter, import the raw materials, turn them into aluminium and export it, capturing the profits. And of course they were selling it to people who would add further value by turning it into more sophisticated products, creating value all the way down the chain.
  
  While we were all the way back down the food chain producing cheap hydro-power. Not exactly nothing but not much more than crude natural resource sales, which is also the case with most everything else we do: fishing, farming, tourism.
  
  And now we’re at it again, offering to supply electric power for 24/7 data centres – and from wind and solar, which are not 24/7.
  
  Sad. We need another hundred Rocket Labs instead.
  
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  February 23, 2025 1:48pm
  - Ian Boag
    
    As I understood it, the smelter was a way to export the mega hydro power that Manapouri could generate.
    
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    February 23, 2025 4:53pm
    - Sparrow
      
      Obviously I have been living under a rock. I was totally unaware of these data centres until very recently. Which government gave their ok for these data centres and the so called benefits to NZ?
      Reading all the blogs there appears to be no benefits in fact the opposite.
      
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      February 23, 2025 6:52pm
      - Maggy Wassilieff
        
        Perhaps you had just tuned out from Our Dear Leader’s ~~devious,~~ dealings….
        
        Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is staying tightlipped over her dealings with major multinational companies about datacentres being built or planned for New Zealand.
        
        https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/480529/datacentres-in-nz-pm-s-office-rejects-oia-request-on-briefings-over-plans
        
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        February 23, 2025 8:43pm
  - wsk12345
    
    At least the smelter provided a decent number of jobs. And enabled development of a hydro resource that will out last the smelter.
    
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    February 23, 2025 5:37pm
Yvette

Legal fight looms in Wairoa over freshwater rights
accessed and condensed by AI –
Tātau Tātau o Te Wairoa Trust has initiated High Court proceedings seeking legal recognition of customary title over significant waterways in the Wairoa region, including the Wairoa River and Lake Waikaremoana. Chairman Leon Symes emphasizes that the action aims to establish a partnership framework with the government to ensure sustainable management of freshwater resources, rather than asserting ownership. This move mirrors Ngāi Tahu’s 2020 claim for rangatiratanga over South Island freshwater resources. The case is scheduled to commence on March
https://www.1news.co.nz/2025/02/17/legal-fight-looms-in-wairoa-over-freshwater-rights/

… “It’s absolute nonsense. We have always said, that we’re not interested in owning the water assets. What we’re interested in is the proprietor rights over water [1], and that is a discussion to be had with the Crown, not with councils.” – Tukoroirangi Morgan, a member of the working group and Waikato Tainui descendant [2]

I predict that in the not too distant future, the question of Waikato River water for Auckland’s water supply will become a matter of contention, with the representatives on behalf of the personage of the river itself having input on behalf of the river’s use.
Beyond the $20 million currently [sic] involved it may cost an arm and a leg – while Ngāti Tūwharetoa, who own the head of the river, may also become involved, whether Lake Taupo is the head or upstream of where Bob Jones planted the TVNZ reporter Rod Vaughan who disturbed his trout fishing.
Te Mana o te Wai hasn’t tanked [sic again] yet. It won’t have died with “3 Waters”
____________________
[1] Proprietary rights, also termed property rights, are the rights that accompany legal ownership of tangible or intangible property; rights over or in respect of property. [2] https://www.1news.co.nz/2022/03/09/claims-maori-will-own-nzs-water-infrastructure-dismissed/
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February 23, 2025 8:34am
- rouppe
  
  What he’s saying with “Proprietary rights” is he doesn’t want the costs of maintaining assets, he just want the revenue.
  
  All up side, no responsibility
  
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  February 23, 2025 10:45am
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  Te Mana O Te Wai was dropped separately in November
  
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  February 23, 2025 11:11am
  - Grunter
    
    Again, go to the ORC website!
    
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    February 23, 2025 1:06pm
  - Dougal10
    
    Lol
    
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    February 23, 2025 5:31pm
- pdm
  
  As the old saying goes Yvette Wairoa Maori frontedby Tātau Tātau o Te Wairoa Trust:
  
  `want their cake and to eat it too!!!’
  
  or put more simply – take, take, take.
  
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  February 23, 2025 11:12am
  - AitchW
    
    In fact, pdm, they want their cake and everyone else’s cake and to eat the whole lot!
    
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    February 23, 2025 4:38pm
- PurplePen
  
  Customary rights. Is that each instance when their tribe occupied a site, or is it just the last instance. Wasn’t the tribal practice depletion of available protein in what area they resided and then they moved on.
  
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  February 23, 2025 12:07pm
- wairarapapaul
  
  Build more small scale dams and invest in rainwater capture off the roof.
  
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  February 23, 2025 2:40pm
Cassandra

The dramatic change in America’s foreign policy stemming from the President’s Ukraine policy has put a 3% cat amongst some “incredibly benign environment” pigeons. Denmark is the latest to increase its defence budget and even PM Luxon has indicated an increase for NZ. “We’ll try to get as close to 2% as possible” is lukewarm at best. 2% is the absolute minimum. Three frigates will cost about $10 billion. Add crew costs to that plus the rest of the Navy and the other two services and you’ve got something north of 2.5%. Current budget is under $5 billion. Note that the new Poseidons cost $2.3 billion, the C130s $1.5 billion. Also note that Labour has said we should look at an ice breaker (and they are absolutely right on that). It’s a whole new world.
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February 23, 2025 8:39am
- Grunter
  
  And where would the additional $10+ billion come from? Tax increases? More debt? Or reductions from current spending?
  
  Remember, we currently have record debt, record tax take. So the only realistic area would be a reduction in current spending.
  
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  February 23, 2025 9:00am
  - Benedict Yu
    
    Grunter you are conflating capital and operating costs. 10 billion dollars worth of frigates lasts 40 years. The challenge for New Zealand would not be the 10 billion dollars but finding the personnel to crew them.
    
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    February 23, 2025 9:44am
    - Grunter
      
      That capital spend goes to debt.
      
      The OpEx comes from……? And the interest on the the Capex is part of the cash required.
      
      So again, where does this money come from? And what realistic benefit (and don’t say “to do our fair share” that’s just a lazy argument IMO).
      
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      February 23, 2025 10:21am
      - Ian Boag
        
        where does this money come from?
        
        The othe day I was talking to an 80-year old worth some tens of millions and lord knows how much income off it. I mean more than one. She opined that it seemed wrong that she gets super every two weeks …..
        
        Income testing super (just like all the other benefits) would probably find $1-2 bn per year out of the 20-odd that it costs. Painless too.
        
        Note to self – put drum back in cupboard
        
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        February 23, 2025 10:53am
      - kiwikidsnz
        
        Ian Boag
        Your 80yo is quite capable of donating her super back to the govt, theres a bank account for this.
        
        But she won’t.
        
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        February 23, 2025 10:57am
      - Cassandra
        
        “The realistic benefit”: there’s a moral benefit in maintaining some sort of order in the world but the important concrete benefit is that when trouble comes NZ will be cut off – sea and air lines of communication will be severed. Nothing in and nothing out unless we play a part in keeping them open. We cannot do it alone but we need to do our bit and we have not for many years.
        
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        February 23, 2025 11:04am
      - Ian Boag
        
        @kknz
        
        quite capable of donating her super back
        
        No reason why she should. Gummint (and KB oldies) think she deserves it ……
        
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        February 23, 2025 11:30am
      - MCōs
        
        People complaining about getting money they applied for in the first place is a bit rich, so to speak
        
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        February 23, 2025 12:38pm
      - cmm
        
        Ian, put down your envy mindset for a moment and look your 80 year-old’s money a bit:
        
        1) If they have tens of millions (let’s just say $20M), even just in term deposits at 4%, then they are maybe earning $800k a year.
        2) On that they will be paying around $250k a year in income tax – $5k a week.
        3) The Super is taxed so is effectively partially means tested. They will be getting around $300 a week.
        
        So let’s observe a few things.
        A) They’re paying $5k a week in income tax and getting $300 in Super. They are paying their own Super 15x over. Assuming they’re living high on the hog, they’re probably paying more than their Super in GST too, and gain in rates, and…, and…
        
        B) This applies to so few people (maybe 1000 tops, so $300k a week) that it really is not going to move the needle at a national scale. NZ Super costs us around $500m a week. Clawing back $300k (ie. 0.06%) from people who already cover it 15x over in tax seems very churlish.
        
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        February 23, 2025 1:21pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        @cmm
        
        No envy at all. The fact that she is seriously rich is what it is.
        
        The fact that she pays more tax than what her super amounts to is irrelevant. They are separate items. I’m 79 and comfortable and any sensibly designed income testing scheme would kill my super altogether. Like I care.
        
        Just if we need to find the odd billion or so to throw at increased defense spending, income testing the pension would be an easy place to start ….. would raise a billion or two and at worst it would cause a bit of deprivation but not much hardship.
        
        I presume your situation is not unlike mine ….
        
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        February 23, 2025 5:04pm
    - Steve Otto N Shore
      
      Personnel who don’t crash them.
      
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      February 23, 2025 11:18am
  - Paulus
    
    More people paying tax rather than recipients!
    
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    February 23, 2025 11:23am
    - MCōs
      
      Everyone pays tax
      
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      February 23, 2025 12:47pm
      - cmm
        
        Rubbish.
        Most people consume far more tax than they pay.
        
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        February 23, 2025 1:22pm
      - Don Beckett
        
        Yes, they pay it on benefits, income etc., but then get more than they pay back in other subsidies – Working for Families & the like.
        
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        February 23, 2025 2:45pm
- Simon
  
  We have our submarine just in Samoa waters right now. Lets roll.
  
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  February 23, 2025 9:06am
  - Mark Hanley
    
    Brilliant Simon. I have 6 people here laughing at your comment.
    
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    February 23, 2025 10:55am
- Northshoredoc
  
  It’s an interesting situation.
  
  I don’t believe the USA, during and certainly not after Trump’s presidency, will turn a blind eye to China’s behaviour in the Pacific.
  
  NZ could spend 10-20% of GDP on defence and it would make little real difference to our security if one of the major powers came knocking so what to do?
  
  Surely, an even closer relationship with Australia is in NZ’s best interests.
  
  With as close and friendly relationship as possible with both the US and China for the good of our economy and security.
  
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  February 23, 2025 9:09am
  - imalwaysright
    
    “NZ could spend 10-20% of GDP on defence and it would make little real difference to our security if one of the major powers came knocking ”
    
    Correct.
    
    NZ is indefensible.
    
    Doubling the budget would mean we survive for three minutes instead of two.
    
    Our best hope is deterrent in the form of a US base in NZ.
    
    The pilot of a P8 waving his finger at the commander of a Chinese warship from 200km away is not a defense force.
    
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    February 23, 2025 9:39am
    - MCōs
      
      There are two superpowers in the world, three if Iran is all it’s cracked up to be by its mortal enemies!
      America is becoming increasingly flakey by the day so maybe we should sign some sort of alliance with China. Maybe the Cooks are onto something
      
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      February 23, 2025 1:02pm
    - Jake Dee
      
      “NZ is indefensible.”
      Utter rubbish, Luxembourg, Monaco and The Vatican are indefensible, and even they have security forces.
      New Zealand with more than a thousand miles of deep ocean in every direct is eminently defensible.
      One crucial thing that everyone here forgets is that a crucial element, perhaps the most important element of not getting beaten in a fight is not to get involved in dumb fights!
      In contradiction of the classic maxim “Never get involved in a land war in Asia” New Zealand has been engaged in a land war in Asia directly on the borders of China 3 times in less than a century, Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan. Each time as part of an imperial project with Washington at the center of it.
      The number of times Beijing has been involved in a war in New Zealand’s neighborhood = Zero times in all of recorded history.
      The most likely way for New Zealand to get involved in a war with China is through Washington dragging us into one.
      Any American military equipment or infrastructure based in NZ would be a perfectly legitimate target for Beijing once it is at war with Washington.
      And although some sort of airborne or amphibious assault from China is massively implausible a long range strike is perfectly doable.
      
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      February 23, 2025 2:31pm
    - Individual Responsibility
      
      imalwaysright – the RNZAF P8s may or may not have been monitoring the chinese ships (I suspect they would not!) but they may well have been covering the RAAF P8 duties in/around Australia while their P8s were monitoring the Chinese ships.
      Also, some 20 or so years ago I was closely associated with a couple of former RNZAF P3 Orion captains (1 a Wing Commander) who told of their participation in competitive submarine detection exercises in the Pacific as part of a joint training venture from Hawaii.
      P3 teams from USAF and RAAF were included. The RNZAF guys came out on top, and were held in very high esteem by the others.
      I recall too that NZ govt, I think back in the Clark government days when the future of the A4 Skyhawk came in to question, declined a U.S.A. offer of a discounted fleet of F14 Tomcats (or maybe Grumman F16s) that were destined for some other ally, whose politics changed against USA.
      
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      February 23, 2025 3:42pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        The F16s (that had been withheld from Pakistan) were pretty much the oldest ones ever made and would be seriously obsolescent by now compared to current F16s. ….. Somehow it’s hard to imagine NZ troops landing somewhere out of NZ vessels with air cover from the RNZAF. I think that was the logic for dispensing with the A4s.
        
        And if we were under any sort of serious air attack it’s hard to imagine 20-odd old F16s doing much to slow it down for long.
        
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        February 23, 2025 5:54pm
  - NK
    
    …China’s behaviour in the Pacific?
    
    What “behaviour”?
    
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    February 23, 2025 10:15am
    - rouppe
      
      Establishing deep water military – sorry fishing – ports, and live fire exercises in the Tasman without giving a shit about commercial flights.
      
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      February 23, 2025 10:49am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      No problem with them testing, but to simply tell several planes over radio not to fly over a live arms site is poor behaviour I would have thought, could this not have been done with some respect the government’s of neighbouring countries?
      
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      February 23, 2025 11:14am
  - NothingLeft
    
    A couple of billion dollars invested over 5 years would be able to build us a few tens of nuclear bombs nukes if we were in a hurry (robotic system advances are making it much much easier to do safe handling of radioactive materials). But would be better if we did it in concert with another country like Australia to share development expenses – and on rocket delivery system.
    
    Nothing else will be of any significant deterrence to China or other potential future aggressively hegemonic invaders.
    
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    February 23, 2025 12:03pm
  - cmm
    
    The flip side to that is that NZ is of very little strategic interest to anyone.
    
    We don’t have significant minerals. We don’t sit in a militarily advantaged position (eg. a choke point like Singapore). About the closest advantage we have is being not extremely far from the Australian east coast and even that doesn’t count for much when an intermediate range missile can hit Perth from China and Sydney from Cooks.
    
    Countries do not attack for no reason. They attack for advantage. There is no point in beating up a kid with no lunch money. There is no advantage to attacking NZ, so why would anyone want to expend expensive, and limited, military resources on us?
    
    Look at Switzerland. They spend less than 1% on their military. Yes they have a good army, but it is an army that any of the large players could crush in a very short time. So why don’t they? Because Switzerland is not worth crushing. Rather just go around it.
    
    A large reason why Switzerland’s military spending is so low is that they focus on defence only and not expeditionary (being able to go offshore) capability. They have built a hornet’s nest that is just not worth attacking.
    
    Expeditionary capability is extremely expensive. As a general rule of thumb, to attack you need 3x the amount of forces as you do to defend. To make it worse, those attacking forces need mobility to take the fight to the enemy (aircraft carriers, transport etc) and logistical supply lines to be able to keep them supplied. For home defence you don’t need all that.
    
    The cost of expeditionary capability is maybe 10x the cost of the equivalent defence capability. Therefore focusing on defence only capability can give you a far stronger force for less money (eg. get 3x the capability for one third of the money).
    
    I think we could learn a lot from that Swiss model and we could build a self defence-focused military that would do a good job of keeping us safe for a low budget. I would also include the Swiss model of conscription etc – not just for military reasons but because conscription also builds national unity and has other social advantages.
    
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    February 23, 2025 1:47pm
    - Individual Responsibility
      
      cmm – don’t forget US Operation Deep Freeze via USAF and US Navy use NZ as a staging point for their Antarctic Research Program. CCP will (if they’re not already) become interested in Antarctica some day soon, and U.S.A may elect to invoke the Monroe Doctrine or some variance thereof!
      
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      February 23, 2025 3:52pm
      - Jake Dee
        
        China which is a signatory to the Antarctic treaty has 5 research bases in Antarctica, the first one was opened in 1985
        
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        February 23, 2025 4:48pm
- kowtow
  
  Labour want an ice breaker .
  
  Oh come on , what happened to global warming and catastrophic ice melt .
  
  Let nature take its course .If Labour really believed in global boiling they’d be investing in heat resistant apparel , innit .
  
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  February 23, 2025 9:20am
  - imalwaysright
    
    ….And a really big fire extinguisher- remember the world is on fire!
    
    Are we still officially in a government declared Climate Emergency ?
    If so, could Luxon explain why?
    
    9 0
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    February 23, 2025 10:04am
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    With global boiling we are going to need air conditioning.
    That means electricity. Figure that one out Labour. I’m sure the Greens will want to help.
    
    11 3
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    February 23, 2025 11:22am
- Ian Boag
  
  Poseidons cost $2.3 billion, the C130s $1.5 billion
  
  Although these bits of the cost get to be written off over quite a large number of years – 50-odd if the Orions and old Hercs are anything to go by. The annual interest on $4 bill at 5% would be about $200m max. Crewing costs for the new aircraft likely not very different to costs for old ones. Not quite chump change but ….
  
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  February 23, 2025 9:38am
  - Benedict Yu
    
    Yes exactly. To repeat my other comment, the biggest challenge to getting to 2 percent of GDP will be the personnel to operate the assets. The skilled young people are buggering off to Australia and increasingly the ones left are dope heads. There are only so many young people suitable to crew frigates and aircraft.
    
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    February 23, 2025 9:48am
    - Cassandra
      
      Pay will be an important factor. At present Service pay rates do not compare with civvy street.
      
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      February 23, 2025 10:13am
      - Paulus
        
        And Public Servants are now paid some 24% higher than the Private Sector, we are told.
        
        11 0
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        February 23, 2025 11:26am
      - Colville
        
        Paulus
        Not the ones who wear camo!
        
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        February 23, 2025 12:04pm
      - CJames
        
        Military people aren’t public servants. We (in the private sector) have employed a number of ex-military people over the years. They all had a pay rise starting for us. All have made good staff.
        
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        February 23, 2025 1:37pm
      - GJM
        
        Yes, a friend of my son just left the Navy. Couldn’t afford to stay there any more.
        
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        February 23, 2025 2:34pm
    - goNZ1
      
      rather than expensive frigates it may be better to invest in powerful long range anti ship missiles spread around the country as Australia is pivoting to. And drones,lots of drones. The idea being to deter seaborne threats before they get too close. So if the CCP warships loitering in the Tasman get too aggressive we could give them a fright
      
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      February 23, 2025 10:23am
      - Cassandra
        
        No. We’re not defending NZ; our best option is to keep any opposition away and to keep our lines of communication open. Russian threat circa 1900 is history.
        
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        February 23, 2025 1:43pm
    - Paulus
      
      Remember you cannot get to Australlia if you have a Criminal Record, so how many are left here ?
      
      8 0
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      February 23, 2025 11:25am
    - cmm
      
      There are a bunch of factors that make the NZ military unattractive – not just the pay:
      1) NZ has a stale old Navy and Airforce. There are few career prospects.
      2) The NZ military don’t have the capability to go on interesting operations. If you join the military as a career then odds are that you want to see action etc. You can do a bit of that in the Army, but not other services.
      The last time the NZ Navy fired a shot in anger was probably 70 years ago in Malaya or such.
      
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      February 23, 2025 1:58pm
      - Jake Dee
        
        This is why we need to be more creative, the problem is cultural and political as much as anything else.
        A civilian militia/territorial soldier model with a full time professional cadre at the core.
        The vast majority of what the military does has an exact parallel in civilian life.
        Thinking that the main purpose of our military has been to provide some sort of credible minimum contribution to a USA/UN expeditionary force has been a major problem in New Zealand military thinking for generations.
        
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        February 23, 2025 2:39pm
- Taieri
  
  Add crew costs to that
  ———–
  
  And where are the crews going to come from?
  There’s not enough “person”-power to man the few currently existing RNZN ships, with 4 out of 8 either laid up or under maintenance.
  
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  February 23, 2025 9:54am
  - Jake Dee
    
    We have crew. How many New Zealanders are currently engaged in maritime work? How many more could be reasonably trained?
    What we need is a system to train them in military naval procedures and cycle them into the navy when needed and back into civilian maritime work when not.
    
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    February 23, 2025 2:42pm
- Flossie
  
  An ice breaker? Surely by the time we got one there won’t be any ice left on this planet!
  
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  February 23, 2025 11:16am
kowtow

Talking of all things TDS , a carry over from yesterday’s “corruption” post re Adams in NY.

Is it corruption or is it the art of the deal .

Deals that only politicians and legal types can and do make . All the time , every day .

Across the board from cabinets all the way down to day to day dealings in the lowest courts to the highest .

And I’m talking about the liberal democratic west .Not the ‘Global south’.

How is it then that Sergei Lavrov can attend the G20 in “the Republic” while an Israeli minister might be subject to arrest there .

Where are the howls of indignation against SA hosting such war criminals.
12 4
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February 23, 2025 8:41am
john1234

We won’t need an icebreaker because global warming
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February 23, 2025 8:50am
Max Mansplain

With the trend towards more DEI hires in charge of our ships then the budget will naturally go up anyway..
23 2
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February 23, 2025 8:54am
- Paulus
  
  Look at both Sky and Spark and financial recent problems – of course the right women have the top jobs in both.
  
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  February 23, 2025 11:30am
  - pdm
    
    Speaking of Sky did anyone else lose more than half of their channels late yesterday afternoon?
    
    There must have been a few because their call center was overloaded.
    
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    February 23, 2025 1:23pm
Swifty

The closure of the manned signal box controlling Wellington’s rail yards, in operation since the ‘30s.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=x7u5a39bC8M

New Zealand’s last manned signal box.
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February 23, 2025 9:03am
- Jethrod
  
  How or what is doing the controlling? The driverless car computer, AI or hope?
  
  6 0
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  February 23, 2025 10:27am
  - Swifty
    
    A fully electronic signal system based in Wallaceville (Upper Hutt) and with a backup in Auckland.
    
    https://wellington.scoop.co.nz/?p=167098
    
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    February 23, 2025 4:06pm
Tauhei Notts

Possibly the best headline I have ever seen on the business pages.
“Hooters goes Tits-Up.”
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February 23, 2025 9:12am
- kowtow
  
  Lol.
  
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  February 23, 2025 9:21am
  - Tauhei Notts
    
    Another business writer says it was because of
    sagging sales.
    
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    February 23, 2025 10:52am
    - kowtow
      
      That’s just milking it .
      
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      February 23, 2025 12:35pm
  - PurplePen
    
    Wasn’t due to DEI hires?
    
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    February 23, 2025 12:12pm
    - kowtow
      
      Proper Hooters employees didn’t need support.
      
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      February 23, 2025 3:12pm
- NothingLeft
  
  Hooters business model was overpriced shit food with hot waitresses to ogle. But then American women got fat.
  
  https://ei.marketwatch.com/Multimedia/2016/07/05/Photos/NS/MW-EQ742_ezgif1_20160705132002_NS.gif?uuid=b548a364-42d4-11e6-8c84-0015c588dfa6
  
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  February 23, 2025 12:24pm
  - cmm
    
    Porn and Doordash.
    
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    February 23, 2025 2:00pm
artemisia

Some may be interested in the Wellington City Council’s response to questions about the Council’s role in installing public EV chargers, and the ‘business case’ and public policy reasons behind this.

Long story short. The business case for the specific charger was seriously deficient for a multi million dollar project (really?) and in “November 2024, the Council has now re-examined its role in the EV charging market and is considering its role going forward”.

https://fyi.org.nz/request/28743-zero-charging-station-opposite-island-bat-new-world?nocache=incoming-115978#incoming-115978
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February 23, 2025 9:15am
- lastmanstanding
  
  Its time local body rates were pegged to inflation and Councils were stripped on their power of general competence ( in reality incompetence).
  They should be given a prescriptive list of duties such as roads rubblish parks libraries dogs beaches etc.
  If citizens want festivals or cultural events then it should be user pays and or fund raising from the private sector by way of sponsorship.
  Many citizens cannot afford the cost of Council vanity projects.
  
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  February 23, 2025 9:24am
- Benedict Yu
  
  It is not the role of government to provide EV chargers any more than it is to provide petrol stations.
  
  40 1
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  February 23, 2025 9:50am
  - NK
    
    Wasn’t it Helen Clark who said, “The government’s role is whatever the government decides it to be.”
    
    Or similar??
    
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    February 23, 2025 10:18am
    - Benedict Yu
      
      Before my time but I can imagine her saying that.
      
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      February 23, 2025 10:27am
- Handyman
  
  Everyone must read the business case. You will laugh or cry depending if you are a Wellington ratepayer.
  
  It is logically all over the place with heroic assumptions.
  For example,
  1. The existing zoo site saves 6 t 0f CO2 per year. If we build 30 sites we will save 12,500 tonne! That is based on all the future sites, and the existing one running at 100% AND having charging available at council pools and libraries will tip thousands of people to buy electric vehicles which will never actually use the council chargers.
  
  2. The chargers are to clearly signposted to be “for use while visiting zoo, library etc” but are available 24/7 when calculating revenue.
  
  3. When there is a power cut in the library, the cars currently charging will back feed to keep the library going. There is no mention of signage warning car owners their battery may be drained by the council.
  4. No financial costings. Just states that the council will locate the chargers where private operators have not.
  
  This capex application is a scary insight into how Wellington Council operates. I have reviewed hundreds of capex applications in my career and this rates a definite “do not proceed”.
  
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  February 23, 2025 4:29pm
Maggy Wassilieff

Is Dr Carlos Cheung our sole Government MP fluent in Mandarin?
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February 23, 2025 9:15am
- fightingtemeraire
  
  Yes, but doesn’t that Green MP Xu speak Mandarin?? So we would have 2 in Parliament.
  
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  February 23, 2025 9:39am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Oh, that’s right… This Demotic expert is a native Chinese speaker.
    
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    February 23, 2025 1:48pm
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  There is more Chinese in the house than ever before, I doubt it really, surely Nancy Lu can speak the language, and did the greenie Chinese mp come from China?
  
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  February 23, 2025 11:17am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    You are correct… I’m afraid I’d never heard of Nancy Lu.
    
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    February 23, 2025 1:49pm
    - cmm
      
      Well he would have been correct if he had said there are more, not is more.
      
      Still, you asked about people fluent in Mandarin. Not all Chinese people are. China is, I believe, pushing for at least 85% of their population being able to speak Mandarin as a first or second language but as I understand it they are not there yet.
      
      I know a Chinese (now NZ citizen) couple in Christchurch – both engineers. He is Mandarin, she is Cantonese. They struggle to communicate in anything other than English (they both learned English at school in NZ). Their son speaks all of Mandarin, Cantonese and English fluently.
      
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      February 23, 2025 2:14pm
      - Maggy Wassilieff
        
        Not all Chinese people are.
        
        Yes, I realise that.
        
        I checked that Dr Cheung (born in Hong Kong) listed Chinese as well as Cantonese as languages he knew.
        
        I see that Nancy Lu states: Apart from English, I also speak and write Mandarin and Cantonese,
        
        https://www.national.org.nz/team/nancylu
        
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        February 23, 2025 3:13pm
Grunter

German elections look likely to bring Merz (CDU) in as the new leader. Just hours ago he gave Trump a serve. Stating that Germany needs to stand up against Russia, China and if necessary the USA. This guy must be the biggest looney Germany has ever picked as leader – and they have had a few looneys over the years.

So unless the AfD has a last minute surge to upset the CDU, Germany is toast, if it’s not already.

https://www.dw.com/en/german-election-parties-wrap-up-campaigning/live-71710552
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February 23, 2025 9:16am
- PurplePen
  
  Real time updates if anyone’s interested
  
  https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/liveblog-german-election-2025-background-results/
  
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  February 23, 2025 12:16pm
- NothingLeft
  
  Trump has been saying a lot of stupid stuff with regard to Ukraine and has basically destroying international trust in USA as a defense partner. Everyone in the world now realizes they can’t rely on USA to have their back. China and Russia will both be emboldened (though Russia is near to collapse after the sapping effects of the Ukraine conflict). Europe will not sit idly by and allow Russia to take Ukraine, knowing that just brings the threat closer to Europe; Baltics or Romania.
  
  Eg polymarket betting site sees risk of China invading Taiwan going up in recent days, no doubt as a result of Trumps behavior in Ukraine: https://polymarket.com/event/china-x-taiwan-military-clash-by?tid=1740267055200
  
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  February 23, 2025 12:36pm
  - cmm
    
    ” Everyone in the world now realizes they can’t rely on USA to have their back. ”
    
    Translation: They can’t free load on USA any more.
    
    You talk of USA being a “defence partner”. Partner implies equal roles and responsibilities. It seems that many people just want US to be their defence sugar daddy/simp. A sugar daddy/simp relationship is not a partnership.
    
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    February 23, 2025 2:17pm
    - Lance
      
      That is a 2 way street you do realise.
      The US has had many allies fight beside them in their numerous wars (post WW2)
      So long as the US doesn’t want to start any wars in the future, then military isolationism might seem like a valid stratedy to them.
      Pissing on trade blocks is moronicly stupid though. That will bite them on the ass.
      
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      February 23, 2025 3:58pm
- kowtow
  
  Wouldn’t be the first time they thought they could win on multiple fronts…….
  
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  February 23, 2025 12:36pm
- kiwi_chileno
  
  Did you know that there was another attack in Germany? By a Syrian refugee. At the Holocaust Memorial. https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2025/02/21/german-elections-sunday-mass-stabbing-in-berlin-today-n3800072
  
  It got reported in Chile’s media.
  
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  February 23, 2025 2:16pm
Rusty

In light of what’s going on in the Tasman sea with China playing war games in our backyard — is it time for Luxon and the coalition to start a discussion on reinstating the strike wing of our air force again?

It may be token but it will demonstrate to the US and neighbours Aust we are doing our bit.
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February 23, 2025 9:18am
- sungsamning
  
  I think anti submarine planes would be better. I’m referring to the ones the RNZAF bought recently.
  
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  February 23, 2025 9:29am
- Benedict Yu
  
  No. No.
  
  It is too late. The pilots, the maintenance crews. It would take forever. It is not just a matter of buying airplanes. It would take years.
  
  I support more defence spending, including on the airforce. But that ship has sailed, to mix my metaphors.
  
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  February 23, 2025 9:53am
  - Cassandra
    
    Frigates or equivalent. We can’t do both and a navy compatible with Australia’s is the sensible choice. (Despite my 25 years as a soldier).
    
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    February 23, 2025 10:16am
    - AitchW
      
      If we were to increase our navy by adding more frigates with an eye to increasing our defensive and or offensive capabilities I wonder whether it might not be wise to move the naval base from Devonport to a less strategically and economically important port? A couple of decent non nuclear armed missiles lobbed onto the Devonport base would not only destroy the majority of our navy but wreak havoc on our biggest city.
      Could we build a decent deep water port somewhere on the west coast? Somewhere closish to Auckland but remote enough as not to create too much of a mess if it were to be targeted.
      
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      February 23, 2025 4:54pm
      - NeverMindTheBollocks
        
        Whangarei
        
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        February 23, 2025 9:06pm
  - bennerg
    
    My hope is to forge an integrated force with Australia, so only one training (think simulators etc) and maintenance (incl. spare parts) organisation. Then give our Kiwi pilots, Captains etc a chance to serve their country.
    
    That will require some negotiation, but it is the only way it can happen again.
    
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    February 23, 2025 10:35am
    - Jake Dee
      
      Then Wellington would lose any power to act independently of Canberra. We would be a few regiments in the Australian defense force, not a New Zealand defense force.
      
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      February 23, 2025 2:45pm
  - rouppe
    
    Properly arm the P8 posiedens. Get some Hercules gunships.
    
    Those two would significant increase our strike capability at much less cost.
    
    4 1
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    February 23, 2025 10:54am
    - kowtow
      
      Rickshaws !
      
      Low carbon output , easily replaced power plant , cheap to produce and ……would confound the enemy .
      
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      February 23, 2025 12:38pm
  - gorse
    
    Never too late. Engineers can be converted onto maintenance very quickly, they would have had to take courses even back in the day. The US would co operate if we bought from them.
    
    Pilots? Instructors are the problem, but not insurmountable. Lots of retired USAF instructors would jump at the chance to fly F16’s again. Hired on contracts, pilots from other countries too.
    
    It just takes the will to do it.
    
    75 Squadron A4 Skyhawk pilots were acknowledged by the Americans as among the finest mountain flying pilots in the world. They are still around, classroom lectures would be their area, although I know some who are still flying and could instruct too.
    
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    February 23, 2025 11:08am
- NK
  
  Perhaps you would like to go through the history of the last 50 years and compare the number of countries invaded and/or where the leader was overthrown by the USA or its allies to those invaded by China and/or where China overthrew said countries’ leader/s.
  
  Off the top of my head the count is 19 V 1 – with the one being a minor border skirmish war with Vietnam in 1979.
  
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  February 23, 2025 10:22am
  - goNZ1
    
    note that South Vietnam was the last SE Asian nation to come under Communist rule since the 70s, thanks to the US getting involved. Otherwise Malaysia,Singapore etc would have been next…
    
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    February 23, 2025 10:30am
  - Matt Long
    
    That definitely proves that China’s current belligerance means nothing.
    Whataboutism is surely the best logical argument for anything.
    
    7 3
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    February 23, 2025 11:33am
    - NK
      
      It’s not whataboutism. It’s history proving you all wrong. One can learn a lot from history.
      
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      February 23, 2025 12:38pm
    - Jake Dee
      
      What qualifies as “belligerence”?
      If you have a standard then apply it everywhere equally.
      
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      February 23, 2025 2:47pm
      - Matt Long
        
        I think parking yourself between New Zealand and Australia to do a live firing exercise causing civilian flights to be diverted amounts to belligerence.
        Perhaps you could ask the Philippines, Vietnam, and other SEA nations what they regard as belligerent? Or Taiwan.
        
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        February 23, 2025 5:23pm
  - David Garrett
    
    NK: You are of course quite right: hitherto China has never been an imperialist nation. But that said, I simply don’t believe that their huge investment in the Pacific – all the way from Melanesia to the Cooks – is altruistic, or at least not solely altruistic. Sooner of later their will be a demand for payment, and since Pacific countries are poor, the payment will have to be in kind rather than cash.
    
    My pick is they are after a navy base – the Port of Refuge in Vava’u Tonga would be perfect, at least for ships up to destroyer size (the entrance channel is too narrow for an aircraft carrier).
    
    Apparently there is a suitable lagoon in the northern Cooks, and there is also an old WW II airfield there – perfect.
    
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    February 23, 2025 11:40am
    - fightingtemeraire
      
      DG
      
      I have been pointing this out for the last 10 days and have emailed the PM. FM, Defence M on this.
      
      Penryhn Atoll is 100 sq miles, has a depth of 70 metres and two entrances and a WW 2 airstrip of 3000 feet.
      
      The coral heads would take a feww weeks to be blown apart, damn the wildlife and then build the bases.
      
      Two villages, well they can be told to shove it.
      
      Next thing is the PRC fishing fleet hoovering everything up and a naval base along with one at Tarawa (remember the battle) and one in the Solomons (remember Guadalcanal).
      
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      February 23, 2025 1:12pm
    - NoCash
      
      My take is that China is establishing presence in the Pacific to counter the USA, not to invade Australia or NZ. China needs the ability to break out of the first island chain for her own security.
      
      The Chinese govt is smart, when trading with Australia and NZ is win-win for all, there’s no reason to do anything else. We just need to be smart with our diplomacy, i.e. don’t listen to and follow the US and Australian to fuck around in the Taiwan Strait and the SCS.
      
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      February 23, 2025 1:48pm
      - Dougal10
        
        Yep trading with nz is cheaper than taking us over , we produce food way cheaper than a military dictatorship can.
        
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        February 23, 2025 5:49pm
    - Jake Dee
      
      Why should any of it be altruistic?
      Ports, airports, railway lines motorways and all the other infrastructure associated with them allow food and raw materials to flow out to feed their people and factories and manufactured goods to flow back.
      This has been done not only by the Chinese everywhere from Brazil to Mongolia but has also been done by basically EVERYONE since approximately FOREVER.
      Why is it so radically frightening now that the Chinese are doing it?
      Of course these things have potential military applications, everything does. (The tank is the son of the tractor for example).
      Again and again I see the same pattern, if it was done by the British in 1880 or by the USA in 1970 it was brilliant, if it was done by the Japanese in 1930 or by the Chinese in 2025 it is wicked.
      
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      February 23, 2025 2:55pm
    - Sir Henry Morgan
      
      The statement that “China has never been an imperialist nation” is simply incorrect. Modern China occupies most of what was previously called the Qing Empire. That should give some clue as to China’s nature.
      
      Western colonialism gets plenty of attention. However, while the European nations were building vast maritime empires, the Qing Dynasty was extending into central Asia. By the mid-18th Century the Qing Dynasty had created the largest empire ever ruled from Beijing.
      
      The Xinhai Revolution of 1911 that overthrew the Qing Dynasty and established China as a nation state initially promised self-rule to the various minority nationalities absorbed into the Qing Empire (primarily Mongols, Tibetans, Uighurs, and Manchus). The earliest Chinese flag (used for a decade or so after 1911) comprised five colored bands, which symbolized the four large minority ethnicities plus the majority Han (i.e. ethnic Chinese).
      
      China continues to behave like an empire today.
      
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      February 25, 2025 8:12pm
  - pb
    
    America’s “friends” beware, they be soon sacrificed on the altar of commercial national self-interest.
    
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change
    
    The arrogance in those whom self-annoint: “the leader of the free world”.
    
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    February 23, 2025 1:45pm
  - Allan
    
    Tibet, India and Russia have all be in conflict with China.
    
    Go back past Vietnam and you have the PLA in Korea.
    
    And the Philipines have an unfriendly relationship with China.
    
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    February 23, 2025 9:33pm
- Grunter
  
  Precisely the reason NZ shouldn’t have a strike force! Warmongers always want war. NZ having a pointless crack at a Super Power is obviously idiotic.
  
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  February 23, 2025 10:28am
  - Terry Dalee
    
    How does wanting to have a creditable deterrence exactly translate to having a crack at “Superpower”?
    
    It’s about preserving your way of life not about mongering war.
    
    You enjoy your right to have an opinion thanks to war.
    
    But I suppose when you don’t “have a way of life” then I suppose nothing is worth fighting for.
    
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    February 23, 2025 1:05pm
  - cmm
    
    A lot depends on what you mean by a “strike force”.
    
    If you mean a defence oriented force (eg. 2000 km range from NZ), then fair enough.
    If you mean a force that can deploy to the other side of the world, then that’s a waste of time and money.
    
    If your goals are purely defensive, then the point is never to try to beat a super power (or any power). The point is to just defend your own land.
    
    To do that does not need a force superior to the potential aggressor – just enough so that the potential aggressor thinks it is not worth coming and attacking.
    
    Say NZ had the capability to sink ships coming within 100km of the coast by using shore to sea missiles. It would go a long way to keeping NZ secure without frigates or other naval vessels.
    
    Could, say, China defeat that? Sure. Relatively easily. But to do so would require a massive expenditure of resources. Just not worth doing.
    
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    February 23, 2025 2:27pm
    - Jake Dee
      
      There is in truth no meaningful distinction between between offense and defense.
      Neither one can exist without the other.
      
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      February 23, 2025 2:57pm
- Burtland
  
  the NZ defense strategy may need to change given the effectiveness of marine and aero drones in Ukraine – any informed opinions out there?
  
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  February 23, 2025 10:36am
- Paulus
  
  Too Late
  thanks Helen !
  
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  February 23, 2025 11:32am
- Terry Dalee
  
  A strike wing would be too prohibitively expensive for NZ to restart. And to be if any real use, your going to have to fork out for a air tanker fleet too to extend their combat range.
  
  Far better to upgrade the Poseidon to carry the Long Range Anti Ship Missile (LRASM).
  Way more bang for buck and Australia has ordered 200 of them.
  A lot more of a credible threat to a maritime threat than the Penguin anti ship missile the NZDF were proudly firing the other week. I mean seriously?! The Penguin has a range of 34 km vs LRASM has a range of 800-1000 km.
  
  Any modern Navy will shoot said armed helicopter carrying a Penguin long before 34 km.
  
  A P8 carrying a LRASM could potentially detect a maritime threat and deploy it well outside the range of any anti air defences and bail.
  
  The Chinese are definitely worried about the LRASM because it’s built specifically for attacking the Type 55 currently gracing the Tasman Sea.
  
  The P8 is also built to work with the Triton UAV. This thing is massive, almost the same size as the P8. It’s also the other half the same system we never bought. The two are designed to work together.
  
  The P8 could also be forward deployed into the Pacific as well. Anywhere a 737 can land, it can operate from.
  
  It’s probably the biggest bang for buck that NZ could do.
  
  Times have changed. Having a big Navy isn’t the end all and be all any more.
  
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  February 23, 2025 12:25pm
  - Jake Dee
    
    Hugely expensive, massively overpriced with a complex logistics trail that leads right back to a single supplier who is foreign power on another continent.
    Without so much money NZ has to be more creative and MUCH more intelligent. The Germans were hitting targets hundreds of kilometers away with guided missiles made with tool and die analogue technology 80 years ago.
    The sidewinder missile was made almost 70 years ago.
    Worried about our manufacturing capacity? Well develop it and spread it around the world with other nations in a similar position.
    Instead of going to Thales or BAE to buy whatever they want to sell us at what ever price they demand why not see we can make for ourselves with the cooperation of say Brazil, Turkey, Singapore and Vietnam?
    Heck, why not be even more creative than that and see what can be produced in cooperation with Kazakhstan and Mongolia?
    
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    February 23, 2025 3:15pm
  - sungsamning
    
    Yes, good idea. Build on existing assets.
    
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    February 23, 2025 7:55pm
- NothingLeft
  
  Fighters, with their tiny range are worth shit to NZ.
  
  A hundred nuke tipped theatre and intercontinental ballistic missiles on the other hand….
  
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  February 23, 2025 12:41pm
  - Jake Dee
    
    Again more dumb thinking that military strength is best served by buying from the top shelf.
    Not trying to be insulting NothingLeft, but intercontinental ballistic missiles? Come on!
    New Zealand would get much better defense by spending a fraction of a fraction of a % of that money on rifles pistols and shotguns. Plus the food clothes and ammo and some Toyota land cruisers to carry the men around in.
    Be sensible, start at the bottom and work upwards.
    
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    February 23, 2025 3:21pm
    - Quail
      
      Interesting history: NZ about 1908 funded a battleship for the Royal Navy —- HMS New Zealand. And it was a large ship that fought at Jutland
      It took until about 1944 for NZ to pay for it , A substantial gift indeed.
      The point is that a country of 2 million people could and did do this!
      Now we are begging others to save us!
      
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      February 23, 2025 6:17pm
      - NeverMindTheBollocks
        
        HMS New Zealand got very lucky at Jutland.
        
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        February 23, 2025 9:20pm
      - Jake Dee
        
        To be fair the HMS New Zealand battle cruiser was NZ’s contribution to the Royal Navy, built in their shipyards and crewed and commanded by the Royal Navy, which was at that time our navy too.
        A couple of better examples that show the sort of thinking I think we need are (1) the Charlton Automatic rifle
        https://www.forgottenweapons.com/charlton-automatic-rifle/
        That was a project thought up and delivered by a couple of Kiwi blokes in a shed to convert obsolete bolt action rifles into light machine guns
        (2) The Bob Semple tank
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Semple_tank
        Another Kiwi project delivered by the Minister of works. That one is admittedly rather goofy but shows what can be done in theory to convert civilian vehicles into military ones
        (3) Bruce Simpson building the majority of a cruise missile for ~ USD$ 5,ooo before the government shut him down.
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Simpson_(blogger)
        Admittedly Bruce Simpson is most likely an utter lunatic, but he is also most likely an aeronautical genius.
        All of these show what Kiwis can do in the area of military hardware with just a little money, some time and a lot of dedication
        
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        February 23, 2025 9:24pm
sungsamning

https://www.breitbart.com/border/2025/02/21/mexican-president-trying-to-change-constitution-to-protect-sovereingty-from-u-s-agencies-going-after-terrorist-cartels/
Mexican President Pushes Changes to Constitution to Protect Cartels from U.S. Government.
Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum filed a controversial series of changes to the country’s constitution that would essentially block any investigation or action by foreign law enforcement agencies without their permission. The provisions could enable Mexico to criminally pursue anyone involved in those investigations. The changes come after the United States designated six Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and announced the intent to eradicate them.

This week, Sheinbaum filed a series of changes to the country’s constitution that, if approved by the legislative branch, would change Articles 40 and 19 of Mexico’s constitution. [One way of protecting her bosses, I guess. Trump should be very careful about military action against the cartels. Tightened border security should ameliorate the problem. A ‘Vietnam’ anainst the cartels would be very difficult to win, and sap support.]
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February 23, 2025 9:24am
- Jake Dee
  
  Partially ameliorate the problem.
  This is a multi-vector problem that has been going on for generations. The USA isn’t going to special forces and drone strike its way out of it. These cartels have literally billions of dollars to spend and they are being financed by American citizens, some of them running banks in New York city.
  
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  February 23, 2025 3:24pm
  - kowtow
    
    ‘financed by American citizens,’
    
    Yep if there was no demand there’d be no supply.
    
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    February 23, 2025 4:56pm
sungsamning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekqGUzaD2AI
JD Vance Rising.
JD breaks the mold of vice presidents. He is very useful and spearheads the cabinet in foreign relations. Unlike previous VPs that do nothing.
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February 23, 2025 9:24am
- Grunter
  
  Possibly one of the best politicians the world currently has. Milei is another contender for that title………IMO of course
  
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  February 23, 2025 1:09pm
- Jake Dee
  
  Trump and Team Trump are well aware of the Presidents age. He is grooming and training his successor and so Vance is well aware that he has to make significant achievements within these 4 years.
  
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  February 23, 2025 3:26pm
greybeard

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360584246/veteran-politician-wants-transform-best-kept-secret-tourism-hotspot

It may not have occurred to Fran Wilde that the Wairarapa is a “Paradise” BECAUSE it is relatively unknown.
She wants development: probably has a bit of property to develop herself.

And on an unrelated note, I bet that Beauden Barrett won’t be kicking aimlessly towards Finn Hurley in future: Hurley scored both of his tries because Barrett booted it away . Great game, great result.
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February 23, 2025 9:25am
- Grunter
  
  It was a great game! Finn is a great young fella, small but huge heart. He has been a star in local club rugby for a few years and he took the step up to Super rugby like a pro. Under Joseph he looks to have gotten even faster, and has now developed a decent ‘chip and chase’. Big future if injury doesn’t get him.
  
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  February 23, 2025 10:33am
Yvette

And then there was this –

(for speed scrollers, read only the bits in bold type)

Abstract
In 2021, Aotearoa New Zealand’s Foreign Minister, Nanaia Mahuta, sketched out a kaupapa Māori (collective Māori vision) foreign policy for New Zealand based on four tikanga Māori (Māori customary practices and behaviours): manaakitanga (hospitality), whanaungatanga (connectedness), mahi tahi and kotahitanga (unity through collaboration), and kaitiakitanga (guardianship and the protection of intergenerational wellbeing). This article makes a novel contribution to the global International Relations body of literature by questioning to what extent New Zealand’s ‘Māori foreign policy’ has been applied to its relationship with China.

Through assessing the communications of Mahuta and other officials, it is found that New Zealand is utilizing a kaupapa Māori framework towards China: ‘the taniwha and the dragon’. It is argued that New Zealand is attempting to consolidate the maturity of the Sino-New Zealand relationship, as well as differentiate itself from the other Anglosphere countries that have recently pushed back on China.

In doing so, not only is New Zealand something of an outlier, it is demonstrating how eschewing a western-centric understanding of foreign policy for a more relational view based on indigenous knowledge and perspectives (in this case, from te ao Māori: the Māori worldview) can be applied at a time of increasing great power competition.
https://academic.oup.com/ia/article/99/4/1575/7187575.

Putin made a considerable mistake in thinking he could roar into Ukraine and it would all be over in a couple of days. See evidence of all his military hardware line up on the main roads in, bumper to bumper (or track to track, whatever) and so sitting ducks for Ukrainian resistance.

So, how much has Mahuta’s policy softened our defences, that we now need a sharp Government rejection of
“manaakitanga (hospitality), whanaungatanga (connectedness) and kotahitanga (unity through collaboration)” friendly virtual signalling, to a more aggressive stance.

The relationship between New Zealand and the Cook Islands has worsened significantly over the past few hours. A statement from Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ office said the Cook Islands had failed to share, which it is required to do as a realm country, the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership “and other agreements” which Prime Minister Mark Brown is about to sign with China.
https://www.1news.co.nz/2025/02/09/significant-concern-nz-cook-islands-relationship-worsens/

How gently should New Zealand pussy around with the Cook Islands?
Shouldn’t they be corralled a little more sternly?

“You do realise that words matter,” he said …
“And all I’m saying is, to run a country you need experience, and this is not my first rodeo.‘
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February 23, 2025 9:46am
imalwaysright

If the two Chinese warships decide they want to do a lap of Auckland or Wellington harbours and maybe hang around for a week or two, what would be the response of the New Zealand Defense Force?
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February 23, 2025 9:49am
- info@cruzpro.com
  
  You have to wonder if the two Chinese warships are accompanied by a submarine or two.
  
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  February 23, 2025 2:08pm
  - Don Beckett
    
    It would have been picked up if that were the case.
    
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    February 23, 2025 2:56pm
  - Colville
    
    US or Chinese sub?
    
    I would bet there is at least one US sub following them around just as a training exercise.
    
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    February 23, 2025 3:32pm
goNZ1

meanwhile in France they are continuing to enjoy the fruits of open borders and embracing alien cultures…
Knife attack leaves one dead in France in ‘terrorist act,’ officials say

https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/22/europe/mulhouse-attack-intl-latam
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February 23, 2025 10:03am
ecco

I see Spark had a horror day with their share price tanking by 20% following their poor half year result on Friday. A billion dollars wiped off their market capitalisation. Also sky tv not going great with plenty of problems, and not sure about Auckland Airport share price. Hasn’t been great either (even just judging by the parking and rideshare location debacles at AIA you have to wonder how well it’s being run.)

But the main theme running through these companies is that they are all headed up by women -Jolie Hodson, Sophie Moloney and Carrie Huruhanginui. Just wondering were these people DEI hires and not the best people for the job? Or has Adrian Orr made it nearly impossible for nz companies to make ends meet?
Ummm probably a bit of both of these factors (Orr incompetence & DEI) have contributed to these companies’ abysmal showings of late.

You’d have to wonder about all the female CEO and female board appointments to NZ companies to make up DEI quotas, whether the best people for the jobs were being appointed.

I see a lot of DEI hiring is being unwound in the US from the likes of Walmart now that Trump is in power. Just saying. I’m not anti women in management and board roles. Just wondering if they have the requisite commercial experience and understanding of such things as internal rate of return, experience with the financial markets etc to take on these roles.

Be interesting to see if Jolie Hodson gets meted out the same treatment as Ross Taylor of Fletcher Building when their share price tanked last year. He got swiftly kicked for touch and he resigned saying the buck stopped with him. At least he’s got the decency to acknowledge his wrongs and resign. Hodson says she’s not going anywhere and is going to fix the problem. She was paid $3.3m in salary last year. Is she working under the same kpis as Ross Taylor was, or is it different times?

You wonder if Justine Smyth (another DEI hire??), chair of Spark, has the balls to hold Hodson’s feet to the fire. Will be an interesting few weeks for Spark shareholders…
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February 23, 2025 10:05am
pdm

I did not watch last nights game but;
Beauden Barrett kicking aimlessly has been the part of his game for a few years that says he should not be the starting 10 for the All Blacks.

Made his name as a bench player and still in the best 2 or 3 in the business from there.
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February 23, 2025 11:23am
- David Garrett
  
  pdm: the starting 10? I always thought there were 15 players in a rugby team…
  
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  February 23, 2025 11:49am
  - The Boss
    
    I suggest you stick to the legal stuff, David LOL
    
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    February 23, 2025 12:07pm
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    Nice satire DG.
    First 5/8
    
    4 2
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    February 23, 2025 12:32pm
  - pdm
    
    Current vernacular DG.
    
    Most teenagers would not know what a 5/8 was.
    
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    February 23, 2025 1:28pm
    - Steve Otto N Shore
      
      or second 5/8
      
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      February 23, 2025 2:53pm
      - Colville
        
        You mean inside center?
        
        1 0
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        February 23, 2025 3:36pm
      - Quail
        
        SO,
        Where is the other 3/8 ?
        Missing.?
        
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        February 23, 2025 8:38pm
- imalwaysright
  
  Yes, he prances around like an adolescent Bambi until someone comes within 10m and then he boots the pill to some random place.
  Also has a severe allergy to being tackled and to sweating.
  
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  February 23, 2025 12:07pm
  - Colville
    
    I caught up with an innocent Bambi on Thursday night… There are a shocking number of deer around at the moment.
    Eating farmers out of house and home I expect
    
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    February 23, 2025 3:39pm
Swifty

Here’s my useless fact of the day but nonetheless of some historical interest.

Today I’ve taken my self into town to my inaugural visit to Wellington’s Harbourside Market on a specific mission – to pick up some lamb from a local bloke who farms in the Makara/Ohariu area.

I picked up three shanks and six loin chops – total price $67.

If of interest, 30 years ago I was buying whole 18kg hoggets, cut into primals, from my local Mt Eden, Auckland butcher for between $50 and $55, depending on weight.

Such is life.
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February 23, 2025 11:53am
- pdm
  
  Swifty sounds about New World Greenmeadows price.
  
  But, homekill makes it well worth the trip – much better taste,
  
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  February 23, 2025 1:32pm
  - Swifty
    
    I had a couple of the chops for lunch, fried medium rare and sprinkled with Maldon salt – pretty damn good. Juicy, flavoursome and very tender.
    
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    February 23, 2025 5:51pm
  - Quail
    
    Couple of things
    Homekill sales are illegal .
    Meat from the butcher has been inspected so is pure ( allegedly )
    So don’t ask your farmer friend to supply.
    
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    February 23, 2025 7:46pm
    - Allan
      
      Homekill can be eaten by:
      
      the animal owner
      the direct family or household of the animal owner
      farmworkers employed in a farm’s daily operations
      the farmworkers’ families and households.
      
      I’m pretty sure homekill is given to friends but it sounds like that is illegal.
      
      You can send an animal to a registered abattoir for killing and processing. In this case, it is not homekill.
      
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      February 23, 2025 9:36pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  These people – Conscious Valley – featured on Country Life on RNZ yesterday morning
  
  http://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/countrylife/audio/2018975886/ag-student-s-dreams-come-true-15-years-on
  
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  February 23, 2025 9:27pm
Steve Otto N Shore

‘Extortion, pure and simple’: Onlookers shocked by Trump threat to cut Ukraine’s internet.”
It’s not extortion, it is making a deal. It is payback time for the billions US financed Ukraine. Seems fair.
Elon Musk provided Ukraine with Starlink. He can just turn it off if Zelensky doesn’t play ball.
Let’s face it, Zelensky has been a bludger, and there was 10% for the Big Guy.

https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/other/extortion-pure-and-simple-onlookers-shocked-by-trump-threat-to-cut-ukraine-s-internet/ar-AA1zAos0?
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February 23, 2025 11:59am
- NothingLeft
  
  Doing deals is about future quid quo pro, not extorting concessions because you feel you are owed something for past gifts. Ukraine has for their part spent the lives or health of several hundred thousand soldiers and seen large swathes of their country turned to rubble – a massively higher cost.
  
  USA spent 10’s of Trillions in todays money on cold war. And during this Ukraine war have spent <1% of that ~$100 Billion, or around 10% of their annual military budget and that in the form of mainly obsolete or near obsolete military equip that was soon to be disposed of – with most money actually spent within USA buying new replacement weapons for US armed forces.
  USA have received the deal of the century from that as Ukraine has for the most part taken down Russia as a military threat; Destroying 10000 tanks, 20000 APCs, 20000 field guns, 1000 air defense systems, a couple of dozen naval vessels (and a sub), 300+ planes, 300+ helicopters, wiped out their professional military and most of their inventory of non-nuke missiles. A primary geopolitical foe mostly taken down for pentagons pocket change with no USA soldiers killed.
  
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  February 23, 2025 12:57pm
  - cmm
    
    A very large % of the aid given to Ukraine has been in the form of military aid that could only be spent on US-supplied equipment at vastly inflated prices.
    
    So, in many ways it was more a gift to the US military industrial complex rather than Ukraine.
    
    Many US weapons systems are crap and obsolete and the suppliers can only stay in business due to such a constrained playing field. If Ukraine could spend that money freely they’d be buying from elsewhere.
    
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    February 23, 2025 2:33pm
  - Jake Dee
    
    Massively naïve.
    This is a game played for national advantage and always has been.
    And there have been many American soldiers killed in Ukraine, they have just not been recognized as such.
    
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    February 23, 2025 3:33pm
quarterpack

On the contary Steve, the US and world at large is in debt to Ukraine, for at least partialy keeping Russia and its North Korean ally contained. Would you care to speculate where Russian territorial ambitions would have stopped had the Ukranians not done so? Trumps actions with respect to mineral rights are like robbing the pockets of someone who is in the process of being mugged, an act of cowardly oppurtunisim.
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February 23, 2025 12:51pm
- Jake Dee
  
  America’s involvement in Ukraine, which goes back decades is not a charity case. Anyone who suggests it is is either under the spell of or actively engaging in propaganda of the worst sort.
  And even the recipient of charity is obliged to help the continuing supply of that charity. the raw materials, especially the rare earth minerals are essential for the American economy and the war machine that is currently keeping this war running. They aren’t planning to blow it all on blackjack, hookers and cocaine.
  
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  February 23, 2025 3:39pm
  - Colville
    
    …. blackjack, hookers and cocaine…
    
    I dunno about you but I have to accept two out of three at my age…!
    
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    February 23, 2025 6:35pm
  - Greenheart
    
    Given Trumps history how do you know what the money would be spent on?
    
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    February 23, 2025 7:14pm
NothingLeft

Growing out of Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE) Elon Proposes Federal Agency for Financial Oversight (FAFO) AKA Fuck Around Find Out.

(Pretty sure this is just a joke)

https://x.com/WatcherGuru/status/1893436882593165646
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February 23, 2025 1:03pm
pb

The question sweeping around the leftwing and rightwing managed bureaucracy’s of the world:

“tell me what you achieved last week”

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1893386883444437415
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February 23, 2025 1:25pm
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  All on a time clock. Personal clock in (not from a colleague) just like us in the manufacturing industry do. That way you know how long a job takes, how much to charge out, and who is doing sweet fuck all!
  Sweet fuck all twice equals the DCM.
  
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  February 23, 2025 3:07pm
- sungsamning
  
  I think there will be a run on valium, and toilet paper supplies.
  
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  February 23, 2025 8:05pm
Chuck Bird

Good fight by Parker. A KO in round 2.
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February 23, 2025 1:53pm
- Don Beckett
  
  Yes, he has beefed up to where, IMO, he should have been in his previous fights. It gives him more hitting power, and greater ability to absorb punishment.
  
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  February 23, 2025 3:02pm
  - Colville
    
    Yeah he has always struggled to stop someone so something needed to change.
    
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    February 23, 2025 3:40pm

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Highlights

Health Target 5 – elective treatments
Health Target 4 – Specialist appointments
Health Target 3 – Emergency Dept Waiting Times
Health Target 2 – Immunisations

Links

MEDIAWATCH: Alt-Right astroturf Free Speech Union Glee club inspired Alt-Right Billionaire to take over Herald + ZB
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My first trip to Haiti
Utopia
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Hompaddock
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Open mike 29/03/2025
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Climate Change: More subsidies for Tiwai
No Right Turn
Four years of housing uncertainty. Thanks National.
Not PC
Equality of suffrage seen as bad by Radio NZ
Point of Order
Ebikes for brains
Stats Chat
Signalling Deliberate Reckless Disregard (updated with a NZ angle).
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Media Doxxing Protestors They Disagree With
Bob McCoskrie's McBlog
THE TAXATION ENIGMA
No Punches Pulled (Bob Jones)
The Lifeblood of Progress
NZCPR
On the way ahead
Croaking Cassandra
Maybe allow competition?
Offsetting Behaviour
Tory Whanau may have to sell Wellington mayoralty to make ends meet
The Civilian
The Accidental Engagement
Imperator Fish
Legal Beagle: Election '23: The Special Votes
Public Address
Making this movie might have been a mistake
Liam Hehir
Why I am retiring from political blogging
Kiwi FireWalker