Open mike 08/03/2019

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, March 8th, 2019 - 233 comments
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Open mike is your post.

For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.

The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).

Step up to the mike …

233 comments on “Open mike 08/03/2019 ”

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  1. satty 1
    8 March 2019 at 7:25 am

    Looking forward to more people calling “the car” what it is:
    (One of) the most destructive technology people outside the army can buy

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/07/cars-killing-us-driving-environment-phase-out

    Would be great if all the cities make (at least) their inner city car-free within 10 years. Although, more likely it ends up in the “too hard basket”.

    • mikesh 1.1
      8 March 2019 at 12:40 pm

      The internal combustion engine is yesterday’s technology. The sooner it becomes a museum item the better.

  2. reason 2
    8 March 2019 at 7:48 am

    While PM,… Key made approx $1 Million per year on his Auckland house …. which I think should be confiscated …. As law changes pushed through by him …. allowing foreign buyers and corrupt money flows into our property market , ….. all seems seems like a clear conflict of interest.

    What percentage of NZers made $1 Million per year on our property bubble ,,,,as blown by Mr Key????…..

    if we add in his other property ….. Omaha beach , Wellington, London ,,,, and a Hawaii pad he paid $4.5 million for in 2009 …. then he’s obviously gained more than $1 million per year from property speculation.

    Tell me there is no connection ….between Keys double digit multi millions property windfalls… ….And the homelessness / housing stress in New Zealand … and London ….and Hawaii …. where workers can no longer afford to buy or rent reasonable homes.

    If we do not seize his conflicted money …. a CGT tax on his speculative unearned income is the least we should do to creative john…..

    And spend it on building homes for normal decent humans…

    • AB 2.1
      8 March 2019 at 7:58 am

      Stop attacking the “kiwi way of life”.
      And ‘Venezuela!”

    • mac1 2.2
      8 March 2019 at 7:59 am

      AWOL- our Aspirational Way Of Life.

      For the few.

      Also missing from AWOL are- empathy, ethics, morality, charity,

      Funny how that all comes to mind when John Key is mentioned………..

    • Nick 2.3
      8 March 2019 at 8:16 am

      I heard JK is changing his name to John Ponytail puller. Apparently it’s a new Trump inspired craze.

    • Chris T 2.4
      8 March 2019 at 8:26 am

      “As law changes pushed through by him …. allowing foreign buyers and corrupt money flows into our property market ,”

      Care to expand on this and your theory foreigners were not able to enter the property market before Key got in?

      Thanks

      • mikesh 2.4.1
        8 March 2019 at 12:45 pm

        Foreign investors come in through the banking system. It is that that needs to be controlled. Start by preventing private banks creating money out of nothing.

      • patricia bremner 2.4.2
        8 March 2019 at 9:41 pm

        Chris T, Sixty nine thousand mentions in the Panama Papers. Plus shonkey lawyers who had Trusts for overseas people Mossack Fonsecca, who disappeared when asked to give a name and address.

        Key wanted us to be the “Switzerland of the South” where the rich could hide their money.

    • Sam 2.5
      8 March 2019 at 8:40 am

      Start with a CGT then open the books and send in the forensic accountants!

    • Sacha 2.6
      8 March 2019 at 8:56 am

      You really are overstating Key’s influence, Phil. Time to move on.

      • reason 2.6.1
        8 March 2019 at 9:11 am

        …. but Key is the poster child for a CGT ……….

        Good brand recognition and all that …

        • Enough is Enough 2.6.1.1
          8 March 2019 at 10:05 am

          But what specific “law changes pushed through by him …. allowing foreign buyers and corrupt money flows into our property market” did he make?

    • alwyn 2.7
      8 March 2019 at 8:57 am

      You are talking to the wrong people.
      You should be moaning to Robbo and the Stardust girl.
      After all, they are the ones who propose to exclude one’s “family home” from a CGT.
      If you think the family homes should be subject to a CGT why don’t you just say so, and then complain about why the Labour Party won’t allow it?
      Come on. Start your diatribe about your beloved leader’s refusal to do anything about house prices and fairness.

      • Drowsy M. Kram 2.7.1
        8 March 2019 at 11:24 am

        Allwhinge pathology on open display again – it’s almost as if you believe your dribble.

      • marty mars 2.7.2
        8 March 2019 at 1:57 pm

        Pool alwyn – can’t even incoherently mumble, through bitter, twisted gums, the Prime Minister’s name – has to insult her like a weakling.

    • Im right 2.8
      8 March 2019 at 9:25 am

      I see Reason still has KDS, you are aware Clark had 4 or 5 homes and Cullen 2 or 3 whilst NOT bringing in a CGT during their 9yrs in power. Key made his money outside politics, Clark never worked outside politics and never earned a cent outside a government funded salary! Why you lefties hate Key for his wealth without looking at the 2 other ‘rich pricks’ leading Labour is laughable (and Cullen earning a grand a day for almost 2 years under this Labour govt, when his ‘job’ ends in July)

      • reason 2.8.1
        8 March 2019 at 9:44 am

        im right dickhead ………….. tax cullen and clark too you fool.

        Rebstock got paid half a million by the nats to do a witch trial ….. you dope

        Tax her capital gains too ….

        Keyzy just sleazy … who would want to be that deviant creep?

        anyway you missed the point ….

        Tell me there is no connection ….between Keys double digit multi millions property windfalls… ….And the homelessness / housing stress in New Zealand … and London ….and Hawaii …. where workers can no longer afford to buy or rent reasonable homes. ….

        a CGT tax on his speculative unearned income is the least we should do to creative john…..

        And spend it on building homes for normal decent humans

      • mikesh 2.8.2
        8 March 2019 at 12:52 pm

        Key made his money working for Merril Lynch. Enough said, I think.

      • patricia bremner 2.8.3
        8 March 2019 at 5:31 pm

        Cullen has his home and pension. only.

      • CHCoff 2.8.4
        8 March 2019 at 6:41 pm

        Freedom is not ripping people off.

    • Infused 2.9
      8 March 2019 at 10:18 am

      Oh shut up you jealous tard. He lived in the house the entire time. Under the cgt he wouldn’t have been taxed anyway

      • Stuart Munro. 2.9.1
        8 March 2019 at 10:55 am

        There is little doubt he bought it for speculative purposes, which under existing law made his gain taxable.

        • alwyn 2.9.1.1
          8 March 2019 at 11:46 am

          That is b*s and you know it Robert.
          Please, just because people like “reason(?)” still suffer so grievously from KDS doesn’t mean you have to join them.

          • Stuart Munro. 2.9.1.1.1
            8 March 2019 at 12:02 pm

            I’m not sure who that’s directed at, but buying properties for speculation has always been taxable, the brightline only made it easier for IRD to establish.

            The Key Kleptocracy was the worst NZ government in my lifetime, and many of the others were nothing to write home about. Key bears personal responsibility for a number of criminal acts, starting with Equiticorp, insider trading in rail shares, the Stalinist extra-judicial theft of Hubbard’s wealth to name a few.

            Derangement more properly describes your worship of this self-serving turd, who, in any well run country, would be doing hard labour for the rest of his natural.

            • Skunk Weed 2.9.1.1.1.1
              8 March 2019 at 12:54 pm

              The guy was actually a rat in sheep’s clothing IMHO

            • Stunned Mullet 2.9.1.1.1.2
              8 March 2019 at 1:03 pm

              😆 Stuart’s reverted to his past commenting behaviour, a touch of flowery prose sprinkled with a large amount of KDS and outright fantasy.

              • Stuart Munro. …
                8 March 2019 at 1:52 pm

                Yeah, we know you’re fine with criminality SM, but it renders all your criticisms of the coalition ineffectual. If you’ll put up with the shite the previous government got up to, you’ve no basis to criticize anything.

                If you were up to more serious argument, you might consider why NZ is now a world leader in suicide. It’s not happenstance, but the outcome of decades of absolutely fucking hopeless governance.

                • Stunned Mullet …
                  8 March 2019 at 3:14 pm

                  NZ is a world leader in reported suicide. Whether it’s down to decades of absolutely fucking hopeless governance as one of the causative factors is certainly worth debate.

                  Your continued cant regarding criminality and the like from National governments is a hoot.

                  • Stuart Munro. …
                    8 March 2019 at 3:34 pm

                    Yes, it’s a hoot to you.

                    People victimized by those crimes see it rather differently.

                    I don’t know why it should suddenly be too much to ask, that a government be both honest and competent, certainly I’ve seen fuck all of either in my lifetime.

                  • alwyn …
                    8 March 2019 at 4:19 pm

                    You really should have put “NZ is a world leader in reported suicide” in quotes. Without them it tends to imply that you think the statement is true. According to the WHO it simply isn’t true.

                    I suggest you have a look at this article.
                    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate#List_by_the_World_Health_Organization_(2016)
                    Have a look at New Zealand. I’ll give you a hint. It is at number 53.
                    The highest developed country is Russia, at nearly 3 times the level.
                    Sundry other developed countries above us are Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Latvia, Uruguay, Belgium, Estonia, Japan, Finland, United States , Hungary, Poland, Iceland, Bolivia, France, Nicaragua, Sweden and Australia.

                    World leader? You really are dreaming. Thank God it isn’t true.

                    • Stunned mullet …
                      8 March 2019 at 5:37 pm

                      Yes fair call.

                    • Stuart Munro. …
                      8 March 2019 at 5:57 pm

                      You put that data together with known coroner reluctance to make a finding of suicide and we’re in a very bad place – and it’s been getting rapidly worse.

                      Not being as bad as Russia, like most of the specious arguments of the Loony Right, is no consolation – we’re in a record bad place
                      vis-à-vis our previous record, and that has only been achieved by prodigies of lousy governance.

                  • McFlock …
                    8 March 2019 at 5:56 pm

                    we-ell the world leader status isn’t too far off if we look at it by agegroup – looking at young people we get up to something like #20.

                    And then if you look at the OECD rather than including smaller, less developed nations, we seem to be towards the front of the pack.

                    But regardless of the semantics of our suicide ranking, we should have a much lower rate. It can be difficult – the problem ones to prevent are the impulsive suicides: happy and fine one day, gets dumped or fired the next day, gets drunk, gets morose, is alone, jumps off or in front of something. But there are still things we should be doing and don’t.

            • alwyn 2.9.1.1.1.3
              8 March 2019 at 4:04 pm

              “Equiticorp”.
              Now you really have lost it.
              The H-fee was something done by Elders which was an Australian company. Key worked, at around that time for a New Zealand subsidiary which had nothing at all to do with it.
              Only the then Labour President, Mike Williams, thought he could track some connection but came up with zilch, and egg all over his face.

              I suppose that you are guilty of Benefit Fraud. After all you are a Green Party Supporter and a one time party leader certainly was guilty of the activity. You must have been involved as you were involved with the party.
              There, are you going to plead guilty. You are at least as connected to that as was Key to the payment of the fee.

              Your delusions about Hubbard and his “wealth” are equally nuts. Hubbard started getting involved in very risky property developments when he would loan enormous sums to companies that no-one else would touch. For some strange reason he, like Michael Duff, seemed to think that he had a Midas touch and when all the loans went down the tubes his company went bust.

              • Stuart Munro. …
                8 March 2019 at 4:15 pm

                Williams may not have been able to prove it, but those of us who had our money stolen do not forget.

                We knew something was wrong with the SCF story the moment the auditor or whatever he was started pushing stories through the media that affected its value – a massive conflict of interest were he in fact trying to protect the asset value as his appointment required.

                One of the largest ‘bankruptcies’ in NZ with never a day in court. We know you guys are hot and cold running corruption but this case makes all our commercial law obsolete – a couple of crooked assholes in government can just steal your property by fiat with a smile and a wave.

                And you’re down with that.

                • alwyn …
                  8 March 2019 at 4:23 pm

                  Weren’t you paid out Stuart?
                  After all an awful lot of people here continually moan about how the taxpayer paid out to the investors in SCF because it was allowed into the Government Guarantee scheme by Cullen.

                  • Stuart Munro. …
                    8 March 2019 at 4:38 pm

                    Certainly not. The issue is democracy, not my personal financial interest. Hubbard had an absolute right to expect that his own government would not fraudulently deprive him of his wealth.

                    That Cullen criticism was just another trollfest, like Key’s claim that Thiel’s cannibalism of the outfit he invested in was the fault of the previous government. Nonsense.

                    These are extremely serious criminal issues that need to be thoroughly and publicly investigated; your troll scapegoating doesn’t really reach that standard.

          • Red Blooded One 2.9.1.1.2
            8 March 2019 at 3:00 pm

            Says the knob who constantly bangs on about “Stardust Girl” “CoL” etc. You need a truck load of Hemorrhoid Cream for your condition, you completely unethical national toady.

      • cleangreen 2.9.2
        8 March 2019 at 12:04 pm

        Well done Reason; – implicitly stated. 100%

    • Rosemary McDonald 3.1
      8 March 2019 at 8:42 am

      To be sure, we have much to celebrate.

      “Family violence

      In 2016, there were 118,910family violence investigations by NZ Police.

      Responding to family violence accounts for 41% of a frontline Police Officer’s time.

      In 2016, 5,461applications were made for protection orders:-5,072(89%) were made by women and 550(10%) by men.3-4,940(89%) of respondents were men and 560(10%) women.

      In 2016, there were 6,377recorded male assaults female victimisations and 4,852proceedings against offenders for breaching a protection order.

      In 2015/16, Women’s Refuges affiliated to the National Collective of Independent Women’s Refuges received about 73,000crisis calls. 11,062women accessed advocacy services in the community. 2,446women and children stayed in safe houses.

      Adult sexual assault

      In 2014,24% of New Zealand women and 6% of men reported having experienced sexual assault in their lifetime.

      17% of New Zealand women report having experienced sexual violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime; 2% in the last 12 months.

      In 2016, there were 2,708 reported sexual offences against an adult over 16years.”

      https://nzfvc.org.nz/sites/nzfvc.org.nz/files/Data-summaries-snapshot-2017.pdf

      • Incognito 3.1.1
        8 March 2019 at 8:55 am

        The point is, for me, that progress has been made thanks to tremendous effort by many good people and that more will be accomplished by a great many people’s efforts.

        • Rosemary McDonald 3.1.1.1
          8 March 2019 at 9:38 am

          “Progress has been made….”

          Tell that to these women….

          https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12160574

          “A teen reported a rape. Police took five months to interview the suspects, then dropped the case ”

          https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12042963

          “According to current police data analysed by the Herald, as of 2016 up to 80 per cent of reported aggravated sexual assaults go unresolved. For the crime “male rapes female 16 and over”, that number is even higher, at 85 per cent. Rape cases are four times less likely to go to court in comparison with other types of physical assault, where only 24 per cent of offences are unresolved.”

          Nah. I won’t be celebrating.

          • gsays 3.1.1.1.1
            8 March 2019 at 11:41 am

            Hi Rosemary, on a related topic, I went to see Celia, Amanda Miller’s movie about Celia Lashlie.

            Highly recommended, and a promising initiative with couples and families going to a weekend and tackling D.V.

            Has made me look at a way i can do some voluntary mahi around DV.

            • Rosemary McDonald 3.1.1.1.1.1
              8 March 2019 at 2:04 pm

              Hiya gsays. I must find a list of venues for that documentary, I’d like to see it.

              I found myself disagreeing with Celia Lashlie on a few occasions…especially with the ‘boys need/NEED good male role models’ thing.

              It kinda fed a particular nutbar men’s rights group….and was a too simplistic answer to a fairly recent problem. That said….she certainly had moxie and was more than willing to stick her head above the ramparts.

              • gsays …
                8 March 2019 at 3:42 pm

                I wouldn’t dismiss the benefit of a male in a boys life.
                The only problems we have had with our son going to a boys school has been with female teachers.

                From another ‘tradition’, there is an analogy about raising a child and a potter raising a pot.
                The female energy is represented by love and forgiveness, male energy by law and justice.
                The child, like a pot, needs both hands to guide it.
                Raised only with love and forgiveness it has little regard for itself or others.
                Raised only with law and justice the child doesn’t grow.
                Make of it what you will, it helped me understand my partner and some of the decisions that were made.
                .

          • Incognito 3.1.1.1.2
            8 March 2019 at 9:34 pm

            Some reflect, some celebrate, and some go “meh!”. We all perceive things differently. Either way, it should not go unnoticed and it is good that it provokes a reaction with people. Worst thing that could happen is to be completely ignored and becoming irrelevant when it clearly needs a lot of attention and is highly relevant.

      • reason 3.1.2
        8 March 2019 at 9:02 am

        The low hanging fruit to curb NZs high violence rates was protected by National …. and a dirty politics smear campaign launched against people cleaning up the mess of NZ’s biggest drug problem ,,,,,

        “Picture the veteran homicide detective – grizzled, gloomy, jaded after years dealing with humanity’s worst, most hopeless cases.
        Retiring this week after 42 years with the police, Drew is optimistic about humanity …. He’s just happy to leave with a clean slate – meaning no unsolved murders.

        He later worked in the car squad, fraud squad, drug squad, undercover programmes, and as Wairarapa area commander.

        “We had a series of cases that became quite high-profile, where the treatment of the child had been dreadful.

        “Not just that the child had been beaten and killed, but the treatment, ongoing for a long time, had been dreadful.”

        Just as Kiwis were capable of changing attitudes to child abuse, Drew says maybe another debate is needed around the most common cause of preventable crimes.

        A constant over 42 years, he says, has been the role of booze in making otherwise reasonable people do crazy things.

        Drew says changing attitudes towards binge drinking will be tough.
        He’s wary of sounding like a finger-wagging hypocrite because many of us have done silly things on the booze.

        But he says our casual attitude to getting hammered should probably be reassessed – for our own good.”

        …………

        Judith Collins and the Nats would rather blame Maori for high rates of violent crime… all while demanding more prisons be built,….

        • Adrian 3.1.2.1
          8 March 2019 at 9:40 am

          It is always problematic to make direct connections as a reason for outcomes. While I’m sure the experienced detective knows a lot more than me about the actuallity of dealing with what has to be a pretty horrific job especially when children are involved, it is not a directline .. i.e drink = abuse a child.
          Child abusers are people who would probably take their frustrations out on kids even if they only drank water.
          And as for Collins, she’s just a tarted up Trump, bashing whatever group comes on her dog-whistle radar. A few years ago, as a result of a census I think, it was revealed that less than 40% of Maori actually drink alcohol, the Pakeha figure was around 70% as I recall.

          • reason 3.1.2.1.1
            8 March 2019 at 9:53 am

            The police rosters /staffing levels are set in accordance with our drinking patterns …. ie bugger all cops out monday night …. lots on a friday saturday.

            No uniform police get time off on new years eve ….

            Because Alcohol abuse spikes both accident and violence rates …. Adrian

            Abusers who abuse while sober are particularity mean … while many other abusers go psychotic on booze

            like the cop said

            • RedLogix 3.1.2.1.1.1
              8 March 2019 at 11:26 am

              Many years back I was hitching out of Auckland one fine Saturday morning, heading once again to the Southern Alps, on the Kyber Pass on-ramp to the motorway. Much to my surprise a big grey police Bedford wagon pulls up and the cheery Sgt driving opens the door and beckons me in.

              For a moment I thought he’d busted me for something, but no he was chatty and happy to give me a ride out of town. At some point he pointed to a little window behind us and asked to me check the ‘load’. There was 20 glum looking guys all seated in rows in back!

              “They’re the overflow from Auckland, taking them down to the Papakura Court for processing; all of them but one, who was picked up for dud cheques, all of them on the booze last night.”

              The he said something I’ve never forgotten. “You know sonny, you’ll be too young to remember this, but some years back there was a big brewery strike and a lot of the pubs ran out of beer. And us cops were reduced to helping little old ladies get cats out of trees”.

              It’s that simple. Most of the ugliness that we so lament in our society, that we like to sheet home to all sorts of convoluted ideological causes, are really about not much more than the booze. It takes out about 10% of people as alcoholics to some degree or another and massively burdens our health system patching up the damage.

              I’m dead set against prohibitions, but there’s every reason for each of us to take ownership of our relationship with alcohol, and be it’s master.

            • Adrian 3.1.2.1.1.2
              8 March 2019 at 12:35 pm

              10 times as many people out and about on the weekends as Monday night and 100s more on New Years Eve, Like I said, drawing direct line correlations gives one flawed information.
              Sure alcohol is a factor but enviroments that are noisy, crowded and sexually charged leading to jealousy, envy and irrational behavour will lead to more problems wether drink is involved or not.
              The percentage of drinkers on a Monday night is probably the same as on a Friday theres just more people in total.
              Don’t believe everything the Police say, they are probably the worst group for being captured by group-think, believing only what their managment tell them.

              • RedLogix …
                8 March 2019 at 2:17 pm

                Sure alcohol is a factor but enviroments that are noisy, crowded and sexually charged leading to jealousy, envy and irrational behavour will lead to more problems wether drink is involved or not.

                In my experience of large mixed groups socialising absent alcohol, there is rarely any problems with violence or abuse.

                Here’s another stat; approximately 50% of all murder victims and perpetrators are drunk at the time of the crime. (Regardless of what the police may or may not have said about it.)

              • McFlock …
                8 March 2019 at 2:20 pm

                It’s a risk factor, like anything else. The direct effects on the nervous system are well documents. The limiting of impulse control and coordination are well documented – a drunk adult essentially has the impulse control of a teenager and the coordination of a toddler. There are plenty of qualitative reviews of the effects of alcohol. There is a consistent temporal and dose-response relationship in observations.

                The correlation with a multitude of adverse outcomes isn’t just police rosters.

                So we can pretend there is no problem on the slim possibility something else is at work, or we can minimise that harm. Elimination is impossible in most cases, isolation viable in some (r18/20 bars), minismisation in others. But we can also increase supervision – police for the streets, social workers for the home.

              • greywarshark …
                9 March 2019 at 1:44 pm

                Drink inflames emotions I think, whatever is being felt it increases it, and the person feeling can’t control him or herself as well, or at all.

                Yes alcoholics cause problems. Say that 10% of the population is one.
                The rest of their family will be involved; in being encouraged to drink, mixing with other easy-peasy lazy thinkers who get that way because of alcohol, poor adult role models, then there is the money that is not available for the household, then it is hard to actually hold down a job. Then there is the self-aggrandisement of the alcoholic – it’s always someone else’s fault. And so on.

                I was happy when the NZ bloke who developed RTDs was killed in a helicopter crash. One of his cohort was offended. I was not even slightly concerned about that. Alcohol deliberately to entice young drinkers, which he expressed surprise at, is nothing but getting the young involved with drugs, and of course his was spirits with mixers to be palatable. The country timidly brought in legislation to limit the rather high alcohol limit supposedly because it was gathering in large numbers of teenagers and under age drinkers. He brought his alcohol levels down to just under it. A very calculating shit.

                So reduce availability. Take it out of supermarkets, to the liquor outlets where it belongs. The supermarkets will hate it. ouch. (I’m dreaming here.) But time limits for selling, not till late at night. At bars and restaurants, there would have to be something eaten, so either bowls of nuts, small savouries, ploughman’s lunch, snack etc.
                Health, food and safety could let up on their interminable laws to prevent everything and just have cleanliness and godliness as the guide!

                Pubs, bars would have to apply for late night licences and nurture their clients. Get away from the sinking them in large number, drinking competition, swill stuff. Make the happy hours just that, not OTT.

  4. Muttonbird 4
    8 March 2019 at 8:15 am

    The other day Hosking trumpeted that there was no chorus of voices defending the need for a CGT. He pushed the idea floated earlier that week that the government was shocked by the anti CGT reaction and again today said the government had ‘cocked up’ by leaving a vacuum and allowing the no faction to argue their case.

    If arguing their case means racist dog-whistling, tweeting fake numbers, and misappropriating the Kiwi way of life then yes, they have argued their case. The Prime Minister made an important point when she said not everyone has a column in the Herald. It’s important because greedy, old, scared, white people have always had better access to platforms from which to honk their message. A CGT legislation would be an important component for balancing out over society exactly those kinds of historic advantages the wealthy have had. That’s why they are scared.

    The right wing nuts are also unhappy with the chair of the group staying on to answer questions about the report. To not do so would create even more of a vacuum which is I suspect exactly what the Nats want. They don’t like anyone interrupting their frightened ranting. And what would be the alternative to a six week stand down for public discussion of the report? Would they have preferred the government released the TWG recommendations and their decisions on the same day? In effect a decision made behind closed doors. I think not. The government are, as usual, being honest if not a little hopeful that the opposition would display a similar amount of honesty.

    It’s also interesting what recommendations the Nats haven’t attacked with any gusto. And that is a CGT on investment properties. This is because they know almost every citizen in the country is on board with it – even fair minded rental owners! A lot of them are rightly embarrassed about how easy it has been to make tax-free gain. It’s also a frank admission that the policy of the last National government has indeed damaged the country – hopefully not beyond repair.

  5. Cinny 5
    8 March 2019 at 8:18 am

    Wonder why our news networks aren’t covering this….. it’s huge news….happened last night..

    ‘At least 36 countries, including all 28 members of the European Union, have signed a statement condemning Saudi Arabia’s human rights record at the United Nations Human Rights Council ‘

    https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/03/eu-rebukes-saudi-arabia-human-rights-forum-190307114443284.html

  6. Observer Tokoroa 6
    8 March 2019 at 8:45 am

    The sad bag of the Trolls

    It is kind of weird that the entire aim of National is to make sure that nobody but the wealthy shall exist naturally and happily in New Zealand.

    National has no intention of doing anything but filling their own bellies, in their own comfortable homes, with their girl friends, while the Workers and the Poor, -The Constructive Members of New Zealand Society, – are attacked by merciless Landlords with Excessive, impossible Rental Fees.

    We live in the Country of Hosking; Mrs Bennett; Mr Hooten; The Herald; Sir john Key; Sir Billy English; And the bludging Wealthy and Landlords.

    Supported by pathetic tiny trolls. Who Hate Hate Hate. They cannot abide a Worker owning a home.

    • Jimmy 6.1
      8 March 2019 at 11:14 am

      Earning $1,062 per day, Michael Cullen will soon become a ‘rich prick’.
      He will have to start hating himself.

      • Gabby 6.1.1
        8 March 2019 at 1:03 pm

        How many days wee jimby?

        • Jimmy 6.1.1.1
          8 March 2019 at 2:23 pm

          Well i believe the TWG was formed in late 2017? and Cullen is now staying on to answer questions (that Grant obviously can’t answer) until June 2019? so well over a year although I am sure he didn’t work every day he should earn well in excess of the average income,

      • patricia bremner 6.1.2
        8 March 2019 at 5:41 pm

        Jimmy in Feb he claimed 4 days and says it will be about the same this month.

        This Government believes in paying for expertise. Unlike the last one.

  7. alwyn 7
    8 March 2019 at 9:03 am

    “Supported by pathetic tiny trolls. Who Hate Hate Hate.”.
    That certainly seems to be a perfect description of Government supporter “Sir” Michael Cullen.
    Also known as the rip off kid.

    • Muttonbird 7.1
      8 March 2019 at 9:09 am

      How is Cullen known as the rip off kid?

      • Sacha 7.1.1
        8 March 2019 at 9:17 am

        Today’s party line.

      • reason 7.1.2
        8 March 2019 at 9:20 am

        Could be a nat meme about his pay….

        Which is less than that ruthless disastrous Rebstock who the Nats shoulder tapped for half million dollar fuck ups

        https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/307143/rebstock-mfat-inquiry-errors-not-terminal,-says-pm

        “Dame Paula also spearheaded a major report into Child Youth and Family (CYF), for which she was paid $2000 a day, double the normal maximum fee.”

        ” taxpayers had had to fork out half a million dollars for the Rebstock inquiry which “crucified” two innocent officials – and would now have cough up again to compensate them.

        Dr Graham could not fathom how Mr Key could consider employing her again. “

      • AB 7.1.3
        8 March 2019 at 10:08 am

        “How is Cullen known as the rip off kid?”
        Apparently because he was paid for being on the Tax Working Group. I wouldn’t trust any figures coming from National – but supposedly he got $1000/day for a 6 hours’ work.
        So a charge-out rate of $167/hour:
        – less than half what my dentist charges
        – way less than a family lawyer
        – less than multitudes of IT consultants
        OK – the dentist and lawyer have business overheads – but even allowing for that Cullen’s rate seems remarkably low comparatively.

        The point of course is that even though it’s comparatively low, it’s actually unimaginable riches for most NZers, especially for the working poor who tend to vote Labour. Penny drop – the Nats know all this perfectly well – it’s just a crude attempt to wedge Labour’s base.

        Get used to it – Nats have no principles.

        • peterh 7.1.3.1
          8 March 2019 at 10:21 am

          For god sake wake up. he got two days in January hes off to buy a house

          • greywarshark 7.1.3.1.1
            8 March 2019 at 11:21 am

            For pete’s sake – pipe down. If you have anything to add please do it otherwise……

      • alwyn 7.1.4
        8 March 2019 at 11:51 am

        Just have a look at all the tax-payer funded jobs he has had, and the tax-payer funded travel he has done, since he left Parliament and started collecting his very generous Parliamentary Superannuation.
        Ye he is one of those who gets the really generous, gold-plated Super people still complain about. He was there in 1991 you see.
        If there is any money in view Michael will rip it out of the hands of the taxpayer and pocket it.

        • Bazza64 7.1.4.1
          8 March 2019 at 12:48 pm

          To be fair to Michael Cullen National did appoint him as Deputy Chair of NZ post in 2009, so they can’t think too badly of him.

        • Stuart Munro. 7.1.4.2
          8 March 2019 at 2:41 pm

          You might consider the contrast with Shipley – appointed by ‘friends’ she proved to be unfit – Cullen, appointed by ‘enemies’ did the job required. It’s possible to be worth a high pay rate – just not for Gnats.

      • cleangreen 7.1.5
        8 March 2019 at 12:27 pm

        Its all in his/hers head Muttonbird.

        I don’t see Sir Michael Cullen as “the ripoff kid” – alwyn is off his tree again obviously.

    • Skunk Weed 7.2
      8 March 2019 at 12:58 pm

      Like our little pet trolls Gosman & James

  8. Sam 8
    8 March 2019 at 9:21 am

    Venezuala needs assistance, is there anything gooie and his gang can do? Revealed: US aid to Venezuala all about regime change>>> https://youtu.be/iKSaDcN_nL0

    Gooie gang, gooie gang, gooie gang 😹😹😹

    • AB 8.1
      8 March 2019 at 10:22 am

      The current US interest in Venezuela is (of course) an entirely virtuous exception to all their other interventions in Latin America over the last century.

    • ianmac 9.1
      8 March 2019 at 10:34 am

      I was totally sceptic about dowsing as I could see no scientific reason for it.
      A very long time ago a neighbour showed us how to search for water. Imagine a bunch of sceptical teens marching around the paddock and then the horror when the manuka sticks twitched either up or down! We tried blindfolding and leading each other to an anonymous spot then letting them walk blindly and in exactly the same spots the twitching twitched.
      No. We did not dig down to see what was down there but the twitching was very real.

      • Rosemary McDonald 9.1.1
        8 March 2019 at 10:53 am

        Because I’m a sucker for punishment, I did my daily check on Farrars Ferals over on ‘Kiwi Way of Life’ blog… and bugger me if a high percentage of commentors didn’t have similar stories to tell.

        This is why there’s hope for Aotearoa into the future. The Left and Right seemingly in accord over what some would consider woo witchcraft.

      • Drowsy M. Kram 9.1.2
        8 March 2019 at 11:33 am

        Consider myself skeptical, but there is something to dowsing (and not just for water), in the right hands (not mine).

        No idea how it works, but would like too – maybe some experiments that try to disrupt either the ‘signal’, its transmission, or reception.

      • mac1 9.1.3
        8 March 2019 at 11:48 am

        Since 1980 the Australian Sceptics Society has a $100,000 offer to divine for minerals or water. So far it has not been won. Just declare what you can do, your the conditions under which you can perform your claimed paranormal deed, and your success rate. Then prove it under properly conducted conditions.

        https://www.skeptics.com.au/features/prize/

        • One Two 9.1.3.1
          8 March 2019 at 2:09 pm

          http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/Examskeptics/Randi_problem.html

          The Problem with James Randi…And his foundation on the paranormal, pseudoscientific and supernatural…

          skepticism has made no actual contribution to science

          • mac1 9.1.3.1.1
            8 March 2019 at 2:46 pm

            The test that the Australian Sceptics promote is a double-blind test. Basically the substance to be found by divining is hidden underground. The tester accompanying the diviner does not know where the substance is so reading body language or straight out fraud is ruled out. In 39 years the test has not been completed successfully. The conditions of the test are agreed by both the contestant and the Sceptics Society btw.

            The test is or course replicable. I’d also venture to say that a successful (IMHO guessed) experiment should be able to be replicated to prove that it wasn’t just a lucky guess.

            Uri Geller was a fraud. I can bend spoons too. A bit of rubbing and friction and the spoon bends. Sometimes I can even read my wife’s mind!

            Here’s another Skeptics society award. The Bent Spoon Award with honourable winners named. https://www.skeptics.com.au/features/bent-spoon/

            I did a psychic experiment whilst at Uni with a glass and all participants putting a finger on the glass which pointed by paranormal means to letters of the alphabet. As the messages got even stranger the slight whiteness on the first knuckle of my finger betrayed me .

            • One Two 9.1.3.1.1.1
              8 March 2019 at 3:23 pm

              skepticism has made no actual contribution to science

              Your long winded, protracted and esssentially, empty comment..
              cements the above..emphatically!

              What attracts you to skeptic pseudoscience lobby groups, who make no worthwhile contribution to humanity, mac1?

              Perhaps you could name some members of the ‘skeptics society’…and provide some historical context for how the australian crank group formed…and some of their ‘notable achievements’…

              Go for it…

              • mac1 …
                8 March 2019 at 3:50 pm

                One Two. You can google the Australian Sceptics Society that from the references in my previous comments.

                I am at a bit of a loss to understand you here. You seem to be saying that I am in the thrall of “skeptic pseudoscience lobby groups” whereas I am saying that one of the kaupapa of the Australian Sceptic Society is to debunk pseudoscience. See the Bent Spoon Award below.

                But from an earlier comment of yours referring to ‘scientism” I seem to be getting the understanding that your idea of true science, and mine, differ somewhat.

                One Two. What are your views on dowsing?

                You ask what might be the ‘notable achievements’ of sceptics? Putting the blowtorch of reason on dubious claims might help.

                What do you make of this article? This is part of what sceptics do.

                https://www.skeptics.com.au/features/bent-spoon/

                • One Two …
                  8 March 2019 at 4:33 pm

                  mac1, I can only go from your comments and links to a suspect group which has no basis is science …whatsoever…

                  Specifically you have used said group and links to cite disproving of ‘spoon bending’ as some type of derogatory statement against ‘dowsing’…

                  Have I interpreted the intent of your link and comment about the ‘Randi Prize’, the way you meant it?

                  If not , please explain how you believe linking to the ‘Randi Prize’ in a dowsing discussion was supposed to be interpreted…

                  My position on dowsing is not relevant to this sub thread, as I was not commenting on dowsing…I was commenting on your links to a dubious group whose contribution to ‘science’,,,is essentially zero…

                  Context of the history of ‘sceptical societies’ and the network of so called ‘sceptics’ who are actually self proclaimed ‘debunkers’ (their words not mine)…

                  If you believe that ‘putting a blow torch’…is a notable contribution…then absolutely you and I are not aligned…

                  I asked you why you posted the skeptics link and comment…because I’ve no idea if you’re ‘enthralled’…or not…but you linked to a specific group…one whose activities and history I am familar with…

                  So…go right ahead and answer that question…why did you link to that group in the dowsing thread…

                  • mac1 …
                    8 March 2019 at 4:52 pm

                    Do we put a blowtorch to claimants such as this one?

                    “The promoters of the Premium Wine Card, a credit card-sized item that supposedly improves the flavour of wine through “an embedded set of precise frequencies that produce a long-lasting natural resonance [that] can be transferred to wine through the wine glass.”

                    That one a runner up in 2014 for the Bent Spoon Award by the Australian Sceptics Society.

                    This link provides another but similar view to that of the Sceptics Society.

                    https://www.therealreview.com/2014/06/12/wine-gadget-road-test-the-premium-wine-card/

                    Anyway, One Two, I suggest that you engage with JohnSelway as he seems to be a scientist. I’m just a layman. Tell you what though. I’m off to have a beer now with a bunch of scientists, viticulturists, professors of mathematics, winemakers, surgeons, businessmen and brewers. I’ll canvass their views of ‘scientism”, scepticism and the scientific process. Cheers.

                    • One Two …
                      8 March 2019 at 4:58 pm

                      Now that you’ve completely avoided the clear question…you’ve provided enough information, to affirm my interpretation, is accurate …

                      Eventually you might just move on from aligning yourself with ‘sceptics’…to forming your own opinions and thoughts…

                      Time spent around scientists…may or may not assist with your evolution…it depends what your seeking to attain…

                      Enjoy the beer…

                  • mac1 …
                    8 March 2019 at 8:45 pm

                    Why did I link to the Sceptics in the dowsing thread?

                    Here’s why.

                    2014 Physicist Larry Marshall PhD became CEO of the CSIRO. He made an observation about dowsing that was unscientific and won their Bent Spoon Award for the disparity in that pronouncement and his new role heading a scientific body.

                    http://www.australasianscience.com.au/article/issue-januaryfebruary-2015/skeptics-award-bent-spoon-new-csiro-chief.html

                    Even Dr Marshall admitted “dowsing is a “little out there” …..

                    What do you have against the Sceptics Society?

                  • mac1 …
                    8 March 2019 at 8:55 pm

                    One Two, it was you who linked to the article about Randi. You brought him into the arena above at 9.1.3.1.

                    You are confused there.

                    • One Two …
                      8 March 2019 at 11:27 pm

                      The link I posted was in support of the quote I had used…nothing more than that…

                      You then linked to the australian skeptic site…more than once and filled the surrounding commentary with skeptic type twaddle about spoon bending, when the subject was about dowsing…

                      I raised a question…more than once to you asking about why you referenced that same site and spoon bending…you’ve attempted to explain in your comment above at 850pm, but have done poor job elucidating your own thoughts…

                      So far as the skeptics are concerned…they are an irrelevant noise which far from adding anything positive (bent spoon awards are nothing m1…why do you give them credence) to any form of counter argument…members of their group have nefarious links and boarderline criminal…if not actual criminal involvement against other groups, who the skeptics, actively target…

                      You can look into it for yourself…

                      People who link and refer to skeptic sites are, in my experience rather limited in their thinking capacity, either as young adults finding their way through the dross to a more informed space…or adults who are struggling to find a way at all, and are unable to expand from a stunted developmental standpoint…

                      Those who comment at this site and reference ‘skeptics’ in various guises…are some of the best examples of evidence in support of my stated position, paragraph above..

                      Each of us must actively decide where we wish to allow complacency to set in…believing we have found ‘truth’…

                      For me personally…that is a lifelong journey…one which I embrace on a daily basis…

                      Each to their own..

              • Bazza64 …
                8 March 2019 at 5:38 pm

                Funny how One Two won’t argue the point posted, but uses comments like, long winded, protracted, empty etc. This is always used by con artists who try & muddy the waters & not deal with the facts.

                Maybe you could watch Richard Dawkins documentary “The Enemies of Reason” & see how water diviners get no better results than chance, but of course this would be too long winded & protracted for you

          • Bazza64 9.1.3.1.2
            8 March 2019 at 5:43 pm

            The only people who believe skepticism has made no actual contribution to science are the believers in homeopathy, wifi health issues, flat earthers, 9/11 conspiracy, one world order “single issue nutters”.

            Lacking critical thinking they will not change their stance, even thought majority of scientific community says otherwise.

        • Cinny 9.1.3.2
          8 March 2019 at 4:50 pm

          Jeepers, Grandpop used to divine water, he was always bang on when he did it. Any Y shaped stick would do, he would just cut one from the nearest tree, no matter the species, absolutely amazing to watch.

          I remember dad was a skeptic of his father inlaws abilities, so asked Grandpop to find the water pipes at home. And sure enough he marked out where they were on the lawn, his stick would point to the ground like a magnet where there was water. Dad never doubted him again.

          It’s a gift he would share with others, no charge. His theory was that the hard work is in digging the well rather than finding the water.

          One of those things that needs to be seen to be believed, some use special rods, some do not.

      • RedLogix 9.1.4
        8 March 2019 at 11:51 am

        At secondary school we did an interesting experiment. The science lab had a large bench running around the outside of the sides and back wall, and under it rows of many identical cupboards.

        The entire class went into the back room and isolated, while one person using a randomised list would place a large beaker of water in one cupboard only. (All the others had been emptied out.) That person would then leave the room, another independent person, who had been outside would then enter and call one of the class from the back room to step up onto the bench, and using a dowsing rod, walk slowly around the room once in each direction, and see if we got a response. The independent person would do the recording, and then leave again.

        One done that person would then leave the room altogether.

        We then ran the trial with an entirely different class with no water as a control.

        The results were clear cut, there really was a strong effect. Sorry I cannot remember the exact statistical confidence p number after all these years, but there was no question that most of us did detect the water. I recall my own surprise at the dowsing rod moving in my hand.

        I think it was a pretty well designed experiment, and that was the educational purpose of it, but I’d not die in a ditch defending it against some uber-rationalist determined to de-bunk it. Let’s just say, that it’s one of those things that seems harmless enough and should be judged on the results.

        • Grant 9.1.4.1
          8 March 2019 at 12:08 pm

          When I was a teenager I got a holiday working for P&T (the cable laying & maintenance branch of the post office) I was part of a small crew trenching for a new underground phone line in a semi-rural area. Part of the job involved hand digging to expose pre-mapped wires and pipes where it was too risky just to run the Ditch-Witch through. The maps showed roughly where to dig but the supervisor taught me a technique which was in common use at the time by people doing this kind of work. It involves taking two lengths of 16 gauge wire about 18″ long & bending them into L shapes with the short branch just long enough to sit comfortably inside your hand when closed. The idea was to hold them very lightly, pointing slightly downwards in front of you, then walk slowly at right angles to intersect with the line where the pipe or cable you were searching for was supposed to be. When you were nearly on top of the target the wires swung inwards to point at each other across the front of your chest. A heel mark in the ground marks the spot. Then you walk forward a few metres turn and repeat the exercise from the opposite direction. Typically there was an 18″ to 2″ gap between the two marks and it was invariably accurate at finding water pipe or copper cable.

          I am a sceptic by nature and have a reasonably scientific cast of mind but I also believe the evidence of my eyes and personal experience. If I can make it work in a repeatable and reliable way and it’s a useful technique I’m not going to argue the toss about how it’s not possible..

          • Naki man 9.1.4.1.1
            8 March 2019 at 4:21 pm

            Many years ago one of my apprentices showed me how to find water pipes, we just used some silfos brazing rods from the work van, we bent them in an L shape like you said. Since then i have done it a many times. At the time i was very surprised that it worked.

          • joe90 9.1.4.1.2
            8 March 2019 at 7:29 pm

            During a working life in electricity distribution I’ve come across dozens who reckon they can locate cables by dowsing. Thing is, anyone with experience pretty much knows where cables are likely to be laid so any success was always taken with a grain.

            And besides, why dowse when you can use an electromagnetic locator.

            • Grant 9.1.4.1.2.1
              8 March 2019 at 8:08 pm

              The holiday job I was referring to took place in 1974 and electromagnetic locators weren’t a thing being used by crews like ours at the time. Not something readily to hand in the average home workshop either. Anyway I’m not going to die in a ditch over this one..

        • Rosemary McDonald 9.1.4.2
          8 March 2019 at 12:13 pm

          Yep. We flirted with the idea of going to the expense of putting down a bore as back up to our roof collection. The neighbours (wrongly as it turned out after the big Waikato drought of 2008) reckoned there was ‘unlimited’ ground water and more than one gave us the local diviner’s phone number. He did come out and did his thing and found water at about 50 m down. Although we ditched the plan to drill, we were surprised that we weren’t surprised at just how ordinary dowsing is. Talk about cognitive dissonance.

          I guess this is a talent/skill that has been used down the eons because having a secure supply of water is so important for survival. I wonder how many dry holes were dug using primitive hand tools before dowsing became an actual ‘thing’.

          Surprising, really, that it survived western organised religion.

          Fascinating topic.

      • JohnSelway 9.1.5
        8 March 2019 at 1:11 pm

        There is science to back it up whatsoever.

        What is the method of action? Water is 2 hydrogen atoms and 1 oxygen atom. They don’t ‘transmit’ anything. They are just molecules.

        But if you want to, do a double blind study with meta-analysis and you could win a Nobel Prize and be instantly famous with your discovery.

        • One Two 9.1.5.1
          8 March 2019 at 2:16 pm

          There is science to back it up whatsoever

          All you’ve managed to achieve with that comment…

          Is expose the limitations of scientific understanding…

          …and illustrate an example of SCIENTISM…

          • ianmac 9.1.5.1.1
            8 March 2019 at 2:32 pm

            When we used a y shaped piece of manuka and held it fiercly it would twist in our hands and break the bark off the branch. A really weird feeling as though the branch was alive. It is the only action which I cannot explain scientifically.

            Suggest that John Selway get out in a paddock and try it. Then he can refute it if he wishes.

            • One Two 9.1.5.1.1.1
              8 March 2019 at 3:31 pm

              Selway…like many past and present commentators on this site, does not appear to understand the fundamental and core tenants of ‘science’…

              As a result, they must perform contorsions, flunk basic logic and reasoning…while screeching ‘anti-science’ at those who point out the many obvious flaws in their ‘belief system’…

              Scientism…is not science..it is pure and unadulterated…

              Anti-Science…

              • JohnSelway …
                8 March 2019 at 4:17 pm

                One Two,

                I know how science works.

                Find something that requires explanation
                Propose hypothesis
                Propose methods to test hypothesis
                Test hypothesis
                Repeat under conditions
                If tests fail return to step one and propose another hypothesis
                If test return results run the gauntlet of peer review
                If tests are repeatable you have theory

                That’s the scientific method – it does not allow for magic. Water dowsing fails this method. It’s that simple. Science is a process, not a belief system.
                Water dowsing has never produced a repeatable result, has never produced a theory and is therefor junk science. That isn’t anti-science – this IS science. It’s a process, not a belief.

                • One Two …
                  8 March 2019 at 4:47 pm

                  I know how science works.

                  No. You don’t!

                  You’ve partially listed a process, (which I doubt you understand) that is punctuated with a fundamental limitation in it’s starting assumption…

                  See if you can figure it out…

                  Then…perhaps you can claim to ‘know science’…

                  Right now…from your comments…and use of the word ‘magic’…

                  Scientism…is what you represent…

                  • JohnSelway …
                    8 March 2019 at 4:51 pm

                    Your just talking shit now. I explained to you the scientific method pretty much in the simplest way possible and your response “you don’t understand science”.

                    Well I just demonstrated it buddy

                    • One Two …
                      8 March 2019 at 5:43 pm

                      Well I just demonstrated it buddy

                      Again. No.

                      What you’ve demonstrated, is that you’re not even aware of the fundamental limitation in the starting assumption…actually it’s plural…there is more than one limitation…

                      Should be easier for you now…increased targets…have a guess…it’s what you’re already doing…

                      mac1 reckons you’re a scientist…mac1 is a sceptic citing sceptic web sites..so not best placed to identify what is…from what is not…

                      I am not mac1…

                    • JohnSelway …
                      8 March 2019 at 6:01 pm

                      If you think I’m wrong please explain to me what you believe the scientific method to be.

                    • Bazza64 …
                      8 March 2019 at 6:04 pm

                      John,

                      Debating with One Two is frustrating, but you realise you’re dealing with a clueless nutter went he won’t even consider facts, I suspect his weekend job is a circus clown.

                  • Bazza64 …
                    8 March 2019 at 6:16 pm

                    One Two talks in riddles, difficult to pin down, avoids the topic being discussed.

                    • One Two …
                      8 March 2019 at 6:26 pm

                      Nah, baz…

                      The severe disadvantage of your position is self created…

                      That my commemts tie you and others at your level, in knots…is your problem…of course it’s frustrating for you…

                      CSICOP and Gorski is your level, baz…

                      Every comment you write here is at joke level…nothing…no information…emptiness…

                      Stick with Orac…that’s a good fit for you…based on your track record…

                      I’ll offer you another chance…go on…debate me some of your facts…

                      Go…Bro…

                  • Bazza64 …
                    8 March 2019 at 8:00 pm

                    Debating with you One Two is a pointless exercise. You claim to be scientific, but ignore the most basic scientific principles.

                    Richard Dawkins said that some people who have used double blind tests said they stopped using them as they didn’t work. What they really meant was that double blind showed their own theories were incorrect, so they then ditched them.

                    These people start with a belief (a bit like you) & ignore any sensible evidence that contradicts their cherished beliefs. How can you debate with someone who doesn’t respect evidence ? They are on another planet.

                    • One Two …
                      8 March 2019 at 8:21 pm

                      Richard Dawkins said…

                      Why won’t baz say…

                      Why are you citing Dawkins the atheist…I’ll help…

                      Because you’re unoriginal , baz…you have nothing in your head which was generated by your own efforts…you project all your uneduated bile at others the same way Gorski , Dawkins and their ilk do…they…like you…are unoriginal….

                      The difference is…Dawkins is actually intelligent…although he feeds on the weak minded…that’s you baz…the weak minded..
                      Who can barely author a coherent sentence…

                      Show just how low your level actually is…express some views on any of the Dawkins books you’ve read…books bazza…can you read…or are you strictly moving pictures…

                      Go right ahead…no riddle…just a simple request so we can debate those facts…not Dawkins the CSICOP atheists palgeurized ‘facts’…

                      Bazzas ‘facts’…chop chop…

                    • Bazza64 …
                      8 March 2019 at 8:27 pm

                      I may be unoriginal, but at least I’m not thick.

                  • Bazza64 …
                    8 March 2019 at 8:06 pm

                    See if you can figure it out ???? Doesn’t understand the process ?

                    Do enlighten us One Two – your use of the English language is a cunning ploy as you can’t discuss the basic principles of science. You are missing a cog or two upstairs ….

                    • One Two …
                      8 March 2019 at 8:41 pm

                      I asked the questions, baz…there was no response…

                      Others have also pointed to Selways short comings and therefore his self exposure…the same way you expose yourself…

                      Selway doesn’t know why he is incorrect because he doesn’t understand what he is talking about…and you don’t understand the question I asked of Selway….because your not even of the level to comprehend the question…which indicates that your level is below that of Selway…which of course it is…your level is below almost any other commentator at this site…congratulations…

                      I’ve attempted to comment in a dumbed down manner such as to assist in lowering your self created frustration levels…but even those comments are above your level of comprehension…

                      Perhaps, if you allow yourself the opportunity to expand…you’ll branch out from the gutter level of the CSICOP (founded by con artists…surely you know that..), it’s members such as Dawkins…and Gorski/Orac the one man hate speech medic…

                      Do I care if you remain trapped in the feces you seem to revil in throwing around this site…no…I could not care less…

                      Run along baz..I’m not wasting any more time on you…

                  • Bazza64 …
                    8 March 2019 at 8:57 pm

                    I’ve never met anyone who can say so little with so many words.

                    Have you tried an economical writing course ?

                • Stuart Munro. …
                  8 March 2019 at 6:22 pm

                  I think you’re oversimplifying.

                  Doesn’t science also include observing phenomena for which you have as yet no explanatory hypothesis?

                  Dowsing is an interesting marginal case. There are claims of replicability that seem to be more than would be generated by partial positive reinforcement.

                  https://explore.scimednet.org/index.php/dowsing-a-review/

                  As with rat mine and TB detection, the first concern is not understanding the mechanism, so much as whether it works sufficiently reliably to be useful. https://www.apopo.org/en

                  • Grant …
                    8 March 2019 at 9:15 pm

                    Thanks Stuart. The scimednet article was interesting and some of it concurs with my own homegrown theory as to how it might work.

            • mac1 9.1.5.1.1.2
              8 March 2019 at 3:58 pm

              ianmac, the article below might give an explanation of the phenomenon of the twisting branch. I found the reference in Wikipedia under “Dowsing”.

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideomotor_phenomenon

              • ianmac …
                8 March 2019 at 4:09 pm

                Perhaps Mac1 but we tested to see if deliberately or subconsciously we were manipulating the bark. We tried gripping the branch on a non-reactive spot and tried to deliberately “strip the bark”. And we couldn’t do it. Open to explanations though. Remember we were totally sceptical at the original proposition. Must go out tomorrow and try again.

                • ianmac …
                  8 March 2019 at 4:38 pm

                  And the “How to” is hold a Y shaped stick in your hands.
                  Tuck your elbows into your ribs.
                  Your hands are palm sides upper-most.
                  This leaves your thumbs sticking out nearest your body.
                  Your four fingers grip the stick with the little finger furtherest forward.
                  (Much easier to just do it rather than explain. Ha.)

          • Muttonbird 9.1.5.1.2
            8 March 2019 at 5:59 pm

            I’d say all John Selway has achieved with that comment is confusing the crap out of everyone.

            Does he mean, “no science”?

            If so, what is the science behind his leaving out the no?

        • WeTheBleeple 9.1.5.2
          8 March 2019 at 3:53 pm

          “a double blind study with meta-analysis”

          Pseudoscientific gibberish where scientific terms are thrown together in a sentence but have little relevance to each other.

          I’ll be sure to ignore you from now on you just make shit up.

          • JohnSelway 9.1.5.2.1
            8 March 2019 at 4:22 pm

            a double blind study with meta-analysis is how hypothesis becomes a theory – through repeatable experiments, double blind studies, peer review and meta-analysis.

            Science is a process. Water dowsing can’t even get past the gate of that process.

            • RedLogix 9.1.5.2.1.1
              8 March 2019 at 4:40 pm

              Yet there is an enormous body of evidence that when it comes to dowsing, something is happening, for at least some people, some of the time. Does our present scientific understanding validate this? No.

              But a very good scientist I knew very, very well once told me that we should never totally close to door on magic; because almost everything we understand as moderns, all of our technologies and engineering, would have been firmly called ‘magic’ by our ancestors.

              And that future generations will look back on us and say exactly the same thing.

              • JohnSelway …
                8 March 2019 at 4:50 pm

                Dowsing has never succeeded in controlled conditions. You know, by using the scientific method. It fails double blind studies

              • Bazza64 …
                8 March 2019 at 6:13 pm

                There is not an enormous body of evidence re dowsing, just anecdotes & stories by people who swear it works for them. When asked to replicate the process under proper controlled conditions it doesn’t seem to work. The beauty of the scientific double blind test that has an inbuilt bullshit detector.

            • Incognito 9.1.5.2.1.2
              8 March 2019 at 9:55 pm

              a double blind study with meta-analysis is how hypothesis becomes a theory

              One doesn’t do meta-analysis on one single study, blinded or not. This is nonsensical.

          • JohnSelway 9.1.5.2.2
            8 March 2019 at 5:26 pm

            Double blind studies are and meta-analysis are not pseudoscientific terms.

            They are extremely common practices to determine results. It’s basic scienctific practice. It’s how hypothesis become theories. Every medication you have ever taken has been double-blinded and meta-analysis is the gold standard in scientific studies. It’s not even disputed. Climate scientists use meta-analysis to determine AGW is true. Double-blind studies determine the safety of every medicine on the market.

            • WeTheBleeple 9.1.5.2.2.1
              8 March 2019 at 5:54 pm

              LOL. You are a fool.

              • JohnSelway …
                8 March 2019 at 5:59 pm

                I’m a fool how?

                • Muttonbird …
                  8 March 2019 at 6:01 pm

                  For your comment at 9, evidently.

                  • JohnSelway …
                    8 March 2019 at 6:18 pm

                    You’ll have to be more specific

                    • Muttonbird …
                      8 March 2019 at 6:46 pm

                      I will.

                      It’s not so much your comment at 9 but your reluctance to modify the skeptic position you took at 9 after several comments citing practical examples of the effect in action.

                      It’s not unreasonable to expect there is science behind dowsing rods reacting in close proximity to cables or metal pipes. In the article you linked to at 9, Downer group explains it it ‘one tool used’.

                      Backing that up, Grant commented at 9.1.4.1 that his experience was that L-rods were used as a tool when other methods weren’t available. And yes, I am aware that workers do like to play practical jokes on teenaged interns!

                      So again it’s not unreasonable to expect there is an electromagnetic effect in some circumstances and that in situations where there is existing mapping, a dowsing tool might provide extra location information for more precise digging.

                      The double blind test you’ve put up by the Australian Skeptics is probably not going to come up with positive results because the tools are not being used in their areas of strength which is apparently fine tuning in areas already mapped. Their tests are random as far as I can see are designed to fail.

                      Coincidentally it is the Australian Skeptics sister organisation, the New Zealand Skeptics, who are criticising Downer along with that most scientific of organisations, the Tax-dodger’s Union!

                      If you ask me, these are the real nutters.

                    • Grant …
                      8 March 2019 at 7:16 pm

                      @MB at 6.46 “..and yes, I am aware that workers do like to play practical jokes on teenaged interns!”

                      Not in this case MB! We had a job to do and after I’d been shown how to do it and proved to my own satisfaction that it worked, I was a convert. Various members of that crew including myself used that method a number of times over the succeeding weeks. I also spent several years employed as a greenkeeper / mechanic on a golf course and used the same method for finding irrigator pipes that needed maintenance. I’ve impressed various family and friends on more than one occasion by walking across a lawn and locating pipes and wires before trenching for new cable or pipe to be laid.

                      The first time my wife saw me doing it she thought that either I was the most gullible fool ever or that I thought she was..

                      I really enjoyed the look on her face when I marked the spot and dug down a foot or two to expose the wrought iron water pipe below.
                      I can’t say that it would work for everyone but it is most certainly a reliable tool for some people.

                      I always laugh when people with limited practical experience make pronouncements about things they’ve never seen or experienced.

                      So keep those minds firmly shut boys. I’m sure it’s worked well for you all your lives.

                    • Muttonbird …
                      8 March 2019 at 7:49 pm

                      Grant. Yeah, I remember being sent to Placemakers for skyhooks when I was that age. Obviously I’ve not forgotten it. 🙁

                    • Grant …
                      8 March 2019 at 7:59 pm

                      @MB. “Skyhooks..

                      Yeah. An oldie but a goodie..

              • WeTheBleeple …
                8 March 2019 at 6:02 pm

                I’ll just keep repeating your original sentence, and you can keep defending it if you like.

                “a double blind study with meta-analysis”

                • McFlock …
                  8 March 2019 at 6:06 pm

                  You could bung a meta-analysis in the discussion, sort of inception-like, as part of whether your findings are consistent with other material in the field.

                  • WeTheBleeple …
                    8 March 2019 at 7:01 pm

                    Just wondering where all the data for this magical meta-analysis is going to spring from. He’s made reference to it with no idea what he’s talking about, then googled it, then backtracked and tried to slip it in like it does make sense.

                    Making up nonsense, and defending it with more.

                    You know, to get that nobel prize he mentioned the combo of double-blind and meta-analysis will yield.

                    • McFlock …
                      8 March 2019 at 7:11 pm

                      same place any meta-analysis gets its data – ♪of all the studies I’ve loved before…♬♪

                      Dowsing has been studied extensively.

                    • WeTheBleeple …
                      8 March 2019 at 8:27 pm

                      The Scheunen experiments, a large scale analysis of dowsing that showed ‘a real core of dowser phenomena can be regarded as empirically proven’, were met with criticism of study design, and merely led to more debate – not a nobel prize.

                      I recently pitched in on a 200 year old scientific debate. My first search in Google Scholar yielded 126 000 results. So as an introduction I did a meta analysis of previous meta analysis and critiques of these – there was no other way to even begin to try be comprehensive. I identified a number of players who have made it their life work to sit on opposite sides of various theoretical debates and have at each other. Which reminds me how silly I’m being right now.

                      My work will sit in some database, number 126 001 weighing in on that particular issue.

                      I have been a bit of a dick. Sorry Stuart I was unduly critical. The misunderstanding of what a meta-analysis can do is common. Meta-analysis sound, to the general public, like a spreadsheet of ayes and nayes producing facts at the end of it. The reality is typically a long freaking grinding debate, a final revealing of new data or ways to look at something, then people debating that… Ego’s abound.

                      Please excuse mine, I’ll try put a collar back on it.

                • Bazza64 …
                  8 March 2019 at 6:09 pm

                  WTB thinks double blind is Stevie Wonder duetting with Ray Charles.

              • Bazza64 …
                8 March 2019 at 6:07 pm

                WTB

                He’s a lot brighter than you. You are as thick as two planks.

            • ianmac 9.1.5.2.2.2
              8 March 2019 at 7:26 pm

              John. I do not know what our dowsing experience was indicating. Water? Gold? Copper? No idea.
              What I am certain of though, is that a Y shaped stick, (or wire) wriggled like a live thing.
              We set up blind tests. We tried to prove that the operator was cheating.
              We were a group of intelligent sceptical young people yet the question remains.
              Why do sticks wriggle when held in the particular way?
              This weekend I will try to see if it still works.

            • Incognito 9.1.5.2.2.3
              8 March 2019 at 9:59 pm

              So, when they discovered the Higgs boson (AKA the God Particle) they did double blind studies and then meta-analysis?

        • Incognito 9.1.5.3
          8 March 2019 at 9:46 pm

          Why would it have to ‘transmit’ anything? It could be a medium.

    • Rapunzel 9.2
      8 March 2019 at 2:53 pm

      My husband has laid all sorts of infrastructure for 35 years and swears by this having asked me for a metal coat hanger, I had my doubts but he’s not the sort to waste anytime on something that doesn’t work and luck plays no part in it. What can I say?

    • Andre 9.3
      8 March 2019 at 6:36 pm

      At least the dowsers are mostly harmless. At worst there’s just a bit of cash wasted somewhere. Unlike a lot of the other beliefs that seem to be clustered with belief in dowsing, that can and sometimes do cause real harm.

  10. ianmac 10
    8 March 2019 at 10:38 am

    Why didn’t Chia expert Anne-Marie Brady submit to the Select Committee when it was open to the Public in 2018?

    • Sacha 10.1
      8 March 2019 at 11:50 am

      They weren’t investigating popular superfoods at that stage. 🙂

    • Anne 10.2
      8 March 2019 at 12:19 pm

      Bear in mind there was a police investigation in progress and she may have thought it wise to keep her head down. The police did not report their failure to locate the culprits until February of this year.

      I think Pablo at Kiwipolitico summed up her predicament well:

      http://www.kiwipolitico.com/2019/02/spare-a-thought-for-anne-marie/

      Btw, I went through the same experience 25 plus years ago – home break-ins, burglary, car tampering, strange phone calls and other forms of bizarre behaviour. I had no idea who was responsible or why they were doing it. For this reason the police did not investigate. Many years later I discovered what had been going on and it also involved a foreign entity but in my case closer to home. The individuals responsible (one with whom I was associated) were presumably acting on instructions.

      Having been along the same road albeit for different reasons, I know Anne Marie Brady’s story is entirely true.

    • Cinny 10.3
      8 March 2019 at 12:48 pm

      Newsroom, once again shines more light on said.

      “Brady blocked from foreign interference inquiry ”

      https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2019/03/08/477641/brady-blocked-from-appearing-before-justice-committee

    • Exkiwiforces 10.4
      8 March 2019 at 1:57 pm

      Well it looks like Anne Marie-Brady is finally going to have say in front of the SC after all. That muppet Raymond Huo must have got a boot up his jackise last night by someone or either he didn’t like having egg all over his face.

      https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/384223/national-party-targets-justice-committee-refusal-to-hear-anne-marie-brady

      • Anne 10.4.1
        8 March 2019 at 3:38 pm

        It would be interesting to know what went on behind the scenes over that decision to block Professor Brady. The Labour MPs on that committee are Raymond Huo, Ginny Anderson, Greg O’Conner and Duncan Webb. With the exception of Raymond Huo all of them parliamentary newbies.

        It was a dreadful decision and made worse by the fact it was – of all committees – the Justice Select Committee.

        https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12210853

        • RedLogix 10.4.1.1
          8 March 2019 at 3:44 pm

          I would guess that the committee found itself between a rock and a hard place on this. But after the initial attempt to silence Prof. Brady, decided that gagging her was going to look a lot worse than letting her speak, but then studiously ignoring what she says.

        • Exkiwiforces 10.4.1.2
          8 March 2019 at 4:00 pm

          Yes something smells and I would’ve thought O’Connor and Dr Webb would’ve stood up and said something after Little sought to extend the SC’s scope and time into Foreign involvement in NZ Election. It certainly give a bad look to the democratic process and free speech in NZ at the highest level in our Westminster System.

          I wonder if Winnie had a quite talk to Jandals or Jandals told Raymond last night and told him to full their head in?

          Anyway it’s good to see Anne finally get to have her say now about this issue of Foreign Involvement in NZ Elections and it would interesting to see SC’s reply as well especially Raymond’s as he has been mentioned in some of Anne’s discussion papers over the years along with old mate the “No Mates Party”

        • Rosemary McDonald 10.4.1.3
          8 March 2019 at 4:10 pm

          “It was a dreadful decision and made worse by the fact it was – of all committees – the Justice Select Committee.”

          Yes.

          Its one to add to the “What on Earth were Labour/NZF/Greens Thinking” list.

          Deep down I’m sure this lot have good intentions, on the whole, most of them…but oh my goodnessgraciousme they need to think things through a lot better than this.

  11. joe90 11
    8 March 2019 at 11:27 am

    If you don’t laugh, you’ll cry.

    https://twitter.com/walid970721/status/1103227421506048001

    WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. envoy for Venezuela dismissed the possibility of American military action in the South American country in a recording made by two Russian pranksters and released Wednesday.

    Special Representative Elliott Abrams said in the recording that the U.S. wouldn’t use force in Venezuela unless the government did something “completely crazy” like attack the American Embassy.

    But Abrams, who apparently believed he was speaking with a Swiss official, said the U.S. seeks to “make the Venezuelan military nervous” by not publicly ruling out military action to oust President Nicolas Maduro.

    “We think it is a mistake tactically to give them endless reassurances that there will never be American military action,” he said. “But I can tell you this is not what we are doing. What we are doing is exactly what you see, financial pressure, economic pressure, diplomatic pressure.”

    https://apnews.com/a2ca552b73f146e4a532470d75f28958

    • AB 11.1
      8 March 2019 at 1:09 pm

      Anybody who doesn’t think Guaido is the duly elected president of Venezuela hates the United States and its freedoms.

  12. WILD KATIPO 12
    8 March 2019 at 11:56 am

    Labour are now as compromised to our Chinese Overlords as …
    https://thedailyblog.co.nz/…/labour-are-now-as-compromised-to-our-chinese-overlord…

    • Siobhan 12.1
      8 March 2019 at 1:48 pm

      This would be an interesting story.
      I often wonder, given the number of people on the Standard who appear to know the inner workings of the Labour Party, why we get almost no critiquing of policy and ‘stuff’ like this.
      Every day we go over the shrill bleating from National, but, you know, they are the opposition, its their job, and they are what they are.
      You have to wonder…What are Labour Party supporters so worried about that they can’t question their own Party.

      • WILD KATIPO 12.1.1
        8 March 2019 at 2:09 pm

        ” You have to wonder…What are Labour Party supporters so worried about that they can’t question their own Party ”…

        I’d have to agree,… I’d have to suggest that it has much to do with the same faction in Labour that did in David Cunliffe. The neo liberal faction. Those same globalist ‘feather ones own bed’ sovereignty sell – outs that have bolstered Nationals popularity in the past obliquely and ‘indirectly’… those types who bear no real loyalty to either party nor country. Just loyalty to their neo liberal ideology.

        The ‘conservative , right wing ‘ National party being in bed with the biggest communist nation on earth and one with one of the largest humans rights abuses on record. So much so that National thinks its perfectly OK to have an ex chinese spy trainer as one of their MP’s. And now we see Labour meekly copying that formula.

        Its enough to make anyone want to throw their breakfasts up all over the kitchen table…

  13. cleangreen 13
    8 March 2019 at 12:06 pm

    Lime s scooter accident in Auckland today.

    When will they ever learn?

    • Gabby 13.1
      8 March 2019 at 6:17 pm

      If they got prosecuted for every offence committed with one of their contraptions they might.

  14. cleangreen 14
    8 March 2019 at 12:07 pm

    Press release from CEAC

    8th March 2019.

    “Support letter from ‘Citizens Environmental Advocacy Centre’ (CEAC) for requesting PM Ardern “speed up the release of the Zero Carbon Bill””

    We are showing our support of the Mt Albert community by also sending a letter to ‘Mt Albert MP Jacinda Ardern’ to speed up the process of passing a Zero Carbon Bill in Parliament in an open letter signed by over 150 local residents.
    http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1903/S00050/mt-albert-community-comes-together-for-open-letter-to-mp.htm

    With all respect given; Prime Minister Ardern said she would make climate change her generations nuclear moment didn’t she?

    Our letter from us at CEAC to Prime Minister Ardern;

    Dear; Honourable PM’ Jacinda Ardern,
    8th March 2019.

    Please now consider Jacinda this report from UK today – “Transport was the largest emitting sector of UK greenhouse gas emissions in 2017” – and how we are in NZ now in jeopardy of also failing in the same manner to meet our Paris emissions targets.
    https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/776083/2017_Final_emissions_statistics_one_page_summary.pdf

    • Transport emissions in UK only drop 2% in 29 years from 1990-2017
    • Consider this as a far better climate friendly transport policy?
    • Jacinda this is graphically showing that like the UK we in NZ need now to abandon its past road transport policies it has in place today (of the current freight haulage by roads around NZ) and instead transform firstly move 50% freight on other modes of rail and coastal shipping.

    Here are the latest UK emissions stats to show that they will now fail to meet their emission’s targets by 2035.

    Transport was the largest emitting sector of UK greenhouse gas emissions in 2017

    Energy supply and the residential sector delivered the largest reductions in
    emissions from 2016 to 2017.
    Energy emissions drop 17%
    Residential emissions drop 15%

    Other includes Public, Industrial Processes and the Land Use.

    Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) sectors (note that LULUCF acts as a net sink of emissions). The percentages may not sum to 100% due to rounding.

    Transport emissions drop 2016-2017 no % change
    Total transport emissions in UK are 27%.

    Transport emissions drop 1990-2017 – 2% change

    The energy supply sector has accounted for around half of the overall reduction in UK emissions since 1990, at which point it accounted for 35% of all emissions in the UK.

    It was the largest emitting sector until its emissions fell below transport in 2016.

    In other sectors, greenhouse gas emissions have fallen sharply.

    But transport emissions in the UK have declined by only 2% since 1990.

    The government’s legally binding target is an 80% cut by 2050, though even this, the science now tells us, is hopelessly inadequate.

    Transport, mostly because of our obsession with the private car, is now the major factor driving us towards climate breakdown, in this and many other nations.

    Also the massive increased is of truck freight by roads in both NZ and other countries is unsustainable.

    Jacinda; Please consider our health and wellbeing of our future generations.

    • Siobhan 15.1
      8 March 2019 at 2:02 pm

      Shame they didn’t hand out these sort of sentences to the big bankers after the crash.

      • reason 15.1.1
        8 March 2019 at 3:44 pm

        100+ … Siobhan

        Our bankster PM opened the doors for dirty money and rich criminals

        http://www.sarawakreport.org/2017/01/trust-us-new-zealand-can-hide-your-money/

        ” Since finance expert Mr John Shewan couldn’t find a single example of a corrupt use of a New Zealand trust fund, Sarawak Report would like to humbly offer him the details of how one such trust was deliberately set up by financial professionals in Europe to facilitate both the hiding of stolen money (again from 1MDB) and the avoidance of tax in the United States by the Emirati businessman Khadem Al Qubaisi, who is now in jail.”

        “Judith Collins said the drop in trust numbers was not surprising and it shouldn’t be assumed that was because many had been handling the proceeds of illegitimate activities. “There is a much heavier compliance burden under the new regime with more disclosure required than ever before.”.. she said, adding New Zealand now had a “world class regime”.[Stuff NZ]

        Who believes that – after all, how burndensome is it to write down your own name?”

        “Nor is this system yet ‘world class’. ” ….

        “New Zealand should be ashamed of the comparatively paltry $40 million a year that certain financial folk were making out of facilitating grand theft through such trusts from countries around the world, including the largest kleptocracy case ever from Malaysia.” …. Quoted from corruption buster Clare Rewcastle Brown

        http://www.sarawakreport.org/

  16. WILD KATIPO 16
    8 March 2019 at 2:33 pm

    Why Raymond Huo Wants Prof Brady Blocked From Speaking To His …
    https://thedailyblog.co.nz/…/why-raymond-huo-wants-prof-brady-blocked-from-spea…

    • Stuart Munro. 16.1
      8 March 2019 at 3:43 pm

      Oh dear. He really ought to step down for that.

      • cleangreen 16.1.1
        8 March 2019 at 4:12 pm

        I saw it in 1970 when the Chinese had “ringbarked the hole City of Nairobi in Kenya when the chinese had been allowed into that country and set up shops all around that city selling very cheap stuff and eventually killed off the Local african traders entirely.

        As I left Africa one year later the race riots were going strong and then when i got back to Canada the Kenyan Government expelled the Chinese to save the peace.

        US warned us of the dangers and did we listen?

        Yes it will happen here make no mistake here.

        Chinese Communist party will perhaps introduce some plague or horticultural insect plague to ruin your industries here and bring us to our knees.

        Today we are dancing with the dragons and tomorrow may be devoured by them.

        • Stuart Munro. 16.1.1.1
          8 March 2019 at 4:29 pm

          Yeah, I worked in China for a while. I know how they work. Sad thing is our local Chinese folk had earned a quite different reputation for a while there – massively underrepresented in all the criminal categories the new entrants are now filling.

          • WeTheBleeple 16.1.1.1.1
            8 March 2019 at 7:08 pm

            Did you just imply that new asian immigrants are all criminals? Or do you prefer your criminals undetected. It can be difficult to interpret the shit you type.

            Rather Trumpian attitude regardless.

            • WILD KATIPO 16.1.1.1.1.1
              8 March 2019 at 9:29 pm

              First off, he wasn’t talking about ‘Asians’ . He was mentioning his experience while working in china.

              Second off, with all the news coverage of the detrimental effects of chinas soft power expansionism into the Southern Oceans, don’t you think we have a right to question the motives of some , if not many of these new entrants particularly as National has an ex military chinese spy tutor as an MP and the revelations of the Jamie Lee Ross tapes,.. and of Prof Brady being snubbed by a Labour govt select committee and of which some of that committees interests were with national security issues ???

              Are we really so naive to believe it is only the top tier James Bond types who are carrying out the spying?

              • Mark …
                8 March 2019 at 10:17 pm

                “what detrimental effects?”

                By the way the Kenyans, and other Africans seem to be very positive about the Chinese:

                http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/10/19/5-charts-on-global-views-of-china/

              • WeTheBleeple …
                8 March 2019 at 10:20 pm

                We should question the motives of all entrants, as one would naively hope is already done.

                The ‘new entrants’ (immigrants) are described above as ‘not local chinese’ rather, a breed with a multi-faceted talent for crime – “all the criminal categories the new entrants are now filling”.

                aka Asian immigrants are a bunch of criminals.

                The fact our Govt is in bed with the Chinese Govt at some level has got F-all to do with the repugnance of the comment.

                It must be an Asian crime wave, quick, someone alert the media.

            • greywarshark 16.1.1.1.1.2
              8 March 2019 at 10:17 pm

              The shit you type? Are you referring to Stuart Munro? He doesn’t write the RW shit that so spoils the blog. But with Chinese perhaps if he knows what he is talking about it would be a good idea to either give an example, or not so strong sweeping generalisation.

              • WeTheBleeple …
                8 March 2019 at 10:22 pm

                And now you think it’s fair, because he’s not right wing, it’s ok to be left wing racist is it?

            • Stuart Munro. 16.1.1.1.1.3
              8 March 2019 at 10:29 pm

              I used to pay some attention to some of the imprisonment stats, they revealed a thing or two, back when I was teaching refugees. Used to be our worst migrant community (in that dataset) was in fact expat poms – who were overrepresented in fraud.

              My impression is that of late our migrant groups have been a little less scrupulously selected (or self-selected) so that the norms of the late 90s no longer hold, sadly. At that time I tended to defend particularly Asian migrants, as being one of one the least troublesome groups in our country.

              I’m not sure whether you consider it racist to say so, but there is a cultural element to particular criminalities. Nigerians are frequent participants in some kinds of internet scams (as are Indians more recently). Russian organized crime often chooses scams based around petroleum.

              • WeTheBleeple …
                9 March 2019 at 7:50 pm

                I’m gonna give you the benefit of the doubt on this you don’t seem unreasonably callous though I don’t think you picked up the subtext you portrayed. Casual racism is so ingrained here in NZ I have a low tolerance to it get myself in trouble with people all the time. All of them white, male, over 40. To profile…

                I was also unduly critical yesterday – when the aspie and PTSD rise simultaneously I’m a hangry janky jerk. Will sorry suffice? Peace?

                The comment pushed buttons my relatives on Dad’s side mined gold in Waitawheta gorge the Chinese were feared: As Grandad would say – the Irish were drunks always getting in fistfights while the Chinese were sober. But they did sell opium. And you didn’t muck em round or you’d wake up dead with a knife sticking out of you. Historically not so boisterous as others and so not so much in public profile, but still a criminal reputation of some remark in mining stories, and that since the gold rush.

                I think the grouping of crime types is at least partly similar to grouping of learned behavior in bird populations. If one learns how to get the nuts and the others want nuts, they’ll copy.

                Although, how much is opportunistic and how much is cultural e.g. coastal pirates, would be a fascinating study…

                • Stuart Munro. …
                  9 March 2019 at 11:56 pm

                  I took no offence – and I recognize that groupings like cultural crime preferences are potentially the foundations of prejudice, the basis of profiling after all. Problems like P and political corruption have me reaching for big sticks however – Iain Banks’s Special Circumstances characters like the ship Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints.

                  • WeTheBleeple …
                    10 March 2019 at 7:53 am

                    I had a partner who was mates with Iain. It was strange to hear him spoken of like a mortal. My only gripe was you can’t smoke weed and read him, too complex.

                    Shame we lost him early, quite the genius.

                    P – I throw people out of my house if they’re on it. The armed offenders have been on the street four times in the last month. guess what one of the neighbors likes to smoke… then a streetwide shouting match/domestic, smashing stuff, lunacy…..

                    I HATE that drug.

  17. Gabby 17
    8 March 2019 at 6:35 pm

    What’s Pricksmiff’s game though’s what I want to know.

    • Muttonbird 17.1
      8 March 2019 at 10:42 pm

      He’ll be shagging every woman that walks past with the wonky eyeball of his.

  18. CHCoff 18
    8 March 2019 at 10:31 pm

    Woman’s Day

    Increasing gender equality to business & corporate decision making trees, will help progress an added value localised state of culture in establishing more mutual & encompassing trading relations in the international market place, & help our NZ economy in achieving the maximum empowerment in it’s overall prosperity.

    NZ1st!

    • greywarshark 18.1
      8 March 2019 at 10:37 pm

      CHCOff
      Who wrote that mouthful? NZ1st? I find it almost unintelligible?

      • Sam 18.1.1
        8 March 2019 at 10:40 pm

        Today is a significant do for all those who have achieved so much for woman. There is no wrong way of saying that.

      • CHCoff 18.1.2
        9 March 2019 at 4:23 pm

        A light capital gains tax.
        An increase in tax on large & medium to large corporates/business.

        A ‘house is a home’ property market to kick financialization out of house market so it’s demand & supply can calibrate & perform to it’s primary societal function.

        Increasingly reduced tax on large & medium to large corporates/businesses that achieve gender equality increasingly throughout their decision making structures.

        Is that more intelligible to you GWS?

    • CHCoff 18.2
      10 March 2019 at 8:04 pm

      Let’s build & create a more robust NZ interface for creating more options to prosperity in international relations and partnership bonds.

      https://elpais.com/elpais/2019/03/08/inenglish/1552051103_915747.html

  19. greywarshark 19
    8 March 2019 at 10:48 pm

    Wasps nest – immense. These skilled workers are people we need with the nous to stop wasps decimating everything. Female fruit flies not wanted either. What’s next, I suppose it is inevitable that we will get more.

    https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/384299/million-wasp-nest-discovered-near-rotorua

  20. greywarshark 20
    8 March 2019 at 10:55 pm

    https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/384298/nelson-air-terminal-so-hot-people-feared-heat-stroke

    You pay $millions and still the experts can’t cope with the basics. We probably have spent too much on the airport terminal anyway. I thought it was almost industrial in its noise when I went through. We had a nice reasonable sized terminal but of course we are getting more tourists so we have to go into hock I imagine, to provide them with the facilities they need.

    I see Queenstown are seeing the light. A short of money tourist said they would think twice about going there. Good one, Venice had to to tighten up and Q’town is reached capacity I hear. Before the place gets over-run. It’s actually quite nice to meet people in the streetin Nelson who are locals, though some of my best friends are overseas people!

  21. greywarshark 21
    8 March 2019 at 11:14 pm

    OH hell. Hells’R’Us with climate change. Can we do enough? Can we do a little every day?
    https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018685155/david-wallace-wells-inaction-on-climate-change-will-turn-earth-into-a-hell

    I find that people are still clinging onto the last century in their thinking. If we are seeing changes it comes because the government has given up the task of running the country as we expected, and told their mates in business that they can experiment on us, and it has turned out so badly that we have to do something to rectify a mess.

    And we encouraged that ourselves, and only marginally now have been able to get to a position where anything much will be attempted. It’s putting a toe in the water. Soon we won’t be able to do that, it will be boiling hot, or have acid, or algae or something.

    I keep hoping that we can get euthanasia for adults over 60, and others who apply to the Court and make their case, but we can’t even get it for people in pain who ask for it, and people who are terminally ill.

    It would be good to know that I can attend to the organisational side of leaving the world permanently then after that’s ready, sometime I can give up, say my goodbyes, take a last look at some places, give big hugs to special people, and go in my own time. It really is hard sometimes to put up with any more of the nonsense, cruelty and foolishness that goes on.

  22. eco maori 22
    10 March 2019 at 9:21 am

    Some Eco Maori Music for the minute.

  23. eco maori 23
    10 March 2019 at 10:42 am

    TE Blind I see powerful people using this dirty behavour all around Papatuanuku
    Refining NZ faces tough questions from government inquiry over 2017 Auckland fuel crisis
    Refining NZ will face grilling from a government inquiry over whether it could have averted the rupture of its Auckland fuel pipeline 18 months ago and prevented the crisis that led to the cancellation of more than 100 flights at Auckland airport.

    The pipeline provides the main supply of petrol, diesel and jet fuel for Auckland and its catastrophic failure on September 14, 2017, raised questions about whether a second pipeline costing hundreds of millions of dollars might be justified.

    But a body representing airlines has signalled they may now be close to an agreement with oil companies that would instead see extra fuel storage tanks installed either at Auckland airport or at a nearby facility at Wiri at a likely cost of $100 million to $150m.
    {{{{Refining NZ, which also operates the Marsden Point oil refinery, blamed the pipeline failure on an unidentified digger driver who it believes damaged the pipeline some time after July 2014, perhaps while searching for swamp kauri.]]]] Can you even believe this story its like clark and tompson spys and the EVEDINCE disserparing from Pike River Mine but this was not a cover up this a blind /DISTRACTION cause shonkys national party were getting hammered in the polls so they pull this stunt KAURI LOGS AIRNZ SHONKY JUDY see the links clearly do YOU.

    A Northland Regional Council report concluded there was “no suggestion Refining NZ could or should have known the incident was going to occur”.

    But a newly-convened government inquiry will shortly begin hearing evidence on whether an increase in pressure in the pipeline may have contributed to the failure and also on whether Refining NZ should have detected the digger damage before the pipeline.

    It emerged last year that a sequence of events had preceded the pipeline rupture.

    In particular, a WorleyParsons engineering report released under the Official Information Act revealed the pipeline experienced an “emergency shutdown” just two hours before it ruptured, after a maintenance worker accidentally triggered a fire alarm at a pumping station part-way along the 170 kilometre pipeline.

    Two of three pumps then failed to restart when the refinery began pumping fuel back through the pipeline about 20 minutes later, causing pressure in the pipeline to spike to nearer to its maximum allowed level. Ka kite ano links below P.S You do know that diggers have a GPS TRACKER installed on them If you hit some thing hard you know you have hit in a digger

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/111007574/refining-nz-faces-tough-questions-from-government-inquiry-over-2017-auckland-fuel-crisis

  24. Eco Maori 24
    10 March 2019 at 11:43 am

    Kia ora R&R on Maori Tv I do agree that our lives are structured around mahi. But the good jobs in Aotearoa are all taken by Europeans as most jobs given by word of mouth so Maori don’t even get a toe in the door look at all the work trucks hilux all full of WHITE Face.
    Most people m8 are from work because the sandflys are using anyone they can bribe con or spin to against Eco Maori I don’t have m8s at this point in time.
    The wages te tangata whenua get in Aotearoa is Crap.
    Ka kite ano

  25. eco maori 25
    10 March 2019 at 1:11 pm

    Some Eco Maori Music for the minute.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0lufcRgZlA

    Ma te wa kiore

  27. Eco Maori 27
    10 March 2019 at 6:47 pm

    Kia ora Te ao Maori News.
    Kids can is a great organisation supporting disadvantage kids. They are our future and need the best possible start in life.
    There you go Maori salleries are CRAP.
    ITS very important to get the Mokopunas vacancied as if they don’t that could cause a major health problem.
    Not sure about the loss to Spain they must have played the water boys in that game.
    The Taranaki IWIs suffered a massive blow to their Mana when the crown orgistated and minupulate the setting to steal their land and kill unarmed women and children these people still look down on US.
    I say that the western people treated our old tohonga,s badly they were outlawed WTF.
    Just because one doesn’t know how it works doesn’t mean it does not work we need to go back to the old ways of healing the tangata whenua even just Aroha is a powerful healing phenomenon.
    My Mokopunas love there Pepeha dolls from the Warehouse I games can be a top income earner for Tangata Whenua Ka kite ano P.S I see the ECO Maori effect he was coached and could not look straight lol

  28. eco maori 28
    10 March 2019 at 8:38 pm

    Some Eco Maori Music for the minute.

  29. Eco Maori 29
    11 March 2019 at 8:28 am

    Kia ora The AM Show Water bottling is bad for the inviroment but I A country were you can not grantee the best water quality it’s a must we have to come up with a better system maybe bulk shipping of water.
    There you go Helen Clarke did not forsee that her kneejerk reaction to the Forshore and Seabed issues would have this concerquences. I SAY ALL THE ROYALTYs FROM WATER BOTTLING SHOULD BE GIVEN TO MAORI. To make up for the shit that this system has and is raining down on US. Ana to kai
    3 years ago who would have thought a national party leader would start a sentence with MAORI words on TV.
    simon you give tax relief to the wrong people you gave tax relief to the wealthy and put up GST to pay for your social service to the WEALTHY.
    Still need some tissue over the eliction I SEE puppet.
    Jason scotmo has the brain of a lump of coal everyone is pissed with him ignoring climate change and he is a chovernistic moron who is getting the warth of the World.
    I say it’s a good thing when someone change his mind on issues some people are to stupid to see they have made a mistake Phil Goff. Ships are only going to get bigger I can see you attack things I support.
    What a load of bullshit duncan if the previous government had dune it job we would not have this virus out break I could just afford to go to the doctors under them now it Alot more affordable to go to the doctors I use to only see a nurse to keep my costs down and the only reason I could pull that off is because I’m Eco Maori.
    I Heard a statement saying that 9 million litres of bottled water was exported what is it billions or millions.
    School Students Striking for Climate is going to be the best thing they could do to save their ENVIRONMENT.
    That’s why duncan is pushing this minor issue water bottleing to try and hype it up as a tool to attack the government with.
    I had a actor ask me a favour can you fix my washing machine taps I kindly said I don’t interact with strangers sorry next minute slammed door LOL she got upset.
    There you go a negative person on weed the reason weed needs to be legalised is because it a medical plant and your m8 are locking thousands of tangata whenua because of this stupid law.
    If you start smoking at 13 no wonder you were stuffed up there you go let the money men get control of weed/ anything and they ruin it trying to squeeze all the money out of it. Piss off people won’t be waking the streets all smoking weed it a wynd down drug you relax after the day you don’t go roaming the street like Upper drugs do PEE and all that shit.
    There you go dick having another kick the pollies are not making the changes fast enough to combat climate change because people like you suck up the climate deniers money and push out there lies propergander. The pollies will listen to there children about climate change. Also it is a well known fact that laws change because of protesting the teachers are protesting for money /being lead by the right neo liberal people so school tamariki should protest for their Futures.
    Ka kite ano

  30. Eco Maori 30
    11 March 2019 at 8:43 am

    What do you say to your kids have you seen fools smoking weed in a car park I have seen pissed people in public do you tell them that will stuff there livers make them do stupid shit fight all the dumb shit do you tell them if you drink alcohol fast it will kill you Ka kite ano

  31. Eco Maori 31
    11 March 2019 at 10:19 am

    Some Eco Maori Music for the minute.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5tWYmIOWGk
    P.S It would help if tangata that tau toko Eco Maori wispered in my immediate whanau ear that they have heard of me.

  32. Eco Maori 32
    11 March 2019 at 11:00 am

    This is the reason I discredit lab meat and the vagen movement this is just a way to attack OUR small family run farms .These corprate people are cheats they use the media to minuplate the people into thinking family farms are bad then buy them out and start factory farms local and central goverments are hamstrung by these huge busness money minuplateing them /bacicly the factory farms get to do what they want . This is what has caused the Murry Darling river crisses corprate farms doing what they WANT taking more water that the enviroment can sustain weather they kill our enviroment or not
    How America’s food giants swallowed the family farms
    Across the midwest, the rise of factory farming is destroying rural communities. And the massive corporations behind this devastation are now eyeing a post-Brexit UK market
    by Chris McGreal
    W
    hen the vast expanse of rural Iowa was carved up for settlers in the 19th century, it was often divided into 160-acre lots. Four farms made a square mile, with a crisscross of dead-straight roads marking the boundaries like a sprawling chess board.
    Within each square, generations of families tended pigs and cattle, grew oats and raised children, with the sons most likely to take over the farm. That is how Barb Kalbach saw the future when she left her family’s land to marry and begin farming with her new husband, Jim, 47 years ago.
    “When we very first were married, we had cattle and calves,” she says. “We raised hogs from farrow to finish, and we had corn, beans, hay and oats. So did everyone around us.”

    Animals farmed: join us for monthly updates
    Read more

    Half a century later, Kalbach surveys the destruction within the section of chessboard she shared with other farms near Dexter in southwestern Iowa. Barb and Jim are the last family still working the land, after their neighbours were picked off by waves of collapsing commodity prices and the rise of factory farming. With that came a vast transfer in wealth as farm profits funnelled into corporations or the diminishing number of families that own an increasing share of the land. Rural communities have been hollowed out.
    And while the Kalbachs have hung on to their farm, they long ago abandoned livestock and mixed arable farming for the only thing they can make money at any more – growing corn and soya beans to sell to corporate buyers as feed for animals crammed by the thousands into the huge semi-automated sheds that now dominate farming, and the landscape, in large parts of Iowa.
    Kalbach comes from five generations of farmers and suspects she may be the last. As she drives the roads around her farmhouse, she ticks off the disappearances.
    This collapse has in good part been driven by the rise of concentrated animal feeding operations, or Cafos. In these industrial farming units, pigs, cows and chickens are crammed by the thousand into rows of barns. Many units are semi-automated, with feeding run by computer and the animals watched by video, with periodic visits by workers who drive between several operations.
    Advertisement

    “That’s how I end up with 40,000 hogs around me,” says Partridge.
    Cafos account for only a small proportion of America’s 2 million farms, but they dominate animal production and have an outsize influence on crop growing, particularly in the midwest.
    By one calculation, the US has around 250,000 factory farms of one kind or another. They have their roots in the 1930s, with the mechanisation of pig slaughterhouses. By the 1950s, chickens were routinely packed into huge sheds, in appalling conditions.
    In the early 1970s, US agriculture secretary Earl Butz pushed the idea of large-scale farming with the mantra “get big or get out”. He wanted to see farmers embrace what he regarded as a more efficient strategy of growing commodity crops, such as corn and soya beans. Some farmers invested heavily in buying land and new machinery to increase production – taking on large amounts of debt to do so.
    A decade later, the farm crisis hit as overproduction, the US grain embargo against the Soviet Union and high interest rates dramatically drove up costs and debt for family farms. Land prices collapsed and foreclosures escalated.“Every blow to independent farming made it more of an opportunity for large corporations to come in,” said Partridge.
    In 1990, small and medium-sized farms accounted for nearly half of all agricultural production in the US. Now it is less than a quarter.
    As the medium-sized family farms retreated, the businesses they helped support disappeared. Local seed and equipment suppliers shut up shop because corporations went straight to wholesalers or manufacturers. Demand for local vets collapsed. As those businesses packed up and left, communities shrank. Shops, restaurants and doctors’ surgeries closed. People found they had to drive for an hour or more for medical treatment. Towns and counties began to share ambulances. Ka kite ano links below

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/09/american-food-giants-swallow-the-family-farms-iowa

  33. Eco Maori 33
    11 March 2019 at 1:12 pm

    I see the similarities of Maori and Asian cultures respect the whanau /family kau matua elders and tipuna,s ansesters enviroment as well . The Captlist single person thing about ones own welbeing who care about the brown person under the bridge .This mentality is imposed on the common poor person but the ultrawealthy have there companys that act as one on there behalf these people are networked through there companys that work as a communistic system on there behalf . While the common person has to struggle in this socioty by themselvels easer for the companys to milk.
    The youth grow up thinking they know better than the kau matua and end up making all sorts of stupid mistakes because of this whiteman thing of no respect for the whanau or kau matuas or enviroment.
    Māori at an advantage in engagement with Asia trade
    OPINION: I’m going to be unabashed in my promotion of a piece of good news this week. We now have the data to show that Māori can succeed in their engagement with Asia and Asian peoples – and already do.
    Last week we released a piece of research which mirrors our general survey on New Zealanders’ perceptions of Asia, Perceptions of Asia and Asian People from a Te Ao Māori Perspective.
    It showed some similarities – both reports show New Zealanders, including Māori, feel that tourism from Asia is going to have a positive impact; both surveys show that New Zealanders are more interested in Asian food than Asian sports.
    But in this research we also explored the cultural connections Māori might have with Asian cultures. It confirmed what we had guessed and were aware of anecdotally – there is a strong affinity to build on.

    As I have said often, relationships with Asia have to mean more than “we want to sell you stuff”.
    In business, arts, journalism, diplomacy, education, positive relationships and mutual understanding lay a strong foundation for success – Māori may have the edge on this work.
    We’re going to be picking up steam on the work we’re doing to make sure Māori are accessing our opportunities, and we are challenging others to do the same.
    Relevant to the work ahead is that despite feeling cultural affinity, Māori have low self-perceived knowledge of Asian peoples and cultures – fewer than 20 per cent felt they knew at least a fair amount about Asia, compared to a third among the general population.
    While more than half see the benefit of engaging economically and culturally with Asia – fewer felt Māori benefited from this.
    Eight out of 10 surveyed felt it was important for the future workforce to be confident with Asian cultures. Only eight per cent of those surveyed thought enough was being done to equip Māori business to succeed in Asia.
    New Zealand’s future (and present) is undoubtedly tied with Asia, and we need to ensure Māori are included in work to prepare for that – they can clearly teach non-Māori a thing or two. Ka kite ano link,s below

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/opinion-analysis/111167607/mori-ties-to-asia-run-deep

  34. Eco Maori 34
    11 March 2019 at 3:54 pm

    Some Eco Maori Music for the minute.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgVVG5EknuI
    The sandflys are listening hard on my phone the data use has spiked and battrie life is getting used fast. They are praying that there steeotype they have been trying to brand me with is correct idiots

  35. Eco Maori 35
    11 March 2019 at 4:44 pm

    I know someone who see this every day at work that is why she is not like Eco Maori A proud Maori who could be mistaken as white but I soon let them know when I speak I greet everyone with Kia ora. I have seen this all through out my life discrimanation some people blank it out but not I.
    She thought I was homeless
    The Pākehā lady at the homeless shelter shoves a box of tampons into my hands.
    “Here you go,” she whispers in my ear. “It’s the last one.”
    I look down at my hands, wondering why she just handed me a free box of tampons. She smiles and gives me a look, like she’s just saved me from falling off a cliff. And then I realise why. I see the homeless people behind her. All brown faces. All Māori. She thinks I’m homeless.
    Wow. “Do I dress like I don’t have a home?” That was the first question that crossed my mind. Admittedly, my ego was a little bruised. When I told the helper I was actually there as a journalist covering a story about homelessness, she was extremely embarrassed.
    I laughed about it when I retold this story to friends, but later as I pondered on this experience, it set me thinking.
    I wasn’t surprised when I read, a few days later, about how Reremai Cameron, a young Māori student, had a potential landlord asking her, in a text message, if she was Māori.
    “I hope you are aware the rent would only cover you and no friends or family to stay in the sleep-out. We had a Māori in our home before whom had multiple family and friend visitors, that is something we will not tolerate.”
    The lady at the homeless shelter was a nice lady. Clearly, if she’s giving her time to help those who are vulnerable, she has a good heart. And, seeing it was a homeless shelter, maybe it was understandable that she leapt to conclusions.
    But I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t have made the same mistake with a Pākehā reporter. She’d assumed I was homeless because I was brown, and she didn’t stop to take in anything else about me. Like the camera bag I was carrying, or the nice clothes I was wearing.
    (Okay, so I’m doing a bit of stereotyping myself by assuming homeless people wouldn’t be wearing nice clothes.)
    It’s true that we all use stereotyping to navigate our way through life when we’re meeting strangers. Stereotypes are cognitive shortcuts — our brains seem to have evolved this way so we can size people up quickly. Friend or foe? Potential threat or possible ally? We don’t have time to carry out a thorough risk assessment every time we meet someone new. So we categorise. Teenagers or pensioners. Female or male. Skinny or fat. Yellow or black. White or brown.
    And that’s all very well and good, but the trouble is when people don’t look any further than the stereotypes they’ve picked up along the way. When it stops them seeing a human being in front of them, rather than a colour or an ethnicity.
    You’d think in this country we could avoid stereotypes built on incomplete information, or false assumptions, or media headlines. We’re a small country. We live close to each other — often within the same family.
    The constant repetition of negative stereotypes, sometimes with not much more than a look or body language, can be hurtful and damaging.
    Growing up, I remember the lengths to which my mum and dad would go to avoid racist judgments being made about them.
    It was always very subtle. My dad would gently tug his sleeves down his arms to cover his tattoos when we walked into a shop. My mum would change into her Pākehā voice on the phone when she wanted something done.
    I was taught to dress nicely and talk “properly”. I let people say my last name wrong, even though they were butchering it. It was better to say nothing, than to create awkwardness and tension. In other words, I thought it was better to be silent than to be right.
    “It’s always the Mowrees abusing the children,” a Pākehā friend once said, after a brown face came on the news. And then she looks at me, obviously forgetting that I’m Māori. “Oh! But you’re not really a Mowree. You’re a plastic Mowree.”
    I don’t even know what that means. But nope. Not a plastic Māori. Just Māori. And no matter how hard I try to avoid racist stereotypes, how nice I dress, how much I straighten my hair, I can’t change the colour of my skin.
    Last year, Taika Waititi, who’s been making waves as a movie director, said New Zealand was racist. Suddenly there was this national outcry. It felt like the whole country was in a state of denial. “You’re clearly not very travelled then mate,” one Stuff commenter wrote. “Maybe take a trip to America or Australia? Or to Malaysia? New Zealand is one of the least racist places in the western world.”
    Least racist? Perhaps you could argue that if you think the only form of racism has to be extreme and in your face? That you’re racist only if you’re one of those lunatics in a viral video telling those of colour to go back to their own country?
    But there are so many layers of racism, and they begin with assumptions. Usually false and negative assumptions based on ignorance.
    People would say to Taika Waititi: “Oh, you’ve done so well, haven’t you? For how you grew up. For one of your people.”
    As opposed to what?
    My brother was once asked if he was the security guard when he was attending a meeting as an elected member of the local council.
    Or what about the Māori Santa last year? Do we even need to talk about that?
    Subtle but patronising comments about race is racism. Silent racial profiling is a form of discrimination. And when you encounter examples of it every single day, it’s not only hurtful, it’s exhausting. You soon start to believe what you’re told. You’re defined by your skin colour or race, rather than by what you are as a person.
    Ka kite ano links below.

    https://e-tangata.co.nz/reflections/she-thought-i-was-homeless/

  36. Eco Maori 36
    11 March 2019 at 6:54 pm

    Kia ora Te ao Maori News Kids can help Maori tamariki as our tamariki are the ones suffering the most
    Ka pai the Pacific form meeting the Pacific needs to be protected from the big companies that will exploit all our our Mokopunas resources. Was it Naro that had a vast reserve of fertiliser that was strip mine by the west and left broke capitalism at its best.
    Its cool that Nanaia Mahuta is in Chile promoting indigenous business we can have a strong tangata whenua world class exporting presents once AGAIN.
    The Maori Kitchen in Central Auckland is cool I will get a kai from there when I am there next. Got big expansion in there goals Ka pai
    What happened to Tama Itis restaurant in Auckland I think I know what went wrong Maori suppression that’s it. I seen him on Maori kai Masters
    Yes these companies using Maori art to sell kai best get some Maori advice as Kai is very Tapu to Maori it will save a lot of headache and show that they respect Maori Cultures Ka kite ano.