General Debate 01 March 2025

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Benedict Yu

So Julie Anne Genter shouted at some volunteers from the Taxpayers Union. They were promoting the TPU at a stall at Victoria University. The Green Party had its own stall next door.

https://www.thepost.co.nz/politics/360596810/julie-anne-genter-accused-raising-voice-taxpayers-union-volunteers

She cannot help herself.

To use an analogy.. As I have commented repeatedly, I think that the teacher unions do far more harm than good. Yet I do not go down to their offices and shout at the people who work there.
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March 1, 2025 8:01am
- Gravelroad
  
  Why do so many in the Green Party seek to advance their positions through bullying?
  Ms Genter appears to have a problem with people who hold different aims and views. That she can’t cope with this without losing her temper is unfortunate.
  
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  March 1, 2025 8:14am
  - Benedict Yu
    
    “Why do so many in the Green Party seek to advance their positions through bullying?”
    
    Because they are incapable of advancing their arguments through reason.
    
    Remember that shocking speech by Jacinda at the UN where she advocated censorship?. She asked the audience “How do you tackle climate change if people do not believe it exists?”
    
    My answer is “Through the power of reason.”
    
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    March 1, 2025 8:26am
    - Suze Wainwright
      
      I think that if you believed you were a Great Green Eco She-God, you would demand a certain amount of respect too…
      
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      March 1, 2025 8:39am
    - NK
      
      That, right there, is *the* fundamental difference between the left and right. The Left base their arguments on emotion; whereas the Right are more logical and use reason. This is why you cannot reason with the Left. It’s impossible to win an emotive argument through reason. Can I also suggest this is the main difference between men and women. A lot of women attempt to get their way using emotional arguments, whereas men are more logical.
      
      Of course this is quite a generalisation, but I would argue applies to about 90% of men/women relationships. It also explains why the Greens, and the Left in general, attract women Chardonnay socialists to their teams.
      
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      March 1, 2025 10:48am
      - An Old Kiwi
        
        Part of this divide is also caused by age. The young spend much of their day in schools/universities, being indoctrinated by the Left (-yes, often women). Whereas once their brain has finished developing and they’ve had some life experience, their views may start moving Right.
        
        Isn’t there a saying:
        If you aren’t Left leaning when you are young, you don’t have a heart, and
        if you aren’t Right leaning when you are older, you don’t have a brain.
        
        (Written by an old woman.)
        
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        March 1, 2025 2:38pm
  - Hugh Jarse
    
    They are totalitarians along with being mad as March hares who believe the ends justify the means hence their non parliamentary supporters propensity for disruption, damage and violence if it’s suits their purpose. Bullying in one form or another is their way of doing business.
    
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    March 1, 2025 8:44am
    - JackRabbit
      
      They are totalitarians along with being mad as March hares…
      
      And to make matters worse, they have a March hare in their party!
      
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      March 1, 2025 10:27am
  - kowtow
    
    Many people don’t realise how very radical/activist these ‘Bolshies” are .Same with the Maori party .Much of Labour too , though they make more of an effort to hide it ,so’s not to frighten the horses.
    
    They are not genuinely nice people .They want your private property and your freedoms.
    
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    March 1, 2025 8:47am
    - Damocles11
      
      Why don’t they realise this though? What is wrong with New Zealanders? Why are our people so bland, uncurious, passive, uninformed, and in many cases stupid?
      
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      March 1, 2025 11:57am
      - kowtow
        
        ‘We ” gave Ardern the impossible , an absolute majoridy under MMP.
        
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        March 1, 2025 2:37pm
  - 2ic
    
    The Green party do seem to be an attractive home for people with mental illness, which makes sense when you look at their policies. By their own admission we’ve had Chloe, Golriz, Tory – just off the top of my head.
    
    So it’s not surprising to see this exhibited in behavioural issues.
    
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    March 1, 2025 1:11pm
    - Damocles11
      
      And given the wealth of factual evidence supporting the proposition that what you say is true, what does that say about the more than one in ten NZ voters that support them?
      
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      March 1, 2025 2:26pm
- pdm
  
  Didn’t Genter yell at a mother and daughter in a Wellington shop a few weeks ago?
  
  When I say a few weeks ago I mean mid/late January of this year.
  
  Obviously she cannot help herself so time for her to walk away from Politics. Tory Whanau could take her place – did I really suggest that?
  
  Genters problem in doing that – where would she get another job?
  
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  March 1, 2025 8:30am
  - peterwn
    
    Policy analyst for a left wing council.
    
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    March 1, 2025 8:36am
  - Benedict Yu
    
    No way she will walk away. It would take another serious incident.
    
    She aspires to be Transport Minister in a communist – ethnic separatist government. Which is plausible.
    
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    March 1, 2025 8:43am
  - Jethrod
    
    Parking meter attendant for Wellington City?
    
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    March 1, 2025 8:44am
    - igm
      
      No way, her ilk will not have cars in the city to monitor.
      
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      March 1, 2025 11:02am
  - Pope Punctilious II
    
    Diversity commissar for Kiwibank?
    
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    March 1, 2025 9:21am
  - rockape
    
    All that anger management counselling she had was a waste of money then!
    
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    March 1, 2025 10:06am
- peterwn
  
  One of the Green Party values – “Engage respectfully, without personal attacks”.
  I am surprised the Party has not updated its values to reflect their real stance.
  
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  March 1, 2025 8:31am
  - David Garrett
    
    Peter: Indeed…the days of Rod Donald and Fitzsimmons are long gone.
    
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    March 1, 2025 8:42am
    - peterwn
      
      sigh!
      
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      March 1, 2025 9:16am
    - cmm
      
      I used to vote Green back in the Rod Donald days, though that started to go sideways for me when he participated in some Feldalton NIMBYism about putting up a cell tower there.
      He was opposed to cellphone towers, yet carried not one, but two cell phones!
      
      The last Green of any sense I engaged with was Nándor Tánczos. Although I disagreed with points he was trying to make, he was insightful and respectful. No screaming or bollocks about big oil or whatever and I I came away from that discussion feeling we’d both learned something from eachother.
      
      I had the misfortune of living near Mojo Mathers who really put the loopy into Greens. Trying to have even the most basic conversation was like walking on eggshells – she seemed to deliberately try to find ways to be offended by anything you say.
      
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      March 1, 2025 2:35pm
      - NeverMindTheBollocks
        
        Pardon?
        
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        March 1, 2025 6:42pm
  - Suze Wainwright
    
    Yeah, but Ricardo, Benjamin and Lawrence Xu-Nan are just such little cuties who need to be mothered and mothered and mothered all day long.
    
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    March 1, 2025 9:17am
    - pdm
      
      You take them and clasp them to your `ample’ bosom then Suze.
      
      The rest of us will then be able to get on with our lives. lol.
      
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      March 1, 2025 10:01am
      - JackRabbit
        
        At least one of those three doesn’t like bosoms.
        
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        March 1, 2025 10:28am
      - Suze Wainwright
        
        JackRabbit – I think that at least one of them might believe that they possess bosoms, the others are possibly somewhat indifferent…
        
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        March 1, 2025 10:48am
      - JackRabbit
        
        @Suze Wainwright
        
        Bosoms are indicative of a binary society of males and females. So disliked by people who think that there are 327 genders.
        
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        March 1, 2025 11:52am
    - KiwiSapper
      
      “……….. who need to be smothered and smothered and smothered all day long.”
      .
      There, fixed it for you.
      
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      March 1, 2025 1:13pm
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  There would be no need to apologise if she kept herself under control, but I don’t think that is possible.
  
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  March 1, 2025 9:13am
- Scott
  
  Ms Genter is the offspring of MMP. Although MMP gives us David Seymour, we note he first got into parliament by winning the confidence of the Epsom electorate. People looked at him and decided he was a worthy person to represent them in the House of representatives.
  
  Unfortunately with MMP you also get Ms Genter, the fellow with the tattoos who doesn’t seem to believe in NZ and the Mexican gay fellow who doesn’t seem to even like it here. I would submit that none of those people would ever win an electorate seat, even in central Wellington.
  
  That’s my major question about MMP, it brings in way too many marginal people. And you can’t get rid of them! I’m thinking here of the former MP for the Wairarapa who is still in parliament despite a handy defeat in the last general election.
  
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  March 1, 2025 9:33am
  - Benedict Yu
    
    But JAG did just win a seat in Wellington.
    
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    March 1, 2025 9:55am
    - Suze Wainwright
      
      Doesn’t say much about Fleur Fitzsimmons does it.
      
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      March 1, 2025 10:55am
    - Scott
      
      Benedict – my apologies, that’s true.
      One can only question the good folk of Rongotai whether they are still happy with their choice?
      
      I do note that she came into parliament first of all as a list MP. However that she gained the confidence of the good folk of Rongotai is a fact, however much we may marvel at their judgement.
      
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      March 1, 2025 11:31am
      - kiwimike
        
        I did not vote for her, not in a month of Sundays, they, the Greens are bat shit crazy.
        
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        March 1, 2025 12:03pm
      - peterwn
        
        Voters east of Wellington CBD are rusted on left wingers.
        
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        March 1, 2025 1:30pm
    - PurplePen
      
      Do you think labour did a deal with the Greens for the seat. It’s been a strong labour seat for years. Or maybe it’s the demographic has changed significantly. If it has, it was rapid.
      
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      March 1, 2025 11:52am
      - Colville
        
        They wont have done a formal deal but there will be a wink wink nudge nudge understanding for Labour to take the foot off the gas in that electorate for the good of the proletariat.
        
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        March 1, 2025 1:04pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        @Colville
        
        Sort of like the Nats and Epsom in days gone by. Not a lot of wink/wink as I recall. Nat fall guy was Paul Goldsmith who obviously had a high list place ….
        
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        March 1, 2025 3:42pm
  - JackRabbit
    
    As far back as high school history, we were taught that MMP was a socialist strategy. MMP allows people we don’t want into parliament.
    
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    March 1, 2025 10:30am
  - Quail
    
    Absolutely right Scott.
    And none of them , none have passed individual scrutiny at the ballot box.
    MMP is a dog!
    
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    March 1, 2025 10:44am
    - rouppe
      
      I have nothing but contempt for them, but they won three electorate seats in the ballot box last election.
      
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      March 1, 2025 1:35pm
      - NothingLeft
        
        Strong evidence that central govt has grown too big and that we should stop funding Humanities depts as primary indoctrination centers for far left.
        
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        March 1, 2025 7:16pm
  - Suze Wainwright
    
    Excuse me, but there’s still a chance that former member for Wairarapa might be a future Labour Party leader
    
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    March 1, 2025 10:54am
    - Scott
      
      That’s quite right Suze. He was excellent at standing behind the former prime minister of NZ and flashing a winning smile at her every utterance.
      
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      March 1, 2025 11:33am
  - leoj
    
    MMP has ruined New Zealand.
    
    The country is far less stable because MMP largely brings in unstable people who have not had to go to the people. Instead, they are answerable to the party and not an electorate.
    
    Therein lies the problem.
    
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    March 1, 2025 5:22pm
- fightingtemeraire
  
  They and TPM do not believe in Democracy and believe that they should be Dictators and do as we are told.
  
  Look at the Greens, March is a Proud Marxist, Teano has been “An activist in residence” at Massey and has spent time in Cuba.
  
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  March 1, 2025 9:36am
- Rumblestrip
  
  There was also an allegation on the Platform a few days ago of yet another incident, where Genter overhead a couple of people in a Wellington shop in a private conversation, complaining about Tory Whanau… and decided to loudly give them a piece of her mind.
  
  Genter really cannot help herself, and eventually it will be her downfall.
  
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  March 1, 2025 11:44am
  - rouppe
    
    She knows it too. Suddenly changed when she saw she was being recorded.
    
    I’m disappointed the FSU closed their stall though, that’s the thugs veto working.
    
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    March 1, 2025 1:39pm
    - John Loveridge
      
      I’m disappointed too. That handed her a victory of sorts.
      
      It says a lot about her that, once again, her apology was issued through a party spokesman. Does she ever front up over her own appalling behaviour?
      
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      March 1, 2025 6:51pm
- imalwaysright
  
  Toxic stale pale female.
  
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  March 1, 2025 2:48pm
TripeWryter

I’ve just been reading in The New Zealand Herald Claire Trevett’s opinion piece on the pickle David Seymour is swimming in over the free school lunches.
It’s clear that Seymour is finding out what it’s like to do battle against what Ms Trevett says are seasoned and battle-hardened warriors – teachers and their allies.
It is far too rich for Chris Hipkins – the most inept Minister of Education this country has had in a long time (he promised so much …) – to comment on it and capitalise on it.
Teachers know how to moan and complain and get attention from a lazy media.
The problem could easily be solved: parents feed their kids.
How’s that for a solution to the problem, Claire?
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March 1, 2025 8:05am
- Scott
  
  Yes I think Seymour missed a trick, rather than cutting the cost of school lunches he should have abandoned the programme altogether. The govt does not have any business providing your child’s school lunch. That’s the parents job.
  
  As it is the media have a field day with allegations of the cost cutting govt providing little Johny a sub standard lunch. Better to have axed the programme altogether.
  
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  March 1, 2025 9:36am
  - Ghost
    
    It should be targeted at the few who genuinely need it. It should be something as basic as a sandwich. This whole theory of providing for the whole school so as to make those who need it not be ashamed is stupid.
    
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    March 1, 2025 9:45am
    - Don Beckett
      
      Yes, and it should be done by the school concerned. Surely they could set up a small kitchen, run by 1 or 2 teachers, who instruct the kids to make sandwiches with healthy fillings, provide only for the kids with no lunch, and the govt. subsidise it.
      Many parents would provide their own children with lunch, & only those in need would be fed for free.
      
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      March 1, 2025 10:35am
      - JackRabbit
        
        Good points.
        
        At high school they used to teach home economics for several years of education – learning how to cook. And not just the girls.
        
        In addition in a form class, every week a girl and boy were selected to cook and make their own lunch in a nearby school kitchen, and form teacher would inspect the results.
        
        Many parents would provide their own children with lunch, & only those in need would be fed for free.
        
        And teacher that cared about their children, would provide a nutritious packed lunch, so that child did not eat either junk food and/or unhealthy stodge food.
        
        Our family either biked home for lunch, or had a packed lunch.
        
        Other parents who clearly didn’t care about their children, gave them money to buy a bag of crisps and a bottle of fanta, and/or a bag of lollies.
        
        Which probably explains why said children were disruptive and ill mannered in the afternoons after lunch.
        
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        March 1, 2025 11:37am
      - JackRabbit
        
        type
        
        “And ~~teacher~~ parent that cared about their children,
        
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        March 1, 2025 11:55am
      - Paulus
        
        God – Teachers run a kitchen
        – Unions would not allow such a thing !
        
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        March 1, 2025 1:35pm
      - Ra Henare
        
        NO NO NO. small kitchen run by 1 or 2 teachers.
        NO TEACHERS!!!
        
        A penny to a pound of goat shit local parents would be delighted to step up and help.
        
        Meals prepared with love not loathing
        
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        March 1, 2025 5:02pm
    - TripeWryter
      
      Ghost: schools will not do it for ‘children in need’.
      In their view that stigmatises poor kids.
      So it’s ‘all in’.
      Back in the 90s my kids’ school tried to strong arm me into joining the scheme because they were deemed to be poor (we were, courtesy of Ruth and Jenny and John Luxton).
      I objected because I could still provide the kids with lunches, and without a lot of difficulty.
      I did consent to ‘meat pie Fridays’.
      
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      March 1, 2025 11:34am
    - John Loveridge
      
      Don’t forget that the teachers themselves are always in the line for a free scoff.
      
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      March 1, 2025 6:53pm
  - pdm
    
    `Yes I think Seymour missed a trick, rather than cutting the cost of school lunches he should have abandoned the programme altogether.’
    
    Seymour wanted to but Luxon would not let him.
    
    A big, big mistake PM Luxon.
    
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    March 1, 2025 10:07am
    - RoboRob
      
      I suspect Luxon thought he was very clever. Keep the lunches to appease Labour voters and halve the cost to appease right wing voters.
      
      You would think he would have learnt by now, try and make everyone happy and you end up with everyone unhappy.
      
      Luxon, some advice. Just do what you think a right wing vote would like and forget trying to win left wing and Maori voters. It’s never happening.
      
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      March 1, 2025 10:36am
    - H. Upmann
      
      Another…”big, big mistake PM Luxon”.
      
      Is anyone keeping a tally of his…mistakes?
      
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      March 1, 2025 10:51am
    - Conservatarian
      
      I have not heard this (Luxon telling Seymour to make the programme more cost-effective, not telling Seymour to can the programme) but it rings true.
      
      If so, it will be typical Luxon. It must be that polling shows that shareholders…oops, I mean undecided voters, centrists and normies like the sound of a “free” school lunch. You know, for children whose parents do not love them (or wherever there is a school with significant numbers of such parents, the whole school gets a “free” lunch).
      
      The solution to welfare dependency is most definitely not more welfare.
      
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      March 1, 2025 11:06am
    - judith8409121
      
      yeah – in the world of them versus us – best to cut your loses and just cut the lunches – then do what the other side does and memory hole them – say that children need to learn how to make lunch and lunches were a bad idea and were over this – it’s not something that national need to do or support – it’s not their policy
      
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      March 1, 2025 11:37am
      - GJM
        
        And also Labour hadn’t funded it past the election (true) so blame them.
        Natioanl need to learn who their friends are. If Natioanl wanted a Labour government they would have voted for one. The failure can be seen with the UK Conservative party
        
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        March 1, 2025 1:06pm
    - Ghost
      
      Did Seymour want to? The act Coalition agreement, page 8
      
      https://assets.nationbuilder.com/actnz/pages/13849/attachments/original/1715133581/National_ACT_Agreement.pdf?1715133581
      
      Improve the cost-effectiveness of the school lunches program
      
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      March 1, 2025 12:24pm
      - judith8409121
        
        the most cost effective school lunch program is Zero – what they need is a nice slogan with a zero in it – nothing like trolling the opposition
        
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        March 1, 2025 3:47pm
  - kowtow
    
    He couldn’t.And has said so.
    
    It’s the two populist party partners who’re holding real progress back and happy to splash the cash .
    
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    March 1, 2025 10:24am
  - Rumblestrip
    
    100%. Seymour should have nuked the program and replaced it with targeted assistance to those who provably need it.
    
    But, as many others have said, he has been saddled with this.
    
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    March 1, 2025 11:49am
    - Damocles11
      
      Of course he has, because Labour Lite were too weak and milquetoast to scrap it.
      
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      March 1, 2025 12:03pm
  - Damocles11
    
    But was he told not to abandon the school lunch programme by his boss, the very woke Christopher Luxon? And again ‘corporate manager’ Luxon says he will ‘lay out his expectation’ to Seymour regarding the delivery of this Labour party programme. The boss, the PM, the bloke that the buck stops with – he should have canned this school lunch programme. But because he is ‘Labour Lite’ he didn’t.
    Luxon can grandstand about his expectations of ‘his’ ministers, but there are another group of people who he himself is answerable and who have expectations as well. Luxon has failed to meet my expectations. He is not up to the role he is currently occupying. He should not still be on that role.
    
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    March 1, 2025 12:02pm
- pdm
  
  `It is far too rich for Chris Hipkins – the most inept Minister of Education this country has had in a long time’
  
  You overlook Jan Tinetti in the inept Education Minister stakes.
  
  Then again Hipkins did have this advantage – he had his mummy helping him.
  
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  March 1, 2025 10:06am
  - Paulus
    
    And I believe she is still a very Senior in the Education Department at an enormous salary still exerting her left wing influence – that fact that she failed with her Minister son is no recommendation.
    
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    March 1, 2025 1:40pm
- Philview
  
  Last week the media were going crazy about the quality of halal meals. Dump the whole programme.
  
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  March 1, 2025 10:17am
  - RoboRob
    
    Should have but Luxon wouldn’t let them.
    
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    March 1, 2025 10:37am
    - Damocles11
      
      He is a problem. In fact, he is ‘the’ problem. He is in the wrong party. He should be in the Greens or Labour.
      
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      March 1, 2025 12:04pm
      - H. Upmann
        
        NZ Green Party have a mole deep within National. The mole is Chris Luxon.
        
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        March 1, 2025 4:44pm
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    Oddly, I’ve not seen any complaints about kosher lunches, yet halal and kosher are essentially the same.
    
    Do Jewish parents still make their kid’s lunches? Or do the kids not complain? Or have the MSM just missed it completely?
    
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    March 1, 2025 6:48pm
- Paulus
  
  It is easy for Teachers to get all the support they want from the repugnant children, and their Mothers. and the slime media who will do anything to denigrate the duly elected Government.
  Are there not 180,000 meals a day, not enough for the Teachers as well, and their families, as the do not like the menus.
  
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  March 1, 2025 10:35am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  One of the core reasons for providing school lunches was to ensure kids turned up to school, but the stats of term 3 & term 4 2023 make a mockery of that claim.
  
  https://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/statistics/attendance
  
  The expensive school lunches were in place, but absenteeism was running at record levels…
  
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  March 1, 2025 10:52am
  - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
    
    Yes apparently the poor dears were too hungry to go to school, and if they did turn up, being hungry meant they couldn’t learn.
    
    So after paying their parents benefits, WFF, subsidised housing etc etc to step up and be parents, we then provide free lunches.
    
    Oh, and knock me down with a feather, no impact at all on attendance. PISA scores continue to slide.
    
    Time to start punishing deadbeat parents?
    
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    March 1, 2025 12:57pm
  - cmm
    
    It was always bullshit.
    
    Yet again a misdirection so that responsibility does not fall where it should: inept parents.
    
    Perhaps also a touch of the Messiah Complex – only Cindy’s Touch can get these poor, illiterate, Samboes onto the path to success.
    
    6 1
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    March 1, 2025 2:43pm
- thirteenstars
  
  “The problem could easily be solved: parents feed their kids.”
  
  The coalition had the perfect excuse to scrap the program, that being severe budget constraints. They could easily have played that off last year against the increase in funding for more cancer drugs.
  
  But the didn’t have the guts or the leadership. Now it’ll be another massive and unnecessary entitlement that’ll never go away.
  
  Here’s Michael Laws interviewing one of the usual suspects, Health Coalition Aotearoa Co-Chair Professor Lisa Te Morenga, about the need for the program:
  
  https://theplatform.kiwi/podcasts/episode/professor-lisa-te-morenga-on-new-zealands-school-lunch-debate
  
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  March 1, 2025 11:04am
Andrei

Who saw President Trump and J.D. Vance give
Volodomir Zelenskii a pants down spanking in the Oval Office.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqOOOR7Kr-s
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March 1, 2025 8:15am
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  “You are not in a position to tell us how we will feel” of close.
  That was a pure arse kicking from Trump and Vance. Even JD Vance was not standing for any nonsense from Zelensky. He will go home a very beaten man.
  In Putin’s defence, Trump did mention about what Putin went through with the “Russia, Russia, Russia” attacks from the lying Democrats.
  
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  March 1, 2025 9:50am
  - alwyn.a
    
    I can certainly see why they have to have Vance there for the meeting. It is just like having Musk at Trumps TV appearances.
    Trump, unfortunately, seems to be way down the road that Biden was on before the election. Trump simply doesn’t remember what he said or did last week. They have to have someone present who can remember what Trump said yesterday.
    Have a look at this video clip. When asked about calling Zelensky a dictator he can’t even remember that he did it He asks whether he said it and then says that he can’t believe it.
    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2025/feb/27/did-i-say-that-donald-trump-denies-calling-zelenskyy-a-dictator-video
    It was just like in his conversation with Starmer when he has to ask what AUKUS is.
    I imagine Vance will be checking up on the 25th Amendment. He may, very shortly, have to use it.
    
    15 17
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    March 1, 2025 11:49am
    - Damocles11
      
      “Russia invaded in 2014”.
      Trump: “2015”.
      “2014”.
      Trump (surprised) “oh, 2014?!”
      
      11 0
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      March 1, 2025 12:09pm
    - kiwimike
      
      Alwyn I disagree
      I think Trump knew what he called Zelensky, he deliberately biffed the Journo away with that remark.
      
      secondly, He would have been briefed before the meeting, his asking allowed Starmer to say something.
      He Trump doesn’t care what we or the press thinks.
      
      14 6
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      March 1, 2025 12:11pm
      - cmm
        
        Trump’s audience are the people that voted for him: Americans.
        
        How many Americans care what AUKUS is?
        
        9 3
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        March 1, 2025 2:45pm
      - Ra Henare
        
        One of the joys of Youtube and online availability of actual speeches/interactions is you get to make up your own mind.
        
        I read some journos descriptions of the meeting and wonder whether they actually watched the footage as misrepresentation of the facts and context is rife.
        
        Just watched an interview with Rubio Secretary of State and laid out the 5 days prior to the white house meeting and Zelenskies insistance on signing at the white house.
        
        My sniff test suggests Zelensky had no intention to sign the deal and just wanted a high profile opportunity to pressure Trump in to supplying more weapons/Aid and dumping on Putin.
        
        Blew up in his face. Wouldnt mind betting that aid to Zelesnhy just stopped!!!! ie Dont piss off the Donald.
        
        2 1
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        March 1, 2025 10:32pm
- Philview
  
  The headlines called it a shouting match which from what I have seen is an extreme exaggeration.
  
  31 1
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  March 1, 2025 10:20am
  - RoboRob
    
    Yup. I suspect vlad is refusing to budge in negotiations and so Trump decided to expose the issue.
    
    I think this was orchestrated by the USA. Probably the, Vlad’s a dictator stuff was a warning shot and this was phase two.
    
    Also forgot that vlad campaigned for Kamala during the elections. A very inappropriate and foolish move.
    
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    March 1, 2025 10:40am
    - losingtheplot
      
      I watched the clip. That was an orchestrated ambush. Vance was the attack dog to open, giving Trump free reign to run with whatever came after.
      
      It was bullying behaviour in front of the cameras designed to make Zelensky crawl on his knees before signing whatever deal they had stitched together.
      
      8 6
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      March 1, 2025 3:52pm
      - Don Beckett
        
        Rubbish. If Zlensky simply did what he and his aides had agreed to before the public discussion, everything would have been fine. They had been told what the deal was & had agreed in principle to sign it. But Zelensky switched to wanting further guarentees and kept talking over Trump.
        Very bad look.
        
        5 6
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        March 1, 2025 7:28pm
      - Ra Henare
        
        You must have watched a different clip to me.
        38 minutes of platitudes until Vlad started in to Vance about what diplomacy then went on a rant about you cant negotiate with a killer(Putin)
        
        2 2
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        March 1, 2025 10:34pm
- Bernard Black
  
  Why is Zelensky dressed like some sort of commando, he’s meeting with POTUS, the leader of the free world FFS, could at least have worn a tie!
  
  24 17
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  March 1, 2025 11:24am
  - Ghost
    
    To be honest his outfits are an improvement from This and This
    
    8 4
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    March 1, 2025 11:35am
  - RoboRob
    
    Like the speaking in Russian and having a translator, its all branding.
    
    9 3
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    March 1, 2025 11:36am
    - MCōs
      
      English is his third language
      World leaders normally prefer to speak their first language so they don’t make a cock up in what is essentially a language they are not 100% familiar with
      On this particular occasion it’s difficult enough being hammered by two foreign speakers
      
      9 5
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      March 1, 2025 2:18pm
  - Jake Dee
    
    Because he’s an actor. He’s currently playing the role of a wartime commander, costume decisions get made by someone else.
    Who decided to run a photo spread of his wife in Vogue magazine ?
    it’s all theater
    
    15 12
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    March 1, 2025 11:49am
    - kowtow
      
      Yep , even the new head honcho in Syria , Isis kinda guy , knew to turn up in a suit when he wanted money and recognition from certain countries.
      
      All the world’s a stage.
      
      8 2
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      March 1, 2025 2:42pm
  - losingtheplot
    
    Where have you been for the last four years? He wears this to show support for his armed forces. He has done since the beginning.
    
    10 4
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    March 1, 2025 3:54pm
    - Don Beckett
      
      He is simply virtue signalling.
      
      3 6
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      March 1, 2025 7:29pm
- Benedict Yu
  
  Yes it will be a video recording for the ages.
  
  And we are only 6 weeks into the presidency.
  
  JD Vance is impressive. He might be president 4 years from now.
  
  26 15
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  March 1, 2025 11:38am
  - alwyn.a
    
    Vance might be President four months from now. Trump is behaving like Biden.
    
    12 23
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    March 1, 2025 11:51am
    - Jethrod
      
      That is ridiculous!
      
      5 3
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      March 1, 2025 6:05pm
  - Paulus
    
    Or sooner, as the USA is still a very Gun Happy country – a kid tried before the election and was only a fraction out, and another will not make a similar mistake.
    Like JF Kennedy.
    
    5 6
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    March 1, 2025 1:44pm
  - losingtheplot
    
    I guess that very much depends on whether you think that the leader of a war torn country needs to be ritually humiliated before signing an agreement on unfavourable terms.
    
    I would have stood my ground as well.
    
    6 5
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    March 1, 2025 3:59pm
- sungsamning
  
  I did. It was the equivalent of being spanked and sent to bed with no dinner.
  
  8 5
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  March 1, 2025 12:46pm
Sparrow

Just watched Trump and Zelensky on BBC World News. Bloody hell never seen anything like it, beats all the school yard beat ups. Unbelievable
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March 1, 2025 8:15am
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  See above. It was a beauty!!
  
  12 14
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  March 1, 2025 9:51am
- kowtow
  
  Trump himself acknowledged “it would make great television”. Not that that’s what he wanted .
  He wants a win. Fair enough . The Americans are paying for a lot of it.
  
  Anyway there’s a very old French saying ” When the nobles argue the poor man’s thatch goes up in smoke” .
  
  The other lesson is Si vis pacem parabellum.
  
  Putin would never have launched the full scale invasion had the Europeans been strong .
  
  Don’t blame Trump for this.
  
  24 14
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  March 1, 2025 10:28am
- Gussy Fink-Nottle
  
  Uncontrolled spat, or performance art?
  If it was unscripted, it was a bloody poor show.
  If the purpose was to publicly shame Zelensky, was he in on it?
  I sense we’re being played, but unsure exactly how.
  
  8 9
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  March 1, 2025 11:38am
sungsamning

https://nypost.com/2025/02/27/opinion/trump-shouldnt-let-russia-keep-occupied-ukrainian-territories/
Putin will need to give (back) land to get peace.
President Trump has spoken nicely about Vladimir Putin as he brokers a peace deal between Moscow and Kyiv, but he’s also gently letting Vlad know he’ll need to make some real concessions, too: Ukraine should get its land back.

On Wednesday, Trump told reporters he aims “to make the best deal we can for both sides,” which “for Ukraine” means getting “as much back as possible.”
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March 1, 2025 8:24am
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  I did not know Russia has kidnapped thousands of Ukraine children.
  Brings up the obvious question, are they being sexually abused?
  
  15 20
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  March 1, 2025 10:03am
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    What’s with the downtick? Does the downticker think it is ok to rape children?
    
    12 17
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    March 1, 2025 10:18am
    - Don Beckett
      
      Yes, I find it humorous that some people downtick a question.
      
      9 12
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      March 1, 2025 10:50am
      - Hard Cheese
        
        I downticked for the display of gross ignorance, not the question.
        
        17 11
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        March 1, 2025 11:33am
    - Conservatarian
      
      Certainly some people do. For example, some people are very happy that the promised transparency on the Epstein list has been stymied (for now and maybe forever). As another example, those who covered up the Pakistani rape gangs in English towns.
      
      13 6
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      March 1, 2025 11:16am
    - Colville
      
      Steve , every Hamas supporter thinks its ok to rape children.
      
      15 1
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      March 1, 2025 1:08pm
      - Steve Otto N Shore
        
        Yeah well we know there are plenty in NZ, look at how many wear a kaffiyeh at protests and wherever else they can.
        
        14 6
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        March 1, 2025 1:46pm
  - JackRabbit
    
    I thought Russian forces rescued said children from the child trafficking bunkers in the Ukraine. As well as destroying the bio weapons labs that Bunter Hiden was involved in setting up.
    
    So of course the Ukraine would say that.
    
    14 17
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    March 1, 2025 10:34am
  - Paulus
    
    No, being taught Russian, like as if the were to learn Te Aio solely.
    
    3 5
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    March 1, 2025 10:37am
  - Jake Dee
    
    Utter nonsense and propaganda.
    Children are being evacuated from war zones which is exactly what SHOULD be done.
    Do you notice how the discussion has somehow slid into organized rape of children, all without any evidence what so ever?
    Highly emotional manipulation is a clear red flag dor propaganda.
    
    13 12
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    March 1, 2025 11:54am
  - sungsamning
    
    Could be. More like they want them Russianized.
    
    9 2
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    March 1, 2025 12:50pm
  - Mattb
    
    There’s lots you don’t know Steve and you prove that every day.
    
    7 1
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    March 1, 2025 2:13pm
- thirteenstars
  
  This is what Trump posted after Zelensky departed the White House:
  
  We had a very meaningful meeting in the White House today. Much was learned that could never be understood without conversation under such fire and pressure. It’s amazing what comes out through emotion, and I have determined that President Zelenskyy is not ready for Peace if America is involved, because he feels our involvement gives him a big advantage in negotiations. I don’t want advantage, I want PEACE. He disrespected the United States of America in its cherished Oval Office. He can come back when he is ready for Peace.
  
  And what Zelenksy posted:
  
  Thank you America, thank you for your support, thank you for this visit. Thank you @POTUS, Congress, and the American people. Ukraine needs just and lasting peace, and we are working exactly for that.
  
  This little tête-à-tête was like some loud words at the weigh-in for a championship fight, which in this case, will still go ahead.
  
  14 2
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  March 1, 2025 11:17am
  - thirteenstars
    
    Bret Baier, Fox News, 20-minute interview with Zelenskyy following the meeting with Trump, which was scheduled to take place:
    
    https://youtu.be/GfqLcBwUT_E?si=kS7m4fgPEHgGpScG&t=117
    
    I can’t help thinking Zelenskyy should use a translator. In this interview he asks for clarification from a translator several times. I’m sure the to-do in the Oval Office was in no small part due to subtle things being misspoken and misinterpreted.
    
    7 0
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    March 1, 2025 1:46pm
  - MCōs
    
    This is what Dmitry Medvedev posted
    Clearly the Russian regime are highly pleased as Putin awaits his meeting with Trump in his $1000 suit
    https://x.com/medvedevrussiae/status/1895549112440979908?s=46&t=XZLqGbhN-xeYzprhTaktsg
    
    9 0
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    March 1, 2025 2:41pm
    - Colville
      
      $1000 suit?
      You think he shops at Hallenstiens?
      
      8 0
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      March 1, 2025 2:49pm
      - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
        
        He’s a Labour man, that’s all he knows.
        
        Wait till he hears the price of a bespoke Brioni!
        
        5 0
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        March 1, 2025 4:42pm
- Jake Dee
  
  Not going to happen.
  The collective West has nothing to trade for those territories. A promise not to join NATO ? That’s a piece of paper at best, if Russia believes it needs those territories for its security, and I think that it does, then its going to keep them.
  
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  March 1, 2025 12:00pm
  - rouppe
    
    if Russia believes it needs those territories for its security…
    
    How does either:
    * A Russian border a few hundred miles closer to NATO or
    * A no man’s land buffer zone only a few hundred miles wide
    
    increase Russian security? Missiles and fast jets can cross that distance in minutes. Unless they’re going to mine the whole area mechanised troops can cross it in a few hours.
    
    I’m no military planner but I really don’t see how those occupied areas change Russian security very much at all.
    
    9 2
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    March 1, 2025 2:01pm
    - losingtheplot
      
      It was never about this.
      
      It was always about reconstituting Russia as a great power. The Ukraine has resources. Putin could take them. So he did.
      
      5 3
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      March 1, 2025 4:03pm
- PurplePen
  
  “Trump told reporters he aims “to make the best deal we can for both sides,” which “for Ukraine” “.
  
  It will be as meaningless to Putin as the last 3 times this has been done. Late 1990’s the Soviet agreed to allow Ukraine to exist as its own country. The USA agreed to back Ukraine. Similar happened two more times and each time Putin went on the offensive, USA sat on their hands, Clinton then Obama with Crimea. I’m sure no-one in the CIA, USA State Department and the equivalent in each country in Europe thinks Putin won’t just carry on when the dust settles over whatever peace agreement is signed. And when he does, USA won’t be rushing to stop him.
  
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  March 1, 2025 12:05pm
sungsamning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHcRdzkagGs
Reform UK WILL WIN General Election !
Reform will win, but will they do what has to be done? Do they have the stomach or the spine to make the truly difficult choices to save the British people? [They’ll probably need the ‘Conservatives’ on board]
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March 1, 2025 8:25am
Grunter

Zelensky finally publicly shown up as the clown that he always was. What a train smash in the White House!

Trump actually kick him out. Told him to “Go Home”
21 32
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March 1, 2025 8:26am
- Taieri
  
  Would you like to see a NZ prime minister being given a similar treatment?
  
  30 6
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  March 1, 2025 10:04am
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    Yes! Someone has to wake Luxon up.
    He is just a useless fence sitter.
    
    17 23
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    March 1, 2025 10:19am
    - Prince
      
      The Standard wants you back.
      
      7 6
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      March 1, 2025 12:18pm
      - Steve Otto N Shore
        
        Sorry, I was banned by Linda about 12 years ago – for just having a different view to the rest. Free speech is not alive on that cesspit.
        
        9 3
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        March 1, 2025 1:50pm
- imalwaysright
  
  I’m expecting Z to ask Trump for political asylum !!
  
  The flight home will be rather sombre…
  
  6 12
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  March 1, 2025 11:14am
  - MCōs
    
    That’s only available for *ahem* the Taites
    
    4 1
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    March 1, 2025 2:44pm
    - NothingLeft
      
      The Taites are icky, but were targeted for judicial persecution by international woke lawfare, just as many other anti-WEF ‘right wing’ figures have been. So asylum would in my opinion be warranted.
      
      0 1
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      March 1, 2025 7:23pm
- Hard Cheese
  
  Sorry, accidental uptick.
  
  4 4
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  March 1, 2025 11:34am
  - Grunter
    
    At least you admit you disagree, thx
    
    I’d be keen to hear why? Genuinely I want to understand why many KBers still believe in the Zelenskyy scam after this mornings train smash.
    
    Trump now stating in the last hour or so – we either have peace now, or we are out. No more war involving the USA.
    
    This is exactly what I have been batting for over the past 3 years. Now it’s all out there in plain sight. Europe vs Russia or peace……? I hope it’s peace but suspect from the European leaders response this morning it is now war.
    
    9 12
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    March 1, 2025 12:55pm
    - Grunter
      
      Let the warmongers downtick me all they like. It is now a simple binary decision …..
      
      Trump Peace = uptick
      
      Zelenskyy War = downtick
      
      7 11
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      March 1, 2025 2:11pm
      - NothingLeft
        
        That’s just black and white thinking. There’s a lot more to it if you want to minimize long term harm to both Ukrainians and future freedom in the world.
        
        4 0
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        March 1, 2025 7:26pm
      - Hard Cheese
        
        Surely you can see what the problem is? Trump is offering peace, Zelenskyy wants peace with security guarantees otherwise Putin just rolls further west again in a few years. Without security guarantees Trump’s version of “peace” is the proverbial dollar bill from an inkjet printer.
        
        3 2
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        March 1, 2025 10:16pm
rouppe

This is not a good way forward for Zelensky

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6369451601112
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March 1, 2025 8:33am
- Ghost
  
  Isn’t it interesting, he spoke English. When he would do pressers with the other guy they would translate him
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR5DWotlPHw
  
  10 2
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  March 1, 2025 9:40am
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    I have always known that Zelensky spoke fluent English – enough to correct his translators. Be today he spoke very well, fully understanding.
    The same thing for Putin.
    
    9 2
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    March 1, 2025 10:23am
    - Conservatarian
      
      When Zelenskyy deals with the Swiss and UAE banks and the accountants, lawyers and administrators for his Cayman Islands holding companies, he most definitely issues instructions in English.
      
      12 17
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      March 1, 2025 11:19am
- imalwaysright
  
  Z threw a tantrum and got his backside smacked.
  
  Trump is right, its good for the people to see this behaviour.
  
  13 19
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  March 1, 2025 11:25am
  - smttc
    
    wow.
    
    You and I must have watched a different show at the White House.
    
    All I saw was a set up job to humiliate the President of the second poorest country in Europe. Including that stupid rhetorical question as to why he does not wear a suit.
    
    The American people must feel so strong and proud after that display of fuckwittery by their President and Vice President.
    
    4 4
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    March 1, 2025 9:28pm
Tomtoddy

Well sleuthed Chuck. The case made is compelling. The arrogance of those demanding no fossil fuels for the developing world is breathtaking.
13 1
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March 1, 2025 8:33am
- G152
  
  If they want to ban fossil fuels we should build something that is non fossil fuel in one of the sub antarctic islands and move the greenies there
  
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  March 1, 2025 9:20am
kiwikidsnz

“…the National-led coalition is in the midst of a grand betrayal of trust and subversion of the result of election 2023. That election was fought on two main issues. First, to sort out the Treaty so NZ could unite and become a prosperous State – not a State-within-a-State or two parallel States existing within the same territory. Second, to lower the cost-of-living. On both counts, Kiwis have been betrayed…New Zealand’s political, bureaucratic & academic class have made up their minds, just like in Europe, that the average Kiwi who has to actually get out of bed and physically go into work in the morning, is just too dumb, or too bigoted, or both, to know what is good for them.”

https://www.downtoearth.kiwi/post/will-centre-right-voters-in-nz-forgive-national-s-shocking-betrayal-of-trust-on-the-treaty-come-elec
49 2
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March 1, 2025 8:38am
- pdm
  
  Worth more than one uptick kknz.
  
  We are paying a price for PM Luxon’s kowtowing to Maori activists.
  
  38 3
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  March 1, 2025 10:16am
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  For quite a while I have said Luxon is just Ardern with a blue tie.
  
  23 6
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  March 1, 2025 10:35am
  - Pope Punctilious II
    
    No Luxon is not Ardern in a blue dress. Ardern is a neo-Marxist. Luxon is a woke corporate hollow man.
    
    6 0
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    March 1, 2025 5:14pm
    - John Loveridge
      
      Luxon was on RNZ’s Bookmarks the other day. His taste in books and music is very vanilla. Hollow man indeed.
      
      5 2
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      March 1, 2025 7:06pm
Master Mariner

A follow on from PaulL prior post.

“Trump, Zelensky, And JD Vance Have Shocking Explosive Argument In The Oval Office”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqOOOR7Kr-s

Whether you like Trump or not, What I find compelling is Transparency.
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March 1, 2025 8:41am
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  It’s good stuff MM. Vance and Trump kicked Zelensky’s arse hard. He was very nervous.
  
  17 19
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  March 1, 2025 10:38am
  - Quail
    
    SO ,
    Ardern with a blue tie? Nah he seldom wears a tie
    Open collars .
    Which brings the thought what about the rest of NZ that have graduated from grass skirts
    News media in particular ,no ties ,dresses my grandmother would not have worn .etc etc.
    NZ is certainly a pretty dowdy nation compared to our competitors!
    
    7 0
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    March 1, 2025 12:40pm
    - Steve Otto N Shore
      
      No bite from me sorry
      
      2 3
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      March 1, 2025 1:52pm
Maggy Wassilieff

The Maori cultural competency requirements for NZ Pharmacists are now an international joke

https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2025/02/23/competency-standards-for-new-zealand-pharmacists-released-guess-what-they-emphasize/

Thank Goodness some NZ Pharmacists are willing to speak out about the racist agenda of this diktat.

https://www.chrislynchmedia.com/news-items/racism-on-steroids-industry-veterans-slam-pharmacy-councils-forced-cultural-competency-rules-as-health-minister-demands-explanation/
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March 1, 2025 8:42am
- Benedict Yu
  
  The government can legislate to stop this nonsense. Occupational licencing of pharmacists is delegated by parliament through legislation. As a developed country, parliament has trusted pharmacists to regulate themselves. That has worked well since the 1950s. Now they have descended into mysticism.
  
  Of course it is not just pharmacists. Sadly I don’t believe the government will do anything.
  
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  March 1, 2025 8:48am
  - Pineapple Lumps
    
    You are right Ben.
    
    The silenced majority of New Zealanders want to see the racial division stopped and a move back to equality for all.
    
    The amplified activists want to propagate the racism as hard as possible.
    
    This government is not doing enough to sort this out. While they are ineffective the activists are pushing on hard with their destruction of our country.
    
    I know it wasn’t related to this, but I think it sums things up quite well to paraphrase Hosking to Luxon “you are making a meal of that!”
    
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    March 1, 2025 8:59am
    - Tauhei Notts
      
      “The silenced majority of New Zealanders”
      A brilliant choice of words.
      
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      March 1, 2025 9:22am
      - imalwaysright
        
        Silenced by their own fear.
        Too scared to speak and won’t back up anyone who does.
        
        “Silenced majority” smacks of hiding their cowardice behind victimhood.
        
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        March 1, 2025 11:33am
  - Pope Punctilious II
    
    Yesterday my medical practice sent me a survey. One of the questions asked whether my GP met my spiritual needs in my last appointment. I would have thought that was a job for the priest/vicar/rabbi/imam … not for a physician.
    
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    March 1, 2025 9:34am
    - AitchW
      
      Good grief. Will GPs get instruction from a tohunga in future? Let’s face it, there is only one race in NZ whose spiritual needs are important and it ain’t the coloniser!
      
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      March 1, 2025 9:57am
    - Benedict Yu
      
      Did it ask what you thought of the quality of the medical care?
      
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      March 1, 2025 10:30am
    - John Loveridge
      
      Your last sentence would have been my reply.
      
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      March 1, 2025 7:08pm
  - surfing
    
    I like the bit where pharmacists have to prove they can sing maori songs.
    
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    March 1, 2025 10:19am
    - Paulus
      
      Our Pharmacist neighbour would do better as she was actually born here, but speaks fluent Mandarin, as her family are from China originally, and she was brought up bi-lingual – but not Maori nor ever will be.
      
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      March 1, 2025 10:42am
    - Suze Wainwright
      
      Do they need to acknowledge Maori deities who owned slaves?
      
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      March 1, 2025 11:00am
    - pdm
      
      surfing.
      Pokarekare ana
      I had a banana
      I threw it at the teacher
      she said come here
      I said no fear.
      
      6 0
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      March 1, 2025 11:42am
      - Jethrod
        
        ….I threw a bottle of beer.
        It hit her on the ear
        
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        March 1, 2025 6:47pm
      - Ghost
        
        I remember going to the standard 4 camp, the bus was singing along a few songs, as were the teachers
        
        On top of Old Smokey
        All covered with blood
        I shot my poor teacher
        With a .44 slug
        She bled on the table
        She bled on the floor
        And then my poor teacher
        Bled right out the door
        I went to her funeral
        I went to her grave
        It should have been flowers
        I threw a grenade
        
        Guess we couldn’t do that today.
        
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        March 1, 2025 7:10pm
    - John Loveridge
      
      That was absolutely unbelievable.
      
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      March 1, 2025 7:09pm
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    Luxon will not let his Ministers do anything. He is the problem.
    
    21 3
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    March 1, 2025 10:48am
    - imalwaysright
      
      Luxon purports to be a Christian, maybe he can explain why he is promoting and enforcing the worship and obeyance of the myths and legends of a south Pacific sub-tribe with a violent history and a culture of hatred toward each other and everyone else?
      
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      March 1, 2025 11:47am
      - Ghost
        
        Seriously, we’re back to this stupidity of attacking a man’s personal belief. I must of accidentally gone into the leftie blogs.
        
        7 9
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        March 1, 2025 11:59am
      - kiwimike
        
        I don’t believe he is a christian or maybe he has lost his way.
        
        Co-Governance is racist & Undemocratic, he knows this, he is not stupid.
        
        11 2
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        March 1, 2025 12:20pm
      - Jake Dee
        
        Thinking that this is actually the worship of spirits, Gods or anything like it is a mistake.
        I would actually have some respect for it if it was, I respect genuinely held belief, but this is pseudo-religion and fake faith.
        In a modern Liberal Democracy you can hold any sort of belief and follow any sort of religion you like as long as it’s fake and gay.
        This isn’t coming from any sort of Polynesian religion or meta-physics, this is bureaucratic elite posturing and status games.
        There was no real problem here and no real solution is being proposed. The only (fake) problem is that the Professional Managerial Class are worried that they aren’t up to speed on the latest current thing
        
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        March 1, 2025 12:23pm
      - imalwaysright
        
        Asking a PM to explain what appears to be a conflict between his religion and his active promotion and enforcement of a minority ideology of dubious provenance isn’t an attack on his religious beliefs, what he believes is up to him.
        But we deserve to know if he sees the conflict, and if so is he accepting the conflict out of convenience or for another motive.
        There is a difference between the tolerant acceptance of a religion or ideology, and the installation of it by overt and covert methods, especially at schools and workplaces where there is no practical ability to opt out.
        
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        March 1, 2025 12:37pm
- Hugh Jarse
  
  Just about every government department or agency is going down this track to s9me extent, it’s their in their mission statements, visions and job descriptions. I do not know why the ministers would continue to be surprised by its drip feed exposure.
  
  Perhaps they could be proactive and ask their individual CEO’s to cover what is in place in their organisations instead of waiting for the next exposure.
  
  Like Benjamin I doubt they will do anything.
  
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  March 1, 2025 8:50am
  - Benedict Yu
    
    Not Benjamin.
    
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    March 1, 2025 10:31am
    - Hugh Jarse
      
      Sorry mate, got that wrong
      
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      March 1, 2025 11:10am
  - Benedict Yu
    
    It should be unlawful to force any employees to sing. Anything. Or to recite prayers. Maori or otherwise. Or to require an employee to communicate in a language other than one of the official languages of New Zealand. The one of their choosing.
    
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    March 1, 2025 10:35am
    - RoboRob
      
      The only problem there is that NZ only has two official languages, Maori and sign. Which would you rather they use
      
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      March 1, 2025 11:42am
      - alwyn.a
        
        Three, actually. NZ Sign Language is also on the list.
        
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        March 1, 2025 11:56am
      - PurplePen
        
        I see Trump has just signed an executive order making English the official language of the usa.
        
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        March 1, 2025 12:45pm
      - cmm
        
        alwyn.a: As Roborob says, there are two. Maori and sign. English is not an official language.
        
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        March 1, 2025 2:54pm
      - alwyn.a
        
        You are correct. I misread the comment and screwed up in my reply. Sorry
        
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        March 1, 2025 2:59pm
    - alwyn.a
      
      “It should be unlawful to force any employees to sing. Anything”.
      That sounds a bit extreme. Does that mean that the Kings College choir at Cambridge or the Vienna Boys choir don’t have to perform if they decide they don’t feel like it anymore?
      
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      March 1, 2025 11:59am
      - Don Beckett
        
        If they’re in a choir it’s voluntary.
        
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        March 1, 2025 12:44pm
      - Benedict Yu
        
        Your analogy would be correct. If membership of the choir was compulsory and they were forced to sing in Arabic. Also requiring children to sing at school is not the same as forcing adults to sing and pray at work. In a language few understand. It is bizarre. Try explaining to an Australian what state sector employees are enduring here.
        
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        March 1, 2025 5:08pm
      - imalwaysright
        
        The biggest problem is that people are coerced into reciting the contrived tenets of a contrived ideology ascribed to a culture that is dysfunctional and, in some aspects, sinister.
        The Human Rights Commissioner is once again absent, we have the right to not participate in any ceremony.
        I would suggest civil disobedience.
        
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        March 1, 2025 6:35pm
    - Jake Dee
      
      I think it is probably true to say that every single human culture since the beginning of time has had some sort of songs sung for some sort of ritualistic purposes.
      It is the singing of songs that bothers me, it is the singing of dumb songs for stupid purposes.
      
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      March 1, 2025 12:28pm
    - kiwimike
      
      or to speek or sing in a Lauguage they don’t understand.
      a translation should always be given.
      That is basic courtesy.
      
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      March 1, 2025 12:30pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        Like how we had to do Gaudeamus at high school
        
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        March 1, 2025 4:34pm
- pdm
  
  Stuff are getting more complaints about their Maorification (bastardisation) of the English language and particularly re their use of that mythical name Aotearoa for New Zealand.
  https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360597796/aotearoa-complaints-have-gone
  
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  March 1, 2025 8:54am
  - Gravelroad
    
    I recently attended a group webinar event about an animal health issue.
    The main speaker on the video was an academic from a university here.
    The person talked and we were able to read the information at the same time.
    “Aotearoa” was used throughout the written info on the screen.
    No mention of New Zealand.
    Separatism writ large.
    Am getting a bit over it tbh.
    
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    March 1, 2025 9:07am
  - Cassandra
    
    Note internet.nz is setting up cogovernance, with two Chairs, one of which must be Maori and other Maori representation plus ToW to be the basis (whatever that means). Not sure why they’re doing this or indeed who is doing this but the long march through the institutions is unabated.
    
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    March 1, 2025 9:19am
    - pdm
      
      Is this the outfit DPF walked away from a year or so ago?
      
      He was one of the founders of it I think.
      
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      March 1, 2025 10:19am
      - cmm
        
        No, that was the people who do polls and such.
        
        I would doubt DPF has anything to do with internet.nz That’s mainly the big players like ISPs and such.
        
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        March 1, 2025 2:57pm
  - Paulus
    
    But Stuff have been in full support of everything Maori for many years.
    So what is new !
    More Lies.
    
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    March 1, 2025 10:44am
  - PurplePen
    
    Keith Lynch on the stuff piece writes “Stuff is the largest news website in the country and normalising te reo (which we’ve done for years) is something we have committed to”.
    
    Artificially inserting a handful of Maori words into English as substitutions for English words that exist isn’t “normalising Te reo”. It’s actually anglicising those particular Maori words. The result being that they’ll get added to the English lexicon and actually take on English rules for pronunciation.
    
    If you wanted to “normalise Te reo” you’d speak or write fully in Maori at various opportunities. You might then put the English translation on a page.
    
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    March 1, 2025 12:53pm
    - John Loveridge
      
      Anglicising – such as the plural of Kiwi being Kiwis. Take note, Kiwibank.
      
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      March 1, 2025 7:14pm
- Jinky
  
  Competency required for nurses is just as bad
  
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  March 1, 2025 9:01am
  - pdm
    
    Daughter has been in HB Hospital for almost a week.
    
    Not a sign of that hocus pocus stuff when we have visited.
    
    They must be keeping it behind closed doors at the moment.
    
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    March 1, 2025 10:22am
    - cmm
      
      I don’t believe that.
      
      The stuff is shovelled down their throats at university/colleges and in the workplace. Most of the signs in hospitals are bilingual – often with emphasis on the Maori. If you need to find the Ambulances you better know they are “waka tūroro”.
      
      In August 1992 when we had been in NZ for less than a month we picked a friend up from one of the Auckland hospitals and she told us how they were having the bi-culturalism stuffed down their throats.
      
      A few months later I was at a conference in Wellington where we met up with some teachers who told us that there was a massive push to put “Maori science” on an equal footing with Western science and that it should be taught in science class as part of the science curriculum.
      
      That was 1992. We should have just got tickets on the next plane out.
      
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      March 1, 2025 3:04pm
      - Benedict Yu
        
        “massive push to put “Maori science” on an equal footing with Western science…”
        
        There is no sign that the Government will stop this. Like climate change policies, Luxon just refuses to talk about it. If he were pushed, you would get Jacinda level words salad.
        
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        March 1, 2025 5:13pm
      - cmm
        
        BY: That was back in 1992. I think since then there has been a growing push to at least discuss the folklore alongside the science.
        
        That’s fine if it is a sentence or two, but if it drags on to being hours of work and scoring marks in science tests then we have a problem.
        
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        March 1, 2025 7:52pm
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    But strangely enough, even though a cultural competency (maori-biased) requirement has been in place for at least 30 years, the number of Maori choosing Nursing as a career remains very low.
    
    Māori have remained at just six to 7.5 per cent of the nursing workforce for the last four decades.
    
    https://kaitiaki.org.nz/article/maori-nurses-must-be-recognised-as-taonga-and-key-to-a-future-with-equal-health-for-all/
    
    Why would any young Maori be attracted into nursing in NZ , if they are constantly being told the entire medical/health system is racist and they will be “unsafe”?
    
    Wouldn’t it be more appealing to tell those who wish to go nursing that it is a worthwhile, secure career with great prospects for career advancement, and the possibilities to work anywhere in the world?
    
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    March 1, 2025 11:09am
- Inandout
  
  There are two thing our PM has a mental blockage over. One is saying ‘firing’ and the second ‘Maorification’. The latter scared the shit out of him when a gathering descended on Wellington and told him in no uncertain terms who made the rules. Luxon’s underlings may be seething underneath but in public must be seen to defend their leader. Any change starts at the top.
  
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  March 1, 2025 9:17am
  - Pope Punctilious II
    
    Don’t kid yourself. Most National MPs either believe in Maorification, or are too afraid to oppose it.
    
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    March 1, 2025 12:19pm
    - kowtow
      
      And climate bollocks.
      
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      March 1, 2025 2:48pm
- Scott
  
  As I have said before National is a broad church party that needs to get the votes of at least 30% of the electorate. That 30% includes the weak and the woke.
  
  The difficulty is that many NZers approve of the Maorification of Aotearoa. I don’t approve of it but many do. They include the pharmacy association, the internet NZ domain names people, the Christchurch city council, the real estate association and many others.
  
  National has a difficult job given the support for Maorification. In lieu of an actual religion, it’s a way for people to virtue signal, to say to themselves “I am a good person.”
  
  There has to be a long march back through the institutions. We are one country with equal rights and responsibilities for all. But that will take more than 3 years. National has done a lot but the long march back has to be at the grass roots level. Hobsons pledge are doing good work in this area.
  
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  March 1, 2025 9:47am
  - cmm
    
    I don’t buy the “broad church” argument.
    
    It seems to me to just be an excuse to dither and try not to offend anyone.
    
    The bottom line is that to stand for anything, you also have to stand opposed to other things.
    
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    March 1, 2025 3:07pm
    - imalwaysright
      
      Correct, knowing what someone is not prepared to do is more valuable than knowing what they are prepared to do.
      At the moment we have Luxon supporting unpopular issues, yet he won’t tell us why. That makes people nervous. What will he support next?
      
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      March 1, 2025 6:48pm
    - Pope Punctilious II
      
      Luxon’s treatment of Simon O’Connor showed that the 21st century Nats are not a broad church.
      
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      March 1, 2025 9:23pm
- artemisia
  
  How much influence does the Chair of the Pharmacy Council have. After all – He was a Co-President of the Māori Pharmacists Association and was their representative on the Auckland School of Pharmacy Board of Studies.
  
  And according to their website most of the Board Member terms have expired, including the Chair’s. An opportunity?
  
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  March 1, 2025 9:53am
- JackRabbit
  
  The Maori cultural competency requirements for NZ Pharmacists are now an international joke…
  
  So as a pharmacist, doling out prescriptions, and honouring Maori tradition, Maori should not get any colonial drugs, instead be given ground up logs, and hoo hoo bug droppings…
  
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  March 1, 2025 10:38am
- Scooter
  
  MW and BY. I don’t think NZ Pharmacists or Real Estate agents or Uni Law Students or the next group they target will stand up against these Maori indoctrinations. I think it has been left unchecked for too long, the activists are well and truly embedded and empowered and we have a new Govt that is too scared to rock the boat. All things Maori is the Sacred Cow, it is immune from question or criticism.
  
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  March 1, 2025 10:41am
  - Paulus
    
    Now about 30 years since the idiots Lange and Palmer formed the Waitangi Tribunal which is now a real and second Parliament.
    New Zealand has suffered ever since and there is no way of slowing it.
    
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    March 1, 2025 1:52pm
    - alwyn.a
      
      The Tribunal was started in 1975. 50 Years ago and before Lange and Palmer were in Parliament.
      The mistake they made was in 1985 when they allowed it to consider matters back to 1840, rather than only current claims. That gave the Tribunal the chance to create the alternative New Zealand history we have today where no evidence of claims about what happened then is required.
      
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      March 1, 2025 2:17pm
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  Sooner or later there will be a mix up in medication due to a mistake with Maori/English translation.
  Then the shit will hit the fan!
  
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  March 1, 2025 10:52am
  - Ghost
    
    No there won’t. There’s nothing in that which changes prescriptions or medicine to maori
    
    9 6
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    March 1, 2025 11:04am
    - Don Beckett
      
      I have just been trying to uptick Ghost’s comment, but a window appears saying “Kiwiblog.nz says ‘comment error’.
      Who the f….. can tell me how I can approve or disapprove comment, as long as I am not breaking the rules ?
      I agree with Ghost’s small comment.
      
      [Mod – try reloading the page]
      
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      March 1, 2025 11:25am
      - Dave
        
        No problem upticking Ghost for me a moment ago.
        
        I’m as unenthusiastic about the imposition of Maori language and culture as the next person, but doubt very much such mix-ups will occur. Doctors, will prescribe in the language they and their patients use, and many prescription-only medicines are unlikely to have Maori names.
        
        I’m more worried that our continued economic decline plus Maorification will discourage from coming and staying those talented overseas medical staff without whom our health system will break down. Two of the three young oncologists and their senior advisor I saw recently at Auckland hospital are Chinese. Of the two pharmacies which supply my various medications, one appears to be entirely Chinese, mostly young, the other a mix of young Chinese and Indians.
        
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        March 1, 2025 1:58pm
    - Steve Otto N Shore
      
      Nothing yet……
      It will come for sure with Maorification of everything.
      
      7 6
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      March 1, 2025 11:27am
      - Ghost
        
        No. Stop making shit up.
        
        8 7
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        March 1, 2025 11:37am
      - Steve Otto N Shore
        
        Whatever you say Ghost.
        
        5 5
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        March 1, 2025 1:54pm
    - cmm
      
      Ghost: I agree with you partially – nobody is writing scripts in Maori.
      
      However the biggest problem with any of this nonsense is that it does not put place competence at the top of the selection process.
      
      As soon as you start selecting for anything other than competence, then you can expect competence to plummet.
      
      Worse yet, it leads to competent people becoming frustrated and leaving – leaving behind less competent people.
      
      And then the mistakes increase….
      
      So while it isn’t a direct A->B causal link, there is a causal chain.
      
      The only thing hospitals should focus on is doing things that increase competence. Part of that is improving staff wellbeing.
      
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      March 1, 2025 3:15pm
      - Ghost
        
        I agree. Unfortunately there are people like Steve who like to invent things that are not happening and will not happen. They create these lies to try and push an agenda to play on people’s emotions.
        
        The stupidity of this needs to stop. It should have no place in the pharmacy, it should have no place in gp or hospital care.
        
        5 3
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        March 1, 2025 3:30pm
      - Steve Otto N Shore
        
        Ghost,
        your 3.30 comment you are agreeing with me. Of course it has to stop.
        Thing is to stop the Gravy Train and Maorification. You disagree with that?
        
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        March 1, 2025 4:20pm
      - Ghost
        
        No, people like you Steve who go around making up stories to try and push a racist agenda are just as much a part of the problem this country faces. You are just as bad as Rawiri and Debbie.
        
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        March 1, 2025 4:37pm
- Graham Sharpe
  
  It’s not just pharmacists. It’s real estate agents, doctors (especially if they want to be an oral surgeon in Dunedin), lawyers. Air traffic controllers? Pilots? Navigators? Engineers (if they are Auckland graduates).
  
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  March 1, 2025 1:08pm
  - JackRabbit
    
    Pilots and Air traffic controllers have to know the difference between UFOs and Maui’s Ghost looking for another Pacific Island to fish out of the sea.
    
    4 1
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    March 1, 2025 1:21pm
  - Paulus
    
    The language of the Air both in planes, and Traffic Control, is everywhere in English, through out the World.
    Has this now to be changed.
    
    11 2
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    March 1, 2025 1:55pm
    - Steve Otto N Shore
      
      Paulus,
      talk to Ghost. He thinks I am making shit up.
      This will change as far as Aotearoa is concerned. New Zealand will comply.
      Planes coming into NZ will have to have a Te Reo certified co-pilot communications contact with CAA.
      See? That is making shit up – but is it?
      
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      March 1, 2025 4:29pm
      - Ghost
        
        Sooner or later there will be a mix up in medication due to a mistake with Maori/English translation.
        
        Yes you’ve made shit up, as usual. Doctors are not prescribing in Māori, pharmacist are not working in Māori. Hospitals do not write their charts up in Māori. There is not going to be a mistake in medicine from a translation from Māori to English because it’s never been in Māori and it never will be. The language used in our medical system is English. The language that will be used in our medical system in the years to come is English. The only place this actually is done in Māori is in your head
        
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        March 1, 2025 4:45pm
peterwn

“Auckland Eyesores: What’s going on at the desolate downtown Seascape tower?”
Nothing at the moment. As far as I know the principal has declined progress payments for whatever reason and is thumbing its nose at the ‘Construction Contracts Act’ which was deliberately designed to stop this nonsense. So the contractor has stopped work. I think the issue lies with the judiciary for reluctance to expeditiously enforce payments as provided under the Construction Contracts Act. To put it another way, the judiciary seems to be white-anting the whole intent of the Construction Contracts Act.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360592618/auckland-eyesores-whats-going-desolate-downtown-seascape-tower
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March 1, 2025 8:45am
- Don Beckett
  
  Perhaps a consequence of getting into bed with China to too great a degree. This will end in tears.
  
  7 1
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  March 1, 2025 11:04am
kowtow

[Mod – just debate the issues]

Be aware there’s a lot of history what with Zelensky being a useful pawn during the US election campaign , especially in swing state Pennsylvania.
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March 1, 2025 8:51am
redeye

The Guy accused of murdering senior sergeant Lyn Fleming has had his name suppression continued.

He also granted interim name suppression, because an overseas social media company had not yet complied with a takedown order over a post about the man.

So because X wont take down his name he gets further name supression? Can someone explain that logic to me.
Btw there’s hardly a person in the region that doesn’t know his name.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360592769/man-denies-murdering-senior-sergeant-lyn-fleming
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March 1, 2025 8:53am
- BananaLlama
  
  They prefer to hand out name suppression to anyone so that they can conduct their trials in secret away from any public scrutiny.
  
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  March 1, 2025 11:13am
Cassandra

The dramatic news today is the Ukraine-USA debacle. Where to now? The governments of Europe will be scrambling. Does America really want Russia to reabsorb Ukraine? Because that is a quite possible result.
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March 1, 2025 8:55am
- surfing
  
  Trump wants Putin to win. It is clear.
  
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  March 1, 2025 9:08am
  - Eastlander
    
    Washing his hands of the affair so he can focus on China. Good for New Zealand.
    
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    March 1, 2025 9:29am
  - kowtow
    
    I don’t think that’s clear at all .
    
    He wants the war to end .
    
    [Mod – or you can just debate the issues without the childish slants]
    
    But how can one say he wants Putin to win as in his words ” I gave them javelins when Joe gave them sheets”
    
    And recall the big effort the Germans made at the start giving them helmets instead of lethal weaponry .
    
    And there’s huge history here with the Ukrainians allowing themselves to be Democrat pawns during the last election campaign . A campaign where the Democrats literally tried to have Trump locked up.
    
    The stakes are huge on all sides .
    
    Ceasefire first . Then Zelensky can play dick measuring contests , while his conscripts die in the icy wastes of what’s left of the east of his country.
    
    Let Europe step up now and put their money ( cos they certainly aren’t prepared to die there ) where their big mouths are.
    
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    March 1, 2025 10:12am
    - kowtow
      
      I am debating the issues , along with trying to conextualise and explain .
      
      Which is a lot more than some of the posters here , getting away with short one line assertions without any “debate” or indeed moderated censorshipping.
      
      But hey , not my blog .
      
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      March 1, 2025 10:34am
    - JackRabbit
      
      He wants the war to end .
      
      And to end the war requires rational negotiation on both sides.
      
      If I recall correctly, Zelenskyy and his team never showed up to a pre-scheduled peace talk appointment in Donbass, instead sensing off a huge volley of rockets into Russia, escalating the war. Zelenskyy was irrational in the oval office as he has been all the way through.
      
      Back then Putin said something like “I’d rather deal with the Ukraine military, as dealing with the Ukraine govt is like dealing with a bunch of drug addicted Nazis.”
      
      Not much has changed.
      
      Zelenskyy is all ego.
      
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      March 1, 2025 10:44am
      - cmm
        
        The longer the war goes on, the longer Zelenskyy’s ego gets rubbed and the more $ he makes.
        
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        March 1, 2025 3:17pm
    - Jake Dee
      
      it’s not about the money as much as the actual industrial capacity.
      How many tanks guns aircraft and bombs etc. is Europe actually producing? They have had 3 years to surge and the results are marginal at best. Have you seen the figures for artillery production? Russia is making in a month what Europe is producing in a year.
      
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      March 1, 2025 12:35pm
      - cmm
        
        That is certainly true for the staple diet of warfare: artillery shells.
        
        A week’s output of European 155mm howitzer shells gets used up by morning tea on Monday.
        
        And at Euro4k a pop it’s pretty good coin too.
        
        One of the major limiting factors is the energy shortage in Europe.
        
        Making artillery shells requires a massive amount of electricity to smelt the metal, then cast it, temper it etc. A few windmills won’t do that.
        
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        March 1, 2025 3:22pm
      - NothingLeft
        
        Drones are responsible for 85% of kills now, and cost ~20% of an artillery shell with far simpler logistics, they have the same range and far more precision they only thing they lack is response speed. Ukraine is playing it smart by building more and more drones (building 10k a day) and developing better and better trained drone operators.
        
        Ukraine can win with just more drones – particularly increasing production of cheap long range $10k deep-strike drones from 50-100 a day to 10x that. Europe could make that happen in a few months if they were motivated.
        
        Worst part of losing US support is loss of patriot missile defense for big cities – So Putin will be able to murder more Ukrainian civilians.
        
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        March 1, 2025 7:37pm
  - Paulus
    
    Trump wants to stop a war, and people just killing each other – often the innocent too !
    
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    March 1, 2025 1:56pm
- Northshoredoc
  
  Trump thinking he was filming an episode of the apprentice.
  
  No doubt his fanbase will love it.
  
  However, I expect there will be a reasonable section of the US voter base who will be disgusted.
  
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  March 1, 2025 9:13am
  - fernglas
    
    If the US idea of diplomacy is humiliating the head of an allied sovereign state in front of the cameras and supporting their long time enemy who invaded that state, then I fear for the freedom of the world.
    
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    March 1, 2025 9:30am
    - JackRabbit
      
      Zelenskyy humiliated himself. No additional help was required.
      
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      March 1, 2025 10:46am
    - Don Beckett
      
      Did you miss where Zelensky was continually interrupting Trump. IMO that put Zelensky in a very bad light and demonstrated that he didn’t really understand the bi picture.
      
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      March 1, 2025 11:09am
      - JackRabbit
        
        And to dress casually for the meeting? He’s not poor.
        
        Only a political bogan turn up to an important meeting in the oval office dressed like a lout.
        
        Or for that matter dress up like a banshee for the NZ debating chamber.
        
        “The apparel oft proclaims the man”
        
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        March 1, 2025 1:29pm
      - NothingLeft
        
        Practical clothing is Zelensky’s brand, avoiding conspicuous elitist luxuries as his people go through hell, and is anyway irrelevant to the issues at hand.
        
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        March 1, 2025 7:41pm
      - Ghost
        
        A reporter asked him why he doesn’t wear a suit when visiting the highest office in the USA. His answer. When this over I will wear a different costume.
        
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        March 1, 2025 7:51pm
    - Jake Dee
      
      Just goes to show he’s not the head of an allied sovereign state. He’s a vassal and a supplicant with a begging bowl.
      
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      March 1, 2025 12:41pm
  - kowtow
    
    Yep , the Save the Whales and climate nutters will have to reach for their smelling salts.
    
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    March 1, 2025 10:14am
- G152
  
  It would appear that Trump is Putins puppet…
  Good that the Ukraine has proven that
  
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  March 1, 2025 9:49am
  - Don Beckett
    
    That is a very deluded comment.
    
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    March 1, 2025 11:09am
    - Grunter
      
      Benefit of doubt – I’ll call it brainwashed. The MIC propaganda machine is very wide and powerful. Bigger than covid and global boiling.
      
      So most Zelenskyy backers dont even know they have been duped
      
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      March 1, 2025 2:31pm
  - Ghost
    
    Are we back to that again?
    
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    March 1, 2025 11:14am
  - NothingLeft
    
    Trump has his own agenda and way of doing things. I think poorly judged in this instance but nothing to do with him being in anyone’s pocket.
    
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    March 1, 2025 7:42pm
Jack5

President Trump was to sign an executive order yesterday making English the official language of the United States, reports the BBC.

He is also scrapping requirements that Federal agencies provide language services to non-English speakers.

The US hasn’t had an official language in the nearly 250 years since the country was founded.

In New Zealand, English, the country’s predominant language is not an official language.

From the State’s NZ Encyclopedia:

English is the predominant and a de facto official language of New Zealand. Te reo Māori (the Māori language) and New Zealand Sign Language are recognised as official languages.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn9v1l80350o
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March 1, 2025 8:56am
- kowtow
  
  J5 .
  
  English is our official language .All our laws and parliament and courts are conducted in English .
  You can’t get more “official” than that .
  
  Here’s a thought . If you’re stopped by say a copper for a traffic infringement and he can’t engage you in either sign or Maori I’d suggest that the “official” languages of NZ are a de facto nonsense. Mere virtue signalling wokery.
  
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  March 1, 2025 10:17am
- sungsamning
  
  About time that was done here too. German almost beat English as the official language in the 18th century.
  
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  March 1, 2025 1:07pm
  - Paulus
    
    Very similar in many ways !
    
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    March 1, 2025 1:57pm
I remember when

Looking at this morning’s paper it seems the Covid action justification is ramping up.
Might be the time to remind ourselves that in 1983-1987 deaths, where the main cause was the flu/pneumonia, totalled 6377.
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March 1, 2025 8:58am
- JackRabbit
  
  Up until about 2000, annual flu deaths in NZ were up to and over 1000. So 6377 over five years it is a little over 1200 per year.
  
  Even now, well at least pre 2019, annual flu deaths (excluding Pneumonia) were around 550 and some years 800. However even at a low of 550, all respiratory diseases incl. Pneumonia, are over 3000 per year, on a good year. More on a bad year. Just including Pneumonia in with flu stats can create the illusion of another epidemic.
  
  The medical stats are constantly being manipulated to suit narratives.
  
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  March 1, 2025 10:52am
  - cmm
    
    A lot comes down to how you count.
    
    The Covid deaths counted everyone who tested positive for Covid (or before the tests were available, were though likely to have had Covid at the time of death or in the previous 28 days). Covid did not need to cause the death – just be present during that period.
    
    Baker has said that flu kills a third of NZers. Perhaps if you counted it the same way then be would be correct.
    
    Pneumonia and flu are so closely linked that they may as well be used as synonyms.
    
    If you counted prostate cancer deaths the same, then over 70% of men die with prostate cancer. Somewhere around 80% of men aged 80 and over have cancer cells in their prostates and by the time they hit life expectancy it is even higher.
    
    Should we count those as prostate cancer deaths?
    
    Lies, damn lies and statistics.
    
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    March 1, 2025 3:32pm
    - JackRabbit
      
      Baker has said that flu kills a third of NZers.
      
      I’ve lost track of the causes of total deaths every year, ever since figure.nz was taken over by a govt dept, and started using massaged figures. But about 35,000 – 40,000 die every year, with 9,500 from cancer, 12,000 from heart issues, about 3,000 from respiratory diseases, and about 550 (in 2018) from the flu.
      
      So in Bakers mind, 550 is 50% of 35,000. he’s a nutjob.
      
      I can’t tell you how many died of the flu 2019 to 2022, because those figures were never released.
      
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      March 1, 2025 5:47pm
      - cmm
        
        Baker has argued that the 550 is not counting the flu deaths correctly.
        
        There was an article about this about 2018 or so (pre Covid).
        
        If you used the fraudulent Covid counting methods he would probably be correct.
        
        As I said with prostate cancer, about 220 or so men die each year from prostate cancer. However if you counted it the Covid way (ie. can we detect any signs of prostate cancer with a very sensitive test?) then over 70% of men would show positive signs of prostate cancer when they died and we’d say 70% died from prostate cancer.
        
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        March 1, 2025 7:58pm
    - JackRabbit
      
      And to add a bit more data:
      
      Prior to 2017, it was generally believed that between 10% and 20% of all flu infections were asymptomatic.
      
      So if 550 die of the flu, and based on a standard flu IFR, just under 1 million people get flu symptoms, with another maybe 160,000 asymptomatic.
      
      I forget the year, perhaps 2016 or 2017, Vietnam did a major serology study, testing huge parts of the population. They discovered that asymptomatic flu infections, were actually 65% to 85%. And that figure was consistent regardless of flu variant.
      
      This is well known and even our govt health website has those figures published.
      
      So when 550 die of the flu, just under a million have symptoms, but 3-4 million get the flu, but without symptoms.
      
      Covid in NZ was essentially a weakly modified flu when it arrived and quite different to heavily modified flu that was deliberately let loose at the World Military games in Wuhan in October 2019.
      
      So it is not unusual that Covid in NZ was a pandemic, not of Covid, but of testing for Covid.
      The PCR method of testing for Covid was abandoned in July 2021 by the CDC, and to be phased out by December 2021 because of its inaccuracy.
      
      The rat test was equally as inaccurate, and abandoned by GPS here in NZ as it did not work reliably and as we now know, was testing for the flu, and very poorly at that.
      
      Besides which, if a complex medical serology test, can be whittled down to a 5c piece of plastic, all the NZ testing labs would have shut down and filed for bankruptcy by now.
      
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      March 1, 2025 6:06pm
Jack5

Shipbuilding in the Cook Islands? That’s one of the deals with China, according to an article at the BBC.

It’s looking at Cooks Prime Minister Brown’s agreement with China.

The report says Brown’s deal covers infrastructure, shipbuilding, tourism, agriculture, technology, education and deep-sea mineral exploration.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg559y0803o
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March 1, 2025 9:07am
- artemisia
  
  Suspect deep-sea mineral ~~exploration~~ exploitation is not bottom of the list..
  
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  March 1, 2025 9:47am
  - JackRabbit
    
    The Clipperton Clarion zone to the east, is the new buried deep sea treasure chest. Newly discovered, the vast sea floor is littered with rare earth minerals.
    
    Unfortunately, said rare earth minerals are alloys, may have been artificially created millennia ago by races unknown (terraformers ?), because in their current configuration, they produce O2 from sea water, on the ocean floor, without photosynthesis.
    
    A literal massive free source of O2, which now gives an explanation as to how 50-80% of O2 comes from the ocean, and why O2 is present at higher saturation levels on the ocean floor in the pacific than higher up. Saturated O2 is then spread by ocean currents all around the world.
    
    Anyone that starts mining those minerals is signing a death warrant for life on planet earth. First for fish, then other sea creatures and finally our atmosphere.
    
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    March 1, 2025 11:05am
- kowtow
  
  maybe they can build our ferries and future frigates .
  
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  March 1, 2025 10:18am
  - kiwimike
    
    Cruisers 055 style Kowtow
    
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    March 1, 2025 12:39pm
- GazzaW
  
  Rarotonga is ideally suited for China’s huge domestic tourism market. It is within non-stop flying range of Chinese major cities, China will fund the necessary airport expansion and do away with the low-rise building limits for Chinese-owned beach resorts.
  
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  March 1, 2025 11:02am
  - Sir Henry Morgan
    
    Rarotonga is miles from China. Plenty of Chinese-owned beach resorts far closer to home, all offering easier access, better prices, vastly superior food and drink offerings – better looking hookers too.
    
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    March 1, 2025 4:28pm
    - JackRabbit
      
      Rarotonga is miles from China.
      
      Which is what makes it a strategic move.
      
      One main road, bugger all flat land, bugger all population, no night life, no power other than diesel. One decent manufacturing facility would cover the entire main island.
      
      Perfect for mid pacific naval base though, servicing submarines.
      
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      March 1, 2025 6:51pm
- Southern Raider
  
  When I visited about 5 years ago we meet some local village representatives at a museum. They really dislike the Chinese and what the Cook Islands Govt has signed in the past, can only imagine what they think now.
  
  In a previous deal China funded and built a water supply main around Rarotonga (about 40 km round trip) in lieu of fishing rights. Apparently the villages didn’t want the water main as they had a storage issue not a water supply issue (villages are compact and it rains a lot) and didn’t want to give up fishing rights Chinese trawlers.
  
  Apparently before the whole ring water main was completed the first sections had started to crack and leak.
  
  Also the support for education was some free laptops.
  
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  March 1, 2025 1:19pm
- cmm
  
  Ship building? Bullshit!
  
  Building ships needs a bunch of things Cooks does not have:
  1) skilled people and a hard working workforce.
  2) access to massive amounts of plate steel from steel factories. Bringing steel in by ship is expensive.
  3) Cheap energy – especially electricity. A couple of diesel generators won’t keep all those welders and plasma cutters going.
  
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  March 1, 2025 3:35pm
Ruahine

It is amazing and alarming how quickly Ukraine has become the bad guy.
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March 1, 2025 9:11am
- kowtow
  
  It’s amazing how so many peope are happy for Ukrainians and Russians to die miserably in far off fields.
  
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  March 1, 2025 10:20am
- JackRabbit
  
  Zelenskyy is and has always been a puppet, and therefore a bad guy, after Obama interfered in the Ukraine, so that Zelenskyy could take power.
  
  The goal was always the rich minerals and agriculture land in the Ukraine.
  
  War is never about lines on a map, religion, or democracy. It is about money.
  
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  March 1, 2025 11:10am
  - imalwaysright
    
    Just watched Trump on the Whitehouse lawn.
    He said Zelensky wants to return to the Whitehouse immediately to restart negotiations.
    Trump said he is busy with his schedule.
    
    Looks like Z has realised that Trump is his only hope.
    I would say he will be “replaced permanently” when he goes back home.
    (IF he goes home!)
    
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    March 1, 2025 12:53pm
- kiwimike
  
  They always were.
  They were the bagman for the Democratic Party.
  How else did VP Biden protect his son from investigation ?
  
  Yes it’s about the money absolutely.
  But those pesky Bio-Labs still haven’t been explained properly…..
  
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  March 1, 2025 12:41pm
  - JackRabbit
    
    Bio-labs, child trafficing…
    
    Including Bio-labs right outside the border with Russia, and the emerging narrative, that bats in forests just inside Russian border, a few kms from the Ukraine biolabs. had a new “Covid” variant.
    
    Like China, “Covid” outbreaks a few km from funded Bio-labs, are purely “co-incidental”. ///
    
    Russia being set up, just like China was.
    
    Of course the narrative that Russia had Covid bats, was dropped when said bio-labs were wiped out by Russia in surgical strike.
    
    Of course the main stream media never reported on the bio-labs or the children found in child trafficking bunkers. Didn’t fit the narrative. And didn’t report what was on Hunter Biden’s laptop or his involvement in such nefarious activities.
    
    Hunter was completely innocent. And Daddy giving his son a unilateral pardon for his actions, prove there was nothing to see. ///
    
    Just like Fauci’s unilateral pardon.
    
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    March 1, 2025 1:40pm
- Grunter
  
  Nah – what is amazing to me, is how long it’s taken most to figure out that Zelenskyy is the bad guy. He turned down peace 3 yrs ago. Millions now dead. Turned down peace again this morning. Millions more will now die needlessly. All because of the very evil Zelenskyy.
  
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  March 1, 2025 2:52pm
  - cmm
    
    There are no good guys running Ukraine. There have not been for over 15 years.
    
    If Russia leaves Ukraine then it will not bring peace. It will just return to what it was before: civil war.
    
    Some people seem to think Ukraine was just young girls with braids in their hair skipping through the wheatfields picking daisies until nasty Russian invaders turned their life upside down. They are deluded.
    
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    March 1, 2025 8:06pm
slightlyrighty

Imagine a situation where your neighbour breaks into your house, kills your dog, steals your Stuff, and then takes over your pool.

The Cops come and say that you started it, but your neighbour promises to leave you alone now, and not do it again, but you have to give him the pool and let him keep the stuff he stole. and if you wouldn’t put in a security system, because your neighbour doesn’t want it.

Then the cops ask for some of your stuff as well.

You would be rightly pissed.

This is what Trump just did to Zelensky today.
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March 1, 2025 9:13am
- Andrei
  
  Imagine if your Government was overthrown in a violent coup, you were forced to use another language and your church was banned.
  
  That is what happened in Ukraine
  
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  March 1, 2025 9:37am
  - Taieri
    
    That is what happened in Ukraine
    ———–
    
    Regardless of anything else, Ukraine was invaded by its larger and more powerful eastern neighbour, questioning Ukraine’s right to be an independent country and resulting in hundreds of thousands deaths and destruction of a country’s economy. That is what happened in Ukraine.
    
    And to what end?
    
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    March 1, 2025 9:58am
  - NothingLeft
    
    The Patriarch of the eastern orthodox church in Russia is a Putin puppet, and branches of the church in Ukraine have been an organizing center for Spying and anti Ukrainian activities given there close ties to Russian leadership. They have not been banned, but are not treated with kid gloves by Ukraine Govt.
    
    Ukranians voted out Putin’s Russian puppet leader and govt in 2014, which is why Putin started his progressive invasion under cover of the regional armed rebellions he organized and funded.
    
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    March 1, 2025 7:53pm
- bennerg
  
  Sadly the situation is way more complex. And on so many levels.
  
  I’d suggest Trump is pragmatic, knowing Russia will come out gaining somewhat, but Ukraine will get to keep it’s young men alive, and the “war machine” will have lost yet another laundromat. And the rest of the world can get back to watching sport again.
  
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  March 1, 2025 9:50am
- Conservatarian
  
  In your analogy, which part refers to the Nordstream II pipeline (connecting Russian gas supply to German gas consumers) being blown up by [hint: neither Russia nor Germany) during the Biden regime?
  
  Which part refers to Boris Johnson (on behalf of the people who were controlling the senile Joe Biden) scuppering the peace deal arranged in March 2022, soon after Russia’s invasion?
  
  Which part refers to the CIA-backed coup of the democratically-elected Ukraine government in 2014 (a regime change from anti-NATO to pro-NATO)?
  
  …and so on.
  
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  March 1, 2025 11:46am
  - Lance
    
    And down the rabbit hole we go.
    Conspiracy theory drivel
    
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    March 1, 2025 12:18pm
    - Conservatarian
      
      Ukraine is the George Floyd of countries.
      
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      March 1, 2025 1:42pm
    - Colville
      
      Lance.
      It’s a fact that the Nord pipe got blown up out at sea by covert means and it’s pretty clear that the only winner from it being blown up is the USA industrial complex.
      Everyone else loses money by it being closed.
      So who did it?
      
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      March 1, 2025 3:01pm
      - cmm
        
        Well, maybe Ukraine wins too.
        
        And for anyone who thinks this needed super-duper special ops – bullshit. It was at 72 metres. Easy to access with or without diving.
        
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        March 1, 2025 3:37pm
      - kowtow
        
        I initially thought it was Russian incompetence .
        
        But it’s pretty well established now that it was Ukraine .
        
        This is not rabbit hole tin foil hat stuff .
        Who benefits ? The Ukrainians. Who by the way were still allowing the transit of Russian gas through their country till quite recently . Some war !
        
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        March 1, 2025 3:58pm
      - cmm
        
        kowtow: I am not sure how incompetence could blow up a pipeline a few hundred km from Russian shores.
        
        Those pipes are thick. Something like 30mm thick steel, then covered in concrete around another 100mm thick.
        The gas pumping through the pipe is at SCUBA tank level pressures. A SCUBA tank, holding similar pressures, is less than 10mm thick, so an accidental rupture would be unlikely.
        
        Video of the actual explosion site are available on youtube and that clearly shows an explosion rather than an accidental rupture.
        
        Blowing that pipeline up wwould have been really easy. The Baltic is around 60 metres deep on average and around 72 metres at the point of the damage. All very easy to operate in – with or without divers.
        
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        March 1, 2025 8:15pm
- Jake Dee
  
  Interesting that you put the USA ( or is it NATO + EU ? ) in the position of “The Cops” in your scenario.
  They are nothing of the sort. The police are paid for by the public they protect and are bound to act according to the law.
  The USA and Europe would be just another group of families in town.
  
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  March 1, 2025 12:50pm
lastmanstanding

Woke corporates are costing their shareholders dearly with DEI hires. Take Spark. Women Chair and CEO. Share price a year ago $5 share price today $2.
On that subject what happened to the DEI hire that crashed her ship in the Cooks. Hopefully she is only driving a desk to minimise the damage she can cause.
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March 1, 2025 9:18am
- Paulus
  
  Dealing with Spark for over a week on a simple line number – what a load of wallies for something, one says yes and the other says no.
  But no real answer.
  Wallies is being polite.
  
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  March 1, 2025 10:48am
  - pb
    
    The lady pilot with the world first upside-down landing, disagrees wit the premise of your stadement.
    
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    March 1, 2025 5:03pm
TripeWryter

I’ve just read on Stuff Jenna Lynch’s piece about Christofer Luxon’s ‘train wreck’ (cliché …) interview with Mike Hosking on Tuesday.
Stuff will no doubt tell me I’ve read 10 (or is it 20?) of their articles this week and shouldn’t I consider supporting their ‘journalism’.
No, I won’t. Their ‘journalism’ wouldn’t be out of place in Pravda.
Lynch’s story was fair enough as far as it goes. The Prime Minister was exposed by an interviewer who is supposed to be friendly.
Therefore there has been much media chatter and on social media.
But the story exposed something else.
I have not heard or seen much from legacy media about the allegedly nefarious goings-on by The Maori Party and a marae at Manurewa.
Why not, Jenna?
We have an instance of possible corruption in our political process and our legacy media seem quite uninterested in covering it.
Where has been the door-stepping of Rawiri Waititi? Or of Tash Kemp, the MP. Why has Debbie Ngarewa-Packer been able to escape the spotlight and go to the Cook Islands when she should have been doing her job in Parliament?
Will she be door-stopped when she gets back? Will she be pursued across the tiles in full televisual glare and Jenna and Thomas and Claire and Jason demanding: who, what, when where, why?’
Where has been the interviews of the whistle-blowers? Instead Paula Penfold in Stuff this morning occupies herself – and seemed to have spend a lot of time on it this week – with high-level resignations from the covid inquiry.
Are our media so afraid of the litigious John Tamihere, Rawiri Waititi et al that they won’t pursue inquiries?
It seems to me to typify a problem – people are afraid of confronting Maoris, particularly their leaders. What the YouTuber Anglo Saxon calls the ‘neo-Rangatira class’.
On that, if you can get to watch his last video about the ‘neo-Rangatira class’ I recommend it.
But back to my theory: it seems to me that bureaucrats did not confront Maoris because they’re afraid to. They run the risk of being called ‘racist’ and the like.
They have an attitude as exhibited by a relative of mine in the public service: ‘head down, go along to get along, and just do my job and collect my pay’.
That’s why so many public servants submit without complaint or protest to partaking in karakia, for example. Go along to get along …
Don’t stand out.
Which is why some now-former public servants are angry and resentful that they ‘go along to get along’ and they still lost their jobs.
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March 1, 2025 9:28am
- peterwn
  
  So he ballsed up one interview (and even admitted it) and everyone keeps hammering that for whatever reason. No one can get it right all of the time – some company chairman once said that if you can get things right 51% of the time you are doing well.
  
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  March 1, 2025 10:17am
  - RoboRob
    
    Has he actually admitted it? That would be a start. Do you have a link?
    
    Agree with your sentiment but this isn’t a one off and the way he ballsed up was that the interviewer told him what he should do and he promptly continued on his merry way. Very strange.
    
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    March 1, 2025 11:58am
- surfing
  
  My company has a full time maori advisor, and staff sometimes recite maori prayers before meetings.
  
  Not that there are any maori in the meeting. Its ridiculous. And forcing maori culture onto people is like forcing religion onto atheists.
  
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  March 1, 2025 10:23am
  - AitchW
    
    I used to take my kids to Playcentre. Despite there no being any Maori kids there we were expected to follow a number of Maori protocols. Seperate flour bags for play dough and scones, no touching on the head, no sitting on tables and I honestly don’t remember what else.
    The majority of parents pretty much ignored most of the rules to the horror of a small number of bone carving wearers…
    
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    March 1, 2025 11:12am
    - Gussy Fink-Nottle
      
      At the Playcentre, are menstruating women removed to an outhouse?
      
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      March 1, 2025 11:58am
    - peterwn
      
      First two are general common sense. ‘No sitting on table rule’ is harmless enough.
      
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      March 1, 2025 1:38pm
      - AitchW
        
        What is commonsense about having seperate flour bags for play dough and scones? Both come straight from the supermarket.
        And why no touching on the head?
        
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        March 1, 2025 3:16pm
    - cmm
      
      In the 1990s my wife and kids were heavily into Playcentre.
      
      The reason for the playdough flour rule is that the Maori flown upon playing with food. For example sticking macaroni pieces onto collage was hugely offensive back then 30 years ago.
      
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      March 1, 2025 3:40pm
      - NeverMindTheBollocks
        
        Ditto potato printing. Food is too precious to play with.
        
        Besides, if you play with your food, you have to eat your toys.
        
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        March 1, 2025 7:10pm
    - John Loveridge
      
      My daughter, a spectator along with half the rest of her school, wasn’t allowed to take food to an inter-school sports event at a public facility last week, because eating food on the grass offended tikanga.
      
      However there were food vendor trucks at the event!
      
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      March 1, 2025 7:33pm
  - cmm
    
    surfing: The funniest I have seen is a very woke NZ branch of a US company laying on a “traditional Maori welcome” for the new CEO visiting from USA.
    
    After asking all the employees (some of whom are 25% or so Maori), the only people that knew enough Maori and of the protocols were two white immigrants – one form South Africa and the other from England.
    
    It was decided to give him a “traditional Maori” clubby-thing (I don’t know the real name). This was made by another employee on his bandsaw at home. He’s also white – born in Holland.
    
    The CEO was enchanted with the Maori greeting which was all videoed and placed on the company internal website along with a DEI speech. Apparently the genuine authentic Maori clubby-thing is mounted on a stand outside his office and he shows it off to visiting CEOs.
    
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    March 1, 2025 3:49pm
    - surfing
      
      It’s just absurd isn’t it! All these white people pretending to be like Maori.
      
      I do wonder how much our Maori cultural advisor is paid.
      
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      March 1, 2025 4:19pm
      - ISeeRed
        
        It’s just absurd isn’t it! All these white people pretending to be like Maori.
        
        There, fixed it for you.
        
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        March 2, 2025 3:21am
- NK
  
  https://nominister.wordpress.com/2025/02/26/pm-luxon-speaks-and-the-answer-is/
  
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  March 1, 2025 11:34am
- Jake Dee
  
  I like the “neo-Rangatira class’ line.
  As I have often mentioned this isn’t “Maorification”, it is the enlistment of certain Maori into the Professional Managerial Class and it’s being done for the benefit of that class not Maori and certainly not for society as a whole
  
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  March 1, 2025 12:53pm
- alwyn.a
  
  ” an interviewer who is supposed to be friendly.”.
  Interviewers aren’t supposed to be friendly or unfriendly. They are supposed to be neutral and their job is to persist with questions until they get answers.
  Jack Tame and Mike Hosking are pretty good at it. Katie Bradford is not.
  
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  March 1, 2025 2:33pm
Yvette

ChatGPT [AI – in response to an earlier question] said:
You’re welcome! I’m glad that helped clarify things. If you ever have more questions or need anything else, just let me know!

I said:
Sorry – one thought. Does “Memory updated” [occurring in some answers] mean that your answers can be “biased” by you knowing some of my earlier expressed views, and your retaining and referring to that information in answering a question.

ChatGPT said:
That’s a great question! Yes, when I update my memory with the information you share, my responses can reflect the knowledge of your earlier expressed views. This helps me provide more relevant, personalized, and consistent answers over time, as I can remember the context of your preferences, ideas, and past conversations.
However, I strive to remain objective and neutral in my responses, even when referencing what I’ve learned from you. My goal is to help clarify, expand on, or offer different perspectives based on the information at hand, not to push a particular viewpoint. If you ever feel my answers are becoming too biased or repetitive, you can always let me know, and I can adjust how I respond.

Is that aspect of AI starting to become just a little creepy? I guess I could ask it that … but then …
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March 1, 2025 9:51am
- Yvette
  
  … that means: if I ask Chat AI for it to answer a question “without referring to anything you have in your Memory on my File” – it will remember that as well.
  
  _________
  
  But then, when referred to the article –
  Treaty principles bill hearings, day 11: Live, from Te Matatini, Lake Rotokākahi and Mitre 10
  https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/27-02-2025/treaty-principles-bill-hearings-day-11-live-from-te-matatini-lake-rotokakahi-and-mitre-10
  
  Chat AI said …
  Based solely on the article provided, the argument against the Treaty Principles Bill appears to be stronger.
  Conclusion:
  The opposition to the Treaty Principles Bill presents a more compelling case, supported by historical evidence, legal reasoning, and real-world consequences. The arguments in favor of the bill appear to be less developed, relying primarily on an abstract notion of equality without fully engaging with the complexities of Aotearoa’s colonial history and present-day inequities.
  
  … but then it revealed …
  Total: 20 submissions against the bill
  • For the bill: 5
  • Against the bill: 20
  
  … Spinoff is a little selective in what it reports, like 5 to 20 is not too balanced –
  but being Media, why should it be
  
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  March 1, 2025 10:29am
  - JackRabbit
    
    Don’t encourage Chat AI by using it. Every time you use Chat AI, it is downloading your data used in the query as well as a lot of data you didn’t agree to be taken.
    
    As I say to clients:
    [1] Read the fine print.
    [2] Monitor your systems for privacy breaches.
    
    Chat AI is not your friend. And it is as dumb and woke and as the average of all the people whose data it has downloaded or stolen.
    
    If a software or service is free, or cheap beyond reason, YOU and YOUR DATA are the products or commodities.
    
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    March 1, 2025 11:17am
    - imalwaysright
      
      Agreed.
      The artificial intelligence is usually the user.
      
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      March 1, 2025 1:00pm
- cmm
  
  “AI” like ChatGPT etc, is just a pattern matching engine.
  
  When it sees X bits it spits out Y bits.
  It has absolutely zero understanding of anything.
  It has zero experiences.
  It has no logical thought processes.
  It has no intuition.
  It has no emotion.
  It is not self-aware and thus has no self-knowledge.
  
  All it “knows” is what patterns it has been loaded with.
  If it is loaded with biased data, it will spit out biased responses.
  
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  March 1, 2025 3:54pm
  - imalwaysright
    
    Flash spellchecker.
    
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    March 1, 2025 6:21pm
- John Loveridge
  
  Are you sure that was ChatGPT and not Christopher Luxon?
  
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  March 1, 2025 7:37pm
bennerg

Hidden deep in the bowels of the NZ Herald yesterday I read that the High Court quashed a conviction imposed on Whakaari Management Ltd in a judge-alone trial in the Auckland District Court in 2023, where Judge Evangelos Thomas found Whakaari Management guilty on one of the two charges; breaching its duty under section 37 of the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015.

As a lay person I saw the logic the same way as the High Court Judge. For me it was simple: an analogy would help. A farmer is asked if his land can be used by the local trail bikers club to race their bikes. He agrees. During the race a biker hits a bump, falls and is killed. Should the farmer be liable? Or the club operating the event?

High Court Justice Simon Moore ruled it wasn’t unreasonable for the company to rely on tourism operators — who were licensed under New Zealand law — and emergency management and scientific agencies to assess the risks of activities on the island and manage safety precautions.

Following the disaster, WorkSafe NZ brought charges under health and safety laws against 13 parties including Whakaari Management, the companies that operated guided walking tours on the island, and others.

So what are the consequences of this decision?

Whakaari Management Ltd does not have to pay a fine and reparations of approx $1,5M. But as anyone who has had to suffer unreasonable court action, it is horrendously expensive, and the process is a punishment in itself, not unlike the middle ages treatment of witches, where they were bound and thrown in the river to see if they floated – indicating their guilt. For if they sank, and drowned, they were innocent!

But who is/was responsible?

Again, for me it is simple, the people who understood the volcano, and were responsible for monitoring it’s activity, and then communicating the risks to the public, The Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences (GNS). Are they to be held accountable?

And finally, what about District Court Judge Evangelos Thomas? Does the system provide for her retraining on such a basic decision?
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March 1, 2025 9:54am
- fightingtemeraire
  
  Judge is Male.
  
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  March 1, 2025 10:31am
- keepcalmcarryon
  
  Work safe themselves who certified the operators should have been prosecuted. That is where things were wrong.
  Instead they prosecuted others for their own shortcomings and eventually failures.
  Oh and prosecuted the hero helicopter pilot for risking his life to help others.
  And held none of their own accountable of course.
  
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  March 1, 2025 11:06am
  - AitchW
    
    Worksafe is vindictive and arrogant. Once it gets you in its sights you’re going to be prosecuted.
    There are numerous prosecutions over the years which have been thrown out by higher courts where Worksafe has been criticised for sloppy investigation and inaccurate presentation of evidence.
    Could the myriad of charges laid in this incident have been a smokescreen to hide its own shortcomings in certifying the various operators?
    
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    March 1, 2025 11:55am
    - Don Beckett
      
      Another govt. department full of leaches justifying there jobs – they all need to go & the department done away with. We arr over-regulated and very deeply risk averse to the point of ludicrasy.
      
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      March 1, 2025 12:53pm
      - Jack5
        
        Re the farm example in Bennerg’s post:
        
        A farmer is asked if his land can be used by the local trail bikers club to race their bikes. He agrees. During the race a biker hits a bump, falls and is killed. Should the farmer be liable? Or the club operating the event?
        
        But if the farmer is paid by the trail biker riders for access – what then?
        
        Does the farmer need to stipulate access is at the riders’ own risk?
        
        And…then Bennerg’s:
        
        … the people who understood the volcano, and were responsible for monitoring it’s activity, and then communicating the risks to the public, The Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences (GNS). Are they to be held accountable?
        
        Any reasonable person in this country on the Pacific Rim of Fire knows volcanos are dangerous.
        
        Ten miners were killed on the island in 1914, and Whakaari/White Island erupted from December 1975 until September 2000, and in 2012 and 2016.
        
        Sulphur was mined on the island until the 1930s. Ten miners were killed in 1914 when part of the crater wall collapsed.
        
        Don Beckett suggests that the the Geological and Nuclear Sciences be “done away with.”
        
        Come off it, Don! We have earthquakes daily in these islands, and the Alpine Fault is overdue to rip through the South Island. The North Island is a giant volcanic mound.
        
        Geothermal activity also offers NZ energy (about a fifth of our electricity at present), attracts tourists, and is bloody interesting.
        
        The Crown research institute, GNS Science, is needed. Given that it’s a scientific body its Maorification, obvious on its “statement of corporate intent” (at the link below), is needlessly Woke.
        
        Regardless, if anyone in addition to the volcano victims gets my sympathy, it’s the local Whakatane Maori — Ngati Awa — who bought the volcano tour firm White Island Tours, in 2017 not long before the disaster.
        
        I don’t know Ngati Awa’s relationship with Whakaaari Management, which is owned by the Buttle family, of Auckland.
        
        GNS “corporate intent”:
        
        https://www.gns.cri.nz/about-us/corporate-documents/
        
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        March 1, 2025 2:32pm
      - Don Beckett
        
        “Don Beckett suggests that the the Geological and Nuclear Sciences be “done away with.””
        
        I was referring to Worksave NZ. Not GNS.
        
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        March 1, 2025 3:53pm
      - bennerg
        
        Jack5, my comment about GNS is that they are / were in the best position to know of the risks at any given time. A “tour operator” is really no better informed than you or I, and I guess this is where I would be expecting GNS to be the “authoritative” party, and the one’s to say “don’t go in there, it is too dangerous today”. Or, if the risk is high, they should be the ones to say “be on the lookout, and have a Plan B to get people out if things start to rumble”.
        
        As to the farmer, under no circumstances should be be liable, unless he knew of a hidden risk such as quicksand etc that he withheld. In White Island’s case, everyone knew it was a volcano, and there was a body that monitored and issued alerts and advice. So it’s pretty simple to work back from there.
        
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        March 1, 2025 3:54pm
      - Jack5
        
        Sorry, Don! My mistake.
        
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        March 1, 2025 4:49pm
- NK
  
  And finally, what about District Court Judge Evangelos Thomas? Does the system provide for her retraining on such a basic decision?
  
  Silly question. Lower court judges get it wrong quite often. That’s why we have appellate courts.
  
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  March 1, 2025 11:17am
- trout
  
  A minor omission in your summary (@Bennerg) has serious implications. The owners of the island were paid by tourist operators to allow access to the Island. They (the owners) were therefore ‘in business’ with the operators and were therfore a party to the event and disastrous outcome. This issue was part of the original judgement and is not explained away in the appeal decision.
  
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  March 1, 2025 12:11pm
  - Don Beckett
    
    They were not the ones monitoring the geothermal volcanic activity on the island, DOC were.
    Were warnings issued ? I believe the alert level was raised, but no-one was advised to clear the island due to imminent eruption.
    
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    March 1, 2025 2:25pm
  - bennerg
    
    Trout, if a car rental company leases or rents a car to you, are they liable for what you do with the car?
    
    Now the analogy gets a little murky, for say if the car was defective, but White Island was not “defective” as such, it is what it is/was. The people using it were aware of it’s nature, and therefore on a daily basis should have been the ones, alongside the relevant authorities who provided expert skills to monitor it, to make the calls to go or not, and not the island owners.
    
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    March 1, 2025 4:11pm
- cmm
  
  How about this:
  
  The people who voluntarily went to a volcano, because it is an active volcano, were obviously aware that there is a risk – albeit a small one – of the volcano going kaboom while they were there.
  
  If they like the odds, then go visit the volcano and accept the consequences if it erupts while they are there.
  
  If they don’t like the odds, then stay away from the volcano.
  
  Sure you could point a finger at the operators or GNS, but it is the old story of hindsight being 20/20 vision. If they cry wolf every time there is a wee rumble, nobody would liesten to them.
  
  But no, people want to be able to do whatever they want with zero consequences for their actions – be that abortions, visiting volcanos or whatever.
  
  Instead of wearing the responsibility for their choices there has to be someone else to blame.
  
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  March 1, 2025 4:03pm
BananaLlama

Zelensky may have just cooked himself, Lindsey Graham is now saying he isn’t the man for the job.
Felt bad for Zelesnky he must be under a huge amount of pressure but he shouldn’t have tried to argue the point with Trump in English when he isn’t a natural speaker it just came across wrong.
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March 1, 2025 10:33am
- Lance
  
  Trump bald faced lied in front of Macron and Starmer and was corrected by both of them. Then lied in front of Zelensky and grossly misrepresented the situation and Zelensky wasn’t having it.
  It would help if Trump stopped lying and talked like an honest person. There is a way through but not with this level of bullshit.
  Zelensky pointed out that the murderous taking of Crimea was supposed to be the end of it, a ceasefire, no more attacks by Russia. Then in a remarkable impersonation of Hitler, Putin just started up killing and invading a few years later. Putin’s word means NOTHING.
  And Trumps argument was, just sign another ceasefire, Putin’s word will do.
  Trump wants a deal with no guarantees for Ukraine, disgraceful.
  
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  March 1, 2025 11:17am
  - Taieri
    
    the murderous taking of Crimea
    ————–
    
    To be fair, it wasn’t really “murderous”. There were six known casualties and ten missing persons.
    
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    March 1, 2025 1:25pm
- JackRabbit
  
  I didn’t feel bad for Zelesnkyy. And it has nothing to do with the English language.
  
  Trump argued in the language of logic and reasoning, Zelesnkyy argued in the language of emotion, ego, and hubris.
  
  Zelesnkyy maturity is at a similar level to that of Chloe Swarbrick or Greta Thunberg. He was only the leader of the Ukraine because he was put there as a puppet. A puppet to destroy the Ukraine, to allow financial interests to get at the minerals.
  
  War is about money.
  
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  March 1, 2025 11:23am
  - Lance
    
    “Trump argued in the language of logic and reasoning”………….. bra ha ha ha
    
    Zelensky politely gave them a history lesson which Trump and Vance ignored and just repeated that Putin will honour a ceasefire – yeah right.
    I noted that it was Vance that was triggered and started shouting and Trump played along.
    Vance is the one coming up with this shit, from that display anyway.
    
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    March 1, 2025 11:39am
    - Grunter
      
      Vance started shouting…..I must have missed that part after watching it 3 times.
      
      Lance – you make stuff up on a daily basis.
      
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      March 1, 2025 3:04pm
      - Lance
        
        Extreme irony alert
        
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        March 1, 2025 5:17pm
      - JackRabbit
        
        Sorry Grunter, downticked by mistake.
        
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        March 1, 2025 6:11pm
  - rangitoto
    
    Mafia bully tactics don’t work against Zelensky. Vance and Trump = POS.
    
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    March 1, 2025 11:45am
  - Hard Cheese
    
    Logic and reasoning requires you to use the truth to support your argument. Plucking bullshit $350 billion figures out of the air is not that.
    
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    March 1, 2025 11:51am
  - Taieri
    
    He was only the leader of the Ukraine because he was put there as a puppet
    ————-
    
    He was elected by the popular vote with nearly 75% of votes in the second run.
    
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    March 1, 2025 1:28pm
    - JackRabbit
      
      Ardern was popular too. Also a puppet.
      
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      March 1, 2025 7:43pm
- Stu2
  
  Trump is trying to force a deal on the Ukraine that won’t stop Putin from future agression
  
  Would you try and point out that Putin has broken numerous previous agreements? Or just sit there?
  
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  March 1, 2025 11:24am
  - JackRabbit
    
    Putin is open to negotiation, Witness the long interview unscripted interview with Tucker Carlson.
    
    Zelenskyy can’t manage 30 seconds in negotiation without flying off the handle like a wind up Greta.
    
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    March 1, 2025 11:42am
    - Hard Cheese
      
      What good is being open to negotiation if you’ve been proven to not uphold previous negotiations? It seems simple things like this elude you.
      
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      March 1, 2025 11:54am
    - Lance
      
      Please pint this out in any video of the meeting, becasue I can’t see.
      I saw Vance triggered when facts were presented and Trump reaslising something had been said (although he had no idea what), and joined in.
      
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      March 1, 2025 11:57am
    - surfing
      
      Trump and Vance are demanding Zelensky to grovel before them and kiss their rings.
      
      I found Trump / Vance demeaning.
      
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      March 1, 2025 1:11pm
  - BananaLlama
    
    Yes i would sit there and say thank you for the hundred billion dollars of support and understand that Americans are angry that they have to give me another hundred billion more.
    Yes i would let them make a public showing of how angry they are and quietly get what i want anyway but apparently this is too hard for some.
    
    Honestly i blame the American Democrats along with the Europeans for what has happened. They have spent the last 3 years gassing Zelensky up and were unprepared for what would happen when the Republicans won the American Election.
    
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    March 1, 2025 11:45am
  - kowtow
    
    Funnily enough during that testy exchange Zel told them that Macron and Merkel had been given guarantees by Putin , which Putin broke .
    
    OK what then did France and Germany do ?
    
    Nothing !
    
    And here’s everyone throwing their toys out of the cot over Trump.
    
    btw Zelensky appears to be pushing / insisting the US give him guarantees . The US know that’s a recipe for WW3 , that is where Zelensky wants to take us .
    
    How many here are genuinely ready and prepared to wipe out life on the planet in order to stop Putin .
    Cos that’s literally what this comes down to.
    
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    March 1, 2025 12:56pm
    - Mod88
      
      1999 NATO bombs Belgrade and forces Serbia to let Kosovo break away. Russia goes Hmmm, hold my beer. Watch this.
      
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      March 1, 2025 1:23pm
    - David Garrett
      
      kowtow: You usually make sensible comments here, but that one is just crap.
      
      How exactly is extracting a security guarantee from the USA going to lead to WW III? Putin is a terrible man, but he’s not fucking stupid. If the nukes started to fly he well knows the yanks would take his country out…or at least the bits of it that matter.
      
      Trump is proving himself just as unstable and irrational as his critics said he would be – worse if anything.
      
      14 15
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      March 1, 2025 1:46pm
      - kowtow
        
        Trump wants a deal , a win , to look good . The peacemaker.
        
        Zelensky must have been ready to do one or he wouldn’t have gone to the WH.
        
        But Zelensky appears to be demanding that the US give him a security guarantee . He’s in no position to demand and as I said Trump isn’t about to sign a deal that could lead to WW3 , if Putin or some other Crazy Ivan wants more of Ukraine at some point in the future .Trump being the deal maker would feel obliged to back himself ; that would be WW3.
        And no Trump is not irrational or unstable . He wants peace , but on his terms .
        
        ‘The evil man will burn down house to preside over ashes’. Sun Tsu .
        
        Putin is evil , Zelensky needs to compromise and maybe Europe needs to step up .If Zelensky is n’t prepared to stop then he too will fit Sun Tsu’s description.
        
        Both Britain and France are nuke powers , they can give Zelensky the guaratees ; but they’re not willing . They don’t have the balls to back themselves or Zelensky properly .
        
        But oh no Trump is the problem!
        
        5 6
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        March 1, 2025 3:02pm
    - JackRabbit
      
      How many here are genuinely ready and prepared to wipe out life on the planet in order to ~~stop Putin~~ wipe our Russia.
      
      If Putin was such an arsehole, why would trade with and sell gas to Germany? Why not just attack Germany?
      
      I think that you will find the real arsehole is the one that ordered the Russia / Germany pipeline destroyed, so it could not complete with US oil and gas interests. And that leads all the way back to Whitehouse and Obama’s other puppet, Joe Biden. Joe is on record as say he would destroy the pipeline.
      
      7 7
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      March 1, 2025 1:50pm
      - NothingLeft
        
        Most of Russias nuke arsenal is inoperable. They’ve been skimping on the maintenance needed for 30 years, and nuke bombs and missiles need frequent expensive maintenance every few years. Their ICBM tests frequently fail.
        
        Nordstream was probably Ukraine.
        
        0 3
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        March 1, 2025 8:03pm
  - surfing
    
    Trump’s deal is crap.
    
    It is better for Ukraine to fall to Russia at this stage. Russia can then roll into a few other countries until they hit a brick wall — at that point, Russia has expanded and become more powerful, and that’s that!
    
    The last thing anyone should want is for the resources of the Euro/Asian continents to be stolen by the USA in bad deals!
    
    7 6
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    March 1, 2025 1:10pm
- rangitoto
  
  JD Vance: “You have no men left in your country.”
  
  Zelensky: “Come and see.”
  
  Zelensky 100, Trump and Vance nil.
  
  15 16
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  March 1, 2025 11:49am
  - BananaLlama
    
    Supporters of Ukraine setting themselves up as Anti American has to be the dumbest self own that i have seen this century.
    
    8 8
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    March 1, 2025 12:27pm
    - NothingLeft
      
      It’s a negotiation, and Trump is overplaying his hand. Ukraine can hold back and deplete Russia with the support it has, and Trump’s dramatics are destroying US’s international standing and soft power as a reliable defense partner, emboldening China, Iran and N Korea.
      
      4 4
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      March 1, 2025 8:06pm
      - Ghost
        
        Really, how long have you been running this line of depleting Russia, while the ones actually being depleted are NATO and the USA
        
        3 2
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        March 1, 2025 8:32pm
- Handyman
  
  Zelensky seems to think that one of the options is unlimited weapons and money from the USA. His demeaner says ” Diplomacy is no good because I don’t trust Putin, so I’ll just take the money thank you.”
  He doesn’t realise yet his options are to lose part of Ukraine or all of it. If he takes the deal there will be billions of dollars of corporate America invested on his Eastern border. Russia would think twice before advancing through these areas.
  
  8 6
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  March 1, 2025 1:10pm
  - quarterpack
    
    When did invasion of one sovereign state by a dictatorship become an oppurtunity for investment
    
    6 2
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    March 1, 2025 4:03pm
    - JackRabbit
      
      When Blackrock and J P Morgan realised the true value of the rare earth minerals in the Ukraine.
      
      They’ve been helping Zelenskyy since 2022, probably before, and promise to help rebuild.
      
      If you recall Blackrock was keen on openly investing in NZ, until Labour lost the election, but they still have a presence here anyway through many companies and banks.
      
      Had Labour not lost the election, they would have got their hooks into 3/5/7/9 waters.
      
      3 2
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      March 1, 2025 7:46pm
AndyW

Great opinion piece from Bruce Cotterill in the Herald on school lunches. He addresses the elephant in the room: feckless parents (who don’t deserve to be parents).
20 0
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March 1, 2025 11:07am
- JackRabbit
  
  Indeed. School lunches, or lack thereof, are not the responsibility of the school or the children, but the parents. Same as shoes and suitable clothing during adverse weather.
  
  Children are for life, not just an increase in welfare payments.
  
  18 1
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  March 1, 2025 11:48am
  - Benedict Yu
    
    Indeed. The thing is a farce. Yes many countries have school lunches. Taiwan for start. Usually five courses. However that not about compensating for bad parents. It is cultural. Also the parents pay. It is not much. I just looked it up. It is about the equivalent of 4 NZD per day.
    
    In New Zealand it is a mess. The media are never going to stop stirring it up. Amplified by the teachers who hate Seymour.
    
    It is not too late. Abolish the lot. Provide each school with the money to buy emergency lunches for children with no lunch. If that happens three times in a term, there is an intensive investigation of the family.
    
    19 0
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    March 1, 2025 12:47pm
    - JackRabbit
      
      Agreed.
      
      The best we ever got was a half pint bottle of milk at morning interval, delivered fresh and cold.
      
      9 1
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      March 1, 2025 1:10pm
      - alwyn.a
        
        You were very lucky. When I was at school, in Napier, it was delivered very early in the morning and then left in the sun. By the time we got it it was spoilt and often undrinkable.
        
        5 0
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        March 1, 2025 2:41pm
  - Paulus
    
    Do you think that there mught be some form of Industrial Sabotage in respect of the Lunches, by the Labour and Union supporters, assisted by the feckless lazy incompetent mothers ?
    
    11 0
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    March 1, 2025 2:06pm
- Ian
  
  Don’t direct us to look for articles which you have to pay for to read – think this has been pointed out many times….
  
  6 1
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  March 1, 2025 12:27pm
  - kowtow
    
    Crikey , he’s only saying it’s worth a read.
    
    3 1
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    March 1, 2025 4:12pm
Swifty

She’s all go at the Golden Shears today in Masterton – South Island shearers doing well so far in the semis.
7 0
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March 1, 2025 12:04pm
Benedict Yu

This is bad

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360597372/covid-inquiry-bullying-claims-four-resignations-concerns-acknowledged

The Executive Director drives the inquiry. She is the link betwen the Commissioners and the secretariat staff who do the leg work and draft the report.

It could not be worse. It is not good enough for everyone involved to remain silent.
15 0
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March 1, 2025 12:39pm
- JackRabbit
  
  And of course because they are keeping silent, we do not know which direction the bullying is in, or what the bullying actually consists of, or what it is about.
  
  8 2
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  March 1, 2025 1:07pm
- DimChappie
  
  BY, It is murky, but my reading of this is that the 4 who have left are not bullying victims:
  
  “But that was at odds with our information, including that there are concerns about bullying at the Inquiry.
  (Stuff is not aware that any of those who have resigned are involved with those concerns.)”
  
  My hunch: These 4 who left could be total supporters of Ardern’s Covid strategy and upset by the inquiry taking critics seriously.
  
  9 2
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  March 1, 2025 1:45pm
  - JackRabbit
    
    “These 4 who left could be total supporters of Ardern’s Covid strategy and upset by the inquiry taking critics seriously.”
    
    Along with being very uncomfortable at the potential outcome.
    
    They may have been thinking to themselves: “Shit, people really have died, and been injured, and it makes the NZ WW2 toll look like a school ground punch up.
    
    Oh crap we may have to hold ourselves or some politicians accountable for what they did. I feel sick to the pit of my stomach. I’m out of here.”
    
    5 2
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    March 1, 2025 6:20pm
- Grunter
  
  Yep – that makes me trust the Govt//
  
  4 3
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  March 1, 2025 3:01pm
PurplePen

Bruce Hoffman is a professor at Georgetown University and co-author of Gods, Guns, and Sedition: Far Right Terrorism in America. An essay from him October 2024. Is it more likely with 4 months hindsight.

“Let us return to the question that opened this essay: is the United States on the verge of a civil war? Although we have argued elsewhere that the answer, for geographic reasons, is likely no, the question is no longer frivolous. We stand on the precipice of an election likely to offer an unprecedented mix of ingredients for widespread violence. America was up to the test in 2020. Time will tell whether 2024 can follow suit.”

https://www.thecipherbrief.com/column_article/is-the-united-states-on-the-verge-of-civil-war
2 1
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March 1, 2025 1:27pm
Steve Otto N Shore

Well the lefties sure are moaning about the Zelensky, Trump, and Vance exchange.
“‘I’m beyond disgusted’: Trump and Vance slammed for berating Ukrainian president.”
The left showing their true colours.
There is a new sheriff in town now. This is what happens when Trump takes away your binky – tantrums.
This is from the extreme far left Alternet:

https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/other/i-m-beyond-disgusted-trump-and-vance-slammed-for-berating-ukrainian-president/ar-AA1A0xcO

TV1 news at 6 will be all over it like flies on shit. (not that I will watch.)
10 10
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March 1, 2025 2:13pm
- graham
  
  We watch TV1 News, but will skip over that item – along with the latest updates from the haka competition and probably a few other items. Neither of us like the way TV1 News present any Trump news, and we’ve already seen and read all the salient details.
  
  As I’ve noted before, although we do watch TV1 News the amount we skip over is considerable.
  
  9 0
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  March 1, 2025 3:23pm
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    But it is comedy Graham
    
    8 3
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    March 1, 2025 4:31pm
- Sparrow
  
  It’s not just the left.
  
  2 0
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  March 1, 2025 4:12pm
- MCōs
  
  I’m not in a position to watch TVNZ news and apart from that it shouldn’t take anyone to do your thinking for you when it came to the confrontation between President Volodymyr Zelensky and the two American leaders
  It was all there in its undiplomatic glory
  Ukraine v Russia
  
  2 1
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  March 1, 2025 9:16pm
Sparrow

These comments reported by the BBC from a diplomatic observer sums up that White House meeting. ” a planned political mugging either to force Zelensky to do America’s bidding, or to precipitate a crisis that would allow them to blame him for what ever happens next”. No further comments are needed. Somewhere in the back of my mind there is a saying ” it’s safer to have America as your enemy than your friend “
6 4
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March 1, 2025 2:42pm
- kowtow
  
  The Al Beeb ?
  
  Really ?
  
  They’re proven Hamas huggers .
  
  Can’t trust them at all.
  
  I’d wait a few days for some sensible comment in the conservative US media ,it will come .
  
  5 1
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  March 1, 2025 4:15pm
Jack5

Are Parliamentary staff providing acceptable standards of sound for the submissions presented on the Principles of Treaty of Waitangi Bill?

Consider this presentation by Stephen Franks, and contrast his sound with that of the committee chairman in the last seconds of the video clip.

Is it just Stephen Franks’s microphone that’s poor, or both?

Are the microphones adequate? Are the settings correct.

https://youtu.be/Bj80w-NndFY?si=wlRIS_FoBPZwTGzL
8 0
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March 1, 2025 3:12pm
Don Beckett

Looks like Zelensky has cooked his own goose. Even Lindsay Graham is bagging him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8cx-JK-r0U
This is Sky Australia’s take, and unless Zelensky backs off and apologises,he is a gone burger. He’s on his own without US support.
Apparently, there is a motion in the Ukraine parliament to impeach Zelensky – time will rell.
7 7
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March 1, 2025 3:29pm
- quarterpack
  
  What has he got to apologise for? The Russian military, once the army of a superpower and number 1 rival to the US for 70 years, has now had its knees cut off, reduced to employing mecenaries and relying on North Koreans to make up numbers. Russian influence in the middle east has been greatly reduced and their navy now in hiding At no cost of American lives, and all for a handfill of military kit that was nearing is useby date in any case. Trumps oppurtunisim is disgusting in seeking any concessions. Putin and his friends in Iran and North Korea will be delighted.
  
  11 3
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  March 1, 2025 4:00pm
  - Don Beckett
    
    “Russian Navy now in hiding”
    Where did you het that pearl of wisdom from?
    Have you heard of Vladivostok ? in Eastern Russia just across the sea of Japan?
    I was there in 2004 – battleships, cruisers, frigates, subs . Russia has a huge landmass & unlimited resources. Yes, it’s military is not that well led or trained, and they have had quite a population decline over the last 40 years, but they are still nuclear armed, even though the Ukranians – US & EU supplied, hve shown them a thing or two, but Russia is still the one with the upper hand.
    
    4 4
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    March 1, 2025 7:48pm
- Ghost
  
  I think next week there will be a deal, but it won’t include Zelensky. His presidency ended today…..
  
  7 6
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  March 1, 2025 5:10pm
- MCōs
  
  I suspect when it comes to American politicians likes like Graham it’s a matter of picking winners and working backwards from there.
  
  8 0
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  March 1, 2025 5:13pm
- Peter S
  
  Maybe, maybe not.
  
  I just wonder if there is another angle to this.
  
  Trump has, in the past, criticized European countries (and especially NATO ones)) for not doing their fair share.
  
  Countries that stand to lose the most from a dominant Russia have been pretty miserly compared to the USA over the last 3 years.
  
  Since Trump has pulled support from Zelenskey France, the UK and others have suddenly changed their tune dramatically.
  
  In fact it is the only thing Starmer (UK) has behaved remotely Prime Ministerially on so far.
  
  It reminds me of a book plot “The house of the four winds” by John Buchan (set in the Balkans).
  
  It is just possible that the whole point of this is not getting rid of Zelenskey and ending things to Ukraine’s detriment, but to goad a reluctant Europe to action.
  
  Possibly too machiavellian, but also possibly makes more sense than the alternatives.
  
  5 3
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  March 1, 2025 5:20pm
  - Don Beckett
    
    I think Zelensky will be back with the begging bowl, and the deal that he balked on will be signed.
    
    4 2
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    March 1, 2025 7:50pm
- BananaLlama
  
  He went on Fox News and doubled down doesn’t look like he will be getting any support from America.
  
  8 0
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  March 1, 2025 6:56pm
greybeard

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360598657/two-people-injured-jet-boating-incident-whanganui-river

Big river, big egos, small boats, small brains.
2 1
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March 1, 2025 3:47pm
- cmm
  
  Big ACC bills for the rest of us.
  
  9 1
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  March 1, 2025 4:16pm
pb

If RFKJ bans drug advertisements in America, New Zealand will be the only country in the world that allows Pharma to run green ads on TV.
4 1
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March 1, 2025 5:10pm
DimChappie

The man known as Anglo Saxon has produced a cracking video about the Maori tribal structure pre 1840. Chiefs lorded over commoners and slaves and the only path to leadership was heredity. He quotes a British envoy in 1835 describing Maori as greedy thieves who negotiated with ships’ crews for the short term rental of “their daughters, sisters and female slaves” (from 1:23 in the video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PBeNdqzO-k
2 0
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March 1, 2025 8:39pm
- Inandout
  
  DC, Russell was known I think as the brothel of the South Pacific, so loose and giving were the native girls. As an aside I learnt much of the early Maori marae life from a work colleague. He said when a tribe got plundered by a neighbouring one the best male and female specimens were kept for breeding purposes. The fate of the rest can be imagined. Pure breeding amongst early Maori was usually paramount.
  
  3 0
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  March 1, 2025 10:32pm

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