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6:00 am, November 5th, 2025 - 26 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 …
They were just
nazisoldiers..doing their duty, right? Right?And in small rural towns (throughout NZ?) well, Canterbury anyway….Just what do they re-enact? Massacring British (and other) POW's ? Herding
partisansold men, women, and children into barns to burn?There’s an interesting documentary I saw a year or two ago, I think it’s still on Netflix, called Ordinary Men. The documentary is very scary, it shows how these soldiers became willing participants in the holocaust.
Hi, I read Christopher Browning's book Ordinary Men many years back. I did know some about…but it was a terrible reveal. Just following orders.
Even terribly, peer pressure. My Lai, Vietnam. Et al… What lies beneath the human…IMO since time immemorial….
I do, and have previously, read a lot of History. There are also many brave people who have stood up against evil in all its form. Their stories are the uplift…..
Wait, what? The next Mayor of New York City a dirty
CommySocialist? (IMO the "part Donald Trump" in the header ? Kinda odd. Anyway, a good Article..)Sound..familiar?
An earthquake shakeup?….Not only for Republicans.
NZ, we need.
Post up now.
https://thestandard.nz/mamdani/
Cheers for that. And a truly amazing result.
some inspiration in the nick of time, esp for the Americans.
The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China
Transcending borders and party politics to reform policy on China
https://www.ipac.global/
From A statement by two former members of our parliament, alumni members on the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC).
https://www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/360874756/chinas-letter-mps-exposes-propaganda-and-foreign-interference
Is this the case, or what those of IPAC want to be the case?
The day before a journalist wrote this.
What is it, a one-China principle distinguished from a one-China policy, or not?
https://www.thepost.co.nz/politics/360875545/foreign-minister-winston-peters-blasts-chinese-ambassadors-mistake
This is a Beehive statement of 1998, while Don McKinnon was Foreign Minister.
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/new-zealand-stands-its-one-china-policy
Then we are onto the idea that New Zealand acknowledges China's claim, but does not (explicitly) endorse it.
(explicitly – required for clarification).
This reticence is premised on not intruding on the relationship between the Chinese of the mainland and Taiwan (or wind-back the action of the American fleet in 1949, given our security relationship).
Yeah, exactly. I think it’s mostly rhetorical.
A “One China Policy” (or principle.Whatevs) gives countries like New Zealand just enough space to engage with Taiwan without formally recognising it, while still letting Beijing loudly trumpet its totally-valid-and-universally-acknowledged claims over the island.
Everyone knows it doesn’t line up with reality, but as long as the language stays consistent, no one has to openly challenge it. It’s constructive ambiguity at work. A shared pretence that lets both sides save face and maintain a semi-acceptable status quo instead of risking escalation.
Diplomacy can be weird like that. It’s full of formulations that everyone knows aren’t true but are useful enough that no one says so out loud. Much like how everyone knows Israel has nukes, but since they’ve never officially said so, we all pretend they don’t because it’s easier and less risky.
And honestly, I don’t get why U.S. support for Taiwan is treated as some great imperial sin. Taiwan’s an independent state in all but name. And only not in name because, on one side, the ROC still clings to its old claims, and on the other, the PRC’s hypersensitivity forces everyone else to play pretend.
Wouldn’t they then be well within their rights to seek allies to protect themselves from invasion (or “reunification,” if you’re pro-Beijing)? Sure, the original KMT regime was bad, and Chiang Kai-shek was a brutal warlord notable for the scale of his cruelty even compared with Mao and his contemporaries.
But the 1980s were a long time ago. 1949 even longer.
All but name is of itself significant. It can only be "recognised" if Beijing consents.
It follows that the territory cannot have "allies" – when it is an area without a natural nation state right to collective security.
The "not explicitly endorsing China's claim" is the reverse position. One where the mainland is expected to get Taiwan's consent to formally include Taiwan within one China.
Everyone knows Taiwan’s condition would be continued (autonomous) self-government.
The rest is the passing of time, changes in the various relativities that would influence the dynamic of the implementation (negotiations).
(TSMC)
That’s a fair reading of classical recognition theory.
But Beijing’s consent isn’t the sole determinant of Taiwan’s standing. In fact, it's largely immaterial.
Recognition is ultimately a political and diplomatic act, not a legal one. Legitimacy depends as much on effective governance and the consent of the governed as on formal acknowledgment.
On those terms, Taiwan functions as a sovereign state in every practical sense, even if most governments refrain from saying so explicitly.
New Zealand’s One China policy reflects that reality. It acknowledges Beijing’s claim without endorsing it, maintaining deliberate ambiguity to preserve space for practical engagement with Taipei while sustaining formal ties with the PRC. That ambiguity isn’t weakness: it’s design: a pragmatic equilibrium between principle, interest, and stability.
And ultimately, states aren’t “natural” entities. They change, divide, and disappear. Their legitimacy rests not on any inalienable right to territory, but on the willingness of the people who live there to be part of them.
That’s the real test of sovereignty. One that Taiwan passes with flying colours.
Carmel Sepuloni was excellent on Morning Report today. She ripped Willis a new one. She handled the School Te Tiriti and other school issues very well.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2019011350/weekly-political-panel-nicola-willis-and-carmel-sepuloni
An open plea to all those involved in the TPM ruckus.
Please put your ego's on the back burner ignore all perceived slights and think of the bigger picture.
Aotearoa needs TPM in the next government. Competence as much as policy is what attracts votes.
I am not your typical demographic for TPM voter. But I'm quite sure there are plenty more like me who want rid of the neoliberal status quo. We need your voice in parliament.
The Iwi chairs are supporting your position.
https://www.1news.co.nz/2025/11/04/iwi-leaders-step-in-as-te-pati-maori-tensions-escalate/
Gosh, the list is getting long now, of things that must be repealed immediately. No consultation and don't campaign on it.
For example reinstate school board's obligation to factor in TeTiriti.
Maori Health Authority reinstated.
Undo the white washing of the curriculum.
Etc etc.
we need BLiP type running list.
Roger that.
Discontinuing of live animal exports effective immediately.
When this government does not want the local media to report something, or for something about New Zealand not to be well known overseas, it does things at night.
It also has its lies prepared.
It has not lowered its ambition. It has merely changed the goal for government to be carbon neutral from 2025 to 2050.
It has not lowered its ambition. It has just de-linked the Emissions Trading Scheme from the Paris climate pact (as the requirement for it to accord to New Zealand’s “Nationally Determined Contribution” will be removed).
It has not lowered its ambition. It has ended any requirement for the Climate Change Commission to provide advice before government develops the emissions reductions plans it must make in order to meet its goals under the Zero Carbon Act.
It has not lowered its ambition. It has just placed its focus on lowering costs to government and business.
It claims that ending any requirement to make meaningful reductions, or being seen to be Paris Accord compliant, it has provided certainty about where it stands
It intends to do nothing and pretend its ambition, is no more and less than what it was. In this, its declares a more efficient pretence to be going along with the Paris Accord.
https://www.thepost.co.nz/politics/360876015/government-loosens-range-climate-rules-pushing-out-target-public-sector-25-ears
“It intends to do nothing, and pretend its ambition is no more [nor] less than what it was”
Precisely – in a single sentence. And why is it doing that?
“It has not lowered its ambition. It has just placed its focus on lowering costs to government and business,”
Which is why it will not only do nothing about mitigation, it will do nothing about adaptation either, because adaption just gets impossibly expensive over time if not done in conjunction with effective mitigation. They're relying solely on a technology solution now – one that's just over the horizon still.
This is like an environmental version of the Kuznets Curve: things might be getting bad, but we have to let it get worse before it can get better, and above all, we have to not interfere with anything so the inevitable solution produced by markets can play out in a natural and optimal way.
What would it take for Winston First to pivot away from a culture war issue such as 'What is a woman/man?'?
Fireworks!
Yep, NZ1st have put forward a bill to ban fireworks but to do that they have withdrawn the 'Legislation (Definitions of Woman and Man) Amendment Bill' from the ballot.
Winston has sniffed the wind and decided there are more votes in nanny state overreach than the trans discussion.
https://www.1news.co.nz/2025/11/05/enough-is-enough-nz-first-puts-forward-bill-to-ban-sale-of-fireworks/
Boy, what woke, virTue-signalling rubbish from Winston and NZ First.
Next, they'll be banning internal combustion engines for having noisy exhausts, outdoor concerts for loud PAs and (listening to parliament as I am right now) Minister Shane Jones for both……
According to Chris Hipkins (Question 2 – to the PM) Luxon is in the house, but not in the chamber.
Is the apology for a PM running scared of being questioned?
Prick ought to have died in a cell in The Hague.
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https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(06)69491-9/abstract
The former vice president was a key architect of the war on terror and Iraq war.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/former-vice-president-dick-cheney-dead-84/story?
Shane Jones has just announced an Otago mining project will proceed: https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/new-zealand-entering-resources-golden-era
We are told the mining company expects to pay $800 million in taxes over 30 years.
Sounds like BS to me; I'm sure an international accounting firm will do some tax structuring and whittle the tax figure down.