General Debate 19 March 2025

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Cassandra

The pressure applied by Trump on NATO members to meet America’s level of commitment to defence, usually expressed as a % of GDP for want of anything more meaningful, has also impacted NZ. Luxon has said that NZ will “get as close to 2% as possible “. There have been a number of critical comments on this blog such as % being the wrong way to measure it and that before we make any decisions we should have a plan. Duh!

My first exposure to defence planning was in 1962 (sic). I was a new graduate, transferred to Wellington to be an aide to the head of the Army. My role was very much the dogsbody but it was an amazing experience for a 20 year old. Senior officers and public servants have been planning for a hundred years. Most of it ignored by the government of the day but nevertheless there’s always been a plan. Almost always costing more than the government is prepared to pay.

The Defence Capability Plan 2025 will be published shortly. It has been delayed several times. Circumstances have changed, as recently as the Oval Office Fiasco, to say nothing of the presidential election. Planners probably had 1.5% in their minds and now it’s a starry 2%. Actually they should be looking at a plan for 2.5 and another for 3.5. And technology is changing by the minute. Unmanned naval vessels are a reality, along with drones and AI. Life was much simpler in 1962. My then boss had trained with horses when he was my age!

We need first to agree on the capability. (IMO that is keeping our lines of communication and trade open plus some ancillaries regarding the Pacific and disasters – it does NOT include defending the homeland). Then we need to ascertain the cheapest way to achieve that. The “we” is the planners, Treasury, the Cabinet and, with any luck, most of the Opposition and finally the electorate. Good luck with that. Bob Jones says he is “life-long anti military”, Don Brash wants only a coast guard, most of Labour and the left want as close to 0% as possible. But wiser heads might prevail.
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March 19, 2025 8:01am
- cmm
  
  Yes, % of GDP is an awful measure, just as billions spent on child poverdee is an awful measure too.
  But, for now, that is probably the best rule-of-thumb measure we have. It is at least a reasonable starting point/benchmark.
  
  Certainly technology plays a huge part – but does not necessarily make things more expensive.
  
  I obviously have not read the Defence Capability Plan and will be interested to see what its goals are, but, I fear, it will be flawed by a few things:
  * As is often said, Generals plan for the previous war. If that is the case, then we are likely to design a white elephant that is suited to previous types of warfare working with traditional allies in expeditionary roles and not defending NZ.
  * Generals like to play with their toys. We end up with spending that looks cool rather than serving our defensive needs.
  
  I hope I am wrong.
  
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  March 19, 2025 8:27am
  - Simon
    
    “Defence Capability Plan”. Don’t you mean Internment Camp Capability Plan.
    
    GAE will lose a Pacific war against China. NZ better look after those imprisoned Chinese good. No deaths.
    
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    March 19, 2025 8:33am
  - Cassandra
    
    Much of the planning is being done by civilians. The Plan has its own website and three young women seem to be the drivers. Then the Secretary of Foreign Affairs and the Secretary of Defence and their teams, all civilians, will play a major part. But certainly there’ll be three two stars arguing flat out for fighters, tanks, aircraft carriers. I jest – the parameters are already decided: no tanks, no fighters, a naval component to support the RAN. Betcha.
    
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    March 19, 2025 8:49am
    - Grunter
      
      I just found that website:
      https://www.defence.govt.nz/our-work/equip/defence-capability-plan/
      
      Just a quick glance and skim read…… What a load of crap! A Maori-wonderfulness + Global Boiling fear-porn site.
      
      If we want to double down on that, it reinforces my view that we should spend zero dollars.
      
      Another thought: IMO, New Zealand’s biggest threat is Maori Separatism, which threatens the country’s sovereignty and way of life. This website mentions “protecting New Zealand’s sovereignty.” We can’t even agree on who has sovereignty!
      
      And, imagine a boosted ‘Defence Force’ run by The Partly Maori Party and their associated bunch of crooks. There is no way any future NZ Defence Force would ever protect citizens against a rise up of separatist Maoris – they would more likely be part of those separatists!
      
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      March 19, 2025 9:20am
      - Bevan
        
        Your reading the Defence Capability Plan 2019, written by Ron Mark as part of the Ardern government.
        
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        March 19, 2025 11:29am
  - Bevan
    
    You are right about Generals, however there in another truism that needs to be considered.
    
    You fight the wars you are in with the weapons you have now, not the ones that you plan to buy.
    
    If a conflict kicked off that NZ was drawn into it, we would need sufficient capability to defend ourselves while new more advanced weapons were designed, manufactured and operationalised. Same will be true for all other countries.
    
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    March 19, 2025 11:33am
- Simon
  
  When are the camps being built to prison all the Chinese here? Must be part of war plan against China.
  
  Covid left wants its war planning against China. Orders have come in. The Covid left, Nat/Labo, must explain what will happen to Chinese here.
  
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  March 19, 2025 8:29am
  - kowtow
    
    No need for camps.
    
    The two great Asian rivals have huge ( relatively) populations here .
    
    If there’s an Indo Pacific war one group will “balance” the other out , and the natives can simply stand on the sidelines ( like we have become accustomed to) and cheer on whichever side they prefer to be subservient to.
    
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    March 19, 2025 9:10am
  - Manu-Rau
    
    @ Simon:
    
    WTF are you on about? Seriously….
    
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    March 19, 2025 2:25pm
- peterwn
  
  ‘Bob Jones says he is “life-long anti military” ‘
  Interesting. Bob has been indeed fortunate (like many of us) to have lived in a benign environment for much of his life (apart from early childhood years during WW2 and even that was away from action) and a society that has provided the freedoms and structures (some of which like the Public Service which he despised) that enabled him to thrive and build his real estate empire. He never faced a war torn or riot torn country or confiscation of his real estate assets. He did not have to do military service or sent off to war like many Kiwis had to. Indeed his biggest issue was probably when he was kicked off a Air NZ flight when he refused to listen to the special exit row briefing (that he might have to open the exit door and help passengers out in an emergency was beyond belief).
  So he could hold his anti military beliefs thanks to the benign society he lived in which ‘someone else’ would protect.
  
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  March 19, 2025 8:29am
  - cmm
    
    Being “anti military” per se is a daft response.
    It is like being “anti-dentist”.
    
    Nobody likes to go to the dentist. Nobody likes paying dentist bills. Many of the things dentists (eg. all the cosmetic stuff) do cost lots of money and don’t actually help your teeth.
    
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    March 19, 2025 8:42am
    - peterwn
      
      Reminds me of an old riddle – “What is worse than a Sergeant-Major’s drill” – “a dentist’s drill”.
      
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      March 19, 2025 9:18am
      - Steve Otto N Shore
        
        The needle, I dread the needle, hate it in the mouth. Dentists scare me.
        My dentist told me he has clients in the Army who are not scared of bullets, but they are scared of him!
        I grew up in the country. Dental Nurse had no anesthetic and the drill was pedal powered like a sewing machine treadle. Mentally scarred for life.
        
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        March 19, 2025 9:32am
      - Sacha
        
        Being a child during the war, and living in the depths of the country. going to the dentist was not a priority in my family. (distance to a small town, petrol rationing, farming -)
        And the school dental nurse who visited twice a year, had a treadle powered drill – and no local anaesthetic.
        The mere thought of going to the dentist makes me want to run away and hide. I can identify with Steve Otto’s comments.
        
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        March 19, 2025 9:50am
      - cmm
        
        I actually quite enjoyed drill in the Army.
        
        There’s a hell of a lot of skill to “driving” a platoon of soldiers on a parade ground. Doing a decent job of it is pretty satisfying.
        
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        March 19, 2025 11:53am
      - Steve Otto N Shore
        
        Sacha at 9.50.
        It is a small mental thing that I just can’t stop.
        Dentists and sharks. If you have a mako land in your boat you will know. Like a pitbull on steroids. They are just plain mad!
        
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        March 19, 2025 12:21pm
      - pdm
        
        SO/sacha – I too endured the `Old Bag Dental Nurse’ with the treadle machine.
        
        Some of he scariest trips in my life were the approx 30 minute drive from school to the nearest murder house.
        
        Put me off dentistry for life.
        
        ps I say `Old Bag Dental Nurse’ – in hindsight some of them may only have been about 30. But, I am sure you get what I mean.
        
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        March 19, 2025 1:44pm
  - pdm
    
    pw – Bob Jones would have done CMT unless he found a way to get out of it.
    
    Possibly some form of follow up territorial training as well.
    
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    March 19, 2025 8:46am
    - Cassandra
      
      It might have been CMT which put him off the military. He doesn’t like being told what to do.
      
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      March 19, 2025 8:52am
      - pdm
        
        Good point Cass.
        
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        March 19, 2025 9:03am
      - peterwn
        
        He never mentioned it in his books – he sure would have if he had done military training. I suspect the 1950’s military service requirements had just come to the end when he would have been eligible and he was too old for the 1960’s selective system.
        
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        March 19, 2025 9:05am
      - kowtow
        
        I get the impression he enjoys telling others what’s good for them though.
        
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        March 19, 2025 9:40am
      - pdm
        
        Doubt it pw.
        
        Born in 1939 so 21 in 1960 – he would have been in the mix surely.
        
        I had a relative who went in about 1964 but it was a ballot when I turned 21 in 1967.
        
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        March 19, 2025 1:49pm
      - Cassandra
        
        CMT abolished 1959, National Service introduced 1962.
        
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        March 19, 2025 2:10pm
    - Gravelroad
      
      An older chap I know went to secondary school in the 1950’s.
      An “independant” school.
      On the first day, they started a week of “cadets” . Kids (or their parents) could pick which service they wished to join- army, Air Force or navy training.
      He joined the army section.
      It wasn’t just a one off “try out”. It continued for his whole time at the school.
      So what did he learn?
      Initially it was about learning to “do as we were told”.
      Learning to work together as a group – through the ranks.
      No bullying allowed
      Training with firearms., including safety .
      Physical activity.
      Confidence building, learning opportunities and responsibility.
      Leadership skills
      For boys who were unwilling or unable to undergo this training, there were opportunities to join the “medical corps” or some other ancillary activity.
      
      I am sure there will be people reading this and thinking “how shocking and terrible” that kids did this at school (it was not not a boot camp style facility).
      It could not possibly be an option these days.
      But my friend said it gave him a whole range of useful knowledge, life experience and opportunities.
      
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      March 19, 2025 9:36am
      - Steve Otto N Shore
        
        Helicopter parents would freak out at their precious petal being shown just a photo of a gun.
        
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        March 19, 2025 9:58am
      - James Stephenson
        
        I went all the way through Scouts in the UK, from Cubs to Ventures. Learnt survival skills, shot guns and bows, climbed and caved etc etc. Every year for the six weeks or so heading up to Remembrance Sunday and the associated parade, our “Skip” had an ex-Para mate of his come along and square bash us so we wouldn’t embarrass ourselves in front of the British Legion (RSA equivalent) guys. To say that we were in awe of that maroon beret would have been an understatement and a half.
        
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        March 19, 2025 10:12am
      - I remember when
        
        Happened at state schools too.
        
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        March 19, 2025 10:15am
      - peterwn
        
        Steve – how would these ‘helicopter parents’ get on in the USA with the Second Amendment?
        
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        March 19, 2025 11:46am
      - Steve Otto N Shore
        
        Peter at 11.46.
        The helicopter parents would again freak out.
        In Alaska we went for a walk on a trail south of Anchorage with our host family.
        My partner sees a sign saying 3 black bears have been seen on the trail. The wife says can someone please walk in front of the baby stroller (5 month old in there) So I ask Jayson what is the plan if we come across them? He lifts the flap under a stroller and there is a 45, round chambered and on safe.
        Imagine that in NZ? Loaded gun in a baby pram ffs!!
        In Alaska it is quite normal to have a round chambered. Explanation is that chambering a round is a bit like trying to put a seat belt on when you are going to crash badly.
        
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        March 19, 2025 12:29pm
      - pdm
        
        GD – we did that at CHB College when I was a turdie in 1960 and it was two weeks at the start of each school year. Only option was Army but you could transfer to ATC from 4th form.
        
        Continued through my four years and I made Sergeant by seniority in the 6th form.
        
        `Sandpaper’ Khaki shorts and khaki shirts were issued.
        
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        March 19, 2025 1:54pm
      - peterwn
        
        Steve at 12.29. I have a brother in law in law in USA. Awarded a Purple Heart in Vietnam War and trained as a doctor. His daughter went on a Girl Scouts camp. He also went to the camp with a gun (concealed permit) to help keep the girls safe.
        
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        March 19, 2025 2:52pm
      - Paulus
        
        I was in the Cadet Force at school in the UK for many years and enjoyed every moment of it and wanted to join up.
        But got talked out of it as my Father was torpedoed in the First World War and the Korean War was on.
        Friends joined up in the Army and did very well to very senior ranks, and that was helped I am sure by years in the CCF, as it was called.
        
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        March 19, 2025 4:03pm
  - kowtow
    
    Yep , that puts me in mind of some bumper sticker philosophy I’ve seen .
    
    One ; outside a school ;
    
    If you can read this , thank a teacher .
    
    The other one which I prefer ;
    
    If you can read this in English , thank a soldier .
    
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    March 19, 2025 9:14am
- imalwaysright
  
  Cas
  Good point about not defending the homeland. Its not possible .
  
  Maybe, instead of calling it defense spending we should think of it as resilience spending. Invest in better transport routes, including the national highways, and maybe a satellite to ensure communications.
  The important thing is to keep NZ operational.
  
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  March 19, 2025 8:31am
- Grunter
  
  Cassandra – so just to make sure I’m following what you’re recommending. You don’t see our ‘Defence Capability Plan’ including defending New Zealand (“the homeland”)?
  
  Is that correct? If so why do you say that?
  
  Also, you say that the Plan should keep lines of communication and trade open. How do you do that when our trade lines are literally across the globe?
  
  I think for most of us, unless the Defence Plan is spelt out into specific things, then it all becomes a bit vague and academic.
  
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  March 19, 2025 8:39am
  - Cassandra
    
    Grunter: it’s too late if the enemy is at the gate. Our role will be in close cooperation with Australia.
    
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    March 19, 2025 9:14am
    - Grunter
      
      Still too vague. I can see why no one wants to spend more on vague ‘defense’ concepts. It comes across as “trust us, we know what we are doing”
      
      So I remain unconvinced. Until you have a plan that is clear and understandable, and costed out within a few 100 million then how could anyone say “Yes”?
      
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      March 19, 2025 9:58am
      - Cassandra
        
        You’re going to have to wait for the plan, Grunter. In the meantime the last plan is on the website. It’ll give you much of what you’re seeking.
        
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        March 19, 2025 11:54am
    - Cassandra
      
      And for clarity, the aim is to keep war as far from our shores as possible.
      
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      March 19, 2025 10:47am
- lastmanstanding
  
  You gotta wonder if half the Aussie voters have Stockholm Syndrome. They support Labor that have baked in a decade at least of deficits and divided the country on racial lines. Mind you the same applies in NZ.
  
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  March 19, 2025 9:05am
  - kowtow
    
    When the Administrative State brings in so many immigrants from rather dubious and distinctly undemocratic parts of the world one’s policies must be cut to suit , esp in “marginal ” city seats to stay in power.
    
    Same thing has happened in the UK in their last general election.
    
    The Europeans used to call it balkanisation.
    The Administrative State calls it multiculturalism.
    
    Rational people call it madness.
    
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    March 19, 2025 9:20am
  - leoj
    
    Exactly.
    
    Latest Curia poll has Labour forming a government.
    
    Voters have an exceptionally short memory.
    
    Then again, the namby pamby Nats are not helping. Gutless wonders who have tinkered around the edges, too scared to go back to 2017 and are largely retaining many of Labour’s policies.
    
    Meanwhile, the maori wave continues courtesy of the maori activist, Luxon.
    
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    March 19, 2025 12:26pm
- JackRabbit
  
  Defense and planning take many forms. Before you do the planning and creating strategy, you have to determine:
  (1) What are the threats?
  (2) Who are the enemy?
  
  Right now, the biggest threats are internal.
  
  And while we are on the subject: The $100Billion that Ardern, Hipkins, Robertson et all borrowed and pissed up against the wall, was enough to buy a couple of aircraft carriers, and enough jets to darken the skies.
  
  And the interest on that and on the other $100Billion of debt would fund maintenance, and training of those without work, through boot camp to turn their lives around.
  
  Postulating about external threats that might arrive on our shores in landing craft, seems more remote than that the already existing marxist infiltrators that inhabit our schools, our councils, our media, and the halls of parliament, like a virus, infecting and devouring common sense and good values.
  
  If anyone has done any serious reading and understands the enemy, they don’t take over from the outside, they do it from the inside. And the enemy has been saying this for decades. It was Stalin who spoke of seducing the west through peace programs.
  
  Hipkins, TPM, Greens, transgenderism, climate change, false pandemics etc are a much greater existential threat to NZ, that China could even dream of being.
  
  The enemy is not at the gates. The enemy is not under the bed. The enemy is in our beds, our schools, our media, our health system, our councils, our govt departments, our Parliament…
  
  The enemy is an infectious mind virus of bad ideas., coupled with devious agendas. An enemy that poisoned the population at a physical level with an experimental gene therapy, which has already killed and maimed more New Zealanders than occurred in World War 2. And thanks to a controlled, bought and paid for media, stats that are easy to find, never make it to print.
  
  NZ needs to wake up to the real threats, not overseas, not on our shores, but in our own country.
  
  And we need to learn from history. One example: The Pied Piper, is the story of a rainbow coloured gaily dressed child groomer, who stole the innocence of childhood from young children.
  
  In real time, modern Pied Pipers infect our schools, our libraries, and years before children reach puberty, these pied pipers are taking away that innocence. The are corrupting and the minds of these children, which means these children will never develop normally, and will become unbalanced adults who are easily manipulated towards dark agendas.
  
  The shadow battle fronts are our schools, our libraries, our councils, the media, health system, govt departments, and parliament itself. We need to resist the real enemy at every turn by exposing the virus to sunlight. We need to get out fellow countrymen/women to wake up and see what is happening under their noses.
  
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  March 19, 2025 9:29am
  - Grunter
    
    Rodney agrees with some of your comments above….
    https://www.bassettbrashandhide.com/post/rodney-hide-the-end-of-childhood
    
    Governments (everywhere) are the enemy. Name one Government (anywhere) that has your trust?
    
    And we want to give them more guns……very weird, why would you agree to do that? (Hint: It’s called brainwashing)
    
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    March 19, 2025 10:04am
- Tom Hunter
  
  The Yanks have just launched a very interesting drone ship for testing.
  
  Serco launched the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s No Manning Required Ship program medium unmanned surface vessel prototype, USX-1 Defiant, at its Washington shipyard last month in preparation for a series of trials that aim to bring a cost-effective USV to the U.S. Navy.
  
  From the design’s outset, the 180-foot-long, 240-ton vessel was designed without considering human habitation or protection features. According to DARPA, the NOMARS program “intends to demonstrate significant advantages,” including at-sea reliability, hydrodynamic efficiency, and stealthy features.
  
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  March 19, 2025 9:35am
  - BarryB
    
    Its hard to take many of the comments on the military section seriously. The Ukraine war has shown that all previous ideas about what the military do is obsolete.
    1. The army should be set up as a civil support outfit. Gabrielle and several other disasters have shown the need for that.
    2. The Navy certainly needs ships – coastal patrol types.
    3. Compulsory military training has shown that in countries with good democratic institutions if is of great value to the country. Take Singapore, Switzerland, Israel, S.Korea, Finland, Sweden, Denmark and others. All countries much higher up the GDP list than NZ. All with low crime, all with stable societies. All with much higher incomes than NZ. Thats where a countries real solders come from in the case of hostilities. In the mean time the ‘military’ may as well be put to good use supporting society when bad things happen – like storms and earthquakes.
    
    The south Island is overdue for a size 8 or 9 earthquake coming from the main divide fault. It might be 5, 50 or 100 years away but when it comes the South Island cities and towns will be a mess. The current resources in the military will not be very helpful.
    Give just one example – During Gabrielle a navy ship took fresh water to Gisborne(or around there somewhere) but were prevented from distributing it because the navy was not a certified distributor of fresh water…..! its that sort of crap that needs tobe sorted out in advance.
    
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    March 19, 2025 10:29am
  - JackRabbit
    
    One Word: Skynet.
    
    Skynet: A planet wide AI, with access to all systems, programmed with woke values, and the idea that mankind is killing the planet through global warming; that Covid2027 is sweeping through the population and needs to be eliminated by terminating all those that are ‘infected’.
    
    Allowing an AI programmed by people with evil intentions given full control of military and machinery?
    
    What could possibly go wrong?
    
    How can anyone know if a received order comes from the correct hierarchy; or an imposter; or an AI?
    
    Biden, a drugged up shadow of a man, with either severe cognitive decline, or drug induced mental catatonia, while others around him use the autopen to bark out orders and give treasonous actors pardons.
    
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    March 19, 2025 11:26am
Yvette

All discussion of co-governance, for example, or consideration of any other UNDRIP aspiration whatsoever, ultimately involves a need to decide who is Maori or not.
How is someone defined as Maori?
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March 19, 2025 8:19am
- RoboRob
  
  We aren’t having discussions around co-governance, Luxon said he doesn’t believe in it and his government wont do it, so no problem.
  
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  March 19, 2025 9:12am
- Grunter
  
  I ask that often whenever someone argues for more Maori treats and trinkets. “How do you determine who is a Maori and therefore receives the ‘treats & trinkets’?”
  
  I have never had a sensible response. Often a jaw-drop followed by “I never thought about that…..”
  
  Of course, there is no way to sensibly determine such a fairytale idea. So we simply rely on The Partly Maori crooks to tell us who is in and who is out…..
  
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  March 19, 2025 9:29am
  - JackRabbit
    
    “How do you determine who is a Maori and therefore receives the ‘treats & trinkets’?”
    
    A specific Iwi receive $1Bn payout.
    Trickle Down:: This gets divided by the number of Maori alive in 1840 and their ancestors that are still living. Obviously only those living qualify, and based on lineage trickle-down, no different to division of an estate.
    
    Divison: If you are 1/32 Maori you are going to receive 1/32 compared to someone who is full Maori.
    
    This sets the amount payable to all members of an Iwi.
    
    Referendum/Consensus: All those in an Iwi that received/is to receive a payout are entitled to their share, payable in cash. Unless they vote to give it to the Iwi elders, inn which case they become shareholders with rights.
    
    The Iwi, in receiving the full payout, are just doing the tribal thing from pre-1840: The Chiefs use the wealth, giving themselves trinkets and jewels while the slaves get SFA.
    
    And then the slaves keep filing more claims against the govt because Pakeha ‘stole’ from them, because they have only ever had $9.72 in payouts and then not in cash.
    
    Maori steal from Maori. John Tamihere being a good example. He has stolen from the taxpayer and his fellow Maori. If that were not true, he would be living in modest dwellings and there would be no retained profits or assets, in the entity set up to assist Maori.
    
    It is classic redistribution of wealth with a sizeable chunk removed for “administration” i.e. socialism. With a brown face.
    
    One for you, five for me.
    One for you, five for me.
    .
    .
    .
    
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    March 19, 2025 11:42am
- David George
  
  It’s a complete mess Yvette.
  Years ago I ticked both the European and Maori boxes on a health department form. That is correct as I do have a small component of Maori heritage and the rest European.
  
  Now they require to know what you “identify” as, so only tangentially aligned with race. To make the statistics even more meaningless; if you enter more than one ethnicity there’s a weird priority system. They’ve somehow deemed me to be Maori. I’m not.
  
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  March 19, 2025 9:38am
- alloytoo
  
  If we accept the concept of Co-Governance (Apartheid by any other name) and we assume that Maori will govern Maori in a Maori manner using presumably a Maori tax base.
  
  Two questions arise.
  
  Can Non-Maori exclude Maori from Non-Maori things as clearly Maori intend to exclude Non-Maori from Maori things?
  
  What about the Maori who don’t want to be governed in the Maori manner. (or contribute to Maori taxes)?
  
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  March 19, 2025 10:11am
- Burtland
  
  another Labour stuff up – the Kirk government apparently changed the definition
  
  School teacher and social warrior Sir Kerry Burke was in the thick of it who later in 2022 expressed reservations about the changes impact on ECan – he opposed NgaiTahu which got him booted out.
  
  https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/66733250/the-star-april-21-2022
  
  page 16
  
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  March 19, 2025 10:25am
- keepcalmcarryon
  
  A Midichlorian count.
  The higher the number , the more the force is strong in that one.
  
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  March 19, 2025 2:01pm
- Quail
  
  Yvette,
  Easy definition — any one in a Maori designated Corporation.
  The actual ethnicity does not matter.
  There are large numbers of non Maori working there and a lot of Maori excluded from those Corporates.
  And a strong European influence such as the Irish and Great Britain!
  
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  March 19, 2025 8:23pm
Raphael

The Daily Beast tried to do a hit job on Trump with a salacious headline of “‘Don’t Tell Melania’: Trump Once Offered Rising MAGA Star His Bed” and a tweet of “The new revelations reveal how Trump Reportedly offered a female congresswoman his bed, as long as she kept it secret from his wife.”

The real story is a very pregnant Anna Luna was suffering pre-eclampsia and when boarding the plane Trump told her if she needed to lie down, she and her husband, who was with her, could use the bed on the plane and that there was great medical staff on hand if she needed it.

https://x.com/realannapaulina/status/1901716486198043055
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March 19, 2025 8:21am
- igm
  
  The type of journalism anyone reading “Stuff” trash is familiar with.
  
  22 3
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  March 19, 2025 8:24am
  - David Garrett
    
    Igm: As an aside, I wonder if whoever writes the begging letters on Stuff – the ones that ask us to donate to support their “fiercely independent journalism”- actually believes what they write? If so, they are even more indoctrinated than their fellows.
    
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    March 19, 2025 9:31am
    - alex Masterley
      
      I ignore the begging letter thingy.
      But I do find that for some general news, as opposed to opinion, Stuff has more up to date news than the Herald.
      
      13 3
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      March 19, 2025 9:47am
      - Tarquin North
        
        I’d rather stick pins in my eyes than read either of them.
        
        6 1
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        March 19, 2025 10:08am
    - I remember when
      
      “the begging letters on Stuff”
      We are failing please help us!
      
      5 0
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      March 19, 2025 10:06am
    - Jethrod
      
      Do you have in mind The Tax Payers Union, Don Brash, ACT Free Press, Free Speech Union and a couple of others I can’t recall right now.
      All have my positive thoughts about them, but all are after my money.
      All are closely associated with the conveyor of this blog.
      
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      March 19, 2025 11:04am
      - kiwimike
        
        i support the Taxpayers Union and am a member of the FSU.
        
        1 0
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        March 19, 2025 8:26pm
- Scott
  
  It looks like Trump’s plan to end the war in Ukraine is starting to happen. This just in from Fox News –
  
  “Putin backed the idea from Trump of a mutual 30-day pause of strikes on energy infrastructure and gave that command to his military, according to TASS. It also reported that Russia will return 23 seriously wounded Ukrainian soldiers to Kyiv as a gesture of goodwill.”
  
  Trump has been talking directly to Putin about better relations, including economic, with Russia.
  
  To me this all makes good sense. Trump is doing what he said he would do and peace is looking more and more hopeful.
  
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  March 19, 2025 8:33am
  - RoboRob
    
    Sounds good, and many ‘experts’ said it would not happen. Like all these things lets give it a couple of days to see what really has or hasn’t been agreed.
    
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    March 19, 2025 9:11am
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    Trump said he would stop the war in 24 hours – but does that really matter anymore? Point is people will stop dying on both sides.
    
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    March 19, 2025 10:15am
  - Ehlana
    
    How about, as a gesture of common decency, returning the kidnapped children?
    
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    March 19, 2025 10:47am
  - Stu2
    
    Didn’t Fox mention it isn’t a cease fire at all – the fighting goes on. But strikes on energy systems are to cease.
    
    And western supply of intelligence and arms to Ukraine are to cease. Ukraine has been doing significant damage to the Russian system
    
    It is utterly ridiculous.
    
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    March 19, 2025 11:35am
    - Dudley Quaffquaff
      
      So in exchange for briefly not attacking civilian targets – Putin requires the Ukrainian military to be rendered blind and helpless while he continues to attack them?
      
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      March 19, 2025 12:56pm
      - Eastlander
        
        Civilian deaths and injuries as of January 31st were 12,605 and 29,178 respectively. There have been few if any attacks targeting civilians.
        
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        March 19, 2025 3:29pm
      - Stu2
        
        The Ukraine hasn’t agreed to it – there might be a counter offer. Ongoing hostilities and no support isn’t going to cut it, but the Ukraine won’t want to upset Trump again if they can avoid it.
        
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        March 19, 2025 3:57pm
    - Stu2
      
      Correction – “And western supply of intelligence and arms to Ukraine are to cease”
      
      That is a Russian condition of a peace agreement, not happening right now
      
      The early reports on the discussion weren’t totally clear
      
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      March 19, 2025 6:12pm
  - MCōs
    
    Is that all Trump got out of the phone call?
    Stop attacks on energy infrastructure and return nominal number of pow?
    
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    March 19, 2025 11:44am
  - herb1
    
    No this isn’t a good deal and once again Trump is out thought. Russian attacks on infrastructure make Ukrainians cold with little effect on their military capability , as all their manufacturing plants will have generators. On the other hand Ukrainian attacks on Russian infrastructure have been on oil facilities, which generate the income Russia needs to conduct the war. Now they they won’t have to worry about running out of money and also running out of fuel for their few remaining tanks etc
    
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    March 19, 2025 1:27pm
- imalwaysright
  
  People put Trump under the morality microscope, but they don’t seem concerned about the morals of their doctor, taxi driver, restaurant cook, plumber, electrician etc. All people with a direct and potentially serious influence on their personal wellbeing.
  
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  March 19, 2025 8:58am
- RoboRob
  
  How many of the stories we hear about Trump are like this, exaggeration and spin. Talk about spinning a good news / nice story into something nasty.
  
  No wonder the MAGA crew just ignore everything negative said about Trump. The problem being that some of it could be true.
  
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  March 19, 2025 9:09am
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    The media are at him from all angles all the time.
    Some of it could be true? Media report the truth? Doubt it, they can’t.
    
    5 2
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    March 19, 2025 10:20am
- Ghost
  
  The issue isn’t the daily beast. They are reporting on the contents of a new book. They’ve actually taken the story from the uk media. Unlike the independent the daily beast included the release from Luna. The issue is the book written by Axios reporter Alex Isenstadt.
  
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  March 19, 2025 9:16am
- Dudley Quaffquaff
  
  There’s enough real and incontrovertible evidence, directly recorded from Trump’s own mouth, that in his attitudes and behaviour towards women he makes a dog turd look like a Faberge egg. This incident, whatever the truth of it and who knows what that might be, does not and cannot change that.
  
  It’s just an example of the habit journalists have of making up titillating headlines that get you to click on a story about nothing. Eg, “You won’t BELIEVE Princess Kate’s two-word response when she met Elton John!” and it turns out that she said “Good morning”. “What Meghan’s Suits co-stars REALLY think of her!” and it turns out that somebody who once appeared as an extra said they saw her being polite from across the room. This is what you get when media has to operate as a commercial undertaking
  
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  March 19, 2025 9:47am
- G152
  
  Number 1 Media lie
  Number 2 Refer to Number 1
  
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  March 19, 2025 9:58am
I remember when

Been wondering about ‘dangerous’ dogs?
*Dog Attacks: In the year to June, there were almost 2500 dog attacks in Auckland, which is 250 more than for the same time the previous year.
*Menacing dogs: Auckland Council has classified 5410 dogs as menacing in Auckland, meaning they were required to be neutered.
* Dog Attack in Manurewa leaves two seriously injured: NZ Herald. 16/2/25.
* South Auckland Dog Attack: Mother-of-six mauled by pit bulls thought she would die on footpath: NZ Herald. 22/11/24.
* Child hospitalised after second dog attack at Taipa Beach sparks safety concerns: Northern Advocate. 19/2/24.

So not all dogs are man’s best friend!
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March 19, 2025 8:32am
- JackRabbit
  
  Must be something in the water supply?
  
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  March 19, 2025 9:34am
- wsk12345
  
  Menacing is a breed based classification. Anerican pit bulls, dogo, and a couple others specified in legislation. Absolutely stupid as a pitty brought up right is an awesome safe family dog and I retriever brought up erin can be hugely problematic. I have known many great pitties and several “family breeds” that require close management. Dangerous is a classification based on deed, eg if a dog has bitten someone badly or rushed people or attacked another dog. I know several “by deed” dogs – they are awesome with people but hate other dogs hence the muzzle off your property requirement that goes with the classification. Dogs thst are classified as dangerous as a result of person incident ts are pretty rare as most are out to sleep.
  
  As always, classified dogs can live perfectly good safe lives with good owners. Bad owners don’t follow the rules, dogs wander and get into trouble etc. the good owners are the ones that get more regulation.
  
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  March 19, 2025 9:52am
- sirknz
  
  Show me a dangerous dog and I will show you a dog owner who shouldn’t be allowed to have kids.
  
  We’ve got an American Staffy and she looks like a menacing dog, the only worry you’ve got is her trying to lick your face when she sees you for the first 30 or 40 times. She even puts up with the 2 year old climbing on her and giving her lots of affection.
  
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  March 19, 2025 9:59am
- Matt Long
  
  And I thought compulsory microchipping was going to stop the dog attacks, maybe if we made it two micro chips and increased fines for failing to microchip.
  
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  March 19, 2025 10:33am
  - kowtow
    
    Like most ‘promises” of improvements from the Administrative State .
    
    Taxes will stop the world boiling.
    Anti parenting ( smacking) legislation will save the murdered babies.
    Prostitution law reform will get the hookers off the streets and protect them.
    
    Etc
    
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    March 19, 2025 11:03am
  - wsk12345
    
    That’s what our council thinks. More regs for dog owners that follow the rules. Punish the good owners.
    
    3 0
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    March 19, 2025 2:10pm
- Jethrod
  
  Oh don’t you know that it’s black power and other mongrels who have increased the total.
  
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  March 19, 2025 11:09am
- keepcalmcarryon
  
  We need a dog register!
  
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  March 19, 2025 2:02pm
- Bobba Fret
  
  I got bitten by a neighbors Rhodesian Ridgeback last year on another neighbors neutral property. I blame the dog owner more as he had it on a ridiculously long lead (no muzzle) and he didn’t keep it under control and let it cross a three metre driveway to get at me. Everyone in the street knows the dog is not friendly, but I’m sure it is a good guard dog for them. Like many people that shouldn’t be dog owners they said “oh she is never normally like that”
  
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  March 19, 2025 3:47pm
  - Matt Long
    
    All dangerous animals are never like “that,” until they are.
    
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    March 19, 2025 7:13pm
cmm

For the last few months I have been using a taxi rather than buying a second car for occasional trips. This has given me an opportunity to interact with taxi drivers – an interesting bunch of people.

Most of the taxi drivers in Christchurch are Sikh, Afghani or Pakistani. Yesterday, I had an Afghani guy who had a different slant on things.

Most of the Afghans seem to somewhat blame foreign interference for part of the problems in Afghanistan. Not this guy.

He was strongly of the opinion that Afghanistan functions better when there is a strong foreign occupying force. Without it, he said, the civil conflicts (hard to really call them civil wars) tear the country apart. (That’s good old Pax Romana/Pax Britannica – something Maori benefited from here, but we can leave that discussion for now)

The British were there for many years. When they left – chaos. Then the Russians brought some order, then chaos, then the Americans, then chaos.

“Who is next? Maybe the Chinese? I hope they come soon and stay for a long time.”

He could be right. Regardless, it was not what I was expecting.
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March 19, 2025 8:39am
- AitchW
  
  The problem with that view is that a great number of his countrymen don’t share it and devote their lives to killing and maiming the occupiers.
  Afghanistan, like pretty much every Muslim country, is a basket case, run by religious nutters and populated largely by brainwashed adherants to the faith.
  Until Islam is crushed I can see no change to that state of affairs.
  
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  March 19, 2025 9:19am
  - Pope Punctilious II
    
    How would you propose to “crush” Islam?
    
    4 2
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    March 19, 2025 12:28pm
    - kowtow
      
      Are you looking for ideas , seeing as you’re a Pope .
      
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      March 19, 2025 4:47pm
- Mike
  
  None of those three ‘brought some order’ to Afghanistan.
  
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  March 19, 2025 9:46am
  - Yabster
    
    tell the woman that milk…
    
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    March 19, 2025 10:11am
  - MCōs
    
    Of course they didn’t bring order to the place otherwise it wouldn’t be chaos when they left
    
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    March 19, 2025 11:51am
  - cmm
    
    Mike you seem deliberately opposed to seeing any of the very obvious benefits to colonisation.
    
    Of course it helps to have high quality colonisers. Preferably British. Portuguese are not too bad. Belgians and Germans to be avoided if at all possible.
    
    2 1
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    March 19, 2025 4:38pm
- sirknz
  
  The only thing muslims seem to respond to is a big stick, if you don’t have a big stick, or are unwilling to use your big stick to keep them in line, they will keep pushing for more and more ridiculous demands.
  
  Demands like the woman here in NZ who was pushing for halal KFC a few years ago, or the ones in England pusing for the banning of pork products near their enclaves.
  
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  March 19, 2025 9:55am
- Gravelroad
  
  Did you ask him why the women there have to dress in black shroud garments and face grills and the girls are not allowed to go to secondary school?
  And why the adults support child marriage?
  Afghanistan cricket team goes ok though. But I don’t suppose they actually live there….
  
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  March 19, 2025 10:40am
- kowtow
  
  “Who is next? Maybe the Chinese? I hope they come soon and stay for a long time.”
  
  Will he go back when they provide the security he so craves.
  
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  March 19, 2025 11:05am
JerJer

Looks like Hamas reneged on their agreement with Israel and are starting to receive their deserved punishment….again. I await the idiot John Minto dusting off his flag collection so he can take up residence on some street corner where I can drive past and give him the finger…like normal.
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March 19, 2025 8:42am
- kowtow
  
  As usual the media have presented this as Israel being the aggressor .
  
  Hamas still holds hostages .The world is happy to ignore the fate of the hostages.
  
  What country can be expected to be ‘restrained” , when a criminal terrorist entity holds its citizens hostage .Esp in the context of and after the appalling genocidal events of Oct 7 .
  
  Interesting though the level of hyped up coverage ,as usual when IDF involved , relative to the lack of coverage on the recent appalling events in Syria against minorities there , at the hands of the Sunnis.
  
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  March 19, 2025 9:55am
- keepcalmcarryon
  
  He has been handwringing over at The Daily Blog.
  
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  March 19, 2025 2:03pm
- pb
  
  Support for Palestine is growing though.
  
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  March 19, 2025 8:15pm
  - MCōs
    
    According to Gallup support for Israel is at its lowest point ever in the USA
    https://www.timesofisrael.com/poll-americans-support-for-israel-at-record-low-backing-for-palestinians-at-all-time-high/
    
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    March 19, 2025 11:48pm
Ghost

JFK files to be released today

President Donald Trump plans to release about 80,000 pages of material related to the 1963 assassination of President John F Kennedy on Wednesday (NZT) seeking to honour his campaign promise to provide more transparency about the shock event in Texas.

“It’s a lot of stuff, and you’ll make your own determination,” Trump told reporters about the pages on Monday.

Article

They will be available at https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk
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March 19, 2025 9:02am
- Ghost
  
  First lot of scanned documents now up
  
  https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/release-2025
  
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  March 19, 2025 12:09pm
  - pb
    
    Why did Jack Rubinstein step in. Was JFK threatening to end Israel’s nuclear ambitions, and was he punished. What is Numec. Did the CIA act alone. The waters are too muddy. I suspect the toothpaste will never go back in.
    
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    March 19, 2025 8:23pm
  - Ghost
    
    Researchers are finding a large portion of documents previously released under Biden have been rereleased by trumps people. The promise that they would be not be redacted parts in the documents is false.
    
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    March 19, 2025 8:33pm
    - MCōs
      
      Guess those researchers must have drawn the short straw
      
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      March 19, 2025 11:51pm
Jack5

David Seymour’s announcement that ACT will contest local body elections is a smart move for the party.

It’s also welcome news to ratepayers. This should provide an alternative on voting papers to the Woke profligates in shades of Green and Brown who have swarmed into a local-bodies political vacuum.

Local body politics could again become the training college, the proving ground, for potential Parliamentary candidates.

https://www.act.org.nz/act_looks_to_stand_candidates_in_local_council_elections
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March 19, 2025 9:03am
- RoboRob
  
  A very clever idea and good for the Act party. It will be nice to have something clearer then Labour & independant to chose from. Especially when much of the independant are just Labour and Green people too!
  
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  March 19, 2025 9:16am
- Yabster
  
  yes- may even motivate National to get off their butts- Liemore have been running candidates for years without fully disclosing if they are endorsed by Labour the candidates have to vote along Labour policy lines.
  
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  March 19, 2025 9:37am
- Mike
  
  Judging by their performance at the national level, they could expect to elect a scattered few councilors across the country. It’d be a good way to get a group of party activists paid for by ratepayers
  
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  March 19, 2025 9:49am
  - Yabster
    
    maybe so- similar to Liemore and the Greens huh…?
    
    7 1
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    March 19, 2025 10:13am
  - RoboRob
    
    If I want, and I do, to select more right leaning candidates in local body elections I no longer need to guess which independant might be a right winger based on a 200 word self written statement. I suspect right wing voters who dont support Act might select the Act candidate just to be sure they are not selecting a secret lefty. Remember Goff stood for mayor as an independant!
    
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    March 19, 2025 10:13am
    - Mike
      
      The statements in those candidate information booklets are awful rubbish.
      
      4 2
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      March 19, 2025 1:09pm
      - Conservatarian
        
        In my most recent council by-election, I voted for the candidate who put the most clear and plain English statement into the brochure. An absolute genius of man who earned every one of votes he received.
        
        He made a brilliantly cutting polemic on the council’s anti-car extremism. He memorably described our city’s roads as a “clownish obstacle course” full of traffic cones and with speed bumps before every traffic light and roundabout and random speed bumps wherever a child might possibly one day walk or 10 council employees might cycle.
        
        He noted the multitude of confusing signage everywhere warning of deathtraps called “kura” and the speed restrictions requiring motorists to constantly vary their maximum speed from 30 to 80 km/h each time they drive for more than 500m.
        
        Of course, he was routed and Hamiltonians voted in a former National Party MP as the new councillor.
        
        4 1
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        March 19, 2025 3:41pm
  - Ghost
    
    Bit like what the greens and labour do. Huh.
    
    10 1
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    March 19, 2025 10:16am
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  All this will do is split the vote and allow even more greenie nut bars into councils
  
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  March 19, 2025 11:26am
  - Steve Todd
    
    Not in Dunedin, Wellington, Palmerston North, etc., G. We have PR/STV.
    
    5 0
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    March 19, 2025 11:44am
  - RoboRob
    
    Nope. Split the the vote how? There are zero people voting for National candidates in local body elections currently. There are a group of independants that may or may not be National aligned but nobody ever knows who they are.
    
    I for one look forward to not having to guess who a right wing candidate is. For example in CHCH last election we had Major and a Doctor to vote for as mayor. I guessed the Major, as a business man, was more right leaning then the Doctor who I guessed was likely more lefty. I have no idea If I was right about either. If the doctor stood for Act he would have had my vote.
    
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    March 19, 2025 11:59am
Swifty

LGNZ pumps scarce ratepayer funds into job creation schemes:

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/545267/council-quits-local-government-new-zealand-calling-it-far-left

Rather than the essentials like water infrastructure, local roading, parks etc?

Who knew?

Never mind, it seems like LGNZ is shedding members like a stag sheds it’s coat at the end of winter.

Soon it won’t be viable.
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March 19, 2025 9:06am
- Yabster
  
  yep Auckland and Christchurch pulled out of the woke outfit years ago- it headed by the biggest woke mayor in the country Sam Broughton- who unfortunately is running again for Selwyn- LGNZ supported 3 waters big time.
  
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  March 19, 2025 10:15am
colina

Feminism has shifted to ‘anti-Westernism

This is well worth watching it helps to clarify ones understanding of the lefts unhinged behavior.
https://www.skynews.com.au/opinion/chris-kenny/feminism-has-shifted-to-antiwesternism/video/90e64164e4986157e8c0f900cd4ee9b9
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March 19, 2025 9:13am
NZGUY

Message to Mods:

I tried to send an email from my gmail account to editor@kiwiblog.co.nz, getting following error:

Message not delivered
Your message couldn’t be delivered to editor@kiwiblog.co.nz because the remote server is misconfigured. See technical details below for more information.
The response from the remote server was:
554 5.7.1 : Relay access denied

[Mods- thanks, have given your message to DPF]
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March 19, 2025 9:40am
Steve Otto N Shore

Tribute To The Passing Of One Of New Zealand’s Great Men – Historian Bruce Moon.
No doubt the Maori activist academics will be rejoicing.
“The Fair Colony.” I have it in my bookshelf. Seems he died last Tuesday 11th.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qnbe8ItgvZ8
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March 19, 2025 9:47am
- Mike
  
  Not an historian; a physicist.
  
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  March 19, 2025 9:52am
  - Cassandra
    
    A retired physicist who became a historian, so both.
    
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    March 19, 2025 10:55am
    - Steve Otto N Shore
      
      [Mod – debate the topics]
      
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      March 19, 2025 11:22am
    - Mike
      
      Not really recognized as an historian, whether or not one thinks historians should haver academic credentials.
      
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      March 19, 2025 11:22am
  - Yabster
    
    what a repulsive comment about a man who has just died- clearly a highly regarded Historian -not so by the lying left though.
    
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    March 19, 2025 1:18pm
    - Mike
      
      A ‘highly regarded historian’ would be cited by others. Moon’s output was so derisory that no one bothered to review it.
      
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      March 19, 2025 5:08pm
- RalphT
  
  Steve, I think you might be confusing the 95 year old Bruce with the much younger and still alive Paul, a historian at AUT.
  
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  March 19, 2025 10:00am
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    They are not related.
    The link takes you to a Youtube video. It is all explained in the comments.
    Bruce Moon was 74, born 1951.
    
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    March 19, 2025 11:23am
    - Steve Todd
      
      No, Steve. You appear to be confusing the recently departed Bruce Moon with this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Moon.
      
      The scientist and amateur historian, Bruce Moon, of Nelson, was 95: b. 30 January 1930, died 11 March 2025 (see, for example, https://natlib.govt.nz/records/35829905).
      
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      March 19, 2025 12:09pm
      - Steve Otto N Shore
        
        No.
        https://deaths.nelsonmail.co.nz/nz/obituaries/nelson-mail-nz/name/bruce-moon-obituary?
        https://treatygate.wordpress.com/category/writing/bruce-moon/
        Bruce Alex McGeorge MOON.
        Best watch the video link Steve.
        
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        March 19, 2025 12:45pm
      - Yabster
        
        [Mod – comment without the abuse] Todd- the person Steve is referring to is exactly the one he was meant to be referring too.
        
        4 2
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        March 19, 2025 1:17pm
      - Steve Todd
        
        Oh, for goodness’ sake. Steve, we are referring to the same guy, but he was 95, not 74. Where do you get 74 from? Not from the video, or comments. In fact, Julian Batchelor says that Bruce Moon “reached out to him like a father”.
        
        Julian Batchelor is 66 (born 4 May 1958). Let’s say Moon “reached out” to Batchelor, say, eight years ago. Batchelor would not say that a 66-year-old (Moon) “reached out” to a 58-year-old (Batchelor) “like a father”. But certainly an 87-year-old might.
        
        See a photograph of Moon, here (the same one as on your video), https://www.democracyaction.org.nz/bruce_moon_talks_on_the_treaty, taken probably seven years ago. That person is not 67; he is mid- to late-80s.
        
        I rest my case.
        
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        March 19, 2025 1:42pm
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    @Steve Todd 1.42.
    You are probably correct with Bruce Moon’s age being 95. I don’t know where I got 74 from. I went searching but wherever it was that I found it, it has been corrected.
    I did say it was in the video comments. It is not there now – not even corrected.
    At the time I saw 74 I thought shit, only 2 years older than me.
    So apologies for getting the age wrong..
    In hindsight there seems to be another American physicist/historian with the same name.
    
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    March 19, 2025 3:44pm
    - Steve Todd
      
      Thank you, Steve. But I’m annoyed that, even now, you still can only say that I’m “probably correct.”
      
      Did you even look at the National Library link I gave you in my 12:09PM response to you? Did you not see his full name (Moon, Bruce Alex McGeorge), on the left-hand side, under Names, and his date of birth (30 January 1930) in the first line of the Description in the body of the article?
      
      See also Not PC, here, https://pc.blogspot.com/2025/03/vale-bruce-moon-1930-2025.html.
      
      Clearly, you got his age ( your 74) from the Bruce Moon link I gave you at 12:09PM, which references “an American art therapist, educator, artist, and author (born c. 1951)”, but you couldn’t even admit that, stating, “there seems to be another American physicist/historian with the same name”, of whom I can find no evidence, whatsoever.
      
      A very poor show on your part, Steve.
      
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      March 19, 2025 5:46pm
Burtland

the electric car revolution continues apace in China …

BYD have introduced their 1000V Super e-Platform – charging rate is 1MW giving 400km range in 5min. Tesla’s max charging rate is currently 250kW

So the car charging issues are conquered – now they have to sort the supply side – Manapouri is 800MW – 800 cars charging simultaneously

BYD have over 700,000 employees, with over 110,000 engineers
Trump employs tariffs for prosperity – China trains engineers – NZ pursues marxism

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/mar/18/ev-maker-byd-batteries-charge-shares-elon-musk-tesla
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March 19, 2025 9:48am
- JackRabbit
  
  1MW (1 car) is more than available spare capacity on most substations.
  
  The instantaneous drain, not the total KW/MW transferred is the concern.
  
  1MW is just shy of twice the output of lower Roaring Meg.
  
  Three only 1MW chargers would consume all of Roaring Meg output.
  
  https://www.pioneerenergyrenewables.co.nz/our-locations/roaring-meg-hydro
  
  Or to put it into perspective, the instantaneous draw for charging one EV would required the full power output of a couple of D series locomotives.
  
  Charging 800 EVs in your example would require plunging NZ into darkness.
  
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  March 19, 2025 12:06pm
  - JerJer
    
    Yep. So EVs are still failing. I see they mix hybrids and EVs together now and say EVs are still growing market share when it is mostly hybrids and not EVs being sold. EVs decreasing in market share whereas Hybrids are increasing.
    
    As you say, they are promoting a non-viable solution here as a step forward, which is not going to work….again.
    
    I was always wondering why these manufacturers make it so hard to replace batteries as one obvious solution to the battery solution is to make them standardized and hot-swappable. I see it has finally dawned on one of these nitwits that this may be feasible and they are now talking about it. However that will fail too, as, because we now all know these batteries are volatile and tend to explode if they have been tampered with an damaged in the slightest way. So, although this seems like a good idea, I am not sure I would ever trust a gas station attendant to hot-swap what is in effect a large bomb in my car where I do not no any of the history of it. I’m not sure either whether I would like me new battery being swapped out with some old shitty battery with half the range either.
    
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    March 19, 2025 12:44pm
  - wsk12345
    
    As long as the charging is somewhat predictable it will be happily managed by redispatch and reserves. People used to make a cuppa at half time in the rugby 30 years ago. It was a massive spike in demand as everyone put their kettle on 10 Sec after the half time whistle but it was predicted by the dispatchers so never an issue.
    
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    March 19, 2025 2:18pm
    - JackRabbit
      
      As long as the charging is somewhat predictable it will be happily managed by redispatch and reserves.
      
      Yeah Right.
      
      Man rocks up to a vacant 1MW charger on a Friday afternoon. Hooks up and opens the app.
      
      “Current nationwide EV allocation is 100MW which is coming from Huntley coal power station. You are number 3250 in the queue. Charging should start in approx 178 minutes.
      
      If you would like to keep NZ Green, consider coming back at 3am when your electricity will be entirely sourced from hydro, or on Sunday when it will be windy and you can top up with wind power.”
      
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      March 19, 2025 7:29pm
- Fender
  
  What rubbish, “charging issues are conquered “
  Its all just lab tests , nothing concrete built yet or in near future and they openly admit they have no idea on what it will do to degenerate battery condition longterm
  As any new smart phone now has the ability to slow charge and not to full because its a fact quick hot charging damages the cells
  Drills won’t charge until the battery is cool to protect the battery
  Then theres the OSH safety
  You are going to let a member of the public openly handle a 1m connection , you may as well just leave the doors of the street transformers open
  Imagine how easily someone could die with that power
  BY D may be leading but the problems are far from solved
  
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  March 19, 2025 1:00pm
I remember when

Twin Study suggests tattoos may raise skin cancer risk: Centrist.
“Among 316 twin pairs, the siblings with tattoos had a 33-62% higher likelihood of being diagnosed with cancer, with larger tattoos (bigger than a palm) tripling the risk.
While the finding do not prove tattoos cause cancer, they raise concerns about long-term health effects.
Biostatistician Signe Bedsted Clemmenson notes that ink particles accumulate in lymph nodes potentially triggering an ongoing immune response.”

Another potential health outcome tsunami?
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March 19, 2025 9:49am
- David Garrett
  
  I remember: As I understand it, tattoo removal places are opening all over the show, and the obsession with drawing on yourself is decreasing.
  
  I’m just glad my daughter resisted said obsession – at least in terms of what is visible!
  
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  March 19, 2025 10:12am
  - RoboRob
    
    Its mostly woman getting them too. I believe a survey found more then 50% of woman have tattoos.
    
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    March 19, 2025 10:16am
    - NeverMindTheBollocks
      
      So daring!
      
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      March 19, 2025 12:45pm
  - wsk12345
    
    Someone I know is a tattooist, very successful. His wife’s business does laser tattoo removals which come with a free tattoo…..
    
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    March 19, 2025 2:20pm
- RoboRob
  
  Lol, yet another thing that causes cancer. I stopped paying attention 30 odd years ago when a study found apples caused cancer.
  
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  March 19, 2025 10:18am
- NothingLeft
  
  I wonder how much is lifestyle related – eg people who get tattoos perhaps doing things that give cancer more like smoking, drinking, time in sun or maybe doing blue-collar activities that expose to carcinogens etc. This would be particularly true of older age groups – before it became common in middle class.
  
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  March 19, 2025 10:25am
- cmm
  
  Well, yes, it could be tattoos causing the problem, but it could be something else too. Tattoos could just be a statistical marker for other factors.
  
  For example, quite likely people who tattoo themselves are also more likely to smoke, drink, eat crap food or whatever. It might not be that tattoos themselves directly causing cancer.
  
  It is a bit like that observation that people who eat KFC are more likely to have cars that fail WoF. There is nothing in KFC that causes tyres to go bald or damages your suspension, but consumption of KFC is a marker for lower socio-economic status – resulting in people with older and crappier cars.
  
  Still, it is worth investigation.
  
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  March 19, 2025 10:37am
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  I have a few tattoos, done when young and stupid at 16 – 18.
  I have low level prostate cancer – must be the tattoos.
  When will we see a study about even reading about what causes cancers actually causes cancer? Take it all with a truckload of salt!
  
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  March 19, 2025 11:36am
  - cmm
    
    SO: You’re a bloke. If I recall you are more senior than me.
    
    Over 80% of men develop prostate cancer. If we measured prostate cancer deaths they way they measure Covid deaths, then over 80% of men would be dying of prostate cancer.
    
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    March 19, 2025 11:43am
    - Steve Otto N Shore
      
      I know most oldie men get it. Prostate cancer is much more common than thought. I am lucky it is minor. 2/12 on the Gleason scale.
      Further one 2 years after was under anesthetic, 35 samples all clear. That is when I had anaphylaxis from suxamethonium. So it is malignant but stable and not increasing.
      At least we don’t have Ardern and her fear porn/gaslighting counting results.
      
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      March 19, 2025 12:56pm
    - MCōs
      
      I think you’re referring to enlarged prostate
      
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      March 19, 2025 1:50pm
      - cmm
        
        Cancer.
        
        80% of men will have prostate cancer cells present. For the majority of them it is low levels that are developing too slowly to impact on life outcomes.
        
        But if were counting the Covid way (ie. tick the box for the slightest amount detected), then all those 80% would be dying of prostate cancer.
        
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        March 19, 2025 2:13pm
      - Steve Otto N Shore
        
        Mine just happens to be small, not increasing in size.
        
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        March 19, 2025 4:37pm
sirknz

Is there nothing that can’t be made worse by a government or government adjacent organisation?

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/hawkes-bay-today/news/closed-post-boxes-overflowing-with-mail-after-vandals-rip-down-signs/O7MI3SS6LBCYNIT2X3UQNVUFNU/

How difficult is it to schedule the removal of a post box that is no longer in use?

It’s not like it was a 5 minutes ago decision, it would have been flagged months in advance and any half competent organisation could’ve scheduled the removal within days of them being closed for use.
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March 19, 2025 9:51am
- greybeard
  
  Apparently these “unused” mailboxes are still very much used, if people are filling them to overflowing !
  
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  March 19, 2025 10:04am
- Flossie
  
  You do have to wonder why on earth it was not removed. A notice stuck on it letting you know where you can post your letter was obviously not sensible if it was removed.
  
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  March 19, 2025 10:25am
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  The vandals must be low rent morons to do this. What do they gain?
  Almost as if NZ Post leaves the boxes there to give vandals something to do.
  9 months or more to remove a box? A small digger could just rip it out.
  
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  March 19, 2025 11:46am
  - sirknz
    
    They could possibly train one of the millions of let go public sector employees to do this in less than 5 minutes.
    
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    March 19, 2025 1:52pm
    - Steve Otto N Shore
      
      Ex public sector employee with a digger? Not a good idea.
      
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      March 19, 2025 4:39pm
- rouppe
  
  Wouldn’t it cost at least double to
  1. Send someone out to put the sign on
  2. Send someone out to replace the vandalised / removed sign, maybe more than once
  3. Send someone out to remove the post box
  
  Than to
  
  Just send someone out to remove the post box the first time?
  
  The other thing about that story was the woman who put her screening test pack in that defunct post box and now apparently is still waiting for the result.
  
  Once you realised the post box wasn’t being cleared, wouldn’t you realise that your screen sample is now no longer valid and contact hnz to get a replacement test pack?
  
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  March 19, 2025 2:46pm
  - Ghost
    
    Do you just remove the post box?
    
    Or do you need council consent to remove postbox. Consultation on how to remove the post box. Traffic control to detour traffic around the removal of the post box. Roading company to come and replace a section of the footpath. Blessings for each procedure. Mayor to officially reopen the footpath.
    
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    March 19, 2025 2:58pm
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    These people ‘work’ in mysterious ways.
    
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    March 19, 2025 4:42pm
Ra Henare

On a non political? note

Just finished a 2-week trip to NZ, 1 week north, one week south.
Looking at NZ thru my companion’s tourist eyes. Amazing what I have taken for granted the last 50 years.

1. Toilet paper is required. Yuk poo. No bidet aka Bum Guns.

2. Road cones are still a curse, especially the South Island. 100 metres of cones before a 2 square metre road repair.

3. Without Indian? Immigrants. The service industry and small retail would collapse.

4. Motels/hotels are ridiculously expensive.
Worst example to me is the IBIS at Auckland airport. A 2 star budget hotel charging $250 a night. Market forces at work. IBIS can charge, so they do. PS. I remember when it was built as a Formulae 1 and $40 a night was top price.

5. The air is clean

6. The country is clean and green(no matter what the naysayers say).

7. South island driving is bliss with buggar all traffic. Overall, the amusement was campervans/caravans(small houses) and boats. and the comment, not much traffic!!!! even in Cities its all very orderly

8. Kiwis are good at obeying “”the rules”” no matter how daft. Ie waiting for a green cross now at pedestrian crossing when the road both ways is empty.

9. Asian meals are ridiculously priced. Twizel asian lunch $75 (we are used to 20NZD being a flash lunch)

10. Kiwi steaks are cheap and delicious from supermarket.

11. Same goes for good bread (and baked beans)

12 China Southern & Jetstar were great to travel with. No Maori mumbo jumbo.

13. Rental cars were great and relatively cheap(and many choices) Shout out to Snap Rentals.

I enjoyed the trip home and testing the trump/anti trump.Consumers of NZ MSM anti trump, free thinkers pro Trump policies couldnt care less about his personality.

Funnily enough, a few friends(older) with Maori ancestry think the race thing is a load of bollocks. Except one 16th part man thought he got knee operations faster because he ticked Maori. But special privileges, benefits should stop.

The younger generation(non Maori) are happy with Maori getting “”recognised”” as indigenous people who have suffered colonisation. Yep academia achieving its Marxist agenda. Divide and destroy.

Oh, except for two rainy part days. The weather was perfect.

Toodlepip
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March 19, 2025 9:53am
- wsk12345
  
  Good timing. Lucky you didn’t come on Dec-fed – the so called summer rhst wasn’t.
  
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  March 19, 2025 2:24pm
- MCōs
  
  I’m in Thailand for a couple of months after a break of almost five years
  Generally speaking not much has changed
  The air is filthy from farmers burning off at this time of year. The government always says they’re clamping down on, but nothing happens
  Huge road toll. Huge drug problem. Huge murder rate!
  Cars and utes on the road seem to be far newer than NZ, but they’re no cheaper. Litre 91 $1.90
  Min wage less than $20/day consequently motorbikes everywhere
  Excruciating corruption which you come to expect
  It’s the rule of the jungle on the roads, which works surprisingly well until it doesn’t
  
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  March 19, 2025 2:31pm
  - Ra Henare
    
    Sounds like you should not be in Thailand with that negative list of life there.!!!!
    
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    March 20, 2025 7:58pm
Master Mariner

A interesting development regarding a US “Letter of intent” from US funded organisations abroad.

Australian Universities in Meltdown over Trump’s brutal questions – Topher Project Ep 029
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUFfGlmw4PA

Take it further and look at US funded NZ universities and even News ( via GroupM, Internews).
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March 19, 2025 10:07am
Bridgenag

kitten corner: the JFK files
a kittenspiracy, by gatito bueno

https://open.substack.com/pub/boriquagato/p/kitten-corner-the-jfk-files?r=1aj1bv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
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March 19, 2025 10:28am
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  That is very clever.
  
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  March 19, 2025 11:59am
cmm

Dear Mr Luxon

Next time you hear a plane flying overhead towards the West consider who is on board.

Every year we are losing 44000 of our best and brightest overseas. That is 120 a day. About a reasonable number for a one-way flight to Australia. Per day.

Those 120 people are our future economy and skill set. They are our doctors, nurses, engineers. They are our diesel mechanics, hospital orderlies, etc. 120 or them. Per day.

They are also over $1M of tax revenue. Per day.

Those are 120 people who are not feeling there is a future in NZ. 120 people who have waited for a clear message and eventually got frustrated and gave up. 120 of them. Per day.

Wave when they fly over. They probably won’t see you, but hey, none of your other messaging is getting through so you may as well try that. Can’t hurt.
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March 19, 2025 10:32am
- Interested Party
  
  Having personally lived overseas for 10 years, some of our best and brightest are going overseas, not all, and not all are our best and brightest
  
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  March 19, 2025 11:06am
  - cmm
    
    Of course it is “not all”, but it is a substantial number and there are less and less of our best and brightest remaining.
    
    Who are fleeing? Not beneficiaries. It is mainly people with high value skillsets who see far greater opportunities elsewhere.
    
    I spoke with someone recently who interacts a lot with new grads (and soon-to-be grads) in Computer Science and similar at University of Canterbury. He tells me that around 80% are leaving.
    
    But it isn’t just computer science graduates. It is all skilled people: nurses, cops, diesel mechanics, …
    
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    March 19, 2025 11:50am
    - Steve Otto N Shore
      
      Skilled people who are sick of being taxed to the hilt and seeing those tax dollars basically given away. They have just had enough of being the Govt’s ATM.
      
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      March 19, 2025 12:03pm
      - cmm
        
        Most high earners are well educated and want good education for their kids too. When they see schools slumping then that’s not something they are looking for.
        
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        March 19, 2025 2:15pm
- Allan
  
  That is something I am curious to know.
  
  Who is it that is fleeing?
  
  Where can one find the demogrphic statistics on emmigrants?
  
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  March 19, 2025 11:24am
  - Master Mariner
    
    I am sure DIA have an accurate database from Departure cards.
    Age, Names, Departing permanently etc etc.
    Its the “Why” which has eluded our “anointed ones” but is hiding in plane sight.
    
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    March 19, 2025 12:56pm
    - NoFax
      
      Departure cards were abolished in 2018. However, they can collect that information via other means.
      
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      March 19, 2025 2:00pm
    - MCōs
      
      My short term memory is shot to pieces, but I don’t recall I filled in a departure card last month.
      Confirmed by my wife.
      Immigration knows who leaves, your citizenship, flight number, but not if you’re coming back, until you do.
      My wife’s neice and husband left permanently last year. Great people, but not our ‘best & brightest’.
      
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      March 19, 2025 3:12pm
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    It would be me if I was 40. Steel fabricators can make shitloads over in Perth.
    A$42 an hour soon mounts up. One friend over there now has 5 houses.
    
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    March 19, 2025 12:59pm
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  Yeah, and that was not happening for 6 years was it?
  
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  March 19, 2025 11:30am
  - Blog-aholic
    
    Well to be fair alot couldn’t come back for an extended period too…..
    
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    March 19, 2025 11:46am
  - cmm
    
    Of course it is an ongoing problem, but it is not improving at all.
    
    “But Cindy was crap too” is hardly an endorsement for Luxon and his mates.
    
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    March 19, 2025 11:50am
- Terry Dalee
  
  Well, so far I’ve met NZers who have recently left NZ in the last year across Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane.
  In Brisbane, the driver licence office, the rental car office both mentioned the larger influx of immigrating New Zealanders, along the lines of “your the sixth one today” around mid morning.
  Then you just run in to most New Zealanders as you go about doing your normal thing.
  No, they probably not all “best and brightest” but there is definitely a difference in trend of it not just being young people after their first job, but more older people in their 30s and 40s.
  My wife was running the IT in a primary school in NZ, I have ended up managing a division here with 40 people reporting to me…
  
  Every Kiwi I’ve talked to here though has said the same thing, “NZ is farked so we got out”.
  I share with my Aussie mates the stories of $4 million spent on whale song, the health lists organised by ethnic and racial lines and they all share the same response, horror. They can’t believe that it’s happening in NZ. ( I also mention they need to change their Constitution because you don’t want to have to deal with that mess in NZ)…
  
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  March 19, 2025 11:59am
- kowtow
  
  Don’t worry , be happy .
  
  He’s in India and there’s plenty of folk there who’ll be more than happy to free trade their way to lil ole NZ.
  
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  March 19, 2025 12:26pm
- NoFax
  
  It’s mostly the middle that will leave. Not the poorest and not the wealthiest. It is those who think they can get a better deal elsewhere. This pressure valve in New Zealand allows the disgruntled to get up and go. And they are usually the ambitious ones that could transform NZ, but they are sick and tired of getting the short end of the stick. It used to be some would go for an OE, but this OE is getting longer, and many are not returning.
  
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  March 19, 2025 2:04pm
AndyW

Why is the Herald’s unabashed socialist mouthpiece, Simon Wilson, commenting on finance/PPPs without a right-of-reply from the readers?
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March 19, 2025 11:13am
- Blog-aholic
  
  Wilson can comment on whatever takes his fancy, what he has to say lacks gravitas of any kind….
  
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  March 19, 2025 11:46am
- peterwn
  
  Jim Grenon cannot get his feet under the boardroom table quick enough as far as I am concerned. Time the Herald was controlled by the shareholders not the employees and unions. Simon and that cartoonist who drew that dreadful cartoon yesterday should be the first to go.
  
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  March 19, 2025 11:50am
kiwikidsnz

Credit:The Platform

School lunch blues
https://youtu.be/_h82kEgwpoY?feature=shared
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March 19, 2025 11:49am
cmm

It looks like the 15,000 residents of Te Atatu are going to starve to death.

The only full-size supermarket in Te Atatu has shut down. There are, however, numerous superettes and full size supermarkets less than 3km away.

How will they cope?

I see that Te Atatu does have a hydroponic supply shop, so their needs are probably being met.

https://www.no.nz/nz/woolworths-te-atatu-closure-leaves-15000-residents-without-supermarket/QP7DPAVIRJFJJBY62PIX4B7UBI/
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March 19, 2025 12:05pm
- Blog-aholic
  
  That article ticked all the boxes, it was lacking insight, it was childish, it was amateurish but best of all it was nonsense……Subscribers to the NZH getting their moneys worth…….NOT!
  
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  March 19, 2025 12:18pm
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  Link broken, even with security turned off.
  
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  March 19, 2025 1:06pm
  - graham
    
    Looks like the gremlins have got at cmm’s link – try this
    
    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/woolworths-te-atatu-closure-leaves-15000-residents-without-supermarket/QP7DPAVIRJFJJBY62PIX4B7UBI/
    
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    March 19, 2025 1:13pm
- Bobba Fret
  
  Yes I had a bit of a laugh at that as if my local Woolworths closed down, the next closest supermarket is a New World which is 3.2km away. Or the next Woolworths is 3.9km away.
  Do people expect a large supermarket on every street corner?
  
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  March 19, 2025 4:12pm
- peterwn
  
  It is only closing for just over a year while Foodstuffs extend it into a bigger, brighter and better New World. New World did a ‘Neutral Bay’ on Woolworths just like Wesfarmers pounced on the freehold of the Woolworths at Neutral Bay and converted it to a Coles when the lease expired.
  
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  March 19, 2025 5:10pm
Gravelroad

Have been watching the retrieval of the two astronauts who were stranded at a space station for 8 or 9 months.
They are back.
Interesting that one of the expert commentators on TV during the splashdown of the space craft was a Mr Kelly. Mr Kelly is, or was, a prominent astronaut and space travel expert.
Turns out he is the identical twin brother of the Democratic politician Kelly who was featured on TV news yesterday disposing of his Tesla – because of his total dissatisfaction with Mr Musk.
Kelly the astronaut was at pains to tell us that all the hype about the two astronauts being “stranded” and having to be “rescued” was not true.
All lies. Nothing to see here. NASA in Control. No harm done, has all happened before with no fuss, were going to be brought back to Earth in due course etc etc.
So……..
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March 19, 2025 12:11pm
- Blog-aholic
  
  Mark and Scott Kelly are also twins…….
  
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  March 19, 2025 12:20pm
  - Gravelroad
    
    Didn’t I say that?
    
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    March 19, 2025 12:54pm
    - Blog-aholic
      
      You did but I only skim read it, so, so very sorry for any percieved offense…….
      
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      March 19, 2025 1:00pm
- Ghost
  
  It really was just hyped for media and political attention.
  
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  March 19, 2025 12:58pm
cas

Cripes I just heard on the radio that a new roundabout is going to be constructed at the corner of Wainui Road and SH 2 between Whakatane and Opotiki. The cost is $10 million and it is going to take 12 months.

The current intersection is a bit dangerous but all you have to do is be vigilant. $10 million and 1 year for a roundabout. The traffic will be more dangerous for being held up!!
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March 19, 2025 1:21pm
- cmm
  
  Sometimes I think it would have been better to have been invaded by the Japs in WW2…
  
  A year or two ago they replaced a whole railway station in Tokyo within 3 hours during the night without disrupting a single train trip. They started after the last train at 1am, test run at 4am, good to go with the first scheduled train at 5am.
  
  It really should be possible to build a roundabout in a week (being very, very generous).
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BYW4YYqG5A
  
  Heck even the Dutch could build an overpass in 3 days…
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-7Kj0DFWf8
  
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  March 19, 2025 4:34pm
  - Jack5
    
    Holy shit, CMM. Alright for your folks in South Africa in those days, but …
    
    In World War 2, the Japanese built the 415km Death Railway from Ban Pong, Thailand, and Thanbyuzayat, Burma. Worker fatalities: 90,000 local civilians; 12,000 Allied POW’s.
    
    Productivity per worker: bugger all.
    
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    March 19, 2025 4:44pm
    - MCōs
      
      From what I understand the Japanese used it maybe twice.
      However
      A portion of it is in use as a minor line up to Nam Tok, 90min beyond Kanchanaburi where the Bridge is plus a large commonwealth war cemetery.
      Further up the line the track is submerged under a man made lake right up to the Myanmar border where it starts again
      
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      March 19, 2025 11:22pm
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    Wonder if this gives NZ construction companies a headache?
    The speed in NZ is just plain pathetic!
    
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    March 19, 2025 5:45pm
Chuck Bird

Rawiri Waititi reckons David Seymour needs a “good fkn hiding.”>

Do any lawyers here know if Waititi has committed any crime like incitement to violence? If not can the Speaker do anything?
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March 19, 2025 1:53pm
cmm

I am rather skeptical of serial-criminal’s claims that a he has lost 17kg, more than a quarter of his body weight, in a 9 day hunger strike.

Apparently he will keep going unless they let him out.

He’s a bloody criminal. Why would anyone trust a word he says?

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/kahu/dean-wickliffes-hunger-strike-lawyer-claims-hes-lost-17kg/P2QHOVEHIZDMBFUPTIS2ECATFQ/
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March 19, 2025 2:29pm
- kowtow
  
  Now now , criminal you call him.
  
  No siree , RNZ have a nicer name ;
  
  ‘The lawyers of a 77-year-old kaumātua say he is on hunger strike at the Spring Hill Corrections Facility in the Waikato after alleging he was beaten by multiple prison guards.’
  
  Source rnz
  
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  March 19, 2025 4:41pm
  - Conservatarian
    
    LOL “Kaumatua”
    
    We must make the plebs learn to speak the special language.
    
    Also, we can use the special language to change the meaning of words, if we choose to.
    
    Classic racial communist tactic.
    
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    March 19, 2025 6:35pm
- David Garrett
  
  Let the homicidal bastard DIE…he is a blot upon the landscape…and how surprising that the sawn off clown Tame Iti – who also belongs in jail – is related to him.
  
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  March 19, 2025 5:41pm
Jack5

America’s Vice-President has slated immigration policies of Western countries.

If you look at nearly every country from Canada to the UK that have imported large amounts of cheap labour you see productivity stagger … the connection is very direct.

Also said the US had been “addicted to cheap labour during 40 years of failed economic policy, reports the Telegraph.

“When you erect a tariff wall around a critical industry like auto manufacturing and you combine that with advanced robotics and lower energy costs and other tools that increase the productivity of U.S. labour, you give American workers a multiplying effect,” Vance said.
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March 19, 2025 2:44pm
- Jack5
  
  I didn’t make it clear that in the second paragraph it is Vance speaking. Sorry!
  
  On low-wage imported labour and productivity, NZ’s temporary immigration schemes for horticulture work such as picking and pruning must contribute to lower productivity as valued by output per person-hour — labour cost.
  
  If fewer workers were controlling robots instead productivity would rise.
  
  A question is whether temporary immigration hinders automation, or helps it by building farmer or orchardist capital, needed for mechanisation equipment.
  
  Regardless, temporary migrant schemes are foreign aid for struggling island countries and a dignified way for islanders to increase their living standard.
  
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  March 19, 2025 5:22pm
Gravelroad

Random question:
Now that senator Mark Kelly (D) has ditched his Tesla for a Chevrolet Tahoe, does this indicate that hatred for Elon Musk is a bigger moral and righteous imperative than saving the planet from climate change by driving electric cars?
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March 19, 2025 3:39pm
- MCōs
  
  There’s plenty of other electric cars
  
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  March 19, 2025 4:14pm
- Inandout
  
  Grav, TDS has been replaced by MDS. Expect a few more months of this madness until the apparent outraged calm down. Did no-one note the amazing Space X rescue from the space station? However Trump made a wise move by releasing the remaining JFK files.
  
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  March 19, 2025 4:25pm
- Inandout
  
  Grav, checking on that Chevy let’s hope he picks a good year or has a warranty.
  https://rerev.com/articles/chevy-tahoe-years-to-avoid/
  
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  March 19, 2025 5:58pm
Bobba Fret

Anyone doing the Dean Wickliffe weight loss programme?
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/kahu/dean-wickliffes-hunger-strike-lawyer-claims-hes-lost-17kg/P2QHOVEHIZDMBFUPTIS2ECATFQ/
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March 19, 2025 4:33pm
Swifty

Waitangi Koopu charged with some serious offences:

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/former-warriors-player-wairangi-koopu-named-as-tv-celebrity-facing-drug-possession-charges/WRX4CDHYMNH23KFLRLDIEU2URI/

Trial set for June 2027!

A damn shame to have that hanging over your head for over two and a quarter years if you’re innocent and be found not guilty.

Almost as bad is waiting over two years to be found guilty.

Our trial dates are completely out of hand. A far more reasonable situation would be to have it all done and dusted by this Christmas, at the latest.

Justice delayed is justice denied.
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March 19, 2025 5:26pm
- Bobba Fret
  
  We need to start having night courts to get through the back log.
  
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  March 20, 2025 10:31am
David Garrett

And in news just in, the last surviving Battle of Britain pilot, Group Captain Paddy Hemingway, has died aged 105…

“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few” WSC

It is however worth remembering that more bomber crew were lost in one raid than in the entire Battle of Britain…and that the Polish pilots, who had the best stats in the Battle, were denied the honour of marching in the VE parade for political reasons. Utterly shameful.
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March 19, 2025 5:27pm
- Jack5
  
  The Poles didn’t get to join British victory anniversaries until 2005, according to this source.
  
  Britain did go to war because of the German invasion of Poland, though, and it didn’t fight for Czechoslavakia in 1938, when, with France, it conceded the Sudetenland to Germany without consulting the Czechs.
  
  But the Brits did provide a home for 150,00o Polish servicemen and their families after 1945. It also allowed 25,000 German POW’s to stay on in the UK from 1945, and various others, including a 7,000-man Ukrainian division of the SS, then held in POW camps in Italy and reluctant to go home to the Soviet Union.
  
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  March 19, 2025 6:06pm
  - MCōs
    
    In October 1944 New Zealand , specifically Pahiatua, welcomed 733 polish refugee children plus 105 adult caregivers
    https://wellington.govt.nz/wellington-city/about-wellington-city/history/history-of-wellington-waterfront/waterfront-stories/polish-children-of-pahiatua
    
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    March 19, 2025 9:41pm
  - MCōs
    
    During WWII my mother’s family were very small time farmers in Shropshire. A German pow was sent to their farm to help with the work. By the sounds he was just an ordinary bloke who was completely harmless to the extent he went out rabbit shooting with my grandfather. I don’t know what happened to him at the end of the war.
    Meanwhile my father was working on a farm in Austria as a Kiwi pow. He couldn’t wait to get away from there.
    However not all allies left Europe. Some deserted on account of forming a bond with a local woman, but I think that was sporadic
    
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    March 19, 2025 10:04pm
- MCōs
  
  The last of the ‘few’ was in fact an Irishman.
  This chap compares him to Conor McGregor and find the latter wanting
  https://x.com/ger_cosgrove/status/1901925090188492831?s=61&t=yFkzCNMWRCaVt1p5eRxUog
  
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  March 19, 2025 10:15pm
igm

Thanks to Sky News Australia for showing us the return of NASA astronauts. Seems TDS now controls taxpayer-funded NZ MSM. Thanks to Elon Musk . . . you sure show the deadbeat losers of the left how to make news.
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March 19, 2025 5:59pm
- Ghost
  
  Umm, maybe pay more attention to the news
  
  https://www.stuff.co.nz/world-news/360620694/watch-stranded-astronauts-sunita-williams-and-barry-butch-wilmore-splash-down
  
  https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/spacex-crew-dragon-brings-astronauts-home-after-extended-iss-stay/IV3SCXVFJNGBZHTNJDL6KFN5BE/
  
  https://www.1news.co.nz/2025/03/19/watch-us-astronauts-splash-down-after-nine-months-in-space/
  
  I don’t think many realise that last august they were slotted to arrive back in February. The problem came about in December when space x needed more time to test the new crew capsule because of problems. It was decided earlier this month or late feb to instead use an old crew capsule.
  
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  March 19, 2025 6:14pm
Ghost

Damn.

Two teachers in Christchurch have been left injured following an attack from a student holding scissors.

The assault occurred just before 2pm at Haeata Community Campus in Aranui and led to one of the teachers being taken to hospital.

Article
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March 19, 2025 8:07pm
Quail

Late post but “what is wrong with this government “
They made a decision about open road speed limits , and now are resiling their position.
This is not leadership ,it is flip flopping .
The main trouble with this decision/ non decision performance is that is it makes the government look horribly weak.
Allied to the school lunches debate ,etc ,etc .They are successfully making the whole Government look terrible.
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March 19, 2025 8:47pm
- Gravelroad
  
  Agree Quail.
  We vote in Governments to make decisions based on their stated policies.
  Maybe I don’t like some of those policies, but too bad – that is democracy. Flip flopping on policies, without a very good reason, undermines trust.
  Saw handringers on TV news last night demanding that speed limits not be returned to previous levels because traffic going too fast for kids on bikes etc.
  Thing is,some of those kids will grow up and perhaps become speedway drivers or professional cyclists or Grand Prix enthusiasts and Mum will be so proud that they can go so fast.
  
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  March 20, 2025 8:31am

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