I agree about the appalling unedifying spectacle of tangi goers being harassed by phalanxes of police. Monstrous overkill and stupid grandstanding.
Like the new police quarters being set up in central Auckland while police around the country work in mouldy buildings and from offices inside disabled toilets. Just for’good news’ stories and photo ops.
Yes that amount of Police was rather over the top although presumably this was done to send a message. Setting up directly outside the cemetery was particularly tone deaf and very rightly were soundly challenged and scolded for that.
PS, if the PMs limo is a write-off, I do hope it's replaced with a Toyota Corolla
So glad Roimata’s book is going to schools. It gives a very succinct and clear understanding of why we must honour the Treaty and not rewrite it as Seymour and his donors wish. Thanks again Nick for your newsletters and have a good weekend.
That is brilliant and uplifting news. Not only is it saying "Not all wealthy agree with you Seymour," plus it is a great resource which will balance the lies and rewrites of The Principles.
I read this on the Spinoff (best value for money for Aotearoa news & backgrounders I reckon 👍) & immediately looked up to see where I could get a copy for myself - might be good for gifts too⁉️
Nobody expects the Covid Inquisition! Our chief weapon is Fear... Scaremongering and fear... fear and scaremongering ... Our two weapons are fear and scaremongering... and ruthless ignoring of facts.... Our three weapons are fear, and scaremongering, and ruthless ignoring of facts... and an almost fanatical devotion to Right-wing nutjobs... Our four... no... Amongst our weapons... Amongst our weaponry... are such elements as fear, scaremongering... I'll come in again.
Meanwhile, could someone please go full Clockwork Orange on David Seymour's eyelids and pop that Te Tiriti book in front of him?
It was 1981 Springbok tour level overreach wasn't it. Notice there were no violent crimes reported. Traffic and sartorial offenses only. What does it say when a gang is the "bigger person" in a situation with the police.
On 'they came for the gangs' this week in the UK my understanding is Romany children/young people were forcibly put on a train in Manchester to 'disperse' them and sent off to somewhere random. Of course, Romany are a group about whom it seems people are allowed to be prejudiced, in Europe anyway.
Luckily we don't have the pressure on school libraries (yet) from groups like "Moms for Liberty (sic)" in the US to withdraw books featuring minorities of all stripes so the donated books here have ahigh chance of being retained by the schools
Thank you Nick, always appreciate your newsletters. I'm beginning to despair about the lack of mainstream media accountability and the skewing of every bit of news to either make light of this governments' serious failings and harm they're causing, or their not giving the opposition fair airtime (and even downplaying Jacinda's amazing awards and recognition worldwide!).
I wish I knew how the NZ general public feel, or care. Are we heading toward apathy and blind following of the corporate puppeteers' biasing of the media?
Sometimes I watch the news and wonder if there is just incredible understatement and it's meant to be viewed as being heavily tongue-in-cheek, but if it is they need to be much more obvious about it.
So many police at a Tangi anxious to uphold the highly questionable gang patch law shocked and saddened me, it was a Tangi! Where was the respect for the whanau mourning a loved one?
I don’t like the way gangs operate, but I don’t agree with the patch law, it won’t change anything as the government well knows. The gangs will not disappear in reality, they will simply be less obviously visible. I feel sorry for the police that have to enact this law, and I would rather they were deployed to combat actual crime. If gangs want to wear patches let them, it’s their criminal activity the police need to be focused on and not their dress code, particularly at a Tangi.
I was appalled by the sickening lack of respect to the grieving whanau and their urupa. Staggered that someone wearing a red tee-shirt was targeted because it's associated with a gang. I firmly believe that no any single person or group 'owns' a colour of the rainbow - what next - are they going to pull red flowers out of everyone's garden!
I saw the Police at the funeral and all I could feel was shame and hurt. Hurt for the whanau sacred space being brought into such a political overkill tactic and shame for the whanau having to fight the Police at such a painful time.
Then I look at the Police and feel the same hurt and shame for them having to do this. Regardless of their own views, this is what they are paid to do. The government shows them no value or respect. And yet they will be in the frontline for hurt, anger and retaliation.
If this is the new policing, then I for one don’t feel safer. As next this could be my whanau cemetery or funeral
Front line police have no choice about where they are sent and what they have to do, but I am getting alarming vibes when (some) senior police are interviewed, including the new boss…
😥💯 Perfectly put... I imagined this happening at any of the tangi I have attended where whanau who might be outside-the-law adjacent but are truly grieving a special whanau member, have felt safe to come & show their aroha & share in these sacred moments simply as human beings who are grieving. Imagine if they had done this at the tangihanga for the Maori King⁉️ "Shame & hurt" are exactly what it is right to feel 🫂🖤❤️
Yes Jo...I love that quote..."First they came for.....". Getting the police more experience in crowd control for what comes next? (thinking Principles referendum, (more) deaths in hospitals), more of Seymour's hideous 'punching above his weight' policies..)
Happy weekend Nick. I am looking to hearing more about the Labour Conference debate by members and affiliated unions. The media will spin it as friction in the LP. Naysayers will criticise Labour for being too "right" or too "left". People who have never sold a raffle ticket or delivered a single leaflet for the LP will cry for Chippie's replacement. Everyone will have an opinion, but what matters to me most are the good, solid, ordinary Labour members and affiliated unions who will help steer the future. They are energised and determined. Let them have their weekend too.
Is this the year of the bans, cell phones in schools, for under ages, patches, (police patches excluded), what next? Wearing Red perhaps? With all this banning I wonder who will police it, and what are the penalties, and what if a fine is not paid, Goal time I suppose? At lease chris lux accepts he got inflation down, but not him that put lots of people out of work, is he also please about the recession we are now experiencing?
Hope you can hear my "Tautoko" as you sit on your lovely sunny deck 2 doors down.....you have captured the feelings of so many of us Nick. Shaking our heads in amazement at the platoons of police from around the motu called to police a Tangi! Frustrated at the bleating on of the "freedom to be plonkers" as they wah on at the Covid enquiry and your pride in how Aotearoa shone as an exemplar of kind and humane decision making as we tacked the pandemic. Enjoy this beautiful Friday and thank you as always for your work.
The parch thing is ridiculous. If gang members commit crimes, then they should be arrested. As an OWL (old white lady) I am seriously considering wearing a gang patch as a fashion statement. Maybe if a whole flock of owls were to do that, it would expose that law for the nonsense it is.
😥 What a terrible spectacle for Police to be deployed in such excessive numbers to a bloody FUNERAL/TANGI FFS! I miss Police Commissioner Andrew Coster already 😱 He obviously saw the writing on the wall with his admirable "policing by consent" strategy going out the window the minute this patch ban needed to be enforced 🤷 I have/had relatives/friends in the Police & this makes me feel anxious for them when they go into difficult situations with no more than 1 or 2 others instead of this egregious over-reach for dubious political posturing & no commensurate public safety, law enforcement, justification 🤬 Perhaps the Police car ramming the PM's car was an omen 🤣
I am basically lazy so copy/paste my response to the Spinoff excellent summation of the COVID Inuiry report:
Bottom line on the COVID Inquiry findings - "Aotearoa New Zealand" (loved that that is what they called us👍) did not uniquely have family disruptions, social disconnections, inequity of services & outcomes, and ALL of the negative downsides to an unprecedented global pandemic that NO COUNTRY was totally prepared for and few if any came out any better at managing - i.e. the health system coping, keeping the economy working & unemployment contained, having a high vaccination rate quickly, and my biggest PLUS is the numbers of my older & immuno-compromised whanau & friends who are alive BECAUSE of how the response was managed here in "Aotearoa New Zealand".
🤔 Hindsight is always much easier than being in the midst of chaos & having to work with unfolding information & scientific data when literally 10,000's of lives were at risk if you got it wrong. 🤢 It behoves us to remember what was happening AT THE TIME and not re-visit decisions based on information no-one IN THE WORLD had at the time eh⁉️ Of course, there are always things that could/should be done better given what we know now, and some amongst us will never accept that their personal perspective & /or grievance isn't more important than the welfare of the whole nation, but it's always lives saved by direct comparison to other nations & the way they managed things that is the real verdict for ME 🤷
'Tis bleak reading Nick, I can scarcely believe this is our country anymore, our abysmal beige Americanophile PM and his nasty coalition are hell bent it seems on turning all things American into the m.o. of governance here ... what an absolute farce those scenes at the tangi were, hugely disrespectful, I'd love to know what the attending police officers really thought!
Luxon's incredible inability to "read the room" has now extended beyond his cringeworthy Tik Tok videos to infecting life in Aotearoa!
And can you just imagine the horrific outcomes if this lot were in power during the Covid epidemic! please all the Gods we never have to find out should another arise ... worryingly the scientists say this is probable :/ My new mantra has become "this too shall pass" ...
I agree about the appalling unedifying spectacle of tangi goers being harassed by phalanxes of police. Monstrous overkill and stupid grandstanding.
Like the new police quarters being set up in central Auckland while police around the country work in mouldy buildings and from offices inside disabled toilets. Just for’good news’ stories and photo ops.
Yes that amount of Police was rather over the top although presumably this was done to send a message. Setting up directly outside the cemetery was particularly tone deaf and very rightly were soundly challenged and scolded for that.
PS, if the PMs limo is a write-off, I do hope it's replaced with a Toyota Corolla
The thought of a second hand corolla, sans heated leather seats, is delicious. 🙂
So glad Roimata’s book is going to schools. It gives a very succinct and clear understanding of why we must honour the Treaty and not rewrite it as Seymour and his donors wish. Thanks again Nick for your newsletters and have a good weekend.
That is brilliant and uplifting news. Not only is it saying "Not all wealthy agree with you Seymour," plus it is a great resource which will balance the lies and rewrites of The Principles.
I read this on the Spinoff (best value for money for Aotearoa news & backgrounders I reckon 👍) & immediately looked up to see where I could get a copy for myself - might be good for gifts too⁉️
Perfect gift for the National and Act voting relatives for Christmas.
Nobody expects the Covid Inquisition! Our chief weapon is Fear... Scaremongering and fear... fear and scaremongering ... Our two weapons are fear and scaremongering... and ruthless ignoring of facts.... Our three weapons are fear, and scaremongering, and ruthless ignoring of facts... and an almost fanatical devotion to Right-wing nutjobs... Our four... no... Amongst our weapons... Amongst our weaponry... are such elements as fear, scaremongering... I'll come in again.
Meanwhile, could someone please go full Clockwork Orange on David Seymour's eyelids and pop that Te Tiriti book in front of him?
It was 1981 Springbok tour level overreach wasn't it. Notice there were no violent crimes reported. Traffic and sartorial offenses only. What does it say when a gang is the "bigger person" in a situation with the police.
Wide-ranging today!
On 'they came for the gangs' this week in the UK my understanding is Romany children/young people were forcibly put on a train in Manchester to 'disperse' them and sent off to somewhere random. Of course, Romany are a group about whom it seems people are allowed to be prejudiced, in Europe anyway.
Luckily we don't have the pressure on school libraries (yet) from groups like "Moms for Liberty (sic)" in the US to withdraw books featuring minorities of all stripes so the donated books here have ahigh chance of being retained by the schools
Thank you Nick, always appreciate your newsletters. I'm beginning to despair about the lack of mainstream media accountability and the skewing of every bit of news to either make light of this governments' serious failings and harm they're causing, or their not giving the opposition fair airtime (and even downplaying Jacinda's amazing awards and recognition worldwide!).
I wish I knew how the NZ general public feel, or care. Are we heading toward apathy and blind following of the corporate puppeteers' biasing of the media?
Sometimes I watch the news and wonder if there is just incredible understatement and it's meant to be viewed as being heavily tongue-in-cheek, but if it is they need to be much more obvious about it.
So many police at a Tangi anxious to uphold the highly questionable gang patch law shocked and saddened me, it was a Tangi! Where was the respect for the whanau mourning a loved one?
I don’t like the way gangs operate, but I don’t agree with the patch law, it won’t change anything as the government well knows. The gangs will not disappear in reality, they will simply be less obviously visible. I feel sorry for the police that have to enact this law, and I would rather they were deployed to combat actual crime. If gangs want to wear patches let them, it’s their criminal activity the police need to be focused on and not their dress code, particularly at a Tangi.
I was appalled by the sickening lack of respect to the grieving whanau and their urupa. Staggered that someone wearing a red tee-shirt was targeted because it's associated with a gang. I firmly believe that no any single person or group 'owns' a colour of the rainbow - what next - are they going to pull red flowers out of everyone's garden!
Beautiful as usual Nick.
I saw the Police at the funeral and all I could feel was shame and hurt. Hurt for the whanau sacred space being brought into such a political overkill tactic and shame for the whanau having to fight the Police at such a painful time.
Then I look at the Police and feel the same hurt and shame for them having to do this. Regardless of their own views, this is what they are paid to do. The government shows them no value or respect. And yet they will be in the frontline for hurt, anger and retaliation.
If this is the new policing, then I for one don’t feel safer. As next this could be my whanau cemetery or funeral
All I can think of is first they came for …..
Happy weekend all
Front line police have no choice about where they are sent and what they have to do, but I am getting alarming vibes when (some) senior police are interviewed, including the new boss…
😥💯 Perfectly put... I imagined this happening at any of the tangi I have attended where whanau who might be outside-the-law adjacent but are truly grieving a special whanau member, have felt safe to come & show their aroha & share in these sacred moments simply as human beings who are grieving. Imagine if they had done this at the tangihanga for the Maori King⁉️ "Shame & hurt" are exactly what it is right to feel 🫂🖤❤️
Yes Jo...I love that quote..."First they came for.....". Getting the police more experience in crowd control for what comes next? (thinking Principles referendum, (more) deaths in hospitals), more of Seymour's hideous 'punching above his weight' policies..)
Happy weekend Nick. I am looking to hearing more about the Labour Conference debate by members and affiliated unions. The media will spin it as friction in the LP. Naysayers will criticise Labour for being too "right" or too "left". People who have never sold a raffle ticket or delivered a single leaflet for the LP will cry for Chippie's replacement. Everyone will have an opinion, but what matters to me most are the good, solid, ordinary Labour members and affiliated unions who will help steer the future. They are energised and determined. Let them have their weekend too.
Is this the year of the bans, cell phones in schools, for under ages, patches, (police patches excluded), what next? Wearing Red perhaps? With all this banning I wonder who will police it, and what are the penalties, and what if a fine is not paid, Goal time I suppose? At lease chris lux accepts he got inflation down, but not him that put lots of people out of work, is he also please about the recession we are now experiencing?
Hope you can hear my "Tautoko" as you sit on your lovely sunny deck 2 doors down.....you have captured the feelings of so many of us Nick. Shaking our heads in amazement at the platoons of police from around the motu called to police a Tangi! Frustrated at the bleating on of the "freedom to be plonkers" as they wah on at the Covid enquiry and your pride in how Aotearoa shone as an exemplar of kind and humane decision making as we tacked the pandemic. Enjoy this beautiful Friday and thank you as always for your work.
The parch thing is ridiculous. If gang members commit crimes, then they should be arrested. As an OWL (old white lady) I am seriously considering wearing a gang patch as a fashion statement. Maybe if a whole flock of owls were to do that, it would expose that law for the nonsense it is.
Maybe all us OWLs should wear a patch?
👍😁💪🦉👌👏
Another good read, highlighting all that is so wrong with this government. Every day there is something new to add to a very long list.
I have ordered the book and look forward to reading it.
😥 What a terrible spectacle for Police to be deployed in such excessive numbers to a bloody FUNERAL/TANGI FFS! I miss Police Commissioner Andrew Coster already 😱 He obviously saw the writing on the wall with his admirable "policing by consent" strategy going out the window the minute this patch ban needed to be enforced 🤷 I have/had relatives/friends in the Police & this makes me feel anxious for them when they go into difficult situations with no more than 1 or 2 others instead of this egregious over-reach for dubious political posturing & no commensurate public safety, law enforcement, justification 🤬 Perhaps the Police car ramming the PM's car was an omen 🤣
I am basically lazy so copy/paste my response to the Spinoff excellent summation of the COVID Inuiry report:
Bottom line on the COVID Inquiry findings - "Aotearoa New Zealand" (loved that that is what they called us👍) did not uniquely have family disruptions, social disconnections, inequity of services & outcomes, and ALL of the negative downsides to an unprecedented global pandemic that NO COUNTRY was totally prepared for and few if any came out any better at managing - i.e. the health system coping, keeping the economy working & unemployment contained, having a high vaccination rate quickly, and my biggest PLUS is the numbers of my older & immuno-compromised whanau & friends who are alive BECAUSE of how the response was managed here in "Aotearoa New Zealand".
🤔 Hindsight is always much easier than being in the midst of chaos & having to work with unfolding information & scientific data when literally 10,000's of lives were at risk if you got it wrong. 🤢 It behoves us to remember what was happening AT THE TIME and not re-visit decisions based on information no-one IN THE WORLD had at the time eh⁉️ Of course, there are always things that could/should be done better given what we know now, and some amongst us will never accept that their personal perspective & /or grievance isn't more important than the welfare of the whole nation, but it's always lives saved by direct comparison to other nations & the way they managed things that is the real verdict for ME 🤷
Very well said Cindy - thank you!!
'Tis bleak reading Nick, I can scarcely believe this is our country anymore, our abysmal beige Americanophile PM and his nasty coalition are hell bent it seems on turning all things American into the m.o. of governance here ... what an absolute farce those scenes at the tangi were, hugely disrespectful, I'd love to know what the attending police officers really thought!
Luxon's incredible inability to "read the room" has now extended beyond his cringeworthy Tik Tok videos to infecting life in Aotearoa!
And can you just imagine the horrific outcomes if this lot were in power during the Covid epidemic! please all the Gods we never have to find out should another arise ... worryingly the scientists say this is probable :/ My new mantra has become "this too shall pass" ...