33 Comments

In case you are wondering, I kept this one open because of the Christmas Special. There's not much point having one of those if people don't know it's there, and also, it seemed a bit rough to include that song behind a paywall. I hope that makes sense. 🙂

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People's deviousness or cheating never ceases to amaze me. To claim to be a charity as an excuse for tax reduction is cheating. Thanks for this today Nick, I had a chuckle too. Thanks for keeping on top of media manipulation. I agree this is a one-term govt: and I would expect that Luxon will not be around for next election. Good luck to the nurses for their strike!

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36000 Nurses The numbers coming out against this CoC continue to grow. Thanks Nick.

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I also agree with Willis hell that sticks in my craw. However I don't support sanitarium in any way shape or form, pix for us and breakfast cereal make our own

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Agree we make our own as well those bought ones are a rip off & the NZ companies make much nicer peanut butter.

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Avoid Life Heath Foods (Bean Supreme, Lisa's Hummus, and Naked Cuisine.) too, as they’re also owned by the same trust that runs Sanitarium

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Pics.

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Two take aways from that poll.

1) 5.5% others, that's a large chunk of the population that don't have effective representation in parliament, or put another way, that's almost equivalent to 7 seats.

2) at 9% support for TPM that would give them 11 seats. WOW! Go TPM (Got to say I'm tempted to give them my list vote.

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I was at a Zealandia AGM in Wellington last night where Helen Clark was the guest speaker. She pointed out that there's something going on with young men in general. Also true with the US election. Would have liked to see finer age splits for the NZ polls as well. But there is more of a rightward shift than I'd like there. Something to do with podcasts and the Internet maybe.

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Yep it’s concerning. My son likes politicians who are combative and entertaining. He’s also feeling very victimised because ‘they hate white men’. When I ask “who are they?” he gets even grumpier. Everyone apparently.

And this is a 180 change from two years ago

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A few weeks ago Natrad interviewed a school dental nurse (sorry I can't cite that) who was still practicing 50 years on, she was in her 70s. Asked what was the greatest advance in oral health, she said without hesitation Fluoride. That's from an amazing woman working at the cliff face.

Yes I certainly agree that charity status needs close examination. These churches own an extraordinary amount of very valuable property. Think, leasehold in Kohimarama and Cornwall Park areas in ork as well as a bunch of retail and commercial space around K road.

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My Uncle, who was a dentist, told me to give my children fluoride supplements for their teeth if our water was not flouridated. He rated fluoride as being the greatest boon for dental health in all of history.

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If she genuinely goes for the pretend charities great! One hundred years ago I remember Tom Scott writing in The Listener (it was not owned by NZME then) that if anyone found a piece of apricot in their (Sanitarium) muesli they didn’t do dishes for a month!

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Thanks Nick. I appreciate you bringing up the point that we can even agree with Hosking and Willis sometimes. We seem to have a democracy issue in local government - people don't vote. Willis might make some internal enemies with a tax that creeps into religious organisations "charity" work. It's high time those were taxed. You watch though... Iwi based organisations using treaty settlement money are also tax exempt...

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That exemption may be part of the reparation deal, after all, it never was much money.

And if not, and they are viable, like Ngai Tahu, fair enough!

Fair taxes gives us roads, a health service, police, education. We must pay our share.

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Will see if Nicola is brave enough to take on Sanitarium. They have resisted unionisation for years and years on the grounds of their 7th day Adventist beliefs. The only thing I would miss is Marmite.

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Yes me too I'm a marmite fan

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you would still get marmite it would cost more,maybe

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You will just have to change to Vegemite, Darien! It's the reason 26 million Australians get up in the morning, knowing that a jar of ambrosia awaits them in the kitchen😁OK, that's 26 million minus the immigrants from all corners of the earth. In that case it's the reason 48,357 Australians, including me, get up in the morning!! Breakfast of champions, also needed to cope with the reality of agreeing with Mike and Nicola, (at any time) , but particularly on the same day. How did we ever come to this? Where there is Vegemite, Darien, there is hope.

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Good to have your review of the news Nick. With any outlet, news or otherwise, publishing Spin and false information, if we do not apply some moderation oversight who will? The effect from people following - actually learning a behaviour - is evident all around us. That message seems to be a split between Self interest and Ethics. Self interest is sold, promoted, in so many ways with media outlets, Ethics, never really mentioned, very much reflected in the stats you published as the older age group favour self - if they even understand ethics!

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My other paid person I follow is Bryan Bruce & he had an interesting piece of news that I hadn't heard yet. The UN have had a vote on changing the tax system world wide to nail these super rich sob who hide their money in places around the world. So they had a vote & guess who voted against it New Zealand yep also USA France can't remember who else there was a couple more.Apparently we lose a billion a year in tax with people hiding their money offshore. WTF. Some builder who went broke in Auckland has money in a off shore account!!!

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I agree with Willarse too,!!!!!! ! but have no faith in her/ coc to make any legislation that is workable and addresses the problem. They will tell us how good they have done but I wont believe a word of it.

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I don't trust Willis for a second we will see who she goes for Destiny is the one & Sanitarium I'd like to see nailed.

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I hope Sanitarium and Tamaki lose their charitable status. I don’t care for Sanitarium’s peanut butter because the best brand is Pic’s.

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It seems a little, no massively ‘off’ to me that Willis is going to go after donors/supporters of the CoC. The Wright family and Destiny Church??

No, they are the red herrings - we think they will be her targets but I reckon in this ‘anti-Maori’ environment that the CoC have so proudly created, she will go after all the Maori and Pacifica providers who are providing much needed social and health services to Maori, Pacifica and other high need or under served populations. These providers are the Charitable Trusts she will want to disrupt and crush. It is totally in line with CoCs kaupapa.

I do not trust them not to go after the good guys doing the hard mahi in our community. Why stop at the Public health services. I hope I am wrong, wrong, wrong!

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I agree. There is no way Nicola is going after Best Start, who are one of their largest donors.

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19hEdited

Its odd right. I cant believe she named Best Start as an example. Not that they shouldnt be taxed. But, bite the hand that feeds..

Perhaps the Wright family are making more demands and this is a game of chicken.

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Ahh i hadn’t thought that far, but you’re probably on the right track. That size donation doesn’t come with the “appropriate” payback.

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Two polls same trends. National - poor National. Luxon is unbelievable. Jack Tame held him to answer question after question. But his smiling face confusion and could only utter again “I would say to you . . .” Followed the election lines of last year as though asserting future success is as good as having some kind of success. As a student of subtleties of language Sying “I would say” indicates evasion and avoidance of commitment. Hopeless! Tonight’s news was the best though. The Governor of the reserve bank saying loud and clear that the Government could dramatically clear inflation and recession and influence house prices favourably if they would just invest heavily on important valuable infrastructure and borrow big internationally to do so. Nicola thinks not borrowing is wonderful. The Governor says our borrowing is ridiculously low compared to other OECD countries. His economists like the Trade Union’s economists over the weekend advise we are undesirably under investing and under borrowing for the health of the economy. Government borrowing for a nation wide pure clean water - instead of dumping on councils who cannot deal with it and proposing private borrowing to fund it. Increasing costs to us and not having the benefits for our economy that Government spending and borrowing would do. Another prime infrastructure opportunity that would have dozens of benefits socially as well as economically is light rail in cities and cheap efficient well planned public transport. Another infrastructure need is to recover numerous wet lands as quickly as possible to ameliorate or avoid climate changing consequences. Don’t listen to the Governor accept Willis and Luxon’s taking credit for the Governor’s work to make reducing interest rates.

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I haven't read all the comments, but for the record Whangarei isn't on the west coast or have Ms pugh as an mp. That honour goes to Dr Reti.

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